Last Rides

It was a fairly busy weekend. My friend Gina came down from ATL for a couple of days, and in the process I bought her old Al/Carbon Orbea. Since it's got Campi 10, I may finally have to start hunting down some 10 speed parts for the Cervelo so I can avoid complete chaos. The Orbea has kind of a mash-up of parts, so I'm not really sure what I'm going to be doing about all of that, but after riding it seven hours of so I was missing things like my Campi computer but liking things like shifters that actually work. I guess I can detect a slight bit more harshness over the bumps, but that might be more a function of the wheels than the frame. Anyway, it's nice to know somebody who rides the same size frame and always seems to have one or two old team bikes lying around! She's riding for the small JuicePlus team next year and just got a new Van Dessel Rivet that, in the extra-small size and with carbon race wheels, makes a mockery of the increasingly controversial UCI weight limit. So I guess she'll be riding "on the rivet" in more ways than one this year.

So Saturday we went out to the Giro Ride which started out kind of small but ended up with a lot of people. On the way out my rear tire blew rather dramatically. When it went, I felt the shrapnel (or more likely just he air) hit my calf. That boot I'd sewn into it a couple of months ago had started to touch the ground through the hole in the tire and so it had eventually worn through. Luckily I had a piece of Mr. Tuffy in my bag, so I put a boot under the boot and was good to go for the rest of the ride.

Sunday I awoke to the sound of a steady rain. We had planned on doing a long city sightseeing ride, since Gina had not been back to NOLA since the year before Katrina, so we waited until things looked better and set out on the wet streets around 10:30. I was riding the Orbea, so I had a couple of allen wrenches in my pocket and since I was expecting we'd get a little rain, I was rather over-dressed. Luckily, the weather cooperated and we put in 4 or 5 hours riding through the French Quarter, out to Brad Pitt's project in the lower 9th ward, over the Paris Road bridge (aka the "Green Monster"), back to Lakeshore Drive, over to the area where the 17th street canal floodwall had failed, through Metairie cemetery, and finally back to the house.

Even though we were going pretty easy most of the time, by this morning my legs were feeling kind of sore. I probably should have said "no thanks" when someone suggested doing the long ride this morning, but since there was a pretty good-sized group doing it, I figured I'd be OK. It was foggy all the way out and most of the way back up on the levee today, and I would have been fine except for one thing. One of the guys flatted early on the return trip Everybody stopped and waited for him to fix it, but then they kind of took off before he had a chance to get on. John and I saw that he was being left behind, so we eased up to wait, figuring we'd just have to chase for a mile or so to catch up. So we're kind of soft-pedaling along in the fog when John looks back and says "I can't see him." We slow down even more and finally see him emerging from the fog. He'd dropped his chain. By the time the three of us got going again, the group was close to a minute up the road and rolling along at a pretty good clip, apparently unaware that we were missing(??) We ended up doing a 3-man time trial for at least ten miles before finally catching what was left of the group somewhere around the Huey P. Long bridge. My quads were burning every time I'd take a pull, so I wasn't really wasn't helping all that much with the chase. I guess perhaps I can call it a good workout, though.

I guess it's time to dive back into the kitchen project. Only one door frame left to scrape before I can get the sander out.

Scraping through the Holidays

Thursday morning came very early, and although the weather was scheduled to change, it was still rather chilly up on the levee. Between the darkness and the fog and the large group, I wasn't really comfortable with the speed on the way out, so I retreated to the back of the 20-rider string to wait until the testosterone level at the front dropped a bit. I ended up taking the long way home, including a couple of laps around Audubon Park with a rider visiting from D.C. In reality, I was just trying to postpone the inevitable, that being a few hours of scraping generations of paint from one of the kitchen doors. By the time that thing was finally scraped and sanded and primed, I was sore and covered in paint dust (despite having been outside the whole time). Since the kitchen is practically uninhabitable right now, we went out to eat with the neighbors at Maple Street Cafe, which was pretty nice.

Today the weather was anything but wintry. I went out in shorts and two jerseys, one of which was totally unnecessary. We had a nice little group and got in a good Friday ride. I ended up riding all the way down to the park again because there was a long train crossing at Oak Street. The train was going the same direction we were, so we ended up waiting a the Audubon Park crossing for it to pass anyway. Shortly after I got home there was a little rain shower, but basically the rest of the day has been pretty nice. The rest of the day was more paint scraping, along with cleaning up the door hardware that had also been painted over five or six times over the years. Right now pretty much everything is sore from using all those neglected above- the- waist muscles, and that Rogue Mocha Porter I just finished didn't even make a dent. Tomorrow is looking like it will be a little bit cooler, but the rain will probably hold off until the evening.

Christmas Passed

I'd been planning on a quick Christmas morning ride, but even before the alarm sounded I awakened to the sound of rain. I peered through the slats of the Levelors at the wet streets below and knew I was screwed. By the time the rain stopped and the streets dried all hope was lost. There was a pie in the oven, wrapping paper on the floor, and the annual noon feeding frenzy was fast approaching. The Daughter was now fully equipped for her upcoming snowboarding trip a complete wardrobe of technical cold weather clothing and there were pralines, cookies and pies all over the place. Much wine was consumed, mostly out of sheer boredom, though, and by evening we were all sitting on the floor watching Fiddler on the Roof as an antidote for the last two weeks of Christmas immersion. Joey D stopped by the house late in the evening, more wine was consumed, and I went to bed hoping to get in a few miles the next morning.

Today it was much more windy than I'd expected, and of course the group was a smallish, but we got in a decent enough ride even if it didn't come close to wiping out the calorie surplus of the prior day.

Right now The Daughter should be taking off from Moisant Field (aka MSY - Moisant Stock Yards, aka Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport). Naturally, her flight was delayed, leaving her about 15 minutes to make it to her connecting flight when she reaches Denver. I wonder if she'll make it, especially since she twisted her ankle while running in the park yesterday afternoon.

Winter Morning Train--ing

The cold front that came through Saturday dropped the local temps down into the 40s by Sunday morning. I piled on the clothes, summoned up my lagging enthusiasm, and stepped out the door at 6:30 am to meet the Sunday Giro Ride. I rode straight into the cold 20 mph north wind for four or five blocks before sanity won out over determination and I retreated to the house. A couple of hours later, after the sun was up, I ventured out again, and although it was still nearly as windy and cold as it had been earlier, the sunshine made it a bit more tolerable and I logged thirty miles or so on the levee. I'm still not really in "training" mode; still content to log relatively easy and unstructured miles, even lifting my head once in a while to enjoy the scenery. Sunday, a train climbing the Huey P. Long bridge over the Mississippi caught my eye. One thing I always liked about Christmas was playing with the train on the living room floor. It was always a challenge to get the thing working in the first place, and then the game was to see how fast you could make it go before the whole thing derailed on the curves. It never went fast enough for me, though.

The Daughter finally made it in late Sunday afternoon, and this morning she is sending her car keys and parking ticket to a friend who can drive her car back from Chicago to Iowa City. By the time we're done with the overnight mail and fees and stuff we'll probably save about half of the $200+ that it would have cost to have had her car sitting in the economy parking lot up there for the three weeks she'll be gone.

This morning we had a small group up on the levee, and although the wind was still strong and the temperature still in the lower 40s, the sun was out and we had a pretty good ride. The morning sky was dramatically red. The photo doesn't do it justice, so you'll have to use a little imagination. Certainly enough to justify a pecan praline or two, anyway. On the way home I rode through Audubon Park and when I came out onto St. Charles Avenue I remembered that the streetcars had finally started running all the way down St. Charles again as of Sunday morning. The line still isn't finished along Carrollton, but anyway it's nice to have them back on St. Charles where they belong. As luck would have it, one came lumbering by just as I was crossing, and I was lucky enough to get a nice photo, complete with waving conductor. Welcome back!

Playing It By Ear

When I headed out for Lakeshore Drive this morning to meet the Giro Ride, there was a plan in place: Get in 60 miles or so, shower, drive up to Baton Rouge to visit the Mother in Law, stop by the niece's new place with presents for the kids, and then hustle back to NOLA in time to pick The Daughter up from the airport. It was a good plan.

Today's Giro Ride started out with a little group way off the front while we were still on Lakeshore Drive, but things came back together when everybody stopped to waddle across the wet steel grate on top of the Seabrook bridge. The pace was fairly typical for this time of year, gradually ramping up all the way down Chef Highway with a little sprint just before the turnaround. Then, on the way back a few of us rolled off the front before everyone really got going again, but we knew we'd be caught quickly, thanks to the nice tailwind. After two flats on the service road, the group, at least what was left of it, lost its momentum and we rolled in the rest of the way pretty easy. At least I had a chance to chat with Brad Hecker, who's in town for the holidays, for a few minutes while we waited for Brett to change his flat.

When I arrived home The Wife was ready to roll out for Baton Rouge, so she rushed over to Starbucks to pick up some coffee while I rushed through a quick shower. A few minutes later the phone rang. It was The Wife telling me that The Daughter's flight had been cancelled again (for the third time) and they were going to bus the whole airport to Chicago. So our plans went in the dumpster and we'd be playing it by ear instead. The Daughter won't be in NOLA until tomorrow, which BTW is a full 48 hours later than she was supposed to arrive. Although it was nice not to have to rush, the downside was that we ended up spending a lot more time in BR than I'd been led to expect. Then, on the way home, we stopped at the big outlet mall in Gonzales which, at least for me, is just pure torture. At least we finally got to get something to eat, because that cranberry scone and cup of coffee I'd had at 10 am was pretty much burned up by 4:30. Just for the record, you should know that starving yourself after a training ride is definitely not recommended training protocol.

Foggy Friday

When Mother Nature spun her big roulette wheel this morning, the ball landed solidly in the "Fog" slot. As I walked into the kitchen on my way downstairs I glanced out the window and abruptly hit the brakes. Damn! If the fog was that thick at my house, I knew it would probably be even worse along the river, so I pulled on my knee warmers and headed instead over to Audubon Park for an easy spin. The fog was thick enough to make me nervous as I rode down Broadway, despite the fact that my trusty tail light was flashing away the whole time. After a couple of laps around the park bike path, I decided to venture out onto the levee path to see what it was like. As it turned out, it wasn't really any worse than it had been in the park, and by the time I was a couple of miles down the road it seemed to have lightened up a bit, so I put in a few miles up there before finally turning around. Indeed, soon after arriving home the sun came out brightly and I thought that would be the last of the fog. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I emerged from my morning shower to find that it was dark again and that the fog seemed to be actually getting worse. It's nearly noon right now and all I can see out the window here on the 25th floor is grey. Even the closest buildings are still hidden by this thick fog, although I assume it is much better down at street level. At least I got in a nice little spin this morning to compensate for those red and green M&Ms I had for breakfast!

The Daughter called last night when she got a text message via Orbitz that her flight for this morning had been cancelled. While she was on the phone with The Wife, though, Orbitz called to tell her that they had already booked her on another flight, so that was great except that she won't be arriving until 10:30 pm tonight. She'll be here only a few days, and then leaves the day after Christmas for Idaho, and the a week later she goes to Oregon, and then finally returns to Iowa City on the 14th.

Going Downhill

The forecast for this morning had been pretty pessimistic, so even before I got dressed I checked weather.com to see what the radar was showing. I was both surprised and relieved to find that there wasn't any rain falling within a hundred miles of us, so I hurried out the door to try and get to the levee on time. I didn't quite make it before the group pulled out, but as I rode past the starting point I could see cluster of flashing red lights just a minute or two up the road. I knew they would be going slowly only for another mile or two, so I put my head down, shifted to a higher gear, and took off in pursuit. They were still spinning easy when I caught them a few minutes later, but soon the pace started to pick up. The tailwind we were enjoying was doing nothing to keep the speed under control, and when it started to get up over 26 mph, with thirty miles left to go, I dropped to the back for a while so they could get it out of their systems. Eventually the pace started to stabilize and I got back into the rotation. Looking up at the cloudy sky, I thought we were lucky. I was fully expecting that we'd finish the ride long before the first raindrops appeared. Well, not quite so lucky were we to be. The first hint of drizzle started somewhere around the country club, and although I was surprised I wasn't worried. It was light and sporadic and by then I was only about five miles from home. That turned out to be about two miles too far, because once we got to the playground things started going downhill fast. The raindrops got heavier. I picked up my pace. By the time I started down the levee access road and crossed the tracks onto Oak Street it was a full-out tropical downpour. I pulled over under an awning to put my camera into the ziplock bag with my cellphone and turn on my lights, and for a moment considered trying to wait it out. It was only a mile or so to the house, so I decided to make a run for it, and a few minutes later I sloshed into the basement soaking wet, dripping water all over the floor.

Riding the last mile to the house I had been going though a mental checklist of what I'd need to pack and wear in order to make the commute to work in the rain, but when I rounded the last corner I saw that the car was still there. It turned out that The Wife needed to pick up a bunch of party food at Whole Foods for their office party, so I rushed through my shower, put on my only no-iron shirt, and we headed over there as the rain started to ease off. Naturally, everything wasn't ready, and then it took an act of Congress to get them to not charge tax (Tulane is tax-exempt), so we were probably there for the better part of an hour. Anyway, I get to work and find that there's practically a riot going on down the street at City Hall because they are approving demolition of a bunch of old housing projects and a small but vocal minority seems to want to keep these people living in those run-down conditions rather than allowing HUD to do what it's been working on for the last ten years, which is to tear them down and replace them with new mixed-income housing. Anyway, it was quite a sight. They had to call out the SWAT teams and lock the gates to City Hall because more people wanted to be in the chambers than the Fire Marshall was happy with. Change is hard...

Right now, at 2 pm, it is dark and grey and gloomy outside, and a steady rain has been falling for hours. When I went downstairs to get something to eat I found that the little cafe had decided to close an hour early today, so lunch consisted of a bag of microwave popcorn that I found in the office and a cup of coffee with artificial sweetener because we seem to be suddenly out of sugar. I'll bet somebody's Christmas cookies are being made with Tulane's sugar right now...

Life in the City

The roller-coaster ride that is our weather continues. It's nearly 80F right now, and it looks like we won't even see the 40s until the weekend. The good news is that we should have some nice riding weather over the upcoming holidays. Today's ride was really nice. There was just the slightest bit of wind, and the group was about as smooth and consistent as this sort of group gets. Having gone to bed early, again, last night, my legs were feeling nice and rested and today's pace was just what the doctor ordered. My weekend plans are pretty much up in the air, though. I won't be able to make the Sunday northshore ride, and with the forecast looking pretty unstable I'll probably have to play it by ear that day. We'll see...

Scott and I were the first to arrive at the levee meeting spot this morning, but we were soon joined by most of the usual crew. Rob, Chad and Brooks showed up together, with Chad having already had some significant excitement. It seems that as he was leaving his house to ride (no doubt in the dark) he stepped back inside to get something and when he came back out his bike and the keys to his truck were missing! He rushed back inside and grabbed the keys to another car and took off in search of the culprit, who he miraculously found and from whom he extracted his stuff -- the hard way. The thief was obviously well-schooled in the New Orleans judicial system, immediately claiming that he'd just bought the bike from someone. Anyway, the guy took off on foot and escaped, but Chad was able to deal with the police and still make the morning ride. There's been a lot of opportunistic crime like that around here lately.

Meanwhile, down at City Hall where for the past year the Mayor has been happily playing host to about seventy homeless people living (and pissing) on the front lawn, a private group went out and got a big grant and is finally saying they will have them moved out by Dec. 21. I wish them luck. The place has become a magnet for homeless people since the local folks have been giving out food and tents and bedding for months.

Change of Routine

It was around 5:00 a.m. when the phone rang. I figured it was one of those calls I get now and then in which there's an unintelligible and heavily slurred voice on the other end asking for someone with an unpronounceable name, to which my groggy reply of "you dialed the wrong number, you drunken dumbass" just doesn't seem to register. I picked up the phone anyway, probably just out of morbid curiosity. Surprisingly, on the other end was The Sister In Law who was calling from her neighbor's house after having accidentally locked herself out of her FEMA trailer while putting out the garbage. I'm sure that any inner-city kid old enough to talk could get into a locked FEMA trailer with little more than fingernail file, but then FEMA would probably take three weeks to fill out the forms and reports to get the lock fixed. So I was up a little early today, taking a little tour of the city to retrieve her spare key from a contractor who had it in his truck, and luckily getting back home just in time to suit up for the long Tuesday levee ride.

I could tell that the wind had already started to shift around to the southeast, and along with it had come a low blanket of clouds and slowly increasing temperatures. The group this morning was relatively small, and we were lured out to the turnaround by a nice little tailwind. My legs were feeling a lot better after having taken Monday off, and the group was content with a nice sustainable pace that made the ride enjoyable, if not particularly memorable.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead, The Wife was taking the day off from work and offered to give me a ride to the office. This of course was just a thinly veiled excuse for a stop at Starbucks, but anyway it would have been rude to decline. Things at the office are showing no real signs of slowing down, which is actually a bit of a change of routine, but I think that for the most part what doesn't get done after tomorrow will probably be stalled until January unless it's really urgent. Fortunately, thanks to laptops and cellphones, we can all continue to work unabated all the way through the holidays unless we are bold enough to actually contemplate use of the "off" buttons. It's looking like we'll have mild weather all the way through the holidays this year, which means the riding routine won't suffer too much. The Daughter should finish up her undergraduate career in the next day or so, which doesn't seem nearly as exciting to me as I thought it would. That's probably because I don't really know what she's going to do next, which reminds me more than I'd like of myself.

36, 994, and Seventy-two Thousand

Having been an official "always be prepared" Boy Scout of Troop 55, I pulled on the arm-warmers Saturday morning despite the forecast high of 80F. Like the weekend before, the combination of warm still air and the relatively cool waters of the lake meant fog would be a possibility. Just in case, I left the lights on the bike as well. Arriving at the lake half an hour later, I was glad to see only a hint of fog, and as the Giro Ride rolled out for the umpteenth time everyone was enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. The ride was fairly civilized, no doubt due to the fact that a number of riders were planning on doing the "long" route. That was fine with me, as my legs had been a little sore for the previous few days, no thanks to Friday's "recovery ride" that turned into something of a non-recovery ride. By the time we got back the sky was blue, the temperature was warm, and the wind was picking up. The forecast called for a drop of forty degrees Saturday night with winds of around 20 mph. I was hoping I'd have company for the Sunday morning northshore training ride, but I wasn't taking any bets.

This morning I threw the bike into the car and headed over to Starbucks, hoping there might be one or two brave southshore souls, but as I drove across the causeway it was just me, my coffee, and a breakfast of Powerbar. The car computer told me that the headwind was costing me upwards of 5 miles per gallon until I found a nice draft for the last few miles. As it turned out, though, we had ten riders today, including two from the city, as we plowed straight into the 39 degree north wind for the first 25 miles. As I often do, I'd intentionally overdressed a bit. I'd much rather be a little warm toward the end of the ride than cold for the start. My legs were still sore and so I was glad that the group kept a nice double paceline going most of the way out. It was one of those days when my head wanted to ride hard but my legs just wouldn't cooperate. As the ride turned southeast and we picked up a nice tailwind, Big Jay went to the front and started ramping up the speed past the comfort level. A gap opened; a couple of riders sat up, and next thing I know Keith and I are on the wrong end of a growing 20-second gap. Jay S. soon joined us, but our efforts didn't stop the gap from growing up to a good minute or so by the time we hit the next intersection where we eased up to wait for the rest of the group. Later, when we got to Enon, Big Jay and Jack continued on while the rest of us stopped to regroup. We rode in the rest of the way at a fairly easy pace, thanks to a nice tailwind. Somewhere along the way, my computer turned over 72,000 miles.

Speaking of numbers, I renewed my USAC racing and official's licenses last week, which is always a little disconcerting because it shows my "racing age" on it. Since my birthday is in November, it's always depressing to see that extra year tacked onto my age. I think 2008 will mark 36 years of bike racing since I got that blue Atala 10-speed my senior year in high school. The cracked frame still hangs on the wall of the basement, having finally succumbed to the stress of a long daily commute during grad school. On a slightly more contemporary note, this blog entry is number 994. That's an awful lot of thoughtless words floating around in cyberspace.

Grey Skies and Holidays

This morning's ride was not what I'd expected. I had awakened a bit early and was taking my time about getting ready to ride. The outside thermometer revealed a cooler morning than yesterday's, and having left a few windows open overnight I was feeling the chill. The entire sky was overcast and uniformly grey, and I figured it wouldn't be warming up very much. I dressed out in the old "green" NOBC kit -- actually bits of two different generations of it -- since that's what was clean, and fumbled around in the dark for my knee-warmers. Since my arm-warmers were missing from their usual spot on the back of a chair, I figured they must be down in the basement with the bike, but a long search failed to turn them up. So I clomped my way up the wooden stairs in my riding shoes and started rummaging around in the darkened bedroom looking for them. It's hard to find black arm-warmers in the dark. Finally The Wife said, "What are you looking for? Turn on the light!" *Click* There they were, sitting on my dresser, partially hidden underneath a magazine. I glanced at my watch. Damn.

Now I was running seriously late and had less than ten minutes to get to the levee if I wasn't going to miss the group. I'd been hoping for a nice relaxing warmup, but instead it would have to be a good deal faster. Somehow I made it before they left and started to settle in for what I expected would be the usual easy Friday recovery ride. Soon, though, the pace started to ramp up as each rider coming to the front would nudge the speed up another notch. Scott looked over and said something about how this wasn't looking like it would be a typical Friday ride. The pace continued and soon Joe sat up and dropped off the back. Eventually things stabilized, albeit at a faster than usual pace -- for a Friday.

At work, with a week to go before a long holiday begins, there is the typical holiday combination of urgency and procrastination. Things that "must be done before the holidays" are on the front burner, pushing everything else aside into the "maybe over the holidays" bin where they will almost surely remain until after the holidays. More and more the threat of Christmas intrudes. There are decorations to put out, gifts to buy, and parties to attend. The Daughter will be gracing us with a visit before heading off for some snowboarding in one of those big states where it snows, and a good friend is hoping to come to town for a few days after Christmas. Meanwhile the kitchen project has not progressed in weeks, The Wife is feverishly working to finish a quilt before Christmas, and the bank account is leaking like a snake-bit innertube after a run-in with the Yule Log. At least there's the promise of a chilly but sunny ride out in the country on Sunday before the final sprint to the holidays begins in earnest.

Thick Air and a Foggy Head

Getting up this morning was hard. As those of us living on Earth's northern hemisphere get closer and closer to the Dec. 21 winter solstice, the lagging sunrise begins to take its toll. On a warm foggy morning like today, it's even worse. So with barely enough time to make the ride, I finallly rolled off down the street with all my blinky lights flashing. My muscles felt stiff and my head was foggier than the air, and I pedaled slowly for a while to get the old meat up to operating temperature. The whole time I was seriously contemplating taking a pass on today's ride and returning to bed. Up ahead on Carrollton Avenue I saw newly installed barricades blocking the whole road. I rode gingerly around them in the dark, hoping I could sneak through, but the road was already littered with nicely camouflaged rocks and I had to bail out onto a bumpy side street. Now I was really going slowly and I wondered if the barricade had been a sign that I should turn back. I didn't, though, and met the group about a minute late.

As we rode up the river the fog became thicker. I thought perhaps it was just the usual fog bank that seems to always hover around the Ochsner bend, but it wasn't. Practically the whole ride today was in the fog with water condensing and dripping off the front of my helmet and my glasses, quickly rendered opaque, in my pocket. My legs never felt very good today, but then the pace was moderate and the group fairly large, so it wasn't too hard of a workout -- just long. It felt long, anyway, as the paceline ground its way steadily through the thick muggy air. Finally, near the end of the ride, the fog lifted. A train at Oak Street persuaded me to stay on the levee all the way down to the Corps of Engineers building, which means a slow and bumpy ride all the way down Pine street. I arrived home with tired legs and a foggy head, one of which I'm still trying to shake. More coffee please...

Midweek in the Paceline

Here's a word you won't find in the dictionary: Paceline. Sometimes it's also something you won't find on the local group ride either. If you're lucky, though, and you do find yourself in a paceline, you can be sure that your definition and that of the guy who just surged off the front of it are not likely to be the same. A case in point: This morning's training ride on the levee.

We started out with most of the usual cast of characters, although Rob and Chad were notably absent but probably already out ahead of us. Our ride out to the turnaround went smoothly enough with riders taking long pulls at the front and a gentle east wind making it seem particularly smooth and easy. At the turnaround we met up with the aforementioned guys along with a few of the more recent additions to the nebulous levee training ride "group." As the group got up to speed, I heard someone say "Let's get a paceline going." I thought to myself "Dude, this is a paceline." You know, a bunch of riders riding one behind the other with the lead rider pulling for a while and then dropping back behind the last rider. You know, a paceline. Of course, I knew what he really meant. He meant "Let's get a circular paceline going." Circular pacelines belong to that flavor of pacelines in which everyone is taking short pulls, just long enough to clear the rider who pulled off earlier, so that there's a double line -- one moving forward; the other moving backward. These are particularly nice when it's windy because nobody is without a wheel for more than fifteen or twenty pedal strokes, and it's really easy to just slide over from one line to the other when you get to the back. The key to making this kind of paceline work is for every rider to be especially smooth and careful not to do anything sudden, like speed up or slow down. Like so many things on the bicycle, that kind of smoothness comes only with practice, although it is sometimes, indeed usually, helped along by harsh words, gentle coaching, or both from the other riders. Today Rob and Chad were both busy offering tips of the "gentle coaching" variety. It was good.

The only problem with circular pacelines is that they require a lot of road, especially if there's a crosswind. On the levee bike path with its 5-foot wide lanes, a circular paceline, even without the crosswind, is going to occupy both lanes for sure. This would be fine were it not for the occasional pedestrians and oncoming cyclists around which the group has to maneuver. With the whole group in a double line, there's not much room available when everyone needs to momentarily squeeze into a single 5-foot lane, and it's made even more difficult by the fact that the riders near the back often can't see much, if anything, of the road ahead. Of course, it does keep everyone on his toes, and this kind of close-quarter group riding makes for a good introduction to faster group rides and races in that it lowers the "panic" factor that sometimes results in an ill-advised grab for the brakes and subsequent pile-up in the local criterium.

Peace, Africa, New Orleans

My short but interesting trip up to DC ended with touchdown at MSY shortly before midnight, and left me feeling pretty tired. Sunday's flight up to "The District" was uneventful and smooth, and left me about an hour for a brisk walk through Georgetown and back to my hotel at Dupont Circle. Dinner was solo at Buca de Beppo, a little place that I always enjoy, probably because the quantity of food they serve is exceeded only by the size of their wine glasses. Monday morning were somewhat informal meetings at the Institute of Peace (which I guess would be the opposite of the Department of War) with representatives of eleven African countries to discuss a proposed African energy-related institute. All went well, and after a long lunch and an hour hanging out at Starbucks I finally descended into the Metro tunnel for the short ride to the airport where I was going to have to do a conference call. Timing was going to be tight until American Airlines started delaying my flight, so by the time the hour-long call ended it was looking doubtful that I'd be able to make my connection in Miami. I walked up to the desk just as they were making the final boarding call for an earlier flight to Miami and was lucky enough to get a seat, which meant a long wait at MIA and a microwave pizza for dinner.

Since I didn't get to bed until around 1 am, it was hard to get my flabby ass onto the bike for the 6:15 levee ride, but somehow I made it out there. Although the weather farther north has been full of ice storms and freezing rain (The Daughter sent the photo this morning of the tree in front of her house), it was in the mid-70s on the New Orleans levee today and the forecast isn't calling for significantly cooler weather until the weekend. I felt like I'd been off the bike for a month, but was glad I'd made the effort. Hopefully I can get back into my routine.

Meanwhile, back in LAMBRA land, the Rouge-Roubaix guys have moved their race to March 9 in order to avoid a conflict with the popular Lago Vista race in TX, which is a good move. Unfortunately, it conflicts with the track championships and the promoter of those has apparently refused to swap dates. A similar thing happened last year, and the result was that all but I think two riders at the track championships were from the same club. Anyway, Rouge-Roubaix had around 160 riders last year while the track events had like 15. I'm still waiting to hear back from the Rocky Mount guys about their date, nor do I have a definite OK on the road championships. Situation normal. Work shows no signs of slowing down yet, at least for our office.

One in Five

Don't you just hate it when work interferes with fun? Things were already going downhill by Wednesday with morning meetings on the calendar for both Thursday and Friday. The meetings were good, and the work was satisfying, it's just that the scheduling was lousy. Friday afternoon preparations for a Monday morning meeting in DC took me up to 5:30 or so, if you don't count the last-minute change I made a few minutes ago, which gave me about an hour to go the seven or eight blocks down Canal Street to the Psychiatry party at the Ritz-Carlton. Unfortunately, traffic was so snarled up with multiple events in town that it was nearly half an hour before I handed the keys to the valet and strolled casually into the old Kress department store, which along with the Maison Blanche building is now part of the impressive Ritz. The party was fun, and I was glad I arrived early because by the time it really got underway, the hotel had a full-scale parking crisis going on. At one point they were handing out $20 bills to people so they could park in a nearby garage. After consuming copious quantities of boiled shrimp and wine, I was back home and ready for bed before midnight, looking forward to the one training ride I'd get in five days. Now that's a winter training program you won't find in the Cyclist's Training Bible.

When I got up this morning the streets were wet and there was a moderate fog. I was afraid some sort of unexpected rain had moved in, and actually checked the radar just to make sure. I probably would have ridden anyway, though. So I headed off into the warm muggy air to meet the Giro ride, catching up with Chad on Carrollton Avenue and arriving promptly at 7 am. Chad spotted Brooks who was already riding way out ahead of the group, which, as it turned out, hadn't even started yet. Someone had flatted right in the parking lot, so the main group was running a good ten minutes late. By then there were at least two small groups that had been expecting to be caught by the main group but were now something like fifteen minutes up the road. Another flat on the service road, along with a pretty tame pace, extended the gap even more, I suppose. Chef highway was really foggy in a dangerous way, and so I had my blinky light going for the whole ride. The pace finally picked up along Chef, and by the time we got back to the service road we were starting to catch some of the other riders. This whole time Jay, whose high-tech monofilament Specialized shoe-lace had broken, was riding with his shoe tied to his foot with a plastic grocery bag, which seemed to be working quite well. Since we rode basically the whole time in the fog with water droplets clouding my clear lens Oakley's, I never did take any pictures. Somehow forcing fog into the front end of my digital camera didn't seem like a good idea.

All-in-all, it was kind of an odd Giro day, but I felt like I got in a decent workout by the time I got home with 65 or 70 miles on the clock. By then the temperature was probably around 75F. The weather around here has been crazy, and I guess I'll find out tomorrow how it's been in D.C. Sadly, I'll be missing either the mountain bike ride up in Clear Springs that Keith set up, or another nice long training ride on the northshore. Oh well, whatcha gonna do?

Doing Stuff, Going Places

Warmer weather and recovered legs added up to a much more enjoyable morning training ride today. That definitely put me in a better mood, despite the juggling act I've been doing the last few days between work and play. Keith is putting together a group to go do some mountain bike riding up at Clear Springs, and I was wishing I could go. I knew it would be a problem, though, and there was a rider who would be in town and needed to borrow a road bike anyway, so the best I could hope for was really the Giro on Saturday and then maybe another great training ride on the northshore on Sunday. We've been working on some hard to assemble state funding numbers for the last couple of days in preparation for a meeting on Friday, however my usual strategy of procrastination is being severely impacted by another meeting I have to make in Baton Rouge Thursday morning. Then an unplanned trip to DC came up for Monday, which will no doubt be interesting, so the bottom line is that I won't be riding tomorrow morning or Sunday morning, or Monday either. Oh well. These things happen.

Up and Down

So Monday morning I wake up and the first thing I notice is that my legs are sore. The second thing I notice is that it's windy as hell outside and it's cold too. I suck it up and get my sorry ass out the door where the wind hits my face and I reach for the big red "abort" button. What I needed was an easy spin, and there was no freaking way that was going to happen up on the unprotected levee bike path, so I changed course and headed over to Audubon Park where I did an easy fifteen miles and called it a day.

This morning it was still pretty cold, but at least the wind had died down a bit, so I was looking forward to the long Tuesday morning ride. Unfortunately, my legs were still feeling the effects of the nice, warm weekend of quality training miles. Between the up-and-down temperatures and my sluggish recovery, my ride this morning was disappointing. Even though we had a rather small group, the pace was fairly slow and so it should have been an easy ride. It didn't feel that way to me, though. Ah well. Maybe tomorrow. I just wish the forecast was for the 80 degrees we had last Sunday, or the 80 degrees we're supposed to have next Sunday, instead of the 42 degrees we're supposed to have tomorrow. Up-and-down indeed!

As usual, things on my desk at work are getting really backed up right now. There's a ton of stuff that I've absolutely, positively got to get done before Friday. The only problem is that Fridays are never more than a week away.

Meanwhile, back in LAMBRA racing calendar land, it's looking like we won't have a date for the Rocky Mount Stage Race until next week, and the LAMBRA Road Championships are still quite a bit up in the air. Of course, any change in those dates is bound to affect other dates and next thing you know we're playing musical race dates. Once thing about bike racing calendars: there are never enough weekends.

So Jairo sent me a copy of his book "No Such Thing as Impossible." The guy's definitely been around the block a few times!

Bonus Miles

I had been looking forward to a nice ride in the country, and this morning I wasn't disappointed. As I drove out to Starbucks, though, I was a little worried about the weather. It was cloudy and the streets were wet, and although the temperature was warm I wondered if there might be some serious rain. I arrived at Starbucks just as Viv did, and as it turned out we were the only ones, so we headed across the lake under somewhat ominous skies.

The northshore ride had a particularly good and very diverse turnout this morning and we rolled out around 8:15 with almost twenty riders for a planned 60 miles. It felt odd to be riding in just shorts and a single short-sleeved jersey in December, but I didn't hear anyone complaining. I think the temperature eventually hit about 80F. The first half of the ride stayed pretty controlled, but as expected the pace started creeping upward once the road got hillier and the loop started to turn back toward home. Although the group split a few times, everybody would wait at the intersections to regroup. Instead of waiting at Plainview, I turned around and rode back to meet the riders who were off the back. Then on the rolling hills heading west the group split again.

When we got to the left-hand turn back toward Enon the front group, perhaps assuming that everyone else was riding safely in a second pack, didn't wait and instead kept going all the way to the sprint for the Enon sign. At Enon we waited for the rest of the group, but there was one rider missing. We waited a little longer, but it soon became obvious we'd need to mount a search and rescue operation because he'd either had a mechanical or had missed the last turn. Two of us headed west down the road he'd end up on if he'd missed the turn, and two backtracked the way we'd come. The rest of the group continued on.

Well, Jorge and I were three or four miles down the road when we found him, so by the time we all met up again at Enon, he and I had accumulated close to fifteen "bonus miles" already. The ride back in from Enon was kind of painful because our prodigal rider was battling cramping legs that kept our speed down to around 15 mph. On the other hand, the weather was just beautiful, so I didn't mind the extra miles at all. Colder weather is supposed to be moving in soon, so I was glad I'd made the trip across the lake today.

Practically Perfect

I stood there at the door, knee- warmers in hand, weighing my options. It was one of those in-between days when you just know that the right thing to wear when you start the ride won't be the right thing by the end. It was a situation that called for compromise. I put the leg-warmers down and headed off for the Saturday Giro Ride. A few blocks later, riding down Carrollton Avenue under cloudy skies, my chilly legs were already regretting my decision. There was a pretty good group for the traditional Giro Ride, but just as we got going Ronnie flatted. Two inner tubes later when we finally got it fixed, I was getting cold again. We wouldn't see the sun until the very end of the ride today.

With a nagging east wind in our faces and a group that was definitely easing toward holiday mode, the pace remained under control most of the time. Then, soon after we turned onto Chef Highway, a very rare thing happened. The group formed up into a long circular double paceline that included every single rider. Now, this sort of thing happens occasionally, but it doesn't usually last very long. This time, though, it held together for a good three or four miles, and for that time it was a thing of beauty -- a practically perfect paceline. I looked over at the guy next to me and said "this is almost too good to be true." Eventually, of course, as we got closer to the turnaround, the pace picked up, riders started to get tired, and the double line started to collapse, but anyway, it was fun while it lasted. We had a bit of a fast stretch after the turnaround with the tailwind aided pace up around 28 mph, but after that it calmed down a lot and most of the group rode in together.

I'm looking forward to a nice long ride in the country tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be warm and the chance of rain is low, so it should be fun!