Shoeless on the Northshore

Early in the ride on Louisiana Tung Road

Last Sunday was the second Northshore Winter Ride Series ride, and as usual I didn't really know what to expect. The temperature would be in the upper 40s for the start, and although I was hoping for some sunshine to warm things up later in the morning, it never did materialize. Driving across the Causeway I could see a solid layer of high fog hovering about thirty feet up. Fortunately, that left driving conditions nice and clear, but unfortunately it also kept me from seeing the sky. As it turned out, it wouldn't have mattered because we never saw the sky anyway.

65 miles without riding shoes

Arriving at the Lee Road Ballpark, aka the St. Tammany Parish Recreation District 6 park, I was pleased to see a pretty big group on hand for the planned 65 mile ride. By the time we started, we had over twenty riders. I'd arrived a good twenty minutes early, so I took my time selecting my wardrobe for the day. I assumed it would warm up at least a little, and decided to under-dress slightly for the start. At the last minute Dustin rolled in and parked next to my car. I already had my helmet and gloves on, and he looked at me and said, "where are your shoes?"  That's when I remembered where my shoes were. They were sitting on the floor in the basement in front of a fan, which meant they weren't in my bag. I'd ridden in some rain on Friday and when I got home I'd put them there to dry out. Then Saturday was a wash-out, so I didn't ride at all. As a result, they weren't where they usually are and I completely forgot to put them in my bag. I guess it was fortunate that I was wearing running shoes rather than my slip-on leather Merrell shoes. Over the years I've shown up at rides missing a few things. Usually it's something like a pair of gloves, or socks, or even a helmet, but this was the first time I'd left my riding shoes at home. Oh, well - only one thing to do: ride in running shoes. First time for everything, I guess. As it turned out, it wasn't quite as bad as I'd expected. Naturally I couldn't respond very quickly to surges or hills, and at one point I forgot I didn't have cleats and tried to bunny-hop something. It was ugly, but at least I didn't crash.

So we were just a few miles into the ride, somewhere before the firetower hill, when Dustin dropped a glove before stopping to take off his vest and stuff it into his pocket. I turned around right after he did because I wasn't sure he realized he'd dropped the glove. The group, however, didn't stop. Then the didn't stop to wait at Enon, or at Dummyline Road. Dustin basically chased for miles, towing me and my running shoes behind, until we about caught them at the Tullos Road fork. At that point, fearing that I'd have trouble with the punchy little hills along that road, I told Dustin I would continue straight ahead and meet them when at 1072. I guess I rode a mile down 1072 when I got there before I saw them coming toward me, at which time I turned around and merged into the group as it went by. By then I was starting to feel a little more confident about the whole running shoe situation, and I didn't have much trouble the rest of the ride as long as I anticipated the climbs. As it turned out, though, I wouldn't be spending much time with the group anyway that day.

The front of the group turning into the ballpark at the end of the ride - still overcast

The top of the route has a long stretch heading east toward Bogalusa that has three nice little climbs on it. It always gets fast along there, and the group always splits, and this time was no exception. I was feeling pretty good by then and although a couple of riders got off the front for a while, the second group eventually caught them, but not after shedding a number of riders. So when we got to the end of that stretch we stopped to re-group. Most riders were only a minute or so back and soon appeared, but one rider was definitely missing. Charles and I started riding back to look for him and pace him back to the intersection. We probably rode a mile or so back and never saw him, so by then I figured he'd either turned around or taken a shortcut (the latter turned out to be correct), so we turned around and headed back to meet up with the group. Unfortunately, they'd started getting cold and decided to head out without us. When we turned onto La 60 we caught one brief glimpse of a tail light, but that was about it.

We'd been left for dead and they weren't waiting for us.

So we continued on in 2-man time trial mode, eventually picking up a couple of riders they had dropped. When the four of us got to S. Choctaw Road, we decided to take a slight short-cut by continuing down 60 to 16 to Enon, which I figured would cut out about ten minutes and should put us a bit ahead of the group at Enon. That turned out to be exactly what happened, except that the group went flying past us without warning somewhere between Enon and Firetower Hill, so we had another little chase on our hands to catch up with them.

It was a really good ride, actually, despite having to take two short-cuts and not having my cleats, and I probably did more work than I would have if I'd been with the group all day. Surprisingly, I ended up with almost the same mileage as if I'd done the whole ride with the group because I'd backtracked a few times to pick up stragglers.