Cleat Surfing

I had just pulled on my shorts when I heard the rain. Outside, illuminated only by the orangish street lights, puddles were already forming in the street as a steady rain poured down. It was still early, around 5:45 am, so there was hope. I stumbled down the hallway and fired up the computer to check the radar. There was an isolated shower passing right over us, but all around it looked clear. Well, except for the huge red and yellow line of thunderstorms over by the Texas line ahead of the next cold front. So I waited it out and the minute the rain stopped I was out the door on the trusty old Pennine, headed for the levee.

"Why the hell won't this cleat engage?" I reached down and fiddled with the shoe cover, thinking perhaps it was in the way. Then I remembered I was wearing the shoes with the Look Keo cleats rather than the ones with the old Look cleats. Damn. The fronts of the cleats were engaged, but being shorter than the old style, the rears were only thinking about being engaged. No worries, I thought. Surely I would be riding by myself at a nice even pace on the wet bike path anyway. So I continued on. The plan was to get in a quick hour and be back in time to hitch a ride to work with The Wife in case more rain was imminent.

A couple of miles down the road I saw three headlights coming my way. I'm not sure exactly where they were coming from, but when we passed Chad and Jeff and Max turned around and so we ended up with a nice little group, picking up David a bit later, just flying up the river with a nice tailwind behind us. Chad and I were planning on turning around at the parish line. The rest were going to continue on to the end of the bike path out at Ormond plantation. The road out in Jefferson was completely dry, and I felt a little cheated by that fact since I was all kitted out for a rain ride. Now, I was just overdressed and riding a bike with suddenly irrevelant fenders. Plans.... Anyway, when we got close to the parish line I saw Chad accelerate past the group to make a final surge and thought it would be fun to see if I could catch him. So I pulled out of the paceline, got out of the saddle and took off in pursuit, completely forgetting about the tenuous pedal engagement issue. Of course, I immediately pulled my left foot right out of the pedal while off the saddle, resulting in some unplanned cleat surfing and leaving a nice little bruise on my shin when my leg came down on the vacant pedal. Although I left a fair bit of grey Look cleat plastic on the asphalt, at least I didn't leave any skin!

The ride back was into an increasingly strong headwind and crosswind, but since it was just Chad and I it was relatively easy for me. For Chad I guess it was a little harder since he probably didn't get any draft above the handlebars. Then again, he should be used to that by now.

It's almost noon now and the really bad weather is still moving extremely slowly in our direction, and it's looking like the timing may be just right to wash out tonight's parades, most of which will then have to take rain-dates by following other scheduled parades over the next day or so.

I got a call from Dan Bennett who will be in town this weekend and is planning on making it out to the Giro Ride.

Oops! I just got an email saying that tonight's Krewe of Muses parade has been postponed until tomorrow after THREE other parades, so no glitter shoes tonight. So that means four parades in a row tomorrow night.

A Day Off??

The day was going to be complicated one way or the other. Knowing that I'd have to be driving up to Baton Rouge with The Wife and her sister from Dallas for some family stuff that had already gone awry, I was determined to get in my morning training ride regardless of the weather. At least I had no trouble waking up in time, thanks to the multitude of garbage trucks that started making the rounds outside around 5 am. I had taken the day off from work in order to accompany The Wife to B.R. for some sort of hearing involving her mother, but something had gone wrong with the plan and the night before we learned it wouldn't happen, so we had to drop back to Plan B that involved mostly taking the sister-in-law around to visit her mother and other relatives. Yeah, I know that sounds like fun, right? So anyway, the temperature had been dropping all night and by morning it was around 40F and the north wind was advertised as 20 mph, gusting to 30. I put the Pearl vest on over the Kodiak jersey with a short sleeve jersey underneath it all. It was a good call.

Apparently a number of the usual krewe decided to take a day off. At the start it was just John, Ronnie, and me. From a distance, Ronnie looked more like a scuba diver in a wet suit than a bike rider! Somewhere around the country club, where we enjoyed the last of the taliwind, we picked up Taylor. Much of the ride today was in a strong crosswind that caused the our four-man eschelon to consume the full width of the bike path. As expected, the trip back was no easier than the trip out, but fortunately we weren't exactly going all-out either. There were a few times when a gust of wind would push me over by a foot or so, but most of the time it felt more like a long steady climb.

A Soft Southerly Breeze

I switched off the alarm and raised my head off the pillow just enough to see the thermometer, then I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and checked it again. It read 60F. I swear, if a person had mood swings like New Orleans has temperature swings, he'd be put on medication for sure. So I was out the door a couple of minutes late wearing arm-warmers and shorts. Shorts!! Outside, there was a steady but soft southerly breeze blowing that warm Gulf of Mexico air across the city. Everything, including the outside walls of the house, was sweating - beads of water condensed on anything that was still cold. The air, though, felt soft and familiar on my face, and the wind didn't seem quite so harsh as it does when it comes from the north. I rode up to the group just as four or five other riders, silhouetted against the predawn sky, converged on it, creating a little light show of blinking red and white lights. We would have a substantial tailwind on the way out today, and I knew that together with the warm air that would make for a fast trip to Ormond.

I was right. Once the group got going the speed began to rise, gradually at first. A long paceline formed with everyone rotating through for a few miles, but still there were a few riders lifting the pace when they'd come to the front. Soon gaps started to develop, and when I'd drop back expecting seven or eight people to be there I'd find only four. The pressure continued and a few times I dropped back after a pull and was surprised how quickly I'd have to get back in. I missed my cue more than once, leaving a gap to be filled by the guy in front of me. Glancing down at the computer I'd usually see numbers like 25, 26, 27. To be honest, it felt pretty good, thanks to the tailwind, but I didn't want to eat all my cookies before the turnaround because I knew the return trip would seem a lot longer.

By the time we started back the group had gotten a bit smaller and between the headwind and the earlier effort there wasn't much pressure to push the pace. We rode much of the way back at a slow enough speed to talk, and then Kenny, who was out "cramming for Belize" flatted (his second for the day). A few miles later Gordo flatted as well. By then it was starting to get rather late and so half the group continued on while Kenny, Chad, Richard and I stayed behind. The rest of the ride back was perhaps a little slower than my head wanted but probably much closer to what my legs did. We never did see much of the sun today, and in fact the sky is still overcast. The next cold front is approaching, though, so the chance of rain will increase all day, and then around midnight the wind will shift back around to the North leaving us with temperatures in the 40s and a cold 20 mph wind by morning.

Last January WTR

It seems like just yesterday that we started up the annual Winter Training Rides, and yet here we are already at the end of January. I was more than ready for a long ride in the country after having missed riding last weekend altogether, and so I was predictably up rather early this morning. We (well, actually "I") moved the southshore meeting place from Starbucks to Morning Call this week because I knew the parking lot at Lakeside Shopping Center would be both packed and inaccessible by the time we returned. Nonetheless, there were a few of us there under the green disk picking up basic sustenance for the trip across the causeway. Although the sky was still overcast and depressing, we had a group of sixteen at the start as we began our long plod into a relentless north wind. I had already made a last-minute saddle height adjustment in the parking lot, but luckily that seemed to do the trick and I was comfortable for the rest of the 70 mile ride.

The pace today started out pretty slow and didn't really get fast until around the halfway point when the group split and the front half started going hard on the way to Sie Jenkins Road near Plainview. Of course we all regrouped at that point, and one small group decided to take a slightly shorter route home. After a seemingly endless headwind, we finally got a little push from behind as we flew back along Lee Road. Things were going nicely until all of a sudden all hell broke loose in front of me. It turned out that one or two of the guys hit some sort of roadkill that consisted mostly of bones, putting a huge gash in one guy's tire while at the same time ejecting Ed's clip-on light. From my vantage point back in the paceline there was just this explosion as the tire blew, riders scattered, and pieces of plastic and bone were flying all over the place. We were lucky to be able to boot the slashed tire well enough to make the remaining 20 miles or so back to the cars.

So the Look Keo pedals felt fine, although my random setting of the release tension proved to be a bit too enthusiastic, which is to say I almost fell over before getting my feet unclipped. All-in-all I thought it was a great training ride, made even nicer when the sun finally came out for the final ten miles. I just can't explain how much more pleasant it is when the sun is out.

Grey Day Replay

Soaking wet streets, a light drizzle and temperatures in the 40s spelled doom for the Giro Ride today and left me under the covers listening to the sounds of car tires on wet roads until the unfamiliar hour of 8:30 am. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer and got up, eventually to wander down to the basement where I installed a pair of Look Keo pedals on the Orbea. That was the easy part, of course, because the real trick is bolting the cleats onto the shoes in the correct positions. Actually, that was the second-hardest trick. The hardest one was getting the old red Look cleats off. I struggled with a big screwdriver and frozen bolts for a good fifteen minutes before the old Nike shoes finally relinquished the past and accepted the future, which in this case was grey. The rain had finally eased up, but the streets were wet and slick and full of puddles, so my entire test ride consisted of a quick ride down to the end of the block and back. Tomorrow I'll be riding with a couple of allen wrenches in my pocket.


So I waited as long as I could, but around 12:30 I pumped up the tires on the trusty full-fendered Pennine and pointed its vintage Cinelli 1A and exposed cable, gum-hooded Campi levers toward the long wet levee bike path. It was another damp, windy grey day up there and I settled in for what I figured would be a long quiet ride. Somewhere out there, though, I heard someone come up from behind. It was Ed N. who was out on his fixed gear Van Dessel experimenting with his aero bars. Another Van Dessel! I don't think I'd ever heard of them until about a year ago, and then Gina V. ends up on a team sponsored by them and then just yesterday I get an email from them about team sponsorships. So anyway (I use that term a lot, don't I?) we ended up riding all the way out to the end of the bike path, and then back into a nice little headwind. We passed Chad, heading the opposite direction, twice. Toward the end I finally started to realize that a cup of coffee is probably not adequately nutritious for a two hour plus ride, so I dropped back and sucked wheel for the last few miles. I'm sure I'll have ample opportunity to exercise my self-destructive tendencies tomorrow. At least the weather should be better!


I have to say, it was really nice to arrive home after a long ride on wet roads with a bike that didn't even need to be wiped down and shorts that didn't have a wet muddy grey stripe up the back. Fenders rule!

Lonely on the Levee

It just started to rain, my feet are cold, and the forecast for the next 24 hours is not looking very encouraging. In light of the weather predictions and my slack mileage numbers this week, I'm glad I made it out for a ride this morning. In fact, I was rather happy to see that the temperature was, however slightly, above the 40 degree mark when I awoke. Granted, the wind was pretty significant, but since it was a Friday and I was expecting to be doing a moderate pace at best, it was safe to wrap myself up in a couple of layers of warm and fuzzy stuff. Heavy sweating was not part of the plan anyway.

It was kind of lonely on the levee today, thanks to the cold wind, but I was happy to be out there anyway. I waited for a few minutes at the pump hump, looking back over my shoulder searching in the dim light for the silhouette of another rider, but the bike path was empty as far as I could see. At least, as I waited, I was treated to a nice fiery sunrise that looked even better a few minutes after I'd put away the camera, as always. I wasn't too far down the road when I came across one of the guys who turned around to ride with me. That was good because it's always nice to have someone with whom to commiserate on these sorts of days. We actually kept up a pretty decent pace throughout, probably because in the backs of our minds was the menacing possibility of a washed-out Saturday. Kenny just posted some video from the Herring Gas winter training camp, complete with snow. And yes, that's Woody in there gearing up to ride with them in Belize.

So there has been some increasing discussion about the upcoming Rouge-Roubaix race with no shortage of advice coming from all quarters. I never really know what to tell people about that. Although everybody likes to focus on the dirt and gravel sections of the race, you always have to keep in mind that most of the race is on asphalt and even without the gravel it would be a pretty long race for most riders. The first order of business is to be able to survive 100 miles of rolling hills in March. The second thing is to try and have something left for the last 25 miles so you can stay with a group -- any group. As for the gravel, well it changes every year, so what worked one year may not work the next. I think perhaps the key skill to have is the ability to apply very smooth, even in-the-saddle power. Well, that and a good helping of dumb luck.

The Rain Reason

It was yet another day without a ride. The reason this time might have been the cold steady rain that started around 5 am, I guess, and continued for most of the morning, or perhaps it was really just the fact that I had to be at the office before 8:00 and the chances of my getting on the bike at 5 am in January are, well, just about zero. So for me the day started not with a 45 mile ride but a cup of coffee and a cheeze danish. I felt guilty about the danish, but it was cold and raining and I needed some comfort food.

At work it was a busy morning. The Wife, still rather sick, came with me to work because she had a meeting, and it was a good thing she did because I ended up needing to borrow about twenty chairs from her department to accommodate an overloaded seminar room. The "granstmanship" seminar itself went quite well and I think the faculty and grad students who attended got a lot out of it. By afternoon, though, I was rushing to put together a complicated ranking table for the university that had come up on short notice, which is to say I was asked to compile it around 2 pm. It was tedious but luckily I already had about half of the data on hand and in the correct format, so it could have been worse. Around 4:20 The Wife called to see if I could leave a little early because she was feeling lousy, so I was back home by about 5 p.m. It's weird to come home when there aren't any cars parked on the street because everyone else is still at work.

I'm hoping the weather is good this weekend so I can get my winter mileage back up to a reasonable level. Keith D has gotten his USAC Level 3 coaching license and is also now a certified "Sports Performance Coach." I'll probably get my USAC coaching license too, and hopefully we can make ourselves useful this year. Looks like it'll be cold and windy tomorrow. Yeah, lookin' forward to it.

Crazy Man Walking

New Orleans was a damp, grey place this morning, and it would have been hard to get out of bed if I'd actually been sleeping. The Wife has been battling a head cold, and losing, for the last couple of days and whenever that happens she makes the most ungodly sounds during the night while trying to breathe. Needless to say, I was up a little early today.

So with the temperature in the 50s I opened the door and felt the chill of a misty, foggy morning envelop my face like a piece of wet Saran Wrap, and turned right around to fetch my vest before venturing out to the levee. The krewe up there was on the small side today, and it was darker than usual as well, but we started out at a nice little clip with a light tailwind and everything seemed good. For some reason, however, today must have been "drive your truck over the levee day." We must have had to actually hit the brakes four or five times, in one case for a caravan of three trucks. Somewhere past Central Avenue we spotted Tim and Charlie down on River Road and couldn't really figure out if they were finishing a ride, starting a ride, or wanted us to wait for them. After a moment of discussion we decided Tim was strong enough to catch us, and besides it would be good practice for the Tour of Belize. Sure enough, he and Charlie closed the gap after a little 28 mph time trial, even though they had to turn back before we'd hit Williams Blvd. A bit farther along we came upon one of the usual Jefferson Parish trucks that picks up trash. It was parked dead-center atop the bike path and its occupants were way down on the batture, so we had to make a little detour onto the grass. Otherwise, it was a pretty typical Wednesday ride, even if the dreary weather did spoil the mood. Typical, in fact, in more ways than one...

You see, there's this one crazy man who walks on the levee every morning who has a death wish. When he sees the group coming he will always move over as close to the center line as he can and dare us to hit him. Apparently the rest of his life lacks excitement. This morning he did it just as we were approaching some other people or cars or something, so the group had spread out a bit as we slowed down. As we went past, Jeff said something like "you can't move over just a little bit?" To which he replied, in the wonderful flowery language common to crazy people and drug dealers, something to the effect of "I'm in my f-ing lane!" Sadly, this is just the type of person who would never respond positively to either threats nor reason, since he clearly wishes to provoke the cyclists. Why? We can only wonder. Perhaps it's just a lack of prescription drug coverage.

As Luck Would Have It

It wasn't exactly the kind of weekend I wanted, but then again, that never really happens, does it? While the Herring boys were cavorting in the Mississippi snow at their annual training camp, which inevitably seems to coincide with the worst weather February has to offer, I was off the bike entirely. That hadn't been the plan. Although I knew in advance that riding on Sunday would be impossible, I was holding out some faint hope that I'd be able to get in some miles on Saturday. Well, as luck would have it, Saturday was a complete wash-out ahead of a solid cold front approaching from the northwest. I sat at home watching it rain for a while and then resorted to doing some more painting on the infinite kitchen project. I have to admit, it was almost a toss-up between painting and riding in the cold rain as far as I was concerned. So by Saturday evening the freeze warnings were out (we have those around here, you know) and by evening I was getting emails asking if the official's clinic was still on for Sunday because they were reporting up to three inches of snow in Mississippi. Three inches. Needless to say, even in Mississippi three inches of snow isn't quite enough to bring things to a standstill. So Sunday morning at 6 am I was on the road to Jackson where morning temperatures were hovering in the mid-20s. By 3 pm we'd made three newly minted USAC officials (at least once their paperwork makes its way up to Colorado Springs). Of course it was dark and getting cold again by the time I got back to NOLA, so I had to chalk the whole weekend up to "doing things other people want" and set my sights on Monday morning.

Since we had the day off from work, thanks to MLK, and the temperature was about 32F when I awoke, I decided to give the sun another hour before heading out for a ride. I figured the turnout at the levee would be slim to none anyway. I put on all my warm stuff and hit the road, eventually finding John, who had been the sole participant in the regular Monday ride, on his way back. I turned around and rode with him for a while, and then headed back up the river, eventually logging a bit over two hours of decent riding during which, for once, I seemed to have gotten the wardrobe right. It was really rather a pleasant day despite the cool temps.

This morning the temperature was about twenty degrees warmer than Monday, and we had the usual cadre of suspects on hand for the Tuesday long ride. I was quite happy to have a working speedometer again, having installed a replacement sensor wire on the Orbea so that I can now swap the computer from bike to bike. That's progress. For some reason I decided this morning to take a few photos of bikes instead of people. The levee group is certainly diverse in the bike department.

I had also shortened the steerer tube a bit the night before and replaced the mismatched aluminum spacers with plastic (aka Carbon) ones. I'm still fiddling with the saddle position a bit, but I'm down to mere millimeters now. It will be interesting to see how the all-steel Cervelo feels (once I get pedals back onto it) after three weeks on the Al/C Orbea.

A Few Millimeters

So I arrived at the levee this morning and was immediately assaulted with accusations of blatant "surging" during yesterday's ride. That was a surprise, because from my perspective I thought I was taking rather short and shoddy pulls into the crosswind. OTOH, you can't surge if you're not on the front, right? Well, anyway, this morning was a nice easy recovery day, and pretty much everybody seemed to be in agreement on that fine point. Rob, who has been AOL for the last week or so due to a little IT Band problem, was there with his Powercranks. He hadn't seen me on the Orbea yet, and once we got started he took one look and said "your saddle's too low." Ordinarily I might not have paid much attention to that, but as it happens I had been fooling with the seatpost clamp late last night, so I put that one on my to-do list. The sky was still grey and depressing today, and the mood kind of spilled over to the ride. We spent a lot of time just riding silently in an easy paceline. Well, except for me, that is. You see, I was behind Rob most of the way back, and if you've ever been behind someone riding PowerCranks, you know what I mean! I still can't get used to it when they put *both* feet straight down to coast. That's just wrong!

Actually I've been developing a long to-do list for this bike, or to be more specific, for the two bikes. Although I'll probably keep the Cervelo as a 9-speed simply for financial reasons, I am planning on switching to the newer Look Keo pedals on both, and I want to make some changes to things like front derailleur, bottle cages, headset spacers, seatpost clamp, chain, brakes, handlebars, etc., etc., because I'd like to be able to switch from one to the other rather seamlessly. Hopefully by the middle of next week I'll be able to move my ErgoBrain computer head back and forth from one bike to the other, which will be good because I've been riding without a functional speedo for the last week or so waiting for a new speed sensor to arrive. Of course it won't know what gear it's in when it's on the Orbea, but that's OK for now. Eventually I'll spring for a new 10-speed one, but right now I'm reluctant to end its ongoing longevity experiment. I doubt it will survive all the way to 100,000 miles, but 80k is probably reachable. I must say I'm not looking forward to changing cleats and pedals, especially since it will probably require a little saddle height adjustment, but my old Looks are quite worn down at this point so it's clearly time leave the past behind.

So after this morning's ride I got out the tape measure and plumb bob (in this case a string with an old spark plug socket hanging from the end) again to double-check the saddle position on the Orbea. It was definitely more than a few millimeters too low and just a tad too far back, so thanks to Rob for having such a keen eye. Although I'd marked the position when I removed the seatpost last night, something obviously changed. One should probably not work on one's bike at 11 p.m. immediately after drinking beer. Anyway, hopefully it's all better now.

Make-Up Day

Oh man it was hard getting out the door this morning. The sky was still cloudy, which made it even darker than usual, and of course I'd stayed up too late last night. At least it wasn't too terribly cold -- around 50F -- although it was still good and windy. In fact, it was one of those days when the wind was coming from just the right direction to guarantee a crosswind for about 80% of the entire out-and-back ride. The whole way out to the levee I was fooling with my front light. Every time I hit a little bump in the road, of which there are many, it would go off. I think that the batteries must bounce around enough in there to occastionally break contact, and since it's not a good old-fashoned mechanical on-off switch, it just goes back to "off" mode when that happens. Sometimes if I beat on it a bit it improves, but one hates to resort to physical violence with an innocent piece of imported plastic. On the plus side, I found that I could mount my trusty bike path bell onto the end of my handlebar, over the tape, so at least I can use it on the Orbea now. I didn't get too many opportunities to ring it today, though. The depressing weather must be keeping most of the walkers inside until later in the day.

We started out with a small group, and for a little while I was thinking we might not have enough horsepower to do the full long ride, but by the time we'd hit the playground we'd about doubled in number. I guess after being rained out yesterday a few of us were subconsciously trying to balance things out by making up for lost time (or in this case, effort) today. The Donald was no exception, either. Right away he rode off the front and just dangled out there for most of the ride out to the turnaround. We weren't going particularly slowly, either. Every now and then we would catch him and he'd drop back for a little while, only to reappear on the left side and ride off the front again. Having a "rabbit" out there definitely seemed to be keeping our speed up, and we weren't halfway out before the rotation was down to only about five riders. Next thing I knew, the rest of the group was OTB and SOL in the crosswind. Trying to sit in on the back of a 10 rider eschelon while on a 4 rider wide road does not make for an effective survival strategy. Anyway, the bottom line was that we were pushing pretty hard this morning both coming and going.

After the turnaround we picked up just a few riders, so the rest of the group must have turned around rather early today.

I can't believe it's already Thursday. It's been fairly busy at work, and some of that has consisted of rather last-minute surprises, so I guess that does make time seem to fly by. Well, that and my impending age-related dementia.

Shades of Grey

Well, the weatherpersons were right on target. The rain started last night and shows no signs of letting up. The photo from the rooftop may as well have been taken in black and white (remember black and white film??) because practically everything is rendered in shades of grey. I had been holding out some hope of getting in a few miles this morning, but when the alarm went off I could hear the rain on the street outside, and a quick glance at the temperature was all it took for me to pull the covers over my head for another hour and write this one up as a "rest day." I had even checked out the full-fendered Pennine last night, just in case a sloppy ride was feasible. It wasn't. Tomorrow will be much better. Even Scarlett knew that, "after all..... tomorrow is another day."

One thing about rainy rest days like this is that I drive in to the office with The Wife, arriving well over an hour earlier than usual. So although I get a lot of stuff done during that extra time, my stomach remains on its regular schedule. It isn't quite 11 a.m. yet and I'm already hungry. No doubt the extra morning coffee, a result of my usual cold weather caffeine craving, didn't help either. I've been working on ordering a new laptop for someone in the office, and we selected one of the sleek Dell XPS models. It was kind of surprising to find that although Tulane has a special "Premier" website and a special arrangement with Dell, our "Higher Education" Dell rep. couldn't really come within about $250 of the price we could get by going through the regular "home and home business" Dell website because they don't offer the same configurations and won't give them the same special promotions (in this case an instant savings of around $600 on this model). We'll probably still order it through the Higher Ed site because of some service, shipping, and warranty perks, and a much simplified method of dealing with our tax exemption, but it's a shame that Dell is basically screwing its own salespeople like that.

Falling Pressure

It was a fine and chilly morning today, but the high clouds and falling pressure signalled an end to our recent string of great riding days. It seemed particularly dark at the outset, but at least the wind was mild and we had a group of about ten on hand to share the work. I had thought I'd put in a hard workout today, but after taking my first real pull of the day my quads advised otherwise. It took about seven or eight miles to find out, though, because The Donald had gone to the front early and single-handedly towed the whole group for about twenty minutes nonstop at a pretty good pace - good enough that nobody seemed willing to come around him, anyway. I was way at the back at the time and I remember swinging out a couple of times to see why nobody was dropping back. I thought that maybe someone was short-circuiting the rotation, but every time I looked, the queue looked the same.

We had a "new" rider this morning. He's a medical student from CA, and goes by Gordo (his real first name is Nathanial), and it was apparently his first group ride, although he's been riding solo for a couple of years. Nobody yelled at him, so he's OK! Seeking a challenge, I suppose, I took out my camera just before the group got to "The Dip," which is an interesting gravel-strewn bypass that goes underneath a bunch of chemical plant plumbing. It was exciting flying through the curves and rocks with one hand on the bars and other clutching the camera! Anyway, although the sun did eventually emerge, my feet were still cold by the time I got home. The forecast for tonight and tomorrow isn't looking too good with a coastal flood watch already in effect and the threat of strong winds and heavy rainfall. Current projection for 7 am tomorrow: 70% chance of rain, 50F, and 13 mph winds. The suspense is killing me!

Damn! I just got outbid on a used 10-sp Campi cassette with 20 seconds left on the clock. I hate it when that happens.

Hills and Headwinds

It was a great weekend for cycling and Sunday's training ride on the northshore was well worth the trip across the pond to the land of pine trees. I was a little disappointed to find only Viv waiting at Starbucks for the drive over there, although I found out later that Scott had tried to meet us too but failed to locate the coffee shop tucked into a little building in the corner of the Lakeside Shopping Center's parking lot. The ride was starting from the little town of Enon, so we had a good 50-minute drive to get there. Why start so far away? Hills, of course. Heading north from Enon toward Pine there are mostly nonstop rolling hills, and this particular morning there was also a nonstop headwind. Our group of about ten, or most of it anyway, was clearly out for some honest training, having chosen a hilly, if circuitous, route of around 70 miles. After the first ten miles or so I knew there would few unchallenged uphills that day, but I was also trying to keep enough in reserve to get me through the entire ride without self-destructing.

Robert and Jorge spent a lot of time at the front keeping the speeds fairly high, and between that and the 25 miles of headwind that constituted the first part of the ride, a few of our group was already showing some occasional difficulties on the climbs. As usual, once we started doing little circuits up around Pine, I was completely disoriented, so luckily there were a few riders who were familiar with the route. We were stopping at the intersections to regroup for most of the day, which allowed riders to keep their individual effort levels a little bit under control, although I have to admit that even I got carried away a bit. I mean there are some sections of road up there that are smooth and rolling and fast so that when you're going hard it's almost like a roller-coaster ride. So basically there were some areas where going really hard was practically irresistible, despite that little voice of reason asking you how you expected to be able to ride home afterwards. Naturally, that took its toll on a few riders, but luckily there was a shorter way back to the cars, so after 50 miles or so we split up, with one group going to do another 10 mile loop and the other heading back directly. It worked out pretty well, actually.

When we finally started our long straight stretch back to Enon we picked up this fantastic tailwind, so we were just flying down Lee Road for the last ten miles even though by then my legs were complaining on the climbs. At the Enon sign sprint Keith made a valiant effort but was nipped at the line by Jaro. I know this because I was watching from a safe distance behind them!

So this morning I was glad to find that my legs didn't feel all that worse for the wear, and ended up riding the whole ride at the front at an easy pace.

In the Quarter

Fair Warning! There are a lot of photos coming up because I am too tired to make decisions about which ones to exclude and where to put them.

The morning wasn't nearly as cold as I'd thought, and I found myself stuffing clothing into my pockets well before the Giro Ride had left Lakeshore Drive. The group today was quite large, no doubt due in part to the great weather. David had met me at the house, after getting a good dose of the Pine Street - Roubaix, and we'd ridden out the the lakefront together. The early going was brisk, but it was clear that a lot of the guys were planning on doing the long ride, so the pace remained within reason. Sure enough, when we hit the turnaround about half the group, or so it seemed, continued on while the rest of us turned around a regrouped. The pace was kind of erratic, with a few fast sections interspersed among slower ones. When we finally got to the casino bridge I decided to put in a little effort on the climb, sprinting up the incline out of the saddle at around 90%. I came over the top behind a couple of guys and when they started to pull away on the downhill I clicked down a few gears and closed the gap. Brady got on the front and just motored at 30 mph all the way to the Seabrook bridge, and although I made an effort there, I backed off about halfway up when my legs started to load up. Anyway, it was a great day for a ride.

The afternoon was spent taking a tour of the French Quarter with the Iowa gymnastics team. We started out with a nice late lunch at Ralph & Kacoos where I had a mediocre bowl of gumbo. It turned out to have been a great place to go, though, since walking in the door of a lot of French Quarter places at 2 pm with a group of twenty or so can present a problem. After that we spent some time walking down Royal St. where much shopping was done and we stumbled upon a wedding party second-lining its way from the Cathedral down Royal St. to whichever hotel was hosting the reception, and finally ended up down at the flea market around dusk. From there we eventually wandered down to Cafe' du Monde for coffee and beignets, finally walking back to the cars along the river. All-in-all it was actually quite a nice afternoon. The Quarter was lively without being crowded and the weather was about as good as it gets.

Mood Swing

It has always amazed me how I can feel like an out of shape, fat tub of lard one day and then the next day feel like a bike racer again. Sometimes the mood swing doesn't even take a whole day. There have been many times when I've felt absolutely terrible warming up for a race, and then halfway through it some switch flips and suddenly I'm back in the game. What it's taught me, though, is to never make assumptions about your racing fitness based on how you happen to feel at the moment. Things change, especially during races, and when you're feeling loiusy it's almost always better to hang in there instead of quitting because by the end of the race, or ride, or whatever, the pendulum may have swung all the way back in the other direction.

And so it was this morning. Yesterday I was feeling trapped by the rain, seduced by chocolates, and generally about ready to retire to the couch for the rest of the year. This morning the humidity dropped, the sun came out, and all was right with the world. There were only a few of us up on the levee this morning. Joe and Charlie at first, joined later by Oscar and his friend. It was windy, as it always is the morning after a cool front comes through, and although our speed was capped at around 21 mph for most of the ride, it was still a good workout because we all got to spend some nice long stretches on the front. With the racing season starting to appear over the horizon, I'm starting to think about actual training. Really, though, I'm just mostly thinking about it because my more immediate training plans are still pretty much in the base training phase - putting in the miles at effort levels that don't make my legs hurt for the following three days. Actually, that's not as easy as it sounds considering how long these worn-out legs take to recover nowadays. Still, I'm perhaps a bit less content to sit in the draft on the group rides, and the temptation to attack the little hills and go for the sign sprints is getting harder to resist. I keep reminding myself, "it's only January."

Some of the '08 LAMBRA races are starting to get their event permits now, websites are being fixed up, flyers are being posted, and generally the area clubs are gearing up for another racing season. We'll be teaming up with the Baton Rouge Raising Cane's club for our annual 2-Person Time Trial this year since they graciously allowed the Rocky Mount stage race to have their original date and we already had our TT scheduled just a couple of weeks earlier. Norman promised to supply the after-race food and drink like he usually does when they use the Baton Rouge course. The jointly-promoted race will count toward their 3-TT points series, and it will be nice to have one of those three events on a different course and for a full 40k distance. I think we'll probably get a good turnout for that one. The Monroe club just announced their early season 20 km time trial, which seems like kind of a prologue to the first road race of the year, Rouge-Roubaix, about which a number of people have already asked me for advice concerning tires, wheels, etc. FWIW, my advice is to remember that (a) the vast majority of the 100 miles is on asphalt, and (b) it doesn't matter what tires you have when you're walking your bike up the hill in the gravel. Really, most people use their regular road wheels and regular 23 mm tires, although probably not those really lightweight ones you might break out for a smooth criterium.

Caught and Stuck

Got up. Got dressed. Turned on the blinky lights. Went four blocks down the road. It started to rain. Went another block or two. It rained harder. Turned around. It rained even harder. Caught in the rain. Got home cold and wet after a five minute ride. Rode to the uptown campus for meetings. More rain. Walked to the UC in the rain hoping to wait it out. It rained more. Stuck at the UC. Ate a cold sandwich. Walked back to the bike. Rode back to the house in a drizzle. Arrived home cold and wet. Again. Severe weather warnings issued. Tornado warnings issued. Abandoned hope. Worked from home. Feel fat and lazy. More rain coming.....

Diffuse Lighting

Woke up to a 6 am starless sky, and in consideration of our recent meteorological uncertainties headed straight for the computer to check the local radar loop. It showed lots of small scattered showers, but nothing alarming enough for a day off, so I rolled out for a routine Wednesday ride on the levee. Just after I arrived, Elise rode up. Viv was under the weather, so she'd gotten up a bit earlier to meet the group. Ronnie was there today as well, albeit on his mountain bike. That would turn out to be more of a problem for those behind him than for himself, because a few miles down the road we could it was quite wet from a recent shower. I was reading somewhere, just the other day, that the entry fee for winter rides in Belgium it the purchase of fenders and tire liners because without fenders nobody will ride with you and without tire liners nobody will wait for you.

So the ride today seemed particularly dreary with cooler temperatures, wet asphalt and a diffuse grey light that made me want to curl up in the corner of a couch and eat potato chips. There was a crosswind for much of it, and the sky remained cloudy throughout, but at least we didn't get any rain. Although we weren't really pushing the pace very hard, a few people ended up off the back both coming and going, probably because of the crosswind and shortage of asphalt on the downwind side. I had to laugh at one point when Elise was dropping back after taking a pull. She had been behind me in the paceline for a couple of rotations, and when she started dropping back, Ronnie, who had been staying out of the rotation, told her to get in behind me. Elise replied, rather loudly and with great clarity, "NO!" It seems she'd had enough of trying to get a draft off of my wheel. I chuckled and said, "I've heard that before!"

I thought I had a couple of meetings on the uptown campus this morning, but once I arrived I discovered I'd gotten the day wrong for one of them. I hate it when that happens! You would think that the fact that my Palm Pilot didn't beep at me this morning would have been a clue. On the other hand, it had allowed me time to ride over to Starbucks to fill my travel mug, carefully selected because the handle fits over my handlebar, with some hot Verona and three packs of sugar. As I was walking back to the bike rack after my meeting I noticed a little photo shoot in progress on the steps of the architecture building, and thought they were lucky to have the nice diffuse lighting today. It looked like they were taking some "happy student" photos for an admissions brochure or website, and I wondered if the upside-down bicycle was a prop or simply somebody's transportation.

So it's apparently official now that Alabama has its own Local Association, called the Alabama Cycling Association. There's not much up on the website yet except a calendar, but it will be interesting to see how it develops. This morning a "Lance Alert" went out because his honor is supposed to be in NOLA Jan. 28 for a President's Cancer Panel seminar.

A Southerly Win(d)

We bailed out of the office around 4 yesterday, about an hour after much of downtown New Orleans quit work for the day. The big BCS championship game in the Superdome had officially taken over the city by then, leaving local office denizens worried about traffic and anxious to get to either a tailgate party or home. As for myself, well, although I may bleed green and blue, there's always a little tinge of purple in there, particularly when the game is against one of those Yankee teams from way up the river, so it was good to see the almost home team take the win for the southland. Even so, one thing was for certain. The New Orleans tourism industry, including everyone all the way down to the folks selling plastic alligators at the flea market, definitely had their game on for this one, so I hope all of the visitors had a good time before, during and after the game. I'm just glad I don't have to fly home to Chicago this morning after a full night in the Quarter. The morning news had live interviews with a few people who were still going strong around 5 am.

So, getting back to the topic at hand, the morning ride was not exactly what you'd expect this time of year. With a southerly wind and pre-dawn temperature of nearly 70F, it might as well have been early April. The only fly in the ointment, however, was that the streets and most of the levee bike path were still soaking wet from some little showers that wandered through last night. There's just nothing like getting up in the dark so you can go out and have some nice gritty water sprayed in your face from the bikes in front of you! I briefly contemplated going to the front and pulling the whole way like The Donald likes to do, but I'd accidentally left my superman cape back at the house. Nonetheless, with a nice tailwind all the way out to the turnaround, the speed stayed pretty fast. Not quite fast enough for current free agent Howard, but to his credit he only strayed from his base training plan once or twice, and even then the rest of the group just watched in amazement. My intelligence sources tell me that he's actually sticking to a training program this year. If the guy actually succeeds in bolstering his aerobic capacity, improving his on-bike flexibility, and dropping a few pounds over the next month or two, he may well arrive at the red flag, or white sign as the case may be, of an uphill finishing road race or two with enough left in the tank to allow for full deployment of those massive quads, and if that happens I highly recommend being on his wheel and making sure the 11t cog is fully functional.

So anyway, we had around ten riders this morning, and other than the road spray it was a nice 40 miles or so, even if the contingent doing the pulling at the front dwindled considerably as we made our way back into the teeth of a steady south wind. Meanwhile, one of the infamous Winter Bike League rides was held last weekend up in Athens, and thanks to an alert from the ever-vigilant Steve I checked out the always entertaining WBL Ladies Day ride report and saw that GiVo is still somehow successfully juggling doctoring and racing. Trust me, these ride reports are worth a read!

Springtime in January

After a remarkably civilized Giro Ride on Saturday, I was looking forward to Sunday's planned ride in the rolling hills up across Lake Pontchartrain. This was despite the self-inflicted soreness from an afternoon spent painting overhead while balancing on the forbidden step of an unstable ladder. So I was out the door with a little time to spare, for a change, arriving at Starbucks along with a few NOBC teammates and savoring a few minutes of relaxed conversation before heading for the causeway and the 45-minute drive to Lee Road Middle School. As the car got up to speed on the bridge the sun was just coming over the horizon, and I could see that it was going to be a good day.

Since it is January, I was reluctant to trust the thermometer and started off with seventeen other riders wearing knee warmers, arm warmers and two jerseys. After half an hour of easy pedaling under the rising sun I already knew I'd be warm. It was probably over 70 by the time we were halfway into our 60+ mile ride. There wasn't much on today's ride to remind me that it was actually January, especially after I stopped to stash the leg-warmers in my pocket. The pace was fairly steady most of the way out today, but as usual with a group this size thing started to come unglued after the halfway point, especially since that's where some of the best hills happen to be. I was riding the Orbea today, noticing some little things like the fact that the front derailleur needs some serious TriFlow attention. The other thing I noticed, complements of the fast pace and bumpy roads, is that aluminum and carbon frames make different, and generally louder, noises than steel ones. Anyway, after the first long fast stretch the group started to shed riders. First, Rusty and Roseanne took the shorter way back to Enon from Plainview. I think Rusty was in bonkville today, so I was glad I could produce a Powerbar when we met up again farther down the road. A couple of the guys took the Dummyline Road shortcut. Heading back from Plainview, somewhere up ahead were Howard, Jack and Jaro. The group had slowed down to regroup just after Plainview and they had ridden off into the sunset.

So when, after turning back toward Enon on Lee Road, we spotted Jaro, someone next to me said "they must have dropped Jaro." Actually, he'd come off the back of the lead group before the turn, and could only watch as they totally missed the turn and were last seen hammering blissfully west toward Franklinton. So we caught up to Jaro after another mile or two and by the time we knew they were AWOL it was too late to try and chase them down. Since we knew that Jack was familiar with the roads we trusted they'd eventually figure it out anyway. Training ride rule #1: If you don't know the roads and you ride off the front of the group, be sure to stop at the intersections!!

As we rode in the last ten miles the wind seemed to be steadily increasing, making for a kind of hard end to the ride. I hung around afterward with a few of the other guys waiting for Jack and Howard, who did eventually show up after having made a U-turn about five miles past Lee Road.

I spent the entire afternoon once again perched on a ladder painting, which is not really my idea of a good time.

Things to Come

So much warmer! It looks like we won't be seeing any really cold weather for a week or so, and you won't hear any complaining about that from me. The temps for the weekend will be in the 60s and 70s, so I'm hoping for some nice rides - probably even a bit more than advisable, in fact.

The morning levee ride was quite small today, but on the plus side, that meant nice long steady pulls. The pace stayed reasonably slow, although now and then it picked up a bit beyond the usual Friday threshold. It was a nice, relaxing start to what was to be a rather hectic day. On my commute to work I pass a small warehouse that is packed full of Mardi Gras floats. The door is often open, and for the last few months the same old floats have been there without change. However, with Mardi Gras coming so insanely early this year (Feb. 5), they must have ramped up production of the 2008 versions. This morning as I rode past, something caught my eye. I wonder if it's a leftover from one of last year's parades or something new for this year? Whatever, I think I like the direction they're going.

We had a staff luncheon scheduled today at Commander's Palace for 1:30, which was great. Unfortunately, I had a conference call scheduled for 3:00. When you're talking about lunch at Commander's, an hour and a half is really pushing your luck. My entree came, along with those of the three others at our table, presented together by four waiters, at about 2:45. The fish was almost as good as the turtle soup, but I had to eat it quickly and then rush out to sit in my car to do the conference call on my cellphone. This one lasted well over an hour, and after that were three other phone calls, so basically I was sitting in my car on Prytania Street for about two hours, after which I had to go back downtown to retrieve my bike and some files from my computer. So I get back home around 6:00 to find The Wife who had walked about three miles back home from a doctor's appointment and wanted to go out to eat. So as it turned out, I had leftover cold catfish for breakfast, trout for lunch, and salmon for dinner. Nice! Now I'm eating a seemingly unlimited supply of green, red and white M&Ms. Not so nice! I will be glad when all of this tempting holiday candy is gone.

Unnecessary Freezing

Some time around 3 am the indoor-outdoor thermometer next to my bed came alive. A brief but loud alarm sounded, followed by an electro-feminine voice announcing "the outdoor temperature is twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit." I really need to figure out how to turn off that freeze alarm feature!

Anyway, it probably wasn't quite that cold when I got up to ride this morning, although if there's any significant difference between 29 and 34, I am completely unable to detect it. By the time I had piled on the necessary layers of clothing, my watch was irretrievably buried, but I think I arrived at the levee more or less on time. I was kind of relieved to find nobody there, because the north wind was still blowing pretty strongly and I was secretly nurturing thoughts of a city ride. So I climbed up to the levee bike path, turned away from the wind, and rode down to Audubon Park where the wind didn't have quite the upper hand. Along the way I could see that there was a thin sheet of ice on the water in the ditch. This is always kind of exciting for people down here where frozen water comes in big plastic bags and is mostly reserved for adult beverages. I couldn't help but think of a quote I ran across recently that described snow as "an unnecessary freezing of water."

It was still fairly dark when I headed downtown on a nearly deserted Prytania Street. Once I got to the Lee's Circle area traffic started getting heavier, so rather than do battle with the stoplights and suburban commuters, I headed back uptown on Magazine St., gazing longingly at the many coffee shops, and did a couple of laps around the park. By then my feet were starting to get cold and I figured an easy hour and a half on the bike would have to suffice today.

An hour later I was on my way to work with a long-sleeved base layer under my oxford cotton shirt, sweater and jacket, and a pair of knee-warmers clandestinely tucked under my slacks. Somehow I felt colder on the ride to work than I'd been earlier, but at least the office was good and warm this morning and we even had electricity!

I have so much on my to do list right now I really don't know quite where to start, which explains the morning blogging, I suppose. I did get a New Year's email from Realdo, who is all moved in over on the island of Mauritius. He tells me that he's joined the local club and they have 35 races this upcoming season on that one little island, which is pretty impressive. The roads are all hilly, and he has to do a lot of riding alone because of his schedule and because the group rides are in the afternoons.

Clustering

Ever notice how problems and bad luck seem to cluster together. You never seem to get just one flat tire, you get three in a row, with three different wheels, on three different roads. Well, today has thus far been a prime example of such clustering.

I had every intention of getting out this morning for 25 miles or so before returning to work for the first time this year. I was even fully prepared, at least mentally, for the cold mid-30s temperature. Knee warmers went on underneath long tights, the vest over the Kodiak, and the Pearl shells over the DeFeet gloves. I thought I was ready, but there was one thing I hadn't factored into the equation. I rounded the first corner and got a face full of cold gusting wind that was far beyond anything I'd been expecting. I immediately thought how much worse that wind would be on the wide-open levee. I briefly considered heading over to the relatively protected park or even just St. Charles Avenue, but with plenty of miles in my legs from the last few days and the prospect of a brutal commute to work, I pulled the cord and stopped the train in its tracks, heading home to a warm shower and a hot coffee. After all, it was the first day back at work, so why not drive in early with The Wife and get a head start on all those postponed tasks I'd promised myself I'd do over the holidays?

So I arrived at work bright and early, Starbucks cup in one hand, cranberry scone in the other, messenger bag over my shoulder, and hit the "up" button for the main elevator on the 10th floor. The doors opened to reveal people pressed into the little box like sardines. I squeezed my way in and confirmed what I suspected. "How many elevators are broken?" I asked. "This is the only one working," was the reply. We're not exactly getting off to a good start this year, I thought. Ha! Little did I know.

So I unlock the office door and hit the light switch. Nothing happens. Bad sign. Our little office on the roof has always gotten its power via some sort of mashed up connection to the circuits associated with the elevators, so when those went south, so did our electricity. Without a functional computer, I fired up the PalmPilot to check email and contact the rest of the staff. One person had already conveniently sent an email saying she was sick. Our planned staff lunch at Commander's Palace, previously delayed due to the rush of work before the holidays, was already looking unlikely. I attended to a bunch of business, squinting at the handheld and poking awkwardly at the touch screen as my blissfully clear calendar began getting cluttered up with meetings and phone calls. Around 10:30 I was still in the dark and my feet were starting to get cold, and there was a group of maintenance guys having an impromptu conference in the hallway. They sounded confused about what to do, and when I pressed them for a prognosis all I got were shoulder shrugs. At 11:00 I bailed and headed home. At least the sky is clear as a bell, so maybe I'll sneak out around 4 pm for a quick spin. I'll probably get another flat.....

Oh Ate!

Welcome to '08! After a nice, but inadequately long vacation I can't really say I'm too excited about heading back to work tomorrow, but such is life. During yesterday's ride, Chad was recruiting people for an 11:00 am New Years Day ride, and he asked me to send out an email, which, of course, I did. So for a change, I slept until 8:00, tried unsuccessfully to get an old Campi computer mount to work on the Orbea (I knew there must have been some reason I'd replaced it in the first place), I headed out to meet the New Year's Day ride. There was a good sized group up there being buffeted by the cold 25 mph northwest wind, but no Chad! I did get a "happy new year" text message from Reo, while I was waiting, but couldn't send a reply because it was sent as an email. I might have been justified in presuming today's ride would be an easy one, but in fact it turned out to be a bona fide training ride. With such a strong crosswind most of the way out to the turnaround, I was careful to stay near the front and in the rotation so that I'd at least get a little shelter now and then. So I wasn't too surprised when, somewhere out past the dip, I looked back to see, well, nobody. Our group was down to maybe five riders including powerhouses VJ and Max, rouleur Tim, and lightweights Diego and me. In spite of the wind, the weather was otherwise fantastic -- clear blue sky, crisp temperature, perfect pace. The legs felt pretty good, and I hardly even noticed that I didn't have a computer on the bike.

Right after we regrouped and started back, though, I flatted. It was one of those tiny, sharp shards of recycled mystery material that they apparently made the bike path with, but we were back in action pretty quickly. Diego had been riding pretty hard in his junior gears, and toward the end of the ride he and I were alone. The pace was good, so I decided to just go with it. After we reached the playground we eased up to wait for the group, but looking back all we could see was David S. about thirty seconds back. We soft-pedaled for a while, and when we looked back again he wasn't in sight. Hmmmm. So we turned around and found him on the side of the bike path trying to fix his saddle that had slipped out of adjustment. It was not really cooperating, so we decided to ride down to Zotz on Oak Street for a coffee where he could get it straightened out.

The rest of the day was spent in a cloud of paint and wood dust, as usual.....