WeMoRi Breakfast Ride

The WeMoRi (Wednesday Morning Ride) is one of those odd weekday morning rides that probably started out as one thing and ended up as entirely something else. Starting at 5:45 am, it's dark for most of the ride, and in the winter it's dark and cold. Nonetheless, there are usually about ten miles of the ride that are very fast, followed by a more social lap around City Park. It can be a pretty hard ten miles, and combined with the darkness and flashing lights and traffic and stop lights, the first fifteen miles or so can be somewhat stressful. For some reason, however, it has developed a loyal following and evolved into almost its own informal club. Periodically there are WeMoRi kit orders, and every month or two there's a brief post-ride get-together over coffee and cake, doberge of course, to acknowledge the regular riders who have birthdays that month.  New Orleanians will use any excuse for a party. For some reason, the November get-together is held at one of the riders' houses located just off of Robert E. Lee, which is part of the regular route.

I don't think I've ever started the WeMoRi at the start.  I usually leave home shortly before the ride starts 7 miles away at Robert's Fresh Market out on Robert E. Lee. That gets me to Lakeshore Drive as the group is heading back toward the west.  It's also usually about the time the speed really starts to ramp up. Today, Danielle and I got out there a few minutes early, so we rode up and down Lakeshore Drive between the fountain and UNO watching for the flock of blinky lights. This time we merged in right as the group was hitting the Bayou St. John bridge. For some reason the speeds were staying relatively low today.  Granted, I went from 16 mph to 30 mph in the space of one-tenth of a mile, but in general there were a lot of sections where the group's usual speed of 27-30 mph was down into the 23-26 mph range. Surprisingly, toward the end of the fast lap around the park, a light rain started to fall.  We rode around the north end and down Wisner looking at a rather menacing grey sky off to the southeast and decided to shorten the loop a bit by cutting through the park on Harrison and heading for the group birthday party a little early, which unfortunately was a little too early for coffee since the person picking it up had also been on the ride. Anyway, we had something to eat, and eventually some coffee, which was nice. Traffic this week has been noticeably lighter than usual since I guess most of the schools are out and some people are probably already out of town.

USAC has officially released the 2016 Schedule of Fees. It incorporates a lot of the new policy changes aimed at bolsternig grass-roots participation in racing and other similar events. The regular racing license for Cat. 2 and 3 riders goes up by $5 to cover increased drug testing (Cat. 1 licenses go up $25).  One-day licenses thankfully drop back down to $10. All of the other changes are summarized on the USAC website.  One thing I like is a document that discusses insurance and specifically addresses the kinds of cheaper insurance that some event promoters get and what that insurance does, and mostly doesn't, cover.