Weekend Riding

Charlie and Dan heading out for the Giro Ride

It was kind of a slow weekend in some ways; a little lull between last week's stage race and next weekend's races up in Jackson. Somehow, even the Tour de France's dénouement, most of which I never got to see, seemed appropos. Saturday's Giro Ride was nice enough, even though a few of the regulars were missing due to races or training rides elsewhere. I had heard earlier in the week that Dan Bennett would be in town from Tucson, so I was happy to see him ride up to the Starbucks well before we rolled out. He claimed to be badly out of shape and said he'd be turning back early. Still, it was good to see him. He didn't seem to be having much trouble as we raced down Hayne Blvd. at 28 mph, so while he may not be quite in race-shape, it doesn't appear he's been sitting on the couch too much either. A little later, as we were turning onto the service road along I-510, there was a lot of yelling at the back of the group that was relayed along as "flat."  In fact, what had happened was that Lenny's chain had broken. Most people eventually eased up and as we figured out what had happened I started asking around for anyone who might have a multi-tool with a chain-breaker. Jaden had one and Geoff volunteered to go back and see if they could fix the chain enough to get Lenny home, but as I later learned, he just called his wife for extraction instead. I was a little afraid to do too much work during the Giro since I was slated to join a few of the guys for a long ride up in St. Francisville on Sunday that had been described as "in the 80-100 mile range." I guess it's been a while since I did a ride that long, and considering the possibility of suffocating heat and spirited riding I didn't want to be the one for which a search and rescue mission would have to be launched.

Sunday I was up at 4:30 to pick up Quentin and Ben S. and make the 2-hour drive up to St. Francisville for the planned 7 am start. I think we rolled out around 7:15, which was pretty good. With just six riders and, thankfully, a consensus to keep it smooth and steady, we had a pretty nice ride. The first hour or so was a ride over the "new" bridge for a loop around New Roads, which was flat and still nice and cool. The rest of the ride was kind of a long random loop back on the east side of the river in the rolling hills. It was interrupted by a couple of flat tires, both of which were slow leaks caused by tiny pieces of steel wire. No idea where we picked that up, but it must have been somewhere on the early loop. Perhaps they were fragments from a street-cleaning machine's brushes, or pieces from dying steel-belted tires. 

We were probably about 65 miles into the ride when we made a store stop and I treated myself to about a quart of cold Powerade and a Payday bar. I must have been running a little low on fuel and/or fluid at that point because I felt substantially better after that. My biggest problem was really the pain in my upper back that seemed to be acting up for some reason. It's always been there since that cyclocross crash a few years ago, but I've learned to adapt pretty well, moving around on the bars and saddle frequently. It seems to be mainly focused on my rhomboids, traps, and maybe supra/infraspinatus, so it's probably compensating for some spinal instability and is further complicated by those broken collarbones. Not much to do about it really, so I just grin and bear it.  Anyway, after the store stop we rode though a pretty heavy but brief rainstorm - the kind where the raindrops sting - so we were all completely soaked. A few miles later the roads  were dry again, but the rain had dropped the temperature down quite a bit - my Garmin went from 91F to 79F in about five miles. We got back to the cars with 88.5 miles, but a few of the guys just had to go ride down the road a bit to bring that up to an even 90.

So Friday night I got a text message just as I was going to bed. It was Kenny announcing the birth of their daughter, Sofia, who apparently arrived a couple of weeks early.