Old Portage, New Routine

I almost made it out to the lakefront in time for the start of the Wednesday training race.  Almost.  I guess I missed just the first half-lap, but at least my timing was otherwise pretty convenient.  As I approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle I could see them coming toward me, so I just looped around and merged smoothly into the front part of the group.  For the next three and a half laps we averaged 26+ mph, topping out at 35.1.  It wasn't particularly windy, so the group remained mostly intact for most of the ride.  For a change I felt pretty good, despite having ridden the WeMoRi that morning, but got shuffled too far toward the back when things ramped up for the final sprint.  As usual, the ride back from the training race felt cool and refreshing as I was finally producing less sweat than was evaporating.  It was probably still around 84F, but it felt great anyway.

So on Thursday I drove *way* out on River Road once again, parking on Plantation Ave. to meet the levee ride.  I guess this will be the new routine for a while. Despite the fact that we keep getting pushed farther and farther away by the Corps of Engineers' contractor, the group size is still holding pretty steady.  Rich and a couple others are still riding out and back on River Road, although that has not been without it's own controversy. The ride was pretty nice although I was definitely starting to feel the effects of Wednesday's rides by the time we were heading back.



Lakeshore Drive, heading east

This morning I was happily looking forward to an easy recovery ride.  I left home nice and early, around 6 am (Isn't it nice to have light at 6am?  That's what I like about summer the most!) and headed toward the lakefront via Jeff. Davis, following the old portage along Bayou St. John, and finally crossing over to Wisner.  There were some big classic summer clouds lurking around this morning, which helped block the sun and kept it from heating  up too fast.  Way off to the east I could see a little rain shower.  Even with a bit of tailwind, I don't think I was going more than 15 mph along Lakeshore Drive as I rode east to the Seabrook loop and headed back.  Around Franklin Ave. I saw Ben, Jaden and Kevin going the other way so I made a quick U-turn to meet up with them.  I knew they'd be stopping for coffee on Esplanade, which had been my plan regardless. I guess that increased my speed by a couple of mph, but on the other hand I spent pretty much the whole time on Kevin's wheel. I guess I'll do the Giro tomorrow, and then on Sunday I'll be helping with officiating at the Harbor Master Criterium, and jumping into the Masters race, probably with little or no warm-up.  We'll see how that goes!

So the Tulane Cycling Center setup is still moving along - two steps forward, one step back.  The WattBikes that are stuck over at Receiving should get delivered to the suite next Wednesday and the big video monitor should get installed on Friday. Some time around there we should get the doors re-keyed and at that point I'll probably move a bunch of the team stuff that's been in my basement over there.  Looking forward to that!