Unseasonably Everything

I drove the rental Mazda SUV slowly over to Starbucks. I'd awakened quite early and had already checked the weather, eaten a sugar-coated christmas tree cookie for breakfast, killed as much time as reasonably possible. The weather was unseasonably warm, and although the weatherman had promised a low chance of rain, there were a few ominous clouds on the horizon. It didn't matter, though. I was going to ride regardless. Today is, after all, the last day of my long holiday vacation, and I wasn't about to spend it sitting on the couch watching television or doing any of the ten million household tasks that populate the bottom of my personal priority list.

In the parking lot I awkwardly arranged three bikes in the back of the unfamiliar vehicle, and, coffee cup in hand, headed over the causeway. There was already a pretty big group at the school where we park for the ride, and more were still coming. We ended up with at least twenty, including a few faces we hadn't seen in a while like Mike L., Todd, Diego and Ali. With all those people, it wasn't too surprising that we started out a good ten minutes after our target time of 8 am, but once we did, the first thing that struck me was that we were being treated to an unseasonable south wind. The second thing was that the second jersey and arm-warmers I'd put on were going to be coming off at the first opportunity.

I don't know if it was the warm weather or the light wind or the big group or just the time of year, but for some reason almost everyone stayed together today. At the beginning, a few riders seemed to be pushing the pace, and I was thinking we'd end up with an unseasonably fast ride today. Sure, there was the usual split on the long stretch on Highway 439, but everyone made it over the big hill together and the eventual split came a lot later than usual. As we came down the hill at the end of that section Mike said he'd drop back and pick up the last of the riders and take the Jap Little shortcut. The main group waited just a minute or two after Sie Jenkins Road, and by then Mike and Mignon were already waiting at the end of Jap Little. The next section, which is a long stretch to the northwest that's all rolling hills and usually into a stiff headwind was today a smooth and fast roller coaster ride thanks to that south wind. When we turned south on Lee Road, I thought surely things would blow up approaching the Enon sign sprint. Jay launched a couple of attacks, and I even ended up off the front quite accidentally at one point, but the main group was content to gradually chase down the little breaks without trying to keep the pressure on. Of course there was a sprint for the Enon sign, but it was mostly limited to the five or six riders who were near the front at the time. So next, I thought there'd be a big attack on the watchtower hill, but although we went up fairly fast and kept the pace high all the way to Tung Road, the front group never put a whole lot of time on the rest of the group. At Tung Road I let the group go and a few of us hung around to pick up the second group. I was surprised how close they were. We quickly got a nice paceline going and kept the lead group in sight for most of the last six miles without ever resorting to an all-out chase.

So all-in-all, this was a great ride. Big group, no rain, warm temperatures, and to cap things off right, Jason rolled an ice chest full of beer up to the car after we finished. Needless to say, we hung around the parking lot for a little while after that. Now it's well after 4 pm and the rain that was supposed to be here by now is nowhere to be seen. Instead, there's a good amount of blue sky and sunshine, and the temperature is probably in the mid-70s. They say that in New Orleans we have four seasons - shrimp season, crawfish season, crab season, and oyster season. I don't know exactly what season this is, but I definitely like it.