No Place for Sprinters - Up in Asheville

I pretty much knew what I was getting myself into from the get-go. Nonetheless, it was virtually impossible to resist a trip up to Big Rich's hideout in the Blue Ridge mountains with Charles and Jeff. So throwing caution to the wind, I loaded my bike and bag into Jeff's BMW early on a Sunday morning for the long drive to Asheville NC for four days of verticality. If there's anything that over a decade of riding the annual Six Gap Century has taught me, it's that I am not what you would ever call a "climber." Fortunately, whatever cycling ego I once had is now greatly diminished, which is probably nature's way of keeping me from having a self-induced heart attack on a 10% grade. The drive up to NC was pretty uneventful unless you count the usual traffic jams going through Atlanta, and so we arrived at Rich's place well before dark. Charles and Jeff were stationed in "the treehouse," a separate guest house next to the main residence perched on a steeply sloping lot overlooking the forest, complete with deer and bears.

On tap for Monday's ride was an out-and-back up to the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center. This 43 mile ride featured over 4,400 feet of arduous climbing with grades ranging from 4 to 10%. Barry came by to join us for the ride, and we all trudged up the long gravel driveway that is too steep and loose to ride on a road bike. 

After going immediately into the red before we even started the main climb I quickly decided to do focus on my heartrate, keeping it in the general vicinity of 140-144 bpm. My lungs were clearly not happy with something, so any sustained efforts above that made me sound asthmatic. Interestingly, Strava awarded me with my "biggest climb" for the continuous 17 or 18 miles at the blazing average speed of 9.2 mph and an average heart rate of 140 bpm. My legs felt fine, my breathing not so much. Of course at my age one wonders if it's impending heart failure, or pneumonia, or just the way it is now. It was definitely a challenge, and I was definitely the last one to arrive at the visitor center. 

After a brief regrouping at the top, we headed back down the way we'd come. 

The three flatlanders were being especially cautious with the speed since we were on unfamiliar roads and the road was, as it probably always is, a bit damp. That kept my top speed down to 43 mph, while confirming that the 140 mm front rotor was, at least for me, sufficient. Strava accurately tagged the ride as "Massive Relative Effort." On the plus side, I barely drank any water since the temperature was somewhere in the 60s the entire time. Although the Garmin's ClimbPro feature of course kicked in immediately, it would have been better to have had the route loaded on the computer, so Rich sent us the gpx files for each of the other three rides we'd be doing.

Later that day we took a walk down to the edge of the property at a stream where there are the remnants of a very old mill.

Tuesday's ride was a bit shorter at 36 miles, but with over 4,000 feet of climbing. Rich's friend and neighbor, Jim, joined us for this one. This one was mostly a loop, so there were two long climbs followed by two long descents, neither a long as those on Monday. When the grades got above 6% or so, I'd just say goodbye to the others and climb at my own pace, mostly in the 36 x 30. The two climbs were about six miles each, and the downhills were fun even though we were taking them rather cautiously.

Wednesday was our longest ride at around 46 miles. With only 3,700 feet of climbing broken into two climbs, this was what passes for a flat easy ride up there. It was by no means easy, but it was perhaps easier.  As far as I could tell, there aren't more than ten feet of flat ground anywhere around Asheville.

Our plan was to make the drive back to New Orleans on Thursday, but fortunately we had enough time to get in one last ride in the morning. This one was only 26 miles, up the Rose Hill climb. I think this route probably had the steepest grades of the four we rode. Despite being relatively short, the average grade up the Rose Hill climb was over 8% with some short spots in the 10-16% range. For reference, my average speed on that climb was 8.2 mph. Earlier this year Lisa had averaged 12.5, and the fastest Strava segment speed is apparently 18 mph.

So is was a great challenging weekend with friends, and a welcome break from the 80-90° New Orleans temperatures. Although the weather forecast had initially been calling for a lot of rain, we never got any during our rides, and although the roads were usually damp enough to keep me from letting the bike go on the downhills, the only problems they caused were strictly psychological. As slowly as I was climbing, I don't really think I could have gone much faster without doing more damage than I'd like. As it was, my lungs felt kind of raw much of the time I was there.

The drive back was fine despite a short detour caused by an accident up ahead of us, and we arrived back home at a reasonable hour.

Back to Tuscaloosa

I hadn't been planning on doing a century ride in July, but when Pirm mentioned that he and Tessa were signed up for the Hot Hundred up in Tuscaloosa I naturally went to check it out. Despite it being the event's 24th year, it had never been on my radar, mainly because we had bike races going on in the summer, and so I never paid much attention to charity rides, centuries or not. It looked like a fairly low-key fundraising event that didn't keep track of finish times or anything, with the obvious priority being on rest stops and iced towels and cold drinks and such. Still, I had no plans to go until Ben, who had already registered but now had a conflict, offered to transfer his registration, and Donata, who had planned to accompany him, wanted someone to travel with. So I took him up on the offer. I mean, why not? It had been a long time since I'd ridden in Tuscaloosa. There used to be the Tour de Tuscaloosa stage race, and I'd ridden it in 2009, and then again in 2012, the latter time with some of the riders from the newly formed Tulane Cycling club. As it turned out, the staging area for the Hot Hundred was in the same area as the criterium had been.

Although making the 4.5 hour drive up to Tuscaloosa the "day of" might be feasible, the century ride was scheduled to begin at 7 am. I met Donata at the Slidell Starbucks around noon on Friday and we headed north with the bikes on the roof, arriving in plenty of time to check in and then go over to The Sanctuary to pick up packets. I didn't know if I'd run into problems with that because the event's BikeReg site still had Ben listed and I hadn't received a request to sign the release. I think I got an email from the promoter some time on Friday acknowledging the transfer, but didn't see it until much later since I was driving. Anyway, since the place where they were doing Friday evening packet pickup was a restaurant with a big bar and outdoor seating, I sat down with a pint of Stout since we were planning on meeting Pirm and Tessa at 6:30 for dinner.  They organizer had just swapped my name for Ben's on their registration list at the last minute. They gave us these kind of stiff plastic numbers that were customized with our names, so of course mine said "Ben" and also at some point during the ride someone called me Ben. Note to event promoters:  I never signed a waiver for this event, electronic or otherwise. Anyway, a bit later as I was sipping my drink, they both showed up to pick up their own packets, so we all headed off to the Nami Supreme Buffet for dinner. I can't believe how much Pirm can eat.

Saturday morning we got to the event around, I guess, 6:15 or so, after a quick breakfast at the hotel (very bad coffee and half a cup of raisin bran for me), Although the parking lot I was aiming for was already full (it was the same one I'd parked in back in 2012) we found a nice spot about a block away. After the usual sponsor acknowledgements and national anthem, we rolled out pretty much on time behind a police escort. I'd lined up around the middle of the 150 or so riders, and soon found myself navigating through a sea of rear view mirrors and multi-colored club cut Primal jerseys in order to get up closer to the front where it seemed safer. Pirm was already on the front, and I never saw him or the small front group again. In fact, I never saw when the escort ended or when the group split at all, not that I had any intention of riding the 102 miles like it was a race anyway. Pretty soon a fairly big second group formed and I got into the rotation. The first 15 miles out of town were pretty much dead flat, so we were rolling along a steady 23-24 mph, which was nice, with maybe seven or eight of us taking pulls and some unknown number sitting in behind. Evan from New Orleans was also in our group sharing pulls. 

A little bit after crossing the Black Warrior River we turned right and soon hit a short but significant climb of around 7% I guess. I didn't have my heart rate to guide me since I had apparently not pushed the button long enough and it didn't start up and pair with the computer. No worries, though. I probably didn't want to see my heart rate anyway. Much of the rest of the course was a series of short but sometimes steep little uphills, many of with touched 7-9%. I had the course loaded onto the Garmin, so I just left it in Map mode where it shows the climbs and grades. If I'd been in race mode and race fit, I think they would mostly been manageable in the big ring since they were all pretty short, but as it was I found myself making ample use of the 36 ring now and then. I never had to resort to the lowest gears on the bike, though, and was generally feeling OK with the pace and effort.

I'd started with a big Tulane water bottle with Skratch, plus a regular bottle with plain water, and was carrying a flask of Hammergel plus a couple of Gu packets for emergencies, but I was pretty sure that I wouldn't need them, considering how many well-stocked rest stops they had set up along the route. The temperature never got really extreme or anything, so I probably could have gotten by with just that if necessary, which it wasn't. The group I was in was slowly shedding riders out the back, sometimes at the earlier rest stops at which the rest of us didn't stop, so when we all finally pulled into a Fire Station rest stop at around 60 miles our number was down to maybe ten or so, I guess. I took the opportunity to top off my bottles, but looking at what they had on offer I probably could have stopped for a full lunch. We later came to another rest stop where everyone except me stopped. I still had lots of water and gel left, so I decided to just soft-pedal for a few miles until the group caught me. It was a nice little break, actually, and I really hate stopping mid-ride on a hot day anyway. When the group caught me a few miles down the road, I was surprised how big it was. I think that a part of our original group that had stopped at an early rest stop had caught back up because I recognized most of them. Unfortunately, Evan hadn't seen everybody leaving until it was too late and was never able to get back in the group. Anyway, by the time we were 75 or 80 miles in, it was getting hot and our number was dwindling rapidly. The effort was starting to get to me around that time so I pulled out my Age Card and started hanging out more at the back. By then we were down to maybe five or six riders. Shortly after we turned onto the last 15 mile flat section it was just me and one other rider who was obviously in better shape than I, and in retrospect may have been intent on finishing in under five hours. I traded pulls with him most of the way until we made a left turn at an intersection and he accelerated. I glanced down at the computer, which was showing something like 97 miles and thought to myself "close enough" and eased up. A couple of other riders came up from behind and I tagged along with them for a bit, but I guess they were also determined to hit a specific goal that I wasn't interested in, so I just cruised in the last few miles. Just after dropping back, I took a wrong turn in the city and had to take a few minutes to turn around and navigate back to the course, but by then I was right at 100 miles, so practically finished anyway.

The ride seemed a bit harder than I'd expected, probably due to a combination of all of the little climbs and the increasing temperature. I'd consumed the equivalent of only about four gel packets, so I guess I was running a little low on calories and probably should have been more attentive to that. At the finish they had lots of ice cold drinks and a lot of food like hamburgers (I had no desire to eat a hot hamburger at that point). We hung around for a while under a tent eating and drinking and such. Pirm had actually been the first rider to finish with a 4:24 riding time, far ahead of my own 5:03. As I was loading up the bikes and stuff, Tessa gave me an iced latte that really hit the spot. I normally avoid coffee with milk in it, but fortunately my gut bacteria didn't really seem to notice very much. The drive back was going along nicely until I saw a police car go flying past us at a high rate of speed. Up ahead there had been some kind of serious accident and they had just closed the interstate, forcing us off at an exit. Luckily it was pretty easy to navigate around to the next exit, so we were back on the Interstate within half an hour or so. If we'd been ten minutes earlier we would have been past the exit and trapped between it and the crash, so luck was on our side. I got home around 5 or 6, I think, so that was nice.

Sunday morning I went ahead and did the Giro, for which we had only a handful of riders. My legs were definitely still feeling the prior day's ride, so I wasn't doing any more work than absolutely necessary, and when we got to the bridges on the way back I eased off with VJ rather than contesting the bridge to bridge drag race. I was still feeling the ride in my legs this morning.

It's Been Rather Warm

I woke up this morning around 5:20 am and glanced at the outdoor thermometer. 83°F.  OK, so situation normal. We've had enough hot days recently that I am seriously dreading the next electric bill. Meanwhile, there's a little tropical depression heading out way that may at least put a few clouds in the currently cloudless summer sky. The forecast still looks pretty imprecise, though, so I guess we'll see. I should probably check out the generator to make sure it's running OK though, just in case.

Last Wednesday's WeMoRi for me was kind of the definition of shoulda, coulda, woulda. Things were going along just fine, and as usual the front of the group sprinted for the Wisner overpass honors as the rest of us followed at a respectful pace, fully expecting to regroup after the downhill. Coming over the top, with the gap growing, I found myself kind of trapped between Mike and the curb when he unexpectedly sat up. By the time I had extricated myself a few people had sprinted past on the left and there was a rapidly widening gap between me and most of the group. After coming down onto level ground there were just three of us trying to bridge back up to the group, and by then it wasn't looking too promising. We kept the pressure on, though, and by the time we were making the turn from City Park Avenue onto Marconi We were Oh So Close. I really thought we'd be back in the draft, but we needed just one more person who wasn't completely gassed to take a pull. Unfortunately that person did not exist. The gap started to grow again and the best I could do was to hope that they got caught at a light long enough to get us back within striking distance. They didn't. We didn't. Back on Lakeshore Drive we turned around early, before the Elysian Fields traffic circle, and eventually slotted back into what was left of the group around the bridge. It was a good workout anyway, and a few of us had a nice stop at French Cup on the way home.

Thursday's ride was the usual, with a short fast stretch on Lakeshore Drive and then a steady pace out to Williams Blvd. and back with just a few riders. 

Friendly Friday had a really big turnout this week, so of course it was a pretty fast one, which is to say it was mostly 25-30 mph. The flooded part of Lakeshore Drive was dried up enough, finally, that we were able to do the full route for the first time in about a week. Anyway, it felt like a pretty good workout.

Saturday's Giro had a small group of nine or ten as lots of riders opted for the earlier SaMoRi that I think is starting around 6:15 now in a largely psychological effort to avoid some of the summer heat. I mean, it's been at least 80° before dawn every single morning lately, and with the usual relative humidity, it probably feels more like 90. Anyway, it was still a pretty fast Giro with few places to hide, so a solid workout, but steady and mostly 25-28 mph. Felt pretty good, actually. My frozen quasi-insulated water bottle was completely unfrozen by the time we got to Hayne on the way back, which was quite a bit earlier than the past couple of weekends.

On Sunday there was an easy 60-miler with a few of the TU riders plus Pirm and his wife and Ben's mother. We rolled out from Abita Springs around 6:00 am, when meant my drive across the lake was basically in the dark. I arrived early enough that I had time to go over and jimmy the lock to the bathroom with my little pocket knife as I've done numerous times in the past. It's nice of them not to use the deadlock on that door.

The pace was generally conversational the whole time except for one little unplanned dog interval.  On the plus side, it was below 80° for probably an hour or so, which by comparison felt practically chilly. I forget where we were at the time, maybe somewhere along Tung road, or was it Lee Road. Whichever it was, I happened to be a few bike lengths ahead of the rest of the group when I was ambushed by a dog that was a stealthy as it was big. He came flying out of the bushes unannounced, and made a beeline for my right calf. Of course I screamed at it and simultaneously swerved left and jumped on the pedals, somehow accidentally shifting to the small ring in the process. I could practically feel his breath on my leg at one point, but fortunately his sprint faded before mine did, and I guess he more or less ignored the riders who were behind me. 

There were three store stops along the way at Isabel, Lee Road, and Enon. I always find it surprising how much stuff these guys consume on these rides. For 60 miles, even considering the summer temperatures, I was fine with one pre-frozen water bottle, one small bottle that I barely touched, and one gel along the way. I had another backup gel that I never used, and I never felt like I was running low on calories, but then again my 72 year old metabolism is remarkably efficient when it comes to energy expenditure. I can probably gain weight by just breathing nowadays. Afterward we sat around at the Abita Springs Farmers' Market for a while. I got an iced latte, and just hoped I'd get home before my gut bacteria noticed all the suddenly available lactose. It did hit the spot at the time, though. On the southshore, I think the "feels like" temperature hit 106 later in the day.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride wasn't quite all mellow. I was feeling a little bit tired, so didn't take any significant pulls. Charles has been on a semi-structured training program for the past couple of weeks and dropped off right after we got onto Lakeshore Drive as planned, meeting back up afterward at City Park. 

Diversions

Summer  Sweat

We enjoyed a perfectly fine Saturday Giro Ride from which rode back home sucking the last bits of semi-frozen Skratch mix from my water bottle, and I was expecting to do the same on Sunday. I'm not exactly sure why, but for some reason there were only a few of us on hand for the Sunday Giro, so the decision was made to just do a lap of Lakeshore Drive and then an out and back to The Wall along the lake to the west, which also happened to be the direction from which a mild wind was blowing. West winds aren't what you'd normally expect in the summer around here, but anyway, there it was. It was enough, I guess, to scrape a couple MPH from the speed on the way out, especially since there were only three or four of us and nobody seemed in the mood to push the pace. So Sunday's mileage was a little bit lower than usual, I guess. At least I got to watch most of the Tour de France's first mass-start stage live on Peacock.

Last week I swapped 160 mm brake rotors on the Cervelo for 140s that I'd gotten on sale. Yes, front and back. I'd been seeing little skid marks on my rear tire for a long time and suspect that I was occasionally locking it up thanks to the combination of the larger rotor, my relatively low weight, and fifty years of muscle memory trained on rim brakes. Regardless, I considered it a fairly trivial change, but one that would give me a little more modulation, especially on wet roads, and of course 160 rotors on both wheels in New Orleans with a bike+rider weight of around150 lbs is definitely overkill anyway. What I did not expect was that people would notice the change and ask me what rotors they were (Galfer). Go figure. Anyway, they work as expected, and feel a bit less grabby, which I like. Other recent changes include replacing the bolts in my stem and headset cap with titanium ones, not for the insignificant weight difference, but because the existing ones were bound to start showing corrosion after a summer of dripping sweat all over them.

Mellow Monday had a good enough group, and was reasonably mellow but otherwise routine. In the wee hours of Tuesday morning some big noisy thunderstorms came through, which meant the dog was nervous and my sleep, such as it is nowadays, was often interrupted. The rain had stopped by about 5 am I guess, but I decided not to venture out on the still damp streets, and instead waited for things to dry out a bit more. I ended up heading out to the levee a little after 8 am with no particular plan in mind. There was just a little bit of wind, and it was around 80°F when I started, but I guess the humidity must have been a little lower than usual because it didn't feel too oppressive.

I ended up riding 30 miles upriver past the Spillway. Along the way I had to make two diversions each way. They recently closed off a short stretch of the bike path just upriver of Ochsner where the asphalt had been crumbling for a while. I ended up riding down and back up the levee on the grass, each time needing to stop once I was back on the asphalt to pull dried grass out of the derailleur pulleys. Farther down near the parish line, just before the spot where it's been closed off for over a year, they had created a little chicane with barricades where they had a temporary (I hope) water pipe running across the levee. And then there was the two mile stretch of River Road to get past the "levee raise" section where, as far as I can tell, absolutely no work has been done is three or four months.

No Progress at all - upriver end

Anyway, despite the diversions it was a very nice steady 60+ mile Zone 2 ride, and I arrived back home with empty water bottles but otherwise none the worse for wear. This morning I met up with the WeMoRi on its alternate route due to the frequently flooded stretch near the Elysian Fields traffic circle being, once again, completely flooded and barricaded off. Are they ever going to fix this? On the plus side, there was a pretty big group and although it was a fairly fast one, staying in the mix wasn't terribly difficult.

Out Havin' Fun in the Warm La Sun

Friendly Friday

We've settled in to the summer pattern now, both meteorologically and otherwise. The pre-dawn temperature is around 80°F, the rides start fast and often ends less fast as riders start to wilt with the rising sun, and the kit needs to hang out to dry afterward so it doesn't develop its own ecosystem before it gets to the wash. On the plus side, there aren't any early tropical storms in the forecast, the a/c in the car continues to limp along, and the government hasn't quite descended into complete anarchy yet.

Wednesday's WeMoRi seemed like a pretty fast one, at least to me. I think it was more due to the steadiness of the speed than its magnitude since the average speed was just about 25 mph but my average heart rate was more like 143. Granted, a HR of 143 is basically the drinking coffee at the cafe rate for the young kids who routinely hit the low 200s in the middle of the group. Anyway, it was a solid, if routine, week for me leading into the weekend.

Friendly Friday had a nice big group, and of course got fast here and there, but was otherwise typical.

Saturday's Giro Ride had a reasonable enough turnout, bolstered after the turnaround by one or to who joined in out of the earlier SaMoRi group. It felt like a good workout for me. The night before I dug out one of my lightly insulated CamelBak water bottles, filled it with water and a little Skratch, and stuck it in the freezer, so it was frozen solid when I headed out for Starbucks around 6:15 am. I didn't reach for it again until we turned onto Chef Highway, and was a little surprised that it was still largely frozen. Nonetheless, the ice cold water was quite a luxury for the rest of the ride. A few of us stopped at the store on Harrison afterward, and I was quite surprised to find there was still some ice in there. So that night I repeated the process in preparation for the 60+ mile ride we had planned out of Bay St. Louis.

The Sunday BSL ride was starting at 6:30 am, which meant I'd have to leave the house by 5:15. Knowing I'd still be half asleep, I got everything ready ahead of time so I'd just need to top up the front tire (latex tube), throw the bag and bike in the car, and hit the road. At the last minute I remembered to grab a cold Coke for the drive, which was mainly just the substitute caffeine delivery system for the coffee I didn't have time for. I was almost to Bay St. Louis when I realized I'd left that water bottle in the freezer. Fortunately I did have one full water bottle already on the bike, and I knew we'd make a store stop along the way, so no worries really, but I knew I'd miss the ice cold water later in the ride. Turnout for the ride was a little lower than I'd expected, but I think we had around eight on hand when we rolled out. I was kind of surprised how cool it felt for the first couple of hours. Evan and Jason were taking longer and slightly faster pulls, while the rest of us were spending a bit less time on the front. We still averaged almost 21 mph for the 66 miles, which was about par for the course and mostly within Zone 2 range. when we stopped at a store about 30 miles into the ride, I hadn't even touched my single water bottle. I bought a bottle of something resembling Gatorade and drank it all before we resumed, more out of precaution than necessity. I wasn't really suffering at all for the temperature, and finished the ride around 10:30 with a bit of water still in my water bottle. However, the minute we stopped at the cars, which were parked in the sun, the heat and sun seemed to hit me like a brick! I probably should have hung around a bit to socialize, but instead jumped in the car pretty quickly and fired up the a/c for the drive home with the water bottle in one cup holder and the leftover Coke in the other. That all put me at 320 miles for the week which is a bit on the high side for me.

So on Monday I figured I should do what I could to make my Mellow Monday ride as mellow as possible to allow for a bit of recovery. Of course things got fast along Lakeshore Drive as usual, so I did my best to stay in the draft with the heart rate down in the 120s except for the occasional effort to close gaps or respond to surges. The weather forecast for the next ten days is basically showing lows of 78, highs of 90, and isolated thunderstorms. Typical summer weather pattern.

Meanwhile, up in Milwaukee, Masters and Juniors Road Championships, somehow part of the Tour of America's Dairyland this year, are going on through Wednesday. In the criteriums on Saturday, Bostick won the 70-74 race with Tom Bain finishing 5th, while Debbie Milne picked up yet another stars and stripes jersey in her 55-59 race. If those age groups seem old, I'll just note that there was one rider in the 95-99 age group, and two in the 90-94s. Fred Schmid had to settle for 2nd this year. I guess he was still tired from his attempt at the Unbound gravel race earlier in the month, also being 93 years old.

Summer Heat and Humidity

Friendly Friday rolling out through the park

The title says it all. After narrowly dodging a little tropical storm that spun up a whole lot of damaging tornados, I ventured out on the cyclocross bike late in the morning on Wednesday when I thought there was a small window between rainstorms. It was fairly windy and plenty humid, with an occasional bit of drizzle, but I remained mostly dry all the way out on the levee to the end of the asphalt that was supposed to be fixed by late last year and still shows absolutely no sign of progress. It was about that time that I stopped to take a phone call from the wife, who wanted to know if I needed a ride home.  Apparently it was storming at the house. I got as far as Ochsner before the sky opened up on top of me, but by then I was only a few miles from home. When you need to ride and the weather is questionable, you just have to roll the dice. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

By Friday things were looking much better and we had a good Friendly Friday ride to which I added a leisurely lap around Audubon Park to ease my mileage anxiety. Thanks to all of the recent rains, the Lakeshore Drive duck pond east of Elysian Fields has been underwater for days, so we've often been doing an extra lap between the two traffic circles to make up the difference. Tomorrow I guess the WeMoRi will loop around the Elysian Fields circle and then add a bit past Marconi and out and back on Canal before returning to the remainder of the route at Marconi. Hopefully everyone will get the message and there won't be any unfortunate incidents. I've arrived back home soaking wet and with empty water bottles every day this week, and not always because of rain. All of which is pretty normal for this time of year.

The Saturday Giro had a good enough turnout of about a dozen, including Norman who is in town again, and Madeline from the westbank. As expected, it got fairly fast on the way out but not quite fast enough to really drop anyone. People were kind of starting to wilt on the way back, and things came apart between the bridges with some continuing straight down Leon C Simon and others turning back to Lakeshore Drive at Franklin - all because of the flooded part of Lakeshore Drive, of course. Fortunately, almost everybody stopped at the store on Harrison afterward, which was nice. It was new chain day for me, not that that's a major event or anything. I've been using the pre-waxed KMC 12 speed chains which are nice because I don't have to strip the factory oil off of them before applying the Silca drip-wax I've been using for the past couple of years. Also, they're relatively inexpensive, which is nice since I routinely replace my chains a little past 3,000 miles. Cleaning the cassette and chainrings takes way more time than installing the new chain. 

Sunday's Giro had a particularly low turnout, probably because the radar was showing a bunch of storms heading in our general direction. As it turned out, most of that went north of us in the morning. Still, we were left with maybe eight when we started, and then Rob flatted on Marconi and VJ stopped with him even though he told us to go ahead and he'd meet up with us at the turnaround (which didn't actually happen). The pace was noticeably slower than Saturday had been, but we still lost a couple more on the way back. Then, as we approached the Hayne Blvd. overpass, Norman turned around to ride another out and back to Venetian Isles, a decision he later regretted after being harassed by speeding cars. I think I went over the Seabrook bridge first, and ended up alone the rest of the way home. He did, however, log over 90 miles.

That afternoon I got delivery of a pair of 140 mm Galfer rotors that I'd bought on impulse. The Cervelo came with 160 mm rotors front and back which worked great, so there was really no rational reason to change them other than cosmetics and entirely insignificant weight savings. I figured that since trying to buy more speed has always been futile for me, perhaps stopping less slowly might help. You never know. Going down to the smaller diameter meant removing the adapter from the rear caliper and flipping the one on the front, and then of course re-aligning them. That went smoothly on rear caliper, but it took numerous tries and some fiddling with the calipers and hydraulic fluid to get the front one lined up so it didn't rub. In fact, it still seems to rub the rotor a tiny bit, so I may be back at it again. I figured I'd give it a couple hundred miles to see if it works itself out first. I really miss rim brakes. Hydraulic disc brakes are really overkill for 99% of the riding I do, but that's where we are now.

So on Tuesday I felt I needed a bit more pressure on the brake levers when stopping, which of course was to be expected, but with the terrain around here and the amount of mass that needs to be stopped, I seriously doubt it will ever be an issue. With the 160 mm rear rotor I kept seeing little skid marks on the tire, so hopefully that will be less common now and I'll be less likely to lock up wheels, especially when it's wet. We had a fairly small group, and with Charles committed to some structured time staring at his power meter, and Maurizio apparently taking an easy day, it was just me and Dave as we hit the lake trail. Dave turned off around Bonnabel, leaving me solo out to Williams into a light headwind and then back to around Causeway where I picked up Charles after his workout, and briefly Russell B. 

One Giro Two Giro

Friendly Friday

The past week was routine, albeit not without its minor annoyances. One example of such is the new roadwork on Norman Francis between Earhart and Washington. There's a bike lane there that I routinely use to get to the overpass on the way out to City Park or the Lakefront. Now that they have torn up the entire northbound roadway, and fenced off the area, I have to make a small diversion to get around it. Bike Easy got involved and there is actually some signage for cyclists, although it's really impossible to figure out exactly what they had in mind. Of course, at 5:30 am it isn't much of a problem one way or the other, but regardless I have shifted to occasionally taking Carrollton, especially now that they finally repaired the big holes just before the underpass. Fortunately, the other side of Norman Francis isn't affected, so it's still the preferred route for riding back home later in the morning when the traffic is heavier and Carrollton is a obstacle course of impatient drivers with cellphones and RTA busses.

One other little annoyance was that someone in a truck or something higher than a car sideswiped the Volvo, and in typical fashion, fled the scene. I ordered a new plastic wheel arch, but the body was dented in such that it would never fit properly. Not wanting to have it fly off on the Interstate somewhere, I texted Woody who sent me to a guy they use for PDR. The dented area had been hit and repaired previously, so I wasn't expecting perfection, and just wanted it to be presentable. I was set to bring the car out to his shop near Veterans and Power Blvd. on Friday morning, but of course first there was the Friendly Friday ride.

This weeks Friendly Friday was well-attended, and I knew from the start it was going to be a fast one, which of course it was. Knowing that I might be riding back from Kenner after dropping off the car, and then riding back out there to pick it up, I tried to just stay in the wheels on that ride, which wasn't too difficult considering how many of them were readily available. After I got back home I had a quick bite to eat and drove out to Kenner with the bike in the back, still wearing my sweaty kit. The PDR guy was there waiting for me, and said it would just take a couple of hours, so I hopped back on the bike and rode out to the lakefront and then to Starbucks on Harrison, then back out to the "western wall." Shortly afterward I got the text that the car was about ready, so it all worked out quite well other than the fact that it was one of the more hot and humid mornings we've had so far this summer. As expected, it wasn't possible to make the bodywork perfect because of the old repair work that involved some Bondo, but it came out looking quite good under the circumstances, and I doubt most people would ever notice it wasn't perfect.

Friday evening Norman Nolan emailed to say he would be in town for the Giro. That meant that either of two scenarios would unfold - (a) people would skip the Giro, thinking it would be too fast, or (b) people would come to the Giro because it would be fast. As it turned out, I think scenario B was more in play than scenario A. As expected, it got really fast once we came down onto Hayne Blvd, and it stayed that way, and as a result of that and one other problem, we lost a few people along the way. Charles had some sort of problem and ended up off the back, riding out Hwy 11 for a change of scenery. Chris had a dead Di2 battery and since he was stuck in the small ring, he turned back early. Somewhere along Chef on the way out a small break went off the front, but the main group still averaged nearly 28 mph out to Venetian Isles anyway. Granted, there was a light tailwind. After the turnaround it took a long time for the pace to ramp up again. It was getting hot and a number of people were feeling the effects of the fast pace, so while the return trip had its fast segments, it wasn't quite a fast as it had been.

That afternoon I drained the old gas out of the Honda generator we bought after the first hurricane but haven't yet had to use. Then I pulled the carburetor and cleaned out the bowl and jets and everything. Somewhere along the way, though, a tiny but critical plastic piece popped off of the float valve, undetected. I reassembled everything, went and got a few gallons of fresh gasoline, replaced the dead starter battery, and fired it up. It ran just fine, but then I noticed the gasoline pouring out of the case. I knew it must be the carb overflow, and figured the float must have gotten stuck or something, so I had to again take it apart. That's when I discovered that the little piece that actually shuts off the gas flow when the bowl is full was missing!  I searched around and found it in the bottom of the case down in a narrow and entirely inaccessible space. After 45 minutes of fishing for it with a piece of bent wire I finally got it to a place where I could grab it with a pair of curved forceps that I've had in my toolbox since I taught frog dissection classes in grad school. What a relief. Then I put it back together, first with the float upside-down, and then with it right side up. Anyway, it's all good now, so that in itself should guarantee we'll have no hurricane induced power outage this year. Meanwhile, I was having a conversation with Danielle who had gotten her scooter out of mothballs to save some gas. She had replaced the battery and it started up OK, so she headed off to the gym only to have the temperature light come on. We never could determine if it was actually overheating or not. It did have coolant (there's a little radiator on that 50 cc thing). She limped back home, stopping occasionally to let it cool down, just to be on the safe side. Could be the temperature sending unit or the thermostat or something.

Sunday morning the forecast was not looking too good and we ended up starting out with only eight, I think. Charles apparently dropped a water bottle and ended up turning back early and I think we lost someone else along the way. It wasn't nearly as fast as Saturday had been, but of course with so few people it's always more work regardless of how much wheel-sucking you do. It was really feeling like summer on the way back.

The forecast for this week is calling for a lot of rain, but the forecasters seem to be pretty uncertain about the details of where, when, and how much. When stepped out the door this morning for the Mellow Monday ride there was a light drizzle falling. I think the temperature was around 80°F, though, so the drizzle didn't feel bad at all. As you'd expect under the circumstances, turnout was severely limited, which is to say there were five of us. Charles, sporting his new power meter crankarm, and intent on following some level of structured training, told us at the outset that he was limited to 120 W this morning, so he dutifully dropped off the back pretty early, not that we ever got going very fast. I didn't make any effort to stay on the front, since I felt like I probably needed a bit of a recovery ride after the weekend. As for what the weather gods have in store for the rest of the week - well, we'll just have to look out the window in each morning and see how it looks. There's a minor disturbance skirting the western edge of the Gulf, so depending on how that plays out we'll either have torrential rain or scattered rain or no rain.