Ah When The Drives Are Traffic Free!

Today is the Philadelphia Triathlon, a mysterious sport to me except for the biking; I can hardly swim and hardly run, But be that as it may I admire those who can do all three. Two of my congregants, in fact, took part in this morning's amateur piece of the competition. But for Annie and I the import of the event was the fact that not only was West River Drive closed, but so was Kelly Drive on the east side of the river and the Falls Bridge in between. We were out early enough not to either interfere or be interfered by the events. There was plenty of activity and one spot on our first loop where we had to slow down as lots of competitors were crossing the roadway to sign-in, but for the most part we were able to travel hassle free twice around the loop on the roadway rather than the path and therefore able to ride faster and freer. We had a ball and considered going around once more to stretch out Annie's distance, but just as we came around the Museum for the second time the roadway was being cleared as the Pros were in the bike part of the race. We got to watch a few go by - very fast and on sharp looking machines. Things would only be getting worse, more crowded, as the amateurs finished their swim and took to their wheels. We got to watch them swimming in the Schuylkill. "They look like dolphins," said Annie; "only not as smart," said I. A good 20.7 miles before work.

I spent much of yesterday reading Floyd Landis' new book "Positively False." Call me naive, but i enjoyed the book, enjoyed learning the story of Floyd's odyssey from Lancaster Mennonite to world class cyclist, and in context could not help but feel convinced of his innocence and empathize with his critique of the UCI, WADA and the rest of the cycling and doping establishment. I'm not sure we'll ever know for sure, and the idea that a man's career and reputation have been permanently sullied without appropriate safeguards in place to insure an impartial decision is disquieting to say the least. Read the book by purchasing it through the Amazon link in the right side-bar of my blog.


Ever feel frustrated by the difficulty of finding a suitable place to lock your bike while doing errands in your town/city? Well I sure do and so does the blogger know as Black Men Don't Ride Bikes. He has written a nice post about his frustrating day trying to do errands and lock his bike. You may want to check it out