A Ride and a Beer

With yet another spectacular weather weekend on hand, I was looking forward to the northshore training ride. For many, the weekend was not without its complications, though.With Halloween falling on a weekend, plus a Saints game tonight, plus the huge Voodoo Experience in City Park, I'm sure a lot of people had some tough decisions to make.  For me, however, it was just another Sunday morning.  The complications would have to wait. When I unplugged my Blackberry from the charger at 6am, thereby awakening it from sleep mode, I noticed I had received a text message.  It had come the night before around 8:30 while I was eating dinner with one of the neighbors.  I'd already left the phone on my dresser for the night, and although I'd checked my email on the computer later in the evening, I hadn't checked the Blackberry.  The message was from Zack, asking if I was doing the northshore ride.  I sent him a text reply, but since it was so early I wasn't really expecting to hear back from him.  I didn't.  So I fired up the car and headed over to Puccino's to see if any other southshore riders would be there.  The parking lot was deserted, though.

The Lee Road Junior High parking lot, however, was anything but deserted.  In addition to our regular training ride, there was another small group that was meeting there at the same time.  So at 8 am we rounded up "our" riders and headed out for the regular 65 mile ride.  It was still a little chilly, and some riders were sporting their knee-warmers.  I'm still in denial about winter, though, so I left mine in the car.  Besides, I knew it would warm up considerably in an hour or so.  The air temperature in the middle of the lake had been 67F.  The temperature at the start of the ride was more like 54, but the sky was clear and there was virtually no wind. 

The group started out pretty easy and everyone stayed together as we made our way up to Enon.  I was feeling pretty good and probably wouldn't have minded much if the pace had gotten faster, but for the most part things remained subdued except for the sprints.  I'm usually kind of hesitant to go for the training ride sprints this time of year, but even so, one does need to stay in contact.

When we got up to Hwy. 10 at the top of the course we stopped for a little wardrobe readjustment so that people could strip off their knee-warmers and vests and such.  It wasn't hot, of course, but it had gotten up to that sweet spot where shorts and a jersey felt pretty comfortable.  I could have taken my arm-warmers off, but I usually find that it's easier to just leave them on.  It's not like my arms get overheated when I ride anyway.  This intersection is where Choctaw Road crosses La. 10, and there's this historical marker there - out in the middle of nowhere -- that notes the history of Choctaw Road.

The back stretch out to Sie Jenkins started out pretty smoothly and didn't really get fast until after the first or second of those steep little climbs (the second one is a designated sprint).  Things came apart just a little along there, but I don't think anyone was more than a minute off the back, so by the time we came around the corner at Plainview, it was gruppo compacto. 

As usual, the closer we got to the Enon sign sprint, the faster the pace got.  This stretch of Lee Road heading into Enon from the north is really sweet.  Silky smooth asphalt, practically no cars, Overhanging trees, and low rolling hills that seem to get lower and lower the closer you get to Enon.  We rolled through Enon and pacelined down toward the Firetower hill which we climbed at a pretty steady speed until we were near the top and I just had to keep the pressure on a little longer.  That kind of split things up a bit, but over the next mile or two I think everything came back together.

As we rode the last five or six miles down Tung Road we passed a few small groups of riders from the "other" ride, so everyone was back at the parking lot at pretty much the same time.  Jason cracked open his ice chest and I enjoyed a nice bottle of the local microbrew before finally hitting the road for home.  Once I get past the open house we are having tonight for Halloween, I'll have to get myself to the airport for a 6 am flight to D.C.

Cool-downs

It's that time of year again.  Hot and sticky one day, cold and windy the next.  Today was the next. We had a pretty good cool-down after that front pushed through yesterday, and I was having a little trouble dealing with the sudden change. I pulled on an extra jersey and a pair of arm-warmers and headed out the door. It was a Friday.  It was really windy.  It was dark.  It was twenty degrees colder than the day before.  I figured I'd be alone.  I was, but I really don't mind that on Friday when I usually just want to take it easy and enjoy the ride.  Somewhere out around the Country Club I ran into Taylor.  So at least I had a little conversation to make the ride go by a little faster, which wasn't actually very fast at all. This was good because it helped keep my mind off of the fact that my toes were still a long way from being winter-ready.  On the way home I decided to stop by Zotz for a cup of coffee and a bagel, which were nice.  By the time I got back on the bike, though, I had cooled down so much that I had to really hustle home before I got really cold.

So today I switched from grant proposals to Facebook.  After wading through the posts about the ongoing King of Style Collegiate Jersey wars  Contest, (stroke of genius on USAC's part, I might add), I finally set up the Facebook page for the Tulane Office of Government Affairs, and spend altogether too much time trying to figure out how to put their "like button" widget onto our regular web page before finally relenting and calling the experts, who of course had it up and running in about ten minutes.

I wonder how cold it will be in the morning......      

Good Timing

The view of damp streets through fogged-up windows made me check the weather radar this morning.  It looked a little sketchy, but most of the heavy stuff seemed to be long gone, so I hit the road around 6 am to see what the morning levee ride had to offer.  There was a pretty stiff wind blowing, but it was still warm and humid despite a rapidly approaching cold front. I wondered out loud where that cool air we'd been promised was.  Up on the levee there was only a skeleton crew.  Something about the strong shifting wind and threat of rain must have kept a lot of people at home, and we numbered only five as we headed upriver.  Most of the way out seemed to be headwind and crosswind, and we spend a lot of time struggling to maintain 22 mph.  I knew we wouldn't be riding all the way out to Destrehan.  When the group is this small and the speed this low we almost always turn around early.  We were our around the Country Club when I noticed a red blinky light about a minute up the road.  We were working pretty hard, but we were just not chipping into that gap much at all.  It didn't take me long to figure out that it must be Donald.  After we crossed the parish line we seemed to be closing the gap just a little, and after a few rotations I decided to push the pace up another notch. When I pulled off, though, I was surprised to find that our little group had kind of shattered, so I eased up and we all regrouped around The Dip where we turned around.

As I turned left off of Oak Street, and Zack turned right, I glanced to my left and saw it.  The sky was absolutely black out to the southwest.  I thought to myself, "good timing" and didn't waste any time on my way back to the house. By the time I left for work about an hour later, the temperature had dropped nearly ten degrees and there was a Tulane Tech tweet on my phone about the power having been knocked out somewhere on campus. On the plus side, it never did rain.

After a long meeting on campus I headed to the office down Audubon Street where I noticed the nicely posed skeletons above and just had to stop and take a picture.  It seems that people are really getting into Halloween this year.  I guess it helps that it falls on a weekend this year. 

Snake Bit

A late night in front of the computer made it hard to crawl out of bed this morning.  I glanced over at the outdoor thermometer and heard myself mumble, "damn!"  The temperature was around 80F and there was already a strong and humid south wind blowing.  I figured it would be a hard ride.

I arrived at the levee meeting spot to find the usual group engaged in the recently popular discussion about the impending bike path closure.  No new news there, so we headed out into the darkness. I knew that the strong south wind would eventually take its toll, particularly once we got to a crosswind area, but for the first few miles all was going smoothly until we came to the access road that leads to the place that sells rocks.  This is a big operation that ships in all sorts of big and small rocks and piles them up according to size to be loaded onto trucks for, I don't know, whatever people do with rocks.  Anyway, I had just pulled off of the front and was second from the back of the paceline as we crossed the road when I heard that lovely rhythmic hissing sound.  I'd nailed an unseen rock dead on in the darkness and pinch-flatted, resulting in the classic "snake bite" hole pattern in the inner tube.  Considering the time of year, perhaps we should call these "vampire bites" this week.  It was way too early to ask the whole group to stop and wait while I fumbled around in the darkness trying to change tubes by feel, so I just slid quietly out the back and coasted to a stop.  I took my time changing the flat. I mean, it was windy and dark and I was tired, so I figured the flat was A SIGN.  Once I got rolling again I just cruised along at an easy pace and soon I started seeing riders who had been in the group coming back in ones and twos.  A number of them had turned around early.  Eventually I saw the bulk of the group coming my way.  They had turned around early too.  So I made a quick U-turn and got into the paceline for the return trip.

On my way home I passed a film crew (they don't really use film any more, do they?) setting up on Oak Street at the Rue de la Course coffee shop.  There was already a long buffet line set up.  Those guys sure do eat well.  You'd think they would just have gotten breakfast at the coffee shop.  I mean after all, they were right there.  Anyway, I have no idea what they were setting up for.  It could have been a movie, or perhaps some sort of reality show thing.  I heard that there was a film crew on Tulane's campus recently, so perhaps it had something to do with that.  The university often works out deals with movie companies so that they can film scenes on campus.

Scent of Rain

Flat Number Two

The minute I walked out the door at 6:30 a.m. I smelled it.  The unmistakable scent of rain.  There was a smattering of raindrops on the car, but that was about it, so I chalked it up to a little passing shower and headed off to pick up Zack and then rush over to Puccino's to meet whoever else was going over the big pond for the weekly northshore training ride.

I'd been expecting more of the Herring guys for this weekend, but as it turned out we had only Woody and Jacob on hand.  When we pulled into the parking lot at the Junior High forty-five minutes later, however, I was surprised by the number of cars.  Like last week, we started out with about twenty riders for the traditional 65 mile route.  The difference, though, was that this time the sky was cloudy and the temperature a good ten degrees warmer.  The forecast was calling for increasing winds out of the south and a 30% chance of rain. Such a prediction would normally be fine, but I had definitely been spoiled a bit by previous three weekends of perfect weather.  I think we had four or five Tulane Cycling riders, most of whom were also regular NOBC riders as well, and before we started, Jordan walked over to give me one of our new T-shirts.


Robert and Woody

As the group headed out toward Enon, I was glad to see that nobody was looking to make the ride into a long hammerfest, but nonetheless I was anticipating one or two fast stretches up on the far end of the loop.  A few miles past Enon, after the traditional "nature break" at Dummyline Road, a car with bikes on the back went flying past the group.  Then, as we came up the little hill toward the fire station at Tullos Road we saw Robert jump out of the car, pull his bike off the rack, and hop on, merging smoothly into the group just as we made the turn.  Good timing! 

Despite its size, this was a pretty good and evenly matched group, which made for a smooth and brisk paceline all the way out to the top of the course at Highway 10.  As usual, things started getting faster as we headed back toward Bogalusa and Plainview, and the surges over a couple of the steeper climbs eventually split the pack.  Down at the end of Sie Jenkins Road we stopped to regroup just in time to hear Robert's tire explode.  A few stragglers arrived, but Carlo was inexplicably missing and there was some discussion about whether he might have turned around or taken a shortcut.  That was kind of doubtful because we didn't think he knew the course, and if he'd missed the turn onto Sie Jenkins, we'd probably be getting a call from Bogalusa.  Anyway, just as the "Dropped Rider Statute of Limitations" was about to expire, we finally tracked him down thanks to cellphones, and found out he'd dropped his chain twice but was only about a mile away.  So by the time the flat tire was fixed, everyone was back together.

We were only a couple of miles west of Plainview when I heard people behind me yelling "Flat!"  Robert's tire had flatted again, so we stopped to fix it, putting a little boot over the sharp edge of the valve stem hole that we suspected to have caused the flat.  Just after that the sky started getting darker and by the time we were approaching Lee road it was already starting to drizzle.  I wasn't really surprised, and sat up to put my camera into the ziplock bag that was already holding my Blackberry.  With the Saints football game scheduled to start at noon, the decision was made to take the Dummyline Road shortcut to make up for a little lost time.

As we made our way back south on Lee Road the rain continued, and by the time we rolled into Enon I could feel the water swishing around between my toes.  You never really feel "wet" until the water soaks through your socks and your feet get wet.  This was no longer simply "drizzle," it was "Rain," and it continued as we climbed up from the Bogue Chitto bridge to the firetower and sprinted for the parish road sign. It's actually now a "virtual" sign, since it's been missing for a couple of years now, but a few weeks ago Jason went around the course and painted finish lines for the sprints, along with 1km and 200M marks.  By then the group had split, as usual, so there was a final regrouping along Tung road, followed by that long final stretch back to the cars.  It was another good training ride, despite the soggy clothes, and I think everyone arrived back in time to catch the second half of the Saints game, which may or may not have been a good thing.

City Rides

It was Saturday morning and I still didn't have the Orbea back together.  I had gotten a "new" old Campi ErgoBrain and so it was finally time to break down and replace all the cables, install the computer, put on some new rubber, and finish it off with some nice fresh handlebar tape.  The brake and derailleur cable replacement went smoothly enough. The ErgoBrain installation, however, was a bit more tedious. As anyone who has done it before can tell you, installing the aptly named ErgoBrain can sometimes feel like doing brain surgery .... especially late at night after a couple of glasses of wine. So it wasn't until very, very late Thursday night that I finally had the little buttons on the brake lever bodies working properly.  I figured I'd finish up the rest Firday night, but an impromptu dinner with the neighbors changed my plans.


Leaving the Quarter with the Cathedral in the background

Saturday morning I rolled the Cervelo out the door and into the 6 am darkness.  Flipping on front and rear blinky lights, I headed out on the quiet streets toward the lake.  The sky was clear and the moon was about full, and there was just a bit of morning fog that made it feel a little colder than it really was. 

When everyone converged on the corner of Marconi and Robt. E. Lee at 7 am, I looked around and realized that we had a really big turnout for this one.  A few of the Herring riders were in town and I wondered if things might get out of hand speed-wize.  I didn't really want to end up with sore legs since I was planning on doing the northshore ride on Sunday.  Once the speed started to ramp up on Hayne Blvd., I settled into the middle of the group as it started to string out.  Then Jacob just rode off the front, taking one or two with him. A sort of semi-serious chase ensued, but lots of people, myself included, were just sitting in.  I remember looking down and seeing 30 mph and thinking how easy it was while sitting in the middle of a big group.  On the way back things bunched up a bit about a mile before the Goodyear Sign sprint, and for some reason I decided it would be fun to give Jacob a leadout, so I tapped him on the shoulder and accelerated down one side of the paceline while he accelerated down the other.  I crossed over as soon as I could and he was right there on my wheel, so I took him straight to the front thinking I could get him maybe 300 meters from the line before blowing up.  Well, that turned out to have been wildly optimistic.  I *maybe* got to within 500 meters before dropping him off.  I glanced back and saw that we had gotten a pretty big gap, but a moment later I heard wheels coming up from behind really fast.  Mark G. was going flat out and caught Jacob well before the finish.  Even so, they didn't really slow down much after the sprint and we ended up chasing all the way down the service road. 



Just the back end of the group.

On the way home I made the crucial mistake of going down Wisner where I ran right into the huge Susan G. Komen breast cancer run/walk event.  I ended up winding my way through a sea of pink down back streets and sidewalks until I finally broke free at Canal Street.

Back at home I put on the new handlebar tape and new tires just in time to ride over to Tulane to meet the club's 2 pm city ride.  Four of us did a nice easy ride down through the French Quarter out to Bywater and back.  Other than the 500 stop signs we rolled through and the exhaust from the tour buses, it was nice.

Just Waiting

Did I mention how dark it is when I leave the house in the morning?  Yeah, I thought I did.  The regular group gathered up on the levee at 6:15 am today, as it has on practically every Saturday for many years now.  Just past the start, in the area where the Corps came and cleared out all of the batture trees, there's now a huge work barge and an enormous crane.  I'm still not at all sure what they're about to do there, although I don't think we'll have to wait too much longer to find out.  We rolled out at a moderate, almost sensible, pace this morning, considering the minimal visibility. Down by the Huey P. they are definitely moving toward the road and bike path closure we've been waiting for, but I'm guessing it will be a few more days, at least, before the complete shut-down.  There are now a few actual barricades standing at the ready up along the top of the levee, but still no indication I can see of the detour for the River Road traffic.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

The group was a good ten miles down the road before it was light enough to turn off the headlight today, and as the visibility started to increase, so did the pace.  The temperature was cool this morning, but certainly not cold, so we had a mixture of arm-warmers and bare skin in the group.  It looks like it will be that way all week, with lows in the 60s and highs in the 80s.  Can't really complain about that, except for the fact that we're bordering on drought conditions now, which means that the house will start shifting around its foundation (I use the term loosely) and I may even have to start watering the plants. 

We were already on the way back from the turnaround by the time the sun finally started to peek over the trees (and the grain elevators) out by Destrehan.  As we made our way back downriver I noticed that the pace was particularly erratic.  Some were taking long pulls at 24-25 mph, while others were taking short ones at 22.  Gaps would open every time someone at the front would surge.  It was just one of those mornings, I guess. The only real problem was that I wasn't sure what pace I should be going when I'd come to the front.  Should I try to maintain the 24 mph pace or the 22 mph pace?  Somewhere in the confusion, we lost a few riders off the back, I think, and toward the end we picked up a new rider from New Zealand who has been in town for about a year but hadn't ever found the group before.  Naturally, I asked him his name and then immediately forgot it.  Here at work I've been waiting for about a week for a bunch of stuff that I need in order to assemble and submit a $1.2M construction grant.  Thus far I've not received much, and since the deadline is this Friday, I'm starting to get a little anxious.  Harassment proceedings may need to start soon.  At any rate, it's looking like I'll be immersed in my own private fire drill at some point in the next couple of days.  Situation normal.  After I get that package out the door I'll be more or less looking forward to the end of the month with a conference in D.C., followed almost immediately by the USA Cycling Local Associations meeting in Colorado Springs.  This morning I happened to read Brian Toone's blog.  He just posted a really detailed review of his 2010 racing season.  If anyone wants to get a feel for the kind of training (and travelling) it takes to be a regionally competitive Cat. 1 cyclist, Brian's blog serves as a great resource -- average training week:  15 hours, 270 mi, 14,000 ft. of climbing.

Brakeless in BR

Up around dawn for the drive up to Baton Rouge, I knew Saturday was going to be a long day.  It was the grand re-opening of the Perkins Road Park, home of the Baton Rouge Velodrome.  Friday morning I had dusted off (literally) the old Viner track bike and tried to pump up the tires to make sure they were still OK.  Unfortunately the short valve stems on the old Vittoria Corsa tubulars didn't leave quite enough room in the more modern rims for the pump to grab, so after work I rode over to GNO Cyclery and picked up a valve extender. So by Friday night the track bike was ready to go.  The "event" was a track clinic conducted by a couple of the guys from the Dick Lane Velodrome over in East Point, GA (south Atlanta).  I didn't really know what to expect, but since I'd agreed to bring a lap counter and bell and stopwatches, I figured I may as well see what it was all about.



Track riding always seems to involve
a lot of this.

The clinic turned out to be fairly well-structured and fun.  Starting at 8 am, riders who needed them were fitted to loaner bikes and introduced to the track. After going over the basics of track safety, and a review of the significance of the blue band, black line, red line, finish line, pursuit lines, and the missing stayer's line, they started out with some introductory laps, followed by a series of drills designed to make new riders comfortable with riding in mass-start races, matched sprints, and flying 200 meter time trials.  After a late lunch, there was a series of A and B practice races that included scratch races, points races, a miss-and-out, and matched sprints.  All of this made for a pretty long day, and I guess it was nearly 5 pm before I got back into the car to head home.  The entire Perkins Park, by the way, looked pretty impressive.  Although not too much about the Velodrome had changed, there is now a huge skate park, with a rock wall in the middle,  immediately adjacent to the track and an improved BMX track adjacent to that.  It was interesting, and maybe a little frightening, that there was apparently no helmet requirement for the skate park.  The high fence that had always encircled the velodrome is now gone and, as far as I can tell, it is open to the public and unsupervised from dawn to dusk.  That is obviously going to present a safety problem.  While we were there, lots of people with BMX bikes or skateboards came through the tunnel and wanted to ride on the track. I talked with someone who works at the park, and she seemed to be very interested in making it work, so I'm optimistic.  Anyway, I think the riders who attended, especially those who were new to the track, got a lot out of the clinic.  I decided to take a pass on the sprints at the end of the day, both because I needed to get back to New Orleans, and because I didn't want to completely trash my legs.



Sunday morning found me once again in the car before sunrise.  I swung over to Starbucks first, waiting for a few minutes as they finished brewing the first batch of Anniversary Blend and chatting with Billy (of GNO Cyclery).  Then I headed over to Puccino's to see if anybody else was going over to do the northshore ride, but at 7 am the parking lot was still empty, so I cranked up the radio and hit the Causeway just as the sun started to peek over the horizon.  It was going to be another spectacular day, with a morning temperature in Covington around 60F and not a single cloud in the sky.




Coming over the watchtower climb
on the way out to Enon

The group at the Lee Road Junior High was a little smaller than usual.  I guess we had nine or ten riders at the start. I guess there's a lot of competition this time of year with festivals and school sports and those sorts of things.  I was kind of relieved to find that my legs didn't feel sore, although as usual my neck was kind of stiff.  Whenever I spend any significant amount of time on the track, my neck ends up rather sore.  Riding around the bankings you have to cock your neck up quite a bit just to see what's ahead of you, since, essentially, it's actually above you.  The training ride group was, the most part, remarkably restrained today.  Of course there were a few fast sections and sprints, but in general the pace remained pretty steady.  We came over the watchtower hill in a nice smooth paceline.  A few miles later, just north of Enon, the traditional "nature break" allowed time for some wardrobe adjustments as the temperature was already on its way up to the 80s.



The road from Plainview back to Lee Road



Beautiful double paceline!

After the turn at Highway 10 things started to pick up a bit. This stretch includes three significant climbs.  The first one is the longest, but it's not too steep.  I think everyone came over that one together since there was no real attack there.  The other two climbs are shorter but steeper climbs, each coming immediately after crossing small streams.  Sometimes I really like these climbs and other times I really hate them.  This day, with my legs feeling fairly fresh because of the moderate pace, the climbs were my friends.  My only problem was that I'd forgotten to bring along anything to eat, so in general I was being a little careful to conserve some energy since I knew that little vanilla bean scone I'd picked up with my coffee at 6:30 am might not get me all the way through the 65 mile ride.  As it turned out, though, I was never in danger of bonking, and after we finished Jason was there with a cold beer and a cold Coke.  Nice. 

Heavy Equipment

Tuesday morning didn't work out so well. There had been rain in the forecast, so before I left the house at 6 am I checked the radar. It looked like a big line of rain heading our way, but it was still northwest of LaPlace and moving slowly, so I clicked the lights on and headed off in the dark for the levee. I have to admit, I was rather surprised to find the meeting spot virtually deserted when I arrived. There were only three of us heading in the direction of the approaching rain, so I knew I'd be turning around early. Even so, I wasn't expecting the light rain that started to fall somewhere out past the Country Club. I guess we made it eight or nine miles before turning around, hoping to outrun the slow-moving weather. Indeed, the rain stopped after a few more miles, so I guess we'd made the right decision. Unfortunately, I flatted shortly before getting to Ochsner bend. It is, after all, Flat Season around here. Wet roads, darkness, and worn-down tires always seem to come together in October.

Anyway, after nearly cutting my finger on a razor-sharp flint embedded in the tire, I was soon back on my way, thankful that the rain hadn't caught up to me. A couple of hours later the skies cleared and it turned into another fine day, so after work I rushed out to squeeze in a quick 45 minutes before dinner, where I ate entirely too much and lost count of my wine glass refills. I stopped for a moment under the Huey P. Long bridge to take a photo of the heavy equipment they've moved in. Some time soon the bike path will be closed FOR ABOUT TWO MONTHS while they install the long sections of roadway overhead. Just yesterday I was wondering about why they hadn't "striped" the recently refurbished section of St. Charles Avenue for the much-anticipated (at least by me) bike lane. Well, as is usually the case with anything involving FEMA (ask me about the Tulane Library project some time), that project has gotten both messy and, probably, political. You see, FEMA is paying for most of the road resurfacing and drainage repairs as part of the "submerged roads program." Remember that hurricane we had five years ago? Yeah, that one. So apparently it's just too complicated to do the FEMA funded work and the city bond funded bike lane project at the same time. It would absoultely reek of efficiency, and if for no other reason than that, I'd be shocked to see it happen. So apparently they're supposed to come back and do the bike lane part as an entirely separate project (FEMA won't pay for a bike lane that wasn't there originally, of course). Just to complicate matters, the city also wants to put parking meters on St. Charles Avenue along the entire length of Audubon Park. That section of street is one of the only ones around here that doesn't require a "residential parking" permit, so it is an important parking area for Tulane and Loyola students and staff despite the fact that it routinely floods because the city has never, ever, fixed the permanently clogged storm drains. I've known quite a few people whose cars have been flooded while parked there during rainstorms. As you might expect, the universities have come out against the city's parking meter idea, although they are very much in favor of the bike lane. Have you figured out what's probably going on yet? The city is saying that they want to do both the parking meters and bike lane striping at the same time so they don't have to close off the road too long. Yeah, right. Since when does the city worry about closing off roads? Anyway, although I am sure we will eventually get our bike lane, I'm not going to be holding my breath.

Anyway, by 9:30 pm on Tuesday it was raining, which surprised me. I guess I'm going to have to start paying attention to the weather forecasts again.

The street was still a bit damp this morning, but the actual rain was long gone and some cooler, drier air was already moving in. Unfortunately, I'd fallen back asleep after my alarm had sounded, and had to make a mad dash for the levee to meet the group for 6:40 am. Even though I crossed the railroad tracks about 200 yards ahead of a train (a slow-moving Public Belt train), I still missed the group by three or four minutes, so I just settled in for a nice little time trial out to Kenner. It was actually rather nice. As it turned out, the wet roads must have scared away many of the regular riders, so when I turned around to catch the group on its way back there were only a handful of us. Just after I got in with the group we came upon Taylor who was fixing a flat, so we stopped while he finished up. Somewhere in the stretch between the Country Club and the bridge I started to notice that familiar squishy feeling, and without looking I knew my rear tire was going flat. It seemed to be a slow leak, so I pressed on and made it to Z'otz on Oak Street before the rim started hitting the pavement. By the time I'd finished my coffee, though, it was flat as a pancake, so I went ahead and put in the spare tube for the ride home. Once again, the culprit had been one of those minuscule little flint arrowheads that apparently comprised the raw material for the bike path's asphalt surface. Any time that road is wet your chances of having a flat go up about a thousand percent. Of course, the fact that the tread thickness on my training tires can best be measured in nanometers may be a contributing factor.

First Fog

Oh, man it was hard getting out of bed this morning. Every Monday morning now is noticeably darker than the last, making the temptation to pull the covers up over my head all that much stronger. Yet, if there's one thing I've learned about riding it's that you can't make predictions about your ride based on 5:45 am weather conditions inside your bedroom. Besides, Mondays are my easy riding days, offering the chance to ride along, look around at the scenery, and soak in a little bit of the early morning calm before plunging into another busy week.

It seemed particularly quiet up on the levee this morning, and I rode with hands on the tops at 16 mph, feeling the cool air as it filtered through my old club jersey. Our little taste of fall faded away over the weekend, and although the temperature was in the mid-60s, the south wind had brought the humidity back up above 50%. This was the first fall morning that I've seen any significant fog rolling off of the river. It fills the batture in places, sometimes just up to the brim of the levee. Here and there it spills over the top for a few hundred yards, fogging up my glasses and making me hesitate to turn off my headlight.

The Corps of Engineers was back working on that stretch of batture across from Ochsner this morning. I still can't figure out what they're doing. By the time I came back down onto River Road and Oak Street I was already starting to run through the week's agenda - lobbying reports to submit, a construction grant application to assemble, the 2011 LAMBRA planning calendar to set up, etc., etc.

Sometimes I'm tempted to just keep riding up the river.....

A Stone's Throw

Although the mid-day temperatures were back up to normal this weekend, I didn't hear anybody complaining. To be sure, we could use a little rain around here, but from the cycling perspective, you really couldn't find anything about which to complain. So I was up early on Saturday, riding out to the lakefront in the dark to meet the Giro Ride, with a quick stop at Starbucks along the way.

The group was surprisingly tranquil, and we were all the way out to Chef Highway before the pace really started to ramp up. We had Stan Day (SRAM) riding with us on Saturday. He was in town for Tulane Homecoming, but nonetheless spent a lot of time up near the front of the Giro Ride. The guy can ride. Things got going pretty fast along there, but legs were still fresh and with maybe a dozen riders working at the front, I doubt we shed many until the last mile or so before the turnaround sprint. Then, on the way back down Chef, we came upon an auto accident, along with its attendant police cars, which resulted in the whole group actually stopping for a red light. Imagine that! That kind of threw a monkey wrench into the Goodyear Sign sprint, although I think a handful of guys did make a run for it anyway. Afterward, we had a small club meeting at Kona, so by the time I got home it was getting close to noon. I was planning on doing the Tulane Cycling city ride at 2 pm, so that left me just enough time to refuel and run over to the bike shop to pick up a new cable set before I was pulling on my riding clothes again. A complete "official" Campi cable set costs over half as much as my first custom racing frame. Ouch.

Saturday's Tulane ride just had three of us. Considering all of the other stuff going on, including the Tulane homecoming game at 2:30, I wasn't surprised. Early October is definitely "festival season" around here, and on Saturday you couldn't hardly throw a rock without hitting a festival. On our easy 20 mile afternoon ride we rode through one festival at City Park, some sort of reunion party on Wisner at the old JFK high school, and finally the Magazine Street Blues festival where we stopped for some refreshments. I finally made my way back home with something in excess of 80 miles on the odometer.

Sunday morning was the first "official" northshore winter training ride. With another awesome weather day on hand, we had about twenty riders at Lee Road Junior High for the traditional 65 mile ride. We were only a few miles down the road when I heard a loud "pop" from Ed Novak's wheel. As he dropped back past me, I looked over and said, "something broke!" Sure enough, he'd broken a spoke in his front wheel. He pulled his trusty Van Dessel track bike over to investigate as everyone waited, but the news wasn't good. His front wheel had straight-pull radial spokes with the nipples at the hub, which meant that regular spoke wrenches would be useless. Since the wheel was far enough out of line that the tire was hitting the inside of the fork, he really didn't have any alternative but to limp back to his car. I guess it was lucky that it didn't happen when we were thirty miles away.

Anyway, I was kind of expecting a hard ride, given the significant amount of horsepower on hand. In fact, it was significantly more mellow than I'd expected. Don't get me wrong, though. It wasn't all double paceline and chit-chat. There were a few stretches that were good and fast, and although I didn't go for any of the freshly re-painted sprint lines (now complete with preceding 1km and 200M marks), others did. Even so, there were never any really big splits and everyone mostly stayed together. I was surprised how good my legs were feeling, although perhaps that is more attributable to the moderate pace than any sudden improvement in my own recovery time.

Nice Weather, Bad Ceviche

We are definitely having an unusual run of great weather down here in New Orleans. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to enjoy it much yesterday. I'd had an early dinner at a convenient local Spanish restaurant with the wife and a psychiatrist who is in town to give a talk at the medical school, and for some reason had decided to gamble on the Ceviche rather than get my usual paella. This particular place is fairly small and the food is interesting and generally good, although certainly not spectacular. One thing I like about it is that it us usually quiet enough for conversation and offers a reasonable selection for vegetarians like our guest. I should have known better than to go for the uncooked stuff. Anyway, without going into too much detail, but 10 pm I was starting to feel queasy and my stomach was working overtime, so I knew I was in trouble. Clearly a little case of food poisoning. Things finally started to settle down in the wee hours of the morning, but I knew I'd be uncomfortable the rest of the day. It was late afternoon by the time my appetite returned, although I think it will be a while before I order cerviche again, even though I really do like it. Fortunately, this particular restaurant's take on ceviche is pretty unimpressive, so there won't be any big temptation there.

So after taking the day off of work and catching up on some much-needed sleep, I headed out this morning for an easy ride up on the levee. I had a dull headache, which still lingers, but otherwise felt OK. It was another double-jersey morning, perhaps a tad warmer than yesterday, but generally quite pleasant. I met up with Donald and, later, Taylor, and we rode mostly three-abreast chatting about the upcoming bike path closure and listening to Taylor's joke of the day. On the former subject, it seems that the bike path will be closed for a couple of months where it goes under the Huey P. Long bridge. They're adding a couple of lanes to each side and will be installing the big sections of roadway above the levee, bike path, and River Road, all of which will apparently be shut down 24/7 for a couple of months (at least). I'm not sure how this is going to work out for the morning rides. There's really no good way to get past this section on regular roads without resorting to Jefferson Highway, which is, to say the least, not bike-friendly. It will also involve a significant detour, adding quite a few minutes to the ride time. I guess I'll see how it goes. I might end up driving out past the bridge for some of the long rides and maybe riding elsewhere a couple days a week. The loop around City Park might be a good alternate ride if the bike path turns out to be a real problem.

The Corps of Engineers recently cleared a big swatch of batture across from Ochsner hospital recently. I can't figure out why they did it, but for now there's a great view of the river and it looks almost like a beach.

Amazingly, it's looking like the nice weather will continue at least through the weekend, although we could certainly use a little rain around here at this point. I'm thinking I'll do the Giro on Saturday and then another northshore ride on Sunday.

Long Shadows

The shadows on the morning rides are getting longer and longer lately as we make our way toward the switch to CDT on November 7. By then we'll be riding with the lights on for at least the first then miles of the Wednesday ride. After that, we'll get a month or so of morning light before the Winter Solstice robs us of even that. It happens every year, but of course then we just offer up a few sacrifices to the appropriate Deity, have a big celebration, and next thing you know, the days are getting longer and the crops are growing again. Never fails!

This morning I kind of zoned out for a while after the alarm went off and ended up having to make a mad dash for the levee. Fortunately, the bike was ready to go, the arm-warmers were handy, and I didn't hit anything as I was racing through the neighborhood in the dark. Ever since they finished the new bike lane on Carrollton Avenue, I've been able to easily shave a few minutes off of my ride to the levee, so even though I left home with less than ten minutes to spare, I still arrived just in time. It was another nice cool morning. Finally the wind has subsided to a more manageable level. I could really get used to this, but I think it will be warming up again soon. We had a typical Wednesday ride, with everyone taking long, long pulls as speeds well within the comfort range of 20-23 mph. It looks like I'll miss the final bandit lakefront Time Trial this evening since I have a quasi-work-related early dinnner with a psychiatrist/artist who is speaking at the Medical School tomorrow. He's kind of a seafood vegetarian type, so I'm thinking maybe Cafe' Granada. Maybe sea scallops brochetta or ceviche, gazpacho, paella, sangria..... Damn, I shouldn't have eaten so much for lunch today.

This morning I got an email from USA Cycling that included the usual "Technical Director's Update." This is a routine email that Shawn Farrell sends out to all of the USAC officials. The interesting thing about this one was the first sentence: "This will be a quick one as I don’t have much to say this month. Hang on though, the next one will be big and will be announcing some big changes." I wonder what that means. Recently, USAC announced that it has established its own online race registration system, which will presumably compete with, for example, BikeReg. Now I've got to say I really like BikeReg, so if they expect me to switch online registration services, they'd better have all, and I mean ALL, of the features the BikeReg has, plus a significantly lower cost. We're supposed to get a complete preview of the new system at the Local Associations meeting in Colorado Springs the first week of November.

Slosh, Slosh, Slosh

With the new chain and cassette installed and the Orbea more or less back in action, I finally grabbed the trusty old SpeedCific/Nimble wheelset I'd used at Six Gap and lifted it up to hang from the basement ceiling. When I did, I heard an unmistakable sloshing sound. The rims were still full of Dahlonega rain. How did I not hear that when I took them off the bike? I took the tires off the wheels, poured the water out through the valve hole, and left them to dry out. I guess I missed out on some of the superlight characteristics of those wheels last week. Anyway, I still need to change out the derailleur cables because things are definitely sluggish on the downshifts. Regardless, everything was working well enough.

This morning as I rode down the street on my way to meet the group on the levee, I came perilously close to turning around and going back to bed. It was dark and, at least by my standards, cold. I was wearing two jerseys and arm-warmers, and it probably wasn't any colder than 57F or so, but I guess it will take me a little while to acclimate. Actually, I hope I don't, because it'll probably be 80 degrees again in a few days. There will be plenty of time to acclimate in November.

Today's ride was remarkably sedate. Once again there was a pretty stiff wind blowing out of the northeast. Ordinarily, that would have made the ride out to the turnaround really fast, but nobody really seemed to be in the mood for a hammer session today. The pace got going pretty good, eventually, but was never really out of control. The ride back was a long slog with a headwind and/or crosswind that eventually split the group. I doubt we ever got much faster than 23 or 24 mph, but the wind was relentless. It was one of those rides where I was just going through the motions. By the time I was halfway home I was already thinking about which kind of coffee I was going to make.

34 Percent!

OK, at the risk of tempting fate, I have to say it. The weather around here has been fantastic. I think the humidity was down to 34% today. At that level, sweat actually evaporates, what little there might actually be when the temperature is in the 60s.

So Sunday morning I picked up Zack and headed over to Puccino's to meet Mignon for the drive over to the northshore. There was a brisk north wind blowing, the temperature was in the low 60s, and the sky was blue. This was going to be a nice ride. Although we hadn't a clue how many people might show, I was pleased to find ten riders ready to roll out for the traditional 65 mile winter training route. I'd been expecting a rather relaxed ride, but I had a feeling that the great weather might tend to push up the pace a bit. It felt downright cold when we headed out, and I was glad I'd brought the arm-warmers and chest protector thing. I was pretty comfortable all day, and don't think I drank more than a single bottle of water, if that.

The first twenty-five miles or so were pretty much straight into the wind, and when I noticed how much time Zack was spending on the front I wondered if he might be letting the excitement get the better of him. As a student living in the dorm at Tulane, getting out for a ride in the country like this must have been a real treat. At one point I rode up alongside him and told him to be careful not to overcook himself because there was a long hilly section on the back side of the course that is always fast. I knew it probably wouldn't work, of course. I was having a hard time controlling the enthusiasm myself. When the weather is beautiful and you're just ten miles into a ride on smooth country roads, it's nearly impossible to resist sprinting to the top of every little climb.

Ed N. was riding a fixed gear, so that meant two things: He would probably be riding pretty hard on the climbs, and would probably spin out if it got fast on a tailwind section. We rolled out pretty smoothly for the first sections, but as I'd expected, the group was going just a little bit faster than normal. It felt good, though, so I just went with it. Daniel was there trying out his new Ti frame, along with Jack B. and Jay and Steve and Mignon, so there was certainly no shortage of horsepower, even after Jorge turned back home around Enon.

Once we came around the top of the course and started getting more of a tailwind the pace picked up. I think everyone made it up that first long climb on Hwy. 439 together, but those two steep climbs that usually split the group were still to come. Naturally, both of those were kind of attacked, and the group split coming over the last one. Now, the official training ride rule here is that if you're going to go hard up that climb, you have to keep going all the way to the turn at Sie Jenkins Road, so of course we did. The others weren't very far behind, and after a short stop for wardrobe adjustments, we continued on. Things stayed together on the long rolling road from Plainview back to Lee Road, but I knew it would get fast again once we got that tailwind. I think it all stayed together all the way to Enon, and we rolled out from there for the last significant climb, which is the long gradual one up to the firetower. This is another place where the pack often splits. If your legs are getting tired, any pressure on this climb will often do them in. Again, though, the rule is that if you are going to push it up the climb, you had better keep the pressure on for the next few miles to the turn onto Tung Road. Of course, the group split, we hammered to Tung Road, regrouped, and picked up the pace one last time for the last four of five mile stretch back to the cars. It was a good fun training ride with awesome weather - well worth the extra couple of hours of drive time.

This morning it was actually chilly. I opened the door and immediately turned around and put on a second jersey and arm-warmers. I was planning on an easy solo ride on the levee, so I didn't want to risk getting cold. I spun easily at about 15 mph, turning around early, and then stopping at Zotz for a cup of coffee to steel myself for the start of the work week.

Brain Dead

It was nearly 11 pm by the time I got back home from watching "Chasing Legends" again with the TUCA riders over at Jordan's place, and by the time I finally hit the sack it was around midnight. That made it kind of hard to get up for the early morning Saturday Giro, but somehow I made it out to Starbucks in plenty of time. The Giro start location seems to be in flux again with a number of riders meeting back at the Lakeshore Drive start across from Kona Cafe'. Since I had told one of the TUCA riders to meet at Starbucks, I went there. Besides, it's on the way. A few of the guys headed over to Lakeshore Drive to meet the rest of the group, but the rest of us waited around and met the group at Robert E. Lee as usual.

Anyway, the air was nice and cool this morning and although it was a little windy, I wasn't expecting a particularly hard ride. As it turned out, it was a little harder than I'd expected, with the pack splitting in the crosswind on Chef Highway. As if that wasn't bad enough, I think someone must have left the gate open at the dumptruck corral this morning because they were buzzing us the whole time we were on Chef. Anyway, it was a good ride with marvelous weather, even though I was riding without a speedometer. My trusty old ErgoBrain has died. After Six Gap it was acting really whacko, and when I took it off the bike it was still registering random speeds. Bad sign. By the time I got home that evening, the screen was blank. Damn. I just got the blasted thing 102 thousand miles ago.

So this afternoon was an easy city ride with some of the Tulane riders. The weather was still picture perfect, and we had a nice ride out to the lakefront, coming back by way of Metairie Cemetery and throwing in a Spumoni stop at Brocato's. The weather's supposed to be just as good tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to a long ride on the northshore, even though I won't know how fast I'm going. The temperature may even be down around 60 when we start. Brrrrrr!