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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.

Passive-Aggressive

It's been a bit of a dull week so far.  The weather, while quite nice, has been virtually identical each day, as was the dull sinus-type headache that plagued me for the first three days.  I think I had a little touch of a head cold going on.  This morning I rolled the bike out the door and looked up at the stars wishing I didn't have to ride in the dark again.  Alas, Congress has decreed that we must ride that way until November before finally making the switch. My regular route takes me down Carrollton Avenue where there's a nice bike lane.  Unfortunately, the city has been digging up and replacing a long section of streetcar tracks for the past couple of months and all of the street lights along that stretch have been off for the duration.  On the plus side, they finally fixed the water leak and resulting hole along that stretch.  Unfortunately they still haven't fixed the other water leak where it's been coming up through a manhole cover for the past few months.  Since there aren't any street lights there, I sometimes don't see it soon enough, or if I do, there's a car coming up behind and I'm forced to ride through the water. It's not much, but somehow I just really hate having that little spray of water hitting my legs that early in the morning.  I can't imagine how on earth those guys can possibly be taking so long to fix such a small section of tracks.  If the first transcontinental railroad had been constructed at the same pace, California would still be a frontier.  Anyway, my dirty bike and I arrived promptly at the levee, blending into the cluster of blinking lights a few minutes before we rolled down the "hill" for the Thursday long ride.

I chatted for a couple of minutes with Mignon about the NOBC group that she is registering for the upcoming Tour de Jefferson ride, but after a couple of miles the pace started to rise as we accumulated more riders and settled into a long paceline.  I guess two-thirds of the group wasn't interested in being on the front today, which is kind of typical this time of year, so the speed remained relatively steady, which is more than I can say about a few of the riders who seemed to be having balance issues.  People really need to put more emphasis on riding a straight line.  While I'm on my soapbox, let me also remind everyone that the red blinky light flashing in my eyes while we're in the paceline isn't really serving any purpose other than to make it hard to see where we're going, so please reach back and turn the thing off.  Nobody's going to be coming up on us from behind.  Anyway, things seemed shaky enough this morning that I spent a lot of time riding an extra bike length behind the wheel in front of me until the sun started to rise.

On the ride back today, somewhere around River Ridge, which seems to be the home of some sort of underground anti-bike, take-back-the-levee activist cell, we were rolling along at a nice steady pace of 22-23 mph as we approached a woman walking her dog.  Coming the other way on his bike was Bob Perrin, so we at first eased up, and then braked since everything was coming together at the same place.  The woman wasn't budging from the middle of the bike path, nor was she keeping her dog close to her, so by the time we all converged, Bob had come to a stop and the paceline was down to walking speed as we threaded our way past.  I didn't see it as a much of a problem, thinking that the woman was either clueless or stupid (or perhaps both).  As we went past, I saw Donald turn around and tell the woman, "That's why we yielded to you!"  It turned out that the woman, possible stupidity notwithstanding, was just being passive-aggressive and must have said something about pedestrians having right of way, not that any of us were arguing the point.  (Passive–aggressive behavior, a personality trait, is passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to following through with expectations in interpersonal or occupational situations.)   So that slowed things down for a little while as we collectively scratched our heads and wondered why someone would think such behavior was necessary, or helpful.  Eventually, of course, things got going again and I found myself spending a whole lot of time sitting in VJ's draft.

Last weekend Bob Perrin stopped by and gave me a few really old local racing photos from the early 70s.  This one shows me in one of the La Boucherie Gran Prix races that the club promoted down in the French Quarter around '72 or '73.  Eventually I'll get them all scanned and up on the NOBC archive website.  I still remember that old helmet and even those socks. 

Too Early

The radio came on at 5:45 am and I promptly drifted off to sleep again.  A moment later, apparently, I jolted awake, thinking, "Damn, I'm late!"  I threw on riding clothes, rushed downstairs, filled a couple of water bottles and took off for the lakefront.  I was still half-asleep.  Somewhere out around Bayou St. John I looked up and thought, "It sure is dark."  I glanced down at my watch as I rode under a street lamp.  Crap!  I'd left home a good twenty-five minutes early.  I hate it when that happens. Harrison Avenue through the park was basically pitch black.  So as I rode up to Starbucks almost an hour before the start of the Giro Ride, I was a little surprised to see Daniel already there.  On the plus side, I had lots of time to sip my morning coffee.

It was windy this morning, but otherwise the weather was nearly perfect. The group was pretty large as we rolled down Lakeshore Drive, but aside from the wind I wasn't expecting a particularly hard ride.  For one thing, a few of the usual instigators were missing.  For another, it looked like we'd have a direct headwind or tailwind for most of the ride.  One thing about the combination of a direct headwind and a large group is that, unless you're at the front, sitting in the draft can feel really easy.  In fact, the pace did get fairly fast here and there, but in general things were rather inconsistent today.  After battling the headwind all the way out, we finally turned around.  Things were slow to get going, however, and so I rode ahead to catch a couple of riders who were already up the road.  Of course, I knew the group would eventually get back up to speed, and considering the tailwind, I knew they'd be going pretty fast when they caught us.  Once that happened, I think we went a few miles without the speed dropping much below 30 mph.  So anyway, there were a few really fast stretches until we got back to Hayne Blvd. where things slowed down to conversational mode before the final surges over the bridges.

Off Balance

It seems that everything has been just a bit off-balance lately.  The weekend started out with a nice cool morning ride out toward the lakefront on Saturday.  It was cool enough to warrant a little extra wind protection as I made my way to Starbucks looking forward to a hot cup of coffee.  With the days getting noticeably shorter by the day, it was still quite dark as I rode across City Park on Harrison Avenue. There wasn't a car in sight, so I rode in the traffic lane rather than the bike path since there's sometimes a bit of debris on the path that my little blinky light wasn't going to pick up early enough to avoid a nasty surprise.  The Saturday Giro had a brisk northeast wind to deal with, making for a hard ride on the way out and a fast one on the way back.  I was feeling pretty good and got in a good workout. 

It wasn't until much later in the day that I learned that Robin, who had dropped off of the group on the way out, had been hit from behind by a truck that was reportedly going around 50 mph.  The truck crushed his rear wheel and he was thrown up onto the hood.  The driver, who hadn't been looking where he was going, looked down at him on the ground and asked, "What do you want me to do?"  Robin responded, "Call 911." No kidding?  At least the driver, who apparently didn't have insurance, stuck around.  Robin spent the next two days in the hospital with fractures in three vertebrae and a whole lot of pain.  Of course, it could have been a whole lot worse, so we can at least be thankful for that.  Since it was the MS Tour weekend around here, turnout for the Giro was a little lower than usual, especially on Sunday.  We still got in a pretty good workout, but toward the end the group really split up a lot.  I came over the Seabrook bridge with one other rider who continued on Leon C. Simon when I turned onto Lakeshore Drive, and then soft-pedaled for quite a while so I wouldn't have to ride back home alone.

I've felt like I've been in a fog since Monday, however.  I think I may have a little sinus infection or something, as often happens this time of year.  I always seem to have trouble adapting to spectacular weather.  This morning I woke up with a stiff neck and stuffy nose, just like the last two mornings.  Of course, I went out to ride anyway.  The Wednesday group was relatively big, with a dozen or so riders in attendance.  The ride itself was fairly typical with moderate speeds and long pulls, and although I felt a little better by the time I got home, something still seems a bit off-balance.  On the plus side, I finally picked up the LCCS awards for 2010 about eight months later than I should have, and in the process placed the order for the 2011 ones.  Maybe I need to get a little more sleep.....