Winter Giro Rides

It was 5:45 am on Saturday morning and I was staring out the window at the streelights reflecting off of the damp street.  The temperature was warmer than I'd expected, but it was still cold - around 36 as I recall.  It took a good five minutes to come to the decision, but I rolled out the door into the dark, turned on the lights, zipped up the wind vest I as wearing on top of my winter jacket, and headed out to Starbucks wondering how big of a group we'd have.  By 7:00 there were only six but we headed out anyway.  Just then Norman pulled up.  He had driven in from Baton Rouge and because parts of the Interstate were closed due to ice and the understandable lack of Louisiana road salt spreaders he had taken some long detours.  We waited for him to get going.  Seven riders is a really, really low turnout for a Giro Ride, but it had been raining heavily during the night and the temperature was in the 30s, so I wasn't too surprised.  Fortunately I was pretty well outfitted for the conditions.  This turned out to be a really nice smooth paceline ride.  Although we started out with everyone pulling through, by the time we were halfway down Chef Highway it was down to three at the front.  Every now and then I'd skip a rotation to get a little recovery, but otherwise it was a good pace for me.  Coming back, I think Brett and Brian Bourgeois did most of the work.  All the way back down Chef Highway I was telling myself I should get out from behind VJ's comfy draft and go take some pulls but it wasn't until much later that I was finally able to actually get up there.  Anyway, it felt like a good workout to me and I arrived home with my vest in my pocket feeling pretty good.

Saturday night was the annual NOBC party. I went with my daughter and had a good time there but by the time I got home I was more than ready for bed.

We have our annual training camp next weekend up at Natchez State Park where we also did the Tulane training camp a couple of weeks ago.  I am hoping the weather will be OK.  Right now the City of New Orleans is bracing for another round of sub-freezing weather with the accompanying road closures due to ice.  They have already announced that schools will be closed tomorrow and possibly Wednesday as well.  I don't think it will be too much of a big deal for those of us in the city who don't have to commute to work over various bridges, but since they are expecting some freezing rain, or sleet, or snow, or all three, it might be a repeat of last week when the Interstates and Causeway were shut down.

So Sunday's Giro was entirely different.  The temperature had warmed up into the 40s, resulting in a pretty big turnout.  Although the pace in general was faster than Saturday's had been, I probably did less actual work, being mostly content to hide in the middle of the pack and make only brief efforts at the usual sprint locations.  On the way back down Bullard half of us caught the light at I-10 so there were riders kind of scattered all over the place.  The pace is always easy along there, so it wasn't a problem.  I knew we'd all come back together by the time we got to Hayne Blvd.  Apparently Mike W, once again riding his TT bike that lacks actual handlebars (he has only the aero-bars, so it's more like the tiller on a boat than the handlebar on a bike) had ridden off the front well ahead of us.

As we approached Hayne we could see a group of riders in the middle of the road and when we got there it was apparent that Mike had crashed.  He was still lying on the concrete.  This is the third time I've seen him go down by himself like that.  I was at least glad that there had been nobody immediately behind him when he lost control of the handlebarless bike. The next time he shows up for a group ride on that thing I suspect some riders are just flat out going to refuse to ride.  Anyway, he looked pretty dazed and I fully expected he'd be hauled off by ambulance, but eventually he got up, decided nothing was broken, rather tenderly remounted his bike and limped home.  His helmet apparently looked OK and he said he had been doing something with his arm-warmers when his hand slipped off the handlebar (I use the term loosely).  Most of the group went on ahead once he was back on his bike, although a couple stayed with him to make sure he stayed safe.  Had he been anyone else, I think the whole group might have ridden in with him, but frankly I think a lot of riders were having some trouble generating a whole lot of sympathy under the circumstances.  I was one of them.  Coming out to a group ride on that bike, which I think is virtually uncontrollable if something unexpected happens, is a significant danger to everybody, especially considering Mike's well-known challenges with riding in a straight line.  There are a few other riders who show up with TT bikes, but when they're in the pack they ride on the bullhorns, and when they ride on the aero bars they ride on the side of the group or at the back in a predictable manner.  I know, because I often find myself behind them.

An hour or so after I got home I was on the road to Baton Rouge for an organizational meeting to establish a Baton Rouge Velodrome Association.  I think they're on the right track with this and hopefully the end result will be a more active racing calendar that includes some races large enough to attract track riders from velodromes in Texas, Georgia and Florida, among others.  There is still much to be put in place, of course, but I expect that the first step of establishing the nonprofit corporation will be done very soon. At the meeting they set up the 5-member Board of Directors and elected a President and Treasurer, so it is finally looking like it will actually happen.  There is still the major issue of coming to terms with BREC, which owns the facility, but I think there is sufficient room for flexibility that it can be accomplished.  Should be interesting.  Coincidentally, I happened to see the brief writeup of the first state championship track races that were held in that velodrome.  It was in 1985, shortly after it had been finished for the national Olympic Festival.

Just Words

No photos today; just words.  Sometimes I just can't force myself to go to the effort of pulling out my camera in order to take another picture of the regular group on a regular ride on a regular Thursday.  This particular regular ride had certainly not started out so regularly, however.  I'd decided a couple of days ago that I'd drive the car out to the Jefferson Playground, which is about two miles up the river from where we normally meet, or where we used to normally meet, depending on whether you are atop the levee or cowering from the traffic on River Road. 


So we drove out to Dakin St. a few minutes early this morning and waited in the parking lot there.  Brian had said yesterday that he would follow anyone who wanted to ride out past the construction zone in order to keep the cars and trucks from trying to pass on the narrow shoulderless roadway that is River Road.  It sounded like a good plan and I figured I may as well follow along too, forming sort of a rolling enclosure mini-caravan.  Soon enough Rich and two others arrived and we pulled in behind them as they rolled up the road at 20 mph.  I was immediately behind them and Brian was behind me with his hazard flashers on.  We had to get them only 1.2 miles down the road before they would be able to ride up the access road at Shrewsbury to the bike path.  As we approached Ochsner I looked in the mirror to see five or six cars behind us, a few of which soon turned off toward the hospital.  Things were going smoothly until we got close to where the riders needed to turn left across traffic to pick up the access road.  Just as they started to prepare to turn a dump truck decided it was the ideal time to pass both cars and the bikes.  It was also the time that Rich decided it was time to turn left. Behind me Brian saw it coming and eased over to the left to try and slow the overtaking truck which had no discernible effect other than to make the truck pass a little farther to the left. So I see Rich turning left right in front of the Dump Truck that has by now almost pulled even with me and I'm thinking how lucky his survivors are that there will be a couple of witnesses on hand to document his demise. In my head I see that Michael Hingle commercial that's been running on TV for the past ten years.  I should add that there is a solid double yellow center line all along this stretch of River Road.   Somehow he made it across ahead of the truck and the other two riders coasted until the truck passed and they could make a U-turn to get back to the access road.  It was way too close for comfort.


After parking next to the River Road Flea Market, across from the playground, we put on shoes and helmets and headed out, probably ten minutes later than usual.  We got a nice paceline going as the speed very gradually increased to about 24 mph.  At precisely 10.5 miles Danielle took a pull and then dropped off.  I know it was at 10.5 miles because my Garmin had paired with her heart rate monitor at the start, and the heart rate line went flat when she dropped off.  Then, somewhere between the little dip and the big dip I think, Brian got a flat.  After his triple flat experience earlier in the week he had indulged in a brand new tire and tube when he had now broken in with a puncture.  That delay allowed Danielle to catch up to us, but she was already planning on turning back to do some intervals.  By then we were running so late that we decided to turn around at the Luling bridge instead of going all the way to Ormond.  At least that allowed us to pick up the Destrehan Gang just before we turned back.  So overall, the morning ride consumed about fifteen minutes more than usual for me, while providing about fewer riding miles.  On the other hand, I was not squashed by a speeding dump truck. Sometimes life is just a big unavoidable compromise.

Good Clothes and Winter Rides

The recent long weekend turned out to be great for riding, especially considering it is mid-January and much of the country is under about fifteen feet of snow.  We had earlier in the week planned a no-drop club ride on the northshore for Sunday, so when I headed over to Starbucks early Saturday morning for the Giro Ride I was not planning on taking it too easy. I had left home just a bit under-dressed since I was expecting to be burning a few calories over the subsequent few hours.  The ride itself was a fairly typical Giro.  There was a nice big group, the pace was brisk enough for a good workout for those who wanted one, a small contingent went out to Slidell, and I arrived back home feeling like I had been on a three-hour bike ride.

There was a time not that long ago when my winter cycling wardrobe was pretty severely limited.  I had one pair of long tights, one long-sleeved winter jersey, a wind vest, and a pile of summer stuff.  One can certainly still get by without a big collection of winter riding gear, but I have to say that the new stuff really does make life a lot better.  For Christmas I received a few "technical" fabric base layer shirts.  Adding those into the mix that includes my trusty Giordana winter jacket, long-sleeve thermal jersey, thermal bib tights, knickers, etc., I can pretty easily accommodate weather to at least the low 30s, which generally speaking is about as bad as it gets around here.  The new stuff is so, so much better than the old stuff from years gone by.  I do not miss the wool jerseys, cotton shorts, leather chamois, broken shoelaces, cotton-mesh and leather gloves, and especially the unyielding leather saddles.  It's all suitable nostalgic, of course, but please don't make me actually ride with it in anything but a inner-city antique bike ride!  Of course, all that winter stuff is expensive, and it's taken me quite a few years to accumulate it all, but since our winter really lasts only about three months, I get a lot of years out of most of it.  By the time I get to the end of January I'm already reluctant to replace any of it that needs replacement since I'm generally comparing the cost of a clothing item I'll use for only another three or four weeks with those new tires I need or that saddle that is worn through or all those increasingly expensive entry fees.  Anyway, suffice it to say that Over the past five or six days I've been riding in temperatures ranging from around 30 to around 65 and in general have quite comfortable.

So anyway, on Sunday Carly and Miles met Danielle and me to drive across the lake for the NOBC ride.  Although it was chilly at the start (kickers, double jerseys and arm-warmers) the sky was clear and it was supposed to warm up from the 40s to the 60s during our planned 65 mile ride.  We started with a large group of twenty that included a few riders, like Ben and Stephen, who were planning on splitting off after the first ten miles.  I was also expecting the rest of the group to split permanently at some point during the ride. Carly is most comfortable at around 16 mph right now and Miles was riding in sneakers with a borrowed helmet.  I was planning on riding herd at the back once they started to tire.

Passing the Firetower and heading down to Enon

As planned, everyone stayed together over the firetower hill and down past Enon, but by the time we were on Hwy 1072 gaps were starting to open on the hills.  The pace wasn't fast, but I knew a few of the riders in the group didn't have nearly the miles in their legs for a 3.5 hour 20 mph ride in the hills.  It was fine, though, because it turned out as I expected and even before the halfway point I was a minute off the back helping keep Miles and Carly within range.  At Hwy. 10 I debated taking a shortcut with them, but instead decided it would be better for them to finish the full distance, even if that meant doing a lot of it at 10 mph, which it did.  Way up on the north section of the route, where there are a few significant climbs, I found myself in-between Carly and Miles.  Carly was rolling along at maybe 12-15 mph ahead of me, but behind me Miles, who had been riding fairly strongly for the most part, was suddenly riding in slow motion.  I knew what that meant.  At first I eased up hoping he would catch me and I could pull us both up to Carly, but I was down to about 10 mph before he started making up ground. I eased up even more and when he pulled alongside I asked if he'd had anything to eat.  As I'd suspected, he hadn't and was now surely and profoundly bonked.  I pulled a powerbar out of my pocket, took one bite for myself and handed him the rest.  Then, when we to the Sie Jenkins Road to regroup Mignon gave him a piece of a Snickers bar.  That rejuvenated him quite nicely for the next ten or fifteen miles or so.  Things finally came apart again around the firetower hill and so the last seven or eight miles were pretty slow.

Crossing the Spillway heading upriver to LaPlace

The next morning was MLK day and I was off from work.  David had posted a note that he was going to ride up the river levee past the spillway to pick up the six or seven miles of paved bike path upriver from LaPlace.  That would work out to a ride of about 70 miles, and although my legs were actually a little stiff I decided to meet him at the quite civilized hour of 9:30 am by which time the weather was really nice.  I wore knee and arm-warmers with the plan of removing the knee-warmers for the return trip.  We ended up with a bit over 70 miles, including a mile or two of gravel/rock between the upriver end of the spillway and the start of the bike path up there.  It wasn't a hard ride - we averaged under 17 mph - but the weather was great.  By the time we were halfway back my neck and upper back were hurting pretty significantly, which has become the status quo over the past couple of months, especially after three 60+ mile rides in a row.

We're trying to get Danielle's Cannondale more or less race ready and the first thing we wanted to do was to find handlebars with a shorter reach and drop.  That was not an easy task since she's riding 36 cm bars.  We settled on some Bontrager Race VR-S bars that have about the shortest reach and drop I've ever seen, and also picked up a 8cm Zipp Service Course SL stem from eBay.  Next was a second set of wheels, also from eBay - a pair of unused 650c Bontrager Race Lite wheels that were pretty inexpensive.  It would be nice to swap out the triple chainring for a double, but that may be a somewhat thorny problem considering it's 9-speed, 165 crankarm length, would require a new bottom bracket, and possibly a new shifter or shifters.  It would have to be practically free at this point to make it feasible.

To the Moon

The moon slipping down toward the horizon as the sun rises behind us.

I went out Thursday morning to, hopefully, meet the 6:15 am group for the long levee ride.  We are all still experimenting with morning ride options, so I really had no idea who might be there.  As it turned out there were a few riders waiting at Dakin Street, so with tail lights flashing we waited for a break in the fairly light morning traffic and just took the lane.  At around 22 mph we were passed by only a couple of impatient, possibly suicidal, drivers.  I was surprised that Brian, who was at the front, didn't stop right after Ochsner to ride up the grass and instead continued another half mile or so to the first road leading up the levee.  That meant we had to stop at the traffic signal at Causeway and get a little tangled up with the traffic there.

Anyway, the ride itself was very smooth.  We picked up a few more riders when we got up to the bike path, so it was mostly just smooth 22 mph paceline out toward the setting moon and back.  On the way back we stayed on the bike path, dropping down on the grass just before the Ochsner pipes.  A car let us in and we just rode that last mile single-file without much of a hassle.  It's not really something I'd like to do alone, but with a little group it wasn't too bad, especially since traffic isn't moving all that fast there.  Of course there was that one asshole who just *had* to pass us even if it meant risking a head-on collision with oncoming traffic.  Naturally, we caught back up to the dumbass by the time we got to Oak Street where traffic always slows to a crawl anyway.

This morning I met Ben and Ben over at Tulane's Reily Center for a 6 am recover ride out to the lakefront with a stop at the Fair Grinds Coffeehouse.  We rode out on Carrollton which was fairly quiet except for the  usual game of chicken at the Palmetto on-ramp to I-10.  On the way back we opted for Jeff. Davis which is still all torn up.  When are they going to put the new asphalt on that street?  It's been months.

Alone Again

The Wednesday morning levee ride didn't happen today, unless me riding alone counted. After getting rained out on Monday, I planned on making the 6:15 am Tuesday ride, although given the still-unresolved levee bike ride crisis I wasn't too sure what would happen.  Unfortunately I got out there a few minutes late.  This sometimes happens for my first morning ride after a weekend road trip.  In this case I spent some time unsuccessfully searching for my missing headlight underneath the car seat, only to have Danielle show up and tell me it was upstairs in her room because she had removed it before we put the bikes on the roof of the car last Friday.  She decided to go do intervals out by Audubon Park, so I would be riding alone.  By then I had about five minutes to get to the levee, which I knew was impossible.  Well, as it turns out the traffic going upriver on River Road is pretty light at that hour and I was able to ride on River Road past the construction zone during which time only three cars passed me.  When I got up onto the levee I could see the cluster of blinking red lights that was the morning ride.  It was about a minute and a half up the road, so I knew that no amount of time-trialing was going to allow me to close that gap once they started rolling.  Even so, I could still see them half an hour later, but past Kenner the gap grew to the point that they were gone.  I turned around at the Destrehan bridge as they were coming back and rode back with the group listening to Howard harassing Brian, apparently for not staying on his wheel each time he would hit the front of the paceline and surge 1-3 mph faster than the consensus speed.  Before getting back to the new end of the bike path near Ochsner we regrouped and basically took the lane on River Road on the way back. It seemed to work pretty well since traffic wasn't moving very fast anyway.

Well, things were different this morning.  I got out to River Road at 6:40 and there was not a bike to be seen.  There were, however, lots of cars travelling upriver at around 35 mph.  There was no way I was riding alone on that shoulderless truck-laden road under those circumstances, so I waited until I could cross over to the river side to ride on the strip of grass between the temporary construction zone fence and the road.  That would have been fine except for the fact that much of it was soaked with water.  It was rideable, barely, and I could see lots of bike tire ruts in the mud the whole way, but it was not fun.  Fortunately it is only about a mile long so after six or seven minutes of impromptu cyclocrossing I was back up on the bike path. The path was deserted other than the strong north wind and myself.  I guess it was good that it was windy because otherwise I might have just soft-pedaled the whole ride.  As it was, I was struggling to maintain 17-18 mph most of the way out, sometimes unsuccessfully.  The ride back offered up a little more in the tailwind department, but of course I had to contend with that last mile in the muddy, soggy grass.  By the time I got home the bike was a bit of a mess, enough so that I took the hose to it in order to remove the dried grass and mud despite the fact that I probably never exceeded 10 mph.  So the lesson learned today was that riding on the grass alongside River Road is not good when it's wet, which is probably most of the time.  It's almost enough to get me up even earlier to meet the WeMoRi.  Almost.

Winter Camp

We pulled up to David's house at 5 pm on Friday and a few minutes later we were on our way up to Natchez State Park for the LSU/Tulane cycling winter training camp.  A few minutes after that David started remembering the things he had forgotten to bring, which included such items as the crockpot he was planning to use for dinner on Saturday and, more troubling, his riding shoes.  Fortunately, Kenny was planning on driving up early Saturday morning with a couple of other riders and stopped by David's place to pick up the stuff.  D and I had already made a grocery store run for the planned six or seven riders we were expecting.  Unfortunately, riders were dropping out like crazy at the last minute and we ended up with exactly two actual team riders, plus Kenny and myself.  Basically we ended up paying for one cabin that we didn't really need.  On the plus side, however, the weather forecast that had looked really bad earlier in the week had been revised and we were expecting a little cool front to come through Friday night followed by two days of very nice riding weather.  We were not disappointed in that regard.

Despite a rather rainy drive up to Natchez, we arrived early enough to get together with the LSU riders in the next-door cabin for a while, lube the chains on the bikes that had been on the roof of the car, and get to sleep at a reasonable hour.  The plan was to start breakfast at 7 am and hit the road at 8:30.

Saturday morning it was still a little cloudy and the roads still wet, but the rain was gone and the temperature was in the shorts-or-knickers range.  We scrambled up a big batch of eggs and everyone was ready to ride by 8:30.  Unfortunately Kenny had listened to his Garmin which had directed him down the unpaved Tate Road (this happens to everyone coming to Natchez State Park from the east), and we were also waiting for Curtis Moroney, who lives in Natchez, to join us, so I guess we were half an hour late getting started.

The planned ride up the Natchez Trace and then back around the Church Loop was designed to be more about practicing paceline than intensity and in that regard it worked out well.  The Trace is all silky smooth asphalt with minimal traffic (I think it was half an hour before we saw a car), and all of the hills are graded, so there's nothing particularly steep.  This makes it fairly easy to maintain a nice double paceline, which we did for most of the ride.  Toward the end, Danielle's legs were about cooked thanks to a serious lack of mileage over the prior few weeks, so she was really struggling on the climbs as her quads started to lock up.  I dropped back to keep her rolling and minimize the gap, which worked out pretty well. After we got back to the cabins for showers and food, Kenny, David and Danielle took off on a beverage run to Natchez, which is about twelve miles away, while I hung around to watch the LSU team play foot-down in the grass beneath the dam.  Meanwhile the Saints were having their own struggles with Seattle.  That night we all got together for a big pasta and salad dinner at the LSU cabin, followed by an interminable game of To the Moon that was so exciting I fell asleep and eventually wandered off to bed.

Sunday morning the temperature was cooler - I guess in the low 40s at sunrise.  The sky was clear blue, however, and by the time we where half an hour down the road we all knew we'd overdressed.  The plan, which had been changed the night before, was to take the long way around to Natchez, coming into town by way of Cemetery Road which runs along the high east ridge overlooking the Mississippi, make a trip through the old historic cemetery, and stop for coffee at the Natchez Coffee Company on Franklin Street.  Unfortunately, we took a wrong turn along the way, backtracked and missed the correct turn again, then finally found our way to the correct road(s).  I had ridden most of the route the year before, but had not taken the Cemetery Road route.  As it turned out, Cemetery Road was unpaved for the first couple of miles.  Luckily it was nice hard-packed dirt most of the way, so it wasn't a problem at all.  After a half hour stop at the coffee shop, we returned via the Trace, making for a ride of just under 50 miles.   The group stayed together at a moderate to easy pace nearly all the way back, but after turning off of the trace a few riders split off the front.  As we entered the park I decided to bridge up to them, which was about the time they decided to race all the way back to the dam. I caught one of them who had been dropped about half-way there and we bombed the downhills, bud didn't catch the other two until they eased up near the cabins.

So it was a really nice weekend of riding, even if the mileage and intensity was dialed down a bit from a more typical January weekend.  I was kind of looking forward to a recovery pace ride this morning but another front came through around dawn and it rained until around 1 pm, which was about when my pants started to dry out from my commute to work.  Tomorrow should be sunny and colder. Since they have closed off the construction area on the levee and are apparently threatening people who jump the fence with arrest, I will probably go out tomorrow and see if it's feasible to ride the mile past the construction area on the grass, or perhaps if there's a group, on River Road.  Riding alone on River Road in the dark, however, is not, in my opinion, an option that is compatible with survival. I am hoping that riding the grass is a reasonable possibility because my other options are to play in traffic on Carrollton Avenue or drive out to Jefferson Playground, which would cost me quite a bit of precious early morning riding time (and sleep).  We'll see how it goes, I guess.

Alternatives

Well it finally happened on Tuesday.  No, I don't mean that my pipes broke because the temperature dropped into the 20s.  What finally happened was that the levee construction crew started tearing up the bike path at the Orleans/Jefferson parish line, which is basically where we have been starting our morning rides for the past ten years or so.  Since the construction zone extends about a mile upriver from there, and since there are no other safe roads that bypass that area, I find myself looking for alternatives.  One possibility, which I will try tomorrow, is to ride on the very narrow strip of grass that they left between the construction fence and River Road.  Since it's less than a mile, that may be a viable alternative.  This morning, however, I figured I'd ride out to the lakefront like I used to do before the bike path existed.  I was expecting a nice relaxing ride at 6:30 am heading north before rush hour traffic got started.

Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age, but it was considerably worse than I'd expected.  There was a lot more traffic going a lot faster down Carrollton than I would have liked, and of course I caught every red light. I cut through City Park to Marconi, which was pretty nice, and then hit Lakeshore Drive heading east.  Some of Lakeshore Drive is closed to traffic so that part was nice, but as I got closer to Elysian Fields the cars reappeared and most of them were in a big hurry to get to work.  Then, at Franklin, there were bulldozers working in the street putting the dirt back where it belongs after the last cold front came through, so I had to turn around there.  Likewise, the west end of Lakeshore Drive is full of construction activity where they are putting in sheet piling and, finally, eliminating the mud and grass between the seawall and the street. With all of that, plus numerous stops for red lights and speeding traffic, it was not what you would call a good training ride environment.  The ride home was more of the same, although it was actually nicer along the most busy stretches of Carrollton because by then things were backed up and nobody was going much faster than a bicycle.  At any rate, I lost so much time dealing with traffic signals and cars and intersections that it was hardly worth it.  Once they finish paving Jefferson Davis, that may present a better alternative for getting to and from the lakefront in the mornings.

So anyway, this morning's ride made that 1-mile stretch on River Road look a lot more attractive.  When Ben told me that he was able to ride the grass between the fence and the roadway yesterday I decided I'd give it a try tomorrow.  Under the circumstances, it might be well worth it in order to spend a solid hour riding uninterrupted on the bike path rather than dodging cars on Carrollton Avenue.  We'll see.

Weather or Whether Not

It's been a week of crazy weather all-around, and down here in New Orleans we'd been spared the worst of it.  Last weekend was pretty nice, especially for the first weekend of January.  I went out to the Saturday Giro, which was a typical winter Giro, which is to say that a number of riders were planning on riding all the way out to Slidell so they weren't killing it on the way out.  That kept the pace relatively manageable which meant that I got home with legs that were only slightly sore.  Slightly sore was better than very sore because I'd decided to do the Northshore ride the next day.  After the Giro I rushed over to Mark's house for an NOBC meeting where we talked over some plans for the new year.  This was mostly about club rides, parties, training camp (which for us is kind of a party), etc.  One thing we did decide to do was to make a club effort to put together a Women's team composed of five or six or so riders who were willing to commit to a schedule of "A" races and in return get some club-provided perks.  If a good group comes together this could easily become a separately sponsored team within the club.  There was some talk of moving in that direction with other teams as well. 

After the meeting I stopped at Bud Logan's house and picked up the surviving copy of the video he made of the 1987 (I think) Race Across Louisiana.  I next need to get it converted to DVD, but that may be a little complicated because it was made in an unusual VHS format that incorporated an extra sound track for the music.  I'm checking on someone he has worked with over in Oregon, so we'll see.  If that doesn't work out I can always get it copied locally, although they may not be able to find the second audio track (which I think is mixed into the video track).

So Sunday I headed over to Puccino's to see if anyone was there who needed a ride, but nobody was around.  I did see Mignon's car so I figured there must be at least two people on the way.  I gave her a call just to be sure she wasn't across the street at Cafe' du Monde and expecting to get a ride, but she was already on the road with Sherri. That turned out to be funny because when I was about three-quarters of the way across the lake she called me back because, as she discovered after they got to Mandeville, Sherri thought they were riding with the slower Abita Springs group while Mignon was planning on riding with the Lee Road Jr. High group.  So I picked her up at a gas station because Sherri wasn't comfortable riding with the faster group, which in the end turned out to be not so fast.  The ride itself was great.  The big cold front was still many hours away so it warmed up to the upper 50s or maybe even 60 and I got in about 67 miles on roads that were not dead flat for the first time in a couple of months.  My neck was still sore by the end, but no worse than what is now usual.

By Monday morning the temperature was down to 31 or so and for a little while I debated with myself whether to ride or not.  The wind was in the 15-25 mph range out of the north so it was going to be hard to make it a recovery ride, but considering that this morning was supposed to be in the 20s, which it is, I decided to bundle up and ride anyway.  I think my average speed was in the 14 mph range, but I spent an hour and a half on the bike and other than cold feet had a pretty nice recovery ride.  This morning, however, I decided it would be a good day to skip riding.  It'll be a little better tomorrow.

Just the Wind and Me

Thursday morning was another wet one and I just couldn't summon up the right stuff to get out there, even on the rain bike.  The morning temperature was still fairly moderate, in the mid-50s I think, but the forecast was calling for a steep drop in the afternoon as a cold front came through. Apparently a few people did make it out to the levee for a ride, but I wasn't one of them. I slept late and rushed to work in the car.  A little later I found out that I had been supposed to feed the two little dogs that have taken up residence under my blanket while my daughter is back in Olympia until school starts again next week.  So I went back home at lunchtime to feed them and while I was there the UPS truck came by with my new bifocal Oakleys.

Bifocal Oakley Half-jackets from SportRx

This morning the sky was clear but the temperature was in the mid-30s and the wind was blowing out of the north at 14-23 mph.  That promised a somewhat uncomfortable ride but I went out anyway since I'd missed riding on Thursday entirely.  It also gave me a chance to try out the new glasses.  My first impression when I got on the bike and looked up the road was "Woah!"  The lenses are surprisingly thick and I think that bit of distortion when looking through them at an angle took a little getting used to.  Otherwise they seemed pretty good although as I'd expected the top frame is almost in my line of sight when my head is down. On the other hand, they sure are a lot more convenient than the contacts and will probably be particularly nice for driving.  My guess is that I'll still use the contacts for some rides and races.  Anyway, I bundled up pretty well this morning, so the cold wasn't really an issue.  The wind, however, was.  On the way back I hit a couple of sections that were straight into the wind that slowed me down into the 12-14 mph rage.  Most of the ride was crosswind, so the ride was kind of a struggle.  It was also lonely.  Other than a couple of people walking near the start I didn't see a single other person walking or riding the entire time. Can't imagine why.

A Start

At the Spillway

Had it not been the first day of the year I probably would have stayed in bed.  We had planned a 7 am ride out to the Spillway and back, but the weather was looking pretty sketchy the night before. 

When I awoke around 6 am could hear the car tires on the wet street outside, but it didn't seem to be actually raining.  The radar was showing a wide line of showers stretching northeast from the Gulf of Mexico, but it looked like it might, maybe, perhaps, stay just slightly north of the city.  Regardless, it was a sure bet the road would be wet, and with the temperature around 50F, I decided to dress on the warm side.  The night before I'd put the fenders and road pedals back onto the old Pennine, thus putting it back into Rain Bike mode, even though I left the cyclocross wheels and tires on it.  Before walking out the door I stuffed my rain jacket into my pocket, thereby significantly reducing the chances of rain.  At 6:30 Mignon had texted me to see if I was still going to ride, so I figured I'd have at least one other person with whom to ride, but I wasn't really expecting to see anyone else.  Indeed, when I arrived at the Jefferson Playground there was only Mignon, so we rolled off up the river as I contemplated how early we'd turn back and whether we'd get rained on before we did.  We quickly met up with a small group of the Semi-tough riders, so we had a nice group for almost all of the ride.  Amazingly we never got any actual rain, although there were varying amounts of wheelspray the whole time.  It wasn't a problem as long as I was at the front thanks to my full fenders, but eventually I was seduced by the draft and got pretty well sprayed. It actually turned out to be a very nice ride and a nice steady pace, even though the effects of the rain bike's weight and cyclocross tires did start to get to me after a couple of hours.  And of course my neck and upper back started hurting when we were about halfway back. 

Later we took the bus and streetcar (they're still repairing a big section of streetcar tracks along St. Charles Ave.) downtown to check out the Sugar Bowl crowd and have a big muffeletta at Frank's for lunch. Central Grocery was closed, and although I'm partial to their version of the muff, the ones at Frank's are OK too.  I ate about 3/4 of one, which is a lot.  It's over six hours later and I'm still thirsty.

The forecast for tomorrow morning is pretty ambiguous, starting with a 50% chance of rain at 6 am, dropping to 30% at 9.  At that point a cold front starts pushing through, the temperature starts dropping, and the wind starts picking up from 9 to 18 mph.  Since I don't have work tomorrow, the question will be whether to ride in the dark and wet, or wind.  Guess I'll just play it by ear and see what feels right at 5:45 am.