Sunday

SB' s on a rainy Sunday.

My pal Pete (aka @bcbison on Twitter) and I did the Dewitt breakfast ride this morning. It looked like a full rain ride when we took off at 0630, but the sprinkles stopped and we had no moisture until about eight miles out on the way back. And there was nothing dry by the time I got home. Here's a pic I had a stray pedestrian shoot on the mini after our breakfast at the Sunrise Cafe.

I need to bore you with a couple of comments about the ride. We had a tail wind on the way to Dewitt. And I was almost always painted just 6-8 inches from @bc's rear wheel. At one point on the flats, after a momentum-building down hill push, we were gliding along almost effortlessly (and I had to carefully throttle back to avoid jumping his wheel), I looked down at my computer, and we were doing 29+mph! On the flats! Wow. For a 16mph guy, that's flying.

The flip side of course is that we had the head wind coming home. A whole lot less excitement. Add in the rain and you have some forgettable miles. Probably wouldn't have gone out if we had waited for a later start.

Another thought that came to me on the ride was the meaning of the expression, "Got one". That's what @bc automatically says on our rides as a warning to me when he sees a car in his rear view mirror. (I have a mirror too, but I think that he realizes that I am mostly concentrating on my spacing with his rear wheel.) I'm sure that members of the peanut gallery all have their own history with the term, but mine goes back to my varied history of pick-up basketball games.

"Got one" was what I said when I called a foul on a shot or other move to the basket. Different courts had different terminology, but "Got one" was always mine where ever I played. The whole concept of calling fouls in street ball was not something for the weak of heart. The more-competitive the game, the more fouls are called. Same for the closer the game. And when it was "game-point", every missed shot was a foul.

Better players (on offense or defense) matched against one another never had much of a problem with fouls because they knew when one was committed. It was the more marginal players and the lying players who made games miserable at times. Again, particularly at "game point". Since I went to the basket a lot (as opposed to jump shooters), I needed to establish my stature on the court by calling fouls when they needed to be called. I really didn't like the guys who abused the system, even if they were on my team, in a "lose the court" situation.

I'm headed back to the barn. I'll add more here later.

BCOT