Unwilling Participant

I had started the week with the best of intentions. After my usual Monday ride on the river levee, I went out Tuesday morning to meet the group wearing almost summer clothes. The temperature was in the low 60s, and as often happens on a warm day in January, the ride along the lakefront was quite fast from start to end.  Out along the lake it remained pretty brisk with a light cross/tailwind that kept the speed in the 25 mph range. Like most, I was feeling pretty good and was even a little disappointed that the return trip from Kenner was relatively conversational.

That evening a front came through and it started raining heavily before I left work. I eventually left the bike there and got a ride home, only to find that the roof over the back room was leaking. We put a couple of ice chests under the leak since there was really nothing else to do. It's a section of flat roof that was once part of a back porch, with that old hot asphalt and gravel roofing.  I guess it's been there at least forty years through numerous hurricanes, and is the only part of the roof that wasn't replaced after Hurricane Katrina ten years ago. So although it had certainly stood the test of time, the timing was really bad. Property taxes are due and funds are depleted from the DisneyWorld trip. It always seems to work that way, though. Spend a bunch of money on one thing and it's almost a guarantee that some unexpected expense will pop up to make you regret it. We climbed up there yesterday evening to have a quick look to see if it was anything obvious, which of course it wasn't, so I'll have to track down a roofer today. At least there's no serious rain expected for a few days. That roof is so old and crudely put together, since it was just a porch roof, there's no telling what other problems will be uncovered.

So anyway, the forecast for Wednesday morning had been very bleak when I went to sleep the night before.  Like 90% chance of rain in the morning bleak. At some point in the early morning hours I woke up enough to realize that I didn't hear any rain.  Then, when the alarm went off I looked out the window to find the streets only a little bit wet, as if it  had stopped raining hours earlier.  The radar looked fine. The rain had moved through and was mostly south and southeast of the city, so I headed out to meet the WeMoRi. Of course it was colder - somewhere in the mid-40s - but that wasn't the real problem.  The real problem was the north wind.  I went out anyway, spinning a lower gear and riding more slowly than usual and figuring to meet the WeMoRi around Marconi and R.E. Lee rather than on Lakeshore Drive.  As I rode past Harrison on Marconi I saw two riders about to make the turn and realized they were riders who should have been in the WeMoRi group.  At first I thought maybe they had decided to avoid Lakeshore Drive because of the wind, but when they caught up to me I learned that they'd been the only ones who had shown up at all and had decided to just do a couple of laps around City Park. So, no WeMoRi but nice conversation to keep my mind off of the weather.  I ended up with 21 fairly easy miles, so really no "training." There would always be Thursday, though.

Well, I woke up Thursday morning, looked at the temperature still in the mid-40s, and felt a really strong urge to skip riding altogether. That happens every now and then in the winter.  It's like the cumulative effect of numerous cold and windy rides eventually tips the scales and my willingness to get out there dissipates. I got dressed anyway. When I stepped out the door and felt the wind I knew immediately I should have put something warmer than the single long-sleeve jersey over my arms. I briefly considered if that was an acceptable excuse to go back in side and get back in bed, but time was short and I went ahead and rode out to meet the group. From the start I was chilled and uncomfortable and just generally an unwilling participant in the morning ride.  Out on the lakefront the usual group came together and the pace ramped up to a reasonable level, but the crosswind was playing havoc on the paceline. As we came around the loop at the Armory I heard Daniel say, "OK now, everyone stay left so there won't be any draft."  The wind was coming off the lake from the right, and it would have been typical for the front of the group to not move all the way to the right to accommodate what was going to have to be a 15-rider eschelon. So a number of riders were in the left lane, off and on, scrapping for a little shelter as we headed back to the west. I was feeling particularly lousy and uncomfortable and was already considering cutting my ride short. Somewhere around Franklin Avenue a car when screaming past us way over in the oncoming traffic lane, hitting the gas to speed up when he saw an car coming at him from around the curve.  A moment later a pickup truck passed the group without leaving the left lane, basically trying to see how close he could come to us.  You know, that "I'm going to teach those guys a lesson with my big ol' manly pickup truck" thing.  Well, that pissed a lot of people off, and when they spotted the truck pulling in to park at one of the construction areas a bunch of guys decided to confront him.  I have a general rule of not getting confrontational with anyone bigger than myself while riding my bike, which basically includes almost everyone, so I rode on with a few others to avoid what I knew would be about a pointless an exercise as trying to talk reason to a sack of rocks. Even with the slower pace I was still feeling lousy, so at the end of Lakeshore Drive I decided to call it a day and rode back home with Scott and David.