Thursday on the Levee

Regrouping after the turnaround

It felt pretty warm, but I knew it wasn't really summer because there wasn't sweat dripping off of Ray's shoes with every pedal stroke ... yet. We had a good-sized group on Thursday morning, unlike Tuesday that for some reason was practically just Rich and me. We are finally at that time of year when there are no wardrobe decisions to make. All that matters is how much water to bring and how far down your jersey zipper will go.

Today there was a west northwest breeze that seemed to be keeping the speed down a bit on the way out. Since I'm planning on racing on Saturday, and my legs have felt kind of achy all week, I'd already decided to take it easy this morning. That meant short pulls and careful drafting and low gears. I kind of worked, I guess. As we passed the playground on the way out I heard someone call out and, looking around, saw Keith down in the parking lot with his bike in pieces, changing a flat. He told us to just go on and he'd catch us later on the return trip. Woody and Jeff were doing most of the work keeping the pace up, although it would kind of sag a bit when one of them wasn't on the front. I was trying to maintain the speed, but was taking much shorter pulls. It was good to see that the part of the bike path around the green pipes that had been under re-construction recently was open this morning. That was nice, but I feel a little worried about how quickly it was done. I guess we'll know pretty soon if the road is going to crumble again.

After the turnaround we picked up a bit of a tailwind pretty much all the way back that had the speeds into the upper 20s, even at the same effort levels we'd had on the way out when we were going more like 22. I think the wind was increasing the whole ride. Anyway, we hadn't gotten very far from the turnaround when we came upon Keith standing on the side of the road with another flat. Someone gave him a tube and I gave him a CO2. He had a big slash in the tire that he booted with something like an energy bar wrapper and then put maybe 50 psi into the tube to keep it from blowing through. He made it all the way back, so that worked out pretty well.

We are starting to get things together for the Tour de La on June 9-10. We really need to find some sponsorship this year. At the moment, we don't have anything nailed down in that regard other than the team sponsorship from Apolline, and we're still having trouble getting a response from the church where we always have the road race. I have a meeting next week with Covington to get the criterium arrangements set up. That should be easy since we will be doing everything just like last year.