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.