Back in the Wind

A low fog and light wind made Tuesday's morning ride pretty nice.

The weather has been pretty decent around here lately. Unfortunately, that's about to change. I've been staying close to home for the last couple of weeks, which of course meant back-to-back Giro Rides again last weekend.

On Saturday I returned from the Giro, grabbed something to eat, and went right back out to meet a Tulane Cycling group for an easy City Ride. With no particular destination in mind, we ended up heading downtown, stopping at the original site of the New Orleans Bicycle Club, both to check out old plaque in the concrete and to check out the newly re-opened and re-built Martin Wine Cellar across the street on Baronne. That lead us to continue the trip along Baronne and ultimately Dryades, which is in the midst of a kind of revitalization of sorts. Someone innocently mentioned wanting to go somewhere different, so we rode farther downtown, over sidewalks and the wrong way down one-way streets to get to St. Louis #2 where we practiced bike-handling skills weaving among the tightly-packed historic tombs. Since we were so close, we then stopped at St. Louis #1 and walked the bikes through the tour groups to check out Marie Laveau's tomb. That took us through the Quarter to Cafe du Monde, but the line was halfway down the block, so instead we rode down Esplanade Avenue to City Park and had our coffee and beignets at the Morning Call in the old Casino building, where there happened to be a live jazz band playing. I ended up with like 80 miles, most of them pretty slow.

Full house at the Tulane training center

Monday was one of those days when I sleep late, telling myself I'll ride the WattBike in the evening, but don't really follow up on it very well. The rest of the week has been pretty normal, thus far, except for a few kinks. On Tuesday I was a few minutes late getting out the door, so I missed the group at Nashville Avenue. Heading out to the lake solo I could see them going over the I-10 overpass on Jeff. Davis, but after catching a couple of lights they were gone. Then, along Jeff Davis there was some sort of power outage, which made riding pretty cool, actually.  I was glad my headlight still had a bit of a charge left in it. Of course I eventually met up with everyone on Lakeshore Drive, so I didn't really miss much. Then on Wednesday I somehow got out the door early, so I decided to go straight to Lakeshore Drive, instead of Marconi, and catch the group on its way back from the Seabrook loop. I rode all the way out to the Elysian Fields traffic circle, fully expecting to find the group coming at me at 30 mph, but I guess I was earlier than I thought because I ended up riding back and forth between the bridge and the traffic circle a couple of times before I finally saw the headlights coming.

Tulane Friday Coffee Ride, Bayou St. John

I was well on the other side of Bayou St. John before them came up behind me and I could get in. Of course Jaden attacked right away, but then  it all came back together on Robert E. Lee. Leading  up to the bridge I was near the front when I got streamed by an attack down the left and whoever was in front of me didn't respond at all. I did the second lap around City Park a little faster than usual, and then turned around to ride with the Tulane group that was heading for Lakeshore Drive to do whatever intervals or drills they were supposed to be doing. So I ended up riding an extra ten miles or so.

Not looking good for tonight or tomorrow morning.

This morning the temperature was right around 60, but there was a stiff wind blowing out of the ENE, so I wasn't too surprised to find only two people waiting at the end of Nashville Avenue for the ride out to the lake. Once there we picked up most of the usual riders, so there was a pretty good group, which was good because we were riding straight into the wind all the way to Seabrook. Surprisingly the speed didn't go ballistic after we turned back toward the West, at least not until the last bit of Lakeshore Drive.  Once we got onto the bike path along the lake, however, it ramped up considerably. I think I spent three or four miles sitting on Matt's wheel going 32-34 mph.  The ride back was, predictably, much slower -- like 16-18 mph. By the time I got back to Robert E. Lee there was no sign of the other two riders who I'd ridden out with. I don't know if they turned back early or were popped off the back in the headwind, but anyway, I rode back home solo. A cold front is coming through tonight, so tomorrow morning may be a wash-out.  For that matter, my ride home from work may be a wash-out too.