Gridlock and the Giro

The Tulane Cycling Center has six WattBikes.  They don't see a lot of use until the weather starts to get cold and rainy, like it is right now.  So naturally one of the head units stopped working a few weeks ago. The folks at Woodway, who handles them in the U.S. suggested that the battery might have gone bad, so I went out to Battery World to get them to put together a new battery pack, using the same odd connector that was on the original one.  I figured there was about a 30% chance that the problem was actually the battery, and so I wasn't surprised to find that after I'd installed it the unit would work but was continuously draining the battery. So I emailed our contact there and explained the problem, hoping for a replacement head unit. The next day I was surprised to get a reply indicating that they happened to be in New Orleans at a trade show at the Convention Center, and if I could get the old bike down there, they would swap it out for a new one at the end of the trade show that afternoon.  I rounded up Ben and after stuffing the WattBike into his car we headed down to the Convention Center at around 3:20 for the short drive down Tchoupitoulas, planning to get there by 3:45.  Well, about a mile or two from the Convention Center traffic on Tchoupitoulas was at a stop and we were basically trapped.  For the next TWO HOURS we inched forward, literally, finally arriving as they were tearing down the trade show. It looked like there was something going on at the upriver end of the Convention Center, but gridlock like that just doesn't happen in New Orleans, except when streets are closed off for Mardi Gras parades. I really don't know what caused such a backup, but by the time we got there we were hungry, irritated, and the car was almost out of gas. Although our original contact had already needed to leave for the airport, there were a couple others still there packing things up, so we finally swapped out the bikes. Anyway, we now have one of the newer models with the newer head unit that, I think, has Bluetooth, so that's good.

This morning I rode out to the Giro Ride wearing shorts, jersey and arm-warmers  It was a little cool, but I knew a cold front would be coming through later in the day dropping temperatures by a good 20 degrees before tomorrow. The Giro itself was remarkably smooth and steady.  All the way down Hayne and Chef highway it was smooth paceline at 24 mph with almost everyone taking pulls. Along the way we got a few raindrops here and there, but it wasn't until an hour or two after I got home that the rain really started.  It's looking like it will stay this way until evening when the cold front pushes all the way through. Tomorrow I'm planning on driving up to Natchez for the third cyclocross race of the DSGP series. The forecast for tomorrow morning in Natchez?  35 degrees at 7 am, 43 at 10:00 when the first race starts. On the plus side, zero chance of rain. I'll bring the bike and perhaps do the masters race if I'm not needed for officiating.  I'm planning to try out the CrossMgr software to see if that will help us keep track of the lapped riders.  Should be interesting.