At the Kinetic Sculpture Museum in Ferndale, Calif.

I'm feeling like a rusty relic myself. I've barely ridden since Superweek, and I'll barely ride again before Downers Grove. It's a much-needed rest, to be sure, and the cycling has been replaced with other joys and adventures, but I am disoriented. I rode 90 minutes Monday and the legs felt like brickwork. And I look at my training log and note with awe all the 12- and 15-hour weeks I put in this spring. "I did that? How?"

Since March I've helped lead a small group ride every Wednesday morning. I haven't gone in more than a month. I'd hoped today would be my return, but when I checked the weather radar at 7, a huge green claw was poised to pince Chicago. I txt'ed my regrets and went back to bed.

The claw has yet to snap.

The only thing worse than riding in the rain is not riding in the not rain. Now I sit at the window, looking on the dry streets as forlornly as I will surely be looking on the snowy landscape come January, and I'm willing the sky to open open up, just as you will a stock to collapse the day after you have liquidated. "Rain! Rain! Let it rain! Cruel gods, make not this rest be for naught!"