A Cross-Country Christmas (long story)

We headed out from New Orleans right on schedule at 6 am Tuesday morning.  Christmas presents were stashed underneath the bike in the back of the car.  Emergency winter supplies, blankets, food, water, etc, were on board.  The weather was great, but we were going to have to make it past a developing cold front somewhere in Colorado or Wyoming.  Even so, that route seemed, at the time, the best of the three possible choices.  The plan was to drive a new car up to The Daughter in Olympia, Washington, and then to drive home in her '02 Jeep.  A little crazy, perhaps, but it promised to be a minor adventure nonetheless.  The first day went smoothly and some time around 9 pm we checked into a motel in Salina, Kansas.  We were back on the road early the next day, hoping to make it to the Salt Lake City area that night. 

The drive through Kansas and eastern Colorado was pretty routine, and we decided to take a little shortcut from Denver up to meet I-80 near Laramie, Wyoming.  As we drove north I could see some bad weather and snow rolling over the high mountains to the west and wondered if we'd be far enough north to miss the worst of it.  As we pressed on to the west along I-80 we started picking up some light snowfall, but I was still optimistic as the sun went down.  I doubt it was half an hour later when things started to go from bad to worse .... really quickly.  We were in the middle of the mountains of the Wyoming Great Divide.  We were also in the middle of a snowstorm.  Suddenly, it seemed, the lane markers on the interstate disappeared, and I was straining to see where I was going through the blowing snow.  As I slowed down from 70 mph to 60, and then to 45, the passing trucks would blow up enough of the dry snow to make it completely impossible to see where I was going.  It was exactly like trying to drive with your eyes closed, except everything was white instead of black -- complete disorientation. The word "harrowing" kept coming to mind.

Eventually I resorted to hazard flashers, fog lights, full-on defroster, and windshield wipers complete with frozen blocks of ice on them.  We pulled into a closed rest area along with a couple of other cars to consider our options.  We learned that they shut down I-80 behind us later that night.  We sat there for about half an hour as cars, trucks, and a Greyhound bus full of desperate cigarette smokers came and went, considering whether it would be better to stay at the rest stop and get buried in snow or continue on and possibly drive off the road.  I decided that driving solo wasn't a particularly good idea considering my limited snowstorm driving experience, so I waited for a little convoy to come by and tacked onto the end. It was 35 white-knuckle miles to the next town, Rock Springs.  As other cars dropped out of the caravan, I was soon the only car left, clinging to the tail lights of a big pickup truck whose driver seemed to be reasonably consistent.  About half of the time, my only points of reference were those two red lights and an occasional glimpse of the post-mounted reflectors at the far edge of the shoulder. As we would pass other cars I'd drift left behind the pickup, feeling for the rumble strip. 

Finally we made it to the main exit at Rock Springs where I gladly pulled off in search of a motel.  Once we checked in we felt like we'd won the lottery and decided to drive down the street to find something to eat and pick up a scraper and de-icer at the gas station.  As we left the parking lot I stopped to chip away some of the accumulated ice from the windshield wipers.  Then, as we walked into the restaurant I realized I didn't have my phone.  I looked everywhere, and figured it must have fallen out of my coat pocket.  After an extensive search retracing my steps, I found it lying face-down in the snow where I'd stopped to clear the windshield. Of course it had been rolled over by a car, probably my own.  On the plus side, it still worked.  We went to sleep hoping the roads would be safer in the morning.  It dawned on me that the timing of our drive had us traversing all of the really mountainous areas at night.  Maybe not such a good plan?

(Much better driving in the morning!)

The next morning the sun was shining and despite a few warnings about black ice farther down the road, we left the local Starbucks around 8:30.  We had originally been hoping to make Olympia in three days, but the snowstorm had put a pretty big dent in our plans and our ETA would have been after midnight, so we went to Plan B, which was to basically stop some time before I started falling asleep at the wheel.  At least the interstate down to Salt Lake was almost deserted, and negotiating the icy road was a lot easier in the daylight after the road crews had done their work. 

Olympia bike path

The drive through Utah and Idaho was pretty routine and thanks to the 75 mph speed limit went fairly quickly.  After some long delays because of accidents and road construction we got into Oregon by mid-afternoon. Oregon seems to take a certain amount of pride in doing things differently than everyone else, regardless of whether or not it makes sense.  For example, you can't pump your own gas in Oregon.  You have to wait or an overworked attendant running around in the freezing cold while trying to handle three cars at once to do it.  The 75 mph speed limit that seems to be fine in the neighboring states drops to 65 in Oregon. 

Naturally, once it got dark we still had to drive through some of The Blues where the road wound around in the mountains making for some exciting driving until we finally decided to pack it in at The Dalles, leaving just a few more hours of driving for Friday morning.  Fortunately, the weather was warmer and there were no issues with ice or snow.  Through it all, the new all-wheel-drive Volvo V-70 remained remarkably sure-footed.  Along the way it got a very thorough road test that challenged pretty much everything from the heated side-view mirrors to the stability control system.  How the Jeep Liberty will handle the return trip remains to be seen, but a longer alternate route down south is definitely still on the table.

So we finally made it to Olympia around mid-day on Friday where I celebrated with a pint of the local Porter.  By 11:00 on Saturday the weather was looking pretty good and I decided it might be my only window for a good ride.  The temperature was in the upper 40s, the wind was light, and although the streets were somewhat wet it didn't look like there would be any rain for the rest of the day.  Here in Washington most people ride with fenders all winter because the roads are wet pretty much all the time, I think.  Moss actually grows on the asphalt around here.  The Daughter's place is right alongside a bike path, so I headed out onto that and ended up riding nearly 60 miles without ever getting onto a city street.  Although I'm sure there are more scenic rides to be had, it's always nice to have a network of bike paths available when you're in unfamiliar territory.

Should be an interesting ride back to New Orleans.

LSD and Hollicross

It's that time of year again.  December always stresses me out.  The bicycle half of my brain keeps nagging me about all that Long Slow Distance (LSD) I'm supposed to be doing, but there are so many competing complications.  There are cyclocross races, a half-finished re-write of the LAMBRA bylaws and LCCS rules, and of course the stress of the arterial bleeding gushing from my checking account.  On top of that, there are always some things at work that really need to be done before the holidays, which is even more of a problem this year because of a planned early departure for a winter road trip to what is nearly the farthest place from New Orleans you can go without a passport.  In light of what may turn out to be nearly a full week of driving with only the slim possibility of a couple of cold and wet rides, I decided on Friday night that I really needed to go with the "long Giro" group out to Slidell on Saturday for what promised to be 95 miles worth of flat and windy paceline riding. I figured a long Saturday ride would diminish my LSD guilt sufficiently to allow for a little cyclocross fun on Sunday. 

Saturday was cold, windy and cloudy.  It somehow seemed perfectly appropriate for a long winter ride.  There was little hope that the temperature would warm up much during the ride, so I dressed a little bit heavier than usual.  You never know what to expect of the Giro this time of year.  The worst would have been a small group of four going out to Slidell with one or two who didn't know what the "S" in LSD stands for.  Of course, you never really know who will be doing the long ride until you're actually all the way out to Venetian Isles, otherwise known as "the point of no return."

Fortunately, there were lots of other riders thinking the same as I.  On the way out to Venetian a few riders rolled off the front.  That would normally have resulted in a bit of a hammer session down Hayne Blvd., but this time the rest of the group was having none of it, knowing that payment for such an early effort on a 95 mile ride would be extracted with interest somewhere around mile 80.  As it turned out we had about 25 riders who continued out to Fort Pike, and then about a dozen, including three Tulane riders, one of whom has just been recruited onto the Herring team, who stayed with us all the way to Slidell.  Despite my best efforts to suck wheels and resist temptation, I was definitely starting to feel the mileage as we sprinted up the overpasses about ten miles from home.  By the time I got home I was pleasantly sore and tired.  Yeah, you know what I mean.

So Sunday I made the short trip out to the Spillway near Norco for the Holli-cross races where I figured I could help out with officiating and then ride the "A" race for fun.  The race location was at the start of a popular mountain bike trail, so I kind of knew there would be a lot of singletrack, but the organizers had done a pretty good job of incorporating the levee road and a big field near the boat launch, complete with a couple of good barriers and a run-up back to the top of the levee.  I have to admit, on the first practice lap I rode I thought I'd missed a turn because I'd been on winding singletrack for so long, but I hadn't.  As it turned out, I really enjoyed the singletrack part because it was mostly hard-packed, flat and technical.  Anyway, we had a pretty good sized field for the race, which I started from my usual position near the back as the real 'crossers sprinted into the headwind on the levee road.  I finally settled in behind a rider who was on a somewhat over-geared single speed.  About mid-way through I passed him and then promptly crashed when I somehow flubbed my re-mount after the levee run-up.  I chased back and caught him again within a lap or so, and then on the next lap dropped the bike a little too hard after the barriers and had to stop to re-seat the chain.  Once again I chased back, ultimately passing him again with a couple of laps left to go.  So anyway, it was a lot of fun, the turnout was about the best we've had yet, and I only crashed once.  Well, I'm sitting here at home and the roofer just finished a little chimney work that he'd forgotten to do last week, so it's back to work.....

Warm Weather and Falling Leaves

The seasons tend to be pretty confused around here.  Just a few days ago I was bundled up in full winter kit.  This morning I would have ridden in just shorts and jersey, but I know better than that.  Even though the air temperature was registering in the upper 60s at the house, I knew from experience that up on the levee there would be those occasional cold blasts of moist river-chilled air rolling across our path.  As it turned out, there was another reason I was glad to have worn the arm-warmers today.  As we waited at "The Pipes" for the rest of the crew to arrive, Max rode up and commented that a few miles upriver the road was soaking wet in a wheel-spray kind of way.  Go figure.  The forecast had included only the usual precautionary 10% rain chance, but it was looking like all ten percent was going to be on top of us at some point. So despite the cloudy sky and dampness, we had a pretty big group this morning. Starting out with a bit of a tailwind, I was worried things might get out of hand again, but for some reason the pace remained brisk but steady.  I don't know who all was up at the front, but whoever they were, they weren't rotating back to where I was.  I guess someone up ahead must have been short-circuiting the paceline because we were probably fifteen miles up the river before I finally found myself near the front.  All morning we'd been riding through patches of wet road and misty drizzle, but it wasn't until we were halfway back that the misty stuff turned into what you'd actually call rain.  A couple of miles later I could feel the water starting to come through my shoes.  That's really the point of no return when it comes to riding in the rain.  Once your shoes and socks get soaked, you may as well just keep going until you get home because slowing down or, heaven forbid, stopping will just make you colder.  Fortunately most of the riders were happy with a fairly smooth pace, although there were certainly a few momentary instances of passive paceline aggression on the way back where someone ramps up the pace a notch and then nobody will pull through afterward.  Situation normal, however.

So here we are officially halfway through December and the Ginkgo trees have finally decided it's Fall.  They are easy to spot with their neon-yellow leaves, but you have to look fast because the next time there's a bit of wind all the leaves will fall at once and the display will be over for another year.

A Warmer Ride

Finally things have warmed up a bit around here and I was able to leave the jacket and long tights at home when I headed off to meet the Tuesday morning group today.  It was overcast and therefore dark and relatively damp, making the upper-50s air feel like it was going right through the long-sleeve jersey I was wearing.  I wasn't complaining, though.  I'll take damp and 60F over dry and 38 any day of the week.  The ride started off a little faster than usual, stringing everyone out over the first mile or so as a couple of riders baited the group, but soon it all came back together and settled down a little bit.  The whole way out the wind alternated between crosswind, tailwind, and something in-between, so although the speed might have been a little higher than normal for this time of year, the effort level wasn't too bad as long as you still had enough asphalt to get a draft on the crosswind sections. 

I was feeling pretty good, so I spent some time in the wind here and there in order to give a few more riders a little draft because the very front of the group didn't seem to be rotating very often.  When that happens in a crosswind it makes it really hard for everyone beyond the first five or six riders.  As we got farther upriver there were a few surges that caused trouble.  I tried to kind of buffer them when I could, but still had to seek shelter sometimes just to keep from getting dropped.  The group, of course, eventually split, so we were missing a few riders by the time we got out to the turnaround at Ormond.  I had been trying to conserve a little bit because I knew it was going to be a long ride home, mostly into the wind.

The return trip started out fairly easy as the group mostly ignored a couple of riders who were riding off into the distance. It wasn't too long after we finally got really rolling again that Matt flatted.  We were still pretty far from home, so while some of us stopped, some continued on.  It wasn't the world's fastest tire change, but as we stood around criticizing Matt's tire-changing technique, which is of course the main reason we all stop when someone flats, Richard spotted a bald eagle flying overhead.  I think that makes five that I've seen in the last couple of months. Just on the other side of river road there was one house that had a boat decorated with Christmas lights being pulled by a couple of equally decorated plastic alligators.  Right next door was a Christmas bonfire that was about half-completed.  I've never made the trek up the river to see the bonfires on Christmas Eve, but they have gotten to be a big deal in some of the towns that build little mini-festivals around them.  Anyway, after we got the tire fixed our group got a really nice little rotating paceline going for quite a long time, although eventually it started to falter as the wind got stronger and the riders got more tired.

Chocolates and Cold

Saturday morning was pretty cold and fairly windy, and as usual I was running a few minutes late after debating what to wear for the Giro Ride. There wasn't really a chance I'd miss the ride itself, but I was definitely going to have less time to sip my pre-ride coffee.  Fortunately, I got there early enough to put a pretty good dent into my cup of Christmas Blend before we rolled out. 

Considering the cold and wind, I was expecting a fairly smooth ride with a lot of rotating paceline work.  I couldn't have been more wrong. The first clue was the relatively fast pace along Lakeshore Drive.  I heard some time later that there were some rider who had missed the group entirely because we were ahead of our usual schedule.  The cross/headwind along Hayne Blvd. kept most of us pretty close to the gutter while a small contingent at the front pushed the pace. Once we made the turn onto Paris Road, the wind was more at our backs, though, and the speed ramped up.  When we came to the place where we cross over two lanes of interstate traffic, though, things didn't go too well.  (We really should be using Bullard on the way out to avoid this!).  The front of the group cut across in front of a Semi that had slowed down for us, but then, coming around the truck on the outside, was a dualie pickup that was not slowing down.  So the back part of the group, including me, had to back off and wait until it was safe, which opened a large gap. 

The front of the group continued hammering away down the road, so Howard went to the front and pushed our pace up to 30-32 mph.  After a little while on his wheel I checked my December training plan and couldn't find anything on it about going 30 mph chasing down ill-gotten breakaways, so I backed off a bit as the rest of the riders who'd survived went around me.  I figured that things would probably come back together on the service road anyway. Wrong again. Looking up ahead I could see Rob attacking off the front of the group as it made the left turn to cross under the interstate on the way to the service road. I knew I was, well, in trouble. Although I was holding the gap for a while, there was no way I was going to close it once we got onto Chef Highway, so I ended up riding the rest of the way out to Venetian Isles alone before turning around and getting back into the group for the return trip where the irregular pace continued.  On the ride home I commented to someone, "The Giro is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get."   It was still pretty cold by the time I got home.  I doubt the temperature had risen more than five degrees.

So Sunday was an NOBC group ride that was planned to be a no-drop 50 miler at a fairly easy pace.  It was still pretty cold this morning and even colder across the lake, and it didn't look like we'd be seeing much of the sun, so I piled on the clothes for the well-attended ride that had attracted nearly twenty riders to the Abita Springs start. I guess it was somewhere in the 38-40 degree range at the start, and although I knew I'd probably get a little sweaty underneath my nice warm NOBC winter jacket, I had a feeling it wasn't going to warm up a lot and I'd rather be warm and wet than cold and dry.  Cold diuresis was in full effect and a nature stop was called for not to long after we'd rolled out.  There's nothing like the combination of coffee and cold to precipitate a group nature break!  Anyway, it was a good ride at a good pace, and after the ride, many of us headed across the street to the Abita Brewpub for lunch.  In my case that was an oyster loaf, fries and a pint of Turbodog (I wasn't driving).

Cold and Lonely

This morning felt, officially, like the real thing -- Winter.  The temperature was in the upper 30s with a mild but noticeable wind, and the sky was uniformly grey from horizon to horizon.  In a word -- dreary.  To make matters worse, I'd set my alarm for the wrong time, and when, after the dog nudged me with his nose a few times, I finally looked over at the clock, it read 6:00 am.  If it had been summer I might have had a chance to make it out to the levee by 6:15, but Winter carries with it a large amount of wardrobe overhead and I knew it would be impossible.  By the time I was layered up enough to keep the ride from being miserable it was probably around 6:15, and so I guess I arrived at the meeting spot about ten minutes late.

There was a light tailwind on the way out today, which made it easy to spin along at 18-20 mph. The bike path was predictably deserted for the most part, except for a lone coyote who I startled near the Construction Aggregate place.  He had been walking casually down the middle of the bike path as I approached him from behind, and I was quite close by the time he heard me and bolted off toward the batture. Once he was sufficiently out of reach he stopped for a little while to watch me.  I did the same for a few seconds until he finally dashed off into the bushes. I guess I saw a couple other people out on the levee on my way out to the Little Dip, where I turned around, but otherwise it was just a cold and lonely ride.  I'd been hoping to see a rider or two from the morning group, but I guess that anyone who showed up either went all the way out to Destrehan.  More likely, though, nobody else showed up.

I fought a little bit of headwind most of the way back, and since I wasn't really in the mood to push myself, that brought my speed down into the 15-18 mph range.  The combination of wind and easy pace resulted in some seriously cold feet (I was using only those little toe-cover things) by the time I got back home, but thanks to my favorite NOBC winter jacket and tights, the rest of me was pretty comfortable.  It looks like a couple more chilly mornings before things start to warm up a bit around here, but it still beats the heck out of someplace like Minnesota.

Oh, SNAP!

Another cold front shuffled through the area last night, leaving us with a chilly, windy, and overcast morning today.  The outdoor thermometer read something like 48F as I rolled out of bed, but glancing out the window I could see the wind blowing the trees around and knew it would feel a little colder than that.  By the time I rounded up an appropriate wardrobe for the morning ride I had fewer than ten minutes to make it over to the levee to meet the Tuesday morning group at 6:15. The cloud cover made for a particularly dark morning as I rushed down Carrollton and Willow streets hoping I could at least minimize the damage and maybe have a chance to catch the group before it really got rolling.  As I climbed the bike path up to the levee I could see the meeting spot was deserted, although my watch told me I was only a minute or two late.  I looked up the road into the darkness searching for blinky red lights, but there were none.  It was entirely possible that the whole group had bailed out, because the chances that everyone would have left early on a morning like this were somewhere between slim and none.  A moment later Richard rolled up from behind, commenting, "It's not really all that cold!"  I replied something to the effect of, "If they think this is cold they're in for a big shock a few weeks from now."  So anyway, we settled into an even pace at 21-22 mph, picking up Luke at the playground and eventually a couple others along the way.  There was no question that we were going to shorten the usual long ride, considering the wind, number of riders, and resulting slower than normal speed.  The only question was whether to turn around at the Little Dip or the Big Dip.  We decided on the Big Dip, since most of the wind was of the crosswind variety, and with only four riders there was ample draft available in our mini-eschelon.  Somewhere out near the turnaround we caught the guy on the white Cannondale whose name I can never remember.  He was pushing the pace a little harder than the rest of us, and until we caught him I think he was assuming he'd missed the group and was in chase mode.

We were past the country club on the way back when he went to the front and ramped the pace up another notch.  I'd been spinning along happily in the small chainring all morning, but once the pace crept up to 25 or so I decided it was time to deploy the 53.  I shifted and felt something odd, and then my chain dropped off the inside of the small ring, accompanied by a rather nasty scraping noise.  I coasted to as stop as my front derailleur cage, which had slipped down and twisted to the inside, started scraping long shreds of aluminum off of my rear rim (glad it wasn't one of those expensive carbon ones!).  I didn't really know what to make of it all.  That derailleur had been sticky lately and a couple of times I'd had to reach down and give it a push to get it to go from the big to small chainring.  I figured it had really gotten bad and when I'd gone to shift, the cable had pulled the derailleur clamp down instead of moving the derailleur.  Anyway, I had to pull out the multi-tool and re-position it, but something still felt odd.  When I got home I took a good look at it and realized that the seat tube clamp that was part of the Campi record derailleur had actually snapped at the hinge.  Oh well.  Good thing I happen to have another front derailleur on hand. I would have taken a picture, but once you've seen one piece of broken aluminum, you've seen them all.

Hills and Hay Bales

Saturday was our annual LAMBRA business meeting during which we hash out the preliminary race calendar, proposals regarding the LCCS points series, amendments to Bylaws, etc.  This year there were a number of changes that were approved for 2012.  We finally formalized the composition of the LAMBRA Board, made some rather extensive changes to the way LCCS points are awarded and accumulated, etc. It all went pretty smoothly, and hopefully I'll find some time this evening to send out the preliminary calendar and bylaw changes and a summary of the LCCS changes (the language for which still needs to be finalized).  LAMBRA continues to make incremental steps in the right direction as the LCCS points format moves slightly more in the direction of rewarding race results rather than race attendance.  It should be interesting to see how it all works out.  Points totals will reflect each rider's top 5 races in each discipline (RR, TT/TTT, Crit).  Master 40+ races will be restricted to Cat. 1-4 only, points schedules will be extensively modified so that points awarded increase in relation to field size, etc.  I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to actually be able to track all of that without pulling my hair out after each race, but philosophically it's the right direction to go.  Since there was a cyclocross race near Jackson where the meeting had been, I had loaded my not-quite-a cyclocross bike into the car before leaving.  As it turned out, I'd forgotten things like gloves, tools and a few other minor items, but nothing that would stop me from riding.

Sunday morning I left the La Quinta early in search of coffee and found that the Starbucks on County Line Road that had been closed a few years ago was now a very nice Cups espresso shop, so I had a nice Americano for my ride out to the race location.  Unfortunately, the race location had been listed on the flyer as the intersection of two highways.  I spent a while driving up and down the roads there before finally spotting the race site.  I had wanted to get there early since I had the registration/results spreadsheet, and I wanted to help out with officiating the B race if needed (which it wasn't).  The temperature was in the 60s and the ground was dry, so that eliminated most of my worries.  Of course they were still setting up the course when I arrived, but eventually I pulled out the bike and rode a couple of laps of the course before the first race got underway.  This was going to be a fairly hard course, mainly because it was all through rather thick grass and almost all up and down, so basically there was almost no place to recover. 

Turnout for this race was quite small.  A lot of the cyclocross enthusiasm comes out of the Baton Rouge area, but a conflicting LSU football game the night before must have taken precedence for those guys.  One surprise that the course offered was the chance of getting a flat because of thorns.  The first race had, I think, three flats as a result, but luckily the organizers found the spot on the course where it was happening and removed most of the offending plants.

I started the A race with my usual cyclocross goal, which was to finish in one piece.  At the start, I was surprised to find myself suddenly in the lead, so against my better judgement I pushed the first couple of laps, which resulted in three of us opening a fairly significant gap.  This course was very much a roadie type of course, in that there was only one small barrier on the course and everything else was basically rideable, even though there were a lot of fairly steep climbs that would take you down to walking speed.  The one exception was a steep hill about two-thirds of the way around the course. I was able to ride this one for most of the race even though I was dramatically overgeared for it.  For all practical purposes, I spent all of the race in the lowest gear on the bike, which is a 44x27, I think.  By the end of the second lap the climbs were starting to wear on me and Jim and Randy went by pretty easily as I backed off a bit in order to ensure my own survival.  For a couple of the last laps I decided it would be easier to dismount and run up the steep hill rather than try to ride it in my overgeared and underpowered state.  I doubt I lost much time doing that, but it didn't matter anyway because by then there was nobody near me anyway.  Despite the small field, it was a lot of fun and exactly what I was looking for - a good hard 45 minute workout.

Eagle Season

Morning temperatures have been remarkably consistent this week, hovering around the 40F mark.  This has had a few consequences.  For one, I've been riding with long tights, shoe-covers and jackets.  For another, it's been getting harder and harder to get out of bed in time.  I was so late on Thursday that I didn't even make an attempt to meet the group.  Instead, I resigned myself to a solo ride up the river until I could see the group on its return trip.  Not a bad thing, this time of year, anyway.  As it turned out, the group I saw was small and had turned around early, so I probably rode only twenty miles, maybe less.  This morning it was more of the same.  Beautiful weather, really, just a bit on the chilly side in the morning.  I'd turned on my "early" alarm by mistake the night before, so when it woke me up half an hour before I really needed to get up, I went back to sleep.  Well, of course that meant that I woke up late again.  I rushed out to the levee, arriving a couple of minutes late, to find only Scott, so we headed off for a nice Friday ride, taking long steady pulls at 20-21 mph and enjoying the scenery.  On the way back, just where the bike path loops around the "stacks," something big caught my eye.  A bald eagle had just landed atop the telephone pole.  I had my sunglasses on and had to ask Scott if that was really what I thought it was.  Once I took off the glasses and could see the white head, though, it was obvious.  We stopped for a minute, and when we did a few of the Tulane riders arrived from the other direction, so we all rode back together.  This was the second eagle I'd seen in two weeks, the first having been the one that nests near the I-10/I-310 junction.  I'd seen that one on the way to the cyclocross race in Natchez, and then again last weekend on the way back from Baton Rouge.  It's nice to see those big guys making a comeback.

Tonight is a holiday/business party down at the Westin, and then tomorrow the LAMBRA meeting, followed on Sunday by another cyclocross race just north of Jackson.  I'm glad to see that the weather will be a little warmer for that.  Meanwhile in blogger land, something is broken at blogger.com that is causing some of the links in the "pages" gadget to redirect to my own blogger home page instead of the correct page.  It seems to be affecting only the links that are blogger.com links.  It's been going on for a week or so, and they're "working on it."

Winter

So I guess it's finally winter here, at least for a couple of days.  By "winter," of course, I mean nighttime temperatures of 40F and below.  Long tights, shoe-covers, helmet liner and jacket were all deployed when I left home this morning.  It was a little darker than I'd expected and I was glad I had the front blinky light for the ride over to the levee where I found, well, nobody.  I stopped for just a couple of minutes, hiding from the wind behind the big pumps, hoping someone would show, but nobody did, so I rolled out alone.  A mile later Big Richard came up from behind, and a few minutes after that Howard joined in around the playground where we then picked up Donald.  As we plodded along at about 20 mph, taking long pulls as the wind kept switching from one side to the other.  I was already contemplating an early turn-around.  It was just one of those mornings when I just wasn't having any fun at all.  Besides the cold and wind, I had a number of distractions bouncing around in my head and was rather unsure about  how I was going to get everything done that needed to be done this week.  There is something about this time of year that I always find particularly stressful.  It always seems like there are just too many things that start piling atop each other, all competing for limited time and even more limited energy.  This week The Daughter is in Hawaii, we're taking care of The Sister's dog, I'm meeting a roofer about a chimney leak, there's a cyclocross race and the LAMBRA business meeting over the weekend in Jackson, and of course there are the usual things to do at work.  My feet are cold, and I'm on my second, and inadvisable, cup of coffee in hopes that it will help clear the stuffiness I'm feeling in my head. We're about to buy a car for The Daughter, which will likely entail a cross-country expedition from New Orleans to Olympia and back - basically a week's worth of non-stop driving.

Interestingly, it's the LAMBRA meeting that seems to be weighing most heavily on my mind today.  The preliminary race calendar needs to be assembled, I want to draft a proposal for some fairly significant organizational changes to address changes in the way USAC is moving, there are a bunch of recommendations to consider for the 2012 LCCS points series that I need to really think through, and a host of "deferred maintenance" administrative issues to deal with related to tax-exempt status, bank accounts, uncollected surcharges, etc., etc.  It was all so simple back in the (very) old days when we'd gather around the dining room table at Greg Gulotta's house with a calendar and put together a year's worth of races that, collectively, probably cost half as much to produce than any little local race does now.  There were no police, usually no follow cars, homemade race numbers, no cash prizes, insurance, or video cameras, and $2 entry fees.  Oh well.  It's about time for a webinar entitled, "President Obama's Initiative on University Research Commercialization: How Universities Plan To Respond."  I know, I know.  You wish you were here, don't you?

Three for Three

So yes, I made it out to the Giro Ride on Saturday.  In fact, I think most of those who had made the Thanksgiving ride and the prior day's Slidell ride were also on hand.  Surprisingly, I was feeling just a little stiffness in the legs, but otherwise I was ready to make it three for three.  The slightly warmer weather made for a fast and well-attended Giro Ride.  There was still a fair amount of wind around, so naturally that resulted in some fast sections.  It wasn't until I was most of the way back that it all started to catch up with me a bit, and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was sit on the couch, eat chips, and watch reruns of Star Wars. A long Sunday ride was still on the table, but because I had to leave for Baton Rouge around 10 am to help with some last-minute pre-Act of Sale packing for my niece. I'd already set my sights on the Sunday Giro rather than the Northshore Ride.

A cool front had started coming through and when I peeked out the window at 5:45 am on Sunday I could see that the street was still rather damp.  I got dressed anyway, buckled on the helmet, stepped out the door, and was surprised to feel a light misty drizzle falling.  I took it as a sign from the Recovery Gods and instead took the dogs for a walk.  It was probably a wise decision because the weather remained chilly, windy and damp all day.  Last night the effects of the cold front really started to take hold and by this morning the temperature was down to the lower 40s and the street was still just a little wet.  I figured it was time to bite the bullet and get started on my winter acclimatization, however, so I pulled on the long tights and winter jacket and went out for a short spin, more as a character-building exercise than actual training ride.  Looks like a few days of cold mornings ahead, though. When I got back to the house I fired up the heater for the first time this season, letting it run just long enough to burn off that smell you always get when you do that.

Out-n-Back

After yesterday's faster-than-expected Thanksgiving Day ride, it would have been easy to go with a nice easy ride today.  But then I saw Woody's email. A 7 am ride out to Slidell and back.  My legs didn't feel all that bad, and a 95 mile ride couldn't possibly be worse than a shopping trip to the mall.  Besides, it's my birthday and I should be able to go for a long ride if I want to, right?  So at 6 am I stuck a couple of PowerBars in my pocket, pulled on the arm and knee-warmers, and took off to meet whoever might show up at Starbucks.

The weather was nearly perfect, except for the east wind, as our little six-rider group rolled out down Lakeshore Drive.  Everyone was pretty much on the same page as far as the pace was concerned. With the headwind, "moderate" translated into a smooth paceline at 21-23 mph except for a brief surge to chase down Howard.  By the time we crossed the Chef Menteur bridge the group was down to Woody, Rob, Chuck, Judd and me, and although we were mostly riding straight in to the wind, traffic was mercifully light and the pace remarkably smooth. The temperature had warmed up a bit, and I was already planning stash the knee-warmers in my pocket for the return trip.  Woody started taking somewhat longer pulls, along with Rob and Chuck, while I was being careful to keep my own pulls a little on the short side to ensure I'd make it all the way back without needing cab fare.

The return trip, once we turned back onto Chef Highway, was really nice.  With a steady tailwind, our moderate effort level was yielding speeds in the 26-28 mph range, although by then most were starting to feel the effects of the distance, especially considering the fact that we'd all, I think, been part of the prior day's hammerfest on the levee. We finally backed off a notch toward the end of Chef Highway, but the pace nonetheless remained respectable for the duration.  Woody split off at Leon C. Simon to ride back to the West Bank (he'd been at Lakeside Mall with his wife at 2:30 that morning and had ridden from there to meet the ride at 7:00).  His day would tally up to at least 100 miles.  By the time walked in the door at home the odometer was showing 95 and my legs were pretty well toasted.  Now the question is, "Giro tomorrow??"

Not What I Was Expecting

This morning's ad hoc Thanksgiving Day ride certainly didn't turn out the way I'd been expecting.  Mignon has sent out an email earlier in the week suggesting a nice civilized 7:15 am start time, to which she'd received maybe two replies. I thought maybe we'd have a nice little group of six or seven, but apparently everyone got his turkey into the oven early today because when I arrived to meet the group up on the levee there were already fifteen or so there. A cool front had come though last night, leaving us with a clear blue sky and somewhat gusty northeast wind. By the time we rolled out and met up with some more riders at the playground, our group must have numbered at least twenty-five. 

There was a pretty good little tailwind that came and went as the river wound its way toward Ormond, and although I'd expected a nice conversational pace, I soon found myself down on the drops in the big ring as the pace hovered in the 26-29 mph range.  There were more than a couple of riders who were determined to get in a good workout today.  I was trying to stay near the front and in the rotation for a couple of reasons, one of which was the occasional crosswind section that would leave twenty riders lined up along the edge of the asphalt pretending they were getting a draft. It was a good day for the power riders.  Brady filtered up to the front at one point and pulled the whole bunch along at 28 mph for what seemed like miles.  He wasn't the only one, either.  Anyway, by the time we were past The Dip, things seemed to have settled down a bit.  I don't know how many were left in the front group by then, but I guess we must have broken up into two or three groups by then.  Eventually, Woody, who had been cruising along in the middle of the group, must have gotten frustrated with the "inconsistent" pace, which is to say there was a lot of surging going on, and blew past the paceline.  Of course, the guys at the front weren't going to let that stand, and next thing I know there are gaps all over the place.  When Scott blew up ahead of me I made a half-hearted effort to bridge. Up ahead I could see that the front group had eased up a bit, but just then Rob jumped past me and motored up to them.  I thought, "This can't be good."  Sure enough, Rob went to the front and when I saw the riders at the back come off their saddles to accelerate I knew my chase was over.

So that was the ride on the way out to the turnaround.  The ride back wasn't a whole lot different except that we had a lot more headwind than tailwind, and we spent the first five miles chasing Woody and someone else who had slipped off the front.  On the plus side, I wasn't feeling all that bad.  The chest congestion is finally starting to clear up, so although I'm feeling a bit out of shape, at least I'm not afraid to make a few hard efforts.  I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow.  Maybe just the usual morning ride on the levee unless someone suggests something more interesting. Rob was talking about some guys planning to ride out to Slidell, but I don't know if I'm quite ready to jump into what would probably be a 90 mile day right now.

A Little Psycho

By Friday afternoon I'd just about had it with this chest cold.  I knew it was kind of a crazy idea, but I decided to go up to Natchez for the PsychoCross race.  It was time to roll the dice and see what happened.  I still had that deep chest congestion, but took some comfort in the knowledge that the temperature would be in the 70s by the time any heavy breathing would be required.  Allie was planning on going, so I hitched a ride with her, loading my not-quite-a cyclocross bike into her car at the quite civilized time of 7:30 am, leaving us plenty of time make the drive before the 11:00 am start time.  Considering my delicate condition, I planned to keep my effort level low, my head up, and my ass off the ground -- not necessarily in that order.

We arrived to find the usual small but enthusiastic turnout, and after riding one lap of the course I knew it would be a challenge regardless of any plans I might have had to take it easy.  The course wound through a park with some rolling terrain, which was nice, but each lap included two sets of artificial barriers plus a very deep sand pit.  As if that wasn't enough, the first set of double barriers came right before an iron pipe fence that was so high that I could barely step over it from a dead stop.  The fast (and tall) guys would run at it, plant one foot on top, and leap over it.  And then there was the sand pit.  Each lap there would be one or two deep tracks through it that had been made by someone ahead of me.  If I charged the sand pit and somehow managed to stay in the track all the way across I could make it through. 

That happened exactly once. Most of the time I'd get halfway through before coming to sudden stop, and the would have to try and clip back in before riding straight up a steep incline.  A few times, the best I could do was to shoulder the bike and run up the hill. The last set of double barriers was the easiest, and I was usually able to keep a lot of momentum through those. Anyway, I started the race last, passed Allie at some point, and pretty much stayed there for the whole race.  A couple of laps before the finish I caught the rider ahead of me and was considering going for it on the last lap, but when I completely flubbed the sand trap on the last lap, the gap a bit longer than my motivation was willing to close.  Anyway, it was a fun diversion and I didn't think I'd done too much damage.

Sunday morning I boldly headed off to meet the Giro Ride.  It was fairly warm and quite foggy, so I clipped on both head and tail lights. They would stay on until the fog cleared around 9 am, which was about when I flatted right after turning off of Chef Highway onto the service road. 

I felt pretty good on the Giro Ride until we were about halfway back when my earlier cyclocross exploits began to catch up with me.  By the time I got home I was feeling pretty well cooked, but had only a couple of hours to recover before walking down to the Oak Street Po-boy festival.  We made kind of a quick run up and down the street, experimented with some new po-boys, had a beer at the secret St. Andrew's location (where's it's half the price they charge on Oak St.), and picked up a big cup of iced mint tea at Zotz before heading back home.  The festival was just getting started when we were there and since the weather was great I'm sure it was a big success.  By then, however, I was starting to feel like was losing ground to the chest cold and my voice was not sounding too good, so I guess I was due for a little recovery time anyway.

Seasons

Cold and flu, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Holiday, Cyclocross - this is the season of seasons, and as usual they all seem to pile on top of each other, competing for my time and energy. The last couple of weeks have been pretty much a disaster, riding-wise.  The chest congestion is stubbornly hanging on, and together with the off-and-on cold temperatures, rain and wind, I've had ample excuses for skipping training rides.  I'd fully intended to ride this morning, but when I woke up to a cold and windy morning, accompanied by a dash for the kitchen to stop a coughing fit caused by a "tickle" in my throat, I decided that discretion was indeed the better part of valor.  I always take those little coughing fits - you know the ones where your eyes water and you can't stop coughing until that tickle in your throat goes away - to be a sign of healing.  Anyway, it remains to be seen whether I will go up to Natchez for our second cyclocross race of the year. I'll be shelled immediately, of course, but on the other hand it would be nice to get away and do something different.  There are a lot of competing alternatives, of course.  The club is doing an easy no-drop ride on the Giro route, so if I didn't want to do the regular Giro Ride, there's that.  On Sunday there's the Giro, and I suppose a northshore ride, for the morning.  In the afternoon there's the Oak Street Po-boy Festival within walking distance from home. There's even a pre-festival city ride that ends at the festival, complete with "bike valet" parking sponsored by Bike Easy.

This morning it was pretty chilly and when I rode up to the local Starbucks I found them brewing Thanksgiving Blend, which I like, and the shelves full of Christmas Blend, which I also like.  Since I'd just finished off my last bag of Bike Fuel, I figured it was time to stock up on Christmas Blend, even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet.  Lots of stuff to catch up on today before the pseudoephrine wears off.....

Cold and Coffee

The conference went well, capped off with the usual Tuesday night party.  This year, however, they had a DJ instead of the traditional live band.  That wouldn't have been too bad, except that they were playing mostly crappy 2000s music - the kind with the monotonous over-amplified bass.  They even included "dancers," which were a couple of guys like you'd find break-dancing any day of the week in the French Quarter. Anyway, we made the best of it. I finally headed back to my hotel from the hospitality suite around 1 am, although things in there were still going strong.  The next morning's sessions were kind of tough, as usual.  Unfortunately my flight didn't leave until after 7 pm, so after meeting a colleague for lunch I still had a lot of time to kill before hopping on the Metro for DCA. Arrived back in NOLA from DC a few minutes after midnight on Thursday with a bag full of dirty laundry and a need for sleep.  It should come as no surprise that I wasn't out there on the levee at 6:15 that morning, especially considering the fact that it was around 40 degrees with a brutal north wind. 

After what essentially amounted to two weeks off the bike, and a lingering chest cold, I decided that trying to start training again in the cold air probably wasn't worth the risk and set my sights on today's Giro.  It was still pretty cold when I rolled out of bed today, but it was time to get back in the saddle, so I pumped up the tires, pulled on the knee-warmers and headed off for some pre-Giro French Roast.  I was really looking forward to that cup of hot coffee.  On the plus side, it was certainly nice to be riding out to meet the Giro with a little light in the sky for a change.  There was the usual cast of characters on hand at Starbucks, although they were all hanging out inside instead of outside today. 

Since I'm still feeling some chest congestion, I'm not planning on doing anything too hard until next week, so I spent most of the ride hanging out around mid-pack. The temperature was on the rise throughout today's ride, and there was a steady wind blowing out of the southeast.  The pace was fairly reasonable, so things stayed together for the most part. I dropped off the pace well before the turnaround for a little nature break, thanks no doubt to the combination of cold and coffee.  I wasn't the only one.

Tomorrow I'll be taking a pass on the northshore ride so I can help out with the timing for an informal time trial that the Tulane team is doing out on Lakeshore Drive in the morning.  I'll try and get back to a more normal routine on Monday.

Up in the Air

I’m writing this at 31,000 feet, somewhere between Colorado Springs and Chicago, en route to D.C. with a couple of hours to kill and a couple more hours to lose, and wishing I was on the bike.  The USAC Local Associations Conference went well, and somewhere in my overstuffed gate-checked carry-on is a long list of things to think about, investigate, and hopefully get done.  For the first time in a couple of years, there was almost no discussion of chip-timing systems.  The sessions were more focused on the business of improving the racing environment, attracting more riders, and especially streamlining the interactions with USA Cycling.  They are trying hard to go electronic, and at the core of that push are their online registration system and their results and rankings program. 

For 2012, there will be some new incentives for promoters, and possibly also the local associations, to use the registration system.  Although it’s already the least expensive option, albeit only slightly, they plan to give rebates amounting to 80 cents per registration next year.  They’re also developing a registration and results tool that race organizers will be able to use for their events  - probably something along the lines of the one that Sportsbase Online had.  Those of us who have been using BikeReg for years are just a little hesitant to turn our backs on the system that’s been working so well for us, but the cost difference, especially for larger events, will be hard to ignore.  They have already deployed iPhone and Android apps that allow riders to show race officials their current license status (and also notified the officials that they have to accept it).  Down the line, perhaps not all that far in fact, may be the ability to register for an event through the USAC registration system and then on race day just whip out your smartphone at the registration desk.  The thing that has really made that all feasible is a new system they are about to implement that will allow them to accept digital signatures from USAC members who register online (only through the USAC system, of course).  It’s interesting. 

Online post-event reporting and payment systems that were supposed to be deployed earlier this year are still likely to need a few more months of development, but they’re also on the way.  In the Results and Rankings world, we may soon be able to use a rider’s ranking to do things like seed time trials or do call-ups for criteriums.  They’re already planning on using it to do call-ups for cyclocross nationals.  If you look at an event that is using the USAC system for online registration, you will see each riders predicted placing based on data in the results and rankings database.  Apparently it was pretty accurate at masters nationals this year.  So anyway, I’m still popping Sudafed and will be off the bike until Thursday at the earliest when I return to New Orleans. Right now I’m on the way to the NCURA annual conference and kind of looking forward to getting some more information on STAR Metrics and the Data Act, and hoping that if and when the universities have to start providing even more reporting data we might somehow be able to do so in a way that would allow us to actually make some productive use of it, which I’m pretty sure the government won’t.

Back at home, I was sorry to have to miss today’s NOBC coffee shop ride, but I may have to break out the old not-really-a Cyclocross bike for the upcoming race in Baton Rouge.  No doubt I will be woefully out of shape for it, and entirely devoid of most necessary skills, but the beauty of cyclocross is that nobody will really care, including me.  In the meantime I need to send out an email about the planned LAMBRA annual meeting, which will be Dec. 3 in Jackson MS, along with a request for proposed 2012 event dates.  I also need to get jersey sizes for all of our LCCS and track championship winners, pick up and ship out both the extremely late 2010 awards and surprisingly early 2011 LCCS awards.

I won’t be arriving at my little D.C. hotel until around 10 pm tonight, I think.  Perhaps I’ll get this all uploaded to Blogger before tomorrow.  Then it will be two and a half rather full days of sessions and related “networking opportunities” before a late night arrival back in NOLA on Wednesday.

Involuntary Fall Break

It was Tuesday evening of last week and I was sitting in a rather crowded conference room in the AAU office up in D.C. when I started to feel the scratchy throat.  Perhaps it was just coincidence, but I'd just spent a couple of hours at 30,000 feet breathing dry communal air.  I was trying to be optimistic, hoping that it wasn't what, deep down, I knew it probably was. Later that night I searched the little ziplock bag I'd brought to hold my toothbrush and stuff, hoping to find a couple of decongestant tablets, tylenol, aspirin, oxycodone - anything - but I'd packed light for this quick trip and hadn't brought my usual travel supplies.  The next morning I stopped at the local drug store before heading back for another six hours of workshopping. Although I didn't feel terribly sick, I had a pretty good sore throat and low-grade fever, held somewhat in check by the generic CVS cold medicine. By the time I got home late that night it was taking its usual course.  The sore throat was going away and the bronchitis was starting to kick in. I already knew it was going to be a week or so before I'd feel well again.  Naturally, The Daughter was also arriving that night for a visit.

I spent the next two days at home nursing the developing chest cold.  It seems there is always some combination of events, usually including work, illness, and other things beyond my control, that puts me off the bike for a while this time of year.  It's one reason I never actually plan to take a week off.  For one thing, I just don't train hard enough to justify a week or two of extended recovery.  For another, I know something like this will force me to take a break anyway.  One thing I know for sure.  You don't go out and try to train in the cold when you have a chest cold.  A bout with pneumonia will put a big kink in your fitness plans.  Been there, done that.

So although I wasn't feeling quite up to riding, I was reasonably busy over the weekend, went out for an easy little spin on Monday morning, and made it in to work with a pocket full of pharmaceuticals.  That evening we had our usual Halloween open house.  That tradition started the year of Katrina.  Halloween was the first weekend that most of the block was back at home, and we all ended up out on a neighbor's porch drinking wine, telling our Katrina stories, and waiting for the lone little trick-or-treater who ultimately showed up.  This year the street was packed with kids and lots of people stopped by the house for gumbo and pasta salad and related snacks and adult beverages.  I still had a nagging little cough and some chest congestion, but have been more or less on the road to recovery since then.  Even so, since there was no real urgency to get back on the bike, I figured I'd give it another day or two just to be on the safe side and set my sights on Wedesday.  As luck would have it, I ended up with an 8 am conference call appointment this morning, so rather than blow off yet another ride, I hit the road in the dark and put in 25 miles or so, arriving back at the house well before 7:30.  Riding solo on the levee in the dark with nothing but a little blinking LED headlight is remarkably stressful.  If I had to do that often I'd definitely be in the market for a real headlight that allows for seeing in addition to being seen.  Anyway, I survived it.  Hopefully I'll get in another ride tomorrow before heading off for the annual USAC Local Associations conference in Colorado on Friday and the NCURA conference in D.C. from Sunday through Wednesday.  Like it or not, I'll end up with essentially two weeks off the bike.  Situation normal.

Get the picture

Worth a thousand words.....

Bonus Miles

It was around 6:30 am when I left the house, and I didn't make it more than two blocks before turning around.  I was signed up to do the annual Tour de Jefferson ride which started at 9 am, and I knew the temperature would up around 70F by then, so despite the chill in the pre-dawn air, I'd gone out with just a jersey and arm-warmers. It didn't take me long to decide that I'd rather do the ride with a wind vest in my pocket than be cold for the next hour.  A bunch of us were planning to meet at the local Starbucks for 7:00 in order to get about twenty bonus miles by riding to the ride.  It would be nearly twenty miles, including a ferry ride across the river, so even with two hours to spare, the timing would be a little tight.

I was pleasantly surprised to find over a dozen riders in our group as we headed off down St. Charles Avenue for the Canal Street ferry landing.  Although we had plenty of time to make the 7:45 ferry, I wanted to make sure we kept rolling just in case we were delayed by a flat or something.  Fortunately, the ride downtown went smoothly and we got to the foot of Canal Street with a good fifteen minutes to spare.  I was glad I'd decided to wear the wind vest, but knew I'd be stuffing it into my pocket pretty soon.  The nine or ten mile ride from the ferry back upriver to the ride start went pretty well.  I had been a little worried about getting delayed at the Harvey Canal if there had been a ship going through the lock there, but there were no problems at all, unless you count the fact that we overshot the spot where we needed to turn off of the bike path and had to ride back half a mile or so. 

We arrived at Bayou Segnette park with almost half an hour to spare, so we had just enough time to sign in and make our way to the front of the big group waiting for the start, which we accomplished by doing a little cyclocross style riding.

This ride is a 50-mile group ride that is kind of a west-bank Giro Ride since a lot of the usual Giro riders participate.  There's a stretch early in the ride that includes a few miles on the narrow levee bike path, and so it always gets a little fast as riders try to stay toward the front before hitting that.  It's like trying to make the hole shot at the start of a mountain bike race. 

Once we were off the bike path and out on the open road again, the pace ramped up pretty quickly.  I guess were were still less than twenty-five miles into the ride when I dropped back down the paceline only to be surprised when Jeff looked over and said, "I'm it."  Somewhere along the way the group had split and there was already a front group of twenty-five or so. 

It was easy sitting in the draft, since there wasn't really much wind, but the speeds were definitely up around Giro Ride territory, spending lots of time in the 26-30 mph range.  For myself, I was feeling pretty good, but the knowledge that it would be an 87-mile day for me was sufficient motivation to keep me off the front.  Besides, it was an absolutely perfect Fall day and I didn't really know where I was going anyway.  Although I've lived in New Orleans all my life, much of the West Bank remains foreign territory for me.

So we got back to the start just as they were getting the crawfish etouffe and red beans and rice ready to serve. Our original group, of course, had gotten a little split up since some riders were planning on riding easy, some were planning to stay with the front group, and others were scattered in-between.  A few took off for home early while the rest of us waited for the last riders to arrive before heading back downriver for the return trip. As we rode the ferry back across the river I noticed a pirate woman standing at the rail.  No doubt on her way to work in the French Quarter on a day that included a Saints game.  I finally rolled up to the house around 2 pm with 87 miles on the odometer.  It was a nice long ride on a nice Fall day.

Fallin' Behind

Well, we have gotten our first taste of Fall down here in New Orleans, and I can't say I've heard anyone complaining.  Last week's Saturday Giro had a good turnout and stayed pretty fast for the most part, and the weather was warm and breezy.  The Wife's sister was in town from Dallas, so we spent some time down the French Quarter, stopping for coffee at Envie, walking down to Frenchman Street (named for the Frenchmen that the Spanish governor with the Irish name "Bloody O'Reily" executed), and later heading over to Magazine Street for a somewhat lengthy wait for lunch at Cafe Rani. Sunday's Giro turnout was relatively small.  It was just as well, since I had to turn around early to get back in time for a quick brunch at the Ritz.

Last week was more or less a blur, riding-wise.  A cool front came through and by Tuesday morning the pre-dawn temperature had dipped just barely below 50F.  In order to minimize the shock, I went out with long tights, two jerseys, arm-warmers and a wind vest.  I can't say I was ever particularly hot.  The next couple of mornings were similar, although I skipped Wednesday and turned back early on Thursday because of time constraints, and went out fifteen minutes late on Friday for a nice solo ride.  It's nice to do a solo ride once in a while.  They always seem to turn out the same, though.  I tell myself I'll just do an easy spin, but after a few miles the speed starts creeping up and eventually I have to sit up a coast for a while so it doesn't turn into a time trial.

At some point during the week I updated the NOBC History page with some old photos that Bob Perrin dropped off.  This was stuff from the Tour de Louisiana and La Boucherie Gran Prix French Quarter criterium, circa 1973.  It was a little disconcerting to find myself in one of those looking like I was a college student (which I was).  Seems like just yesterday.  I remember the wool jersey and how it felt, and smelled, in the middle of the summer; I remember the leather helmet; I even remember the socks. A few teammates, including Boyd Fink, Chris Todd, Randy Holmes, Mike Schramel, Jim McFadden, and Dave Weatherly are in there.

So anyway, by Friday afternoon I was pretty much ready to call it a week.  Fortunately, we had tickets to the annual Red, Whites and Blues wine tasting over at City Park where there was a lot of food of which I didn't eat much, and a lot of wine that I sampled fairly liberally, only one of which I couldn't make myself swallow.  Whoever got the idea that wine could be improved by flavoring it with chocolate must have been drinking some really bad wine. The whole thing is really just a couple of hours long and is highlighted by a raffle for a ton of wine, which once again none of us won. Out in the garden they had Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns, which I really enjoyed.  They may not be classically trained musicians, but they sure sounded good to me.

Tomorrow morning I'll be doing the Tour of Jefferson ride, which should be fun since the weather will be close to perfect.  Some of us are planning to ride to the ride, which involves taking the Canal St. Ferry to the foreign land known locally as The West Bank, which is not, technically, west, at least around here.  We may have to make a last minute change in our departure time - still working on that.