The Saturday Giro

There was a big group on Lakeshore Drive for this morning's Giro Ride, and once we got over the bridge and onto Hayne Boulevard, the pace picked up quickly. Somewhere on the way out I think someone flatted toward the back, but with a group this size and the adrenelin flowing freely the guys at the front, who were motoring along at around 30 mph at the time, didn't even hesitate. In fact, I doubt they even heard about. The Chef Highway stretch was fast and, as usual, turned into a nice paceline for a while until the number of people in the rotation started to dwindle. There was a very long drag race leading up to the turnaround that got us up to around 36 mph. There were a few little attacks leading up to it that I figured wouldn't make it, but eventually I went with one of them, only to hear the sound of fast moving wheels coming up on my right. Yeah, I got streamed. John R. came by and told me to get on his wheel and we made up a little ground, but it was really too late by then.

Although the pace slowed down for a while after the turnaround, it picked up again and stayed pretty fast all the way back. After sprinting up the last bridge, I was pretty wasted, but it was a good training ride for sure. One thing that was kind of surprising was how many people survived in the pack to the end. Often the size of the group drops a lot as the ride goes on, but today it seemed like we ended up with almost as many people as we started with. Probably around 40 riders - maybe a few more than that. So today I brought the little camera along. Not too many pictures came out, but anyway the first one up there is just as the group is rolling out on Lakeshore Drive. The second one is on the way back riding down Hayne Blvd. with the Lake Pontchartrain levee on the right.

In the afternoon today I replaced a few of the plants around the house that died after the hurricane. We had gone to Banting's Nursery yesterday, coming home with over $200 of plants, most of which we planted in front of The Mom's apartment house since we had promised her that we would take care of it. (The flooding was about four feet there and so pretty much all of the decorative plants and all of the magnolia trees were killed.) Today while I was planting Camelias under the Oak tree out front, The Wife and her sister took off for a bike ride. The Sister in Law probably rides 25 miles a year, most of which were today. Naturally, The Wife took her all the way out to City Park where she promptly crashed on a sandy turn. Neither had brought cell phones, so they had to ride back. When they arrived, she said the thought she must have dislocated her elbow. I suspected she had broken the end of it, but I guess she was trying to stay optimistic about it so I didn't push it. Instead, we headed over to the ER at Lakeside Hospital. The ER waiting room was really quite nice and there were only a couple of people there, so she was in and out in maybe an hour and a half. The verdict on the elbow: broken. Needs to find an orthopedist now.