Cold, Wind, and COVID

Front part of the Sunday Giro heading out on Lakeshore Drive

This week started out with some pretty challenging weather, at least for this part of the country. While the city, protected just a bit by Lake Pontchartrain and the Specific Heat of water, didn't get the worst of it like much of Texas and north Louisiana did, it was still pretty damned cold and windy. Monday morning was significantly below freezing with high winds, so riding was really out of the question. I'd set up the old Orbea on the wind trainer down in the basement, assuming I'd spend an hour of so on it after work, but then I got pulled into a late Zoom meeting and that went out the window in favor of dinner and, by then, two badly needed glasses of wine. I did make it out Tuesday morning, alone, despite the temperature in the 30s and the wind close to 10 mph, and it was every bit as miserable as I'd anticipated. Wednesday, however was another missed day with cold temperatures and wet streets, so I set my sights on Thursday. That turned into another solo battle with the crosswind, but at least the temperature was up to around 40° by then. 

Tulane had recently released club sports from their no-group-activities restriction, so I went out in the afternoon to meet the 4:00 club ride that turned out to be just Gavin, Joey and me. Joey is a new rider with the club. We didn't make it more than a block before Joey hit something in the road and pinch-flatted, but eventually got up onto the levee bike path where we were greeted by a truly brutal 14.5 mph crosswind that made it a struggle to keep the front wheel going in the right direction. There were a couple of gusts that had me reaching for the brakes because I thought I was about to get blown off the pavement. Fortunately, we weren't trying to go very hard, and I was glad to at least log a few extra miles for the day to put a dent in the already minimal weekly mileage tally. That night another little cold front slithered through, so it was back down to 34°F with a 13 mph north wind when I went out to meet the Tulane riders for the first Friday Coffee Ride of the semester. As expected, that turned out to be just Julia, Gavin and me, so we cut out most of the Lakeshore Drive part of the route, and then skipped the coffee stop altogether. At least we tried...

Around noon I rode downtown to get my second COVID booster shot, which was quick and uneventful, although I was fully anticipating I'd feel the effects by Saturday.

Batture Trail. Roots showing from when the batture was flooded for so long last year.

Later in the day Mignon texted to see if I wanted her to show me the mountain bike trail on the river batture near the old Colonial Country Club. I'd been wanting to check it out, and since there was a good chance I'd be somewhat incapacitated by my immune response the next day, I dusted off the old Trek 820 that hadn't seen an actual trail in years and headed out there around 4:00. By then the sun was out and it was much, much warmer. 

Still works - kinda.

This particular mountain bike trail is kind of a pop-up trail that a local guy has been creating for a few years whenever the river has been low enough. It's probably only a mile and a half long, but it was a really nice change even though I was being particularly cautious due to the fact I hadn't ridden off-road in years other than a few cyclocross races. So again, I got in some nice bonus miles for Friday, which turned out to be a good thing. Saturday's morning forecast for the northshore was for low 30s and after consulting with some of the regulars and kicking around some alternate starting times, it was clear that the consensus was that most would rather stay on the southshore where the air would be significantly warmer. As it turned out, none of that mattered to me because by Friday night I had a not-unexpected low-grade fever and headache from the reaction to the vaccine. I decided it would be pointless to try to ride on Saturday, which it would have been. 

Glad the group stopped for Joey's flat.

Fortunately I woke up Sunday morning feeling much more normal, so I headed out to the Giro Ride as usual. I noticed that, finally, there was a little bit of light in the sky when I left home, and so I barely even needed my headlight. As might have been expected considering the clear sky and warmer temperature, there was a pretty big turnout for the Giro on Sunday, and among those were a number of Tulane riders. Joey was basically jumping into the deep end, making the Giro one of his first group road rides ever, so I was planning to keep track of him and drop off the back of the group if he got separated, which he did after we turned onto the Paris Road / I-510 segment where the speed jumped as usual up to the 27-31 mph range. I collected him after turning onto Chef, and we rode kind of easy out toward Venetian Isles until we saw the group on its way back. They hadn't started going fast yet, which was good, but before the caught us Joey flatted. Fortunately, the whole group stopped while we fixed it, so we were able to ride back the whole way with the group, which was nice. It turned out to be a perfect ride for me since I was still a little unsure about whether I was feeling better because of the naproxin I'd taken or if I was actually over the vaccine reaction stage. Turned out to be the latter, I think.