a comedy of defects

please don't laugh when you read this post. it's NOT funny!

i woke up and got out of bed. that is about the only good thing that i can say about today's cycling fiasco. what followed that decent start was not so good.

i couldn't even get dressed completely without something going wrong. i pulled the shoe covers that i bought with my christmas money last year out of their packaging and guess what? they don't fit over my shoes. grrrrr! i threw them down in disgust and decided 44 degrees wasn't cold enough for covers anyway.

next my brand new, just purchased yesterday watch got into the act. i went to put it on. the first time i tried, it wasn't tight enough, so i pulled on the band to release it and the band came off. seriously! the strap and the watch were two parts instead of one! i got out my tiny screwdriver set and tried to fix it quickly. it would not fix, so i grabbed my old watch, the one that won't light up, and strapped it on.

i went to the garage to get my bike. everything was fine there. the tires were inflated. the lights worked. i looked at my changable lens glasses as i was about to put them on. the pads on the ends of the temple bars had almost been lost many times before. with the way things were already falling apart, i did the only sane thing. i pulled the pads off before i even got started. i was wearing my skull cap to keep my ears warm and they wouldn't dig into my head anyway.

i rolled my bike out into the driveway, mounted up and headed out. the trash truck was in the way down the street, so i turned and zigzagged my way to the highway. when i hit a particularly nasty bump, my odometer went blank. i defibrillated it. i did that several times until i finally just gave up. (more on the odometer later.)

i turned onto the highway. i shifted down, decided that the little ring was too easy and attempted to shift up. you noticed the word attempted, right? i could not get my chain to hop up to the big ring. i stopped and looked at everything. the chain was in place and working properly. i got back on and tried repeatedly to get into the big ring. after who knows how many tries, i gave up and played fabian cancellara. "spin it to win it!"

by now, most of you would have turned around and gone back home before you got a flat or something. not me. i kept going. i was short on time because i slept later than usual, so i was planning to turn around at the six mile mark. i wasn't paying attention at that point, so i ended up halfway to the seven mile mark before i was aware of my position. when i realized where i was, i decided i'd go ahead and pedal on. no sense turning around mid block.

so at the base of l'alpe d'anville, i turned back toward home. with the wind at my back, i really needed my chain to move to the big ring. i tried shifting again. same result. no go. i rode for a bit longer, spinning like crazy and still not getting enough power. i tried one more time and the crazy thing slid smoothly up. amazing! something worked on this ride.

the trip home was a blur. i rode harder since i had the umph to do it and found myself cruising along at near 20mph. i rode down drouhard hill and around the correction curves. i flew toward town. my driveway was beckoning me.

finally, just after 6:30, i rolled to a stop at home. i stopped my stopwatch and put my bike up. when i went to log my miles i discovered that the odometer had actually been working. it was only seven seconds off the time i'd gotten manually. since i was sure my math would be off today, i decided to just go with the computer's results and be done with it.

at breakfast i told my sad tale to my children. they laughed. "you'll probably be hit by a truck later today," said one.

i'm staying home! (13.91 miles @ 15.6mph)