By Wednesday evening it was looking like we'd have a break in the rain, at least until the next line of rain was scheduled to arrive later that night, so the Wednesday Night Worlds was "on" despite the fact that the prior night's storm had closed a fair amount of Lakeshore Drive. Being desperate for a ride, however, I decided I'd at least ride out to the lakefront to see how bad it was, and hope a few others would be there so I could log a few miles. Just after I made it to Lakeshore Drive I saw the group, understandable smaller than usual, heading the other way. Rather than turn around and try to catch them, I decided to continue on and see how bad the road was. I had already gone past one line of traffic barrels closing off part of the usual course and much of the lake side of the road was covered with a layer of dirt, rocks and miscellaneous debris that had washed up over the seawall. Another line of barrels awaited at the Elysian Fields traffic circle. None of this, of course, deterred the intrepid WNW crew, and a couple of minutes later I merged into the group, dodging traffic barrels, sand, rocks and related debris on an abbreviated 3-mile circuit from the Elysian Fields traffic circle to the "fountain" traffic circle. The smaller than usual group was going a little slower than usual, and the first lap was intentionally "neutral" so everyone could figure out where the course of the day was and how best to negotiate the various obstacles. Once things got going, though, I soon found myself going more or less flat out chasing the first break of the day. Suddenly I hit something big that I didn't even see, felt something hit my chest, and heard something tumble onto the ground at 30 mph. I thought for sure I'd pinch-flatted since the impact had been so hard and eased over to the left to get out of the way. Then, looking down, I saw that the tire was still holding air. I looked around to see if something on the bike had broken and then noticed my computer was missing. My venerable old Campi Ergobrain had launched out of its mount (I sometimes struggle to get it off the bike and after at least 110,000 miles have never had had one eject itself before), hit my chest, and landed somewhere on the muddy street. Matt and I backtracked looking for it while the group continued and luckily found it still working. I snapped it back into place just in time to get back into the group that was, luckily, not going too fast. Anyway, Tim soon took a flyer, the pack caught, and we ended up all together for the last lap. It wasn't the hardest WNW by a long shot, but considering the weather I felt really lucky to have gotten in any sort of ride at all. It stormed later that night, as predicted, and everything was still soaking wet in the morning. Once again I skipped the morning ride.
So I'm thinking I'll join John Dias and others for a long ride in the country since I'm off work tomorrow. That is likely to leave me pretty wasted, but I feel like I need a long ride in the hills right about now. There's a little criterium in Mobile on Saturday that I probably won't be able to make because I have a fair amount of work to do over the weekend, not the least of which is to get my tax return stuff together.
Now it's time to head home from the office and I just remembered that my rear tire had gone flat about a block from here this morning. Damn.....
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