One of Those Days

If you ride very much you will have one of those days when it feels like your brakes are dragging. There is just no snap in your legs and your bike just won’t go any faster no matter how hard you try. It just keeps getting worse and worse.

Today was like that. It was a moderate Sunday ride gone terribly wrong. The pace picked up from the get go and the squirrels were thick. (Literally. A real one tried to commit suicide by running in front of the paceline.) The ride turned down “I” road and things were chaotic but tolerable. I was wishing they would just flat out drop me and not stay at a pace I could just about hang on.

The south end of “I” road can hardly be called a road at all. It would be condemned in most states and called a gravel pit or quarry in others. I almost missed a giant pothole, cursed, wobbled and recovered. Did I mention the wind? When the ride turned west on a better road I tried my best and just couldn’t come up with the juice to catch a wheel. I tried the short cut and still couldn’t seem to get up to speed.

I reasoned it must have been the long ride the day before or maybe a cup of coffee and a couple of cookies is not a “good” pre-ride breakfast. The slow group caught me. The slow group damn near dropped me. I went home solo and it just kept getting worse. The bike just would not go.

When I got home I checked my wheels. Never in a million years would I have ever thought the world’s oldest excuse could be anything more than a myth. Honest injun, My front brake was dragging. That hit I took on the pothole must have jarred the front wheel. I feel so much better now. I think I’ll take a couple of aspirin and go lie down.