back to the grind...

My parents were here this weekend, which always means that things of an athletic bent take a backseat to hanging out. This isn't an altogether bad thing, but it still meant that I didn't get to do any riding this weekend.

I decided to take the long route into the office via the Air Force Academy this morning, mostly because I hadn't ridden it lately and I wanted to confirm why I hadn't ridden it. The route's longer and actually climbs more than the normal short route does. On my way up the entrance of the trail I saw a guy bopping along on his mountain bike and watched him pass me before I got to the top. Obviously, this means that a chase is afoot. I reeled him in and then inexplicably he just stopped. He stopped. He's not SUPPOSED to stop. That means that I'm stuck with him chasing after me when he inevitably starts again. I don't like being in the chased position. The entire rest of the ride I'm looking over my shoulder trying to find where he is... every time I think I've dropped him for good, there he is on my tail again, wearing his dopey expression and haircut shaped into the shape of a helmet so that he didn't need to wear a separate one. UGGGHHHH! I wanted to stop for a second and take a drag of my orange gatorade but every SINGLE time I wanted to do that and catch my breath a little, THERE HE WAS! It was aggravating to say the least. He finally took a turn and continued up the path, leaving my neuroses to their own devices but it was a little frustrating.

There was a bit of a bite in the air this morning. Fall won't seriously come to Colorado for at least another month, but mornings like this start to sneak in. As soon as you get pedaling the cold melts away, but the first few minutes on either side of the ride always give you a bit of a chill.

I was reading an article talking about Hurricane Katrina's economic impact. I guess the 1mbpd that they pump in the gulf from offshore oil rigs has been temporarily shut off while the hurricane moves through which is yet one more thing that could push gas prices up, but that's not the big concern. I guess the big concert is that with no new refineries built since 1976 due to regulatory policies, more than 17% of refineries exist in LA and AL. If they get hit sufficiently hard it's not inconceivable that with speculation we could see $4 a gallon. $4 a gallon scares the living daylights out of me. I'm not entirely sure what we'd do besides try to ride even more than we are now. Thankfully, you can ride year round here if you really want to. Plus, I can't imagine the hamper it would put on the economy at $4/gallon but maybe it would finally create the economic incentive for hyrdrogen development.

Now, with that said, I know that $4/gallon gas wouldn't last forever mostly because of economic factors. $4/gallon makes lots of other oil retrieval economically feasible, like the oilsands in Canada and inevitably with the increased supply from alternative production, you're going to create a bulge in supply and overpower demand thus deflating the price, but it's not something I want to test in the short-term future.

one word. UGH.