A Few Extra Miles

It took me a long time to get dressed this morning. Although I knew it was legitimately cold outside, I also knew that it would warm up by close to twenty degrees by the time the ride was over. What to wear? More importantly: What not to wear? I ended up overdressing, of course.


Earlier in the week, Mignon had sent out an email suggesting a long Saturday ride out to Fort Pike, which is conveniently located seven or eight miles past the usual Giro turnaround. That sounded like a good idea to me, since I knew I wouldn't be able to make the usual northshore ride on Sunday. So I packed a little gel when I set out for the lakefront today, anticipating a 75 mile ride.


The group was typical for this time of year and the ride started out in the usual way, but then Woody flatted. The front part of the group slowed down just a bit, but basically kept going. A second group slowed down a little more, but didn't stop. So those of us at the back really didn't know what to do. We rode along rather slowly, looking back over our shoulders periodically. Finally, Woody caught back up to us. Things kind of went downhill after that as far as the group was concerned. We went fairly hard down Chef highway, but things were quite disorganized, and it seemed a lot of riders were reluctant to do any work at the front. When we finally got to the turnaround, I was quite surprised how many riders decided to keep going out to Fort Pike. So we had a pretty good group out there on that flat, unprotected road through the marsh. I hadn't ridden that stretch since Katrina and although it's been a few years now, I could hardly recognize a lot of it. All of the old fishing camps were gone, but here and there were new ones, mostly up on 20 foot piers, and built in Florida summer home style. Anyway, we weren't too far down the road when a big gap opened up and a group split off the front. I tried to get the rest of the group to organize a decent paceline, but it just wasn't working. In the end it was just Howard and me. So once we got to Fort Pike, where a fancy new concrete bridge has now replaced the classic old steel drawbridge that used to be there, we regrouped. A small group continued on to ride all the way to Slidell. The rest of us rode over the bridge, turned around and rode back over it, and headed for home.


As is nearly always the case with rides to Fort Pike, the last ten miles were surprisingly hard. I guess it must be the unrelenting wind, but every time I do that ride, I'm surprised how tired I get by the end. I finally limped home from the lakefront at 14 mph with another 75 miles on the odometer.


The afternoon was spent installing a new dishwasher. It went remarkably well, considering. I mean, installing a modern dishwasher in an old house with antique plumbing and wiring is always a challenge. Luckily, I didn't have to0 many big surprises, although I did have to install a new junction box and replace some wiring, and of course as soon as I touched the sink drain something broke and I had to replace some of that too. On the plus side, nothing leaks and the machine works as expected. In fact, it's so quiet that I kept checking to make sure it was still running.


Tomorrow I'll head out early to meet a visiting rider downtown at a bed and breakfast so I can show him the way to the lakefront and the Giro Ride. After the Giro I have to jump into the car and drive over to Ft. Walton, FL.