How did it get to be Friday already? It's been kind of a busy week, and if time flies when you're having fun, it must fly even faster when you've got a few too many pots on the fire at once. To make matters worse, it was mostly a bad week for me riding-wise. Between the weather and various early morning obligations, I missed two days entirely, both of which were 'long' days. I was feeling so desperate for a ride that I got dressed early Thursday hoping that the line of showers on the radar would pass through in time. I pulled out the rain bike, put a rain jacket in my pocket, and was ready to head out into it. When I opened the door I was greeted by a loud clap of thunder, a gust of cold air, and a light rain. OK, so I guess I wasn't quite that desperate.
At least I got in a good ride this morning and it's looking pretty good for the weekend even though I had to pass on the Tour of Tuscaloosa. Today the weather was chilly and windy but the sky was clear and, eventually, the sun came up. When I got to the levee I wasn't really expecting anyone to be there. I saw Erich out for a long run in some sort of high-tech slippers that looked to be just slightly thicker than skin, so I rode alongside him for a little while until John showed up. We picked up Taylor somewhere along the way. At the turnaround, John started out earlier in order to do a few intervals so we kind of hung about a minute back until he got his fill and waited for us. Although I had started the ride feeling pretty sluggish, by the time I was on my way back home I was wishing I could ride all day. Well, that is until I missed getting doored on Oak Street by about a millimeter. Some woman had been sitting in her SUV for who knows how long talking on her damned cellphone when she suddenly swung her door open RIGHT in front of me. It took all of the bike handling skills I've acquired over the past four decades to keep from hitting it, and if there had been a car right behind me I'd probably have been roadkill. I actually pulled something in my shoulder while making that emergency maneuver. I initially screamed at her like a girl, then looked back and yelled, "Get off the phone and watch what you're doing," (well, there may have been an expletive or two in there somewhere) but she never took the phone from her ear and never stopped talking for a moment, nor did she even acknowledge my presence. Damn, if only I'd had a flashing rear light (see below)!
We're doing a club ride tomorrow on the northshore and I may return there on Sunday if the usual group ride happens, so hopefully I'll be able to put some miles in the bank.
Initial preparations for the 39th annual Tour de Louisiane are underway and if I can find the time I may put the preliminary event announcement on the website this weekend, although the location of the criterium is still up in the air and we don't yet have confirmations on the other courses, not that we're expecting to encounter any problems there. In the USAC news, it was great to see our trackies winning two gold medals in two days!
In other developments, the state's legislative season is rapidly approaching and as they say, "No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session." Margaret Thatcher put it a little differently when she long ago said, "Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money.....they then start to nationalize everything..." Aside from the national healthcare takeover and the state's healthcare privatization plans and budget freeze, on the cycling front there's a bill by representative Waddell from Shreveport on the table for the state legislature that would require bicycles to have flashing rear lights at all times, and a city proposal to increase the bicycle registration fee to $15 (I don't think there is any bicycle registration in neighboring parishes/cities). I'm sure they mean well, but really! Perhaps this is all just to divert attention from the fact that both the city and state are currently running on fumes, budget-wise, and the gas station is a very long way away. Or maybe it's just another effort by the city to get the people who might buy things to move out of town where they can buy them cheaper and without putting money into a parking meter after bouncing down our crumbling streets. You can contact councilman Troy Carter about that one.
I need a ride.
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