October Transitions

Last week's rides felt mostly robotic. I guess I'm in a mid-October slump where it's gotten hard to generate much enthusiasm as things begin to transition into Fall. I didn't even take may photos, partially because it's usually too dark to get anything good, and partially because there just wasn't anything interesting. I always find it hard to push myself very much when I'm riding in the dark. We don't switch back to regular Central Time until November 5, which I think it ridiculous, so there will be a lot more dark morning rides before then. As we got closer to the end of the week it became apparent that an approaching cold front was threatening to mess up the weekend's outdoor activities, of which there were many. The first thing to go was the Oak Street Po-boy Festival that re-scheduled for November 12 rather than risk getting rained out at the last minute. Since that festival involves a huge number of restaurants that set up tents and food preparation equipment, it was wise to make the call earlier rather than later.

On Saturday I rode the Giro as usual. There was a pretty big group on hand despite the weather forecast. Fortunately they had been pushing back the arrival time for the rain since Friday and so Saturday morning's rain chances were still pretty low. Heading out on Hayne Blvd. it was nice to see that all of the holes in the concrete roadway had been patched. That was not the work of our fine city, of course. That was the work of Premier Event Management, promoters of Sunday's Ochsner Ironman 70.3 race that had still not been cancelled. That race uses the traditional Giro route for most of the bike portion. Saturday's Giro seemed kind of fast, although I think that was largely due to just a handful of riders at the front who were perhaps trying to get in a hard workout on the assumption that everything would be rained out on Sunday. At the time, Sunday's rain forecast was still pegged at 100%. We were on the way back, on the service road alongside I-10, when I saw Daniel dropping back. His rear tire was almost flat. The pace at the front, however, had just started to ramp up, so although somebody yelled "flat!" the only person to stop with him was me. I was actually fine with that since I was not feeling very good anyway and had been doing little except sucking wheels at the back anyway.

So the air-conditioner stopped working again last week. I spent most of the day on Friday at home waiting for the service guy who told me that the evaporator coil was leaking, which we had earlier suspected was happening. He put some more Freon (or whatever they actually use now) in and got it running again, but the plan is to replace it on Tuesday at the bargain price of about $2k. Having to fix the air-conditioner, of course, virtually guarantees that summer is over. Anyway, it cooled down the house nicely and ran just fine until around 9 pm when it shut itself off again, which made Friday night rather uncomfortable, especially since Danielle was away at a conference in Orlando and as a result her two dogs were in our bed. When I got home from the Giro on Saturday, still wearing my kit, we dragged the big old backup window unit up the stairs from the basement and stuck it into the bedroom window.

Inched over the 10,000 mile mark this morning

Sunday morning the bedroom was freezing cold and when I got up all I could hear was the window unit which was about a foot from my head. In my usual early morning daze I got up, pulled on shorts and jersey, and headed for the basement stairs to get the bike and go out to meet the Giro. The forecast from the night before was showing the rain moving in around 10 am. It was wrong. When I walked into the kitchen I could see S. Claiborne Avenue through the window and it was obviously wet. On closer inspection, I could see that it was actually raining. Crap. 6:00 am, all dressed out, and no place to go. I fired up the computer and the radar looked bad. There was a whole line of rain well ahead of the real cold front and it was right on top of us. The real front wouldn't be arriving until around noon. I also noticed that they had announced a last-minute cancellation of the Ironman. I had been planning on doing only part of the Sunday Giro because my brother was going to be passing through town on his way from Baton Rouge to Orlando and we were meeting for coffee at CC's on Magazine at 10:30 with him and the sisters and everyone. I ended up down in the basement putting a new chain on the Bianchi and cleaning up the whole drivetrain before it was time to go. Afterward, I ran over to SuperCuts and got a somewhat overdue haircut, getting back home just as the sky turned black. The cold front came through right on schedule, and by 3 pm the sun was out, there was a strong breeze blowing, and it was already feeling a bit cooler. I had to pick Danielle up from the airport around 6:30, so I jumped on the bike and got in a couple of hours of riding on the levee. After I got home and checked Strava I realized I was just five miles short of 10,000 for the year. That milestone would have to wait until Monday.

This morning it was cool enough for a little wind protection underneath the jersey, but not quite what you'd want to call "cold." I guess it was around 60F. I went out and did a fairly casual 20-odd miles on the levee where it was pretty windy. At least that pushed my annual mileage over the 10,000 mark. I guess I'm on track for the usual 11k - 12k miles again this year. Having to spend a few weekends officiating instead of riding in the fall and winter usually takes a bit of a toll on my mileage. The first cyclocross race was yesterday up in Baton Rouge, but the other officials had that one covered so I was quite happy to stay home where my feet were dry. The Track championships are next weekend, so I guess I'll be helping with the officiating for that. Then there are eight cyclocross races in November and December.