No Race? No Problem.

The cold front that came through yesterday left us with a chilly and windy morning for the Saturday Giro Ride. I had been up very late last night with some sort of intentinal bug, and finally rolled out of bed rather late. When I stepped out into the 40-something air, the gusty north wind immediately caught my attention. You see, in order to get out to the Giro ride, I have a seven-mile ride that's practically due north, and I was definitely running late. I hate it when I have to time-trial out to the lakefront ten minutes after getting out of bed!

Riding a gear or two lower than usual, I wasn't exactly making great time as I made my way up Carrollton Avenue to City Park, and as I climbed the overpass on Wisner I glanced down to see an uninspiring 10 mph showing on the computer. Somehow, I made it to Lakeshore Drive before the group got there, followed shortly by Brett R., and within a few minutes I was in the surprisingly large pack. We rode alongside a very choppy Lake Pontchartrain with most of the group already hugging the right-hand edge of the road. I looked around and took attendance. Hmmmm. There was a lot of horsepower in the group today. Kenny, Tim, Realdo, Kenny and Frank were there from Herring. I wondered if they were feeling guilty about not being able to go to Sea Otter with Bain and Scott and were planning on taking their frustrations out on the group. Keith, Jay, Jaro, Courtney and a few others were there from the Northshore, and most of the NBO guys were there as well. Sam, who's been looking stronger and stronger lately, was on hand, along with all of the usual Giro Ride suspects. Since there was no race nearby this weekend, it looked a lot like this ride was going to become the substitute. The question wasn't IF things would get fast, it was just WHEN. I was looking forward to a good hard Giro today anyway, so other than the wind, this was not a bad thing.

It didn't take too long for the pace to ramp up once we hit Hayne Blvd. where there was a strong and gusty quartering headwind that had people, including me, hugging the right-hand gutter. As was the case most of the way out, there were twelve or fifteen guys up front rotating in a paceline, with the rest basically hanging on for dear life. I spent some time in the lead group, but would periodically drop back behind the rotation for a little recovery time. The crosswind component was significant, but thanks to the levee it wasn't so bad you couldn't get a draft. Toward the end of Hayne Rob K. came up on the paceline on the left and then cut right across the whole thing to the right side of the road. That elicited a number of angry comments, including one from me, that I'm sure never made it past his earphones.

When we hit the end of Hayne and turned south with the tailwind the pace picked up immediately. Cruising along in the pack at 30 mph wasn't too hard and things stayed together despite the speed. Then, when we hit the last stretch of service road before Chef Highway, somebody up front put the hammer down and the speed just started going up and up and up. I clicked down to the 14, and then to the 13, glancing down down to see 36 mph on the computer. No sprint, no downhill, just a strong tailwind and, probably, Howard on the front. That nice tailwind wasn't so nice when we hit Chef Highway and it turned into a serious head/crosswind. Again, we had twelve of fifteen guys at the front rotating with the rest of the pack strung out in the gutter. The crosswind component here was a lot worse than it had been on Hayne and a couple of guys went off the front. A long chase ensued and they were finally caught, and although the speed didn't drop very much, a lot of riders at the back did. All this time I was working pretty hard - sometimes in the front paceline and other times just trying to hold on in the pack. I remember at one point seeing a gap open up in front of Courtney, probably for the tenth time, and this time she sat up and said something like "this is ridiculous." Coming into the sprint at the turnaround it got even faster and there were a few attacks. At one point VJ took off at some crazy speed and I made the effort to catch his wheel. He finally blew up a long way before the end and when he did I eased up too because it was still way too far for me to go it alone. Well unfortunately a gap had opened behind us, so as I was slowing down, they were still chasing, so next thing I know there are riders blasting past on my right. Oh well. Game over. I just cruised in the rest of the way to the turnaround with the group.

It was a little less intense on the way back, but that headwind still made it hard. Coming down Chef Highway, I think half of the group was probably in the left lane trying to get a little draft. Luckily, traffic was fairly light. Adding to my own personal misery today was a sore back. I still can't figure out what I did, but I must have pulled something in the right side of my back last weekend and it is still causing me a lot of pain when I try to do anything out of the saddle. So needless to say, I was staying in the saddle today. The only problem with that is that all those in-the-saddle accelerations were doing a number on my hamstring, so now one of my hamstrings is sore too. Oh well.

So tomorrow's weather is not looking too good, which I'm sure is one reason why everyone was willing to go so hard this morning. The temps here south of the lake probably won't get below 42F or so, but the chance of rain is high. Normal morning temperatures this time of year are more like 60-65F, so this is definitely wierd. As I was driving to the bookstore this afternoon there was even a little flurry of sleet falling. Don't really know what I'm going to do about tomorrow. I guess I'll just have to play it by ear and check the weather radar first thing in the morning.