Short Version: HL - No Vega - Old End

It was dry and cool this morning, so I mounted my bike with a buoyant verve fueled by crisp autumn air, even if I wasn't looking forward to the wind, predicted to be north at 13. Somewhere between my house and Rich's, my headlight fell off unnoticed.

Yet again I got a chance to see Rich either donning or removing his shoes. I guess there is nothing inherently wrong with this, but life is really too short.

At the start Rich said it didn't look too bad. I think he meant muscle-wise, but I don't know how he could tell because it was as dark as it gets. It wasn't long after we shoved off that I started catching enough color on kits to see there was plenty of muscle present.

It would be hard for anyone who has not been there to understand the true nature of the pre-dawn Tues/Thurs levee ride -- the hectic, vertigo inducing jumble of 15 or so bikes speeding through the night on a twelve-foot strip of asphalt, lights blinking everywhere, huge dump trucks approaching from the right and left, all-but-invisible pedestrians, blinding headlights of approaching bikes, incomprehensible warning grunts from up the line about who knows what. All of this aggravated on mornings such as this, when the west-bound train is hugging the centerline or even encroaching on the other lane, looking for a draft in the north crosswind.

'Tis the season, I think, to start late and meet the group at the Big Dip on the way in.

I sat up at the Old End and rode in with California Rick. I suggested we trade pulls at two signs and Rick said that sounded fine. After a few pulls Rick got off the front way early and said, "I got lucky those two signs were so close together." Rick is an assistant provost at Tulane, you know. After explaining to the assistant provost that all the signs were numbered and placed equidistant from one another, he made some comment about needing a lawyer to define what a sign is and then made another comment about Clinton's famous "definition of is is" statement. In any event, we had a nice ride back to town.

Here is Rich's field report: "HL was neutralized about half way out to the turn around. He tried the same shit on the way back and Brian again let him out there. He made a couple comments to Brian as he dropped back as we passed the flags and we didn't see him again. Beautiful."