Same Ol' Same Ol'

It was yet another Giro weekend for me.  I had made a rather weak effort to find some company to make the 5.5 hour drive up to the races in Shreveport, but got no takers.  I just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for a solo road trip, especially considering the cost and the things I needed to get done back at home.  So anyway, there I was on Saturday morning sitting at the Starbucks sipping coffee again.  It was looking like we'd have a smaller group than usual, and I guess we did, but it didn't seem to have much of an effect on the speed.  The sky was cloudy and, as had been the case all week, there was the threat of rain.  I was expecting to get wet. The ride out to the turnaround was nice and fast, and as usual the group eased up after the turnaround before putting down the hammer again.  The pace was finally starting to wind down as we turned off of Chef Highway onto the service road, as when we later turned to cross underneath I-510 I rode right over some lump of old concrete in the road.  "Damn, what was that?" I remarked.  Unfortunately, I'd pinched the tube which took another couple of miles to finally go flat just before Bullard.  We stopped while I quickly changed it, jumped back on the bike, and immediately discovered that it had gone flat again.  I started to change it out with my second tube when Norman handed me a can of some sort of sealant. Well, that worked for about a quarter mile before I had to stop again.  By now the number of riders willing to hang around with me was down to a handful.  Howard handed me a tube and I finally got going again.  Sunday's Giro was similar to Saturdays, just a little bit slower and smaller.  I got rained on one of those days, but frankly I don't even remember which one it was.  Status quo.

This morning's long levee ride had most of the usual suspects but for the most part the pace was manageable.  There were a couple of people who were pushing the pace every time they'd hit the front, but most egos were in check and things didn't really escalate much.  On the home front, we've got the sale of my mom's condo pretty much all lined up and on a fast track, which will probably mean that I'm going to have to spend one weekend moving furniture.  I'm hoping it won't be the weekend of the Oxford races, but at the moment it's not looking good.