Last Giro of the Year, or Not - Playing it by Ear

Après-Giro scenery along the lakefront bike path. Too nice to go home yet.

What a difference a day makes! Despite the clear sunny sky, yesterday's ride was rough because of the wind and the cold. This morning, however, the Giro Ride enjoyed much warmer temperatures, barely noticeable wind, and the same clear sky. There was no comparison. I left home in the dark at 6 am with the temperature hovering at 48F. As soon as I stepped out the door I knew I'd end up a little over-dressed, but at least I was comfy-cozy on the way to Starbucks with my long tights, base layers, shoe covers and vest. By the time the group was halfway down Hayne Blvd. the temperature had risen a good seven or eight degrees and riders, most of whom were in knickers or shorts with knee-warmers, were already peeling off vests and gloves. My vest and long-sleeve jersey were unzipped and I was looking forward to the turnaround when I could safely stuff some of the excess wardrobe into my pockets. The ride out to Venetian Isles was brisk with a few fast sections, but this time of year the number of people willing to take hard pulls is small so the efforts tend to be relatively short.

Heading back along the service road. I called the city a
couple of weeks ago and they actually came out and
picked up the piles of junk that had been dumped along
this section of road.

On the way back, just as things were starting to ramp up a bit, one of the guys flatted. Everyone stopped, and the interruption must have taken the wind out of everyone's sails because most of the rest of the ride was at a nice conversational pace.

Since the weather was so nice - it had warmed up to 57 by the time we were back to Lakeshore Drive - and since the forecast for Sunday was calling for rain, I decided to add a few miles by riding out along the lakefront bike path to Kenner. I'd planned to turn left at the end, go over the levee, and ride along the floodwall at the edge of civilization, but it was fenced off and I didn't want to get off the bike to climb over the erosion barrier and up the gravel road just for a few additional miles, so I turned around and headed back in to a light headwind. A few miles later I saw Pat coming toward me. He'd ridden the Giro, and maybe stopped at his boathouse for a minute before riding out to the bike path a few minutes behind me, so we had a nice ride back into town. I ended up logging 83 miles, arriving home feeling hungry but enormously better that I had after a mere 59 miles just the day before. Go figure.

Conversational pace along Hayne Blvd. to finish out the Saturday Giro Ride

Today's ride brings my 2017 total up to 12,225 miles, not counting my daily commutes to and from work, and I suspect I will have to be satisfied with that unless we get very lucky tomorrow morning. The rest of next week is looking like it will be pretty challenging. From Monday morning the wind won't die down to less than 10 mph until Friday, which is also the first time the morning temperature will be above freezing. On the plus side, there's no rain in the forecast once the cold front comes through. My guess is that there may be a few mornings in there where it will be just above freezing at my house, but when it's in the 30s with a 15 mph wind blowing, two or three degrees don't help very much. So when I got home from riding today I gathered up all of the sweaty dirty winter riding clothes from last week and threw the whole batch into the washer so I can at least start out 2018 on the right foot. I'll probably need all of it if I'm going to be doing morning rides over the next five days.