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.