That'll leave a mark

I should save this for the end but it was too cool. I was about 33 miles into my 73 mile ride today when I could hear the hum of radial motors over the music in my iPod. I wish I had more clarity provided by a zoom feature, but it's a better still camera and an okay video camera. Try enlarging it a bit and you can catch the glint of canopies or polished metal on the formation. You should be able to see the turning aircraft. There were roughly 16 aircraft in diamond-4 formations.

The rain may have drowned (or drownded as Sephie once said) my plans for racing this past weekend but this week is shaping up better. Well, better if I skip yesterday. I did a early group ride yesterday which, for the most part, went well. There was a brief period of time where I was sliding down the road. That's why there's a 3' passing rule in Wisco for motorists. Maybe the douche-bag thought it was 3" and he felt the need to emphasize his proximity with a blast of the horn. Since I was half-wheeling the two guys in front of me, I wasn't surprised when the rider nearest the car came over and took me out. One other rider fell over trying to come to a stop when he couldn't come out of the pedal, but with no skin loss it won't count as a crash. I squirted it with water, rubbed the road off and rubbed some dirt in it. "Rubbing dirt in it" is the standard course of treatment, according to Dr R B Jobs MD, LM (Minor Distraction, Local Mofo)

Tore the seam on my Muddy Cup bibs dammit!

the lower half without the bandages

Anyway, today found me back in the saddle at mid-day. I looped north toward Lodi where there are some nice rollers and gradual grades. There was also some false advertising.

"STOP AHEAD for beer"

This playful creature ran up the middle of the road for quite a ways. I didn't have the camera set for anything special to deal with the quick Redd Foxx so most of the shots were blurry. I got lucky with this one. He eventually dove into the corn field since I was gaining.

In the file marked "what the hell is that?" you'll find this. About 32 miles from my house, or roughly 100 miles from Lake Michigan, you'll find this US Coast Guard vessel. I know the rains resulted in some high water, but really?