A Long Week Indeed

Looking out the window here at work where the sky today has remained overcast until just a moment ago. It's been long and busy this week and on a couple of occasions I've gotten home, eaten dinner, polished off a couple of glasses of wine by 8:30 and hit the sack early.

Thursday was a chilly ride with a smallish group and mostly crosswinds up on the levee. At one point I remember Richard dropping back and as he looked behind commenting "where'd everybody go?" Of course it was the crosswind that had made the selection, lopping off all but the front four or five since those were the only ones getting any protection. Such is life in a crosswind on a narrow bike path.

This morning, though, the wind had shifted and the temperature had risen, and with a steady southeast breeze our small group had a nice brisk ride out to the turnaround. Of course that meant a long slow grind most of the way back, but it wasn't really all that bad. Brooks was out there, apparently doing some long efforts. When we first encountered him shortly after the turnaround he turned around as if to join us and I heard him say something to the effect of "I'm kind of knackered." We were pushing into the headwind at the time but not really going very fast. As it turned out he never latched on, and then many miles later after we'd eased up he came flying past like he'd just crossed under the red flag and the pack was twenty seconds back.

Tomorrow we're going to try and get a NOBC club photo after the Giro Ride. We do that once every few years, and the last time we did was back when we had the green jerseys. I guess we're overdue, so hopefully we'll have a reasonable number of club members show up. I really need to put a fresh photo on the club home page!

Up in Alaska it looks like Jill has only another 50 miles or so to go, although the lack of sleep finally caught up with her so it doesn't look like she'll be setting a new women's record to McGrath. I doubt she's too worried about that right now.

So The Wife seems to have finally gotten a credible explanation for the vision problems she's been having. It all started right after a colonoscopy, and our best guess now is that she had a ischemic event, probably during the colonoscopy, that resulted in some kind of neurological damage affecting her vision. She was relieved that it is probably not progressive, and since she does not suffer from high blood pressure or hypertension it was most likely directly related to the colonoscopy. Anyway, the downside is that her doctor is recommending she stay away from caffeine (yeah! more for me!) and take her baby aspirin every day. There's some chance the vision issue will improve slightly with time.

Falling Temp, Rising Water

The weather this morning was splendid, except for the fact that the temperature was back down in the low 40s and there was a howling 20 mph north wind. I suspect it was one of those factors that slashed the levee ride turnout to four, but hey, after having to pull the plug on yesterday's training, I was not about to let a little cold and wind stop me today.

So we headed out for the usual Wednesday ride, nearly all of which was a battle with headwinds or crosswinds, and at least got in 75 minutes or so in the small ring. Thanks to yesterday's unscheduled rest day I was generally wanting to go a little harder than we did, but no doubt we'll have a good long ride tomorrow. Of course the temperature is supposed to be a bit lower tonight, so that might keep a few people inside on their trainers. I have to say I've been just loving the earlier sunrises lately and it's really going to suck when we have to switch to DST at the "new" earlier date of March 9 this year, especially since that happens to be the day of Rouge-Roubaix.

I've been noticing the river level rising over the last week, and at this point most of the batture is under a few inches of muddy water. It looks like this is about as high as it will get for the moment. At least that's what NOAA thinks. Still, even though the rising water is still a good ten feet below flood stage, it's always a little unsettling when it starts approaching the levee.

Meanwhile, back in the 'hood, the city contractors are wrapping up installation of new gas lines along the section of Pine St. near my house and when I got home last night I was glad to see they had poured the concrete to replace the sidewalk they'd broken up.

Then I took a closer look. Sheesh! What a crap-ass job. Apparently trowels and floats are as foreign as the workers themselves. They also broke the classic old blue and while tiles that spelled out "Pine" on the Pine St. side. Those are supposed to be replaced, being historic and all. Then, for reasons I cannot even imagine, they decided to stick the two surviving letters randomly into the concrete facing the wrong street. Now that's just freaking amazing. Maybe they rationalized that, after all, it does happen to be the Northeast end of Neron Place.

Weather Wimps

Well, here I am sitting at my desk at the office at 8:02 am, which is about when I *should* be coasting down the levee on my way home from the morning ride. Outside, it's *not* raining and it's *not* cold. So, "What happened?" one might ask.

The forecast last night was calling for a cold front to pass through the area some time in the early morning. When I awoke today I peeked out through the blinds and saw that the streets were dry, so I got dressed and went first to the computer to check the radar. There was a line of pretty significant rain heading our way, but it was just getting to LaPlace which is about 20 miles upriver as the crow flies. I figured I could probably get in half an hour heading in that direction until the drizzle started and then I could turn around and head back in the rain, arriving back home in time to avoid getting too chilled.

So I hopped on the Cervelo and made my way out to the levee, arriving to find four or five others already there. I have to admit, I was surprised. The wind was gusting to at least 30 mph and the sky to the northwest looked menacing, and the cloud cover made it seem much darker than usual for this time of year. We made a final check behind us and clipped in at precisely 6:41 am, which was also precisely when it started to drizzle. That cold front must have been moving in our direction at a good 30 mph. Immediately, everyone scattered. The guys who had to go upriver in order to get home took off in that direction and Brady and I took off in the other with a strong wind at our backs and a slowly increasing amount of rain. I was fully expecting a big downpour at any moment, so I wasn't wasting any time as we rolled up Broadway. When I got home, probably less than half an hour after I'd left, the rain seemed to ease up a bit and I stopped there at the basement door wondering if I dared to try and get in a few more miles. I decided to throw in the towel, though, mainly because if I did I could get a ride to work in the car. I was still expecting some heavy rain and wasn't too thrilled about making the commute on the bike during a rainstorm in rush hour traffic.

Well, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and today was a case of the latter. The heavy rain never materialized and as I stared out the window at the drying street, the smell of fresh coffee wafting in from the kitchen, I thought about Jill up in Alaska trudging through the snow with a sixty pound bike, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, some 150 miles into a 350 mile wilderness trek. I wondered why the hell don't people like this run for President instead of the head cases we have now? Coincidentally, I saw this quote just a minute ago:

"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president." - Kurt Vonnegut

The Iditarod news said late last night, "Jill Homer is setting a great pace and may be able to beat the womans record to Mcgrath. The current record is held by Kathi Hirzinger-Merchant at 5 days 7 hours and 48 minutes." Here in balmy New Orleans, we'd all just high-tailed it for home with a light rain and the temperature in the upper 60s. Right now in McGrath it's cloudy, the temperature is 03º F, and the last time she checked in at a place with a roof was around 4 pm yesterday afternoon. The forecast for tonight: -9ºF. Part of me wants to try something like that. Other parts of me, mostly those with still-functional neurons, however, want to stay warm.

I may as well admit it. When it comes to the cold, I'm a Weather Wimp!

The Sunday Ride

I arrived at the Starbucks a little early Sunday morning, allowing me to sit on the comfy couch with a hot cup of coffee and a fresh cranberry scone while I waited to see if anyone else would show up. Nobody did. I've never really been able to identify that special combination of factors that determines turnout for training rides. This morning there was the annual Mardi Gras Marathon in town and I know a number of our guys were volunteering as lead bikes. A couple of the guys were also planning on a scouting trip up to the Rouge-Roubaix course in preparation for the March 9 event. So I wasn't too surprised to be rolling off down the causeway all alone. As it turned out, a couple of the New Orleans guys did make it over there anyway, but even so we had a smallish group of eight. Now the nice thing about a small group is that it's usually easier to keep things together, but the bad thing was that our route started off with some twenty-odd miles into a headwind. We rode for a long time in a double line, and for me that meant having Mike Lew providing steady conversation while spinning along into the wind just a tad faster than my still-cold legs really wanted. With overcast skies it wasn't warming up as quickly as I'd expected.

As usual, the pace didn't really pick up until we turned back to the southeast, although I was surprised that we didn't also pick up more of a tailwind at that point. As it turned out, the wind was shifting during our ride, and rather inconveniently so. So the group split up just a little bit as we raced out to the Sie Jenkins Road turn where most of us took a little break while Mike fixed something on his bike and we regrouped. When we finally all got going again I counted only seven, and Jay said that Jaro had ridden off ahead for reasons unknown. Over the course of the next twenty miles or so we would spot Jaro a minute or so up the road, but every time we started making up ground on him we'd slow down to regroup or something. When we started south on Lee Road we picked up the pace again and started reeling him in but he still made it to the Enon sprint sign about twenty seconds ahead. I thought surely he'd wait with us to regroup at Enon, but when I looked up and saw him crossing the highway I said to Jason, "Looks like he's going for King of the Mountain points too!" We regrouped at Enon but some of the group decided to ride in the rest of the way more slowly, so we went up and over the Watchtower hill, and soon it was just Jason, Jay and me. A few times I took what I thought were normal pulls and when I'd pull off I'd discover there was a gap. We had been slowly closing in on Jaro and when it happened again on Tung Road I decided to go it alone and see if I could finally close the deal, so I time-trialed down Lee Road and closed in on Jaro who by now had eased up considerably and we rode in the last few miles together. That last stretch should have been a tailwind, too, but the wind had shifted and instead we had yet another headwind. At least by then the sun had started to come out and the temperature had risen from the 40s into the 60s.

It was just the kind of ride I'd been hoping for, with a few hard efforts, a couple of long steady efforts, and a lot of smooth paceline.

Meanwhile, Up in Alaska, Jill Horner was in her first day of the Iditarod Train Invitational. Her husband(?) Geoff, who is running was first to the first checkpoint at mile 57, and at this point it looks like she's somewhere between the 90 and 130 mile checkpoints. I cannot even imagine how much farther they will be out there in the freezing Alaskan wilderness. We're talking about at least 5-6 days, I think, to go 350 miles in the snow, on a bike (or pushing it). Theoretically if she keeps up her earlier pace she could set a new record.

Warm, Cold and Windy

It was warm and humid when I went to sleep last night, but by morning it was cold and windy. The cold front that caused all the rain finally sauntered through. Well, almost. When I opened the door at 6:15 am I looked up at the cloudy sky and tree limbs blowing in the wind and turned right around to put on an extra layer. I was glad I did.

The Giro Ride group out at the lakefront was quite large today, especially considering the sub-par weather. Once we hit Hayne Blvd. the pace just got faster and faster. As usual, I was sucking wheels somewhere near the end of a very long string of riders wondering who was on the front. By the time we turned onto Paris Road and picked up a little tailwind it already felt like a race. The pace stayed in the 30-35 mph range until Jay flatted near the service road. A few of us stopped to assist while the rest of the group continuted the hammerfest, and by the time we were rolling again we'd picked up a few people who had come off the back earlier. Our little group got a nice paceline rolling down Chef Highway and pretty soon we could see the group coming the other way after the turnaround. The return trip was a little slower, so I made a few little efforts for the sprints and overpasses. Coming up to the Goodyear sign sprint I found myself on Tim's wheel with Brandon on mine. Tim motored us past everybody and when I backed off just before the sign Brandon passed me and they kind of rode off into the sunset for the next few miles while the rest of the group came back together. Finally near the end of the ride the sun came out. Nonetheless I arrived home with cold feet, probably because I'd stopped for a while to chat back at the parking lot.

Keepin' On Keepin' On

Monday was a typical spin up on the levee under clear but surprisingly chilly skies, and I guess it was the nice weather that kept the pace just a tad on the faster side of easy. After a pleasant ride to the office, quietly prioritizing the items on my to-do list and enjoying the pretty morning, I settled in at the desk for what I figured would be a busy week. Then the phone rang. It was The Wife who said we would need to drive up to Baton Rouge. The mother-in-law had taken another turn for the worse and this time it was looking like the end of the road. So around noon we headed back up I-10 to RedStick. It wasn't until around 9 pm when we finally headed back to NOLA, and by the time I finally hit the pillow it was after midnight. A few hours later the phone rang with news that The Wife's mother had passed away, so of course there were lots of phone calls and when the alarm went off at 5:45 I'd probably netted three hours of sleep. I dragged myself out of bed and down to meet the levee ride, and once the pace started to increase, I started to drop back. The combined lack of sleep from the prior two days had finally gotten to me and I had neither power nor motivation. So I spent most of the ride in a daze, sitting at the back of the paceline trying to keep my legs moving and my eyes open.

By noon the funeral arangements had been made with an afternoon wake today and funeral tomorrow up in B.R.

I was glad to be able to ride this morning, especially since it was another great weather day, and in an hour or so I'll be back on the road to Baton Rouge. Whether we'll stay up there overnight or not is still a bit up in the air, but I'm guessing we'll stay overnight. Personally, I'll be glad when it's all over. The only wake I've ever enjoyed, the kind I might choose for myself, was when Greg Gulotta died unexpectedly. Greg was one of the key players in the early New Orleans Bicycle Club, and he ran the famous Gus Betat & Son bicycle shop, locally referred to as simply "Betat's." If he hadn't died so suddenly you'd probably be ordering your bike parts from the Betat catalog. He was in his late 20s, or maybe early 30's at the time, and after returning from a training ride he'd accompanied his wife and young child on a little shopping errand. While waiting in the car in the parking lot he had some sort of sudden attack and was gone by the time they returned. Anyway, Billy Richards, who was one of the senior members of the NOBC, gathered a few of us together and we all went to a local bar where we all drank rather heavily while Billy picked up the tab for everything from beer to cognac. That's around when I started picking up the slack with the bike club business, since Greg had been handling much of it himself.

If you haven't yet checked out the Amgen Tour of California's Tour Tracker, you should. I have to admit it did cut into my productivity at work yesterday. It is so great, though, to have live video and commentary, GIS tracking of the race, a chat room, and constantly updated information about who's off the front. Looks like today I won't be able to see any of the live coverage, though.

Weather and Wine

The forecasters have obviously been very confused by the recent weather, and so when I got up Saturday morning the first thing I did was stumble down the hall and fire up the laptop to check the radar. The predicted rain was clearly behind schedule, and it looked good for the Giro Ride, so I suited up and hit the road. The temps have been well above normal lately, and the camelias in the front yard are taking full advantage of the opportunity. I opted for arm-warmers just to keep the chill at bay for the ride out to the lake, but might easily have gone without. It always feels faster without all those winter clothes on, doesn't it? With the threat of a Sunday wash-out, and a Saturday night club party, I wasn't planning on holding back too much.

Once again, just as we really got rolling down Hayne Blvd., someone had some sort of mechanical issue that brought us to a screeching halt for a few minutes, but soon we were rolling again. Heading down Chef Highway a couple of guys rolled off the front and the few of us interested in working had a hell of a time getting the group organized. Actually, I don't think we ever did. A couple of guys would pull, then nobody would come through, then somone would go flying past on the outside and everybody would chase. Kind of like a Cat. 5 road race. We eventually caught, but it was probably mainly because the riders up the road weren't working all that hard. The return trip featured a section of nice tailwind and as we got close to the Goodyear Sign sprint I tapped Max on the back as I went past to hunt for a good position nearer the front. I never really found one, but got in a good 37 mph effort nonetheless. On the way back I decided rather late to make an effort on the Casino overpass and luckily found Matt's wheel just as he started to accelerate up the slope. Unfortunately, he did so on the shoulder which was littered with debris, and just before the top I heard the pssst, pssst, pssst of air escaping from my tire. It was kind of disappointing because I'd been looking forward to sprinting both overpasses. Anyway, I got back home with 64 miles or so and didn't get rained on, so it was good. In fact, as it turned out, the rest of the day was just beautiful and the nasty weather didn't finally arrive until early Sunday morning.

Saturday night was our NOBC party up on the roof of the 123 Walnut condos. It was nice, and much wine and food was consumed, including a custom cake. Those bakers are sure getting clever nowadays! Even though we were pretty much done by 10:00, I was feeling pretty tired by then. I should probably try sleeping tonight...

Sunday morning was the washout that had originally been forecast for Saturday, and by the time the cool front passed through and the skies cleared I was up to my elbows in paint, so we'll just have to call Sunday a "rest day."

Week's End

This work week felt particularly long to me, and so I was glad to be heading out for an easy Friday ride this morning, especially since the southerly wind had boosted the temperature up into the 60s. We had a smallish group, as usual for a Friday, and as usual Joe was already there when I arrived. Russell was also there, having been AWOL for a while due to a cold, and Scott, who had also been recently absent, was back from a ski trip. John and Rob rounded out the initial group, and somewhere along the way we picked up Taylor and Donald too. I was telling Rob about something I learned recently about chains and paint-remover. Last summer The Wife spent a few days down in the basement where all the bikes live stripping paint off of various cabinet parts using a pretty aggressive paint-remover. Well shortly thereafter I noticed that the chain on my Cervelo looked an odd color, which turned out to be rust. I scratched my head a bit, and then cleaned the chain, re-lubed it, and thought all was well. Soon, though, I noticed more rust, so I put on a new chain and all was good. Whenever I change chains I hang the old one on a little nail on the wall down in the basement, and use that to measure where to cut the new one so they're the same length. The old chain then hangs there until the next time. Well the next time was earlier this week when I replaced the chain on the Orbea, but when I went to remove that old chain that had been hanging on the wall I was shocked to find that it had welded itself into a stiff 5-foot long rod! So the moral of the story is to keep paint remover the hell away from your bikes! Anyway, the weather was pretty cloudy today and the weekend forecast seems to be fluctuating hourly, but right now it's looking fairly good for all of Saturday, but the next cold front is supposed to wander down here some time late Saturday night so Sunday morning it a bit up in the air at this point.

The guys down in Belize are still definitely in the hunt today, having taken 3rd in the team TT. The USAC development team won the TTT, in fact. In yesterday's road race the guy who won the last two years apparently flatted and instead of getting a wheel change it sounds like he convinced a friend of his on another team to swap bikes. He went on to win the stage, and then the UCI officials went on to disqualify him. USCF rules, and I'm sure UCI rules too, allow bikes and equipment to be exchanged only among riders from the same team. I guess he was expecting a small penalty, but apparently they slapped him with a DQ instead. As it turned out, that pushed one of the USA team guys onto the top step of the podium for that stage, so basically it sounds like the US teams are doing well. Bain was mentioned in the article on the news website, having been in a late-race breakaway that didn't quite stay away. It looks like a 2-man break got away, just barely, for the finish, followed by the pack with Bain placing 18th and pretty much everyone else finishing about 15 seconds later.

Meanwhile, out at the Valley of the Sun stage race in AZ, Chad reports that junior rider Diego Ortiz, who Chad'd been working with this year and who has been looking very strong lately, is psyched for his first big LAJORS race. A good result there would get him into one of the USAC Junior Development Camps.

By the way, if you've ever wanted one of those classic Brooks leather saddles, perhaps this photo from the Brooks website will tip the balance! Also, keep in mind that you don't even have to venture outside of the city to get one. There's a place on Oak Street called Wallingford Bicycle Parts that has anything you could possibly imagine, including the coveted $670 titanium-rail Swallow (if you just wondered how much it weighs, you have completely missed the point). You could just stop by on your way back from the levee!

So the season is starting out pretty early for some of the local guys, and speaking of local, the NOBC is having a season-opener club party Saturday night. Should be fun.

Mad Dash

The alarm went off right on time, but I thought I'd give myself just a couple more minutes before putting the feet to the floor. The next time I glanced up at the clock it read 6:03. I launched out of bed, rudely slamming the pedal to the floor on a number of very reluctant physiological systems. It was already essentially impossible to make it out to the levee by 6:15, but for some reason I just wasn't willing to throw in the towel this morning and was determined to make a mad dash for the levee regardless. The thermometer was somewhere around 40F, although Rob later told me his computer said 38, so I grabbed whatever came to hand most readily, jumped onto the saddle, and - click, click, click - shifted to the big ring. My last-minute warning wristwatch alarm sounded at 6:15 midway down Carrollton Avenue as I poured a few more coals onto the fire. A few minutes later I was amazed to see a couple of riders still waiting up on the levee. The cold weather had done me a favor and reduced the turnout enough that they were still up there hoping for a few more bodies to show up.

We picked up a few more riders along the way and soon had a decent-sized group of seven or eight or ten. I was still stuck in race mode, though, and with a little tailwind we quickly formed a 5-rider group at the front. I had installed a fresh chain and cassette the night before, and I was really enjoying that silky smooth feeling you get when everything is meshing together just the way Tullio always intended. Just don't tell the guys in Vicenza that I skipped purchasing the $140 chain tool and used a $7 Superlink instead. So anyway, the pace was good and brisk today and I was in the mood to do some work. Indeed, with much of the return trip being into a headwind of one sort or the other, pretty much everyone was doing some work, especially the poor soul who was crouched behind me wondering why there was so little draft. Arriving back at home, the best I could do for breakfast was a cold hamburger bun and peanut butter before I swung a leg over the commuter and merged into the traffic for the ride to work.

By the time I got to the office I was wishing for a quiet hour and a cup of hot coffee, neither of which I got. It is a very busy time for us right now and my desk is littered with little stacks of paper, each representing an unfinished task. I had hoped to spend a little while in the morning getting my to-do list organized, but that idea went quickly by the wayside after getting a call from the Dept. of Energy about a $1.2M project for which we need to get a budget and writeup completed asap.

Meanwhile, word from Belize, via Kenny is that the Herring guys had a pretty decent day yesterday with three guys making the biggest split and probably all getting into the top 20 in the 130 mi. first stage. Woody certainly had a great day, having played a big role in the key break of the day. I hope he has some legs left for today's team time trial, which is probably going on as I write. There was even some drama during yesterday's stage with Scott having to give Bain his wheel when they flatted while making a long bridge up to the break. Kenny sent the photo above showing Mal hanging out of their team car wrenching on Michael O's bike in the middle of the race. Looks like fun, eh?

Alone in the Wind

A cold front barged through town yesterday afternoon, producing enough severe wind to warrant a tornado warning and ultimately blowing loose the facade of the old Texaco building across Canal Street from us. For a while it sounded like a tornado up here on the roof, and a couple of the staff retreated to the 24th floor for fear of their lives. I, on the other hand, pulled out my camera and tried to get some video, but it didn't come out very well. Anyway, suffice it to say we were dumped upon by mother nature for a few hours.

When I got up to ride this morning the temperature was in the low 40s, but until I opened the door I'd completely forgotten about the brutal northwest wind that normally accompanies cold fronts. I pulled on my vest and headed out to the levee rather late, which wasn't much of a problem because I didn't expect anyone to be out there anyway. So it was just me, alone, in the wind, and quite a wind it was, too. There were times when I was struggling to hold 14 mph, and other times when I was consciously leaning against the crosswind just to keep going in a straight line. Somewhere out near Williams Blvd. I saw Donald on his way back, but other than one of the regular morning commuters, the harsh wind had wiped the bike path clean of pretty much everyone else. Still, I had a pretty good ride, trudging along at a moderate pace most of the time and enjoying the one short stretch of tailwind on the way home.

Meanwhile, on the international scene, the Herring team, including for this race Michael O. and Woody, raced stage #1 of the Tour of Belize today. Hopefully there will be results and photos on the website at some point. Kenny sent a report out to the lambra_racing list along with a couple of photos from the team presentations yesterday, but who knows how internet access will be from stage to stage. He said that the local news channel is supposed to be streaming some video, but I guess I missed it today. I hate it when work interferes with following a bike race.

No Rest for the Weary

The easy recovery spin on Monday felt surprisingly good and I was happy to find my legs were none the worse for wear after Sunday's training ride. I was, of course, fully expecting to get in a long ride this morning, but fate had other plans.

Some time around mid-afternoon The Wife decided we needed to drive up to Baton Rouge fairly urgently. Reports were that her mother's health was looking worse and worse. So the original idea was to drive up right after work, stay a few hours, and drive back late at night. Around 4:30 we stopped by our house to change and gather up some stuff, and at that point she said "we'd probably better bring a change of clothes." I wasn't really surprised and threw some clean underwear and a toothbrush into my Timbuk2 bag. Indeed, when we arrived at the nursing home some two hours later, her mother was considerably more unresponsive than usual. Of course, we ended up spending the night in the room. Around 10:30 pm The Wife asked me to go find her some Starbucks coffee. I figured all the Starbucks' were surely closed by then, but I went out anyway in search of caffeine and found a CC's that was open until 11:00. By then it was 10:45 and they were out of the dark roast, so I settled for a cup of medium, picked up a nonfat latte for The Wife, and had just enough time to use their free wireless to download email before returning to the wireless-free nursing home for a very long and uncomfortable night watching very old sitcoms and those real estate and remodeling shows that all seem identical to me. At least the drone of the O2 pump provided some white noise to block out the "I don't like the color of this $15,000 granite countertop so we'll have to change that" comments on the TV.

This morning her mother seemed much more alert and responsive and the general consensus was that she had probably suffered some sort of TIA (likely not her first, nor her last). Of course, the prognosis is far from good, but at least things were showing some signs, however temporary, of improvement. Anyway, we finally drove back to NOLA around noon, showered, and went to the office where I am currently struggling to keep my head off of the desktop.

A Good Day and Girls on Bikes

I'd been expecting today's weather to be good, and perhaps it was that anticipation that had me up and ready to go nearly half an hour early. With the roof rack clamped to the Volvo, two full water bottles and a couple of Powerbars, I drove over to Starbucks with, for a change, plenty of time to spare. Ed was already there feeding oil to his BMW, and soon there were five or six of us. I bought the shop's first cup of coffee for the day and we loaded Viv's and Elise's bikes into and onto the car for the drive across the causeway.

It was pretty chilly when we arrived, perhaps in the mid-40s, but the forecast was calling for a high of nearly 80F, so it was difficult to decide what to wear for those first ten miles before the sun got down to business. By the time we clipped in there were sixteen of us and we rode a nice steady double paceline all the way up to Enon. From there, the plan was to make a big clockwise loop, yielding a total ride distance of about 68 miles. Soon the pace started to heat up a little and a few gaps opened, but it wasn't until we got to the top of the big loop that we started making some contingency plans. The girls were going to stick together and with a map in hand and a couple of cell phones I figured they'd be OK if the speed got out of hand, which my legs were telling me would happen soon.

Somewhere a little past the halfway point the route goes over a number of little climbs and of course that's where things started to come apart. My legs were feeling pretty frisky and when I felt the pace slacken going up one of them I couldn't resist putting on a little extra pressure, so I came around the group and pushed up the long gradual uphill. Near the top, breathing heavily, I eased off and figured I'd wait for the group since my legs were, well, screaming. A moment later I felt a hand on my back as Mike came past. Well of course that's the universal sign for "get on my wheel and prepare to suffer," so we continued to push the pace as we headed East toward Sie Jenkins Road.

After a while Jay and a number of others bridged up and we had a little group that hammered for the remaining miles until the next turn. That brief effort split the group rather dramatically, so after making the turn at Sie Jenkins we rode down the road a bit and eased up, eventually turning around until we saw the rest of the group coming. As it turned out, though, there was one rider who was behind that group and somehow he missed the turn and we missed him. His timing must have been perfect. We thought he must have turned earlier to take a shorter route home because he was "on call" and had gotten one just before things went ballistic.

Well, fifteen minutes later Mike's phone rings and it's Brent, and after some discussion we determined he'd missed the turn and ridden an extra ten miles or so but was now heading back in the right direction, so I gave him the short route back to Enon so we could all meet up again there. By now the rest of the lead group had ridden on ahead, leaving Mike, Jason and me to team time trial all the way back to Lee Road. By then we could see them just up the road, but Mike and I stopped and turned around to pick up a stray glove that turned out to be Charlie's, so we put in yet another chase and finally regrouped with the rest as we approached Enon. So at this point Howard and Jack were somewhere off the front, we were with the main group, one rider (we hoped) was taking the shortcut to Enon, and the girls were on their own somewhere. Well, we mostly all regroup at Enon except that we never see Howard and Jack again. Jason heads back toward Highway 60 looking for our stray rider and a few minutes later when we see them coming down the road the group takes off for the watchtower hill with me trailing behind. I keep looking back but don't see them coming around the corner, so I finally turn back and find that they've stopped at the store, so finally the four of us head off again with the main group now quite a few minutes up the road and out of sight. Going up the watchtower hill Jason and I put in a little effort so we're off on our own all the way to Tung Road and shortly thereafter Jason, who just got back from a ski trip, says his legs are toast and eases up, so I'm on my own. By now I can occasionally see the rest of the group way up the road, so I time-trialed the last five or six miles and closed the gap a bit but never got really close before finally arriving back at the cars. Just one little problem...

The girls aren't there. If they had taken a shortcut they surely should have been back by now, so I finally get Viv on the cellphone and we figure out that they had also missed the turn at Sie Jenkins and done an extra ten bonus miles, but luckily had taken the same shortcut as the other rider and were now seven or eight miles away. So I put my shoes back on and Mike and I rode up the road to meet them. I guess I ended up with maybe 78 miles or so, but the weather was so nice I felt like I could do another twenty. It was a what I'd call a really good day on the bike.

So I was honored today to see a couple of my Mardi Gras photos on the Copenhagen Cycle Chic "Girls on Bikes" website. Just doing my part to promote my city, you know!

Impatience

The weather today was nearly perfect, especially when you consider it's still early February. By the time the Giro got rolling the morning chill was rapidly burning off and the huge group was clearly getting impatient for the springtime races. We hit Hayne Blvd. and the pace started to pick up right away. Then, when Brady flatted, the front of the group didn't really want to hear about it. Some people slowed down, including me, but we could see that the front half of the group wasn't. We sped up again for a while, and then finally Max rode up to the front and pulled in the reins and we slowed down. The front part of the pack was already long gone up the road. We soft-pedaled for a long time but behind us there was nothing but empty road. We tried calling VJ, who we knew had stopped along with a few others to help Brady, but he didn't answer. Finally we figured they must have turned off of Hayne and taken the Bullard shortcut, so we got going again. As it turned out, they actually beat us to Chef Highway, so we didn't see them again until after the turnaround where everyone finally regrouped. I think everyone was feeling pretty peppy today, thanks to the warm weather and light winds, and I even indulged in a couple of good efforts myself going over the overpasses.

The rest of the day was a trip to Baton Rouge to check on the mother-in-law whose condition is now pretty grave, enough so that family members are starting to gather in Baton Rouge. I'm hoping to make the northshore ride tomorrow, assuming things over there remain stable. It sounds like we will have a good sized group for the ride, and since we are being promised another great day weather-wise, I'd hate to miss riding. Meanwhile, the Herring guys are packing up for an early Monday departure for the Tour of Belize which will surely be fun, at least in a fast and painful way.

Big Bird

It wasn't so easy getting out of bed this morning. Last night I'd gone out to the old Prytania Theatre, the only remaining single-screen theatre in the entire state, with a couple of the neighbors to see "There Will be Blood." I hadn't been there in a decade at least, so it was fun to be there again. I remember watching a lot of movies there - everything from Scifi to Woody Allen - and would have liked to visit the balcony but we didn't realize it was still open (or even there) until we were already seated. Anyway, watching a long movie like that wouldn't usually wear me out, however doing so while continually sipping from contraband water bottles filled with wine that one of the neighbors had smuggled in did take its toll.

The weather today was pretty nice and John, Joe and I rolled out with temperatures just below 50F. We were quickly joined by Rob. It was a typical Friday pace, rarely exceeding 21 mph, with Rob spinning a low, low gear at around 120 rpm and everyone taking long steady pulls. As we were coming back we saw a rider stopped on the bike path across from the country club golf course looking intently up at a big bird in one of the trees along the river. It was a bald eagle! Although they are not unknown around here, it is really quite unusual to spot one. I stopped to take a photo, but of course it was much too far away for my little camera to deal with.

Long Winter Shadows

I find myself already anticipating the longer days of Spring, and so this morning was a blunt reminder that we're not quite there yet. Granted, there's a little more light in the sky at 6 a.m., and the temperature was only in the mid-40s, but I'm still riding out to the levee with blinky lights front and rear, and it still takes me a few miles to get warmed up. Interestingly, Daylight Savings Time begins this year on the morning of Rouge-Roubaix, March 9. Although that will mean darker mornings, it does open up the possibility of evening training rides and, dare I suggest it, training races on the lakefront! It sure would be great if we could get those going again, assuming they're finished hauling levee mud up and down Lakeshore Drive by then.

This morning in particular I was feeling sluggish and unfocused, forcing my feet around and just generally uncomfortable. The 12-rider group started out pretty easy today and although I felt like a tub of lard, I figured once I got warmed up everything would be better. And then Howard got on the front. We went from maybe 22 mph to around 26 mph and I was just not up for that game quite yet, so I let a gap open ahead of me and struggled to hold it steady, knowing it would eventually slow down. Finally I made contact again and quickly decided to take myself out of whatever game was being played at the front. It's a long way out to Ormond, and a longer way back, and I had no intention of making the return trip feel like a death march, so I dropped back past the end of the rotation and, for the most part stayed there until the pace eased up and I felt a little more warmed up, which is to say I sucked wheel almost all the way out.

Way up the river around the Luling bridge the sun finally made it over the batture trees, casting long winter shadows on the bike path. Finally, after the turnaround, I started to warm up and feel marginally alive again. Of course by now most of the group (i.e. those who hadn't been sucking wheels like I was) was starting to feel a little tired from the earlier pace and speeds now were decidedly on the slower side. Four or five times, as the group rolled easily at 22 mph, I dropped fifteen seconds off the back, plopped the chain down onto the small cogs, grabbed the bars deep in the bend and did short little catch-up sprints back up to the group. These felt really good and my legs started to loosen up a bit more with each one. So I ended up occasionally pushing the pace a bit over the last miles of the ride, perhaps a touch more than some would have liked, but then that's pretty much the kind of thing we're supposed to be training for anyway, isn't it? After all, we're just about a month from the start of the road racing season, so it's about time to start mixing some brief but intense efforts into the training gumbo.

Tuesday. Parade Over...

Fat Tuesday started out with a foggy and warm 6 am training ride. We had I guess eight or nine up on the levee this morning, and both the temperature and the pace were unseasonably hot. I was a little bit torn between getting in a good training ride and hanging out at Audubon Park for the7 am Royal Run, but ultimately decided on the ride. It was a bit of a sacrifice, really, because I knew there would be a good turnout because Rex this year is a member of Tulane's Board of Directors and someone who I knew wouldn't balk at the early morning start of a day that won't end for him until early tomorrow morning. So anyway, the ride was pretty fast, but David and I turned around at the Dip in order to get back home in time to get things together for the day's festivities. It was actually pretty nice having just the two of us taking long steady pulls into the wind.

I ended up riding down to St. Charles and Second St. with The Wife and her sister. It was incredibly warm and very windy, which was pretty nice because with Mardi Gras being so early this year we were all expecting it to be freezing cold. First up for us was the Rex parade that started at 10 am. It was probably over an hour before it arrived where we were, but then it stopped and didn't move again for a good hour or more. The entire LSU band and cheerleading squad was preceeding Rex this year (it's usually the Navy band) because of the recent BCS championship win, so they put on a little show while we waited in front of a big mansion that was flying official Rex and Comus king flags. Despite the big LSU presence, however, I noticed that the King had, tucked discretely between his leg and the seat of his throne, a Tulane flag. I saw it again on TV later in the day as he waved it while toasting the Mayor (or maybe the Queen).

We walked down to Jackson Avenue to see what the problem was because when this happens it's always some issue with the Zulu parade (some might suggest it's actually intentional). In this case, one of the floats had broken an axle, so Zulu was stalled until a replacement float arrived. On the plus side, we got to see the last few Zulu floats. Finally everything got rolling again, probably two or more hours behind schedule. Before the truck floats, which follow Rex, came along The Wife and I took off down Prytania on the bikes headed for the French Quarter. it was actually a very nice ride, and as we came up Convention Center Blvd. we caught Rex as he was being escorted to the place where he gets off of the float. The road was closed to traffic, but being on bikes we had snuck past the barricades, so it was kind of neat to see the first few minutes after the end of the parade.

The French Quarter was not particulary crowded when we arrived, probably in part because the parades had been so late and lots of people were still stuck on the other side of Canal Street until the many truck floats went by. Anyway, I wandered around and took some photos along Bourbon and Royal streets for an hour or so, wishing I could stay longer. As usual there was an abundance of people who should probably never be allowed in public wearing, or not wearing, what they were, but every now and then I stumble across a few who remind me why I love women so much. We headed home around 4:30 in order to avoid being on the road after dark on a day when probably 80% of the population has been drinking since before lunch. Photos are here.

Lumpy Training Ride and then Lundi Gras

Sunday morning the weather was warm when I took off for The Morning Call to meet up with anyone else who might be doing our Rouge-Roubaix prep. northshore training route. Since it was a very busy Mardi Gras parade and party weekend, I wasn't too surprised to find nobody there, so I found the only radio station not proadcasting Sunday morning PSAs or Infomercials (i.e. WWOZ) and made my way out to Causeway Blvd. for the drive across the lake. Somewhere behind me I saw the flashing blue lights of a police car as an unlucky driver got pulled over. I thought I saw a bike on the roof, and indeed it turned out to have been Ed (he got off with a "do you know how fast your were going?" warning). Even over on the northshore the turnout was low and five of us started out with a nice warm tailwind.

Our route had been planned to include two sections of gravel and dirt. Since the group was so small, though, we started making some exploratory alterations after the first dirt section. As it turned out, all of the dirt roads we'd selected (Isabel Swamp Road and Dusty Road) were disappointingly hard-packed and easily rideable. When we arrived in Plainview, we decided to take Jap Little Road, mainly because it was in far worse condition than Sie Jenkins Road that parallels it.

So we're flying down the broken and potholed macadam with Jorge in the lead, and as we come around a right-hand curve the road drops quickly down into a sharp left turn. Jorge is just bombing down the short but steep downhill with me on his wheel and about halfway down I start reaching for the brakes because I can see lots of sand and holes in the turn up ahead and think "nothing good will come of this." Jorge was a little late on the brakes, though, and by the time I hit the turn he was already doing bike acrobatics in the ditch. Finally his front wheel dug in or slid and he went over the bars as the rest of us filed past. It didn't look too serious since he'd fallen in the grass and seemed to have slowed down pretty much before finally landing in the dirt. As we turned around we were laughing about it, but when we got back to him we discovered he had acquired a brand new lump at the end of his left collarbone.

Although he wasn't in a huge amount of pain, it was obvious that something was not right, orthopedically speaking. Since most cyclists eventually acquire some level of familiarity with collarbone anatomy, we tentatively diagnosed a dislocated AC joint, ruled out at least a badly broken collarbone, and looked at our options. We were a good 20 miles from the cars and civilization, so one of the guys volunteered to ride back with him just in case it got worse and he required automotive extraction, while the rest of us, now only Ed, Keith and myself, finished out our ride.

When we finally called to check on Jorge at the end of the ride he said he'd talked to an orthopedist friend and decided to skip the trip to the ER and instead take some anti-inflammatories and see the doctor in the morning. Hopefully things can be popped back into position and all will be well. Anyway, even though my computer had only around 60 mi. on it by the time we got back, between the hills, sand and wind my legs felt like they had 80.

Sunday evening we had another very civilized parade viewing experience, camped out at a sweet top-floor condo on St. Charles Avenue, coming down just in time to see the Krewe of Bacchus with honorary King Hulk Hogan (who was clearly enjoying himself!) make its slow and unsteady way downtown. (Photos are here.) The crowds were nice and the floats were huge, especially the famous Bacchugator float that is about a block long. I have to give my vote to last night's Endymion, however. Of course, the whole time we're watching the parade we're trying to keep track of the Superbowl to see if local boy Eli Manning would be able to secure another ring for the family collection. He took it down to the last minute, but finally delivered, resulting in a happy New Orleans and a big red wine stain on the couch!

So today is Lundi Gras, a sort of pre-Mardi Gras thing that was revived some years back, and the university is closed until Wednesday while the city is in full-on Mardi Gras mode. I think we may take a shot at another parade tonight, and then of course Mardi Gras morning (although I'll probably slip in an early-morning ride first). The weather is supposed to start going rapidly downhill in the early afternoon, but at least it will remain unseasonably warm. We'll just have to cross our fingers on the rain and hope it somehow skirts the city.

Morning and Night the Saturday Before

Dan works for the Border Patrol out west, lately on horseback, and the nearest Starbucks is 70 miles away. So when he called to say he'd be in town and wanted to meet at the local Starbucks precisely when it opened at 6:30 am, I understood. You can take a city boy out of the coffee shop, but you can't take the coffee shop out of the city boy. So I met Dan and his friend Courtney, who he's helping with a cross-country move, waited for the barista to open the door, and finally headed north to the lakefront for the Saturday Giro Ride. Along the way we passed hundreds of people along Carrollton who had been camping out since Friday in order to get the best parade-watching spots for the night's Endymion parade. Considering that it was a big day for parades down here (Mardi Gras is next Tuesday), there was a pretty good-sized group on hand even though Chad had a few of the BW guys doing an anti-social team training ride somewhere up the road. After crossing the casino bridge the pace gradually, but steadily, rose, until going almost full-bore for the last mile or so before Paris Road. Dan's friend Courtney dropped off at that point, but I was sure she'd be able to find her way back uptown since we had made a point of showing her all of the key landmarks on the way out. Well, all of them except one. Anyway, just a minute later somebody hit a bump and ejected his tail light. I was toward the back, so I slowed down to turn around and pick it up for him, thinking it would be easy to catch back up. However, when I started to turn around I saw two cars coming and had to wait seemingly forever for them to pass. By the time I picked up the light the pack was hopelessly far down the road so I just settled into a nice pace, figuring I'd get back into the group after the turnaround. A few miles down the road I noticed a couple of the guys dropping back and as it turned out Tim had gotten everyone to ease up so he and Max could drop back and pace me back up to the group. That was nice!



So we finish the ride and Courtney is nowhere to be found, so we figure she just rode back uptown. When we finally found her at the house we got a pretty good story. She'd lost her phone the day before so she couldn't call us for help or directions. As it turned out there was one crucial thing I'd forgotten to tell her, which was to bear right coming down the Seabrook bridge to get back onto Lakeshore Drive. As a result she got completely lost and ended up hitching a ride back uptown.



The evening was spent downtown at the office where we had a nice little get-together, and much wine and beer, waiting for the Endymion parade to make its way down Canal Street. It's pretty nice when you can just look out the 10th floor window and wait until you see the horses coming before taking the elevator down and walking straight out the front door to watch the parade. The parade was fun and, unlike most Endymion parades in the past, there was never a really long gap or delay. I got home and hit the sack, ready for tomorrow's early morning wakeup for the Northshore training ride.

The Daily Battle

It's been hard lately to get out on the road in the morning. It seems to me that mid-January through February is often a difficult season for training. The weather has been cold, rainy, windy or some combintation of the above all week, resulting in a daily battle with common sense. It's only my intense dislike for the indoor trainer that gets me on the road some mornings. Well, that and my equally intense dislike for being dropped like a rock by guys who ride trainers for two hours a day. When I left the office yesterday evening the latest cold front was just coming through. We were under a tornado watch, and up here on the roof of the Tidewater Building the wind sounded like the opening scenes of The Wizard of Oz. Rain was pelting the sliding glass doors on the north side and water was leaking onto the carpet as usual. I stepped over the wet spots, turned out the lights, and made for the garage and a warm dry ride home in the car.

This morning the temperature was down to 40F and there was a brutal north wind blowing. It was coming from exactly the opposite direction as the brutal south wind we battled yesterday. The turnout up on the levee was slim, and after a couple of people turned around early there were only three of us left. We fought our way out to the parish line, made our usual u-turn, and were finally rewarded, at least for a while, with a nice tailwind. For a Friday, it was a harder ride than usual, but as they say, "you gotta make hay when the sun shines." Indeed, by the time we had made the turnaround the rising sun was fully in our eyes and the sky was clear and blue - a welcome sight after yesterday's flat grey.

Flying back down the bike path with the wind at our backs and a clear blue sky ahead I remembered why I like to ride my bike. An hour later as I rolled the commuter into the bike room at work I noticed a shiny new bell on a bright red cruiser bike with absurdely wide handlebars. It said "I love my bike."