WIshy-Washy Weather

There were probably about 50 for Saturday's Giro Ride.

Well, as usual the February weather is all over the place. By Friday morning I knew the Saturday northshore ride wasn't going to happen. It was rainy and cold by Saturday morning, which effectively killed off both the northshore and Giro rides. Of course a few brave souls were out there, however briefly, but I'm quite certain none of them was having fun. By noon things had improved a bit, which is to say that it had mostly stopped actually raining, so I stuffed my rain jacket into my pocket, pulled on some shoe covers, aired up the tires on the old Orbea with its "Gravel King" tires that are really just regular tires, and headed out to the levee. The asphalt was still pretty wet, and there was the occasional smattering of light rain, but I'd dressed with rain in mind so all was good. I was way out in Destrahan when came upon a couple of guys underneath the bridge trying to fix a flat tire. One was standing and offering sage tire-changing wisdom while the other was sitting and trying with limited success to get the tire off of the rim using the brute force method. I stopped to see if they needed help, and quickly decided they did, so I removed the tire and put in the spare tube and handed it back to the guy to re-mount the tire on the rim. That was when I noticed that my own front tire had gone flat, so I repaired that while the other guys was still trying to get his tire mounted. It looked like he was getting close, so I told them I'd be back shortly and headed upriver for the final mile or so to Ormond. When I got back to the bridge they were just getting back on their bikes.

I decided to stop by the Tulane Cycling HQ at the end of the bike path to see if they'd fixed the toilet yet. Sean was there, so we chatted for a bit, and then I headed down Broadway for home. It was still misty and my glasses were a bit foggy. I guess that's why I didn't see whatever it was that I rolled over as I passed a construction dumpster. Naturally, I had another flat. It was still a mile or so to the house, so I went ahead and fixed it. I was glad I'd gotten in 40 miles, but hadn't planned on fixing three flats along the way.

The weather on Sunday was much improved, and there was a really big turnout for the Giro despite the significant wind. I was feeling fairly fresh since I hadn't ridden all that hard on Saturday, so I ended up doing a slightly harder Giro than usual. The nice thing about the Giro Ride, especially when there's a big group, is that you can kind of choose your effort level. Later that day I spend a couple of hours shoveling some of the riversand that the road construction people had left all over the road alongside the house. I barely made a dent in it, but by dusk I knew I'd done a number on my back and it was time to stop. At least it looks a little better than it did.

The perimeter

On Monday morning, around 9:30 or 10:00, Tulane started sending out emergency notifications about a "police action" down the street at Audubon and S. Claiborne, about three blocks from my house. There were police cars everywhere, plus the SWAT trucks, and the shut down S. Claiborne right at my house when they established their perimeter. There was a suspect barricaded in a house. He had apparently committed a number of armed robberies over the weekend and had shot a Tulane student in the leg during one of them. The standoff lasted until mid-afternoon, but they finally got him out of the house and arrested him on multiple charges. Fortunately nobody was hurt. Anyway, it made the day more interesting.

This morning was so foggy that you could see it falling. I got dressed and on the bike, but turned back after a few blocks. It was obvious that I'd be soaking wet, and cold, if I did any kind of significant ride, and I was tired of fixing flats. Besides, the afternoon weather was looking to be pretty nice. Indeed, at the moment (3:30 pm) it's 74°F and sunny. The rest of the week is looking bad. The rain is supposed to start, off and on, tomorrow morning through Friday, and then it the temperature will drop dramatically for the weekend with temperatures in the 30s again. I'll just have to play it by ear, I guess.