Fall!

Well, it looks like it's finally arrived. A cool front came through yesterday and this morning there was a strong and steady wind out of the Northwest (where all cold weather comes from around here) and temperatures in the mid-50s. In other words, the weather is fantastic! So naturally, after I had donned arm-warmers and and two jerseys, I found that I had a flat tire. I should have known. Yesterday I was able to get in only a quick 45-minute ride because of a conference I had to attend in the morning and by the time I got back my rear tire was already a bit soft. Turned out I had missed a small secondary puncture when I patched it previously.

So I took my remaining spare tube (I usually try to carry two) out of my seat bag and it went into the rear tire. I patched the leaky tube, and then had to time-trial out to meet the group. Luckily, they were still hanging around on the levee hoping for a couple more riders to share the work, since the wind definitely going to be an issue.

Although most of the Mississippi River goes North to South, the section from New Orleans up toward Baton Rouge is more East-West, which means that we had more crosswind today than anything else. Nobody was pushing very hard, but on the return trip there was one section where we were we had a pretty strong headwind and although we were only going 20-21 mph, our little 8 or 9-person group split. The four of us in the front group didn't even know it until the gap was a good 30 seconds or so. I think Robin probably dropped back to help pace Joe back and a few of the guys stayed with them. Anyway, it was cool and dry and it actually felt a little bit like Fall this morning. We're promised about a week of similar weather, with tonight's low getting down to the very low 50s, so I think it is now safe to declare that Fall has arrived in New Orleans.

I spent all day yesterday at a "Homeland Security Conference" which was mostly fairly interesting. I have to say that the various Federal, State and Local agencies, from the Department of Homeland Security to the Parish Police departments, have really gotten a lot accomplished over the last few years. I am sure that the public does not even have a clue how much stronger national security and disaster response has become. What impressed me the most, though, was how dedicated these people were to cooperating with each other and making this complex network function so well. We heard from DHS, the Coast Guard, the National Guard, the State Police, etc. Almost every speaker, at some point, said he couldn't tell us the details of one thing or another because of national security (i.e. it was classified information). In a way, it was kind of reassuring, and on the other hand some of it, particularly the monitoring aspect, was a little bit reminiscent of George Orwell's "1984." I mean they are already using cameras and facial recognition software in a number of airports.

We'll be starting the winter ride series Nov. 14th, so I need to get that information out to the NOBC e-mail list. I'm a bit tempted to try and put together a group to go on a ride in the country this weekend since the weather should be spectacular.