Yale Ride Rallies w/o Commander in Chief

Yesterday I ended up gambling on good weekend weather, taking it easy and sticking to the original plan of big weekend rides, and it seems to have paid off because today’s ride ROCKED. I went out early to beat the rain, rode a steady 1.5hrs, and met the Yale ride after the impatience-producing part. I spun around and promptly got dropped! I seem to be lacking some top end… The ride was without a leader today: no Greek warfare specialist keeping us in rank, no leading health care economist breaking my legs smoothly, no ex-pro now solving mysteries of paleontology, no current pro in purple making it look easy, no smiling Japanese-American-German chemist ensuring the pace never dips below x, what were we to do? After that first surge, we went suspiciously steady, but it was quality. When the rain started that solidified the mission even more: get home! One rider met with doom on the diagonal train tracks in the rain-turing-to-sloppy snow, but he was ok. Such intrepid students – watch out Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference! Even post-thaw, post-liquid, post-food, post-nap, post-stretching, I am sitting lifeless on the floor watching Barak Obama and Kansas victor Mike Huckabee, skeptical of my ability to accomplish much on the schoolwork front. Tomorrow I am venturing out on New Haven’s notorious Sleeping Giant ride, one I swore off as the most dangerous ride ever encountered, but after a year or so I am giving it another shot.