Half the Way

Half the way there.....

This afternoon I hopped on the old commuting bike, which like me hasn't seen a whole lot of action in the past twelve months, braved the Broad Street Overpass, coasted down onto Poydras, and worked my way over to the Tulane JBJ building to get my initial SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Candy had received hers via Ochsner yesterday. She got Moderna's and I got Pfizer's. I think these new mRNA vaccines are pretty cool, actually. Anyway, I'm hoping I don't have much of a reaction tomorrow because I have a 77-mile ride in the country on my dance card. I feel pretty lucky to have been able to get started on the vaccine this early, and a month or so from now I will hopefully feel a lot less apprehensive about, well, almost everything. Hopefully things will start to level off some time around the June - August timeframe. All we can do is wait.

Into the wind

The weather this week has not been great for riding, mostly because of the wind but also because of the cold. Tuesday's levee ride, for example, because a little harder than planned when, shortly after we started on the way back, the temperature abruptly dropped by seven or eight degrees and the wind picked up dramatically. By the next morning the temperature was in the low 40s. I went out to the WeMoRi, which was fast, but wasn't going super-hard like it does in the summer. After turning onto City Park Avenue we were surprised by a line of little traffic cones along the right edge of the traffic lane that the people in back didn't see until it was almost too late. I was over on the left, but just to my right I heard Geoff scream as he clipped one of them, sending him into the, fortunately unoccupied, parking lane. Somehow he stayed upright. Then, as we were heading down Lakeshore Drive and I was dreaming about contesting the final sprint, I felt my rear tire going soft. By the time I rolled to a stop I was on the rim. I'm pretty sure I would have won the sprint except for that. At least I got it fixed in time to meet the cool-down group. Good thing I had just ordered a box of 100 tube patches. 

On Thursday it was cold with an 11-12 mph north wind and, not too surprisingly, there was nobody else at the meeting spot when I arrived at 6 am., so I headed out alone. As it turned out, Pat was on his way, but had been running late and missed me by just a couple of minutes. I rode out to the big dip and back, which seemed to take forever, but at least the wind kept my mind off of the cold.

Today was supposed to be the first Tulane coffee ride of the semester. Unfortunately, it being Rush season and all, some of the fraternities and sororities had apparently done a lot of partying the week before which led to the number of positive COVID tests going from a fairly expected 66/week to 270 this week, with 96 positives reported yesterday. So the school pretty much shut everything down, suspended a bunch of fraternities and sororities, and that meant no group rides. So this morning I just went out to the levee and did yet another solo ride. Although it was still in the 40s, the temperature trend was positive, and tomorrow is looking to be pretty nice.

Warm Winter Weekend

How a group should look out on the road.

The weather in January down here in New Orleans can make some dramatic swings, and last weekend it swung itself way over to the warm side. I wasn't complaining, even though a sudden bout of warmer southern air always brings with it a bit of unwelcome fog and mist. As I started the drive across Lake Pontchartrain Saturday morning with the windshield wipers periodically sweeping across the wide greyscale view of sky and water, I wondered if I might be the only one to show up for the 3rd northshore ride of our Winter Ride Series. Would the relatively warm upper 50s temperature serve as sufficient offset to the damp streets and overcast sky?  I needn't have worried. By the time I was approaching the north shore of the lake the streets were dry and the mist all but gone. I knew a few people had already said they'd be going, so I felt confident we'd have at least six or seven. That turned out to be a rather dramatic underestimate. As I turned onto the gravel entrance road of the Lee Road recreation area, aka the Lee Road ballpark, I was shocked to see how many cars were already there. More than a couple of southshore riders had correctly guessed that the conditions north of the lake would be better than those south.

Tulane riders at the store stop in Pine

By the 8:30 am start there were at least 25 riders anxiously awaiting the roll-out for our planned 66-mile ride up to Pine and State Line. Looking around I commented to someone, "This ride could get out of hand." It kinda did. Out on the narrow shoulderless country roads even a double line of riders is a little risky, and although it may look to the riders themselves like a nice neat double paceline, to the cars and trucks behind, and me, it looks more like a herd of riders spread all across the right lane. Although traffic was reasonably light, those of us stationed near the back felt the need to make some rather stern recommendations to some of those farther up in the group when they'd start bunching up, riding in the oncoming traffic lane, and generally surging on the downhills and then crawling up the uphills. Actually, it was best when a few riders at the front would put the hammer down and string the group out into a very long single line. Anyway, much of the ride felt like a Cat. 5 race simulation, at least from the back where I spent most of my time, worried about keeping track of anyone who might come off the back far from home. On the plus side, we lost very few riders during the ride. There were a number of Tulane Cycling riders, all of whom rode quite well. For me, aside from the somewhat inconsistent pace, the ride felt great, and I felt like I got just enough intensity sprinkled into an otherwise upper Zone 2 ride. I'm sure it would have felt otherwise had I spent any significant time at the front. I think maybe we need to have a class on "how to not get killed riding on country roads" soon. You know that about every third car that passes the group is being driven by someone related to the Sheriff, who will most definitely get an earfull about those bikers clogging up the road. In this case, some of it would definitely be justified.

Sunday Giro actually stopped for a red light. Amazing!

So on Sunday I ventured out to the regular Sunday Giro Ride. It was warm enough for just shorts and jersey, but considering the rather thick fog I decided at the last minute to add knee-warmers and a base layer under my jersey. I did not regret that decision. This Giro, as often happens this time of year, was relatively sedate. A steady east wind kept the speed down on the way out, affording ample draft for everyone else, which kept pretty much everyone with the group. I was pleased to find that Saturday's ride in what we call hills around here didn't do any discernable damage, although I was feeling content to glide along near the back as I had the prior day. 

After making the turn from Lake Forest onto Bullard on the way back, Phil flatted. He was near the back of the group with me at the time, so most of the group continued merrily on its way while three of four of us stopped to help. You hate to leave someone alone to fix a flat since, sometimes, there are complications - a bad inflator, a bad tube, a stem too short for the rim, a slice needing a boot - you never know. Phil had an odd puncture near the stem, and on the side of the tube, suggesting maybe that the tube had been pinched by the bead when it was installed (he was on a practically brand new BMC bike). Anyway, we got it fixed and had a nice smooth ride back in.

Wind turbine blades ready to go, I assume

This morning the temperature was in the mid-60s and despite some fog along the river I went out in just shorts and jersey for the first time in a long time for an easy recovery spin, not that I really had anything from which to recover. The bike path was fairly quiet, and I stopped to take a couple of photos with my phone of some huge wind turbine blades on a barge and a bald eagle. Looks like the warm weather will continue for a few more days, but will be accompanied by rain. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings are not looking good.

The Group Rides

The local group rides are something of a cycling tradition, I think, and if you look, you can find them in almost all  major cities. They tend to evolve, often starting out as two or three friends meeting up at a certain place on certain days at certain times, usually for a nice moderately paced ride. Over time more riders start to show up, and inevitably as the group grows, the ride gets faster. Traditional sprint points emerge, fast segments and easy segments are established, and the ride begins to get a reputation of sorts, depending on who the regular riders are, what kind of training they are seeking, and the vague unwritten consensus that loosely governs the ride over which nobody dares claim ownership. The local weekday, and often weekend, in-town rides tend to be early in the morning or late in the evening to accommodate work schedules and minimize traffic concerns, and for many riders they constitute the bulk of their training miles. Some rides, particularly the regular weekend ones, become essentially race simulations, while others remain as moderate endurance-level rides. Riders often complain about one thing or another on these rides. It's too fast, it's too slow, it's too dangerous. For some rides, if you flat or get dropped there's no guarantee that the group, or anyone for that matter, will stay with you. For others, everyone will wait in order to keep the group intact. Usually.  Here in New Orleans there are a number of regular rides, some long-standing, some newer. None of these are officially organized or controlled by the club or, for that matter, anyone in particular.

Giro Ride about to head out from Starbucks

Giro

The oldest regular group ride, by far, is the Giro Ride. This ride started out back around the mid-80s when Glenn Gulotta had a bike shop called "West End Glenn's" out by the Orleans Marina. He had a number of Junior riders who were interested in racing, so on Saturdays he would lead them on a little training ride that he dubbed The Giro because it made a circuit more or less around and through City Park out to Orleans on Moss Road, and eventually back to the shop. Of course, people heard about it and started to join in. It got faster. As the group got larger, the route, of necessity, started to change. The start moved to the west end of Lakeshore Drive. For some years the route went out Lakeshore Drive, down Hayne Blvd. to Paris Road, continuing on Paris road (prior to I-510 being completed) to Almonaster. Sometimes an out-and-back over the "Green Monster" bridge over the ship channel was included, but mostly the group turned right onto Almonaster, racing to a sprint near the end before turning around and coming back via mostly the same route. The direct connection with Paris Road was eliminated when I-510 was completed, so since then the group crosses over two lanes of interstate to get to the exit lane and the service road that was once Paris Road. Eventually, the road surface on Almonaster started to deteriorate in places. Around the same time, Highway 90 / Chef Menteur was re-paved, so the route changed to go out Chef Menteur to Venetian Isles. It's remained mostly like that since, but when the city shut off the I-510 service roads because they were tired of having to pick up the trash - including truckloads of old furniture or used car tires, and other junk - the return route shifted to include Lake Forest and Bullard. The Giro is usually easy until Hayne Blvd. at which point it abruptly gets fast - sometimes very fast. Riders who flat or get dropped are often on their own, although it's not unusual for a small group to stop with a rider who flatted. The Giro now goes every Saturday and Sunday at 7:00 from the Starbucks on Harrison Avenue, a start location that emerged when a number of the regular riders started meeting there early for coffee. The full ride from Starbucks and back is just over 50 miles. Like all big group rides, it takes a while to learn the ride and know where it usually gets fast and where it usually eases up. For many riders, it takes a few tries before they make it all the way without getting dropped. On the plus side, much of it is out-and-back, so there's the option to turn around early on Chef Menteur and get pack in when the group is on its way back. Occasionally, when the stars align just right, a subset of the Giro Ride group will extend the ride beyond Venetian Isles and ride out to Fort Pike and over the Rigolets bridge, sometimes continuing to Slidell via Old Spanish Trail. 

SaMoRi and Semi-Tough

Some years ago riders who wanted a slightly less competitive ride using the same route as the Giro started what is now known as the SaMoRi (Saturday Morning Ride) that starts at 6:45 (sometimes 6:15 or 6:30 depending on the time of year) from the west end of Lakeshore Drive (roughly 7400 Lakeshore Dr.). The Semi-tough club started a regular Saturday ride that starts from Hey! Coffee, just off the Lafitte Greenway, usually at 7:30 am. It isn't officially organized by the Semi-Tough club any more, but details are usually posted to the Semi-tough Facebook group. That ride's routes can vary a bit. It's usually around 50 miles, so similar to the Giro and SaMoRi, but it's a different route and the pace generally remains fairly moderate, so it makes a good alternative for those looking for a somewhat easier and more social ride. 

WeMoRi group on Wisner from across Bayou St. John

A newer ride that has become very popular with the weekend warrior crowd is the WeMoRi (Wednesday Morning Ride). This early-morning (5:45 am) ride started out as a regular group out by the lakefront looking for a quick training ride early enough to avoid traffic and have time to get to work afterward. They start from the parking lot where Robért Fresh Market is on R.E. Lee Alan Toussaint near the lakefront.  It rather quickly grew into a pretty fast ride incorporating all of Lakeshore Drive, and a loop around City Park, with a number of designated sprint points good for bragging rights, nicknames for the regular riders, and a weekly emailed race report. I usually make just the second half of this ride, but it is often the weekday ride that nets me the highest, albeit brief, intensity levels. The group doesn't wait for anyone, ever, and will ride though stoplights if it looks clear. It takes a while to learn this ride well enough to keep from being dropped, and since it's mostly done in the dark you'll need lights. Also, riding in a group in the dark takes a little getting used to for most people. The full ride is somewhere in the 25 mile range.

Levee ride starting back from Ormond

Morning Levee

Note (Spring 2024): The Corps of Engineers began a levee raise project in April on a section of the levee bike path starting at the Orleans/Jefferson parish line and going two miles upriver. As a result, the 6 am levee ride has shifted to Lakeshore Drive and the Lake Trail, starting at 6 am from NOMA in City Park. The levee work will take over a year to complete. It is possible to get past the closure by taking River Road. The other regular weekday ride that I do is the 6 am levee ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This is a smaller group, anywhere from three to twelve riders, that meets on the levee bike path near Dakin Street, just upriver from the Orleans/Jefferson parish line. Although it does occasionally get fast, the more typical ride is a steady paceline rolling along in the 21-24 mph range depending on wind and who shows up. Unless the group is particularly small and the weather particularly unpleasant, this ride goes upriver about 18 miles to Ormond and back, so for most who ride there from home it's at least 40-45 miles. This group will always wait for riders who flat, and generally tries to stay together with each rider taking pulls at whatever pace and for however long as desired.

Tuesday Loops

There is a popular Tuesday evening ride that happens mostly only during DST. Tuesday Loops starts at 6 pm from the New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park. This one is a combination of easy and fast. The group rolls out through the park to Marconi and down Marconi to Lakeshore Drive where it immediately gets fast. They continue over the Bayou St. John bridge, around the traffic circle, back across the bridge to an immediate and sharp left across traffic to get onto Beauregard and then onto Wisner where it remains fast to a sprint over the Wisner overpass. they then roll back into City Park where riders re-group in front of the museum. That "loop" is then repeated a couple more times. 

Mellow Monday & Friendly Friday
There are a couple of other regular rides that I sometimes do. One is the Friendly Friday ride. This one starts at the Museum of Art in City Park at 6:00 am and as the name implies started as a small group recovery type ride out to Lakeshore Drive and around City Park. Nowadays it can get fairly fast on Lakeshore Drive and then toward the end on Wisner Blvd., with a sprint to the top of the overpass there. There's also a Mellow Monday ride that is essentially identical to Friendly Friday. Both of these rides typically have 10-15 riders.

Thirsty Thursday
Also, on Thursdays, there seems to now be a fairly regular "Thirsty Thursday" group that does essentially the WeMoRi route starting at 5:45 am from in front of Landry's on Lakeshore Drive. This one is similar to the WeMoRi, but with a smaller group, fewer attacks, and more steady-type hero pulls. 

Northshore Rides

Over on the Northshore there are also a few regular weekday and weekend rides that start from the Mandeville Tammany Trace Trailhead, St. Benedict's on Smith Road, Abita Springs Trailhead, or the Abita Beer Brewery. However, in January and February the NOBC does a series of northshore weekend rides (Saturdays this year) from either Abita Springs or the Lee Road park. Those are in the 65-75 mile range and usually have groups of a dozen or so at the start, with a few turning back early to make shorter rides. These rides always try to stay together on the way out, and usually include a store stop, depending on what's on the route. They can get fast in some places, but the group will generally wait at major intersections for a minute or two for riders who were dropped. These are intended as early season base miles, with some fairly brief segments of higher intensity. Thanks to the rolling terrain, they can seem harder than some of the in-town group rides on flatter terrain.

How to keep abreast of the local rides?  There is an NOBC Google Group and Facebook Group, a Semi-tough Facebook Group, a Northshore Cycling Facebook Group, a NOMAMBO Group for MTB, and probably a few others I missed.

BEST PRACTICES FOR GROUP RIDES (stolen from USAC)

Be on time and prepared

Do your best to be ready to roll out at the planned start time, with the food, fluids, tools, and extra layers you might need for the day. Be sure you have your own tube and inflation device, preferably a pump in case you run out of CO2. Group rides are a collaborative and supportive environment, so people will help you out with a tube or a gel or a couple of dollars if you forget, but it’s better to give than to need. No one is perfect and people might be late or forget something occasionally, but do your best to be self-sufficient and on time.

Introduce yourself

Introductions work both ways. If you’re a regular at the group ride and someone new pulls up, introduce yourself and welcome them to the group. If you are the new person pulling up to start area, break the ice and introduce yourself. Communication is key to making people feel welcome and to making sure everyone understands the route, the expected pace and/or technical difficulty of the ride.

Point out turns and road hazards

Once you are out on the road or trail, make sure the riders behind you know about upcoming turns, potholes, glass, or road debris. You can use hand signals – point to the hole or hazard – or audible cues, just make sure the information keeps moving to the riders further behind you. Flat tires and crashes disrupt the ride for everyone and avoiding them is a team effort.

Act in the group’s best interest

When you ride in a group you have to think and act like a group. If you are at or near the front when the group approaches a traffic light or a turn, consider whether the whole group can safely get through the intersection before you commit to stopping or going. You don’t want to put riders in the middle or back of the group in an unsafe situation.

Adjust your time at the front, not the pace of the group

Group rides can move faster or go longer than you will on your own because riders share the work of setting pace at the front. Maintaining a steady pace is the key to a cohesive and smooth group ride. If you are feeling super strong, spend more time on the front rather than increasing the pace of the group. If your fitness level means you can only hold the group’s pace for a short time, take a shorter pull at the front and rotate off while you still have enough energy to get back in the draft at the back of the group.

Stay off the brakes

Obviously, you can and should use your brakes whenever necessary, but when you are in a group you want to minimize abrupt changes in speed. Grabbing a handful of brakes in the middle of a pace line or pack has a ripple effect for the riders behind you. To adjust your speed and the distance to the rider ahead of you less abruptly, move a little bit in and out of the draft so the change in wind resistance helps you maintain your position with little or no braking.

Shift up as you stand up

Shifting into a harder gear as you stand up to pedal out of the saddle is another behavior riders around you will greatly appreciate. If you stand up without shifting into a harder gear, your bike will likely “kick back”. To the person close behind you, your rear wheel suddenly slows or appears to kick back toward their front wheel. This can lead to crashes due to overlapping wheels, or at least an annoying and unsettling experience for the people behind you. By shifting into a harder gear as you rise out of the saddle and put your bodyweight over the pedal, you can maintain your forward momentum and avoid the kick back.

Don’t half wheel your partner

“Half wheeling” is a scenario where two cyclists intend to ride side-by-side but one rider accelerates to keep his or her front wheel just ahead of their partner’s. The partner then speeds up to draw even, but the first rider pulls ahead again, and again, as the speed gradually ratchets up. Half wheeling is a bad habit, annoys or even angers people in the group, and messes up the spacing for the riders behind you.

Wind, Weather, and Winter Misery

It's winter now, and you know what that means. Yes. Rapidly accumulating bike laundry. I filled the washer on Friday with lycra and by Sunday afternoon I was almost ready to do it all over again. Layers are great, but man, that stuff piles up. I don't know about you, but most of my favorite base layers and long-sleeve jerseys get worn at least twice between washes, even if they smell a bit, which they do.

So it was kind of a difficult riding week. I took Monday off, which was my first off day in about a month. Mother Nature subsequently punished me for the rest of the week. Tuesday's levee ride was OK, I guess, but somehow felt harder than it should have. Later that day I rode over to Tulane for another COVID test that was thankfully negative. I'm volunteering at the Arrival Center, aka the Hyatt, on Monday and Tuesday afternoons to help with the returning students who are all getting tested before being able to move into their dorm rooms. Meanwhile, Candy got her name on a list to get a COVID vaccine on Monday since she's 70 but has not heard back from them. No big surprise there, I guess. She also tested negative a couple of days ago.

The rest of the week kind of went downhill weather-wise. I rode out to the WeMoRi on Wednesday hoping to get in a little intensity, but hit one of the big holes on Marconi and pinch-flatted. It was kind of my own fault. I knew my tires were low, but was in a rush and didn't bother to pump them up. Luckily the rim didn't suffer any damage. Then Thursday morning arrived right after a cold front had moved through. The streets were still a bit wet, and when I arrived at the levee I was alone. I did a shorter than normal ride battling a 10 mph wind the whole way. Friday was another solo ride, this time with the temperature in the 40s and a 13 mph wind. Since I'd turned around kind of early I decided to ride to the Audubon Park end of the bike path on the way home, where of course I had a flat.

Saturday was the start of our Northshore Winter Ride Series. I had actually considered cancelling it because the forecast was calling for a starting temperature in the low 30s and I was afraid nobody would show up, but by Friday a few people seemed committed. We started with about a dozen riders for the planned 70 mile ride, and although the temperature was around 34° at least the sun was out and the wind was down to a more manageable 7 mph or so, but I was still pretty cold riding into that north wind for the first hour or so. Eventually we lost a few riders and the temperature warmed up, so it turned out to be a pretty nice ride. As we were coming back from Enon and riding across the long Bogue Chitto bridge we suddenly encountered a spilled load of recycling stuff (cans, plastic, etc.) strewn all across the road. With a truck approaching from behind, most of us just rode right through it, with the unsurprising result that Charles found a piece of broken beer bottle an flatted. Anyway, despite the cold and the wind, Saturday's ride was kind of the highlight of the week for me.

This morning it was still in the low 40s. I normally ride out the the start, which is the Starbucks on Harrison Avenue, for 6:30 to have a cup of coffee beforehand, but since COVID they don't have any seating inside the store. With a starting temperature of 40° and an overcast sky, plus a significant wind, I decided to skip my coffee and get there later so I wouldn't be sitting around outside freezing as long. The weather was dismal enough that there were only a handful of riders there. I guess we had about a dozen. I was maybe a bit under-dressed, my legs were a little sore, and basically I was miserable from the start. I hung onto the back of the little paceline for most of the ride and got back home tired, cold and exhausted. 

It was one of those days.

The sewer line replacement on my street is progressing, which is to say that the entire block is basically a dirt road with a big hole in the middle right now, and I'm guessing it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. 

This weekend we took down the Christmas decorations and put up the Mardi Gras decorations. It won't be much of a Mardi Gras this year, of course. Parades have all been cancelled and I doubt we will see much impact from the vaccines by then. Tomorrow morning is looking like cold rain right now - 44°, raining, with a 13-15 mph wind. Morning temperatures ranging from 41 to 50 for the rest of the week, so basically it's just going to be cold by my standards.