Change

There was a big group this morning for the last long Thursday morning ride before the change to DST on Sunday plunges the 6:15 am start time back in to darkness.  It was warm and humid with a relentless east southeast wind, and I commented to someone at the start, "Best be sure to save something for the way back."  Although there was certainly adequate horsepower in the group to make for one of those really fast rides, I think some riders were holding back a bit today.  No doubt that's because of next Sunday's annual Rouge-Roubaix race through the untamed thoroughfares of the Felicianas.  The considerable threat of rain for that race has a lot of people talking; some about equipment choices; others about bailing out altogether.  Well, I'll be there one way or the other.  On the plus side, it won't be particularly cold.  On the minus side, 100+ miles on wet roads that include long unpaved stretches have me thinking about using my slightly heavier training tires rather than the Michelin Pro tires that I'd otherwise use. Frankly, the bigger consideration for me is to avoid cutting up my good tires, not whether or not I actually puncture.  At any rate, I don't think I've ever done this race when there was significant rain, and from all indications thus far, there will certainly be significant rain before the race, and probably during it as well.  It will require some compromises and probably a bit of an attitude adjustment.

Anyway, today's ride was pretty good.  The pace was fast enough without ever getting really out of hand (not that Howard didn't try), and even included some brief entertainment at the turnaround where there was some sort of "discussion" between Mike W. and Jeff, the details of which I never did quite get.  The ride out there had benefited from a fair amount of tailwind, which of course meant that the ride back suffered from an equal and opposite wind.  I had feared that most of the ride back would be in a strong crosswind, but fortunately the direction was such that there was usually some draft still to be had, even at the back where I spent a good amount of time.

Here at work I've been watching the demolition of part of the old Uptown Square shopping center, the other part of which houses my office.  Tulane doesn't own that part of the old shopping center, and it is being demolished in order to make room for an expansion of Lambeth House. It's a little sad to see it go.  Back in the mid to late 70s and even into the mid-80s Uptown Square was an interesting and unique little shopping center that housed a lot of locally owned shops.  I have a lot of fond memories of Christmas shopping there and really liked being able to avoid having to battle the holiday traffic in order to go out to the big shopping mall in Metairie.  I remember doing all of our Christmas shopping by bicycle for a few years.  Unfortunately things there started to fall apart and one by one the shops moved to other nearby locations in Carrollton and along Magazine Street and Tchoupitoulas.  Well, things change and this is one of them.

Now if that weather forecast for Sunday would just continue to change, that would be really nice!