The Week in Review

"Right to Life" the large red letters said. The sign stretched all of the way across the rear window of the Lumina and I got a very close look at it as the car narrowly missed me on Highway 3 north of Dubuque. The horn blast broke the early Sunday quiet.

On their way to church? Fetuses have a right to life, but not full grown cyclists? If not a right to life, how about just the right to the road?

Sunday morning I rode in to meet some buddies for a shorter ride from Dubuque. All told, maybe 70 miles for me and 30ish for them (I'm greedy). About five miles into our group ride, a driver in a spotless pickup passes our group and swerves in front of our lead rider, missing him by a few inches. Roger and Spahny yell and the driver initially touches his brakes, and then reconciders. Spahny takes off in hot pursuit, adrenal glands pumping and meets the driver at the stop sign on Hwy 61. He's waiting because of the traffic, not because he wants to talk to the irate guy in lycra. Spahny positions himself in front of the truck and motions the driver to roll down the window. The truck moves ahead and 'hits' Spahny, who promptly pulls out his cell phone to dial 911. Truck drives away; sheriff talks to Spahny at his house and says there's really nothing he can do.

What is it with people's need to scold, threaten and intimidate others?

The rest of the ride is great.

I'm tired as we roll up to Mike's house. The deep muscle fatigue that comes with longer hours in the saddle and 10,000 feet of climbing last week. This is good. I'm rebuilding my base fitness and it's amazing how much of it evaporated during the race season. So the plan is to 'ride lots'. I give up the shortened by the lack of sun group ride on Wednesday to ride to work. This gives me a cool 60 miles at a shot. And saves gas. Two commutes to work a week, a long ride on the weekend and some recovery spins in between adds up to about 250 miles this week. Next week off to France on Thursday with about 300 miles in three organized rides on the menu. Add in a few recovery spins and an impromptu training run... Stay tuned for some pics and ride reports.