First Ride

New Year's Eve night was a bit different this year. For the first time in a very long time, I heard only fireworks at midnight - no gunfire, none of the characteristic pop-pop-pop-pop-pop sounds of automatic weapons. Earlier in the evening I had checked out the BurboCam to see how things were looking down in the Quarter. They do a live web video show, interviewing people on the street and that sort of thing, whenever there's something big going on down there. Then at midnight I stood briefly on the front porch watching the fireworks coming from someplace about a block away as they exploded into the foggy night air. I worried about the sparks that rained down onto the plastic-covered roofs.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. There were three options this morning. A 6:15 a.m. ride out to the levee for another Giro ride, a drive across the lake in the fog for a noon ride on the Northshore, or a 9:30 ride on the levee. Since I hadn't gone out last night, I could have done any one of those, but riding alone in the dark before dawn on New Year's Day isn't particularly safe, and the Northshore ride would have ended up consuming most of my day.

I opted for the levee. It is still unseasonably warm, and this morning I happily rode off into the thick warm mist wearing shorts and a summer jersey. The fog was still thick enough to make it seem pretty dark. Before I got to the playground, I ran into a couple of the guys who were fixing a flat. As always, the damp roads played havoc with the tires. It was another ten minutes before most of the riders finally showed up and we headed off down the bike path in a double paceline. We started with about eight, but by the time we got to the turnaround at the end of the bike path out past Destrehan there were maybe a dozen. There was a lot of conversation, and so the pace stayed quite steady.

Tim and Kenny were out on their new team bikes that had been picked up yesterday. Rather nice carbon fiber Orbea Opal models decked out with Campi Chorus. For some reason, the whole group stopped for a while at the turnaround - I think a couple of the guys had to answer calls of nature - and we all stood around up there for a few minutes before we finally got moving again. On the way back Tim rolled past me and said "come on, let's make them work a little bit." A little bit. Yeah, right. Reo soon got in on the action, as did Charlie and Howard, and "CLICK" the switch went from "training ride" to "race."

It stayed fast, up around 27-29 mph, all the way back to about Williams Blvd. when Howard flatted and Tim or someone peeled off to head home. So we waited up for the rest of the group that was by now a couple of minutes back. The easy pace didn't last all that long, though, and things picked up pretty good, although they didn't get quite as out of hand as they had earlier.

An article on nola.com that was pretty good: Cry Me a New Year. The Christmas decorations are starting to come down today, and tomorrow we'll be back at work. My office will be moving back into the Tidewater Building some time around mid-week, and I'm planning on going over there tomorrow to check it out and make sure there aren't any big surprises.