Long Mardi Gras Weekend

Thoth

By 3:00 p.m. the Friday before Mardi Gras I was probably the only person left on the 6th floor. Parades had started in earnest on Wednesday, but weather-related issues had caused some shuffling of the deck. As a result, parades were starting at 4:45 p.m. on Friday. Also as a result, all work ended at 3:00 p.m. on Friday. My regular Thursday ride had been rained out, and on Friday's morning Tulane ride it had been so windy we'd turned back almost as soon as we hit Lakeshore Drive. Fortunately, Saturday's weather was looking better.

Saturday (or Sunday?) Giro out on Chef Highway

610 Stompers at Thoth

With all of the parades and everything going on, I wasn't surprised that the weekend Giro Ride turnouts were a little on the light side, not that it made them any easier. Saturday's ride kind of came apart right after Hayne Blvd. when the three or four riders on TT bikes, among others, started really pushing the pace. Some riders had to turn back early anyway for the aforementioned reasons, so after a small contingent rode off the front the rest of us settled down into a more reasonable pace. Then on Sunday we basically repeated what had happened on Saturday. It was all fine, of course, as everyone's mind was on other things.

Floats lining up before Endymion on Saturday. Someone was run over and killed by one of them.

After getting home on Sunday, I rode over to Magazine Street and watched the Krewe of Thoth parade. It is by far the regular parade with the most "neighborhood" feel to it, with a charitable purpose, a special route that intentionally goes past hospitals and nursing homes, and lots of local high school bands. At some point on Sunday's Giro Ride, Noel had brought up the idea of doing another ride on Monday, since a lot of people, myself included, had "Lundi Gras" off from work. We decided to do a levee ride out to the Spillway, not in small part to avoid spending too much time on the roads on a workday with lots of tourists in town. That ride started out with a small group and little wind, but by the time we were 25 miles upriver at the Spillway the wind was picking up from the southeast, which made for a surprisingly hard ride back into town. I was still a little tired from the weekend Giro Rides, even though they had not been particularly hard, so I was more than happy to ease up for the last five miles and soft-pedal the rest of the way home. As expected, it rained during the night, but also as expected the weather had moved through by morning, leaving us with a pretty nice forecast for Mardi Gras.

Rex and Queen - 7 a.m. before breakfast and costumes

Tuesday morning I got up early and did a few miles on the levee before riding down to Audubon Park for the Royal Run. This is kind of a special and little-known event that has been going on now for quite a long time. The King and Queen of Rex show up in their limousines at 7 a.m., the Rex Captain says a few words, there is a toast or two (yes, there's champagne and king cake), and a short little unofficial run around the park ensues. They hand out free Rex T-shirts, and this year added something new - official Rex shoe-laces. I think this year's Queen actually runs. It will be interesting to see if that becomes a new tradition.

Along the way from uptown to the French Quarter

By 8:00 a.m. I was ready to head out to St. Charles Avenue to watch the Rex parade, although it wasn't until about 8:45 that Candy and I actually got on the bikes and headed out. We locked the bikes up with no fewer than five locks to the Sacred Heart iron fence and walked down St. Charles a few blocks to chat with Adam Watts at Marengo Street. They we went a few more blocks to say hello to Ginger and Bill in front of the Columns Hotel. We ended up watching all of Rex just across the street from them before starting our annual hike down to the French Quarter. With the temperature in the 60s, albeit without any sun, there were a lot of people in costume this year. As we walked, I watched a few people zoom by on the new electric-assist Jump Bikes. They were generally going a bit faster than I'd recommend under the circumstances. We stopped for lunch in the warehouse district before crossing Canal Street into the Quarter.

People having fun down in the French Quarter, around 3 p.m.

I walked around the French Quarter for an hour or so taking photos of people letting go and having fun, and before I knew it, it was after 4 p.m. The walk back home always seems twice as long as the walk there, and we got back to the bikes with tired feet just as it was getting dark. I guess I walked around ten miles.

This morning I was out the door just before 5:45 to ride out to the lake to meet the WeMoRi. It was windy as hell out of the north, and as I was coming down the Wisner overpass I saw the string of lights heading the other way. They had, not entirely surprisingly, decided to throw the regular route out the window in order to avoid the 30 mph wind on Lakeshore Drive and were instead doing two laps around City Park. I couldn't turn around to get in with them because of the neutral ground, so I cut across the park on Harrison past numerous abandoned Jump Bikes, turned onto Marconi, and finally got into the group as it turned from Marconi onto Robt. E. Lee to start the second lap. The pace escalated quickly with the tailwind, and after taking a couple of super-short pulls and having almost nobody come around, a couple of riders split off the front leaving the rest to mount a brief and largely ineffective chase as things rapidly unraveled. Situation normal, I guess. Afterward I stopped for a quick coffee at Starbucks before putting the wind at my back for an easy ride back home.

Auburn Cycling Classic

"Won't need this," I thought as I tossed my rain jacket aside while packing up for the Auburn Cycling Classic road trip. The forecast was calling for cool temperatures, bordering on COLD, but only a small chance of rain. I shoulda known, though.  Anyway, with weekend temperatures up in Auburn, Alabama looking like they could range from the upper 30s to the lower 60s, I had my race bag literally stuffed with a cornucopia of base layers, arm-warmers, gloves, caps, and basically one or two of everything I owned. I was in the "early" minivan, so Sean, Kaitlyn and I hit the road around 11 a.m., which made for a nice un-hurried 5+ hour drive. Somewhere slightly behind us were Dustin and Ross in a private vehicle. Later that night we were expecting the second minivan with Gavin, Julia, Arianna, and Josh.

Yeah, I wasn't really 2nd.

Saturday morning we were up early for a quick stop at the McDonald's across from the hotel before driving out to the road race course on Auburn Lakes road. It was cold, but I expected the lack of clouds would have things warmed up pretty well by the time my race started around 10:00. We got the first wave of races on the road around 8:00, so I had lots of time to make wardrobe decisions before my Masters race started.  As usual, I went for the "warm at the start, hot at the finish" option, wearing a long-sleeve base-layer underneath arm-warmers, complemented by knickers and double socks. I didn't really regret it. There were around 35 riders on the line for the start, which was great for this early-season road race because it meant I'd have lots of wheels to shelter behind, plus enough people to keep things under control. I'd done this same race twice before, and each time there were some team tactics afoot at the front over which I really had no control, or interest. This year would be no different. The race started out pretty fast, but eventually settled down a bit until about half-way through lap 3 of 5. After a few fairly sharp surges a small group of four went up the road. There must have been one or two teammates left in the pack who were blocking because after that it settled down considerably. I guess there were a few brief attacks here and there, but mostly the rest of the survivors remained together. With a few miles left in the short 40-mile race I started working my way closer to the front anticipating a big pack sprint that I definitely did not want to be behind. The last turn is about a kilo from the finish, after which it's just a long straight, slightly downhill drag race to the finish. I came around the last turn about 4th or 5th wheel and was a little surprised that there was a bit of hesitation before the front riders started to go. They always go early here because you can practically see the finish line from a kilometer out. I was on a pretty good wheel but I sensed as we got closer and closer to the finish line I was getting anxious that nobody had really jumped yet. Not wanting to risk being streamed from behind, I ended up jumping a little earlier than I'd have liked, with the result that two riders came past me before the finish, putting me in 7th overall and 3rd in the geriatric division of the master's race. Despite the chip-timing from TopView, they missed one of the riders ahead of me and initially placed me 2nd in the 45+, which wasn't corrected until after the podium pictures. Anyway, I was pretty happy with my ride since I had been mainly interested in doing a reasonably decent road sprint that day.

Meanwhile, the Tulane riders were all doing both collegiate and non-collegiate races, basically back-to-back, which was a great training opportunity. Collegiate A had a huge field of over 50 riders, where Gavin finished mid-pack. Sean, riding in his first ever road race, was in the Collegiate C race where he finished 7th, and then in the Cat. 4/5 race where he finished 24th out of 36. Julia was 19th of 29 in the collegiate A race and then 4th in the 4/5 race. Kaitlyn was 12th in the A race and 7th in the 4/5 race. Josh finished both of his races well off the back. Results are on TopView's website and still haven't posted to USAC.

By the time we left the road race the weather forecast for Sunday morning was looking worse and worse. It was definitely going to be wet and chilly, although at least it wouldn't be as cold as Saturday. I was already figuring that Dustin and I would end up skipping our non-collegiate races if it was still wet after the collegiate races ended since it would mean we'd all be there an extra three hours. That turned out to be the case. I was a little disappointed, though, because they were running the course backwards this year which created an ideal situation for me, at least under dry conditions. This course is a big rectangle with a rise up to the finish line on one long side and a brick road along the railroad tracks on the other. Turn 3 goes from the brick onto a very narrow uphill half-block road with a chunk of concrete on the outside of the turn. That's followed by a still uphill right turn and a very short, maybe 150 meters, sprint to the line. Assuming you didn't get gapped off on the long fast straights, the finish would be all about good positioning, bike handling, and acceleration. Oh well. Anyway, despite the wet roads and everything there were 49 Collegiate A riders on the line for Gavin's race in which he finished a somewhat disappointing 29th. Kaitlyn and Julia, however, had pretty good results. In the Collegiate A race Julia was 6th and Kaitlyn 16th despite Kaitlyn having to take a free lap for a flat and the official not letting me push her back in. Later, they both raced the Cat. 4/5 race where they took 1st and 2nd.  The drive back home was entirely in a light to moderate rain, but otherwise unremarkable. Since Dustin and I hadn't waited around to do the non-collegiate crits, we were back in New Orleans around 6:30 or 7:00, which was a pretty nice change from the usual midnight arrival time.

Weekend Miles

February in New Orleans

I'm sitting here at the office on February 11, looking out the window at partly cloudy skies, trying to get a handle on all I need to get done in the next few weeks. The temperature outside is a balmy 80° F, which is pretty warm even for New Orleans. The Azaleas at the house are all blooming, and I've been riding in summer kit for the past two days.

The Saturday Giro heading back onto I-510 because the service roads are still closed off by the city

Of course, it wasn't like that last week, which featured another couple of rides on wet streets and a day without a ride because of rain. So I was happy to see the weekend forecast calling for warmer weather and no rain. Saturday's Giro Ride had a smaller turnout than usual. There were a lot of options on the table last weekend - a few group rides, a gravel race in MS, and a stage race of sorts in TX.

A small Giro Ride by no means an easy Giro Ride. My plan to take it easy in anticipation of a long ride on the northshore on Sunday went out the window pretty quickly, and despite my best efforts I did a bit more work than I'd have liked under the circumstances. I was almost happy when Rob flatted right after the Goodyear sprint and everyone stopped. He was kind of lucky that a number of us stopped because his spare tube leaked and he ran out of CO2. It took a while to get him rolling again with various difficulties involving the tire, the tube(s), and the inflators. Anyway, it was a good ride and although I did a little more work than I'd planned, I wasn't shattered or anything. That would come later in the weekend.

Sunday's long northshore ride was windy and hard, so, almost perfect.

So on Sunday morning I was up early heading across the Causeway just after sunrise. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and all was good. Well, except for that big fuzzy grey glob hanging over the northshore. By the time I was across the lake and driving through Mandeville toward Covington it was foggy, damp, and about ten degrees colder than it had been on the southshore. I knew there was blue sky up above the fog - it was just a matter of how long it would take for the fog to burn off. I dressed fairly lightly for this one since I knew it would be in the 60s or even 70s by the time we finished. Like Saturday, Sunday's ride had a small group of six for the planned 77 mile ride up to State Line. This ride goes pretty much straight north, makes a little loop up by the Mississippi state line, and comes back via the back half of our standard 64-mile route. It's basically designed to get in as much rolling terrain as possible. From the start I could tell that Boyd was having a bad day, so I wasn't surprised when he said he was going to turn back at Pine. That left five of us, which on the one had was nice because everyone was on the same page and we didn't have to stop and wait for people to catch up very often. On the down side, the wind was relentlessly increasing as the ride wore on, which made the ride back south feel like a very long headwind grind. Just to twist the knife, we had decided to add a little spur to the ride on the north end in order to actually cross the imaginary border line into Mississippi, which I guess was where the smoother asphalt turned into rough asphalt. There was a really nice gradual climb on that part of old State Line Road, which I later discovered actually had a Strava Segment. Anyway, it was a long ride back into the wind and I was pretty well cooked by the time we got back to the cars at the Lee Road Ballpark with 80-something miles on the computer.

The Tulane crew up in San Marcos. No freezing rain this year!

Meanwhile, four of the Tulane riders were up at Texas State doing a collegiate race weekend. I was impressed to see that in the grueling uphill time trial on Saturday Julia got the Strava QOM by over half a minute ahead of the other 60 or so women who have done that TT, and Gavin was 3rd out of over 1,600 riders who had done it. Then, as we were starting our ride on Sunday I got a call from Dustin telling me that they had moved the criterium a few days prior and had only announced the fact via Instagram. So the Tulane riders, and some others as well, showed up at the original location to find nobody there and had to call around to find out where the race was actually going to be. Then they arrived at the new course, which was a wet parking lot, to find them marking out the course with caution tape no the ground held down with rocks, and nothing to keep cars from driving onto the course. He almost had them get back in the car and drive back to New Orleans, but ultimately they stuck it out and raced and came back with all their skin and bones intact. Next weekend I'll probably be going to Auburn for that race weekend since I at least get to ride a little road race which serves as a nice kind of warm-up for the road season. Speaking of the road season, I have three unfinished event permits floating around the USAC computer right now that I need to finalize once I come to some decisions on prizelists and such. We just got the Westbank NOLA Motorsports Park to modify the original contract they sent us so that we won't lose a thousand dollars if it rains, so I guess that race is back on track.

Ricky was over in Texas officiating the Davy Crockett "stage race" with Lane last weekend. It was kind of strange in that they (a) allowed people to race the stage race stages even if they had not ridden in the prior stage, and (b) were giving people a 30-second time bonus for riding the time trial without aero equipment. Despite having Tim and his TopView chip-timing stuff, there were still a few problems with the results. Top View did the Auburn race weekend the last couple of years, at least, and although it mostly goes fine, you can never just assume that because there's chip timing that everything will be perfect.

02022020 +20°F

Saturday's Independence Ride with the Tulane krewe

After a week of weekdays with two rained-out morning rides, I was looking forward to the weekend, even though morning temperatures would be a bit on the chilly side. Fortunately, there was a Tulane ride starting at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday up in Independence, and then on Sunday the 8:30 Northshore Winter Training Ride.

Saturday morning I was up considerably earlier than I needed to be, which gave me time to actually cook a couple of eggs for breakfast before riding over to Kaitlyn's place for a ride. By the time we got to Independence, about an hour's drive away, the sky was clear, there was a light wind, and it was still pretty cold. The forecast, however, was telling me it would be at least 20 degrees warmer by the time we finished. Naturally, I over-dressed anyway, even though I intentionally went lighter than I might have if I'd been doing a solo ride. This ride was mostly an easy to moderate speed, and I was spending a lot of time in the draft because I knew I'd be riding around 70 on the Sunday northshore ride. Still, you can draft all you want, but if there are hills involved you know that (a) you are going to have to do some work anyway, and (b) somebody's going to attack somewhere and make it hard, at least for a while. We were only a few miles into the ride when Kaitlyn's rear derailleur cable broke. It was the typical Shimano break up inside the shifter. Nobody had a multi-tool with a screwdriver, but luckily there was a crushed soda can on the side of the road and Dustin was able to use the pull-tab as a screwdriver, so we got the derailleur moved over to the 14 or something a little more manageable and rolled on. As expected the temperature quickly rose from the low 40s to the upper 60s during the course of the ride, and I got back to the car with full pockets and a very sweaty base layer. All-in-all it was still a good ride and I was a little surprised that my legs felt a bit sore later that day.

Northshore ride heading out toward Enon

Sunday's northshore ride also started at 8:30 a.m. and although it was probably a few degrees colder than it had been on Saturday when we started, it was also probably a few degrees warmer when we finished. This weekend we had a small turnout, perhaps due to it being Superbowl day. I refuse to believe that the one mile of easy gravel on the route scared anyone away. I think we had nine riders on hand for the start, and the pace was good and steady.

My favorite kind of "gravel" with very little actual gravel

I'd mapped out a new route that included some time on La. 16, Poplarhead Road, Wardline Road, Isabel Swamp Road, and a loop around the old road course on Old Military and Stafford. Although we dropped a couple of people on the fast stretches, nobody was ever more than a minute or so behind, so we never had to wait long to re-group. When we got down to the split to Hwy. 16, Todd and all but three of us decided they didn't want to ride the one mile of gravel on Isabel Swamp Road and instead went east all the way out to Sun where they could cross the Bogue Chitto bridge there. The distance would be about the same either way. So anyway, Randy, Ty and I headed down to Isabel to cross the river there. As it turned out, the unpaved section of Isabel Swamp Road was nice hard-packed fast dirt. It was arguably better than some of the paved roads.

By the time we were halfway around the old road race course I was definitely starting to feel the effects of two days of riding on roads that weren't flat. My legs were starting to hurt, but otherwise I was feeling fine. We ended up taking it pretty easy for the last fifteen miles or so.

After missing two days of riding, I was still fairly pleased with 242 miles for the week, which was maybe 30 or 40 fewer than I'd have liked. The spectacular riding weather on Saturday and Sunday definitely took the sting out of those rained-out days, though.

January 27

Meanwhile, I should note that the river is fairly high lately thanks to all the rain upriver. It's not much different that it was last year at this time, which isn't really good news. Hopefully it will have a chance to drop down before the snow up north starts to melt.