Craziness

The weather was warmer on Tuesday, and I was glad to be able to get out to the levee for the regular morning ride.  When I arrived, however, I was surprised to find the meeting spot deserted.  I checked my watch. Since things have been so chaotic lately, I even checked the day of the week.  Could the group have left early?  Finally a few riders showed up, and as we headed out we could see another group coming our way.  For some reason everyone was just running a few minutes late that day.  With the warmer air had come a bit of fog, but it was really just enough to add a little interest to the background scenery.  The ride itself was fairly low-key.  Woody was still in recovery mode from last weekend's races in Austin and nobody else in the group seemed interested in anything more than a nice smooth training ride pace.  We were probably halfway out to Destrehan when I saw Woody drop quietly to the back with a soft rear tire, mentioning along the way that we should just go on without him and he'd catch us later.  On the way back, after he'd been back in the paceline for a while, the same tire went flat again, leaving him cursing his bad luck.  He'd recently bought that tire and it had been picking up every sharp object from the pavement for a week, causing a number of flats.  Sometimes the rubber on a new tire is just too "green" and seems to get shredded within the first couple hundred miles of use.

Yes, that's Crazy Guy gesturing to his
imaginary supporters.

Anyway, after we got back to the playground and most of the other riders went off on their merry ways, Tom and I continued on toward uptown.  We were near Ochsner when I heard Tom say, "Here comes Crazy Guy."  This particular psycho has had some kind of vendetta against cyclists on the bike path for years and will always walk right on the center line as we come past.  Basically, he's looking for a fight.  I was in front of Tom as we approached him, and as I went past I heard Tom yell something behind me.  As I was to learn later, Crazy Guy had thrown his shoulder into Tom as he was going by, nearly taking him right off his bike. I coasted for a bit and looked back when it was safe, only to see Tom making a U-turn. Since I didn't know at the time that Crazy Guy had assaulted him, I wondered why Tom seemed so incensed. Another rider, who had been coming the other way at the time had also stopped.  When I realized that Tom wasn't just going to let it go right away, I turned around myself, since this guy is, after all, crazy.  I pulled out my camera and got a couple of shots as they were yelling at each other, but by the time I got there Crazy Guy was already walking away and Tom was just shaking his head saying, "that guy's crazy."  No kidding?

Wednesday morning's ride was pretty tame by comparison.  The group of ten or so rotated smoothly in the 22 mph neighborhood, taking five minute long pulls.  Just what I needed after all of the craziness I've been through in the last few days.