Weird Weather Pattern

Thursday morning was pretty nice along the river

This irritating weather pattern continues. It seems we're stuck in some kind of "Groundhog Day" infinite weather loop where the weather gets nice around mid-week, then a cold front comes through on Saturday and it rains buckets, and then it gets unseasonably cold by Sunday morning. I mean, really, it's freaking April 16 and I rode this morning in knickers and long-sleeve jersey with base layer and a wind vest on top and I was still pretty chilly for the first 45 minutes or so.

On Thursday we had a good turnout for the 6 am morning levee ride. There's still a lot of water covering the batture, but it's considerably lower than it was a few weeks ago. The forecast for Saturday wasn't looking too good, though. They were showing a 100% chance of rain for Saturday.

That time again. I try not to go
more than 3k miles on a chain.

By Friday the city was issuing weather alerts about the approaching cold front that was expected to include heavy winds, lots of rain, and tornadoes. They cancelled all of the Saturday French Quarter Fest activities. The TV weather people were practically in a frenzy. Situation normal. So Thursday evening I decided it was time to replace my chain, since I'd gotten my 2,500 mile alert from Garmin Connect a couple of weeks earlier. This is normally a pretty quick process that I've done a LOT of times, even though I use Campi chains that require a bit of finesse with quality chain tools. Well, perhaps I was rushing, but when I went to push in the connecting pin with my trusty Park chain tool, the pin on the chain tool broke, and in the process broke the connecting pin. Crap! Nobody was going to have a spare connecting pin for an 11-speed campi chain on hand locally, and they certainly wouldn't have a replacement pin for the chain tool either. So at lunchtime on Friday I rode over to Bayou Bicycles and picked up a $22 SRAM chain to get me by until the replacement stuff arrived. Yes, I know the SRAM chains work just fine and cost less than half of what the Campi chains do. I just like the Campi chains for purely esoteric reasons. So now, it was just a matter of precisely when that cold front would be coming through on Saturday. A couple of hours one way or the other would make all the difference. Meanwhile, up in Fayetteville, the front was plowing through the middle of the Joe Martin Stage Race and would be dropping temperatures up there down into the 30s for the weekend. In the meantime, the Pro and Elite riders were treated to two days of cold and/or rain on Thursday and Friday. I was glad I wasn't there this time.

Hanging out on the riverfront listening to the music

Saturday morning I awoke early and stared at the radar and hourly forecast. It looked like we were in luck, but just barely. It would be windy, but if I could be back home before 10 am it looked like there was a reasonable chance I'd stay dry. I rode out to Starbucks wondering how many others would come to the same conclusion. Apparently many did, and we had a really good Giro Ride. By the time we were coming back down Lakeshore Drive, the western sky was getting darker and darker. Right on schedule, the rain started around 10:30 or so.

Monday's eagle

Unfortunately, the cold front kind of stalled shortly after it came through, so we had thunderstorms and rain for the rest of the day and most of Saturday night. By Sunday morning, though, the streets were dry, the air was cold, and the wind was blowing out of the WNW at 15-25 mph. Besides the Giro, there was another ride planned from the Scarsdale side of the Belle Chasse ferry landing down to Pointe a la Hache. I'd have liked to have done that one, but I was scheduled to head down to the French Quarter Fest after the Giro, and I figured that the Belle Chasse ride was going to involve a couple more hours than that. As expected, turnout for the Giro was a little thin, but not really all that bad. The wind, of course, made for a hard ride, but I was quite happy with it anyway, even if my legs were a little sore from Saturday's efforts.

Looking down from the Westin at part of the French Quarter Fest crowd

After the Giro I headed downtown where Candy had been working a conference since Thursday at the Westin. The weather was nice, but of course it was still very windy and a bit chilly. It never did really warm up much on Saturday. We hung around with Kenny and Candy and Sofia and listened to the music for a while before heading back home around mid-afternoon.

This morning the temperature was around 52, but at least the wind had died down a bit. I did my usual solo recovery ride on the levee, where I got a few photos of an eagle. I saw him again later in the ride, but he took off just as I stopped to pull out my camera. Whenever it's a chilly and clear morning you can be sure to spot eagles perched up high enjoying the sunrise. The forecast for this coming weekend?  You guessed it.  Cold front coming through on Saturday with rain. This time, though, I'll be way over in Wichita Falls with the Tulane riders for the conference championship at Midwestern State University where 15-25 mph winds are considered normal.