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.