Our little flirtation with Fall was beginning to dissipate by Tuesday morning as I made my way out to meet the early group on the levee. My legs were starting to feel the effects of the long rides of the long Labor Day weekend, so I was hoping that the group might exercise a little restraint. The turnout for the ride was relatively small, which kept the speeds down a bit, but just like the day before, we were tempted by an outgoing tailwind. One might think that riding with a tailwind would be easy, but my experience has always been that it is just the opposite. For one thing, the relative energy savings of being in the draft are lowered. For another, it seems that riders are far more willing to push themselves into the red with a tailwind, enticed as they are by the fast speeds. They always seem to forget that there will be an equal and opposite wind on the way home. I arrived back at the house pretty well soaked in sweat, even though the pace, relatively speaking, wasn't really over the top. As I got ready for work I remembered that (a) I had no spare tube for the commuter since I'd confiscated it the day before for the Orbea, and (b) I was pretty sure I'd broken a spoke in the commuter's rear wheel during that ill-fated ride on the rim last week. I took a look at the wheel and quickly found the broken spoke and equally quickly decided to take the car to work rather than deal with it all. Besides, I was out of glue, so I couldn't even patch a tube to take with me. Around lunchtime I was out near the CBD, so I stopped at the Wal-Mart and found a nice big tube of Slime rubber cement that should let me patch a bunch of tubes.
That afternoon we had a Tulane Cycling ride scheduled for 6 pm, so when I got home I rushed over there to find seven or eight riders, a couple of which had just shown up to pay their dues. We headed through the park to the levee path where the group quickly split, so I stayed behind and ended up riding mostly with a very new rider on a rather aged but functional aluminum Schwinn. Actually, our 16 mph speed was quite welcome after the four long group rides I'd done since Saturday. The only problem was that it was getting quite dark by the time I got home, and although I was glad I had my red blinky light still attached to my seat bag, I was wishing I had also left my headlight on too.
That night, after dinner, I patched a couple of tubes and set about fixing that broken spoke on the commuter. Since I had a spoke of the correct length and threading handy, it was an easy fix, but when I put it on the truing stand I discovered it was way out of line, but not in the place where I'd replaced the spoke. I was perplexed for a minute, but then I checked more carefully and found yet another broken spoke. I shouldn't be too surprised to find broken spokes on this particular wheel. I'd gotten it for free from Adam probably seven or eight years ago (at least) when he pulled it out of the little shed behind his old shop on Calhoun Street. It's a salvaged rear wheel from one of those famous, or infamous, Viscount bikes from the mid-70s. I remember seeing them at Betat's when they came out and thinking what a great deal they were because they weighed about the same as the better-known brands at probably half the price. Unfortunately, the "innovative" aerospace aluminum forks, aka the "death forks," tended to snap off rather unexpectedly and the unthreaded bottom brackets proved to be a constant source of problems for the survivors.
Wednesday's ride turned out to be a little bit faster than usual for some reason. It was still pretty steady, but rarely dropped under 23 mph, even with the headwind on the way back. Also, the humidity was back in full force Otherwise, it was pretty uneventful -- just a quiet 25 miles or so in a steady little paceline. Afterward, Zack and I stopped at Starbucks for some iced coffee and conversation until I suddenly realized how late it had gotten and rushed off for home and, ultimately, work.
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