A Little Rest

Old Man River is a little high lately.

After skipping Monday's ride, I was ready to get back to the routine Tuesday morning. The souvenir bedbug bites I'd picked up in Brookhaven were still bothering me and my right eyelid was pretty puffy from one of them, but otherwise I was good to go. That carried over to Wednesday, which was perhaps unfortunate. Wednesday morning it was windy hell, which made the WeMoRi ride harder than usual, even for me who gets there after they've already ridden seven miles on Lakeshore Drive. I rode pretty hard anyway, stopping at Starbucks for coffee before riding home. Although I hadn't taken any more Benadryl, I was feeling a little sub-par all day, but decided to do the Wednesday night training race anyway. On the way out I caught the light at Carrollton and Washington.  Since there are two lanes just past there that turn onto the interstate, I knew I'd have to get on the pedals fast when the light changed so I could claim the lane and not get chopped off on the right. The light changed. I hesitated for a moment as a car ran through the red light, the I jumped on the pedals only to find another car coming at me who  had also run the red light and was racing to cross the intersection before the cars, and I, go going. I hit the brakes and stopped. The car screeched to a stop. I stared at the driver, pointed at the light, and went.  No use arguing with someone like that. By that time of the evening it was even more windy than it had been in the morning and I knew the race would get blown away pretty quickly. Indeed, a couple of guys kind of rode off the front on the first lap, which was fine. Going over the levee just east of Elysian Fields I was behind a tall guy with fuzzy legs and some kind of bag hanging from his top tube. The wind had been blowing off the lake, so I was escheloned a bit to the left. When he hit the incline he eased up and drifted left right into my front wheel. Luckily I saved it. When I talked to him later I found out he didn't know which way to pull off, or why it would matter.  Learning opportunity. Anyway, the group was rapidly disintegrating and I soon found myself with a little 3-rider chase group. I use the term "chase" loosely here. We were riding pretty hard, though, so it was a good workout. Coming around the Seabrook loop on the second lap we were suddenly confronted with two cars basically stopped. I hit the brakes and went right, the other two guys went left. After having already had two near-death experiences that evening I decided I needed a little alone time, so I didn't try to close the gap that had opened and instead just rode solo down to the other end, turning around early to get back in with the other guys for the last lap. By the time I got home I was feeling pretty wasted. I guess it was the wind.

Thursday morning's ride on the levee was nice. There were some fast sections and some not so fast sections, which was good because I was still feeling kind of tired. I happily stopped at Z'otz on the way home for coffee and contemplation, taking a nice candid shot of an older woman with her head buried in the newspaper. She was busily talking politics with the barista. I think I overheard her say something like, "We haven't had a good republican president since Eisenhower." Anyway, by then I was feeling like Friday was going to have to be an easy day - really easy. So this morning I went out to the levee again, this time alone, and spun out an easy twenty miles or so. The weather was great thanks to the little cool front that had brought all of that wind on Wednesday, but I think that's all over now and we'll be quickly getting back to summertime temperatures. The Tour de La is rapidly approaching and I have a big long list of volunteers needed and things that must be done with lots of blank spaces in it right now. Putting on the race is always an exercise in compromise - and anxiety.

I posted to FB a photo of the bunch of old frames that's been at the Tulane Cycling headquarters since last summer. I had been hoping they could raise a little cash for the club, but that never really came to pass and they're just taking  up room, so now I'm trying to give them away. Whatever's left next week will probably go in the dumpster. I think a few of these were flooded during Katrina in the old Bicycle World shop on Calhoun, but a couple of them look like they could be built up in to nice bikes by someone willing to track down the right headsets, forks, seatposts, etc. If you had a big bunch of spare parts lying around you could probably make some of them rideable.

Danielle is still waiting to see an endocrinologist up in Washington. Meanwhile, Blue Cross is trying to weasel out of paying her hospital bills because she's covered under both that through LSUHSC and another policy under Shannon. Kenny's Bianchi is still missing thanks to UPS. It's been two weeks and according to the tracking information it never got any farther than Jackson Mississippi where it just disappeared. How does a big bike box just disappear?