Crosswinds

The cold front that came through Wednesday morning turned everything right around pretty quickly. When I looked at the radar early yesterday morning there was an ominous line of heavy rain moving in our direction.  Outside, the streets looked a little wet. I had a morning meeting, and looking at the hourly forecast it was looking like I could probably get in a ride, but then the rain was going to hit exactly when I would be riding to work. I decided it would be a good day to skip a ride and go to my meeting half an hour early. It was a good decision. I got there right before it started raining.  The cold front, and all of the really heavy rain, came through during the meeting. Afterward I hopped on the bike to make a run for the office before the next line of rain arrived, but hadn't gone five blocks before I had to stop and put on the rain jacket, so I aborted the attempt and headed for the on-campus PJs coffee where I waited it out with a blueberry scone until it was just a light drizzle.

This morning the temperature was a little warmer than expected - around 50F - so I went out dressed fairly lightly. It would have been fine except for the wind that was screaming out of the north at 15-20 mph, so I was a little chilly at first. I rode out to the lakefront with the usual crew, and of course the wind along Lakeshore Drive turned out to be pretty brutal. Rob was out there on his track bike for some reason, and was kind of pushing the pace.  Heading east we had a cross-headwind, so it was pretty slow going with a line of riders clinging to the gutter imagining that they were drafting, which they really weren't. After the Seabrook loop there was a little bit of tailwind component to the crosswind, which just made it faster but not easier.  Things were pretty broken up by the time we got to West End where all but four of us called it a day.  Brian, Geoff, Rich and I made it out to Williams on the bike path.  With the crosswind, the four of us needed the whole width of the path to eschelon. As they say, it was a "table for four." The best draft was when I had my front wheel all the way up alongside the bottom bracket of the rider ahead of me.  That kind of thing requires constant attention, so although the speeds were low, the stress level was pretty high.  At one point I dropped back a bit to take a picture and almost couldn't get back on. Even so, I was glad I stuck it out.

The weather this weekend up in Ridgeland where I'll be officiating cyclocross is not looking very nice, at least for those of us who will be standing in the mud all day. The chance of rain for Saturday at race time ranges from 75% to 85% with a temperature of 49F.

Saturday night we'll be having the annual LAMBRA meeting and electing new officers. I'm kind of looking forward to cutting back on the LAMBRA work a little bit so I can focus more on the NOBC and Tour de Louisiane.