On the Rooftop

It was kind of an odd morning today. First, I got up thinking it was Thursday instead of Friday, and by the time my brain got around to updating its calendar I was already dressed. Since we ride 25 minutes earlier on Thursdays, I had some time to kill and so the trash got put out early and the dog got fed early. When I first opened the door I was surprised to find that it was really quite foggy. Wasn't expecting that. If it's foggy at my house, you can bet it'll be twice as thick at the river, and it was, but at least the wind was negligible (which explains the fog, BTW). There were seven or eight of us this morning and we did a real easy ride, stopping once to fix a flat (mine) and another time to fix a sticky derailleur. Naturally I had to listen to people make fun of all the patches in my inner tube, but seriously, it is just plain wasteful not to patch and reuse those things as long as you can. I mean, I wouldn't generally use an old patched tube for racing (although I have been known to do so), but for training wheels used on the levee, why not?

I'm starting to think about Rouge-Roubaix and wondering what surprises it will hold for me this year. It looks like we will have a few riders racing it this year, but not as many as I'd like to see. For most riders like me, the first goal for this race is not to crash. The second goal is not to flat (very sketchy wheel support and only for the main group). The third goal is not to get dropped before the last dirt section. The Fourth goal is not to get lost, which can easily happen on this course if you get dropped, and the final, often unattainable goal, it to finish with one of the first two or three groups. Goal 1 is largely in the hands of fate, and Goal 2 is too, for that matter. Goal 3 will require an adequate stash of HammerGels and Powerbars to avoid bonking and the common sense to use them wisely. Goal 4 requires having a map in your pocket just in case and not being too bonked to read it, and Goal 5 requires, well, an Act of God and perhaps the lighting of a more than a few candles!

So after a morning training ride during which the fog hardly ever lifted, leaving me with wet shoes, useless glasses and water dripping from my helmet, it's now a rather nice day down here at the curious bend in the river that I call home. The photo above is the view from my rooftop office on Canal Street, looking down toward the French Quarter, which is why you don't see any of the big buildings of the business district (they're all well out of the photo to the right.). The whole French Quarter has very strong restrictions on building heights and such since it's an historic district. In the very lower right corner you can see the traffic on Canal Street, where luckily they never quite got around to digging the canal that was originally planned. If you look closely at the larger version of the image, you can just make out the steeple of St. Louis Cathedral to the left near the river. Some years ago we had a criterium through the French Quarter and raced straight across the front of the cathedral on the flagstone. It was a blast! Maybe some day somebody will manage to put together another crit there. This particular bend in the river is called Algiers Point and we're looking kind of downriver, which in this case happens to be more or less to the East. Indeed, people often joke about being able to sit on the levee at the French Quarter and watch the sun rise over the West bank!