Rainy Season

Mellow Monday

It was a week of rain-dodging, sometimes unsuccessfully. Wednesday morning I was surprised to feel a wet mist falling as I rolled out to the lakefront. The streets were, of course, wet. Still, it wasn't quite what you'd call "rain" or anything, and the temperature was fairly warm, so I continued on. As has been the case recently, I arrived at Lakeshore Drive earlier than I usually do, turning onto the Bayou St. John bridge about a mile ahead of the WeMoRi group. That got me almost all the way to the Armory loop before the WeMo came screaming past. I jumped onto the end as usual. The pace, I think, was generally a little slower than usual that morning. Toward the end of the ride, as we approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle, I noted how wet the road was. That traffic circle is notoriously slick when wet, a characteristic we have historically attributed to the busses that used to stop and wait at the entrance to Pontchartrain Beach back in the day. Maybe it's just that it's old, worn down concrete. Whatever the cause, it's always been slick and this morning was no exception. Even through we hadn't entered it at full speed, by the time we were halfway around someone up ahead started to slide a bit. That caused the rider in front of me to change his line, forcing me to the outside of the lane that is nowadays lined with flex posts. I went between a couple of those into the dead space between the traffic lane and the bike lane that nobody will use, and when I corrected my line to get back where I belonged, my rear tire slid a few feet to the right. Luckily I, and everyone else, made it through upright, although I had a little bit of chasing to do to get back onto the end of the group.

Friendly Friday

Friendly Friday's ride was at least mostly dry and well-attended, and as usual it got pretty fast in the usual places. I rode down to the river afterward with Dylan and met up with a few of the remaining Tulane students (exams were just ending) for a little cool-down and a huge bagel at Shugg's.

Lakeshore Swamp, Sunday morning

The forecast for the weekend had been looking pretty bleak, and I was kind of expecting Saturday morning to be a washout. When I checked the radar that morning, however, it looked like the worst of the rain wouldn't arrive until 9:30, so I made a quick decision to meet the earlier SaMoRi group instead of the Giro group. It was a distinct possibility that there wouldn't even be a Giro group, considering the forecast. Even the SaMoRi group was quite small that morning, and then a number of riders turned back at the end of Hayne Blvd. or Chef Highway, leaving only about five of us for the rest of the trip out to Venetian Isles. It was a pretty nice paceline kind of ride, and the sky still didn't look too bad. We didn't dawdle much at the turnaround, and started back at a moderate pace. A little while later we saw the small Giro group coming toward us. They all turned around and joined us. By then the sky was beginning to look a little darker. We were almost at the end of Bullard when I felt a cold downdraft hit us, and thought, "this isn't good." It wasn't. We turned onto Hayne Blvd. just as the rain started. This was some kind of front moving through, so the rain could best be described as "torrential" and the wind as "seriously gusty." As we climbed up the overpass the group fragmented. I had a white-knuckle grip on the handlebar coming down the bridge as the wind kept trying to blow my front wheel out from under me. Coming over the Seabrook bridge was similar. Everyone went straight onto Leon C. Simon since that was the most direct route back home. Unfortunately, much of the right lane was already flooded, and I think at one point my entire foot was underwater. I limped back home as the worst of the weather passed, disc brakes squealing like stuck pigs, and water dripping from my helmet. On the plus side, nobody flatted. Of course the bike got a good washing in the rain, so I had to wipe it down, dry it off, and re-lube the chain back at home. When I turned it upside-down (always a good thing to do after a ride in the rain) a fair amount of water drained out of the headset area, no doubt thanks to the opening and extra space to accommodate the brake hoses that go through the bearings and head tube.

Sunday morning the weather was better but the Giro turnout was pretty slim. The Lakeshore Drive Swamp where it always floods was blocked off, since that's so much easier to do than actually fixing the clogged drainage. We rode through the flooded section anyway, of course. As Giro Rides go, it was a pretty easy one. At least we were able to occasionally see some blue sky. So despite all of the rain and rainy forecasts, I still managed nearly 300 miles for the week, and even if most of it was lacking in intensity, I'll take that as a win of sorts.

This morning's Mellow Monday was mostly mellow. Lakeshore Drive was still closed off and flooded near the Elysian Fields traffic circle. For some reason they had caution tape stretched between the traffic pylons, so we ended up riding against traffic to get around them. There shouldn't have been any traffic, of course, since it was supposed to be closed off on the other side at Franklin Avenue, but of course there was a car coming our way. After wading across the pond, we found the traffic cones and caution tape over there to have been all knocked down. Anyway, things got a little fast for a while, but I think only a few people were interested in keeping it that way, including me. For what seems like the fifth day in a row, I had to clean off the bike a bit after riding, thanks to the wet roads.

I'll probably be trying to make this more or less of a recovery week, especially toward the end, since I'll be heading up to the Cheaha Challenge with Steve on Saturday and would rather not start that with tired legs. Last night I put a new tire on the front of the Cervelo. It's one of the GP 5000s with the tan sidewall that I somehow ordered by mistake or perhaps got shipped the wrong one. Anyway, it of course doesn't match the rear, but since it already had around 7,000 miles on it I figured I'd best not push my luck descending Cheaha on it.

Cooldown

Mellow Monday

Another cool front, hopefully the last, pushed through Friday night, leaving behind wet roads, 20 mph winds, and dramatically cooler temperatures. I looked out the window at the wet street around 5:30 am, and then at the outdoor thermometer, and decided to wait for things to improve. Although it wouldn't have been impossible to ride earlier, the forecast was calling for a lot of improvement by 10 am, except for the wind of course. So I met up with Charles on the levee around 10:30, by which time everything was pretty well dried out, the sun was shining, and the temperature had inched above the 60° mark. Aside from the relentless north wind, it turned out to be a great day for a long flat 50-mile ride out to the Spillway and back. The effort level was fairly low for most of the ride, unless you count the considerable effort required to keep my Reserve 40 front wheel pointed in the right direction. 

Later that day I bit the $135 bullet and signed up for the Cheaha Challenge century ride, registering for the "non-competitive" 100 mile ride rather than the UCI fondo qualifier because the latter, for my age group, was cut down to 84 miles, I guess because the UCI thinks that extra 16 miles would somehow matter. Go figure. At any rate, I wasn't really that interested in turning it into a race anyway. I've never ridden this particular event even though it's been around for close to 25 years and is within reasonable driving distance. For most of those years, there were actual races this time of year around here, so missing one of those to go do a Fondo wasn't really a serious consideration. A few years back I'd ridden some of the route with Dustin and Julia. The climbing there seemed to come in shorter segments of three or four miles rather than the much longer ones you see at Six Gap. The downhills, at least the ones we rode back then, didn't seem to be too technical or anything, so there shouldn't be any white-knuckle moments in the curves, although not knowing the descents will probably keep me on the cautious side anyway. The new Cervelo, which still seems quite new despite having logged around 6,000 miles so far, has a low gear as currently configured of 36 x 30, which should be essentially the same as the Bianchi when I set it up for Six Gap with a 39 x 32, so I guess that will be fine. I guess I'll find out if disc brakes matter there. My only concern is accidentally locking up the rear since the bike came with a 160 mm rear rotor and I probably have only 75 pounds tying my rear wheel to mother earth - less with the front brake engaged. I haven't made any arrangements for the trip yet, but I guess it'll be a Saturday drive, one hotel night, Sunday ride, and Sunday evening drive back. Would be nice to find someone to go with, though.

Roadkill

Sunday's weather was super nice, if a bit chilly before sunrise. It was the first morning where I didn't feel like I really needed a headlight at 6 am. We had a good Giro turnout, and for some reason the pace never really went supersonic, which made for the kind of Giro where I might occasionally show myself at the front. Other than an odd unexpected stop for people taking selfies with a dead roadside alligator it was a pretty routine ride. 

It was still chilly this morning, and although I left the arm-warmers at home, I did put on a base layer. I did not regret it. I wanted to keep my Mellow Monday as mellow as possible, so stayed sheltered as much as possible. Chris pulled the whole group, with me on his wheel, all the way out to Seabrook. As usual the pace ramped up a bit as we approached Marconi on the way back, but not enough to cause any damage. By the time I was riding home the weather was practically perfect, so I can't really complain about the pre-dawn chill. Other than some typical thunderstorms, the next ten days should be pretty nice with morning temperatures in the mid-60s to low 70s.

Shoes Still Dry

The forecast for the latter part of this week was looking pretty bleak. Lots of rain, with the hourly rain chances jumping around in the way that they do when the effect of the model's random number generator outweighs that of the actual inputs. In other words, nobody really knew when and where and how long it would rain in the way that you do in the Fall when there's this solid cold front marching quickly southeast in your direction. The only way to play this kind of scenario is to get up in the morning, look out the window, check the radar, and make the call. Fortunately - surprisingly actually - the call every morning this week was to go ahead and ride. Somehow I made it all the way to Friday without getting my shoes wet, even though it's now been raining for hours.

The regular morning rides this week have been pretty routine, and as I've mentioned before, the Tuesday and Thursday long rides have had better turnouts than usual. Earlier in the year it seemed like almost everyone would turn off at the end of Lakeshore Drive, leaving just me and one or two others to battle the ever-present winter winds along the lake. Lately, though, there have been a few reinforcements meeting us at Bucktown, which has made the ride along the lake trail a little faster and more interesting.

Tuesday morning

With Tulane classes having ended mid-week and exams starting tomorrow, Wednesday's WeMoRi numbers were buoyed by a nice little contingent from uptown. Despite the numbers, though, a break went off the front, and then another couple in pursuit, leaving only the motivationally undecided dregs of the pack to its own lackluster efforts for the last Lakeshore Drive stretch. Fortunately the ride home provided a bit of excitement in the form of a couple of impatient drivers, one of which was provoked by Ben when he slotted into the draft of the car ahead of it. Comic relief was forthcoming, however, when the male driver's female passenger leaned out the window and basically told him it was all cool, despite the driver's continuing rant. Ahhhh, life in the big city.

Friday morning I looked out the window at the mostly dry street, then checked the radar which was surprisingly clear. It being "wear your ugly jersey day" or something like that for the final Tulane coffee ride of the academic year, I dug out my old "X-ray" jersey from (who else?) Primal Wear, and headed out to City Park. It was significantly cooler than the day before, and also significantly more windy, but not altogether bad. Turnout was a little lower than usual, but we still had a big enough group to keep me more or less sheltered much of the way. As usual, Lakeshore Drive was flooded in that spot near Elysian Fields where the drains have been nonfunctional for the past couple of years. The group slowed down to a crawl there as if it was three feet deep rather than three inches deep, and I ended up having to chase a little to close gaps since I'd been near the back. On the return trip we had a bit of a tailwind, and when we got to the flooded section I just rolled through it, which left me unintentionally in the wind all the way to the other side of the traffic circle where I was good and well streamed by the entire group that was back up to speed. That left me having to try to get onto the tail end of the strung-out line of riders going 28 mph, a task for which I was woefully unprepared. As I dropped off the pace Lisa came past and glanced back to let me catch her wheel, but I was already pretty gassed and dropped off a bit later. 

Afterward three of us rode down Carrollton to the river and met up with the Tulane coffee ride group that was a bit larger than usual since there weren't any classes. That eventually took us to the Junk Drawer coffee shop on Broadway where we hung out for longer than usual. The rain was still a few hours away, so once again I got home with a mostly clean bike and dry shoes. It's looking like it should be OK for tomorrow's ride, although the temperature will have dropped down to around 60° by then, accompanied by a 25 mph north wind, so we'll see how that goes. There's a century ride up in Ridgeland that morning that I might have done, but I think I'm going to go ahead a register for the Cheaha century scheduled for the 17th. There's also a planned 100+ mile northshore ride the weekend before that. 

Rolling with the Punches

Last weekend was a study in flexibility with a bit of gambling thrown in for good measure. The forecast for Saturday morning turned out to be, unfortunately, spot on. Rain as predicted. Also as predicted, it was all gone by 10:00 am. After a flurry of text messages, a few of us settled on a Spillway ride starting around 11:00, by which time the streets were already practically dry. We ended up with four people, besides myself, each coming from a different direction. I rode out to "the pipes" where I saw Seattle Mike waiting. We were soon joined by Charles from the FQ, and Ben from uptown. Along the way we picked up Pirm, and for most of the 50+ mile out and back he and Ben sat on the front at a steady 20-22 mph talking continuously. The weather by then was practically perfect - low 70s with a moderate south wind. The only fly in the ointment in this case was that all but myself seemed to be having difficulty keeping as much air in their tires as they had started with. Ben and Mike punctured, while Charles and Pirm, both riding tubeless, sacrificed some sealant to the tire gods and had to stop only briefly. Back at home that evening I pulled a shard of rock out of my front tire that would have added me to the list if I'd ridden another ten miles. It was a very Zone 2 effort for me, sheltering as I was in Pirm's draft for 90% of the entire ride, but at least I hadn't gotten caught in the rain earlier in the morning, and hadn't missed a ride, which, it being a Jazz Fest weekend, probably happened to a few people who didn't have the time to ride later in the day like I did.

On Sunday there was a plan to do a 70 mile ride from Bay St. Louis. The forecast was again calling for some significant morning rain as a little front came through from the northwest, where all cool fronts come from. Checking the forecast the night before, it looked like the Giro would definitely get rained out, but the chance of rain over in Mississippi was a lot lower. I went to sleep confident that I had made the wise decision to do the Mississippi ride.

Well, by the time I was on the road to BSL, the forecast had flip-flopped. There were just a few of us on hand for the 8 am start, but it was abundantly clear that there would be a serious line of thunderstorms coming through the area around 9:30-10:00. So the 7 am Giro was probably mostly dry, but our own 8 am start turned out to be less well-timed. So once again, we rolled with the weather punches and decided instead to do a short 26 mile loop, getting back to the cars no more than ten minutes before the torrential rain started. It was actually a good ride, mostly in the 22-25 mph range with a few little efforts, but of course nothing like the full 70 miles would have been. The day before I had changed out the steel bolts on my stem for titanium ones, since the steel ones pretty much always start to rust a bit after a couple of seasons of sweat, and of course I could pretend I was making an upgrade, however cheaply. I was glad to see that nothing slipped, although I wasn't really expecting that to be a problem since I'd replaced them to the correct torque spec one at a time. After the ride I sat in my car for another twenty minutes or so until the worst of it passed before hitting the highway for home. Once again, by the time I got home, the sky was clear and the sun was shining like nothing had happened.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride had a good turnout, and it got fairly fast for a while, but that was thanks only to a handful of riders who were perhaps making up some missed efforts from last weekend.

Easy Riding

Thursday

One thing I probably don't need is a ton of easy riding, but I have to admit it's kind of hard to resist when you're in a group with copious drafting opportunities, as have been most of my rides lately. One exception was last Sunday when the regular Giro was rained out as a little cool front came through. By early afternoon, though, everything had dried out and it had warmed back up into the 60s, so despite the 20 mph north wind I ventured out alone for a levee ride out to Ormond and back. Otherwise, though, the weather has been damned nice lately with early mornings mostly in the upper 60s. It's looking like we'll be in a gradual warming trend for at least the next four or five days, with highs getting into the mid-80s, so welcome to summer, I guess.

Local strade bianche?

The river, and hence the bike path, winds around quite a bit, but it's mostly an east-west affair which translated that day into a lot of crosswind, often partially blocked by the houses and stuff on the northeast side, so it wasn't all that miserable. Along the way I noted that the two-mile closed off part of the levee bike path is still closed off with no indication of progress toward re-paving. All of that was supposed to be finished by "late 2025" but here we are. Of course that meant I had to drop down onto River Road to get around it. Heading upriver along there on River Road is pretty sketchy because there is absolutely zero shoulder to the road and the edge is basically a crumbling ledge of asphalt and gravel. Cars will often wait to pass if there's something coming the other way, but not always. It's a lot better on the way back. For some reason there are maybe 18 inches of shoulder on the levee side, which makes it all feel a little more comfortable. Of course if I'd had a few more riders with me we could have just taken the lane, which would have required everyone except the mass murderers to wait and pass safely. Anyway, it was a little bit of a workout here and there, thanks to the wind.

Most of the regular morning rides this week have pretty routine except that attendance has definitely increased as have the morning temperatures. Considering that Monday and Tuesday featured more of the same strong wind, that's saying something I guess. A 20 mph northeast wind made the return stretch along Lakeshore Drive pretty fast on Monday, which is to say we spent a lot of time at around 30 mph. So much for the Mellow part of Mellow Monday. Tuesday's ride was kind of similar, and we had a good-sized group that went all the way out to Williams Blvd. on the lake trail. Even at it's usual Zone 2 level, that ride probably averaged 24 mph all the way out, but only 20 on the way back.

WeMoRi morning I jumped out of bed unusually early when I realized I'd forgotten to put out the garbage. Since it wasn't quite early enough to go back to bed, I ended up riding out to the lakefront earlier than usual, and probably could have met up with the WeMo group right about at the start, but instead I decided to just head east ahead of them. It wasn't one of the fastest WeMoRi days, so they didn't catch me until I was turning off of Lakeshore Drive onto Marconi, where I usually meet them anyway. Ben and Will from Tulane were in the group, but Liam and Dylan weren't. I learned later over coffee that Liam had nailed a pothole somewhere around Elysian Fields and then discovered he'd forgotten to bring a pump, so he called an Uber to get home. Dylan was still in convalescent mode from a particularly nasty respiratory infection he'd picked up. Anyway, at least the wind had died down by then, and for me it was a pretty good ride since the pace was easy enough in some places to entice me onto the front. I mean, by all accounts I should be doing a lot more longer high-intensity efforts and a lot less Zone 2 wheelsucking, but that seems to be a heavier lift every year. I should also be doing some heavy lifting, but that's a whole 'nother story. 

So this morning's Thursday ride turned out to be a remarkably steady one, and again, of course, mostly Zone two. It was a nice ride, though, and if I end up doing the planned long Saturday ride from Independence with the big boys, I'll be glad I kept this one relatively easy. 

Checking Strava later in the day I saw that Ben, Will, and Liam had done a morning levee ride during which Liam had crashed on that pile of gravel near the upriver end of Jefferson Parish where you have to drop down to River Road. From Strava it kind of looks like they got a ride home.

Wear the gloves!

The other day I ordered some Creatine/D3/K2 gummies to try out for a month or so. I'm not normally one for supplements, but they were on sale at Costco, so worth a shot, I guess. Since I've been essentially poisoning some mitochondrial pathways with statins for the past few years, I suppose it can't hurt, and besides, all the cool kids are using it nowadays. I also made an impulse purchase of titanium bolts for my handlebar stem. With "dripping sweat on your handlebar" season fast approaching, I'm uncomfortable with the steel bolts that came with the Cervelo. I'd always opted for the Ti bolts on my Bianchi because the steel ones are guaranteed to start getting ugly after a few months of being soaked with sweat. I doubt the 1g of weight savings will make me faster, though. Actually, I kind of doubt that anything that would pass USADA scrutiny will make me faster at this point. The place where I order the bolts from apparently spent the whole next week at Sea Otter, so it took a week for them to ship out, not that there's any urgency anyway. I expect that tomorrow's Friendly Friday ride will be fairly spicy, considering the weather and all. There's another long ride on the dance card for Sunday. If I don't chicken out on the Saturday ride, I'll have to see how it goes before committing to that one.

Massive Relative Effort

It's all relative, of course. Last weekend I tagged along with three Tulane riders to the Sunny King Criterium and Choccolocco Road Race up around Anniston AL. The collegiate races also served as the SECCC Conference Championships, so I was glad that the team was represented, even if only in the Collegiate Cat. 4 races. Coach P was also racing in the regular Cat 2/3 races. Sunny King has a long history in this area, so I was glad to finally make my way there, even if I was fully expecting to be rapidly shelled out of the back of the 50+ and 40+ races myself. The Saturday criterium is a pretty big deal, especially for the Pro Men and Women, and is part of the USA Crit series, so although the collegiate Cat. 4 and my own 50+ criteriums would be over well before lunchtime, we were definitely going to hang around for the evening Pro races that didn't start until after 4 pm.

Josiah, Liam, and Ben picked me up in the Biology 12-passenger van right on time at 2:00 pm for the roughly 6 hour drive up to Oxford or Anniston or wherever the hotel actually was. Unfortunately, Ben was just coming off of a round of antibiotics and related off-bike time so would be taking photos rather than racing. This was rather disappointing because I felt like both Liam and he had definite podium possibilities. 

Saturday morning we made a quick stop at the same Starbucks where we'd left Chris and his broken collarbone back in 2022 on the way back from the Georgia Tech race, while Julia, Dustin, and I did a little ride up Cheaha mountain. It was a short drive to the crit course in old downtown Anniston near the abandoned railroad track that is now the Chief Ladiga bike path. We were practically the first to arrive, so we slipped past the traffic cones and parked about twenty feet from the course half a block from the start/finish. It was still pretty chilly when we arrived but as soon as the sun cleared the horizon it warmed up really quickly.

The Collegiate Cat. 4/5 race was one of the first, so after a solid warmup on the bike trail, Liam and Josiah lined up for the start. The course was a 1 km rectangle with wide turns and generally good pavement, so it was going to be fast and not particularly technical. The long finish straight was slightly uphill so the corresponding back side was slightly downhill. I'd been a little concerned about turn #3 following the downhill, but as it turned out, coming into it at 30 mph wasn't much of a problem.

There were about 30 riders on the line for the Cat. 4/5 race. Liam and Josiah started in the front row, which was good. My sense was that the pace in general wasn't super fast, which I'd expect for this category. Liam was spending a whole lot of time in the wind at the front for most of this race, and was definitely not having any trouble doing so, although it probably cost him a little bit by the end. Josiah, who was coming off of being sick a couple of weeks ago and was still not in top form, was staying safely in the middle of the group. He would eventually come off the back with about ten other riders toward the end of the 30-minute race. Liam unfortunately drifted a little too far back in the last laps, but still finished a respectable 12th. 

The Master 50+ race had a pretty stacked field of 38 riders that included at least a couple of current/past national champions. Knowing full well what was likely going to happen, I lined up at the back where I wouldn't get in the way too much when I inevitably blew up. As usually happens when the start is fast and the air is cold and/or dry, it wasn't more than a couple of laps before I was in some minor respiratory distress and slid off the back where I could maintain a more age-appropriate pace. Before the end of the 50-minute race I'd be lapped at least three times. Each time I'd get into the group near the back and do a couple of fast laps before dropping off again. It being the first criterium I'd done in two years, and the first on the new bike, it was not that bad of a strategy, actually, and it wasn't like I was exactly soft-pedaling anyway. Strava proclaimed the ride "Tough Relative Effort," which seemed about right given my 154 bpm average HR. So it was a solid workout for me despite the lackluster performance. The Cervelo felt good through the fast corners, even if a little bit twitchy the rare times when I had to touch the brakes. Having spent practically the entire time on the drops, my neck was very angry with me afterward, however. Pirmin's Cat. 2/3 race looked quite fast, but he was always in a good position near, but not on, the front of the large group. In the final few laps I guess things started to get sketch, and he dropped back as a matter of self-preservation. USAC still had him listed as Cat. 5 since he'd just gotten a USAC license and never requested an upgrade based on his results from Germany. I sent USAC his almost full results list and Trish said she'd approve an upgrade to Cat. 3, so he submitted that request, but the system, using a methodology apparently not susceptible to analysis (likely AI) would only approve an upgrade to Cat. 4, so I sent Trish an email about that this morning. Anyway, he ended up rolling through with the field in 23rd position out of 54 starters.

Later, as I was sitting in the rapidly diminishing shade near the finish line, someone who probably recognized me walked by and handed me two tickets to the VIP hospitality area across from the finish, so Liam and I went over there and enjoyed the free food and drinks for a while as the Pro Women were racing. In that race there was a bad crash in the last corner and I think one of the women was Medivac'd out in the helicopter that was on site.

On Sunday we again arrived at the nearby road course just off of the Choccolocco forest early, which gave Liam and Josiah a chance to pre-ride the 12-mile circuit. The course was, at least by my New Orleans standards, quite hilly with a few little climbs hitting 9 or 10%. None of them were longer than maybe half a kilometer at best, but I knew the faster groups would get split up eventually. 

The three-lap collegiate Cat 4/5 race started around 8 am and it looked like the pace was generally pretty conservative with the group mostly remaining intact for at least the first couple of laps. Somewhere on the last lap Josiah came off the back with a few others but Liam was staying easily with the main field. There was a short climb about 300 meters from the finish, and unfortunately a rider tried to shoot a non-existent gap on the right, slipping off the edge of the road and crashing. Naturally, Liam was behind that which took him out of contention for the finish, although he did manage to salvage 12th out of around 30 despite having to practically stop when the sprint started. I was at the finish getting ready for my own race to start and when I heard there had been a crash in the feed zone, and Josiah was still missing, I rode over there to see if he was the one who had crashed. He wasn't, and in fact showed up right about when I was riding back, finishing 19th.

My road race was a 40+ age group, so I wasn't expecting to be with the group for long. I wasn't. When we made the first turn right after the start the pace ramped up over 30 mph, briefly 36 mph, and by the time we were three miles in and hit the first significant little steep climb I was audibly gasping for breath. When the rider in front of me opened a gap, I didn't even try to come around. The two of us were together off-and-on for about three of the four laps, although the other rider would often drop off of my wheel on climbs (not that I was climbing very fast) and then reappear on the flatter sections. I was just focused on the workout, which Strava ultimately tagged as "Massive Relative Effort," which in reality only reinforces how low the effort levels of my regular rides have been. I was about halfway around the last of the four laps when the Cat. 1-3 women's group caught me. I moved over so they could go through, but was surprised how slowly they were going. For the rest of the lap I just rode far enough behind to be out of the draft, occasionally having to coast so I didn't roll all the way up to their wheels. I actually spent a lot of time basically riding alongside the motoref. Finally, when they saw the 2 km to go marker, one of the women attacked. It was short-lived, however, and I was again right behind them a minute later. So anyway, I was practically DFL for this road race, but on the plus side it was clearly a solid and apparently badly needed workout for me. I don't know why I am having so much trouble with the first efforts in races like this. I've always had some trouble with fast starts, but the older I get the worse it seems to be. By the time I finished everyone was anxious to hit the road for home, so I jumped in the van still in my kit and changed in the car as we drove to the nearest Chipotle for lunch.

For the entire 6 hour drive home we were streaming the replay of Paris-Roubaix on Josiah's tablet. Otherwise it was an uneventful drive except for when we spotted Tulane Water Polo team alongside us, also on their way back from a competition. On the way there we had found the Tulane Frisbee team on its way to some event. Of course in both instances there was an exchange of sign language and clues to figure out what team they, and we, were on.

It's Tuesday morning and after my usual 38 mile Tuesday ride I think I can still feel a little bit of Sunday's road race still in my legs. Situation normal.

Wind and Rain

There was a good group on hand for last Saturday's Giro, bolstered halfway through by a few of the usual suspects u-turning off from the SaMoRi to join in. This has become a pretty regular occurrence lately where riders start with the 6:30 group and then join the Giro somewhere on Chef Highway, adding a few miles and perhaps a little more intensity to their rides. The ride itself was moderate, as Giro Rides go, with long stretches of paceline in the 25-26 mph range, so no problems for anyone I think. The temperature was comfortably in the low 70s and there was a light tailwind on the return, but things were already looking unpromising for Sunday. Indeed, when I awoke early Sunday morning I could hear a light rain falling outside and so I just pulled the covers over my head and waited for daylight. The hourly forecast at that point was offering a little bit of hope for the afternoon, but as forecasts often due, it lied. For all practical purposes, it rained all day. Things were not much better on Monday morning either, so like Sunday, there was no morning ride. The cool front had moved in, dropping the temperature by ten degrees or so, and bringing with it a stiff north wind. On the plus side, the rain ended early and the humidity dropped quickly, so by 1:30 pm I was ready to head over to the levee for a ride.

I always find solo rides on the levee motivationally difficult, which is to say I tend to want to cruise along looking at the scenery and scanning the treetops for eagles. Unfortunately, 12 mph north wind made it hard to take it very easy, even though much of it was crosswind. Out at the western edge of Jefferson Parish where the bike path has been closed for the past year, I noted that no discernable work had been done since my last visit a couple of weeks earlier. As predicted, getting the bike path re-opened is going to be months behind schedule. As a reminder, the closure began in April of 2024 and the official announcement said, "This two-mile construction zone is expected to remain closed through at least mid-2025." If you're counting, mid-2025 came and went ten months ago. Meanwhile, the leaking fire hydrant at my house celebrated its one-year anniversary recently. Still leaking of course, but I digress. My Monday afternoon ride felt harder than it should have, thanks to the wind, but at least I didn't flat, which is always a danger if the bike path is damp.

So on Tuesday the rain chances went one way and the wind went the other, and so most of the westbound ride was at 27-28 mph, which was great, but the return trip was at more like 14-15 mph, which was not great, and seemed to take forever. At least we picked up a few riders when we got to Jefferson Parish, so that was nice. It was also rather chilly - like 53° - when I left home. I'm holding out some hope that the chilly few days we had this week will turn out to have been the last until Fall.

It was a little warmer for Wednesday's WeMoRi, and for some reason the early morning wind wasn't too much of a factor, so it turned out to be a fairly typical ride with some fast segments, gaps to close, and a bit of intensity despite my best efforts to avoid same. I was already thinking about this coming weekend's planned trip up to Anniston for Sunny King where my primary goal will be to remain upright and not get pulled before the halfway point of the criterium. Criteriums around here having been in such short supply for me in recent years that I'm afraid I'll be pretty rusty at that.

This morning it was again quite windy, mostly from the east, so we again had some fast westbound stretches. After Lakeshore Drive it was just me and Jeff, and he was planning on turning off at Bonnebell. Fortunately we came up on Keith who was waiting for us at Bucktown, so at least I wasn't left to my own devices. Then, just as we got to the turnaround at Williams, Matt showed up, so we had three for the return trip, at least until Keith unexpectedly dropped off the back. It was a good 10 mph headwind all the way back, so just maintaining 17 mph was difficult, and I guess doing so behind me, which is where Keith was, made it even worse.

The Tulane kit store finally got opened this week. It had been delayed for months while Dylan was negotiating some sponsorship arrangements, and of course at this rate it's unlikely orders will be received before the end of the semester. A credit for one jersey was included in this year's dues, which made the total cost at least seem less shocking. The prices for cycling clothing have really just gone through the roof over the past couple of years, and although $109 for a jersey seems expensive to me, it's really kind of a bargain nowadays for custom a race-cut jersey. They got a fit kit from Cutaway, who is the vendor, and so I went over and tried on a Small jersey which seemed to be sized fairly normally. I'll assume the bibshorts are likewise normal size-wise. Voler stopped doing triathlon stuff, so that's why we ended up with Cutaway, which I'd never heard of before.