Goodbye Twenty Twenty

Heading back from the Spillway on New Year's Eve

It was the best of years, it was the worst of years, it was the year of science, it was the year of foolishness, it was the time of belief, it was the time of incredulity, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. (With apologies to Charles Dickens)

It was Wednesday, the 30th of December, and I was just waiting to see if anyone would post something somewhere about a New Year's Eve ride. The weather was changing, but there was a window of warm temperatures and clear skies in the morning before the "severe weather" was supposed to move in. Finally, Mignon sent an email or text or something suggesting a ride to the Spillway to start at the relatively civilized time of 7:30 a.m. It sounded good to me. A nice smooth 50 miles on the levee with a small group to ease the return headwind stretch.

I think we had about a dozen riders when we started this morning at 7:30. The bike path was still fairly wet from the overnight rain, but there was no threat of more rain until the afternoon. I started out on the front of the group alongside Julia, trying to keep the speed down to a nice Zone 2 level, which allowed for lots of conversation in the double "paceline" behind. At one point I remarked that the problem today would probably not be the wind, but the flats. I wish I hadn't said that because clearly I jinxed the whole ride at that point. Sure enough, we someone flatted within minutes. We stopped to fix that, and then a few miles later Scott flatted again. We stopped again. Then a few miles later Charles flatted. Most of us stopped again. Then a few miles after that Charles flatted again. Julia and Mignon and Boyd and a few others had continued at that point, and as we were fixing that one I texted Julia, thinking she would be with whatever was left of the group. She texted back that she was already at the Spillway. We weren't even to Ormond. So we finally got going again after a few people turned back early, and caught up to Boyd and a few others around when we say Julia on her way back. We then saw Mignon and Erich and a couple others who had already been to the Spillway but turned around to ride there again (we were only few miles from it at that point). By then the road had dried up and we fortunately didn't have any more flats, which was good because we were running low on tubes and CO2 cartridges. 

Although I'm not obsessive about my annual mileage, I'd been watching it on Strava for the past couple of weeks, rather surprised to see it already over 11,000 miles. Considering the month and a half, or more, of down-time back in March and April due to my crash at Red Bluff, I'd long ago set what I though was an optimistic goal of 10,000 miles for 2020. Considering my more typical annual mileage of 12,000+ miles, it seemed reasonable. I ended up with 11,406 miles, and even managed to log the 500 kilometers of the Strava Festive 500 a couple of days early. So mileage-wise at least, 2020 was OK. Lower than normal, but not by as much as I'd expected. Looking around, I think it safe to say that a lot of riders logged more than their usual miles this year, thanks no doubt to "working from home" plus the fact that riding was one of the few things that was generally allowed throughout the whole continuing COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, Road Racing took a big hit in 2020. While my racing schedule isn't normally very crowded thanks to officiating duties and such, 2020 was probably the first time since around 1972 that I haven't ridden a single criterium, and indeed the only official race I did in 2020 was the Auburn collegiate race that included some non-collegiate categories. Of course, in retrospect, I now wish I'd ridden the Sunday criterium there even though it was wet and cold. 

At least we did manage to pull off the Time Trial Championship and the Tour de Louisiane Road Race this year. They were the only official road events other than cyclocross that happened in LAMBRA for 2020. 

Not good

So the COVID-19 positive test rates have been rising since Thanksgiving, and I fully expect them to continue to rise over the next couple of weeks as the effect of ill-advised holiday parties plays out. Tulane students are supposed to be coming back in nine or ten days which is definitely going to be bad timing. Vaccine availability is still being restricted to medical staff, nursing homes, etc., and regardless I doubt we will see any population based effect of the vaccines for a few months yet. 

So I'm sitting at home once again on New Year's Eve, listening to fireworks off in the distance, contemplating what I've missed the most this year. The first thing that comes to mind are the road trips to bike races, even the solo ones. I haven't been stopping for coffee at Zotz after my morning rides, and haven't eaten out more than a handful of times since March. Really, the one thing I've stuck with, once the broken bones healed in late April, have been the group rides - 6 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:45 am on Wednesdays, and the 7 am Giro Rides, with a few northshore rides thrown in for good measure. Even so, I have avoided a lot of the normal post-ride socializing, which I have missed quite a bit. I missed our annual Halloween party, and the Christmas parties, and the family get-togethers. I've seen my co-workers in person exactly once or twice since early February. On the plus side, I did some re-wiring down in the basement, changed all of the washers in all of the leaky faucets, and attended to a number of little details that would normally be at the bottom of the to-do list.

Hopefully we will soon be able to see the light at the end of the COVID tunnel. Whether that means things will return to whatever was normal, however, remains to be seen. 

‘Twas the Ride Before Christmas

Twas the ride before Christmas, and all through the pack,
not a rider was talking, not even in back!

The leaders were surging; "we'll drop them," they laughed;
but the pack just tucked lower; and hung in their draft.

The bunch was all quiet, and gasping for air,
their buddies were dropping, thou' they gave not a care.

And my teammate and I, now pushing the pace higher,
were just getting ready, to launch a new flyer.

When somewhere in back, there arose such a clatter,
I thought I should look, to see what was the matter.

Under my arm, I glanced with a frown,
almost expecting, to see riders go down.

The glare of the sunlight, on the asphalt below,
gave to the paceline, a luminous glow.

When, what to my watering, eyes should appear,
but a guy on an S-Works, with elec-tronic gear.

With a powerhouse rider, tucked low on the bike,
I knew in a moment, we were in for a fight.

He pushed on the pedals, and lept on ahead;
"I’m taking this Hot Spot," then he did what he said.

Now Daniel, now Jaden, now Woody, and Ray!
On Howard, on Brian, on Matt and VJ!

Up the left came the paceline, and out went the call,
Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!

As dry leaves that 'fore, the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

So up to the break, 'way the coursers they flew,
with a whole string of riders, and Ice Cream Man too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard a light thump,
The delicate shifting, of one soon to jump.

As I reached out to shift, and was turning around,
Right down the middle, Rob came with a bound.

He was dressed in a skinsuit, from his head to his toe,
And he opened a gap, that made us look slow.

He spun up the gear, too big for the track,
And he looked like a madman, as he glared at the pack.

His eyes how they dared us, to take up the chase.
and the riders up-shifted, to match his cruel pace!

He veered to the left, to get a clean line,
and the pack got strung-out, for the twentieth time;

The riders were closing, the gap he had done,
but many were dropping, off one after one.

The pack came together, now elbow-to-belly,
it shook and it wiggled, like a bowl full of jelly.

The riders were having, some jolly old fun,
And I laughed when I saw it, now the race had begun.

With wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
a Dream Team bike rider, was the next one to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his deed,
And pulled us all up, to a dizzying speed.

Then he turned with a jerk, his hand on his ass,
And giving a nod, he dared us to pass.

He sprang to his feet, to his team gave a sign,
And away they all flew, to the final sprint line.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he quickened his pace,
"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD RACE."

18 Days

Dwight's photo of the WeMoRi going around the traffic circle on Lakeshore Drive.

I will be glad put 2020 in the rear-view mirror 18 days from now, although with things as they are, and will be, there won't be much of a celebration. What a bizarre year it's been.  A serious crash, a pandemic, stay-at-home, cancelled races, cancelled events, postponed races, working from home, a hurricane, another hurricane, a tropical storm, Candy's retirement, road construction, etc., etc.  I only wish I could say that things will be better soon, but actually I think they won't be significantly better until maybe late June. I hope my pessimistic outlook is unwarranted, of course.

An early model once the vaccines were approved

At least there has been one thing that has more or less persisted without major interruption. I've never looked forward to the group rides as much as I have this year, at least once my bones mended and I could sit on the bike again. I've missed, or intentionally skipped, a lot of the pre- and post-ride socializing, and reluctantly decided to skip the annual WeMoRi Christmas party and Mike's party at Gray Cat Cycleworx, but I've been consistently riding with the small 6 am levee ride group on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the WeMoRi group on Wednesdays, and the Giro Rides or Northshore rides on the weekends. I don't know of more than a few cyclists in my extended circle who have tested positive for COVID-19, so I have to think that riding a bike outside in a group isn't a great way to get it. I've avoided restaurants and skipped my usual post-ride coffee stops at Zotz, and generally tried to limit my exposures to other people as much as feasible. So far, so good, I guess. Back in March when I crashed I had $100 in cash in my wallet. I still have $20 of that.

Heading into the rising sun after the turnaround at Ormond.

So it was a pretty decent week of riding. The 6 am rides are getting darker and darker, and we had a few pretty chilly mornings, but otherwise things have been pretty routine. Yesterday, Saturday, it was raining in the morning so I decided to wait until after lunch when the streets would be more dry. It turned out to have been a good call. I left home around 1:00 and rode out to the Spillway, mostly solo. 

The river is running low.

On the way out I stopped to help a rider with a flat. I saw him sitting on the side of the bike path with his bike upside-down, the rear wheel off, and his phone a this ear. He was calling his wife to come pick him up because he couldn't get the flat tire off of the rim. So I stopped and got the tire off pretty easily, put his spare tube in, re-mounted the tire, and discovered that his spare tube had a short stem that didn't make it through the Zipp 404s he was riding. Luckily, I had a long-stem tube with me. He gave me the short-stem tube, which I ended up using later in the ride when I flatted. I was trying out the new Campagnolo Scirocco wheelset I'd just gotten on sale. My regular training wheels barely qualify as round any more, and I'm getting afraid I'm about to wear through the braking surfaces, and the bearings are pretty worn, so I got these fairly aero but fairly heavy wheels. I really only notice the extra weight when I pick up the bike, and it's nice to be able to put on the brakes without the bike lurching from one rim dent to the other.

Where we are now

Today started out at 60 degrees with a bit of wind, so we had a pretty nice Giro Ride. I'm pretty sure my solo levee ride was more of a workout for me, although of course that's because I spent most of the Giro Ride in the draft. It's looking like I'll end the year with somewhere around 11,000 miles, so considering the little six-week lull I had last March and April, that's good. 

So the new AT&T fiber has been working out pretty well. My laptop's ethernet adaptor can handle only 100 Mpbs, so I got an H/P USB gigabit ethernet adapter that works surprisingly well. I'm getting 8-900 Mbps when wired, so basically more than an order of magnitude faster than I had originally. The AT&T TV has been working fine as well. Danielle just sent us an ARLO video doorbell, so I re-configured my old range extender so it could handle the new dual-band signals, and that should be able to reach the front screen door easily despite all of the plaster & lath covered with sheetrock walls. I'm going to need to do some re-wiring in order to put it where it needs to be, so I got a roll of bell wire this afternoon and some white wood filler to plug up the hole from the old doorbell. It will be interesting to see if it all works with the ancient doorbell buzzer in the kitchen that has to be at least 60 years old. The transformer is down in the basement connected rather haphazardly (emphasis on "hazard") to some old knob-and-tube wiring, but at least it's easily accessible.

Wired ethernet at my laptop
via HP USB Gigabit adapter.

Looks like another cold front coming through tonight, but nothing colder than the upper 40s in the forecast through Christmas, which I guess will be kind of a non-event this year despite Candy's having bought presents for every kid in the neighborhood. She's been playing old christmas music non-stop for a couple of weeks already, and evenings are mostly Hallmark movies until she goes to bed and I can watch a couple of episodes of Star Trek or something on Netflix..

Winter Speed

Winter, such as it is in New Orleans, is here, I guess. That doesn't mean what it does in Minnesota, or course, where morning temperatures next week will be between 17° and a relatively balmy 30°F, but you know it's all relative. The bottom line is that my creaky old knees probably won't see the light of day for at least the next couple of weeks. I usually want my knees covered if it's in the 50s or below, and although wearing knicks or knee-warmers or full long tights cuts into your winter speed a tiny bit, it's definitely worth it, IMHO. I think I was in knickers for most of my rides last week, and even broke out the full long tights one day. 

So it should come as no surprise that when I was getting ready to head across the lake for another of the Queen Bee's invitational winter rides, where the starting temperature at 8:30 a.m. was going to be right at 40°, I threw a pretty wide range of stuff into my bag. I knew there would be sun, and that the temperature would ultimately be approaching 60°, so that really complicated the wardrobe decision. One thing I knew for sure. It wasn't going to be slow, or to be more accurate, it wasn't going to be easy. Between the terrain and the north wind, those 75 miles were going to exact a significant toll energy-wise. So rather than go for the bulkier but better-insulated stuff, I went with the thin and wind-resistant stuff. I could have been an add for Gore. I wore some nice comfy knickers with a long-sleeved Gore base layer that had wind-resistant front panels. Over that was a pair of arm-warmers that could be stuffed into a pocket later. Then there was a summer jersey, mainly for its pockets, and on top my thin Tulane vest that I planned to take off at the first opportunity once I got warmed up. I was also trying out a pair of Gore-Tex socks that Danielle had sent me for my birthday, and a pair of thin Gore-Tex gloves. So, no bulk, but lots of wind protection. It worked out pretty well.

The ride itself was good a brisk, although without any super-hard attacks or anything. I guess we had about about a dozen riders on hand as we headed out. Like other rides I've done with Lisa, there was no gradual warm-up. We got onto the Tammany Trace at Abita Springs and were immediately up above 20 mph, which is basically where the speed stayed for most of the ride. I'd say our typical speed was 23-24 mph. I'd put my carbon race wheels on the night before, since I figured they could use the exercise, having spent almost all summer hanging unused in the basement. I have to admit, they definitely make things easier when the speeds ramp up, especially if I'm out in the wind. Anyway, it was a really great ride. I felt like I got a good workout without getting totally wasted. I guess Strava agreed, tagging the ride as "Massive Relative Effort." Clearly, Strava doesn't know how much time I spent sucking wheels, but regardless, I have to agree that, relatively speaking, it was harder than my usual wheelsucking ride.

Speaking of wheels, I ordered a pair of Campi Scirocco C17 Clinchers that were on sale. I got my current training wheels so long ago I don't remember, but it must have been at least fifteen years ago. I bought them from someone in the club who had gotten them built up as climbing wheels, and they are indeed about the light pair of aluminum clinchers I've ever seen. I kept them as my backup race wheels, and used them for a number of races and also once or twice for Six Gap. Following the demise of my Mavic wheels in a crash a few years ago, they got promoted to everyday use. Now, the bearings are getting a little loose, I've replaced four or five broken aluminum spoke nipples, and I'm starting to wonder how long it will be before I wear through the brake track. The Scirocco wheels were something like $250, and will be significantly heavier and maybe a tiny bit more aerodynamic, but hopefully they will be good solid training wheels.

Well, that's better.

So this week we finally upgraded (at home) to AT&T fiber, along with AT&T TV. I kept the telephone land line, mainly because the alarm system uses it, but downgraded the service so it was a little cheaper. Installation took three or four hours, but I think went pretty well. I had already run an ethernet cable from the back of the house where the modem is to the front where the living room TV is, and although I could never get the Amazon stick to work with it, it works fine with the AT&T TV box. With my old Uverse service I was getting something like 5 Mbps over wireless. Now I get more like 40 Mbps and close to 100 via ethernet. The AT&T TV service has been fine and seems to include all of the stuff we had with Cox before, so not bad. We have a little range extender that doesn't seem to be working correctly with the new modem, but I haven't bothered to investigate that yet. 

Today we started putting up some Christmas decorations, but with the intermittent light rain I decided against going out and fooling with all of the questionable extension cords and lights and stuff. That will have to wait until a drier day. We bought a new microwave oven the other day after Candy incinerated some mac & cheese in the old one. It's display panel had pretty much stopped working, so you couldn't see the times or anything, so it was time. Besides, I couldn't get the burned food smell out of it anyway. 

Meanwhile, the city started tearing up two blocks of street to apparently replace the water, sewer, and drain lines that run underneath it. The notice they left at the house said it would be completed by the end of January, which I don't believe for a moment. By "completed" I assume they mean the pipes will be replaced and they'll dump a bunch of riversand and rocks on top of everything and leave it like that for a year or so until they get around to actually paving it. In the meantime, I'm treated to the sound of bulldozers and dump trucks all day going back and forth to the piles of sand and rocks they deposited on the corner.