Finishing Off 2018

Audubon Zoo Lights

I woke to the sound of wet tires on wet roads on New Year's Eve. I turned the alarm off without even looking out the window, although I admit that I checked the weather radar ten minutes later. There's always hope, you know. In this case, however, the thought of yet another wet ride on wet roads followed by cleaning the bike for, I think, the fourth day in a row, was just too much. I pulled the covers up over my head and didn't put my feet on the floor until at least 7 am. After a cup of coffee and a somewhat over-ripe banana I checked the radar again. It looked like there might be a window of an hour or two without significant rain. I rolled out from the house a bit after 8:30 on the old rain bike for an easy ride on the levee. Although I got a bit of light rain for the last five miles or so, I logged the final 26 miles of the year, nudging my annual mileage up to 12,391 - just a bit higher than my 2014 total of 12.379. It always amazes me how close my annual totals are. Over the past five years, my average works out to 12,131. Riding along the levee I noticed that the big old dead tree near the country club where the eagles often perch had apparently been blown down during the recent storms. Not to worry, though, as I saw both of the eagles perched on a nearby tree as I went by.

It was very busy in the kitchen

So the holidays went nicely. Danielle and Shannon were here for a week and a half. I got in some nice rides, even though a lot of them were wet and messy, and we're planning on a nice New Year's Day ride on the levee tomorrow out to the Spillway. After that I guess it will be back to the grind, but the past couple of weeks have provided a nice diversion.

We went to the Zoo to see their new Christmas lights display, which was fairly impressive. Then, right on queue, the dishwasher stopped working. Actually, it was working great but would hang with one minute left on the timer, apparently waiting for the water temperature to get up to the proper level, which wasn't happening. All indications are that it is a bad control board. With the impending holidays and no time to wait for a new $250 control board to arrive, we hustled over to Lowes and bought a new one, which of course wasn't cheap. I got to work installing it and, of course, discovered I needed a different fitting for the water supply connection. Naturally it was half an hour before closing time at Lowes, so I had to rush over there to get what I needed, but it all worked out and we were happily washing dishes later that night.

High Point - City Park

Christmas Day was over at my sister's house following a visit with Dad at Poydras Home. Candy had made something like five pies. There's still a lot left a week later. Also cookies. Also chocolate.

Christmas Eve Giro Ride Group

The weekend before Christmas I did three Giro Rides, including the Holiday Giro on Christmas Eve, so that was nice. By Monday's ride, though, it was getting pretty windy and the forecast for the rest of the week wasn't looking all that good. We did manage to get in the WeMoRi before the rains started, though. Thursday was super-windy, and there were only a couple other riders out, so we did a shorter levee ride, turning around at the Big Dip. It still felt like a workout, though. Friday morning was a wash-out, but the rain stopped in the afternoon so I went out for a long solo ride to Ormond and back. Everything was wet and dirty by the time I got back, but otherwise it was good. I wasn't expecting much of a turnout for the Saturday Giro, considering the threat of rain, wet roads, and holidays. By the time we started I'd already decided to turn back at the end of Lakeshore Drive. It was chilly and wet and I knew if I got rained on I'd be really uncomfortable. I didn't regret my decision. Again I had to wash the bike and lube the chain and throw my dirty clothes into the washer.

Dec. 30 Giro - Lots of fog, but not too cold.

That afternoon the weather improved a bit so we went out to City Park so I could explore the Couturie Forest trail which I hadn't seen since we used to do mountain bike races there. There's a big "hill" there that was originally a dump for debris from construction of the nearby I-610. Back when we rode mountain bikes there it was basically a pile of broken concrete and rebar and dirt. This was before mountain bikes had suspension. Also before City Park knew there was a trail back there. Now there's a "lookout" on top of it and nicely laid out trails with occasional signage and lots of newly planted trees. It was nice, although in a more civilized way than it used to be. Anyway, Danielle and I walked the trails while Candy walked a lap around the golf course and Shannon did a long run around the park.

Poydras Home Visit

While we were there we rain into Dustin and a few other riders who were still on the bikes from the Giro Ride. As it turned out, only two riders did the whole Giro that day, and they ended up riding around the city, eating pastries, and fixing flats. Later that afternoon we send Danielle, Shannon, and the two little dogs back off to Olympia and returned to a very quiet house.

It's almost 9:00 pm right now and I can hear fireworks all over the place. The streets are still wet and the temperature is in the 60s. The city is doing three or four separate fireworks displays this year. It remains to be seen whether I'll still be awake to hear the last one at midnight, but after that it will be back to the regular routine I guess, at least for six days until the Phynny Phorty Phellows and Twelfth Night Revelers kick off the Mardi Gras season!

Grey Winter Skies

Some days it's better to turn around and sit down with a cup of coffee to contemplate the meaning of life.

Friday morning started out chilly and windy. I knew that my usual Friday morning Tulane Coffee Ride routine was in serious jeopardy because it was exam week. Also chilly, windy and dark. I went out anyway and almost immediately regretted it. I was a little under-dressed, not so much for the temperature, but definitely for the strong and gusty wind. I continued on anyway, of course, just in case someone might show up. Nobody who gets out of a warm bed and goes out on the bike on such a day deserves to ride alone. Well, except for me I guess. It was no surprise that there was nobody there at the Reily Center for the coffee ride, so I just continued on through campus and into Audubon Park, and from there onto the levee bike path where I felt the full force of the northwest wind. I was pretty miserable and considered turning around immediately, but somehow talked myself into riding slowly out to the Huey P. Long bridge before turning around and making a bee line for the Zotz for coffee. There, I could see the clouds building up as predicted ahead of the next minor cold front. My Strava stats for the day?  An average speed of 12.9 mph, and a max of 19.2.

Saturday morning was considerably colder, and there was still a strong wind out of the west. I went out to Starbucks to meet up with the Giro Ride group, wondering what the turnout would be like. There were other things going on, of course, and the deeply overcast sky and strong wind were not particularly conducive to a big group anyway. Arriving around 6:30 I met up with Trevor, a visiting rider from somewhere in England who was here for a conference and had rented a bike from Bicycle Michael's in order to get in a couple of rides afterward. I was wearing a thermal base layer under a long-sleeve jersey. He was in basically summer kit plus arm-warmers. He said it felt like spring compared to what it was like back home. My quick assessment told me that if the ride got fast he was likely to be in just a bit over his head, but if it was just moderate and steady he'd probably do fine. Eventually other riders started rolling in, and my the time we left there was a smallish group that wasn't too unusual for this time of year. I noted, however, that there was nonetheless sufficient horsepower in attendance to make for a fast ride, especially considering that we'd have a pretty strong tailwind on Hayne Blvd. and Chef Highway. Tailwinds are fun unless you find yourself at the back where the draft doesn't really do you as much good as you think. On the way out on Lakeshore Drive I rolled up alongside Trevor and told him to expect someone to put the hammer down once we came down the overpass onto Hayne, which was exactly what happened. It was the last I saw of Trevor, among others, as I was struggling just to stay somewhere near the front as the pace settled in at around 30 mph. It stayed pretty much that way all the way out to Venetian Isles. Fortunately, Pat stayed with Trevor and I think they got back in with the group for a while on the way back. As fast as the ride had been on the way out, you'd have expected it to be a hard slog into the wind on the way back. It wasn't really, as nobody seemed willing to do too much work into the headwind. By the time I got home I was getting cold because of the lower effort level combined with the sweat generated on the way out. It wasn't until I had some hot soup that I really warmed up.

Post-ride on Sunday at the Lee Road Ballpark

So on Sunday I decided to go across the lake to do a little 50+ mile ride that Mignon had told me was happening. The weather was still chilly - around 50 degrees - but now there was a light mist falling that made it feel ten degrees colder. We had a small group of seven or eight, which was expected. I was hoping it would be a fairly easy ride. Perhaps it was the weather, but I just didn't feel like doing much intensity at all. Fortunately, everyone else was pretty much on the same page. I did a little work for a few miles on Hwy 439 before Sie Jenkins Road but that was about it. When we re-grouped at Sie Jenkins and Hwy 60, Darren took out a Pop-Tart. We rolled kind of slowly waiting for him to catch up and when I looked back just before we turned onto S. Choctaw I could see him coming, maybe a minute or so back. No problem, I thought, since we weren't going very hard at all. Well, that was the last we saw of him until much later. We figured that, for some reason, he must have decided to go straight down to Hwy. 16 and Enon, so we continued on. Well, when we got to Enon, there was Darren walking his bike. He'd flatted and not been able to fix it, so he'd gotten a ride with a passing pick-up truck down to Enon. His timing was perfect. We got his flat fixed and rolled in the remaining six or seven miles to the Ballpark. Afterward, I was surprised that I could feel some soreness in my quads.

Consistent, at least. Easy to see the broken collarbone years.

Anyway, it was a pretty chill weekend of riding for me, which felt about right for this time of year. Strava says I'm at 11,885 miles for the year with a couple of weeks left, so that's about normal. In fact, it's amazing how consistent my annual mileage has been. Although I make no effort to hit any particular target each year, I guess my routine is so set in stone that it just kind of comes out the same every year.

Cold and Wet Weekend Off the Bike

Grayson excited about finishing up his time at Tulane

Things were already looking bad for Saturday when Wes came by on Wednesday to pick up medals for the LAMBRA Cyclocross Championship. Although the championship races themselves were scheduled for Sunday, there was also a full slate of races planned for Saturday. The venue had already been moved at the last minute from Audubon Park to Behrman Park across the river. The latter was sure to be considerably sloppier, but tearing it up with knobby cyclocross tires would cause considerably less of a problem. We talked about the predicted 100% chance of rain and 20-30 mph winds and decided that if it still looked hopeless in the morning, the Saturday races would be cancelled. It did. They were.

I'd gone out Friday morning with the Tulane coffee ride group for the last coffee ride before final exams and Grayson's last coffee ride before graduating. The weather was still pretty nice. The cold front wasn't supposed to come through until Friday night. I wasn't holding out much hope for the Saturday Giro Ride, but it was looking like maybe a 20% chance it might be slipped in before the rain started. When I awoke on Saturday morning the streets were still dry. I looked at the radar for a long time and ultimately came to the unavoidable realization that it would definitely be raining by 7:30 or 8:00, and with the strong winds already blowing I figured that even riding over to Harrison Avenue for coffee would be futile. As it turned out, a few riders did show up. They even got in a few miles before, of course, it started raining. For myself, I figured it had been a good call. The rest of the day was wet and chilly as the cold front moved through.

Finish line all ready to go

By Sunday morning the rain was gone but I was scheduled to officiate the cyclocross races with Michelle. The temperature had dropped down to the low 40s and it was overcast and I knew it would be staying that way for most of the day. I also knew I was going to freeze my ass off sitting under a tent at the park where the ground was going to be just barely above the definition of swampland. I wore my warm cycling baselayer and slightly water-resistant boots. On the plus side, the races didn't start until 10:00 and the course was just 20 minutes away, so I had the luxury of making coffee, cooking a couple of eggs, and loading up the car in daylight.

Sloppy cyclocross on Sunday

I arrived at the course about two hours early to find just Wes and a lot of muck. He'd situated the start/finish on the opposite side of the course from the road since that was basically the only relatively dry ground. That was good, but it meant dragging all of the tents and assorted equipment through the muck. Three trips later, I set up the fence posts for the USAC snowfence, put up the tent and tabled, and camera, and got the computers ready. The night before I'd set up CrossMgr with the details for the five races, so everything was pretty much configured and ready to go. All I'd need to do is copy the registration data into Excel files so that the software could associate the bib numbers with the riders names. We got the first race lined up and ready and that's when I heard Wes telling them that the first lap was going to be a little shorter than the others. That was, I think, to avoid having the group encounter the barriers within the first 500 feet. As it turned out, the first lap was a minute and a half shorter than the rest, which totally messed up the software. CrossMgr uses the lap times to determine what the lap cards should read. It also uses them to predict when the leader(s) will be approaching the finish line on each lap. Well, the short first lap times completely screwed all of that up. We ended up starting the next races on the computer 1:30 earlier than the actual starts in order to compensate, which worked out reasonably well.

Anyway, by the time the second race was starting I was already shivering enough to make hitting the right keys on the computer kind of a hit-of-miss proposition. Fortunately the fields were fairly small, thanks no doubt to the weather, so it all worked out OK and we got the results done very quickly after each race. I didn't get home until around 4:30 or so, and got the results up on the website after grabbing something to eat. Bottom line: no bike riding for me last weekend.

The last couple of mornings have been around 40 degrees and windy. I rode on Monday mostly alone until I ran into Pat on the way back. This morning was a little less windy but felt at least as cold as Monday had. There were just three of us up on the levee, so we shortened the ride, turning around at the little dip. I think the temperatures will be generally warming up from here on out, although a little cold front coming through on Thursday has the forecast for that day showing 100% chance of rain with thunderstorms.

Wild Swings

It was a wet but surprisingly fast Giro Ride on Saturday

Here in New Orleans it's now the time of year for wild swings in the weather, and not surprisingly, ride turnouts. While the relatively recent popularity of computer game bike rides, aka Zwift, has definitely reduced the number of riders willing to show up to ride actual bikes in actual weather, I think that perhaps all that riding indoors also increases the level of, shall we say excitement, when the weather suddenly goes from dreary to spectacular. We certainly had samples of both last weekend.

I woke up Saturday morning to dark wet streets. Based on the forecast I hadn't really expected to be able to ride at all, but looking at the 5:45 am radar I couldn't see any rain in the immediate vicinity, so after a bit of deliberation, and resigning myself to a post-ride bike-cleaning session, I slipped out the door around 6 am into the 100% relative humidity. The streets were still wet from the earlier rain, but not so much to get me wet, at least at the slow speed I was going. Arriving at Starbucks twenty-five minutes later I wasn't too surprised to find no other bikes around. I was already thinking that the full Giro was probably not going to be a possibility since I don't much like being out on Chef Highway with just one or two others anyway. Eventually, as I sat outside sipping my coffee, a few more riders started to arrive, and by the time we rolled out at 7:00 I guess there was at least a dozen.

The Garmin showing its age

There was still no consensus as to whether to cut the ride short, but once we crossed the interstate, the virtual Rubicon of the Giro Ride, there was no turning back. Of course by then I was already fairly wet just from wheel spray, so when it started to really rain a few minutes later on Chef Highway, it didn't really matter much any more. I was glad I'd charged my retina-burning tail light, but even with that I kept thinking about that ride in Florida the week before where an inattentive drive had plowed into a group and killed two. On the other hand, I was feeling pretty good and ended up doing a fair amount of work.

The rain had stopped by the time we turned around for the ride back into an increasing headwind, which itself was delayed by a broken spoke on Bullard. All-in-all though, I really couldn't complain. On a day that I'd initially thought would be a complete rain-out, I'd gotten in a respectable workout and we'd done the full Giro distance. On the minus side, it became clear that my trusty old Garmin was no longer water proof. After I got home I opened up the case and set it in front of a fan for the rest of the day. I may have to start wrapping it in a plastic bag on rain days. It's got something over 80,000 miles on it by now and the rubber sides that hold the buttons in are cracked. I had to put a piece of electrical tape on one side about a  month ago when one of the buttons fell out entirely.

Sunday's weather was practically perfect

The forecast for Sunday was looking much better than Saturday. Rain was unlikely, the temperature would be in the 60s and 70s, and the wind would be essentially calm. We had whipped up a somewhat last-minute NOBC ride on the northshore, and given the nice weather forecast it was looking like we would have a good turnout. I had tried a new mapping website called Plot a Route that I really liked, especially since it allowed you to download a tcx file that included cue sheet data which lets the Garmin tell you how far it is to the next turn. Anyway, I drove over with Pat to the Lee Road Ballpark where we found I guess twenty riders in various stages of preparation for the planned 65 mile route.

We had a great group on Sunday.

Looking around, I could see that there were a few riders who were likely to be pushing the pace despite my request to keep things at a "winter ride" pace for the first 25 miles. Mignon told me she had been sick all week and was still recovering, but wanted to try and make the full ride, so we should be sure to wait for her if she got dropped when the pace got fast. Indeed, the pace got plenty fast once we got off of 1072 and onto Choctaw Road, but everybody was fine with waiting for those who hadn't made the split. The next section, from Hwy. 10 to Sie Jenkins Road, had been designated, at least by me, as the "fast" section, so I was a little surprised when everyone rode smoothly up the first of the three significant climbs there. When we got to the second climb I was on the front and put in a little effort over the top that not surprisingly split one or two off the back. I was feeling pretty good and really enjoyed the effort along this stretch, so much so that it seemed Sie Jenkins Rd. came up way too soon. Despite the fast pace, we hadn't put all that much time on the rest of the group, so after a brief regrouping we continued toward Bogalusa, made the two right turns, and headed back toward S. Choctaw. By then I had the arm-warmers in my pocket and was well into my water supply. The weather was about as good as it gets, so everybody was having a good ride. We continued regrouping the intersections and after a quick stop at Enon headed toward firetower hill that doesn't have a fire tower any more where I was fully expecting to see some action. I think a few of the guys were targeting a Strava segment there. I stuck with the surge about two-thirds of the way up, then dropped off a bit to come over the top about fifteen seconds back. Luckily they soon eased up a bit and I was able to regain contact, after which the pace gradually increased pretty much all the way back to the ballpark. It was one of the nicest northshore rides I've done in a while, so I was really glad I'd gone. The rest of this week is looking to be colder and then wetter, so situation normal for early December. By tomorrow morning the temperature is supposed to be back down to 47, and then Tuesday night a bit lower to 43 before a gradual warm-up again leading to rain on Friday and Saturday ahead of the next cold front. I'm supposed to be officiating cyclocross here in New Orleans on Saturday and Sunday. It's still too early to know for sure but it's looking like Saturday morning is going to be raining and windy and Sunday just cold and windy. Oh boy.

Predicting Turnout

Cruising through campus at 6:15 am on a Friday

You know, I've doing this bike riding thing for a pretty long time - like since the Nixon administration - and I've yet to be able to predict when people will show up for a group ride, or race, and when they won't. Back when I started, I guess it was the summer of '71, I distinctly remember showing up for a group ride at a parking lot on Causeway Blvd. where we were supposed to car-pool over to the northshore. It was cold and rainy. I pulled into a parking spot in the deserted lot and wondered, "where is everybody?" Well, it turns out that most people just won't go bike riding in the cold rain. It was one of many bicycle related learning experiences. What it wasn't, however, was predictable. Since then, there have been lots of other times when the riders showed up anyway, despite bone-chilling cold, 30 mph wind, and/or pelting rain. There have also been times when the weather was great and yet nobody showed up.

Like this morning. It was a pleasant 65 degrees here in New Orleans this morning for the 6:30 am Tulane Coffee Ride. The wind was light, the roads were mostly dry, and there was zero chance of rain. I'd gone out the door a little early since my normal ride time is 5:45 - 6:00, so took the long way around, cruising down Carrollton and St. Charles before turning into campus and riding the deserted walkways over to the Reily Center where I rode around in little circles looking at my watch and wondering why nobody what showing up. Still wondering. So I headed back through campus, across St. Charles, through Audubon Park, to the levee bike path where I did a nice easy recovery ride. It just didn't make sense to go out an deal with morning traffic all alone on a recovery day.

In fact, it was a recovery day that I sort of, kind of, maybe needed after doing a fairly credible effort on the Thursday morning levee ride. In addition to a few of the regulars, we had both Howard and Matt on hand, which kept the pace pretty respectable, at least on the way out. Since I missed riding on Monday because of an early meeting, I'd been feeling kind of mileage-deprived all week, and the fact that we'd shortened Tuesday's ride due to it being cold and windy and having only a few people show up, wasn't helping. Speaking of weather, it's supposed to rain buckets tonight, and maybe through Saturday morning, so the best I can hope for there is a Giro Ride on wet streets. The worst is a Giro Ride that doesn't happen because it's still raining. It should be better by afternoon, although the wind will be blowing at 10-15 mph. There's a cyclocross race up in Ridgeland Saturday and Sunday. Given that I know what the course looks like, and it'll definitely be wet on Saturday, I think I'll be staying close to home on Saturday. Not sure about Sunday. The weather is looking to be pretty great by then around here with temperatures in the 60s and 70s, light winds, and low rain chances.

Kenneth posted some video of the WeMoRi. If you've never ridden it, here's a sampling:

Wednesday night water main work. Here we go again.....

Meanwhile back at the homestead, we had another water main leak out in front of the house Wednesday morning. I saw the water when I went out for the WeMoRi at 5:45 am. By the time I got back around 7:30 it was already looking much worse. I called the Sewerage and Water Board, and also reported it online, since I knew it was going to escalate. This leak was right on the other side of the manhole cover from the big water main break they had repaired last January.  Just two day earlier they had finally replaced the asphalt from that leak. Yes, it took ten months for them to fix the street. The day before I had contacted them about removing the four big orange traffic barrels that have been sitting in front of the house since last January. They're still there. Fortunately, they showed up on Wednesday and by the time I got home the street was closed off and there was a ten foot high pile of mud next to a ten foot deep hole with a couple of men inside. The leak was repaired and by 9 or 10 pm they were packing the mud back into the hole. So now we have a big muddy mess, again, that I guess will take another 9 or 10 months to get fixed. This time there are no traffic barrels or anything, so it's a nice little surprise for people coming down Pine Street at night, I guess.

The Long November Weekend

Finishing up the Saturday Giro, heading into lake fog.

It wasn't until Thursday night that I knew we'd be doing a "holiday Giro" Thanksgiving morning. It's the kind of thing that everybody assumes will happen but nobody wants to commit to. So I was pleasantly surprised to see fairly solid turnout under the circumstances. Most people have some kind of family commitment on Thanksgiving, so the 7 am Holiday Giro works out pretty well. As is typical for that sort of thing, there were just a few people working the front that day, with most riders content to just tick off the miles back in the draft at a more comfortable effort level, all the while fooling themselves into thinking they were burning off calories that they hadn't yet actually consumed. In my own case, I was expected at my sister's house for a family Thanksgiving lunch, which for me was a turkey leg and at least one too many glasses of wine.

On Friday the only ride that was planned was apparently a secret, so I waited until the sun actually came over the horizon before heading out for forty-odd solo miles on the levee. There was this nice little tailwind behind me all the way out that made for a really pleasant ride until, of course, I turned around. It actually wasn't all that bad except in comparison to how nice it had been in the opposite direction. Later that day I got busy on some things around the house, one of which was taking a look at one of the two expensive pendant lights in the kitchen. It had stopped working a while back, and then suddenly started working again, and then stopped again. It wouldn't be the first time I'd wrestled with it, and knowing how much of a pain in the butt it was going to be, I'd been putting it off for a long time. The thing was clearly designed by designers who didn't give a rat's ass about how reliable or repairable or easy to install it might be, just as long as it looked pretty. I have to admit, it does look pretty, but like all things that are pretty, it came with a price. The entire thing hangs on a super-thin coaxial power cord that is secured at both ends by tiny little set screws, with other tiny little set screws to make the electrical connection to the super-hot halogen light bulb. After getting it down from the ceiling I made a connector for it so I could test it on the kitchen counter, and after some experimentation determined that there was a short somewhere in the cable or the electrical connections at either end of the cable. A complete dissection revealed the likely problem, which was that the heat from the bulb had basically melted some of the inner wire insulation and caused a short. I could hear the transformer clicking on and off to protect itself. Fortunately I had a spare length of cable. Unfortunately, replacing it would require the skills and patience normally reserved for brain surgery. I left it spread all over the kitchen counter so I could think about what would be needed.

On Saturday morning I did another Giro Ride, which turned out to be pretty hard, especially after a few guys at the front basically attacked the turn off of Hayne Blvd. and opened a big gap that the few of us willing to work were never able to close. Anyway, I kind of rushed back home afterward because there was a noon surprise party for my sister and I had to make a run out to the airport immediately before that to pick up my brother and his wife who had been visiting their kids in Texas and were stopping over in New Orleans for the party before returning home to Orlando. It all worked out pretty well, and although the early morning weather had been kind of wet and gloomy, by noon the sun was out and it was quite nice for the little event in Audubon Park.

Sunday morning I was up around 3:30 am to get them to the airport for a 5 am flight, and a little later to get me out to my third Giro Ride of the week. I'd been hoping for a northshore ride on Sunday, but the weather forecast was not encouraging and I couldn't get anyone to commit. I probably would have done a long northshore ride, even if there had been some rain, if I'd been comfortable I'd have some company. Riding by myself on country roads in the rain, however, was not going to happen.

Working again ... for now.

As it turned out, the Sunday Giro got a good soaking with rain on Chef Highway ahead of the next cold front. It's supposed to be in the low 40s tonight, so it will be long tights and base layers again for the Tuesday morning ride. After getting home, cleaning the bike, throwing the clothes in the washer, and taking a shower, I got back to work on that pesky pendant light. After much tedious work I finally got it all back together and working. I'm not entirely sure that Underwriters Laboratories would approve of the whole thing, but I'm pretty sure that it will be OK for a little while at least. I ordered a couple of LED lights for it in order to reduce the heat that the halogen bulbs generate, although I'm not really sure how hot the LEDs actually get. I'm assuming they run significantly cooler. We'll see.

Later that day I heard about a crash in Florida where a "distracted" woman had plowed into a whole group of riders, killing one of them and sending six or seven to the hospital. This is getting to be a regular occurrence. People need to put the phones down and watch where they are going. I can't imagine any valid excuse for mowing down a whole group of riders in broad daylight on a flat road at 8:30 am on a Sunday morning. None. I'm not buying the "sun in my eyes" shit. Had to have been going fifty miles per hour, judging by the damage to the car.

Also, Sunday was my birthday. Sad to say I am now Medicare eligible, which I somehow find to be extremely disturbing.

In other updates: The hole in the street in front of the house now has concrete in it, but still lacks the top layer of asphalt. Meanwhile, the road is barely passable and as a result the garbage men apparently decided to just skip picking up my garbage Saturday morning. I got the estimate on repairing the Tulane Cycling TV ($263) which I guess isn't too bad. As I suspected, it needs a new power supply board. Hope I can get that reimbursed. Last week at the annual LAMBRA meeting I got volunteered to be LAMBRA treasurer. Townsend will be President, Dustin will be VP, and Rolando will be Secretary. Ricky will continue as the Commissioner of Officials, Robert will continue as the results uploader, and Boedi will continue as upgrade coordinator, so that all sounds pretty encouraging to me. I guess I'll register for Medicare tonight, even though I am also signed up for my regular insurance through work. I need to talk with someone in personnel about all of that, I guess. I'm not sure what I'll be doing next weekend. There's cyclocross up in Ridgeland Saturday and Sunday on a course that is probably best suited to actual cyclocross bikes, and then I'm supposed to be officiating the following weekend for the LAMBRA cyclocross championship in New Orleans. That will close out the LAMBRA calendar for 2018.

Full Winter Kit

All Chiefs, no Indians. Hopefully the street will soon be back like it was last January.

As expected, the temperature this morning was around 40°F. Fortunately I'd already dug through my bike clothes drawer and extracted the long tights and a long-sleeve jersey so I wouldn't be trying to find them in the dark among a drawer full of mostly black clothes. This would be the first day this Fall that I'd need a more or less full winter kit, which is something that means one thing if you're in Minnesota and quite another if you're in New Orleans. While the morning temperature might be described as comfortable by folks farther north, the sudden plunge we've experienced here over the past week made it feel particularly frigid. It was mostly in my head, of course, but even so, I went ahead and over-dressed. It's really no use going out and getting chilled on the first cold ride of the year. All that does is make you all that much less likely to step out the door the next morning.

Anyway, it still wasn't cold enough to need the shoe-covers or winter jacket or double-gloves, or even the wind vest. I did slip the toe-covers over my shoes, mostly because the streets were still a little wet from yesterday's unending rain. I got out the house a few minutes early, so rode into the north wind pretty slowly, arriving at Lakeshore Drive a bit after 6 am. The WeMoRi group usually gets back to Marconi around 6:10 or so, so I rode over the Bayou St. John bridge and a bit farther east before turning around and heading back toward Marconi. Despite my slow speed, when I turned onto Marconi I couldn't see any sign of the group. The eastern end of Lakeshore Drive had been closed the day before because the strong north wind from the cold front had pushed a lot of lake water onto the street. I wondered if it was still closed. When I got down to Robt. E. Lee with still no sign of the group, or for that matter any other bike rider at all, I thought that perhaps they had turned around early on Lakeshore Drive because of a road closure and I'd missed them, so I headed down Marconi in the opposite direction of the ride, figuring I'd see them approaching at some point. I got all the way down to City Park Avenue without seeing anyone, so I turned around, somewhat surprised that apparently nobody had showed up for the ride that morning. I went back to Lakeshore Drive, made the loop around the fountain, and finally saw three other riders. As it turned out, that was all there had been of the WeMoRi and I'd just missed them because they were going more slowly than usual. The weather really wasn't all that bad. I was quite comfortable the whole time.

Low expected: 38°

In fact, I was probably more comfortable than all those guys dripping sweat all over themselves riding trainers and pretending to ride their bikes on pretend courses with other pretend riders on Zwift.

When I got home I was shocked to find the Sewerage & Water Board finally getting to work on that patch of mud they left in the road in front of my house when they fixed the water line leak last January. For this section of road that I would estimate at 15 feet square they had four trucks, two bulldozers, and six people.

So Cold

The week isn't looking too great for riding. Must be November.

There is nothing that will chill you to the bone like spending the day officiating a cyclocross race, except perhaps sitting on a bench high up in a football stadium on a cold, windy evening. As it turned out, I got to do both last Saturday. I also didn't get to ride my bike.

Saturday morning I pulled on my winter long-sleeve base layer, then a fleece pullover on top of that, and laced up my waterproof cyclocross officiating boots. I guess the temperature was, maybe, forty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, but there was north wind blowing at about twenty miles per hour, and I knew that sitting at a table in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere down in Chalmette was going to get cold. I was not mistaken. There were times when it was hard to hit the right keys on the computer because my hand was so cold. Meanwhile, bike racers clad in summer skinsuits rode around us at the Swamp Otter Classic race down by the 40 Arpent Canal, which may lead you to ask, "WTF is an Arpent?" For that matter, you might also ask, "How on earth did you get trapped into being down in St. Bernard Parish, where a couple of my distant ancestors battled the British, two weekends in a row? Well, first things first...

Wikipedia says that "An arpent (French pronunciation: ​[aʁpɑ̃]) is a unit of length and a unit of area. It is a pre-metric French unit based on the Roman actus. It is used in Quebec, some areas of the United States that were part of French Louisiana, and in Mauritius and the Seychelles." So, apparently this little canal in the middle of nowhere must be old, French, and at some point around 7,680 feet long. Anyway, nowadays there a quite nice "wetlands observatory" there which, since it has bathrooms and as previously indicated is in the middle of nowhere, makes it a prime location for a cyclocross race.

Fortunately, the race went quite nicely and the ground wasn't very muddy or wet where we were, and the sun was out most of the time, so by cyclocross standards it was an exceptional day. Michelle and I officiated the racing that lasted until around 2:30, consumed a bag of leftover Halloween candy, and then I rushed back home, grabbed the ticket that Candy had left on the dining room table for me, and walked over to the Tulane football stadium where the Homecoming game was in it's first quarter. The game itself was fairly entertaining, as football goes, but after being chilled to the bone out at the 40 Arpent Canal, and then sitting motionless in the upper reaches of the stadium, I was just getting colder and colder as the game clock ticked down. By the end of the game, which came down to the last 10 seconds that weren't actually played thanks to that 10-second runoff rule, I was so cold I was shivering. It was definitely a long day by the time I got back home around 7 pm and sat down to post the cyclocross race results, and complete the post-event report. I hit the sack early because I was scheduled to officiate Sunday's cyclocross race up in Petal, MS, which is basically Hattiesburg, and thankfully only a couple of hours' drive away. I was glad that the race didn't start until 10 am because it was supposed to be around 39 degrees that morning. As it turned out, I never got uncomfortably cold on Sunday, probably thanks to the fact that the wind had died down considerably from the previous day. Even so, it was another long day of not riding. I left home around 6:30 am and got home around 6:30 pm.

This morning (Monday) the forecast looked bad, the streets were wet, but the radar looked OK, so I went out on the rain bike for a quick 20 miles on the levee before driving the car to work since I know it's going to be raining this evening. The rest of the week isn't looking too good and I think I'll probably be riding one of the WattBikes tomorrow. In fact, as I'm writing this, I got the following:

"Severe storms possible in NOLA this afternoon. A tornado watch is in effect until 7pm. Stay weather aware and review storm preparedness: ready.nola.gov/tornado"

And then, while at work on Monday, in the middle of a tornado watch and severe rainstorm, I got a call from Candy about this. By the time I walked over there I was completely soaked from the waist down since umbrellas don't work so well with horizontal rain. You know those fancy new granite curbs they installed downtown on Canal Street? They're razor-sharp, and yes, that's one of the tires I bought about a year ago when Danielle blew out two of them in a big pothole during a raging thunderstorm.

Alt-Giro to the End of the World

Quick and bad photo of the front group posing in front of the End of the Road sign -
trying to avoid pointing the camera directly into the rising sun.

I'd never done the "Tour da Parish" ride before. Now in its 3rd (I think) year, this is a charity type ride organized by St. Bernard Parish, and Howard Luna who is a council member there when he isn't surging off the front of the Giro Ride. St. Bernard parish comprises essentially the last strips of mostly dry land southeast of New Orleans that's not immediately adjacent to the Mississippi. As you might expect, the paucity of dry ground results in a similar paucity of paved roads, which in turn results in a ride featuring dead-ends and U-turns, one of which, down by Delacroix, has a big sign that reads appropriately, "End of the World." For the most part, these are not roads I'd go out of my way to ride, since they are mostly narrow 2-lane roads about six inches higher than the two bodies of water between which they are squeezed. On the other hand, if you want to see lots of shrimp boats and fishermen and duck hunters, it's like paradise.

With The Daughter in town for the week, I had wiggled my way out of officiating the weekend cyclocross races over in Baton Rouge, but hadn't conceded my local weekend morning rides. I knew that there probably wouldn't be a quorum for the Saturday Giro, since most of those guys were definitely going to be doing the Tour da Parish ride, effectively making it into the week's alt-Giro Ride. Besides, the Tulane riders were in need of another vehicle to get their riders down to "da parish."

So Saturday morning I picked up coffee, and then met up with the TUCA crew in front of "old" Bruff, and headed down to St. Bernard, arriving in plenty of time to register, pick up a number that wasn't even recorded, and head over to the road for the official start. I was careful to start near the front. I've done a few of these things before and, looking at the Giro horsepower in attendance, I knew it was going to get fast sooner or later. We were probably less than ten miles into the ride when I noticed the big guy in front of me who looked a little wobbly. I thought to myself, "that guy isn't going to be long for the front group," and starting looking for a way to move ahead of him where it seemed more safe. Just then I saw him ride straight into a big sharp pothole. Once the planet stopped shaking, I thought, "that's got to be a pinch-flat." Sure enough, a minute later he looked down at his rear tire as the last molecules of air were escaping. Then, naturally, he did what every uninitiated rider does under those circumstances. He hit the brakes in the middle of the bunch and came to a stop as about thirty riders swerved around him in various degrees of disbelief and/or surprise.

Lots of shrimp boats and crab traps down here.

Stationed mostly toward the back of the front group as it was slowly whittled down to 25 or 30 Giro riders, I found myself constantly needing to close gaps. Whoever was in front was basically attacking after every turn, so back where I was there would be a frantic 30 mph chase each and every time. At the Shell Beach U-turn, where the road changed from asphalt to rocks, the front of the group was attacking in the other direction before I even got to turn around. That resulted in a long solo chase for me. Apparently a couple of guys had ridden off the front, so the rest of the group was in chase mode, and I was trying to chase them all by my lonesome. Luckily, a couple of miles later they had to make a couple of turns and cross an old bridge, which allowed me to close the last little bit. By then I guess we were reasonably close to home. When we turned onto the 4-lane highway with only a few miles left, someone at the front put the hammer down, again chasing a couple of guys who had ridden off the front, and the whole group got strung out single-file going about 28 mph. A little while later someone a few riders ahead blew up and opened a gap, and the rider behind him didn't go around, and I knew we were in trouble. I rode up alongside and said, "Come on!" and ramped it up to 30 or so to start closing the gap. I took a long pull and then pulled over, only to find nobody there, so I ended up in no-mans-land. The group ahead was still going full-gas, so after another minute or two I knew I wasn't going to be able to close the widening gap and eased up to regroup with whatever was left of the back half of the original group. Fortunately, we were only a few miles from the end by then.

So it was actually a surprisingly fun ride despite all of the out-and-back segments, and I even got in a bit of intensity. That afternoon I spent a couple of hours taking down and cutting up a little dead tree that had fallen behind the garage, which of course means my back and arms will be sore for days.

Not Exactly High-Mileage

A nice photo by Ross Agulair

Last week was probably the lowest-mileage week I've had all year. It wasn't my fault. Honest! But I always seem to have a few of these kinds of weeks this time of year. This time it was kind of a perfect storm (pun intended). My usual Monday morning recovery ride (using the term loosely since the prior day had been rather easy as well) was followed up on Tuesday by a rain day. Tuesdays and Thursday are usually my "long ride" days on which I routinely log around 40 miles before breakfast. Luckily, on Wednesday I got in the WeMoRi before the rain resumed, but I wasn't so lucky on Thursday which turned out to be another wash-out. So I was already 80+ miles in the hole before the weekend, during which I was scheduled to officiate the LAMBRA track championships where we spend a day and a half distributing about 70 medals among about 15 riders. Not that it wasn't some good solid racing, but I just wish half of the people who I know have track bikes would show up for this event.

So anyway, on Saturday morning I picked up Gavin who was pretty much under the weather with a head cold, and made the drive up to Baton Rouge, arriving around 8 am ahead of the scheduled 9 am first race. I immediately started setting up the finish line camera and associated laptop, all of which went smoothly.

Or so I thought.

You see, a few weeks prior there had been an electrical fire at the park where the velodrome is located that resulted in cancellation of the whole weeknight series since there were no lights. As I learned on Saturday, when the park had added the rock wall and skate park and other fun things, they hadn't upgraded the electrical systems. The result was that when they turned on the lights for the BMX track, plus the lights for the Skate Park, plus the lights for the Velodrome, the main panel self-ignited. Being a municipal park, of course, getting the situation properly repaired will no doubt entail numerous sealed bids and delays and cost over-runs, with the net result being that I'm not really expecting to see lighting at the velodrome until Spring. Fortunately, all of the track events last weekend were being held during the day. Unfortunately, when I asked Dustin if the electrical outlet on the judging stand was live he confidently replied that it was. So of course I left the generator at home. So after hooking up the camera and laptop I started up the camera software and was perplexed that it didn't seem to be able to find the camera. I went around and checked all of the connections and they all looked fine. All the while I was listening to the music playing from the little p/a system that Dustin had brought. Then I finally noticed that the light on the camera transformer wasn't lit. Neither was the light on the laptop. Turned out that the p/a system had a battery, like the laptop, and that yes, the outlet was not working. Luckily, I was able to call Chris who lives in BR and he was able to bring his generator over. So after all of that, I was rather disappointed that there was never a finish that was so close that I needed the camera to resolve the winner, although there were a few sprints during the Points Race where I did go back and look at the images to confirm the placings.

Since I knew I wouldn't be able to do any of my usual long rides over the weekend, I had planned ahead and brought my track bike with me on Saturday. The plan was to get in some miles on the track during the 3-hour lunch break in the middle of the day. So when we wrapped up the first session I opened up my bag to collect my riding clothes and discovered to my dismay that although I'd brought helmet, gloves and shoes I'd neglected to bring shorts or jersey. Luckily, Elliott happened to have a spare skinsuit that fit, so my day was saved. As everyone went off to lunch I hopped onto the bike and proceeded to tick off approximately 144 laps around the track, logging around 30 miles, which somehow seemed to me to make the whole day of officiating worthwhile!

Sunday's races were concluded in the morning, so I guess I was back home around 2:30 or so. All-in-all it was a nice enough weekend. Not having electricity was still way better than having to deal with rain or cold, so no complaints there.

Change Season and Electric Pumpkins

"Ain't dere no mo!"  Saturday's northshore ride, coming over the firetower hill that doesn't have a firetower any more.

Everything seemed to be in flux last weekend. As is usually the case this time of year, which some like call "Festival Season," there was a lot going on, or not going on. Just a few of the cycling-related items on the calendar were an NOBC northshore ride, Ochsner Ironman, Tour de Jefferson, a bandit cyclocross race in the middle of nowhere, a Tulane Cycling ride, a Tulane football game, the approach of a new cold front, Halloween decorating, and a bunch of other things that didn't even make it onto my personal radar. One of the things not going on was the Sunday Giro Ride, since the Ironman course uses almost all of the Giro Ride course.

So I decided to do the NOBC northshore ride on Saturday, having mapped out a nice and reasonably hilly 75-mile route sure to find disfavor among the tri-bike crowd. I was looking forward to the terrain, but secretly hoping that the ride wouldn't turn into a hammer-fest. After all, it's almost November and time for a little change of scenery and lowering of intensity. Early that morning I stepped out the door into the warm, 100% relative humidity fog. The humidity, I had expected. The fog, not so much. Needless to say, the fog was only worse on the 24-mile long Causeway over Lake Pontchartrain. Fortunately they hadn't put restrictions on the bridge, so although it required constant attention, we didn't lose much time. Arriving at the Lee Road Ballpark we found a nice small group ready to go. Just as I'd been hoping. It was slightly cooler than mid-summer, of course, but the cold front we'd been expecting was still far away and moving at a pace that could best be described as "glacial." The ride itself was great. We had a nice steady pace, despite a few short faster segments and a brief stop at the Enon store, and we were all back to the cars before noon. That was good because I had to go to the Tulane football game at 2:00.

I'm not really a football fan. When you go through grammar school and high school as the shortest kid in the class, you don't get many opportunities to hone your football skills. In fact, you don't really get many chances to touch the football at all, and when you do get a chance, some kid twice your size slams into you. However, since we live just a few blocks from the stadium, and The Wife seems to enjoy watching the game, I just make sure my phone is fully charged before I go. So on Saturday I had just enough time to eat and shower before walking over to the stadium, which of course was when it started to rain. I think I counted 25 Tulane students in the stands. At least it wasn't hot. Up above, the long-awaited cold front was slowly approaching, kicking off a lot of rain. We didn't get through the first quarter before they stopped the game because of lightning and made everyone empty the stands and huddle underneath. The nearest lightning was at least six miles away, and I never heard so much as a single clap of thunder. Still, we were stuck there under the BigAssFan for about 45 minutes during which time I drank a hot beer. Eventually we returned to our wet seats and suffered through the game against SMU as Tulane expertly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Later that night I finally installed a new single-speed freewheel on the old commuter. I'd replaced the chain a few weeks ago and every time I put pressure on the pedals, like when climbing the overpass, I could feel it grinding. When I removed the old freewheel and looked at the teeth, they were worn down to the shape of shark fins, so the new freewheel was definitely over-due by a long shot.

On Sunday a lot of the regular Giro riders were planning on doing the Tour de Jefferson. I wasn't particularly interested in either paying the $50 entry fee or just crashing the 45-mile ride since it spent a fair amount of time meandering through Metairie. By then the cold front had pretty much arrived along with a steady 15-mph northeast wind. So I decided to instead do an easy 50 miles on the levee out to the Spillway and back. Mignon met me along the way as the last of the clouds moved out. The return trip was largely into an unrelenting head/crosswind, and since neither of us wanted to do much suffering, I think we averaged about fifteen miles per hour.

The rest of Sunday was earmarked for Halloween decorating. Every year Candy comes home with even more decorations, many of which require electricity, which leads to me spending a lot of time worrying about whether the twenty various contraptions are going to overload the single outlet supplying power and burn down the house. So this year I tapped into the one circuit that I installed myself (and therefore know it doesn't include any knob and tube wiring from the 20s or random other connections) and ran a new line to a new outlet in the basement from which I could run an extension cord under the front steps to power all that stuff in front of the house. I would have put the new outlet in a better location but didn't have enough wire on hand for that (but had miles of outdoor extension cords). After that I spent hours hanging plastic skeletons from trees and crawling around underneath the shrubbery with electric pumpkins and things while providing the local mosquito population with blood. It is not really something I enjoy doing, but by the end of the evening the four plastic bins in the living room were empty and you could probably see the orange glow of my front yard from the ISS. So other than the 20 mph wind, and the crawling around in the dirt with the bugs, Sunday was beautiful.

Meanwhile, over in Colorado Springs, Derek Brouchard-Hall, the COO of USA Cycling, rather suddenly announced he would be stepping down at the end of the year. Actually, he didn't announce it and neither did USAC. Velo-News announced it, much to the dismay of all of the Local Associations and members who had not been given any kind of heads-up. Rumor has it that Derek will be doing something else cycling-related, but that announcement hasn't come out yet. Of course that opened the floodgates for anyone and everyone looking to blame someone for the decline in traditional road racing. Just for the record, I think Derek did a great job under very difficult circumstances. Most people don't have a clue what USAC actually does, what its responsibilities are, and how hard it is for them make positive changes at the grassroots level where the ground is constantly shifting underfoot. I'm in contact with people at USAC on a weekly basis and as far as I can tell they work their butts off.

So now I come to this morning, Monday, October 22, which is the first morning this fall that I've pulled on the old arm-warmers. It was actually below 60F, just barely, when I stepped out the door into the dark for a much-needed recovery ride. My legs were sore from something. Perhaps cycling, perhaps something else, but at any rate I was not looking to do them any more harm. Unfortunately it was still pretty windy out there, so although it was slow, the ride wasn't quite as easy as I'd have liked. On the plus side, that new single-speed freewheel I installed on the old commuter felt incredibly smooth on the ride in to work!

Just a Hint

The Saturday Giro heads out into the rising sun.

Around the end of last week we had just a hint of Fall. It was nice while it lasted, which wasn't long. After an easy ride on Friday morning when the temperature was low enough to make me wonder where I'd put my arm-warmers the last time I used them back in March or April, I rolled out the door early on Saturday morning to meet the Giro Ride. It was still fairly cool Saturday morning. The Garmin reported 66F as I rode out to Starbucks in the dark, and by the time I got home a few hours later it was still only around 80.

If you get to Starbucks early enough, you get the
primo bike parking spot.

For some reason I had been expecting a rather thin crowd for the Saturday Giro. This time of year there are a lot of competing things going on. So I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of riders showing up, one of whom was Dan Bennett doing his last ride before heading back home to Tucson. Dan was wrapping up one of the first full weeks of riding he's been able to do in a while, and after getting dropped the prior weekend I think he was bound and determined to stay with the group on Saturday. Thanks to the large group, perfect temperature, complete lack of wind, and clear blue sky, the pace was pretty fast. At one point I think Dan came off the back when the speed-o-meter stuck on 30-something MPH for a bit, but luckily the group had to slow down a lot for a light and everyone was able to re-group. Dan was fine for the rest of the ride. He has been having an agonizingly slow recovery from rhabdomyolysis that almost put him into full-on kidney failure so actually he's probably progressing nicely. For someone who has been racing at a Cat. 1 level, however, a recovery period that can drag out to a good year or so is hard to handle. Anyway, I arrived home feeling like I'd gotten a pretty good workout even though there wasn't a drop of sweat clouding the inside of my glasses. Apparently then the humidity is low enough, sweat evaporates before it drips off you. Who knew?  I spent the afternoon sitting in the sun sanding, spot-priming, painting and re-painting the front steps and trimming bushes while the paint dried. That resulted is some very sore quads thanks to all of the contortions required.

On Sunday I drove across the lake with Frank and Mignon for the 72-mile NOBC northshore ride. Over at Abita Springs we found a big group of about 20 ready to go. In a couple of cases, perhaps a little bit too ready. Steve, Pat, Kenny, Fred, and a number of northshore riders who I know but don't know rolled out at 8:00.


We had made a last-minute route change in order to avoid some of Hwy 437 between Barker's Corner and the turnoff to Folsom that involved taking Million Dollar Road to Fitzgerald Church Road. I knew that route well. The only problem was that once we got onto Million Dollar Rd. there were a few riders at the front who didn't, but were pushing the pace anyway, so as we came up to the turn at about 25 mph the back half of the group started yelling that this was the turn. It was too late to hit the brakes too hard, so most of us passed the intersection before turning back. Unfortunately, the front of the group thought someone had flatted, not that they had missed the turn.

The Sunday Northshore Ride coming over the firetower hill before descending to Enon.

As we rolled slowly down Fitzgerald Church I kept looking back because I knew we were still missing a number of riders. I could see one small group coming, so assumed that was everyone. It wasn't. The very front of the group had stopped and they were waiting for what they thought was a flat tire to be fixed. To make a long story short, they finally got back on track and we waited for them at Enon for a few minutes. As usual, a few riders had already turned back and a few more would cut the ride short over the next few miles, but we still had a good-sized group for the return trip. The pace this whole time had been a little erratic but definitely fast enough that I knew we might have some casualties by the end. Somewhere after leaving Enon Fred rolled up alongside me and told me his Di2 battery was dying and he was stuck in his small chainring, which in his case is something like a 34. I think his maximum cadence for the ride turned out to be somewhere north of 150 rpm. After riding the out-and-back down infamous House Creek Road, the group was kind of split but we still had six or seven left with us for the final ten or fifteen miles back to Abita Springs. That was followed by a rather long wait for a table at the Abita Brewhouse, so I didn't get home until, I guess, around 3 pm. By then it was Summer again. I kind of spent the rest of the afternoon and evening eating and drinking anything that didn't try to escape.

It was a good weekend. Looking at Strava, I note that Sunday's ride put my 2018 mileage just over the 10,000 mile mark, so I guess I'll be around my usual 11-12,000 mile total by the end of the year.

Two Rides, Dan, Chickens, and a Hurricane

Brian and Dan riding into the morning sun on Saturday. Brian crashed last Sunday and broke his bike but
otherwise was surprisingly unharmed himself.

It was a needed weekend at home during which I planned to do much around the house but didn't. What I did get to do was ride a bit, so I the bushes that needed trimming and the stairs that needed painting will just have to wait another week, or two, or three.

Double paceline - needed skills

Saturday was the usual Giro Ride, which was usual only until we were halfway out when it wasn't usual. Dan Bennett had told me he'd be in town for his HS 30-year reunion, and sure enough he was already at Starbucks when I arrived well before the crack of dawn. Although there were a few of the usual riders who were riding the annual MS Tour last weekend, and therefore weren't at the Giro, the group on hand Saturday morning seemed to be about normal. Kaitlyn, one of the Tulane students, was there for her first Giro, which turned out to be a rather fast one. Fast enough that she apparently got dropped before we hit the I-10 overpass. For the past few weeks the service roads on both sides of I-310, that we use to get over to Chef Highway, have been barricaded off by the city. As far as I can tell, it's just because they got tired of picking up the illegally dumped trash there. We had been going around the barricades anyway. Well this morning I was surprised when the group turned the opposite direction and headed back over to Bullard, and from there to Chef Highway. Bullard is kind of a mess of broken-up concrete plus a couple of traffic signals, so not exactly ideal. Gavin went to look for Kaitlyn and took a shortcut, but by the time he figured out that she'd turned back, we already gone by, so he spent some time solo. Anyway, it was a reasonably fast Giro, considering. By the time I got home there were some rain clouds heading in our direction, so I scratched plans to paint the steps.

Slow speed bike handling drills

The jaw from which that tooth was pulled almost two weeks ago still hurts periodically. I'm due to return to the dentist on Wednesday. I'm not too happy about this whole thing, but I think I may have lost about a pound as a result of slightly less enthusiastic eating so perhaps there's a silver lining.

Sunday I drove over to Pontchatoula with one of the Tulane riders for their "skills and grills" ride. This was just some easy double paceline miles followed by some slow-speed bike handling skill practice on the grass and then a couple of hours in the back yard eating hamburgers, playing croquet, and chasing Dustin's chickens around. I think it was pretty good team-building. They have a couple of Spanish-speaking riders this year, a few women, and rider from China, so it's an interesting mix. Hopefully most will still be around when the racing starts. I think they have about ten loaner bikes and all of them are currently in use, so that's encouraging.

This morning Dan met me up on the levee for my easy Monday recover ride, not that I had much from which to recover in this case. We had a nice chat, though, and finished up with coffee at Zotz.

Michael blowing up off the Yucatan this morning.
Fortunately heading straight north.

Meanwhile down south of us in the Gulf of Mexico there a new tropical storm named Michael that is blowing up pretty fast. All of the track guidance is still taking it way to our east, so we aren't expecting anything much from it here in New Orleans, but the intensity models have been indicating it will be a pretty significant hurricane by the time it slams into the panhandle of Florida. For us, it means we'll be on the nicer western side, and therefore will ultimately be getting a northerly flow by late tomorrow and Wednesday which should cool things down a bit. Tomorrow will probably be wet, however. Right after that we're expecting a cool front to push through, so by Thursday we may be seeing low morning temperatures in the 60s for the first time in a long time. It's still not time to put away the summer clothes, of course, but I certainly wouldn't mind a couple of cooler morning rides.

Looking out my office window right now as preparations are being made at the Superdome for tonight's Saints game. I think we're supposed to be officially "off" at something like 3 pm today.