Coffee Season

For the second morning in a row it felt like Fall.  Around here that means the morning temperature was, however briefly, in the 60s.  The cold front that came through late on Sunday left us with a windy and cool Monday morning.  Aside from the wind, it was great riding weather, but the levee was predictably deserted.  I think we saw three other bikes between uptown and Kenner.  This morning was similar, perhaps a bit cooler and a bit less windy.  The 6:15 ride now starts essentially in the dark, but there were a lot of riders on hand today and I guess the group numbered at least a dozen.  With the road season over you would think that the Tuesday ride's intensity level would drop down a notch.  Indeed, that's clearly what most of the riders were hoping for.  Most, but not all.  A couple of riders kept pushing the pace, but most of the rest were unwilling to go with the surges, so a couple would ride off the front, get frustrated that nobody was following, and then drop back again.  While I would have been happy to stay in the rotation taking pulls at, say, 24 mph, after the first time I was essentially attacked after taking a pull I decided I'd drop to the back and let them have their party at the front.  Naturally, once we turned around and it was more headwind than tailwind the pace calmed down a bit.

The whole time I was thinking about a cup of hot coffee.  There's something about cold weather that turns my thoughts to caffeine, and the Fall-like weather certainly made it seem like coffee season.  I'm not what you'd call a big-time coffee drinker.  I typically have a cup of coffee in the morning, mainly for medicinal purposes, but that's usually it for the day.  Even so, it always seems so much more satisfying when it's cooler outside. I'm sure we are still a long way from consistently cool weather, but one thing about riding early in the morning is that you feel the changing seasons a lot earlier and more intimately than those who don't step outside until the sun is up.  The other thing that cool weather reminds me of is Cyclocross.  This morning as we were nearing the end of the ride I saw Ben riding his cyclocross bike in the grassy field that used to be the PHI heliport.