Smooth Asphalt, Tailwinds, and Everything

One thing about winter cycling in New Orleans is that you have to be prepared for everything. Everything is about what we got this weekend. After taking Friday as a rest day, my plan was to ride the Giro on Saturday and then follow it up with the Northshore ride on Sunday. The weather was warm on Friday, and by that I mean nearly 80°F, but a cold front was on its way, scheduled to arrive some time Saturday afternoon.

Saturday morning the alarm went off and I promptly fell asleep again. When I finally glanced at the clock, it was 6:30 am. The ride to the lakefront to meet the Giro is about seven miles. I jumped out of bed, took one fast step, and promptly slammed the middle toe of my left foot right into the leg of the dresser. Full-force. Four-letter words issued forth from my mouth, and I had to sit down for a moment to recover my senses. I figured there was an outside chance I'd broken it, but if I had, the best thing would be to immobilize it in some sort of rigid boot. You know, like a cycling shoe. So I carefully pulled on a pair of socks, grabbed a pair of shorts and single jersey and hit the road. The toe seemed fine as long as I didn't pull "up" too much, so I time-trialed out to the Lakefront, arriving right on time to meet the group. A few miles later we hit wet roads from a recent rain shower, and in fact spent most of the rest of the ride riding on wet, muddy roads that made a mess of the bikes, not to mention shorts, jerseys, glasses, shoes, etc. I had to sit up a few times to spray water on my glasses to wash off the dirt, and generally avoided drinking out of my bottle because the top was so filthy. Classic winter ride, I guess. Except for one thing. It was at least 70 degrees at the start, and quite a bit warmer by the time we finished. It stayed warm all day and I went to sleep with the air-conditioner running.

The Giro turned out to be pretty fast, at least once we got going again after the first flat tire. By the time we were halfway down Chef Highway we had a nice paceline going. I came to the front and glanced down at the computer. 30 mph. I held the speed as I came through and pulled off to the right. I looked over to see Mignon coming through at 30 mph - in the small ring. Sheesh. I'm such a gear sissy! After the ride a small group of us got together at the local cafe' for a quick breakfast and to talk over some plans for the Tour de La, the club jersey order, etc.

By Sunday morning the front had come through and it was cloudy and, by my standards, cold. At home the temperature had dropped maybe 35 degrees overnight and it was about 50F when I left. I stopped at Starbucks for a scone and cup of Christmas Blend, but nobody else was there. I wondered if the turnout would be low today because of the wind and change in temperature. By the time I got to the ride start on the northshore, about 35 miles away, the temperature was down to about 42. A few people arrived late, so I ended up standing around in the parking lot for about ten minutes. By the time we got rolling, the strong north wind had chilled me to the bone and I spent the next fifteen miles hiding from the wind and shivering. Someone behind me asked, "Randy is your headset loose or are you shivering." My headset was fine. Luckily we had a big group of about 25 riders, so finding a nice draft was easy.

Finally we hit LA-10 and turned away from the wind (after a long stop to fix two flats). The next stretch got pretty fast and I was finally starting to feel comfortable. We flew through the turn on Sie Jenkins and hammered up THE WALL, sprinting for the sprint line a mile later and finally stopping at the highway to wait for the rest of the group. It was another long wait since there had been yet another flat. After Plainview we had a pretty strong quartering headwind, but the group got a nice smooth paceline going for most of it that made it feel a lot easier.

After crossing Highway 16 at Enon we got onto that fresh smooth asphalt heading toward the Watchtower Hill with a nice tailwind. About halfway into the climb Todd started to roll off the front so I went with him. I was expecting that either he would pull off so I could take a pull, or we'd be caught and overtaken by the front of the group. Well, neither happened. Todd just engaged his auto-pilot and towed me like a Remora most of the way to Tung Road. Somewhere along the way Jaro bridged up to us. After turning onto Tung Road we eased up for a minute and a few other riders caught up, but soon Todd and VJ were motoring again so we didn't wait for the rest of the group. A surge up REDNECK HILL inflicted some pain and pretty soon we were down to four riders, then three, then just Todd and me. Rolling down that smooth asphalt with a strong tailwind was about as good as it gets. When we got back to the cars I was ready for more. I think if someone had said, "Lets do another ten," I wouldn't even have gotten off the bike.