The Easy Day

We had just turned onto Chef Highway from the service road and there was a momentary lull in the pace as riders waited for everyone to make it across. Someone next to me looked over and said, "I thought Sunday was supposed to be the easy day." I just smiled and replied, "Yeah, right." It was another hot summer morning in New Orleans and my second Giro Ride of the weekend.
Things had started out nicely enough over at Starbucks where I'd indulged in a nice cold iced coffee as we lounged around outside prior to the ride. I'd even gone for a "regular" sweetened iced coffee, including milk. Yes, I know. I was rolling the gastrointestinal dice on that because the combination of caffeine and milk on an empty stomach is a combination that only my taste buds and intestinal flora fully appreciate. Despite the prospect of potentially copious production of various gasses more typically associated with rocket boosters and cattle, I was feeling indulgent. It was, after all, the Sunday Giro, which is typically a bit more civilized than the infamous Saturday Giro. Nobody knows exactly why, of course.

The day was not unlike Saturday, which is to say it was hot, humid, and not very windy. The group was definitely smaller, though, and I was expecting to spend a little more time in the wind and a little less time following wheels. After the usual "neutral" rollout to Hayne Blvd., it didn't take long for the pace to ramp up, and once it did, it didn't really ease off for most of the way out to the turnaround. I guess we were about a mile from the turnaround when we passed a couple of unlikely looking cycletourists. Despite the fact that it was already about 90 F, one guy was wearing army fatigue pants, boots, and a Harley Davidson T-shirt with the arms cut off. His bike, with its vertically mounted bar-ends, was loaded down with stuff that looked like it had come from the Army surplus store. Still, judging by what he had lashed to the bike, it looked to me like this was definitely not his first long day on the road. We were probably going 29 mph when we passed them, so I made a note to try and get a photo after the turnaround. When I pulled out my camera, the guy in front smiled, waved a peace sign, and waved. He was obviously having a great time. Or perhaps he was just stoned. Hard to tell.

Anyway, my legs were feeling pretty good so I got in some good efforts on the way back down Chef, and things were still going pretty fast along the service road when Jerry flatted. Almost everyone stopped. The first thing I did was look around for some shade because by then you could just feel the heat radiating from the asphalt. I turned around and went back to where Jerry, Eddie and Woody had stopped and immediately the sweat starting streaming down into my eyes. They had already retreated a few yards off the road into the scant shade afforded by the service road, so while they fixed the flat I rolled around in little circles in order to keep from melting into the asphalt. The rest of the group huddled in another spot of shade near the intersection. That delay kind of took the wind out of everyone's sails for a while, but after we got back onto Hayne there was one last surge before the sprint to the top of the Seabrook bridge. By then I was starting to run seriously low on water. I guess it's time to put one of those huge oversized bottles on the bike for the duration of the summer. I rode back home at an easy pace, taking a little detour to check out the new dog park in City Park, and finally, a few blocks from home, sucked the last drops of water from my bottle. Sixty miles, moderate dehydration, a white mixture of sunscreen and sweat covering my arms and legs, and empty bottles. It must be summer.

That afternoon we went down to the Amtrak station to pick up The Daughter and six or seven others who had come down for training camp across the lake. After a stop at the house to rearrange luggage we sent them on their way in the neighbor's van. We had earlier swapped cars with the neighbor so that the girls wouldn't have to rent a car. The only downside is that we will be without a car for a few days, but since we really don't use the car much during the week it isn't really a big issue anyway. Later that day I read that Vivian had crashed all by herself while riding on the levee. They have apparently gone and put fresh asphalt into the numerous lengthwise cracks in the bike path between the country club and Williams Blvd., and it sounds like she either caught the edge of one of those strips or just slid on the smooth fresh tar, but regardless, the outcome was a whole lot of road rash.