Super Weekend

New Orleans has been working overtime for months in order to put on a great edition of the Superbowl squeezed right into the middle of Mardi Gras season (Mardi Gras is just over a week away), and other than the fact that the half of the Superdome lights just went out, I have been pretty impressed.  To make matters even better, the weather this weekend was practically perfect.

Saturday was a memorial ride for Justin Addison over in Covington. The actual ride was just a short seven miles out and back to the site of the accident, so a pre-memorial ride was quickly organized.  We started out at the Tammany Trace trailhead just off of I-12, and when it was pretty cold at 7:30 when I arrived up there with Dave.  I knew it would warm up quickly, but I also knew that ride north on the shady Tammany Trace would be really cold, so I piled on the clothes anyway.  The ride itself was probably around 45 miles at a moderate pace, considering the wide mix of riders that was on hand. We finished that ride up a little early, so we kind of wandered down south of Covington for a while, eventually returning to St. Paul's campus for the ride.  It was actually great to see a number of riders there who I hadn't seen in a while.

Today I headed back across the lake for the regular winter training ride.  Mignon had lined up a small group that would leave fifteen minutes early, making for a kind of "handicap" training ride.  It would be forty miles before we caught them after we started another ten minutes late.  There was a nice group from the S3 team on hand, and they had started their ride earlier at the Tammany Trace caboose, so they were all in for a ride of around 95 miles.  By the time we got started the temperature was already climbing under clear blue skies.  There was hardly a breath of wind, making for nearly ideal riding conditions.  We had a good group and hardly ever needed to regroup despite a fairly respectable pace that averaged 21 mph for the 66 miles that I rode, which included a number of very slow miles as I rode back to pick up dropped riders or rode ahead during the store stop.  I was feeling pretty good today and pushed pretty hard on some of the little climbs, but otherwise just stayed in the paceline.  I was harassed all day by balky shifting on the Bianchi.  I think the rear derailleur cable must be hanging up somewhere.  I had re-used the cables that I'd gotten from Matt with the Campi components, so I'll have to check over that whole cable and see where the problem is.  I also need to look into the rear wheel's freewheel which is occasionally not wanting to release.  I suspect a sticky pawl or something, but will need to check on how to disassemble the Mavic hub. Speaking of equipment, we had one potentially serious problem and one narrowly averted problem this week.  On Friday we met up with the Tulane riders who were doing an easy recovery ride like we were.  All was going well until Graeme and a couple others decided to do a little sprint.  I was watching from behind when I saw Graeme's right foot flailing around in the air and then his bike making a sharp turn down the levee (fortunately, the grassy side).  Of course I assumed he'd accidentally clipped out.  He had broken a worn out cleat on the velodrome last summer.  After we got him back on his feet (his leg and ankle were hurting him) I walked over to his bike as was surprised to find that his rear wheel wasn't attached to his bike.  It must have come out of the dropout during the sprint, which would explain how he clipped out of a perfectly good pedal with a perfectly good cleat.  I guess I was still thinking about that Saturday afternoon when I looked at my own cleats and was rather shocked to find one of them so worn down that a part of the tab at the front had actually broken off.  I figure I was just a sprint or two from disaster.  Luckily I had a new pair of cleats handy

Meanwhile, back at Tulane, the dormitory folks have suddenly decided to enforce the restriction on bringing bikes into dorm rooms, causing three of the team riders to have to lock their bikes up outside.  Not good.  I wrote a couple of emails to the appropriate people requesting an exception for them, so we'll see what happens there.  Telling me that bicycles in dorms constitute fire hazards just boggles my mind.  I guess they just assume that everyone would leave their bicycles lying in the stairwells or something.

Earlier this week I was thinking that my mileage would be significantly down for the week.  I had three days with early meetings, and had to cut both of my usual long rides on Tuesday and Thursday short.  Somehow I still ended up with a bit over 250 miles, so I was happy about that.