On the Levee

I was back to the levee routine again this week, unless you count yesterday when I got out late after dropping The Wife off at the airport.  I suppose it was good for me to do a solo ride anyway, even through a stiff wind made the ride home more work than play, and the timing required a somewhat shorter ride than usual for a Tuesday morning.  It was like that again this morning -- the wind, I mean.  I arrived atop the levee on time and our small group of four headed out with a light tailwind.  It was warm enough for just shorts and a jersey, although I chose a long-sleeved jersey to help buffer those occasional blasts of river-cooled air one gets on the bike path.  The wind direction made our trip upriver feel easy, and although nobody was pushing the pace today I knew it would be harder coming back.

After the turnaround we crossed paths with a trio of Tulane riders, and then much later we saw another two up ahead.  They were going pretty hard and I figured they might be doing interval sets.  As we got a little closer Jay started pushing the pace to catch them, and when they finally eased up we caught and they latched onto the group.  A couple of minutes later they took off again and as they went past Jay stood up and accelerated. It wasn't long before they backed off again, however, and everything came back together.

So people are starting to worry about next Sunday's Rouge-Roubaix, mainly because the weather forecast is presently calling for a lot of rain, and not just on race day, but also on the day before.  That should make the dirt and gravel road sections a bit more interesting.  It's still a little early to make any decisions, but if it looks like we'll be in the rain for 100+ miles I may be going with the heavier training tires to reduce the probability of puncturing a little bit.  At least it doesn't look like it will be cold.  I can handle cold and I can handle wet, but wet and cold together can be a big problem. Some Baton Rouge guys just put a Saturday evening criterium series on the calendar.  No details yet, but that might offer something different.