WEAKend Riding

After a good long levee ride on Thursday and a couple of relatively decent rides earlier in the week, I figured I could weather the temporary closure of the bike path (from Friday through Monday) without too much trouble. I knew my weekend was going to be cut short, training-wise, anyway because of the annual LAMBRA business meeting in Jackson on Sunday.  So Friday morning I figured I'd just do a little sightseeing spin.  I headed over to the levee just in case anyone was going to show up at the regular time (nobody did), and rode on down to the bridge where the Jefferson Parish police had dutifully parked a police car to ensure that none of those lawbreaking cyclists would slip by.  As I turned around I ran into Donald, and we rode down to Audubon Park where I rode an easy lap after Donald peeled off to play in the St. Charles Avenue traffic.

New Tulane Kit

It was still a little chilly Saturday morning, and although I knew it would warm up quickly I wore my NOBC winter jacket anyway, this time with just an old jersey underneath, to ride out to Starbucks for my traditional pre-Giro cup of java. There were already a number of people there when I arrived, including a couple of the Tulane cycling team riders decked out in their brand-new 2011 kits.  I'd been tempted to wear mine, but decided instead on the relative warmth and sponsor exposure of my jacket.  With the warmer weather came one of the larger Giro ride groups we've seen in a couple of weeks, and we rolled out at a nice conversational pace for a long time.  Somewhere on Hayne Blvd. I guess a few riders rolled off the front and soon the main group, or at least the dozen or so riders at the front of it, took up the chase.  I heard my computer beep as the speed went past 25 mph, and when I looked down a few seconds later it was reading 30.  It stayed that way all the way down Hayne.  In fact, I doubt we spend more than a few minutes below 28 mph all the way out to Venetian Isles.  There, Kenny and some other riders had planned to do some "structured training" on the way back, so the group kind of fragmented for a while as riders tried to figure out what was going on and with which group they wanted to stay.  I went ahead and went with the "unstructured" group for the return trip.  Although it had its moments, the pace on the return trip was relatively restrained, and I arrived back home with a feeling of satisfaction and 60 miles on the odometer.  After spending a three or four hours at the hospital that evening, it was around 11 pm by the time I sat down to really think about the next day's LAMBRA meeting, and although I didn't really accomplish much, I didn't hit the sack until well after 1 am.  After maybe five hours of sleep I was up and about again getting ready for Mark to pick me up at 7:00 for the drive up to Jackson, MS.  As we drove up I-55 under a cloudy and, eventually, rainy sky I couldn't help but take a little comfort in the fact that I was at least not missing one of those great sunny winter training rides that I love so much.

The meeting went nicely and the webcast actually worked, and for a change we adjourned without having made any controversial changes in the LCCS rules for 2011, focusing instead more on administrative issues and LAMBRA programs like the nationals travel grants, junior development, officiating, race equipment, etc.  By the time we left Jackson, around 3:30 pm, it was raining steadily, which made the long drive feel even longer.  Along the way I saw an email about a new Xtranormal animation about the Giro Ride.  I wonder which riders they used as models.  That night I reconfigured the old Pennine from poor-man's cyclocross bike to poor-man's rain bike, since I figured the streets would still be pretty wet by morning and there wouldn't be a group ride anyway because of the bike path closure.  When I woke up, though, what I found were not only wet streets but a thick fog that could only have been worse closer to the river.  It just didn't seem worth going out in that.  Unfortunately, it's looking like tomorrow's morning ride is going to come right about when then the weather goes from bad to worse ahead of an approaching cold front, so I guess I'll have to play that one by ear.  If the forecast changes by one or two hours one way or the other, it will make a big difference since the winds are predicted to be around 17-21 mph and the rain chance goes from 30% at 7 am to 90% at 11 am.  Might get to use the rain bike after all.