Fragile

The Sunday Giro heads out along Lakeshore Drive

"This is a fragile paceline," I thought. Up ahead, six or seven riders were trading pulls into a stiff east wind as we headed east on Chef Menteur during the Sunday Giro. Every now and then one of them would drop back down the paceline after taking a pull, and stay there, skipping pulls as other riders filled in. I was doing the same, inserting myself into the rotation when I could, but skipping more pulls than I was taking. I looked over at David and commented, "better save something for the way back." There had been a small group way off the front almost from the start, and to call what our group was doing a chase would be quite generous. We were plodding along at 22 mph, and judging from the effort required I figured we'd be pushing 30 most of the way back.

Post-Giro cool-down along the lake

Riding my second Giro of the weekend, I was still pretty tired from the prior day, and was trying to limit the damage as much as possible without squandering too much of the training opportunity. It's like walking a tightrope. As I'd predicted, the return trip down Chef Highway got fast. We were at 28-30 mph most of the way, and after one particular surge that took us up to 32 I pulled out of the paceline rather than open up too large of a gap. Fortunately, it eased up as I swung back into the draft way down the paceline near the back.

The worst roads we ride on during the Giro are Lake Forest Blvd. and Bullard Avenue. Lake Forest is old concrete, complete with big sharp cracks and sunken manhole covers. It's where Keith and I crashed last year. Unfortunately it was also a tailwind stretch today, so the pace was a bit faster than prudent. Likewise for Bullard. Somehow we all made it through the gauntlet without any pinch-flats or crashes today, so I guess we must be improving. I was pretty tired by the time I got back home, but in general I was feeling better than I thought I would after my first weekend that included any significant intensity since early March.

It was a big group for the Saturday Giro. Between these photos and Strava, contact tracing should be easy.

Saturday's Giro Ride had been pretty fast, at least until things started going wrong. We had started out with a big group of around 40 riders, and as usual it was fairly fast. As Giro Rides go, on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is full-on race mode, I'd give it around a 7.5. A few riders came over from the northshore, including Niels, Todd, Rick, and 13-year-old Peyton who seemed to be handling things quite well.

How many hands does it take to mount a tubeless tire?

Anyway, things were going along just fine until we hit the aforementioned Lake Forest Blvd. when Howard slashed his tubeless rear tire. Despite what was clearly a copious amount of sealant, the gash was way too large to seal and we ended up stopped on the side of the road for about fifteen minutes as multiple riders assisted with the messy task of dismounting and remounting the slimy tire, now with an inner tube inside, and removing the special valve, and finding a long enough extender for the 80 mm deep rims. Finally back on the road, the pace settled down nicely, but then we came upon a blockade at the Seabrook bridge and had to detour down Jourdan Road. I hadn't ridden there in a number of years but when I saw us approaching the killer railroad tracks it all came back to me vividly and I called out to everyone that they were particularly dangerous ones that had caused a number of crashes in the past. Just as I said that, of course, someone ahead of me crashed. Luckily, he was OK and started back up, but not after a brief delay as Niels was apparently fooling around with his chain.

Not rideable

He quickly caught back up and we headed over the industrial canal bridge and down onto Chef Highway. I had this stretch of Chef since there are lots of lights and traffic and debris, but it made sense to take that route back rather than head straight back to Lakeshore Drive. Then Niels stopped again. I went back to see what was going on and found him with a completely unattached small chainring. Upon further inspection we realized that he's lost ALL of his chainring bolts. How he made it over the bridge I'll never know, but at that point all we could do was send a small group to go pick up his car while he waited. Anyway, it was an eventful Giro Ride. 

Tomorrow, however, will definitely be a rest day. Just as well, actually, since I have a dentist appointment in the morning. I hate dentist appointments.

Back in the Pack, Race on the Calendar

Back to the Giro

I decided to sleep late this morning. Easing back into riding takes its toll, and I figured it was time for that little break I'd actually intended to take yesterday but didn't. Maybe I'll go out for a couple of hours later today. Following up on the Spillway ride I'd done last Saturday, I got up Sunday morning and decided it was time to get back to the Giro Ride. I knew that Sunday's ride would be easier than Saturday's had been, but I was still planning to drop off the back at some point. It still hurts a bit to push hard with the left leg, especially when accelerating or climbing, and at any rate, suddenly going from the easier gears to the big meat after nearly three months can be a recipe for tendinitis.

Heading back with Stmati and Kenneth

As the group accelerated after coming down onto Hayne Blvd. I was pleasantly surprised to find it quite manageable sitting in the draft, and I briefly contemplated staying with the group all the way out to Venetian Isles, but when the pace ramped up along Chef highway, I thought better of it and quietly slipped off the back for a few easier miles. A couple of miles before the turnaround I saw Stamati, who I'd noticed dropping off the back shortly after I, heading back, so I turned around an joined him. Soon we picked up Kenneth Legeai as well. We weren't riding particularly fast - 21 to 23 mph mostly - but it wasn't until we were on the Casino bridge that the group finally caught us. I suppose that was a good thing, considering. At any rate, the ride had gone pretty much as planned and I arrived back home without having done too much damage.

Waiting out the isolated downpour in Audubon Park

Monday was Memorial Day, and Mignon had posted a little city ride for 7:30, meeting at the entrance to Audubon Park. I went out a little early, stopping to call the Sewerage and Water Board to report a water main break 500 feet from the last water main break on Pine Street by the house that has been an unrepaired pothole for the past 18 months, and rode a couple of laps around the park first, but halfway through the second lap the sky suddenly darkened, and before I got back to the front it was pouring down rain. I hid under one of the big oak trees near the park entrance, waiting to see who might show up anyway. I could see Ty doing the same under another tree.

Fair Grinds by the Fair Grounds

The little rainstorm passed quickly and Mignon, who had been hiding under one of the shelters, arrived, along with a few others as the rain stopped. We did a nice little ride through the city, stopping at Fair Grinds along the way. I found that all of the stopping and starting was taking a toll on my left groin, however. The next day I went out and met the 6 a.m. levee ride and did the whole ride out to Ormond with them for the first time in months. By the time I got back from that I was thinking maybe I should take it easy on Wednesday, but I didn't. Instead, I went out and met up with the WeMoRi. Other than the expected difficulty climbing the overpasses, and the fact that sprinting for the finish was entirely out of the question, that went well.

Later that day I got the Race of Truth, aka LAMBRA Time Trial Championship, event permit set up with USAC, using the brand new event permitting system. We're going with an August 9 date, hoping that we won't run into any COVID-19 problems by then. Using the new system was interesting. I guess I was an unintentional beta tester for that. After I logged on and went to the new event permitting page I found a notice about five events that needed to be paid for. None were mine. All of them showed Chuck Hodge, who is at USAC, as the promoter, so my guess is that they were part of some testing he'd been doing, but at any rate they shouldn't have been showing up on my page. I sent a screen shot to Stuart Lamp so they could track down that little bug. Then I dove into the new event permit setup, with was generally a much smoother process than the old one. When I got to the page where you specify who should get "additional insured" certificates, however, I got stuck. The system wouldn't let me go to the next page, although no errors were showing. I went back and forth with Stuart a number of time trying various things, none of which worked. An hour or so later he sent me a link directly to the following page that I couldn't get to, and that worked, so at least I got to the end of the permitting process. At that point, my NOBC debit card wouldn't work and I had to use my own. Turned out the bank had just sent Mignon new cards because of some fraud we'd had recently with the account and she hadn't had a chance to get those to Pat and me. Anyway, the Time Trial is more or less ready to go. The sheriff's office has it on their calendar, and assuming we don't run into a problem with the Swamp Tour folks we should be good to go. Even if most of the current restrictions are still in place, I'm confident we can put on a TT with all of the necessary social distancing and other protocols. There just won't be a holder, and I'll be standing six feet away when starting the riders. I don't think the event is going to show up on the USAC calendar until after June 1 when the new "consolidated" calendar goes live. That will include both USAC and non-USAC cycling events, pulling listing from BikeReg and others.

So I'm still working from home, and it looks like that may not change much for a couple more months. We could go back to the office some time next month, I think, but our team is doing just fine this way, so why push it?

Easing Back Into It

Thursday morning with Pat and Dave

Well, we are almost a week into "Phase 1" re-opening, although you'd be hard-pressed to find much evidence that things aren't completely back to normal by just looking at the streets. Of course a lot of businesses are, of necessity, just easing back into it, restricting the number of people, requiring masks, etc. On the other hand, there are people out walking and riding all over the place. Near the city, the levee bike path is practically in gridlock.

Roseate Spoonbill in flight along the batture

Riding for me has been something of an exercise in pain tolerance. I think it's getting better, but the improvements are so slow they are barely perceptible on a day-to-day basis. The pelvis still hurts where it contacts the saddle, and I'm slightly disabled after I get home and try to walk around. It seems to vary from day to day. I have no idea why. I am still a little bit reluctant to ride with the larger groups for a couple of reasons, but I have to admit, it's hard to resist right now. This morning, Saturday, I woke up early and contemplated what to do. I was tempted to go meet the Giro Ride, despite the fact that I'd probably be dropped in short order, and would be taking the additional but slight risks of crashing or getting infected. Still, it took me quite a while to come to a decision. I skipped the Giro, which I suspected would be quite fast, and decided to again ride out to the Spillway. The weather here is easing into summer, and so I knew it would be pretty hot by the time I returned.

There was a bit of a south or southeast wind, which made it feel a little easier than normal as I headed up the river this morning. The water level has been dropping steadily, and some sections of the batture look pretty dry now, but there are still enough wet spots to attract wildlife. Yesterday I'd spotted an alligator swimming along one of the flooded sections, along with a couple of turtles that had inexplicably climbed up the levee. This morning I stopped to take some photos with my phone when I saw a particularly brightly colored roseate spoonbill. The photos really don't do it justice. With the river level continuing to drop I'm sure the herons will soon be hard to find, and in any case the spoonbills are always in short supply anyway. When I stopped, a rider in a Pablove kit went by, but a few miles later I caught up with him. It turned out to be Mason, who had been on the Bike Easy board in the past. We rode together the rest of the way to the spillway.

Heading back with Chip, Dom and another rider we picked up along the way

After stopping to chat for a while I turned around to head back and found a group of Hard Inc. riders, including Chip and his son-in-law whose name I think is Dom. Considering there'd be a bit of a headwind most of the way back, I decided to ride back with them. There were only a few riders taking long pulls, so I stayed toward the front and went ahead and took some pulls myself. At some point around the big dip on the way back the group split leaving just the three of us in front. I eased up for a little while to wait for the rest, but they weren't really coming. Up ahead I saw Chip and the other rider connecting up with a couple of other riders, so I went ahead and caught back up to them. Not long after that we caught another group with Steve, Mark, Charlie, Kurt, and maybe one or two others. So hopefully none of those riders I was drafting behind were shedding virus because I was definitely sucking in a lot of air. I think it must have been the hardest ride I've done since March 7th, keeping in mind that it's all relative for me. I ended up with around 54 miles and a "best 20 minute heart rate" of 146, which confirmed my perceived exertion level of slightly above "moderate." Tomorrow I'm thinking I'll meet the Sunday Giro and see how that goes. I'm not wild about riding in a big group right now, but I definitely need the motivation if I'm ever going to get back in shape.

Six Feet

I actually resorted to purchasing a bathroom scale a few days ago. Despite my best efforts, I guess I've put on an extra four or five pounds since my activity has been so limited and food has been so easily accessible 24/7. I was surprised to see it show my weight as only 32 pounds the other day. After riding today and being pretty nicely dehydrated it was down to 28, which isn't too far from what I guess my current normal should be. The only problem with that is that it is obvious that more of those pounds represent body fat, and fewer of them represent muscle mass. Still, it wasn't quite a bad as I'd feared. Maybe there's hope.

Social distanced classroom

Locally, the number of positive COVID-19 cases being reported remains pretty low, averaging around 25 per day in the city, which seems to be around 3% of those who are tested. I can only assume that the percentage of positive tests will begin to rise over the next month, but if we're lucky it will stay fairly low. What will  happen in late fall and early winter when Flu season kicks in is still anybody's guess.

The other day I spend a few hours at the Tidewater Building helping Candy mark off things on the entire floor to keep people the official six feet from each other. We went through a lot of blue masking tape. The elevators are supposed to be limited to two people. That should be interesting, but at least there aren't any SPHTM students in the building right now, and even the regular staff is still supposed to be limited to just those who need to be there, with the rest working remotely like we are.

Nature

Went out to the spillway again last Sunday. Water's coming down, finally, but the fishing's still good apparently.

I've been riding fairly consistently lately, although by no means pain-free, and if there's one silver lining to this cloud I've been under for nearly seven weeks, it's that it's been easy to take in the scenery along the river. The river level has been dropping noticeably every day lately, but there are still enough wet areas along the batture to attract a lot of wildlife, and since I don't have other riders around me like I normally would, I've been taking pictures of the birds instead. Better than nothing, I guess.

This morning I saw an eagle up on top of one of the huge power poles along the river. Yesterday I stopped to re-direct a turtle that was apparently thinking the water was better on the other side of the levee. There have been all sorts of herons, of course, plus the usual whistling ducks and wood ducks, and geese, along with the occasional raccoon and rabbit. There were even some roseate spoolbills the other day. You see a lot of nature when you're going slow.

Well, that's kind of ugly.

It's been a little difficult to push myself. Always has been when I ride alone. I've been doing short segments at slightly higher intensity, but after a few minutes it gets a little painful and I want to ease the pace and get up off the saddle for a bit. It's all rather frustrating. The current situation is like this: I get up in the morning and can feel a little pain sitting up from the ribs and especially around my sternum where no fractures were ever noted. Standing and walking, there's a mild ache from the pelvic area, but nothing too significant. Riding, I can usually find a fairly comfortable position on the saddle, but pushing hard with my left leg definitely increases the pain level, and just the pressure of sitting on the saddle for more than half an hour or so makes me want to ease up and get up off the saddle periodically. I'm more comfortable pedaling off the saddle than I was a couple of weeks ago, but it's still not quite normal.

Tomorrow I have a telemedicine dermatology check-up. I have no idea how that's going to work, but it should be interesting anyway. The other night I pulled a crown off of one of my teeth while flossing, so now I'm going to have to make a dentist appointment. He'll probably take the opportunity to tell me he wants to extract the tooth and to another implant. The last one cost me close to $4k that I haven't quite paid off yet, and took the better part of a year to complete.

USAC sent out an interesting survey the other day that looked like it was to help event promoters get a better handle on what to expect when and if they start scheduling races again. I guess the real story will be about two weeks from now when we can see what the effect of all of the easing of restrictions is. I mean, despite everyone's best efforts, it's human nature to believe what you want to believe and disregard the rest, right? Louisiana and New Orleans are officially moving to Phase 1 on Friday or Saturday, which means some limited restaurant seating, people going back to work in many cases, etc. Still no groups larger than ten, I think, but you know people are going to push the envelope. In New Orleans we got the R₀ down to some where between 0.8 and 0.9 depending on whose calculations you use, which would indicate that we're just slightly, barely, below "epidemic" status for the moment. It wouldn't take much to push us back up above 1.0, however. My office will continue to work remotely until the end of May, and then re-assess. There's little doubt that transmission and illness will increase as restrictions are lifted, it's just a matter of when and by how much.

One thing that keeps nagging me is the question of risk when riding, especially when riding with a group. I wouldn't be surprised to see a larger Giro Ride group showing up this coming weekend. I'll definitely be waiting a little longer before jumping into that, but mainly because my age puts me in a higher risk category. My thinking is that the risk of group riding is relatively low, assuming there's not somebody there who is actually symptomatic and coughing all over everyone. Of course, "low" isn't the same as "zero," but still the dose level would arguably be pretty low considering the wind and turbulence and distance, and it's unlikely that anyone with even  mild symptoms would be showing up for that particular ride. The concept of asymptomatic people wearing cloth masks made from old T-shirts seems almost pointless to me, but I guess something is better than nothing, and if it catches some percentage of the inevitable sneezes and coughs it couldn't hurt.

I expect we will be seeing a lot more people getting serological/antibody testing in the near future since a could of studies have already been launched. That should provide a little more useful information, I guess. I'd love to find out I already have antibodies. I'd hate to have to get them the hard way, however, while in the ICU.

Incremental Progress

Social distancing at the spillway. That little dot in the sky is an eagle.

This evening I took the old Orbea off of the trainer, put the saddle pack in its correct position, replaced the correct stem, repaired the broken brake cable, and hung it up on its hook in the basement. I'd been riding on the levee since the 25th and it was time to commit to the road. Progress since last week has been incremental, but perceptible. Early in the week I figured out that taking a couple of Tylenol after riding made a big difference, so that's one thing that made it feasible. Over the course of the week I started adding a little mileage each day (OK, I skipped a couple of days). Along the way I learned a couple of things. For one, I found that I had to actually think about pushing down with my left leg. If I didn't I'd find myself shifting most of the work to the other leg, almost unconsciously, and slowing down. Also, applying more balanced force on both pedals relieved some of the uncomfortable saddle pressure. So faster and slightly less painful. On the other hand, after almost two months off the bike my neck and shoulders were starting to hurt. So naturally I decided to do a longer ride this morning. I planned to ride out to Ormond and back on the levee, which would be around 40 miles.

Social Distanced Non-Drafting

Early in the ride a 3-rider group came by going just a bit faster than I. Although I wasn't really comfortable drafting on the back of the group, I found it fairly easy to up my pace by the extra half a mph and hang five or six bike lengths behind. Then, somewhere out past LaRose, Steve came up from behind, so we ended up riding all the way out to the Spillway. They just closed the spillway, but there is still a lot of water rushing through, and there were a lot of white pelicans scooping up the fish coming through the cracks. Charlie D. had called Steve so they could meet up, so we picked him up on the way back. I was definitely starting to feel the miles by the time I was ten miles from home. My neck and upper back were hurting and for the first time in a while I felt like I'd some some kind of workout, even though I barely cracked 20 mph. So I guess I'll see how I feel in the morning and make a decision about what to do. I think a shorter ride may be in order.

Meanwhile, here in New Orleans, there is clearly a lot more activity going on out there. There's more traffic out on the roads, and tons of bikes on the bike path. The local bike shops are selling bikes as fast as they can assemble them. It's kind of a problem for some people, however, because getting a bike fixed is apparently taking a lot longer than normal because the shops are all backed-up. Of course, we're still on the same stay-home order, and everyone in the grocery stores are wearing masks and standing six feet apart and everything. Restaurants are all strictly in take-out mode, and most people who still have jobs are working from home. Tulane Medical School is planning to start phasing staff back to work on the 18, I guess on the assumption that the mayor and governor will relax some of the restrictions after the 15th when the current orders expire. No word yet on the main campus.

I'm not sure if my office would be included on the 18th. Anyway, the metrics on COVID-19 in the city itself have been trending downward for almost two weeks, although most of that has been the positive tests rather than the deaths. Tulane hospital has only a few COVID-19 patients on ventilators, and some non-emergency surgeries and clinic visits. The state is trying to hold out until the 15th before easing restrictions since cases are still not leveling out in some areas. Relatively speaking, New Orleans is doing pretty good. Of course, the pressure to get the economy going is rising exponentially. There is still a very good chance we will see increasing infections and deaths as restrictions are relaxed - basically a second wave - so making plans for anything through the end of the year, at least, is still quite a guessing game.