Too Early

The radio came on at 5:45 am and I promptly drifted off to sleep again.  A moment later, apparently, I jolted awake, thinking, "Damn, I'm late!"  I threw on riding clothes, rushed downstairs, filled a couple of water bottles and took off for the lakefront.  I was still half-asleep.  Somewhere out around Bayou St. John I looked up and thought, "It sure is dark."  I glanced down at my watch as I rode under a street lamp.  Crap!  I'd left home a good twenty-five minutes early.  I hate it when that happens. Harrison Avenue through the park was basically pitch black.  So as I rode up to Starbucks almost an hour before the start of the Giro Ride, I was a little surprised to see Daniel already there.  On the plus side, I had lots of time to sip my morning coffee.

It was windy this morning, but otherwise the weather was nearly perfect. The group was pretty large as we rolled down Lakeshore Drive, but aside from the wind I wasn't expecting a particularly hard ride.  For one thing, a few of the usual instigators were missing.  For another, it looked like we'd have a direct headwind or tailwind for most of the ride.  One thing about the combination of a direct headwind and a large group is that, unless you're at the front, sitting in the draft can feel really easy.  In fact, the pace did get fairly fast here and there, but in general things were rather inconsistent today.  After battling the headwind all the way out, we finally turned around.  Things were slow to get going, however, and so I rode ahead to catch a couple of riders who were already up the road.  Of course, I knew the group would eventually get back up to speed, and considering the tailwind, I knew they'd be going pretty fast when they caught us.  Once that happened, I think we went a few miles without the speed dropping much below 30 mph.  So anyway, there were a few really fast stretches until we got back to Hayne Blvd. where things slowed down to conversational mode before the final surges over the bridges.