Labor Day Weekend Rides - Cat. 5 is Bad

A few of the Tulane riders on the Independence ride

Finally a few days without rain in the forecast. Sitting at Pagoda Cafe with the Tulane group on Friday morning I learned that they were planning a ride up in Independence for Saturday. Feeling the need to get out in the country a bit, I decided to tag along. Quentin, Elliot and I headed out right on time for the one-hour drive, parking along the railroad tracks near the BBQ place where we'd later have lunch.

First TUCA ride of the semester

The ride turned out to be a pretty steady 58 miles, a bit shorter and easier than I'd expected but still a good ride. The first hour or so felt almost cool, which is to say it was below 80F. For a minute or two I thought I could see Fall coming, but an hour later when the temperature was approaching 90 I realized it was just wishful thinking. I felt pretty good on this ride, probably thanks to the prior week's rain and resulting reduced mileage and intensity. It didn't seem like any of the riders were ever in difficulty, so I'll take that as a good sign for the team. By the time we got back it was good and hot, and I was glad to be able to sit down in the air-conditioning for a quick lunch before hitting the road back to New Orleans. That evening we walked over to the Tulane stadium to watch the season opener against Grambling. Tulane won the game pretty convincingly, although Grambling's band most definitely won half-time.  It was rather sad seeing the tiny Tulane band sitting in the end zone waiting for the huge Grambling band to finish its performance.

Giro Ride heads out along Lakeshore Drive

Sunday was a Giro Ride day and pretty uneventful. The pace was fairly moderate, relatively speaking, with an average speed just under 23 mph and a very brief max of around 40. I wasn't feeling much of an effect from the prior day's ride in the hills, so I guess that was good.

Monday turned out to be a holiday Giro Ride. Nobody seemed interested in organizing anything special for Labor Day, which I guess was OK, although I might have been easily convinced to do a northshore ride if something like that had materialized. We had a brief stop on Haynes Blvd. when Noel flatted, but otherwise it was steady and reasonably fast on the way out and about half of the way back. Things got kind of conversational toward the end of the ride, though, at least until we got close to the overpasses where it sped up. Naturally, there was a nice little sprint to the top of the Seabrook bridge. Along Lakeshore Drive Taco started rolling off the front as we were cooling down and I eventually made the effort to catch up to him for the ride back uptown which turned out to be a little faster than usual for some reason. This morning's long levee ride started with only three of us, although we picked up a few more along the way. Somewhere out around Kenner, Dustin Ducote's headlight suddenly disconnected and hit the ground, so we waited for him to retrieve it. Then, as we were going down "the dip" his rear tire went flat. We continued on, though, planning to pick him up on the way back. Heading back we came upon him on the side of the bike path with his bike upside-down fixing another flat. He was not having a good day.

So Hurricane Irma is looking worse and worse. It's now a Cat. 5, which is bad in both cycling and hurricanes, but for very different reasons. The forecast track keeps shifting south and west, which is bad for us. Our only hope is the on-time arrival of a cold front later this week that should force it to turn north. Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like that turn won't happen until it's on top of Florida. Although the jury's still out as to whether it will track up the east of west coast of Florida, there's not much doubt that it will be one or the other. I guess we'll have a better picture by Thursday or so. My instinct keeps telling me that this thing is going to enter the Gulf, however. When hurricanes get to be that big and strong they start making their own weather and not responding the way the forecast models predict. If it remains Category 5 and hits Florida it will not be good at all.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking I'll do Six Gap again in a few weeks, followed by the last road race up in Shreveport. I could possibly make the Pensacola stage race the 16th and 17th, but that would make three long road trips in the same month and I'm not sure I'm quite up to that. We'll see. Stranger things have happened.