Wet Feet, Weddings and Weather

It finally started to warm up around here yesterday, but it's otherwise been pretty uncomfortable since Sunday. I went out last Saturday for the Giro Ride knowing things would be going downhill weather-wise the next day. Since I was supposed to be officiating the cyclocross race up in Monroe on Sunday I decided to tag along with the group that was going out to Fort Pike and back. That adds a few extra miles, which I knew I'd need just to keep up appearances. We had a pretty big group doing the long Giro, but the pace was pretty controlled for the most part. I mean, things did get out of hand a bit on the way back when we picked up a little tailwind, but otherwise it was good winter training. The forecast for Sunday was calling for cold rain up in Monroe which meant I'd probably be cold and wet all day.

To complicate matters, we would be driving up at 4:30 am because Kenny and Candy were getting married Saturday night and we didn't want to miss the wedding out in Jackson Square and the reception in the Presbytère. The temperature was already starting to drop that evening, even through the real cold front was still working its way southwest toward Louisiana. I was amazed how many people travelled in to make the wedding. Jered and Ashley even made the trip, coming all the way from wherever they happened to be in eastern Europe. Stan and Dana Day were also on hand, along with most of Kenny's current and past teammates. Naturally, Frank was wearing his Palmer jersey underneath his jacket and the groom's cake was a faithful rendition of the team jersey. We stayed until a bit after 10:00 I guess, enjoying the jambalaya and wine and dancing, but with a 4 am wake-up on the horizon it wouldn't have been wise to make a long night of it, as much as I would have liked to.

So the next morning we hit the road pretty much on time for the 4+ hour drive up to north Louisiana. We were a little more than halfway when we drove through the approaching cold front and accompanying rain.  Once on the other side I watched the temperature start dropping, and by the time we got to the race it had plummeted about 20 degrees. The ground was soaked and full of mud and puddles, and there was a cold light drizzle falling. Great weather for cyclocross. Not so much for officiating. I put on about three layers with my rain jacket and goretex cap on top and stepped out into the mud. The one thing I was sadly lacking was a pair of waterproof shoes, so it wasn't long before my feet were soaked.

Even the torrential rainstorm we drove through didn't wash
off all of this mud!

This particular race also included collegiate categories, although the fact that the conference scheduled another collegiate cyclocross race in Texas the same weekend pretty much guaranteed nobody would show up for ours. I was a little surprised to see a handful of riders from Texas A&M there. Since Tulane was hosting the collegiate part, we had a number of Tulane riders on hand, but only one or two from the other Louisiana universities. The race itself was pretty good, actually. This was really the best cyclocross course we've had lately, which is to say it wasn't essentially a mountain bike course. There were a couple of good run-ups, a section of road, a big patch of sand, and lots of mud and water. By the time we got finished, loaded up, and fed at the local Mexican restaurant it was already getting late. I figured we'd get back home around 10:00, and we would have except for the weather.

Heading down I-55 from Jackson the weather started getting worse and worse as we caught up with the slow-moving cold front. By the time we were approaching Independence on I-55 it was dark, extremely gusty, and raining heavily.  Then it got worse. Tornado watches were changed to tornado warnings and advisories went out to seek shelter immediately. Since I couldn't see where I was going anyway, we bailed out around Amite and stopped at a closed gas station where we stayed for at least half an hour watching the lightning strike things around us and hoping things would ease up. There were six or seven other cars doing the same thing. Looking at the radar it became clear that the front was going to just train over our location for a long time, so when we got a little lull in the rain we decided to make a run for it. Just ten miles to the south, on the other side of the cold front, it was dry. Well, the lull was very brief and we were soon in complete white-out rain conditions. I got behind a big semi and just followed his tail lights as he weaved around the creeping cars of traumatized drivers, one of which was basically at a dead stop in the left lane of the interstate. After fifteen minutes of white-knuckle driving we popped out the other side onto dry concrete. That was some of the worst rain I've ever driven in for sure.

So of course the next morning it was freezing cold since the front came through town overnight. I had finished building up the new Bianchi Sempre Pro frame that Marc at Bicycle World had gotten Bianchi to send after they messed up the repair on the old one and wanted to at least make sure nothing was going to fall off of it, so I went out that morning for a quick spin down St. Charles Avenue. I was so windy that it was fairly dangerous to be riding, and I was back home pretty soon.

The next couple of days were really cold and windy with morning temperatures in the low 30s. Tuesday morning I layered on full winter kit and went out to meet the 5:45 ride which consisted of three of us. It was still ridiculously windy and cold, so I'd pretty much decided I'd be cutting the ride short. We battled our way up and down Lakeshore Drive, after which I turned back for home while Ben B continued out to the lake bike path for more punishment. The next morning it was colder still when we went out to meet the WeMoRi, but at least the wind had died down by then. Everything was still covered with frost as we rode to Starbucks after the ride. Finally, this morning, after straightening out the slightly off-kilter derailleur hanger on the new Bianchi, the wind started shifting around to the southeast. It was 48F when I left home, a bit overdressed, and 56 by the time I got back. Even so, everybody seemed to be stuck in Zone 2 training mode today. That was nice.