Monday, June 11, 2007

Hot, hot, very hot

It was just as warm today as it was yesterday but because of the fact that I work, if I was going to ride my bicycle I was going to have to do it in the heat of the day. This ended up being quite a bit harder than yesterday's ride. Hot, hot, very hot. Get off the bike and have a little sit down hot.

Having said that about today it is still obvious that it will be even hotter in a month or two so getting out there and acclimating myself to a hot ride is a good thing. That race with the idiot on the comfort bike wasn't such a good idea though.

He was riding a comfort bike, a fairly nice one to be fair, a Marin, but his seat was so low that from behind he appeared bow legged as he pedalled. He had earphones plugged in so he couldn't hear and didn't respond when I tried a pleasantry at the corner of Snelling. No, instead he was intent on rolling through the red turning to green light and sprinting on the downhill to get back in front.

He had already pulled that stunt at the Lexington corner and I didn't care, I don't race. But just pedalling at my easy biking too hot to ride hard pace I easily overtook and passed as soon as the street tilted slightly upwards at the Short Line. I heard his shifter click and that and his actions at Snelling could not have made it more obvious that he was racing.

Well, I noticed but I still wasn't racing. His sprint away from the light got him a half a block lead before I got rolling. That downhill from Snelling leads to pretty fast speeds though and once I was rolling the reality of the situation was that I was riding a race bike and he was on a comfort bike. So by the time we reached Fairview I was on him again. This time I was slightly irked and not interested in playing the game again at the Cleveland corner so I hung it out and sprinted. I heard his shifter click again but he was in way over his head if I was actually going to try to go fast and at this point that is exactly what my intention was.

Too hot to sprint, but I didn't see Mr. Marin comfort biker again before I turned off to get a picture of this:This is Milton Spater's duplex where B. Babe and I lived when we were first married. It is an up and down duplex, we lived up, 3 bedrooms, a sun porch, a fireplace, wood floors, all in all a really nice place that we were very happy with at that time.

Milton was in his 80's by then so I doubt that he and the Mrs. are still occupying the lower. I also note that they have renumbered the upper to be 2019 while apparently designating the lower as 2017. It was all just 2017 when we lived there. Probably they had problems mixing up the mail of all the different students who it looks like inhabit the place now. The duplex is one block off campus at Saint Thomas.

And then I snuck past this other house and got a picture. A free dozen cherry tomatoes to the first person to correctly identify the street and number and the name of at least one resident.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

V. good non-racing story; but probably not such a good idea when it is hot, hot, hot. Summer seems to have arrived a little early where you are.

Herb? Cherry tomatoes? What kind of prize is that? Nice car. Looks like a Toyota. ~ SS

Jimi said...

Nice house. The cherry tomatoes are in the back of the house next to the zucchini. See Tennis Tousan's wondrous blog for photo of same. Santini is again faster than this old codger.

Nice biking story. It is, as you say, too hot to race. TT

Anonymous said...

Santini, it is not your meds. My Xanga entry did disappear for awhile. It was site-administrator error. I accidentally (in search of some info) clicked on public which makes it private. I accidentally did this twice before I figured it out. It is now the Spring entry permanently. And be watching for the SUMMER entry!
Come visit us.
B Babe