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.