One of *those* Giro Rides

Back in the group on Chef

According to Strava, I must be more or less back to where I was last February. It was a pretty deep hole I had to dig myself out of, and I don't actually feel like I'm quite back where I was yet, but I guess it's close enough.

I kind of had to think twice about going out to the Giro today. COVID-19 cases are on the rise, although not quite so much here in New Orleans as elsewhere (yet). Anyway, I left a little early and had a nice relatively cool ride out to Starbucks, if you call 80°F and 95% humidity cool. Around 6:45 riders started arriving as usual and the group rolled out along Marconi under a hazy sky. The Peake guys were out with their new jerseys and sponsorship, and with all of the pent-up energy I figured it was going to get fast.

It did.

Sort of back where I was at the beginning of February ... theoretically.

I was only halfway down the casino bridge when I looked ahead and saw a couple of riders already on Hayne Blvd. going probably 35 mph, attacking. "This is bad," I thought. Basically, the group split before everyone was off the bridge. Most of the group was in the second part with me, and we were just getting re-organized when we started rolling right through patches of broken glass and nasty drippings from the garbage truck that had just gone by. Sure enough, both Woody and Charles flatted. I turned back to help, along with a couple others. We ended up taking the Bullard shortcut, but we were still a couple of minutes behind the group when we got back on course.

Brett flatted, Rob crashed when he turned around to help

We were a couple of miles before the turnaround when we saw Matt and Todd coming toward us. The odd thing was, Matt's bike was missing its saddle, which was stuffed into his pocket. Apparently the bolt had stripped somewhere around the turnaround. Anyway, we soon saw the group coming and made a U-turn to get back in. By then I guess things had settled down a bit and it was pretty easy to stay with the group. For some reason there was another little split around Lake Forest Blvd, so we ended up going a lot faster than we should have down Bullard until it all came back together.

The speed picked up again on Hayne, at least until Brett nailed that big hole in the concrete right after Read Blvd and flatted. Again, a few of us stopped while he fixed it. Oh well, not quite the workout I'd been expecting.

The not quite current situation in NOLA - no numbers for today.
I'm sure they'll all be lumped together as tomorrow's number

After I got home I went to check on today's COVID numbers on the Louisiana Department of Health website and, damnit, found that once again they just decided not to post anything today because they were expecting a power outage in their building. Really??  Middle of a pandemic and you can't figure out a way to update the numbers everyone is using for tracking the pandemic some other way?

Back to the Northshore

Sunday morning on Old Military Road.

Still improving, but not there quite yet. Following up on a fairly solid week of riding, someone, Pat I think, suggested a northshore ride for last Sunday. I thought, "maybe it's time." Granted, I'm still a little ouchy about getting out of the saddle to climb even the overpasses around here, but it's definitely less ouchy than it was a couple of weeks ago. I knew there would be a handful of other riders who might be interested in doing a fairly easy sixty-something mile ride, so we sent out the announcement and hoped for the best.

The Saturday Giro Ride rolling out along Lakeshore Drive

On Saturday I went out to ride the Giro. The weather is starting to resemble Summer around here, and I figured it would be a pretty fast one. Fortunately it wasn't very windy and there were plenty of wheels to follow. Even sitting on wheels most of the time, I still got a pretty good workout. At least Strava thought so, tagging it as "Historic Relative Effort," which it definitely wasn't unless history only goes back three months, in which case it definitely was. Anyway, on the way back, coming down Lake Forest Blvd. where I had that crash last year with Keith when he hit that big old semi-circular uneven crack and seam in the concrete around the manhole cover, two riders plowed right over the thing once again. This time nobody went down, but they both pinch-flatted. One was Steve. A few of us stopped to assist, and then rode in the rest of the way. I got home feeling pretty hot and tired but without any residual groin pain. I think this was the first weekend that it hasn't been much of a problem. I do still feel like I lack some power, especially with my left leg, but it's nothing dramatic.

Coming down the firetower hill toward Enon

So Sunday morning I headed out across the lake to meet up with a few others at the Abita Springs trailhead. It was the first time I'd been across the lake since the crash in early March and I was looking forward to a nice controlled ride in the country. I'd mapped out a nice little 63-mile route that wasn't too hilly and included Old Military Road and North Factory Road, and a little loop north of Enon. We started with maybe seven or eight riders, and as we rolled out I noticed how cool the air felt. The ride went well and we stayed in the 20-22 mph range I guess, so a lot of zone 2. Mark and Mignon split off after the firetower hill on the way back in order to avoid the part of the ride that was on Hwy 40, but I really wanted to ride Factory Road, so the rest of us stuck with the original plan. As it turned out, there wasn't much traffic on 40 at all. Despite the relatively easy pace, by the time we got back to Abita Springs I was definitely feeling my legs. All those little hills add up, I guess. The usual Sunday arts and crafts thing was going on at the Gazebo and there were a lot of people hanging out around the Abita Brew Pub. I walked over to a little trailer that was selling shaved ice and got a big cup of fresh lemonade for the drive home.

Mark, Mignon, and Randy

So the week came in at 286 miles, which is probably the longest in months for me, although not by too much. I have a pretty solid six weeks of significant riding under my belt now, preceded by another four weeks of gradual increase after spending a month of so completely off the bike while bones healed. It seems like it's been forever, but I guess the recovery is actually going as well as could possibly be expected. It's actually been 15 weeks since the accident, during which time I've logged a little under 2,000 miles. Of course I'm still running over a thousand miles short of normal, but under the circumstances I can't complain.

Week's End

Tuesday on the levee

It has always seemed strange to me that the official start of the new week is on Sunday when, for most all practical purposes, it really starts on Monday. In tracking my training miles I always consider Monday through Sunday as the weekly total, especially since the bulk of the miles tend to come on the weekend. If the week starts on Sunday, why do we call Saturday and Sunday the "weekend?" But I digress.

Thursday on the levee

On Wednesday morning I was up early for the WeMoRi, but as I was getting ready, I guess around 5:20 or so, I thought I heard thunder. A quick check of the radar showed an approaching cool front and it was obvious that it would be raining within an hour or so. I was already dressed, so I figured I'd roll out anyway and maybe get in a few miles before the rain. It was optimistic. And doomed. Within three blocks from home it started to rain and I logged a whole 1.5 miles for the morning. Out at the lakefront a number of riders had actually ridden most or all of the ride. Yeah, the got wet. On the plus side, I was able to get out that evening for a quick spin on the levee, so the day wasn't a complete loss, riding-wise.

This weekend was another back-to-back Giro Ride weekend. I guess I'm feeling a little better each week, and the Giro has served as a good benchmark. By Saturday the drier air that had rolled in with Wednesday's cool front was already gone, leaving a mostly easterly wind for Saturday's ride. By the time we left Starbucks at 7 a.m. there was a pretty big group so I was prepared for a fast ride. Things were pretty steady on Hayne, but after we made the turn onto Paris Road and picked up a little tailwind a small group split off the front. The rest of the group didn't seem to feel much urgency about chasing, so the break rode off into the distance as the rest of the big group just motored at a pretty steady pace. On the way back down Chef the tailwind kept the speed high but it wasn't hard to sit in the paceline. As the pace ramped up for the Goodyear Sign sprint, though, someone opened up a big gap, I guess expecting that the front of the group would ease up after sprinting. It didn't. Not.at.all. I ended up with one or two others chasing the front half of the group but never making up any ground on it. It was still a good workout, though. A lot of riders ended up off the back in little groups of ones and twos, including Jaden who was on his gravel bike with 38 mm tires and I think a 45 tooth chainring which didn't provide quite enough gear for some of the sustained 30+ mph stretches. I got back home pretty hot and sweaty. Summer is here for sure.

Sunday's ride was easier, which was good because I was still pretty tired from Saturday's ride, not to mention the excessive amount of wine I'd had Saturday night when a couple of the neighbors came over. As sometimes happens when the speeds aren't super-fast, sitting near the tail end of the long paceline was a little stressful because the speed kept fluctuating. It was a constant cycle of tiny sprints to close gaps followed by coasting and bunching up again. It got pretty fast on the way back down Chef, with the speed touching 35 mph around the Goodyear sprint where Mike Williams almost plowed into the group from behind as everyone hit the brakes at the red light because a car was coming. I thought for sure he was going down as the rear wheel on his TT bike locked up and skidded sideways, but somehow he stayed upright. Anyway, I spent most of the ride at the back.

I'm still a little uncomfortable when I have to stand up and accelerate, but it's a bit better than it was last week, so that's something I guess. My biggest problem today was actually my neck, which was really hurting by the time we were halfway back. I rode all weekend on my race wheels. The way things have been going, I might not get to do another race this year at all, so I figured, why not? The forecast for next week is basically hot and dry with a very small chance of afternoon showers. There are some races being scheduled, but of course nothing is certain any more. One thing is certain, however. There are a lot of riders who are in good shape right now.

So I ended the week with about 250 miles, which is what I generally consider to be a solid week of riding. Last week was a little short at 212 because of the tropical storm weather. The week before that was 270 and the week before that was 250. That makes for a four-week total of just under 1,000 miles, so although I guess my power output is still lagging a little bit, at least I'm back on track mileage-wise. Speaking of mileage, I noticed the other day that my "lifetime" Strava mileage total is approaching 100,000 miles. I'll probably hit that around the end of July, I guess, since I'm at 99,071 now. I started using Strava in early 2012. I remember when I "rolled over" my Campi computer some years back, hitting 100,000 miles toward the end of a Giro Ride. At that point it started over at zero since I couldn't handle anything over 100,000. This year I'm behind my usual mileage by a couple of thousand because of the crash and resulting time off of the bike. I had a full month completely off the bike, and then another month of short rides on the trainer. It wasn't until May that I was consistently back on the road.

Phase 2

Love this photo that Kenny took this morning

Back on the bike after two days of sitting around looking at the rain and wind, and feeling at least a little bit recovered but also a little bit fatter. We were missing a couple of people this morning for the 6 am ride, but then Kenny Bell showed up, and down by the turnaround so did Steve J. Stepping out the door at 5:45 am was like opening the door to a sauna. When I went to turn on my tail light, nothing happened. As it turned out, water had gotten into it on Saturday and discharged the battery. At least that's what I hope happened. I have it drying out today and hopefully it will be able to be recharged tonight. The tropical storm had left us with a steady and fully saturated southeast wind. Fortunately it was blowing at something under 10 mph, so didn't cause any undue pain and suffering. It also seemed that nobody wanted to go very hard today, either. For some reason I felt better riding back into the wind than I had going the other direction. Apparently I need a 45-minute warm-up nowadays.

New Orleans, Jefferson, etc. are in Region 1

So the Mayor is set to announce that the city will move to Phase 2 on Friday. Frankly, it probably won't matter much because the people seem to have moved to Phase 2 psychologically a couple of weeks ago. It remains to be seen whether there will be a surge in COVID-19 cases. From what I have seen, it is impossible to see any significant increase that might have resulted from Memorial Day gatherings, so that's good I guess. Tulane's football team is supposed to be returning to campus next week, followed a week later by some of the other athletics teams. Candy's been working at her office downtown a few times a week, and I think they're supposed to all get tested for SARS-CoV-2 pretty soon. The school wants to test everybody who comes onto the main campus, and just got a $1 million gift to help pay for that. They are getting some additional equipment for the molecular pathology lab that should, I think, more than double the number of daily tests they can process. So for the record, here's what Phase 2 restrictions look like:

• Businesses reopened at 25% can move to 50% capacity with social distancing/face coverings. That includes restaurants, bars with food permits and museums.
• Bars can reopen at 25% capacity
• Outdoor pools will be also be allowed to reopen with proper social distancing.
• Houses of worship can operate at 50% capacity or 250 people (whichever is less)
• Movie Theaters can reopen at 50% capacity or 250 people (whichever is less)
• Gaming establishments (casinos, video poker) operate at 25% capacity. This is for Harrah’s, fair grounds, etc.
• Weddings, funerals, other gatherings limited to 100 people with one crowd control officer per 50 people (mandated by state fire marshal)
• All indoor live entertainment, festivals, fairs, amusement parks, concert halls and music venues will remain closed.

I've been tracking the 5-day rolling average of the ratio of positive tests to total tests in Orleans Parish, and it's been steady or declining for a couple of weeks. Of course, the problem there is that the populations that are being tested are changing. Initially, when there were lots of people getting really sick and dying, they weren't testing anyone who didn't show symptoms. Now I think they're testing pretty much anybody who shows up, so that would tend to decrease the proportion of positive tests to total tests, even if the level of virus circulating in the population wasn't decreasing. Still, throughout all of this there have been only a handful of people I know personally who have gotten sick with this virus. Of course I don't know a whole lot of people, so there's that. There is still no great therapeutic solution for people with this virus, although a few are in trials now, so I'd still rather not get it. Practically all of my social interaction has been on training rides, where I hope the risk is relatively low since we're generally outside in turbulent air, and sick people don't show up for group training rides. At any rate, should someone turn up sick it will be easy to do contact tracing with Strava's Flyby function!  We are starting to narrow down the possible dates for the Tour de La, and I guess it's down to either the last weekend in August or an early weekend in October if we want to avoid conflicts with other events that people are planning/hoping to attend.

A Day Off, A Disappointing Storm

Maybe time for a day off

Saturday morning I rode out to Starbucks to meet the Giro Ride knowing I wouldn't be riding on Sunday. Since Thursday I'd been kind of tired on the bike and I knew it was time for a break. Also, the approaching Tropical Storm Cristobal guaranteed that Sunday would be nothing but wind and rain, complete with a chance of local flooding, and besides, they were already starting to close the floodgates on Lakeshore Drive by late Saturday morning. I'd done a super-easy Friday ride, hoping for some recovery to materialize in time for the Giro. It might have been enough except for two things. The first thing was a pretty significant east wind. The second thing was the 4D team that showed up in order to make it a race, or maybe a team time trial. Looking around the Starbucks parking lot at the riders who were arriving, as I finished up my pre-ordered iced coffee (Phase 1 protocol), I told the person next to me, "You'd better fasten your seat belt today!" The warning was really more for myself than for anyone else.

Despite all of the race-deprived horsepower in attendance, I was hoping that the headwind going out on Hayne Blvd. would keep things in check and make it relatively easy to sit in the middle of the big group. That's how it usually works. So we come down the Casino bridge onto Hayne and immediately the group strings out into a long thin line. A minute later I look down to see we're going 30 mph into a headwind, my heart rate is up into the mid-160s, and I'm barely holding onto the wheel in front of me. I suspected the pace would stay that way all the way, and decided it would be better to live and fight another day than to risk doing a lot of damage, so I dropped out of the paceline right at the same time Dave did. We eased back down to the low 20s to recover a bit and I suggested we take the Bullard short-cut so we'd be able to get back into the group on Chef. With the wind mostly southeast, we were still working fairly hard all the way down Bullard to Chef, but it worked out perfectly. We met up with the group right around Michoud Blvd. and easily slipped into the paceline. By then a little of the group's adrenaline had worn off and the pace was down to a more manageable 25-28 mph. The ride back was fast, of course, thanks to the tailwind, and despite the clear breech of protocol when the 4D riders, who had actually had a car meet them at the turnaround with refreshments (So Pro, you know), went flying by along the stretch where we usually take it easy in order to let everyone regroup. Basically, there was a bit of a chase to get everyone back together. The group averaged about 30 mph for most of the return stretch on Chef. It slowed down a little bit for Lake Forest and Bullard, but once we hit Hayne again we were quickly back up to around 30.

There's this new jagged hole in the concrete about halfway between Read Blvd. and Crowder Rd., and Brian nailed it solid somewhere ahead of me. I saw him coming backwards through the group on the flat and turned around to lend a hand in case he needed it, since nobody else even slowed down. It was just as well. I'm still not quite up to sprinting up overpasses, and besides, we had a nice conversation about our various orthopedic injuries and recovery times.

So this tropical storm has me stuck inside today. The damaging winds and street flooding have not happened around here, so I guess that's good. I noticed that Jaden went out Strava KOM-hunting when the winds were still fairly strong, picking up a couple of KOMs on Almonaster and the climb up the bridge over the industrial canal on Chef. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 situation in the city still seems to be improving. I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen the slightest effect from Memorial day, or for that matter the fact that people have been steadily getting out and about more and more. We're technically still in Phase 1, which means the bars are closed and the restaurants that are open have extremely limited and spaced-out seating. We're wearing masks in public places, especially grocery stores and places like that, but the general feeling is a very far way away from "lockdown."

The other day I went over to GNO Cyclery where I had a gift certificate and had them order me a Bontrager Ballista helmet. I went with the Small size, sight-unseen, just hoping it will not be too small. According to my head diameter it should fit, but I'm always right in-between the small and medium size ranges so it's a bit of a gamble. On the plus side, it's a relatively inexpensive helmet, as aero racing helmets go, which is to say it's still expensive but not crazy expensive. The Giro I was wearing when I crashed has a tiny little crack in the back, and is otherwise getting kind of beat up, but not to the point where I feel it is unsafe.

Speaking of helmets, I found out yesterday that Connor Juban, who raced with the LSU cycling team (he was the president) had a very bad crash up in Tennessee where he moved after graduation. From what I gather, he was out on a solo training ride going downhill at something over 40 mph when he somehow hit a tree and sustained a head injury. Luckily there was a car that saw what happened and called for help. He was able to tell the medics his name and everything, but then his condition deteriorated, apparently due to a subdural hematoma. This happened on Tuesday and he's still in a coma now, on Sunday. We're all just hoping for the best outcome now. 

Hurricane Season - Cristobal

Welcome to hurricane season

Next weekend was supposed to be the Tour de Louisiane weekend. Of course we ended up postponing it until some time later in the year, assuming it's even feasible to do it then. On Monday the newspaper nola.com did a nice article about it. Apparently, however, the weather gods didn't get word of the postponement and had already scheduled some severe weather for the weekend, just to mess with us. Joke's on them, I guess. An early tropical storm, named Cristobal, is supposed to be coming our way around the end of the weekend, but it's already raining here and looks like we'll have wet weather well into next week if things go as expected. If we're lucky we'll be able to slip in some of the regular training rides, I guess. We'll just have to see how it goes.

At this point I'm basically back to my regular training routine, doing the 6 am rides on Tuesday and Thursday, the WeMoRi ride on Wednesday mornings, and the Giro or whatever other longer rides come up on the weekends. For the moment, cases of COVID-19 in New Orleans are holding steady at a pretty low level, at least as far as I can tell from the available data. There are a lot of confounding issues with using the testing data right now, but other than deaths, it's all I have to go on until we see some comprehensive serological test results. Over the last 14 days there have been only 10 COVID-related deaths in the city itself, and the ratio of positive tests to total tests has been in the range of 2.6-2.8%. With the state moving to Phase II at the end of the week, the city is sticking with Phase I until they can tell if Memorial Day caused a significant increase in transmission, so a lot of businesses are still barely limping along hoping for the best.

Could be worse I guess. Still being pretty cautious, though.

My own post-crash progress has been continuing at a slow but perceptible rate. I'm OK with putting some power on the pedals most of the time, and after getting off the bike I don't feel as bad as I had, so I conclude that the level of riding I've been doing isn't doing any significant harm. My weight (I actually bought a bathroom scale a couple of weeks ago) has been running in the 126-129 range, which is OK for now, although I'd prefer to be seeing 124-126. Candy has been going into her office at Tidewater more and more, and will probably move her desktop computer and gigantic printer back there soon. My office is planning to continue working remotely for a while, however. Tulane announced plans to start the (mainly undergrad) academic year on August 19, which is just a week earlier than usual. They'll probably cut out the Fall Break and finish up classes by November 24, with exams to be taken online after that. Locally, there are a lot of rental apartments being cleaned out (big piles of trash out on the curb), and people moving in. I think a lot of the leases start in June, so that's normal. Naturally the neighborhood people are complaining about the trash those Tulane kids are leaving all over the place when they're moving out, and of course blaming it on the university rather than the landlords, slumlords, and tenants themselves. So situation normal.

I made it out to the WeMoRi this morning for the second time since the crash, and although I'm still not up to sprinting out of the saddle, it was otherwise fine. I stopped at Starbucks afterward for an iced coffee - pre-ordered online and picked up at the door. They don't have any of the usual tables and chairs out outside, but the fixed bench is there and the ceiling fans were running, so that was fine.