Wet Mornings

The weather around here has been all over the place lately. It rained much of Tuesday night, but when I got up Wednesday morning and saw the temperature in the upper 50s I got dressed, grabbed the bike, and stepped out the door, only to find that there was still a fine misty rain falling.  The streets were soaked, which was bad enough, but the combination of the cool temperature and wet streets was going to make the WeMoRi ride miserable, assuming anyone showed up at all. I stared out into the dark for a while watching the rain fall through the beam of my headlight and turned around. Before leaving for work I threw some riding clothes into my bag just in case I got desperate enough to ride the WattBike. After work I walked over to the Tulane cycling center, which is literally about 25 steps away from my office.  I'd seen Quentin there earlier. He's the rider who crashed last weekend when his pedal came out of the crankarm.  His face was looking a lot better and he was busy busting out a training session on the WattBike. After work there were a few people already there when I arrived. I put a pair of Keo pedals onto one of the bikes that didn't have pedals on it (these things move around from bike to bike constantly since we've got riders using everything from mountain bike cleats to Speedplay Zeros). I aimed a fan at my face and suffered through an hour or so. I have never gotten used to working out indoors. Even at my relatively easy effort level, I was dripping sweat within fifteen minutes, the saddle position didn't feel quite right, the pedals are too far apart, and the handlebar is too far out. The best I could do was a few minutes over an hour, and by then I was more than happy to head home since all I'd had at lunchtime were a couple of plain bagels.

This morning I got all excited when I saw the temperature in the low 60s.  I mean, it's December, right?  Then I walked past a window and saw the fog.  Although it hadn't rained for hours, the street was wet and the fog was thick. I put on arm and knee warmers along with an extra jersey as baselayer, since I knew I'd end up good and wet. I rode over to Nashville, but none of the usual group showed up, so I just continued on out to the lakefront. I had to wipe the fog from my glasses every few minutes, finally taking them off and stashing them in my pocket before I even made it to the lakefront.

Out on Lakeshore Drive there were a few people riding around looking for the group that didn't exist. Eventually everyone realized it and six or seven riders came together.  We did a good lap of Lakeshore Drive, but at the end a few, including myself, decided that the bike path along the lake would probably be soaking wet with runoff from the levee, so we did a short lap around City Park and called it a day. By then I was pretty wet just from the fog, and my feet were starting to get cold, so I'm glad I didn't venture out to the bike path where I probably would have had wheel spray in my face most of the time.

So I got a call yesterday morning from Frank Moak telling me that they were not going to be able to put on the Mississippi Grand Prix stage race this year. That puts a pretty big hole in the calendar for us. One of the other races has already moved to that weekend, since it was a prime date in April (that unfortunately conflicts with a collegiate race in Texas). The MSGP has been going on for 13 years and was basically a continuation of the Natchez Classic stage race that had been going on in nearby Natchez for many years before that.

Tonight we're expecting a tornado watch and heavy thunderstorms starting around 7 or 8 pm as a cold front comes through.  No telling yet if it will be as bad as they think - these things often swing just north of us. The rain should be over by 2 am, so it's likely the streets will dry out by morning, especially since the wind at 7 am is predicted to be blowing at 24 mph from the WNW and the temperature will be back down in to the mid-40s.  Should be interesting.