Nice in Natchez

the group about to roll out on Saturday morning

The weather around here has been pretty unpredictable kind of the way the Space Mountain ride at Disneyworld used to be when most of it was in the dark and they let us ride it while holding onto our infant daughter. So it was with some not insignificant sense of relief that, some time around the middle of last week, I felt confident that it wouldn't rain this year for the Tulane cycling team's training camp up at the Natchez State Park, which is close to Natchez but closer the the Natchez Trace. Although I felt certain that we would remain dry, which is actually kind of rare for this particular training camp, I felt equally certain that it would be cold. Cold and dry, being orders of magnitude better than cold and wet, I went home early Friday afternoon and stuffed my bag with all of the warm cozy cycling clothes that would fit. The only thing I didn't pack was a pair of knickers since I just knew it would be too cold for that. Naturally I was wrong.

Waiting at Bruff Commons

After loading the car with my gear, plus the bike, plus a small tree saw (I was determined to have a fire in the fireplace at the cabin), I swung by Tulane to pick up Anna and Oriane who I'd be bringing with me.We got there before dark, which was nice, and as we were driving into the park we saw Dustin heading the other way on a mission to procure groceries for the weekend and pizza for the night. Remind me never to go grocery shopping with Dustin unless he's picking up the tab, by the way. So we hung out in the middle cabin of the three that would be housing 15 riders, two of which were LSU riders. It's been a joint Tulane/LSU training camp for a few years now. Finally, Dustin arrived with a stack of pizza boxes and a few hundred dollars worth of food. Since I no longer have the metabolism of a 23-year-old cyclist, I knew immediately I was in over my head. Drinks consisted of stuff I don't normally drink much of, like milk which I don't drink for reasons related to my gut microbiome's reaction to my mild but sometimes dramatic lactase insufficiency. Fortunately I had brought along a couple bottles of leftover Porter or Stout or something, along with a few cans of Coke.

Just some of the food on hand

Interestingly, the male/female ratio this year was 0.875 which may have slightly reduced the amount of pre-ride trash talk. The training camp is much more about team-building than actual training, and this year I knew that the wide range of fitness levels was going to make it impossible to keep things together for long on the rides. I decided I'd try and ride herd on the rides and try to keep from leaving any of the riders alone and exhausted out in the middle of nowhere. Besides, I'd had a pretty solid three weeks of riding and had already started slacking off earlier in the week, so an easy January weekend wasn't going to cause me any undue anxiety.

Saturday morning we decided to wait until 10:00 to start the ride, which turned out to be perfect. Although the morning temperature had been in the mid-30s, by the time we started it had warmed up considerably. If I'd packed knickers, I would have worn them. I had brought knee-warmers, which I loaned to one of the riders, so I ended up with my thermal long tights, long-sleeve base layer, long-sleeve jersey, and wind vest. The wind vest was in my pocket by the time we got out of the park four miles later. Right from the start it was easy to tell which riders were going to be having trouble staying with the group because of the hills. I think it was Anna who was riding flat pedals with running shoes since her first pair of cycling shoes hadn't come in yet. The 60+ mile route for the day would take us north on the Trace for a bit, then back down Church Road and from there west and south to Natchez via a zig-zag route that included a mile or so of dirt road. My strategy was to ride with the main group while keeping track of who lost contact, and then backtracking at the intersections to pick up the stragglers and ride with them back to the intersections where we'd regroup. That assumed, of course, that everyone would wait at the intersections to regroup, and also that I could keep track of who was behind the group, neither of which happened. We did all regroup at the old Church on Church Road, where we took a group photo.

Post-ride on Saturday - everyone inside eating

On the way to the next intersection a few riders came off the back right away. As I'd planned, I stayed with the front group to the intersection and then turned back to pick up the last rider, or at least the rider I thought was the last rider. When I saw Julia a couple of minutes back I turned around and rode back to the intersection with her. Unfortunately, neither of us realized that Anna was yet another minute or two behind her. When we got to the intersection I was a little surprised that the group hadn't waited for us, so we continued on Emerald Mound road for a mile where I was sure they would be waiting at the Indian mound site. But they weren't. No worries, though. I was really enjoying the easy pace through the countryside with Julia and knew we'd all end up in Natchez at the Steampunk coffee shop eventually, plus I had the route on my Garmin. Well after making a few turns, we got onto a road where the Garmin kept telling me to turn right, which I knew couldn't be correct. As it turned out, the route was slightly offset from the actual road, so the Garmin kept trying to get us onto the road that it thought was twenty feet to the right, but wasn't. Anyway, once the road started heading north I got worried and stopped to check the map, which I couldn't do because we had no data service out in the middle of nowhere. I decided we must be going the wrong way, so we turned around. Luckily, about 100 feet later a guy in a pickup truck off to the side of the road yelled at us that the rest of the riders had indeed gone by earlier in our original direction, so we turned around again.  A little while later I got a text from Anna asking which way she should turn since she was by herself. I assumed she was somewhere ahead of us and had been dropped by the lead group, but after calling her figured out that she had been behind us the whole time and had turned the wrong way on Emerald Mound road. I gave her directions to ride to Natchez via the Trace, which I knew would be shorter.

Anyway, we all finally got back together in Natchez and had a nice ride back to the park, which was around 15 miles. Before we got off the Trace I doubled back to pick up the three riders who were off the back but had now learned to stay together! That night Dustin made an enormous batch of RB&R from scratch, which was pretty good. I'd spent the first night with my own bed since all of the girls had wanted to stay in the same cabin, but after they had improvised some of the sleeping arrangements, one of them was more than ready to take me up on the offer of taking my bed and letting me sleep on the couch. I'd slept on those couches before and knew that I'd fit nicely and would sleep fine, which I did.

Since things had gotten so split up on Saturday we decided to shorten Sunday's ride and instead just ride straight into Natchez on the Trace, do some efforts up and down the Bluff, and then ride back. That worked out nicely. It was slightly warmer on Sunday, even though we started at 9 am instead of 10, so I was pretty over-dressed with the long tights but since it never got very fast, I was OK. As I had before, I doubled back before we got off of the Trace to pick up the last three riders who were about a mile back. We were about 100 yards from the turn off of the Trace when one of the National Forest officers stopped us to tell us rather sternly that we had to ride single-file on the Trace. I had completely forgotten about that odd rule they put in place a few years ago. Fortunately, the larger group had escaped their notice both days!

Riding up the bluff in the 39x25

All-in-all it was a really nice, relaxing weekend for me, so I was really glad I'd gone. Back at home I went through a few hundred photos, posted the nicer ones, and shifted gears to get ready for the return to reality on Monday. Although I got in a short easy ride Monday morning, I knew that Tuesday was probably not going to happen. Indeed, when I woke up the streets were wet, there was a 30 mph wind blowing, and it was supposed to start raining fifteen minutes later. A cold front blew through precisely during my usual morning ride time. Now it's clear and sunny, but still windy and cold. The low tonight is supposed to be around 36, which isn't nearly as bad as it will be north of us, and I should be able to do the WeMoRi in the morning without much of a problem.

This morning I had a dentist appointment, which included a CAT scan, to prep for an implant to replace the tooth that had to be pulled back in December. That'll end up costing a couple thousand, of course, which will be on top of the five grand in property tax I'll be sending to the city tonight so that they can keep digging holes in my street. Remember those four traffic barrels that were in front of my house since January of 2018?  Still there.

Weekend Winter Rides and Little Crashes

Saturday morning Giro heading out.

Winter training rides tend to be predictable primarily with respect to their unpredictability. On the one hand, the time-honored winter training rides offer opportunities to make new friends, have long conversations about racing past and present, and generally catch up on some of the social interaction that tends to go quickly out the window when everyone's on the rivet, legs burning, and otherwise unable to form complete sentences. On the other hand, winter group rides always bring together a much wider diversity of riders. Some are seasoned bike racers putting in early season Long Slow Distance miles, some are newer riders jumping into their first serious group rides. Others might be long-lost ex-racers trying to get back into shape and rekindle the excitement that got them on the bike in the first place. In fact, winter is probably the best time for new competitive riders,or returning riders making a comeback, to start doing the faster group rides since speeds are often a bit slower, for shorter duration, and the stronger more compulsive riders are a bit more likely to have mercy on those at the back. Sometimes they will even speak to them and offer advice. Conversation turns from powermeter stats and Strava KOMs to topics like which shoe covers are the warmest and where we'll have coffee. So anyway, it's that time of year now. You would think that the group rides would be safer with the somewhat lowered competitive drive and cold weather and bulky clothes and all.

You would be wrong.

Looking at the hourly weather forecast early Saturday morning I was pretty sure we would get the Giro Ride in without much of a problem. The temperature would be in the 50s and it would be cloudy, and we might get a little bit of spotty rain, but the real cold front wasn't going to come through until later in the day, so while Saturday morning was looking fine, Sunday was still a bit up in the air temperature-wise. Over at Starbucks I was a little surprised how many riders were on hand as we rolled out along Lakeshore Drive. As is often the case when the temperature is in the 50s, practically every possible permutation of wardrobe accessories were in play. Some riders, presumable those with young well-lubricated knee joints, were in shorts and arm-warmers. Others, like me, in knickers and arm-warmers and various base layers. The occasional rider was in long tights. None were uncomfortable. As usual, the pace ramped up quickly when we hit Hayne Blvd. I knew there were four or five guys at the front who were looking for a workout, so I was trying to be attentive to any gaps that might open while also avoiding the infamous line of manhole cover cracks on the road. Turning right at the end of Hayne I made an effort to move closer to the front as we came into a bit of a headwind and things got a little strung out. We came over the I-10 overpass and down onto I-510 at only 25 or 26 mph, which was pretty normal, if not slow, for that little downhill. This is where the group has to cross two lanes of interstate traffic that is turning off of I-10 and onto 1-510, so that we can get into the exit lane. It's always a little dangerous here and numerous riders, including myself, will be looking out for cars and calling out if it's clear or not. That day is was clear and there was no need to slow down at all. The problem, however, was that the road there has just recently received a nice new asphalt overlay, but the shoulder hasn't. That leaves a two or three-inch drop-off at the edge of the lane. Well, as riders were crossing the two lanes to the right and then curving back to the left to line up with the lane, a couple of them overshot and caught that edge. I was ahead of that, chasing a group that already had a little gap, and at first all we heard was someone screaming something. We all figured it was just a flat and continued on a bit until we were off of the interstate. That's when we found out that two or three riders had crashed. The front group was already up the road, but the rest of us waited or turned around to assist, riding carefully the wrong way on the shoulder. By the time we got back to the crash site there was already a little group riding back, nobody was on the ground, and a couple of the riders who had crashed were heading our way ready to continue. So it was all good and we pacelined out to Venetian Isles, turning around to meet back up with the front group that was, I'm sure, disappointed to discover that they hadn't actually dropped all of us. There was another little surge on Hayne as we got a few drops of rain.

Sunday, somewhere near Bogalusa

Sunday morning we had an NOBC Northshore Ride scheduled and the weather over there was as cold and overcast as predicted. I think it was right around 40 when we started (my Garmin always seems to show a couple of degrees colder), and there was a pretty significant northwest wind blowing. On the way over I had been thinking that there might be only three or four other riders, considering the weather and the fact that there was a big Saints game that afternoon, so I was quite surprised to find maybe twenty people ready to go at 8:00. As usual, there was a pretty good mix of riders on hand. A few were hoping for a nice easy 63 miles in the country, most were hoping for a moderately challenging workout, maybe a couple were looking for something harder. We had mapped out both an "A" route and a slightly shorter "B" route, and a few people had planned to turn back early anyway, so by the time we were on Choctaw Road the group was down to about a dozen. Dustin had convinced Kaitlyn to ride, although she really didn't have the miles in her legs yet and had just gotten back in town for the Spring semester the day before. She had a pretty hard ride, coming off the back every time the pace heated up. Fortunately, everyone was fine waiting for the two or three riders off the back to regroup at the intersections, and most of the time they were only a minute or so back, so that was fine. I put in a little effort on the back stretch as usual when Dustin kind of attacked one of the little hills and rode off the front. Three of us came together after that and mounted a bit of a chase, although the best we could do was maintain the gap which was probably around 45 seconds or so.

After we regrouped and made the turn near Bogalusa to start heading back, everyone was in a nice long paceline rolling down Hwy 60 when all of a sudden riders are going down right in front of me. Jaro's head was sliding across the ground in front of me as I swerved hard to keep from plowing into it. In fact, my front wheel brushed his helmet, but luckily it wasn't enough to take me down. I think three riders hit the ground on that one. Fortunately the car that had been behind us stopped and waited patiently while we picked everything up off the road. I'm sure they had some good stories to tell at church that day. Although it might have been much worse, everyone involved was back on their bikes quickly, and whatever injuries there might have been must have been fairly minor. The only evidence of a crash could see were some tears in some shorts and Jaro's slightly twisted handlebars. Anyway, by the time we got to South Choctaw Road, maybe twelve or fifteen miles from the end of the ride, it was clear that Kaitlyn was running on fumes and a couple others were getting near the ends of their ropes as well. Between intersections the group would split, then we'd wait to regroup, then we'd repeat. All this time the sky was dark and the temperature wasn't rising at all, so some of us were starting to get pretty cold from the sweat generated earlier in the ride.

Afterwards a few of us stopped at McAllister's for some badly needed food. Even after sitting in the relatively warm eatery and consuming a nice helping of hot mashed potatoes, I was still feeling pretty chilled when I got back into the car for the drive across the Causeway. I cranked the thermostat up to 75 degrees, set the cruise control at 65, and tuned in to "60s on 6" on the satellite radio, gradually getting my core temperature back to almost normal by the time I got home. 

Winter rides.  Gotta love 'em.

Back to It

Sunday northshore ride - 20 degrees warmer by the time we finished

It was "back to work" on Wednesday, but not until after heading out for the 5:45 am WeMoRi. Outside, the streets were wet and it was foggy and chilly, and I wondered how many might actually show up at the lakefront. Although the thought of staying in bed definitely crossed my mind, I went out anyway, reluctant to throw in the towel quite so early in the new year. I was running just a little bit later than usual so when I got to Lakeshore Drive I turned west, expecting to be swept up by the group at any minute, but the minutes passed and passed and still no group. I figured I must have missed them, so rode back to Wisner, cutting across the City Park loop at Filmore and then turning left so that I'd meet the group as it came up Marconi. I rode all the way to I-610 and still no sign of the group, so I turned around and wondered if perhaps nobody had showed up at all. I was already wet so I went back to Lakeshore Drive and somewhere around Bayou St. John finally met up with a trio of riders that, as it turned out, was pretty much the entire WeMoRi that day. Someone's pedal had come off at the start, so they were running way behind schedule, and as I was riding around searching for them I somehow managed to miss them entirely. Thursday morning's situation wasn't much better, and I ended up with a shortened levee ride then as well.

As bad as the weather had been for a solid week and a half, it was finally looking to be improving for the weekend, so we scheduled an NOBC Northshore Ride for Sunday. I rode the Saturday Giro, which was pretty much a typical winter Giro with a few fast sections and a few slower sections. I'd put on a new chain the prior Thursday, and was quite happy to have done so early enough that there was no skipping on the older cassette. I changed it at around 2,800 miles, which seems to be about the limit for me. If I let it go much more than that it's almost guaranteed that I'll be buying a new cassette too.

S. Choctaw Road

So Sunday morning I met up with Randy Holmes who is back in New Orleans. Randy started racing back when he was about 14 years old, around the same time as I, but hadn't really lived in the city for a long time. He was anxious to see how much things had changed on the northshore. Anyway, when we arrived at the Lee Road ballpark there was a nice turnout of maybe fifteen or so on hand. It was pretty chilly, but the sky was clear and we were expecting the temperature to rise by about twenty degrees by the time we finished the planned 63 mile ride. I'd be trying out the route function on my new Garmin 520, and although I pushed a number of wrong buttons, I did get it working nicely, not that I needed it much on a route that I'd mapped out myself.

The weather on Sunday was practically perfect for riding. Temperatures in the 50s and 60s, minimal winds, clear blue sky, and just the right size group. We stopped a number of times to re-group at intersections, which allowed for a couple of fast segments for those who were interested. Noel it getting ready for a trip to Cuba where he's planning on doing some fast group rides and perhaps a race, so he was doing a fair amount of work at the front. I was feeling fairly good and really enjoyed the faster parts of the ride, especially the little climbs. Scott G was on the ride trying to get back in shape, and by the time we were halfway through he was already struggling. When we got to Choctaw Road he took the shorter route to Enon where we re-grouped, but by then his legs were toast. Once we turned onto Tung Road I told Steve I was going to backtrack and pick him up. Steve did the same. By then he was pretty far back and definitely in limp mode, but fortunately only about four miles from the end. Even at 15 mph he'd immediately come off of my wheel on the slightest of inclines. I'd look back and be surprised how far back he would be. But I knew exactly how he felt because I've been right there on more than one occasion. Anyway, it was a really nice ride that day.

The weather on Monday and Tuesday was still pretty nice, although it was quite foggy and fairly windy on the levee Tuesday morning. We just had a few people show up, so we turned around at the Big Dip which I guess was OK under the circumstances. I was definitely still feeling the effects of Sunday's rolling terrain. This morning I went out to meet the WeMoRi, and once again my timing was less than perfect. Riding along Lakeshore Drive in a strong double-digit northeast wind looking for the group I saw a lone rider going pretty fast, but there were no lights behind him. I turned around and followed, but it wasn't until I was on Robert E. Lee until a 4-rider break caught me. I latched onto that because, looking back, I could tell that the rest of the group was way behind. We turned onto Wisner and picked up a pretty good bit of tailwind. I was sitting on the back of the rotation trying to come to terms with the dramatic increase in effort, and was finally starting to come around when we hit the Wisner overpass. Naturally there was a surge there, which wasn't much of a problem, but coming over the top someone at the front really put the hammer down. I was behind Rob who was on his track bike, and about halfway down the overpass a gap started to open. Rob was maxed out in whatever fixed gear he was riding and I'd guess he probably hit something around 200 RPM for a while there, but it wasn't enough as we were going close to 39 mph by the bottom. I finally, and reluctantly, came around him since it didn't look like the pace was going to ease off, and with great effort finally closed the gap, but it didn't last long. Just after I finally got a wheel we went around the corner onto City Park Avenue and there was another surge. I made a very brief effort before blowing up. I knew Rob would be heading straight home from there, so I was on my own most of the way down Marconi until the next group finally caught me. By then the 3-rider break was a good minute plus up the road. Behind us there was yet another little group as well. I guess the crosswind on Lakeshore Drive must have shattered everything on the way out. Anyway, at least I had a nice tailwind all the way home.

Tonight winter will be returning and by morning it's supposed to be 42° F with another cold front coming through on Saturday. Still, we're not expecting anything much below that for the next ten days, and some lows will be in the mid-50s, so I really can't complain. Things don't get uncomfortable on the bike until it gets down into the mid-30s, really.

Rainy Restart

Most of the group at the Spillway. There was a second group a couple of minutes back.

The plan was to do a nice 50-mile ride out to the spillway to kick off the new year. The forecast was looking better than it had been for days, lots of people were interested, the temperature would be in the 60s, and we wouldn't be starting until 8:30 am. What more could you ask, right?

Shiny roads

I woke up a couple of times in the early morning to hear rain outside. Actually, what I mostly heard was the stream of water pouring down from the broken gutter just above my bedroom window, but at any rate, it was not what I'd been led to expect by the National Weather Service, aka weather.com. By 7 am the text messaging started. Looking at the radar, I was sure that the line of rain that was barely moving to the east would be past us by 9:30, so I sent out emails and FB posts pushing the start time back by an hour. Around 8:30 I found out that a number of people hadn't gotten the message before riding down to Z'otz on Oak Street where we were to meet. A little while later it started raining again and the radar started looking worse rather than better. Well, like me a lot of riders were determined to get in a ride on New Year's Day, come hell or high water. I left the house around 9:00 and when I got to Z'otz  few minutes later I was a little surprised to see a half-dozen riders huddled under the sidewalk awning waiting for the ride to start. I stuffed my raincoat into my pocket and went inside to get a cup of coffee, and then sat down in my usual spot outside to wait for whoever else might show up, which was basically Pat by that time. It was still raining and I wouldn't have been surprised if a number of riders had just called it a day at that point and headed home, but as it turned out everyone mounted up and headed out on Oak Street in the rain for what promised to be a rather soggy start to 2019.

We soon picked up Mignon and Mark and a few others up on the levee, and before long the pace started to pick up. Howard went to the front and upped the pace a couple mph, which split the group, and we didn't really all come back together until around the Big Dip, despite some slow-downs to negotiate the leftover piles fireworks that were littering the bike path.

Clean Slate

It was one of those rides where it was sometimes actually raining, sometimes not, but always wet because of the wheel spray. The pace was kind of erratic as there were a few riders determined to get in a workout, a few more determined not to get dropped, and a few others who didn't care one way or the other. In a way it was rather fun. If it had been colder I would have been absolutely miserable, but fortunately I'd over-dressed with the expectation of being wet. Over-dressing when the temperature is in the 60s means wearing an old jersey under your regular one and pulling on the arm-warmers. So I was never really cold except for a few minutes after we stopped to take a documentary photo at the spillway.

So once again I am re-starting with a clean slate. Last year's miles are just a matter of history now and a new year of riding has started. In the rain. With friends. I am taking it as an omen of a good 2019 that despite riding in the rain for three hours, nobody had a flat!