Unpredictability

It was an unpredictable week.  The forecasters tried, of course, and even got some of it right, but it was a twitchy week for weather, not to mention pretty much everything else.  Wednesday was a good example.  I'd been looking forward to the Wednesday evening training race.  The Wife was scheduled to arrive back from a conference around 4:30, which would give me just enough time to pick her up from the airport, get back home, and ride out to the lakefront for the 6 pm Wednesday Night Worlds.  Well, wouldn't you know it? Two delayed flights later, I was coming back from the airport around 5:30 with no realistic hope of making the ride. To make matters worse, she'd twisted her knee trying to climb into the middle seat of the plane and probably tore her ACL (MRI should be scheduled soon).  By Friday morning the weather forecast for Saturday was absolutely dismal.  They rescheduled the Tour de Lis ride early Friday because the chance of severe thunderstorms was so high.  I was going to have to play it by ear as far as the Saturday Giro Ride was concerned.  Since we were scheduled for a club meeting afterward, I was planning to take the car out to the starting location anyway.

So Saturday morning I got up early and checked the radar.  All of the bad weather was at least three hours away.  We ended up getting in the whole Giro Ride without a drop of rain, arriving back at the Starbucks about fifteen minutes before the raindrops started falling.  Even so, it was brief and not nearly the deluge that had been predicted.  Of course, it eventually started raining more steadily, but not until the afternoon.  Anyway, I'd been feeling pretty good during the ride and about a mile before the Goodyear Sign sprint found myself about halfway down the pack when Mark M. tapped me on the back and motioned for me to follow.  He towed me all the way up to the front and dropped me off about 200 meters before the sign.  I felt so easy I was probably grinning the entire time even though we maxed out at something in the 36 mph vicinity.

Sunday morning it was cooler and drier (and Mother's Day) and I headed out early for yet another Giro.  I'd been riding around with my camera in my pocket all week without taking a single picture, so I pulled it out and tried to see what I could get as I rode through City Park on Harrison Avenue.  The group that finally came together as we rolled out down Lakeshore Drive didn't seem any smaller than usual and in a repeat of the day before, someone flatted even before we got to the bridges.  There was a bit of wind, but the direction was fairly cooperative and I found myself content to settle in around mid-pack with plans to save my energy for the second half of the ride.  As usual, the sprint for the Venetian Isles turnaround started way, way too early, but I put in a good effort anyway, turning around with a few others at the usual spot.  Most of the rest of the ride had turned around a good half mile earlier, so we were trying to catch up to the group when I saw John Dias stopped on the side of the road.  I asked him if he was OK and he said he was, so I continued on.  It looked like he was just checking something on his bike, but after we caught up with the group I looked back and he was still not back on the bike.  The group ended up stopping to wait as I rode back to see what the problem was.  He'd had a slow leak and decided to go ahead and put in a new tube.  Mark and I tried the same thing for the Goodyear sprint that we'd done the day before, but got separated pretty quickly, so I ended up on Mike W's wheel as we ramped it up to about 38 mph.  It felt pretty easy.  There's nothing like sitting in the group for most of the ride and then sprinting to make you feel stronger than you actually are!  I ended up sprinting hard up both of the bridges to finish off a pretty good Giro.