Up and Over

Holiday training rides are always interesting, in a schizophrenic kind of way. There had been a few emails on Sunday resulting in an apparent consensus, which means more than two people responded. The plan involved a 7 am start at the "stacks" on the levee bike path with a ride out to Destrehan and back. If all went well, we would also go up and over the Destrehan-Luling bridge across the Mississippi, which adds a nice 1 mile climb. I really didn't know what to expect as far as participation goes. I awoke earlier than I needed to, which turned out to be a good thing because I remembered that I was down to only one spare tube and about a hundred others with holes in them. Normally, I'd just sit down and patch a few, but as it turned out, my trusty can of glue had finally dried up to the point of uselessness. Considering the historical success rate of my tube-patching activities, I'm not generally comfortable without two spare tubes, so I went back upstairs and dug the spare tube I carry for my commuting bike out of my messenger bag, thereby doubling my chances of having a tube that held air. I guess I need to put glue on my rapidly growing list of things I need to get, along with a six-gap compatible cassette and new chain.

Anyway, there were six or seven people at the start, and that number grew quickly once we got rolling. Before long we were up to about fifteen, I guess. There was a light tailwind and although we'd started out at a nice civilized holiday-ride pace, after a while things started getting seriously out of hand. When we had to negotiate a few pedestrians and casual cyclists, two or three riders split off the front and suddenly we were in full-on chase mode. The group started to splinter, but eventually things slowed down and everything came back together.

When we got to the bridge a number of people decided to skip the excitement and wait while the rest of us headed up the long curving on-ramp. This particular bridge over the river happens to the end of a section of Interstate highway, so although there's a nice wide shoulder (littered with road debris as always), the traffic tends to be going pretty fast. Lawrence took off up the climb, drawing Mark and Steve, who eventually passed him before the top. We over the bridge, regrouped at the bottom, and rode right back over. The ride back was a little sketchy because they had the shoulder of the road barricaded off because of some work they were doing up there (replacing the support cables, I think). Of course, I'd never ride over this bridge if it weren't a quiet Sunday morning or holiday, so it wasn't too terrible.

The ride back remained nice and controlled for a pretty long time, but the growing headwind was making it harder and harder to maintain the 22-23 mph pace. A few people started pushing the pace, which started opening gaps, and then, despite the headwind, the speed started increasing even more. Naturally, things completely came apart and I found myself trying to buffer the surges without losing contact completely. Anyway, what I'd expected to be a nice smooth holiday ride turned out to be significantly harder than anticipated. It happens.