Last Ride

The last ride of 2004 was a very civilized group ride on the levee. Lots of conversation and a double paceline nearly the whole way made it a great way to end the cycling year. After a couple of laps around Audubon Park, Gina and Kenny did some extra miles while I headed home, a little concerned about an increasingly scratchy throat and planning on taking a look at the flame trap in the Volvo's emission control system that I suspected was clogged up and causing oil to blow out through the filler cap and dipstick fitting.

After I got home I started in on exploratory surgery on the car, but had to close up without fixing anything when I discovered the rubber hoses leading to the flame trap had basically disintegrated. This one will have to be referred to the specialists at the dealer, since removal of the intake manifold will probably be required, and I'm just not up to that sort of thing any more. With my sore throat showing no sign of improvement, I needed something to distract myself and ended up trimming hedges and sweeping up leaves for a few hours, after which I decided to investigate why my rear wheel bearings were loose just one day after I had adjusted them. I quickly discovered that, as Kenny had suggested earlier in the day, that the plastic retainer was cracked. I think I can replace it with the aluminum one from a Campi Chorus or Record hub for about $30, but it looks like I'll be riding on my racing wheel for a week or two.

Kenny called around 4 and invited me over to meet Gina's sister Amy and boyfriend (for some reason I only remember the girls' names - go figure) before they headed out to dinner in the Quarter. After a couple glasses of wine and an equal number of zinc lozenges (thanks to Gina), they were ready to head out, so I took a group photo after loading three bottles of champagne into their trunk. I have a feeling they won't make the 9 a.m. ride tomorrow! I guarantee that if they end up in the New Year's Eve crowd in the French Quarter, where they were going to dinner, and one of the camera crews spots them, they will make it onto TV for sure.

I've now had about enough wine to forget, for the moment, about my sore throat, and I guess I'll probably watch the New Year come in, once again, on T.V. Rather sad, really, but I don't guess I'd be much fun tonight anyway, and I'm just hoping I'm not running a fever by morning.

"After all, tomorrow is another day . . ."

Warmup

The weather has certainly warmed up around here, and this morning I headed out in shorts, arm-warmers and a couple of summer jerseys. There was a big group for the long training ride on the levee and I ended up in a little group of six or so off the front a little bit. We had a slight tailwind most of the way out and for the last mile we were up around 30 mph. Yeah, I broke down and used the big ring today. The return trip was a little slower, but the group split again, with a handful of us pushing a bit harder off the front. When we got to the playground, I turned around and rode back for the longest time, finally meeting up with the rest of the group that had stopped when Gina flatted.

As we were riding back, I was talking with Gina and she suggested we do a few more miles. Since I'm still off work until Monday, I agreed and we took a nice little tour, riding downtown through the crazy Sugar Bowl and New Year's Eve traffic. The big tents were all set up already in the French Quarter in preparation for the big New Year's Eve party and we spotted the 2005 New Year's baby up on the roof of the old Jax Brewery. After weaving in and out of the old Faubourg Marigny neighborhood, we headed back, stopping at one point to fix another flat, and ended up at Kenny's house for a look at GiVo's new Fuji team frame and fork. It's really amazing how light bike frames are nowadays.

By the time I got home, the computer was reading 68 miles and I was planning on enjoying a left-over soft-shell crab that was in the 'fridge. First, I discovered that the soft-shell crab apparently never made it into the refrigerator - probably left it at my mom's house after dinner. The next thing I know, I hear the alarm going off on my Palm Pilot, and I'm wondering, what hell is that about? What it was about was a dentist appointment I had, once again, conveniently forgotten about. I have a particular knack for forgetting about dentist appointments (especially when I know they're going to cost me around $600). So then I had to really hustle in order to shower, eat and get out to the dentist's office, where I arrived with not a second to spare. At least the visit was painless - the one good thing about putting a cap on a tooth that's had a root canal already.

Tomorrow should be an easy day, and we're planning a group ride for New Year's day morning and then the first real Winter Training Ride across the lake on Sunday. After that, it will be back to reality on Monday.

I'm trying not to think about that.

Good Ridin' - New Threads

Yesterday's long ride started out pretty cold, but there was a big group of around 20 and everyone was pretty much on the same page. Although the general level of aggressiveness won't reach its peak for another couple of months, you can already sense some of the guys wanting to push just a little bit harder now and then. We were about half-way back, maybe more, when the long paceline blew through a little patch of mud and gravel that one of the grass-cutting tractors had kicked up onto the asphalt. Ronnie said he felt his rim bottom out on a rock, and shortly thereafter he pulled out of the line with a flat. We were toward then end of the paceline at the time, so the front part of the group never knew there had been a flat. Six or seven of us stopped to help and save Ronnie from a solo ride home, and half a mile after we started riding again we came across Jay who was just finishing fixing his flat, probably caused by the same bad patch of road. With the nice and rapidly warming weather I took the long way home, riding through Tulane's nearly deserted campus.

So I ended up spending some time driving around running errands - tracking down a couple of picture frames for The Daughter (she had asked for some "New Orleans" sketches for her Iowa walls), and picking up a couple of new light fixtures for the kitchen. By the end of the day I had re-greased the hubs in both of my training wheels, installed a new chandelier light fixture in the kitchen, a pendant light in front of the pantry, and sliced my fingers in two places because I was too lazy to go find the wire-strippers and used my Swiss Army Knife instead. I wonder if the Swiss Army goes through as many band-aids and I do. The light installation was a real pain because this old house had a barely-attached pancake ceiling box screwed into the old plaster lath which was beneath a layer of sheetrock. That meant I had to install a new box with appropriate bracing, re-route the ancient wiring, and re-engineer some of the mounting hardware to accommodate the new but very non-standard dimensions of the sheetrock/ceiling. It all turned out fine and looks nice, although of course the wiring in this house would give an electrical inspector a heart attack. We're talking cloth-covered copper with ceramic post-and-tube insulators. I try to think of it as an interesting construction detail with historic significance.

Wednesday Morning
This morning we had a nice group up on the levee. I had decided to try out my new Christmas present - a Pearlizumi Kodiak jersey. As always, it is a little bit on the roomy side, since here in America guys my size are apparently relegated to something even below "small." Try finding a pair of pants with a 28 or 29 waist in a men's store some time. Been like that all my life and it's a pain in the arse never being able to buy clothes that fit right off the shelf. I guess what bugs me the most about it is that if I was some huge 6'8" guy with a 48 waist, I could take my pick of "big and tall" shops. Ever seen a "small and thin" shop?

Anyway, the jersey is great, and the little extra material around the middle isn't really much of a problem in the winter. This is a kind of heavy long-sleeve jersey with a brushed interior - very cozy. I may finally be able to retire my old Performance winter jacket.

On the ride this morning, Rob was feeling kind of jumpy, wanting to keep the pace at a reasonable level, which was fine, since it never got out of hand or anything. I did a fair amount of work on the way out, although by the time we got to the turnaround I couldn't see a blasted thing through my fogged-up clear glasses. The last 5 miles or so were through a fairly thick fog - thick enough that I flipped on my headlight for a while. The return trip today was a long steady ride with The Donald pulling practically the whole way at 22-23 mph. He does that sometimes, which is OK and has the added benefit of being both safer and cheaper than Prozak! One of The Wife's sisters, who lives near Atlanta, is on her way here right now, having visited various other relatives in Baton Rouge yesterday.

Nearly Normal

The weather this morning was nearly back to normal for this time of year. It was around 37F when I went out, and there was a nice frost covering everything, but by the time I got back a couple of hours later the temperature had risen over 10 degrees and there was a clear blue sky. I could have ridden longer under such nice conditions, but there are still a few Christmas loose ends left to tie up. We had a small group on the levee - only six or seven - and The Howard was out with his PowerCranks, slowly lugging some enormous gear. Anyway, it was a nice maintenance ride at mostly 19-21 mph with nice scenery, no wind, and a bit of conversation. One of the guys was in town from Boulder and kept saying how nice it was that we had that bike path to ride on. Sometimes I forget how lucky we are in that regard. If they could just put in some hills, it would be perfect!

The Daughter called last night around 11:30, having made it back to Iowa City OK, but, once again, without her luggage. I wasn't too surprised. When we checked her in at the airport yesterday afternoon, there was a huge 10-foot high disorganized pile of luggage waiting to be scanned. I'll bet her bags never made it onto the plane out of New Orleans, even though they were there over an hour early. I hope they show up today. She ended up taking two huge bags back with her, each weighing in at just about 50 pounds.

Meanwhile, Joey and Kelly D, who had stopped by the house for a while Saturday evening, ended up spending the night in Charlotte, courtesy of the airline, and didn't get back home until this morning.

The university is officially closed until after New Year's day, although I'm sure I'll stop in a couple of times between now and then. It should give me a chance to get in some nice rides and catch up on a few little things around the house. Next Sunday we'll start the "real" winter training rides, and I'll start pushing a little harder as we generally are in Joe Friel's "Build" period. Joe's book was one of the first I ever read where the author really seemed to have a handle on the kinds of training that U.S. cyclists typically do. I'm sure if I ever had the discipline to actually follow the full training program I'd be a better cyclist, but in reality I compromise quite a bit between a well-structured training program and one that allows for a bit more fun and group rides.

White Christmas in . . . New Orleans???

I could hear the sleet falling late last night, and with the streets wet and temps in the low 30s this morning, any chance of slipping out for a little training ride went out the window real fast. By mid-morning the steady sleet and drizzle was starting to accumulate on the car and the police throughout the area were busy closing down roads. We had expected a little bit of what the weatherman was calling "wintery mix." What I didn’t expect was the snow! Some time around mid-afternoon, as I was recovering from overeating at The Mom’s house, we had a solid half-hour of steady snow. Actual snow! This was the first significant snowfall in the city since 1989, so naturally we had to go out and take a little walk in it. It’s around 11 p.m. now and there is still a thin layer of snow covering the car and visible here and there on the ground. Rather bizarre stuff for New Orleans, to be sure. I guess I’ll play it by ear tomorrow riding-wise, since I really don’t know what to expect. All I know for sure is that the cold won’t last for long and by the middle of next week we’ll have high temps in the 70’s.

I guess I had already written off this week training-wise, so although I'm already feeling kind of fat and sluggish, I'm not all that anxious to be out there riding in the cold slush. It will be better soon enough. If I can, I'll slip out tomorrow at some point for an hour or two, but I think I can wait until Monday to get back into the training groove. The Daughter leaves tomorrow night to head back to school in Iowa where the 36 degrees we have here right now is more like the high temperature on a nice day.

Winter Discipline

It was cold and windy this morning and, predictibly, only five of us were there in the dark at 6:15 a.m. for the morning ride. I knew it would be a pretty miserable ride, but for people like me who despise (and avoid) working out inside, getting out the door on mornings like this is part of an essential winter discipline. There have been years when I have succumed to the warmth of the comforter. It's like falling for that "here, the first one's free" line from the local drug dealer. You get up the next morning and it's even easier to skip that day too, and before you know it you've been sitting on the couch eating bon-bons for two weeks and what shred of fitness you still had is in the waste basket along with the brightly colored chocolate silver bell wrappers. All that does is add another excuse -- the near-certainty of being dropped on the next group ride -- to your already growing list. Then you wake up one morning and it's March and you're still not in shape and the guys who stuck it out all winter are blowing your socks off.

So we rode. It was windy enough that we were all having trouble holding a line in the crosswinds and The Donald eventually resorted to hanging a bit off the back because he was sure someone was going to touch wheels and go down. In fact, at one point I felt Rob brush my calf with his shoe. Ronnie turned back early, while Luke and The Donald discussed shortening the ride a bit and turning back at "The Dip." As we approached it, Rob started trying to convince them to keep going and do the whole long ride. He even resorted to "Come on. Are we men or mice?" The response was a chorus of high-pitched squeaks. I suppose I would have done the whole ride if there had been a few more riders, but if it was to be just Rob and me in that wind I probably would have done more harm than good. Other than seriously cold arms and toes, I was feeling pretty good. At least I have postponed setting up the indoor trainer for another day!

I had dressed for the temperature (upper 30s), but hadn't factored in the wind, and my knit gloves and arm-warmers were not up to the task today. By the time I got home the muscles in my forearms were so cold they were barely functional. I had great difficulty retreiving my keys from my back pocket and even more turning the key in the lock. The forecast for tomorrow is for slightly colder temps, and if this wind keeps up I'm going to go with the old wool riding jacket with the windproof panels and the neoprene booties. Hell, I'll probably wear all that even if the wind doesn't keep up! It's looking like another little cold front will come through around mid-day tomorrow, so we may get an actual freeze the night before Christmas.

The Threat of Christmas . . .

I had hoped to be able to ride this morning before the expected rain, but by 6 a.m. the sound of car tires on wet pavement told me I was out of luck. I got suckered into going shopping with The Wife last night to "pick up a few little gifts for the office." Since I needed a few of those myself, I went along. 10 minutes later I was finished; about $35 the poorer including an ornament I got for our own tree. The next hour was spent loitering around while The Wife inspected each and every gift item, contemplating its worth and appropriateness. My feet hurt. I was hungry. Finally she gave up and another $100 was gone.

The NOBC website has been down since yesterday, and if it still is, that's why you don't see the photos and background on the blog site, since that's where the images come from. Since the webserver and our space on it is donated by one of the local guys, I just sent him an e-mail and am hoping they get it back up soon. This happens every now and then . . .

The office is pretty dead now, with half of the staff already out on vacation. Hopefully I'll be able to ride tomorrow morning, although it will be quite cold the next few days. The club is trying to wrap up its sponsorship package for next year so we can get our jersey order out. The new colors will be blue and red with grey accents - quite a change from the green, yellow and black of the last few years. The Herring Gas team has ordered their new jerseys, and from what I heard, theirs looked so much like the initial version of ours that Amy has gone back to the drawing board for a little re-design.

LAMBRA is also trying to firm up the preliminary Louisiana/Mississippi racing calendar. Leadership on that has been a little sketchy and so there is an air of uncertainty about much of it right now. I went ahead and uploaded an Excel-to-html version to the LAMBRA.org website yesterday so that everyone is at least looking at the same thing. We could sure use a few more road races in there somewhere.

I've already had a couple of cups of coffee, mainly because it's here and I'm a little bored, so now I'll be wired and bored. Just to twist the knife, The Wife wants to take The Daughter out to look at cars. Not that we can afford to be buying any cars, you understand. I'm thinking in terms of a 5 year old Saturn some time during the Summer.

Rollin', Rollin' on the River

Today's brief window of warmer weather brought a lot of riders out of the woodwork for this morning's long levee ride, and a few of them actually wanted to get some exercise. We were less than half-way out before the group split, leaving just a handful of us to deal with The Howard's psycho-masochistic surges up to 29 mph every time he came to the front. The rest of us were pulling at around 24-25 mph. Gina went with the split and stayed in most of the way out. It probably wasn't a coincidence that as soon as she came off the back Howard seemed to ease up for a while and the pace dropped back down to around 23 for a few miles. I was feeling pretty good after my day off yesterday, but still wasn't quite ready to let my ego do the driving, even though I could hear it screaming "counterattack!"

Anyway, the warmer weather was much appreciated, and, for that matter, so was the faster pace. I think everyone was trying to put a little extra training in the bank ahead of the holidays and predicted frigid weather later in the week. The weathermen were talking "snow and sleet" last night, although we all know it's just a tease to keep us watching the news. At any rate, we are pretty sure to get a little dip below freezing on Friday, with a high of only 43 on Christmas. (It's around 70F right now!!) Still, I do remember that year about 15 years ago when, on the last day of work before Christmas break, we were surprised by a rare and extremely heavy snowfall and freezing weather that virtually shut down the city for the better part of a week and left lots of people with frozen and broken water pipes too.

That's about the last time that happened around here, so we're probably about due.

There's a guy up here on the roof (25 floors up) who just climbed over the railing connected to a lot less rope than I'd be comfortable with. Looks like it's window-cleaning time again. I wonder what it feels like to step off the edge of a building like that? I guess you get used to it - sort of like criteriums!

Missed Again!

I stuck my nose out from under the warm blanket just long enough to check the outside temperature. It was only 37F, but at 6 a.m. that, plus the chilly temperature inside the house and my dwindling motivation, provided ample excuse for me to turn off the alarm. After having a good training ride on Sunday, I guess I was feeling like I could afford the luxury of an "off" day. (Deep down, I know that there will probably be a couple more "off" days this week between the weather and Christmas.)

And so it begins. The annual battle against my deep-seated hibernation instinct. I can almost feel the brown fat accumulating around my waist. Tomorrow will be better, though, and I am already looking forward to riding. Hopefully we'll have a good group and can do the "long ride" that nets me something like 44 miles before breakfast.

The Daughter has taken custody of the car for the duration and plans on going across the lake to work out at the Northshore Gymnastics gym some time this evening.

Things are quiet around the office. A couple of our staff are missing and the phone has hardly rung. E-mails are few and far between, and the meeting I had on my calendar for this afternoon has already been cancelled and probably won't be rescheduled until after the holidays. I guess if there's one thing that is nice about working for a university, it's these long holiday vacations that actually start about a week early when classes end and faculty start to take vacations. It usually makes me feel uneasy, though. I am a creature of habit and routine and don't take too well to the holiday aimlessness that disrupts my schedule.

Holiday Mode

Picked The Daughter up from the airport late Saturday night. By some sort of cosmic coincidence, her old teammate Kristi from Slidell, who was returning home from the University of Nebraska, was not only on the same flight from Chicago, but had the seat next to her. We got to the airport early because The Wife was anxious, and there were Kristi's parents. The only problem was that D had needed to run to make it onto the plane in Chicago because her connecting flight from Cedar Rapids had been late. Her luggage, therefore, spent the night in Chicago.

So Saturday morning I woke up pretty sore and stiff from Friday's dance with the asphalt, but I got dressed, pumped up the tires, and headed out anyway for the Giro ride. Well, I went about four blocks and hit the "abort" button. My neck muscles were so sore that they were hurting every time I hit a bump, and the prospect of riding three hours like that was not looking too good. So I made some rather bad coffee and figured I should chill out on the couch for a while and try again on Sunday. Picked up a Barista coffee maker for The Wife (special request) and then hunted around to find a Starbucks that had the metal filter in stock. I was amazed that they would actually sell a coffee maker that used paper filters! Got a great deal, though. The $99 coffee maker was on sale for $79 and they threw in a bag of Christmas blend coffee, so I'll rationalize by saying that I essentially got the metal filter for free!

Saturday night was Robin's Christmas party, and it was nice being able to chat with a bunch of people with whom my usual conversations consist of things like "Hole!" and "Bumb!" Had some nice jambalaya and heard the TurDuckin and gumbo were good too, although personally I was saving room for another glass of Beaujolais Nouveau and some of those little chocolate eclairs.

Sunday was another winter training ride across the lake and I wasn't too surprised when only Con and Rob showed up at the Morning Call to drive over. We ended up with five guys and about that many mechanical problems. First, Rob discovered that he had somehow lost the bolt that holds his front brake on, so we had to improvise, removing his brake shoes and using some packing tape I had in my car to tape the brake caliper to the front fork. Next, Con had to stop because his rear wheel was crooked in the dropout and so the tire had been rubbing the frame for the last few miles. About 30 miles out, as we were riding across a particularly rough stretch, Mark broke a spoke (and the rim cracked too?!) in his rear Ksyrium wheel. We secured the broken spoke so that it wouldn't hit the frame, but the rim was pretty wobbly and the tire was hitting the frame, so he headed back the shortest way while we pressed on to do a little loop North of Enon, which was great. On the way back, Rob's rear wheel was starting to look worse and worse. The last few miles, he was starting to hurt and when we got back to the car we found out why. His wheel was hitting the brake.

Anyway, despite all the mechanicals and the steadily escalating North wind, it was a beautiful 72 miles out in the country today and we had a pretty nice training ride under clear blue skies with temps between 40 and 55. This was the first weekend that it really started to look like Winter, and tonight will probably be the coldest weather we've had yet, which means that it will get down almost to freezing in the city. On the way back home, I stopped for a coke at a gas station and got one of those bottle caps that said I won a free one-liter coke!

WhooHooo, Merry Christmas to me!

Clotheslined (Yeouch!)

OK. So I'm riding out to meet the group this morning, going maybe 10 mph down my tree-shaded street in the semi-darkness. I see this woman walking toward me in the street headed diagionally off to my left. Just another early morning walker. As I get within 20 feet of her, something catches my eye. I see her left arm make a sudden movement.

Then I see it.

The leash! One of those 25-foot black retractable leashes; and it's stretched all the way across the road. I never even saw the dog, which was all the way on the other side of the street behind a car. To make matters worse, the woman lifts the leash up over her head trying to get it over me, but it's way too late. I never even had a chance to hit the brakes. Went down like a sack of cement on my left hip and heard the "whack" as my helmet hit the asphalt. No major damage thanks to the low speed I was going and the extra layer of clothes I had on. I ground a few millimeters off of the back of my cell phone. Coincidentally, the damage was limited to the used battery I got yesterday after I walked down to the Alltel store to get a replacement and was told, not unexpectedly, "oh that model's been discontinued." What a racket. The salesperson went in the back and found an old battery and gave it to me to try. I had a bit of a headache for the next 10 minutes and a bruised hip and scraped up ankle, but at least no raw hamburger road rash. I'm sure my neck will be sore tomorrow - it always is after I whack my head on the pavement, which I seem to do every year or two. I hope the dog has a sore neck too, but if I had a choice about who to have put down, it'd be the woman.

But damn. I hate those stupid 25-foot leashes. The dog may as well be running loose, since the owner has no control whatsoever with a leash that long. I got back up and took off pretty quickly because I knew if I started talking with the dimwit I'd end up giving her a piece of my mind, which would have served only to make me more angry.

'Tis the Season

'Tis the season for shoe-covers. Broke out the old neoprene ones this morning since I knew there would be a small turnout and the pace would be moderate. Likewise, I dusted off the heavy riding jacket. No point being uncomfortable. After all, it's December! The one thing about riding in the Winter is that what you'll remember tomorrow morning isn't how warm you were when you got home, it's how cold you were when you stepped out the door. It's a personal game of psychology. If you freeze your butt off one morning, it makes it really hard to get out of bed the next. For a short ride, it's just better to overdress a bit.

There were four of us on the morning ride today and it was fairly cold by my standards. I guess around 36F and windy. I was toasty warm in my old cold weather stuff, although if the pace had been hard I'm sure I would have been soaked with sweat. Naturally, The Donald showed up in shorts and a long-sleeve jersey, asking the rest of us "Whatcha gonna do when it gets really cold?" Anyway, we just did a routine 27 mi. ride. Toward the end I was thinking that we really should have done a few miles a bit faster to get in a little high heart rate action, but then this cold won't last too much longer and as Miss Scarlet said, ". . . tomorrow is another day."

On the way back I got caught by a train (twice in two days??) and hovered around riding little circles at the crossing gate as a line of cars a mile long waited in escalating frustration while the train, only 10 cars from clearing the crossing, ground to a halt and sat motionless for what seemed like ten minutes. I contemplated doing a little off-road and crossing behind the last car, but it eventually started up again. I sprinted across before the gate lifted to avoid the crush of frustrated drivers and made it all the way to the light at Carrollton without being passed.

The commute in to work seemed colder than the training ride since I was wearing regular clothes and an uninsulated jacket and was sitting up slogging into the wind the whole way. On the cold mornings like this I usually wear a knit cap, my old Ray Ban sunglasses, leather gloves and a long jacket. Since I hate having to haul in another pair of shoes, I just ride in my Bass Loafers with an extra pair of coolmax socks hidden beneath the generic black ones. After I get to work, I can then look like a normal person in a matter of seconds!

Looks can be deceiving, can't they?

A Rather Blustery Day

There was a gusting Northwest wind and the temperature was around 37 F this morning, so like a true Southerner, I bundled up as if I were about to embark on an Arctic expedition. Down here where things like down coats are found only in specialty shops, that means double arm-warmers, the long lycra tights, a couple of jerseys and a vest. And, of course, light shoe covers. The neoprene ones don't come out unless it's around freezing. As I was riding out to the levee I heard the omnious sound of a train horn. Every morning I have to cross the tracks at the parish line in order to get to the levee, and now and then a train blocks my way. I was dreading the prospect of having to stop and freeze to death waiting for this one, but luckily it was very short and by the time I got there it was almost past.

I wasn't expecting much of a crowd for the usually popular Tuesday ride, and in fact there were only four of us who showed up today, and Richard of The Pelican Club turned back early. The wind was so strong that our little eschelon took up the whole path on the crosswind sections. Just as we headed out toward the West, I spotted a meteor streaking across the still-darkened Western sky - no doubt a straggler from the meteor shower that peaked last night. We decided to forgo the long route this morning in consideration of the wind and the fact that at our average speed of, maybe, 19 mph we would have gotten back quite a bit later than usual. Shortly after we turned around, though, Big Richard showed up coming from the other direction. I guess he had been running late, but anyway Rob turned around with him and I guess they did some extra miles.

It'll be a bit colder tomorrow morning, but if it's not as windy it will probably feel better than today.

Change is in the Air

Took a very easy and short spin on the levee this morning. The new Bill Keller Memorial" signs are up, as is the water level in the river. As I rode back, pushed along by an approaching cold front, I spotted what looked to me like a coyote out on the river batture trying to bag one of the herons feeding in the partially flooded areas. Despite the clear blue skies, the temperature stayed about the same all day and is expected to be down into the upper 30s by morning, dropping below freezing tomorrow night. Could be worse. The Daughter, up at U. Iowa, is expecting a low of around 8F tonight.

We had the guy from Data Systems in all day again today working on Irena's computer, which seems to be pretty well messed up. To make matters worse, there were major problems with Tulane's mailserver last night and mail and internet access in general was slugish at best all day today. This make two computers that they want to "restore," which is techspeak for "we don't have a clue what we or you did to screw this computer up so badly and we don't know how to fix it, but we're sure that if we throw everything out, reformat the hard drive, and reinstall everything from scratch it'll probably be better." In the old days, they called this "burning down the barn to kill the rats."

I guess I'll take a shot at riding tomorrow morning, although it'll be pretty cold and windy for sure. My calendar at work is filling up with a lot of things like office parties and actual work is already starting to slack off. The christmas tree is up, but not yet decorated, and the required chrismas gifts have yet to be purchased owing to the usual inadequate resources of time and money.

Situation normal.

Not Too Bad

Despite my own comedy of errors on Saturday morning, this weekend was not too bad at all. We have had marvelous, if not windy, weather all weekend, and so I've gotten in a couple of nice rides. The holiday season looms over the city now, and The Wife has begun the annual torture of non-stop Christmas music. Not that I have anything in particular against Cristmas music, it's just that after the first ten or fifteen CDs, it starts to get a little tiring. After the next 10 or 15 CDs, it starts getting on my nerves, and by Christmas I am anxiously awaiting the shelving of the Christmas music collection for another year.

Friday and Saturday, The Wife was in charge of a Psychiatry meeting downtown at the Intercontinental Hotel - one of the many very nice hotels in the city. Friday night was a party for the meeting participants and faculty/staff of the Psychiatry/Neurology department so I got to attend that. We also had a comp room at the hotel (with a comp bottle of wine waiting for us!). The party was a few hours of boiled shrimp, raw oysters, turkey, beef, Chinese food, and Kendall Jackson merlot (one of my most favorites). For entertainment, we had a local favorite - Charmaine Neville, who was, as usual, wonderful. After she finished her set, she had a bite to eat, chatted with us for a few minutes, and rushed off for one of her regular gigs at someplace like Snug Harbor, one of the well-known jazz spots down on funky Frenchman Street in the Faubourg Marigny.

So after all of the nice music, copious food, and ad-libitum merlot, I naturally screwed up and set left the alarm clock in the hotel room showing the alarm setting rather than the actual time. I had set it for something between 5 and 5:30 a.m. so I could drive home, change and get out to the Lakefront for the Giro Ride. I wake up early and look over at the clock and it's about time for me to head out. I get dressed, retreive the car from the garage (validated parking - whoo hooo!) and head out in the dark for the house. Along the way, I check my watch and discover it is 3:15 a.m. S*@t! Well, too late to go back, so I figure I'll get a couple of hours more sleep at the house. No such luck. First, there's a house alarm down the block that's going off like clockwork every half-hour. Then, around 4 a.m., I'm awakened by the now-familiar sound of someone crashing through one of the concrete lamp posts along S. Claiborne Avenue. They sure seem to have trouble negotiating that curve late at night (when they are drunk). I look out the window and there's a pickup truck that has come to rest across two of the three lanes. The driver tries to drive away, but the collision has broken the propshaft, which I can see hanging on the ground beneath the car, so he's going nowhere. The police arrive, lights are flashing, people are talking, and I get no sleep. The walls and windows of this old house are pretty thin and so you can hear people on the street talking from about a block away. Anyway, I finally make it out to the Giro ride, which was OK except for a few of us getting dropped on the way out as we were trying to help out a new rider who was opening gaps and having trouble hanging on. I end up doing a harder ride than I had planned, and after I get home discover that my rear tire has a slow leak. No wonder my legs were starting to hurt!

Sunday's long ride in the country was great. We had a dozen riders, and the route Bob had mapped out had lots of nice little hills and smooth low-traffic roads. A couple of the guys were pushing the pace early, and I figured they'd eventually have to pay for that. They did. One was among the 6 riders who took a short-cut back at around the 55-mile point, while the rest of us ended up with around 70. The other was really suffering on the climbs over the last 10 miles or so. My legs were a little sore, but I was feeling pretty good. The weather was great and it turned out to be a bit harder than I had planned, but then who can resist hammering up a hill or two on a day like this?

The legs will be sore tomorrow.

Blue Skies

Yesterday morning's rain ushered in a mild cool front and this morning we are treated to clear blue skies and the promise of three days of 0% rain probability. With lows in the 40s and highs in the 50s and 60s, what more could you ask of a December weekend? As I look out from my rooftop office window, there is a huge U.S. flag flying atop the Entergy Tower building, held taught by a brisk North wind.

The Friday morning training ride is usually sparcely attended. There are typically only two or three of us. This morning was a bit different, though, as a number of riders who had been feeling mileage deprived because of the recent rains showed up. Jeff, Rob and Matt headed out a bit faster than normal from the start, and when we met up with a few of the riders who had parked at the Jefferson Playground, they didn't ease up to let them turn around and catch. I backed off with Robin and eventually Jeff backed off as well, but we never saw Rob and Matt again. Got in a nice ride, though, although maybe a little easier than I should have been riding. At least The Tooth seems to be calming down and isn't bothering me much any more.

Tonight is the Christmas party for the Psychiatry department, which is tied in with a meeting they are having all weekend, so I'll hit the party, scarf up some free food and wine, and then get to spend the night at the hotel before heading out before dawn so I can make the Saturday Giro ride, which I predict will be fast. Sunday we have a long slow endurance ride scheduled across the lake. It'll be over an hour's drive to get to the start, so I hope we have a decent turnout. Being one of Bob Hodges' typical circuitous routes, I should probably check my brake pads before the ride because there's a turn about every three miles. He is promising that there are some nice little hills, though, so hopefully it will be worth the drive. The weather should be nothing less than spectacular.

The Daughter starts exams next week, and then heads home on Friday for her first visit back here since early August, but with the gymnastics cometitive season starting the first week of January, she'll be back on the road for Iowa the day after christmas. What's she want for christmas? Heart-rate monitor. (Well, hear-rate monitor and a CAR.) She'll get one of those, although for now christmas shopping is on hold until I get reimbursed for that root-canal!

Missed Again . . .

The thunder and lightning started around 4 a.m., right about the time I was reaching for a Tylenol #2 to quell the throbbing pain in my recently bored-out tooth. It was still raining by 5:30 a.m., so I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep. Between the tooth and the rain, I figured it was a message from the training gods, and such messages are not to be ignored. No riding this morning - again. I'm not quite ready to break out the dreaded evil indoor trainer, but the thought has crossed my mind already. It hasn't been cold at all, so if I get really desperate, I may just jump on the old mountain bike and go out for a sloppy spin in the rain.

Of course, at that point it's not really "training" any more.

It's "therapy."

Some Nerve!

So I just got back from the endodontist. Half of my face is still numb, and of course I'm starving but can't do much about that until the drugs wear off. I'll just say that is was not my favorite way to spend $710, and I hope it doesn't hurt as much as I think it will when the novocaine wears off.

We had a rather big turnout this morning for the levee ride. Rob, Jeff, Robin and I hung about 10 seconds ahead of the group all the way out (they were being passive-aggressive again), and when we turned around Donald blasted through and announced that they had decided to go longer this morning. No doubt they were all feeling mileage-deprived after yesterday's rained-out long ride. Rob, Ronnie and I had to get back sooner, so we did some nice steady paceline all the way back. I ran into Amy toward the end and she said that she had this great picture of Robin that she took after he finished last weekend's very sloppy mountain bike race out at the Spillway. Hopefully, someone will send me a copy, 'cause it sounds like website material.

Well, I Tried.

The forecasters were calling for rain some time in the early morning, but I woke up a little late and rushed to get out the door, so no chance to check the weather channel.

It was dark. A little too dark, in fact, as I rode out to the levee. By 6:15, it was just Richard and me as we headed up the river, trying to get a glimpse of the skies in the early morning darkness. I commented that we must have been the only ones who didn't check the weather radar. We had gone only about a mile before we felt the temperature drop. It must have plummeted 10 degrees in a matter of seconds as the wind shifted. Very impressive.

At first, I thought it was just a cool breeze blowing off the cold river water, but it wasn't. We went another mile before we felt the first little raindrops. We rolled on just a little farther until the little raindrops suddenly turned into bigger ones. We immediately decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat, but it was too late - way too late.

By the time we had made a U-turn on the bike path, we were being pelted with huge, cold, stinging raindrops. The rain soaked through my shoes and socks within seconds. The only bone that the Weather Gods threw us was a nice tailwind. I rode home as fast as I could, knowing that if I slowed down I'd freeze for sure. Half-way home, flying down partially flooded Oak Street in semi-darkness, wondering where the potholes were. I could hear the water rushing into the storm drains as I blew past the movie crew that was cowering under the awnings and balconies along the way. A sympathetic van driver flashed his headlights so I could make the off-camber turn onto Carrollton without stopping and I rocketed over the wet streets and through the rapidly growing puddles.

I have to admit, it was a blast! There is always something really neat about getting caught in one of these sudden downpours, and knowing that I would be home well before I would have a chance to get really chilled made it all the more fun. When it's dark and raining and the road is sketchy and there's water spraying in your face you have one of those rare chances to focus all of your attention on one thing. In the moment, full concentration. You feel like you're going much faster than you are and you get a certain sense of invincibility - taking the turns maybe a little faster than safe, feeling the tires slipping and sliding just a bit, balancing on the edge of control. As Mario once said, "If you feel like everything is under control, you're just not going fast enough!"

The weather is beautiful now. My abbreviated morning ride had been precisely timed to coincide with the movement of a cool front across the city.

Good luck or bad, at least I tried.

Monday Monday

Yesterday it rained - and rained. I made one quick trip on the mountain bike to pick up a newspaper, and although I thought the radar looked like it was clear for a while, I ended up getting rained on anyway. I spent the rest of the day doing exciting stuff like installing a hanging pot rack, cleaning out the pantry and watching TV. I think my wife has some sort of cup fetish. I threw out a whole bunch of those plastic travel mugs you get from the coffee shops, keeping only the nicer dozen or so. I also threw out a bunch of other cups - Mardi Gras style go-cups (must've been a hundred of those) and various childrens' cups. Not that I dared throw then ALL out, you understand - just the old beat-up ones. I ended up with a huge garbage bag full of junk from the pantry, and I didn't even attempt to deal with the top shelves.

So this morning the streets were still wet and it was warm, humid and foggy.

The ride was a little confused. There were just four of us at the start, and as we went past the playground, we spotted Robin unloading his bike, so we eased up for a while, Rob and I soft-pedaling along while the other two riders stopped. After a few minutes, we looked back and only one rider was coming. Jeff said that Joe had a flat, so I turned around and rode back to the playground while Jeff and Rob continued on. On the way back, we caught Margaret just in time for her to have a flat.

Bottom line - it was a short easy ride today. I think perhaps tommorow's ride will be fast, since there is a lot of pent-up speed lurking around. We'll see. The weather forecast calls for warm and humid all week. It's December and yet the lowest temperature we're likely to get this week is 51F, and that's not 'till Friday. It's supposed to get up to 78 today! It's kind of rough on the Christmas spirit when it's hot and muggy like this.

LSD Saturday

It rained all night on Friday, which had definitely NOT been predicted by the local forecasters. Bad sign. We had a 70-mile Long Slow Distance training ride planned across the lake on Saturday morning. Sometimes I think that the real reason I organize these training rides every year is to make it harder for me to blow them off when the weather looks bad.

The Wife took the car up the river to Baton Rouge on family business, so luckily Mark volunteered to give me a ride to the training ride. I got up a little early and checked the radar, which didn't look too bad, but packed riding clothes with the assumption I'd be getting wet. As we headed out for the drive across the causeway, it was cold and damp and the sky was full of low grey clouds, but as we neared the northshore, we could see the northern edge of the clouds and beyond that much friendlier looking skies.

There was hope!

We all started the ride pretty much prepared for a long, cold, sunless ride. I had shoe-covers and long gloves and a vest. I also had six Advil in my pocket in case my tooth went from bad to worse during the ride. As I expected, the result of my late dentist visit yesterday was a prescription for Tylenol #2, Ampicillin and a Root Canal. Oh boy. Next week is going to be so much fun. Anyway, the tooth wasn't bothering me too much today, so whoo hooo!

Anyway, a few miles into the ride, the skies started clearing up and before we knew it, we were riding through the countryside under clear blue skies, punctuated only occasionally by speeding gravel trucks (now I remember why I do most of the training rides on Sundays!). Soon the vest and gloves were in my pocket. Shortly afterward, I had my first flat. Last week my rear tire had blown out just as I was heading out to ride, so I had quickly slapped on an old tire that Robin had given me. As I was changing the flat today, I noticed that this tire was worn down to the casing in a couple of places. Guess I should have taken a better look at it before. I was glad I had brought two spare tubes, because I would probably need them.

Today we had a small group of nine including Bob and Stephanie on the tandem, Ray, Jaro, Mark, Courtney and Heather, along with Keith and John who were planning on turning back early.

Of course, I eventually had a second flat. No surprise there. On the way back from Enon, Jaro and I pushed the pace a little bit over the watchtower hill and kept it going until the next intersection, where I turned around to go back and pick up the riders at the back. As I went past Ray, he said that Heather has stopped about a mile past the top because of a problem with her knee. By the time I got back to her, she was pedalling with one leg. Must have been some tendonitis. She had mentioned that the cleat on that foot was loose, and I guess that and the climb up the hill had done some damage. She had already called for extraction, so I rode with her, pushing a bit to get her up the hills, to the next intersection where her friend eventually showed up. She had been riding pretty well up to that point, which was around 55 miles into the ride.

Toward the end of the ride, Ray came off the back, so I rode back and picked him up to pace him in the remaining four miles or so. All-in-all it was a pleasant LSD type of ride, although we got in about half an hour later than usual because of the flats and high level of "droppage." I was feeling pretty good today, especially considering the drugs I'm on right now. I think the mileage was about 71, although I had more like 76 on my computer because I had backtracked a couple of times. I noticed this morning that my total mileage since last February is just over 10,000 miles, so I guess it will be an 11 - 12k year.

Pain

Being a cyclist, I am accustomed to a certain type of suffering, and can successfully ignore the burning in my quads half-way up a long climb and the ache in my back or neck after a long time in the saddle, but I am apparently terribly unprepared for the pain of a TOOTHACHE. I'm taking Advil like candy and actually looking forward to a visit to the dentist this afternoon. I'm sure this one is going to cost me a root canal and cap, probably in the $1,500 neighborhood, and that's not including the other three or four neglected teeth that have not yet eroded to the point where raw nerves are exposed. Damn, I hate going to the dentist. I've always had lousy teeth, so every visit is pretty much guaranteed to be (a) painful and (b) expensive.

Wish me luck!

Anyway, I did make it out this morning for an easy Friday training ride. Oddly, this tooth doesn't hurt when I'm sleeping and doesn't even hurt much while I'm riding. It didn't start hurting again until I was most of the way back to the house. By the time I was at the office, however, it was screaming. Damned lousy enamel genes!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Didn't ride this morning. Could have, just didn't. Guess it was time for a little break.

You know what this means, of course. It will definitely be raining tomorrow.

180º

Talk about opposites! Yesterday we had a strong Southerly crosswind and the temperature was around 70F. This morning there was an equally strong crosswind out of the North and it was in the 40s. I went out in two jerseys, arm-warmers, light shoe-covers, gloves and vest and was never inclined to unzip anything. Again, I spent much time balancing between a wheel and the edge of the road, which was liberally sprinkled with dead road worms after yesterday's downpour.

On the way back The Donald went zooming past the paceline for some reason and then hovered four or five bike-lengths ahead. Every time we would close the gap, which we did very gradually, he would get out of the saddle again and surge ahead. He repeated this four or five times. This was with a pretty good crosswind that made you want to seek shelter at the back of the pack whenever possible. Maybe he was just tired of trying to salvage whatever bits and pieces of draft were available in the strong crosswind, or maybe he was just being anti-social. I dunno. I've long ago given up hope of figuring out cyclists, including myself. Meahwhile, The Howard, who one might have expected to be pushing the pace, was busy getting used to his Power Cranks. Until your neuromuscular system figures it all out, you're usually riding huge gears with those things in order to keep your cadence down enough to keep your feet in sync. Robin was out this morning. He's got the timing down to the nearest second now, so that as the group comes past the Jefferson Playground where he parks he's just closing the hatch on his car. This morning he was riding his Bianchi track bike and after the turnaround I think he and someone else dropped off the back and came in a bit slower than the rest of the group.

After I come off of the levee, it's a couple of miles through the Carrollton area to my house, and I usually ride down Oak Street. Oak Street was once the business center for the town of Carrollton, prior to its being annexed by the city of New Orleans long ago, so it's an interesting street with various businesses and buildings with awnings overhanging the sidewalk. It's home to the Maple Leaf and the hardware store and a few small restaurants, shoe stores, and a number of antique shops. This morning there was a movie crew that had taken over about two blocks and looked to be filming something at one of the antique stores. As usual (this happens every now and then around here), there were large trucks parked all over the place and their big catering crew was busy setting up food services in a nearby building. I guess it is for the movie that they have been working on for the last few months. They did a bunch of filming on the Tulane campus, some at my old high school's gym, and some at the Maple Leaf itself.