From Superbowl to Mardi Gras

As the horde of hungover Superbowl fans departed the city Monday morning, so too did the spectacular weather.  I was able to get in a nice recovery ride, meeting up with a couple of the Tulane riders along the way, and even innocently rode the bike in to work before the clouds really started to close in.  By mid-afternoon it looked like we were in for the long haul, rain-wise.  It wasn't  until around 10:30 pm that it finally stopped and I could take the dogs out for their regular little night walk. The trees were still dripping water and the streets were soaked, and I wondered if I'd even be able to ride in the morning.

When the alarm went off this morning I reached over and pulled up The Weather Channel on the phone to check the radar.  Amazingly, there wasn't a spot of green anywhere around, and glancing out the window I could see that although the streets were still wet, they were plenty dry enough to ride.  Up on the levee the turnout was very slim but included a rider who was in town from Denver visiting family.  Kenny and Howard joined in a little bit down the road, so we ended up with six or seven.  The word was that there was more rain approaching from the west, so we decided to turn around a The Dip in St. Rose.  That was fine with me since I was going to have to turn around early anyway in order to make my 9 am meeting without having to rush around too much. As it turned out, it was a good thing we had planned to turn back early.  About a mile from St. Rose we had the first flat.  A few of us waited while the rest decided to ride the last mile to the Dip and catch us on the way back.  That flat got fixed, we headed out, and found the rest of the group fixing another flat just before the turnaround.  The rest of the ride was a series of intervals --- 5 minutes riding, 5 minutes fixing flats.  It was almost comical. 

You run into all types on the streetcar around here, even Sir Paul.

By the time we fixed what we thought was the last one, which was the 7th flat of the day, I was watching the clock tick ever closer to 9 am and knew I'd be in a mad dash to get to the office on time.  I later heard from Tom that he'd had yet another flat on his way home, making our total for the morning eight.  There's something that they mixed into the asphalt on that bike path that continuously sheds tiny arrowhead-shaped shards and whenever it's wet they become extremely efficient at penetrating bicycle tires.  Somehow I escaped without a puncture today, but I'm sure that when I check my tires this evening I'll have to dig a few of those things out of the tread.

Last night I finally re-aligned my derailleur hanger (I finally sprung for the alignment tool).  It was a bit out of line in both vertical and horizontal planes, although I'm still having occasionally sluggish downshifting.  I changed the little piece of housing from the chainstay to the derailleur, but I guess the problem lies elsewhere, no doubt the portion from the shifter to the top tube. It's never simple, is it?

So this week we shift from Superbowl mode straight into Mardi Gras mode with parades resuming tonight and continuing pretty much straight through to Fat Tuesday on Feb. 12.  This city is on a roll.