A Busy Week

Tuesday heading back downriver from Ormond

Last week was a pretty busy one. Danielle arrived around midnight on Wednesday. Jason F came by Wednesday evening to collect stuff for Saturday's Lakeshore Summer Scramble race. Candy's hip replacement surgery was Thursday morning. The drain plumbing (I use the term loosely) under the old concrete wash basin in the basement started to disintegrate on Thursday, which meant we couldn't wash clothes until it was fixed without flooding the basement. And of course there's work, complete with hot and sweaty rides to and from.

Candy's surgery over at Oschner's Elmwood facility went pretty smoothly. We arrived around 10 am and were pack home by around 6 pm. It's kind of amazing that they can do a complete hip replacement and send the patient home the same day. Of course she was kind of loopy for another 24 hours or so from the drugs. She's hobbling around with a walker for a while, of course, until everything heals up. I had been a bit non-committal about what I'd be able to do for Saturday's race, but with Danielle on hand to take care of Candy and the fact that she seemed to be doing fine, I went downstairs Friday night and put the race wheels on the bike. The only complication with that is replacing the regular brake pads with the ones designed for carbon rims, and then re-adjusting the cable since those rims are so much wider than my regular ones. Even so, it's basically a five-minute job. That was pretty much the extent of my preparation, since I'd really be there to officiate, and racing was mostly just wishful thinking.

Getting ready to call the next race to the line (Boedi's photo)

I arrived at the lakefront early, right about the same time as Jason, and started getting things set up. Ricky showed up a little while later. It was all complicated by a strong northwest wind coming off the lake that I'd estimate at 10-14 mph minimum. We tied the tents off to sign posts and staked and weighted everything down well since anything can happen when you spend the whole day on the lakefront. Fortunately, the first race of the day was the Juniors, for which there were only five or six, so once that got going it was clear that Ricky wasn't going to need much backup, which gave me a chance to go change into my kit. If you've never tried to change clothes and pull on tight lycra while sweaty and sitting in a burning hot car in the summer in New Orleans you have no idea how difficult that task can be. 

As usual when I try to jump into a race while also officiating, my head wasn't really in it and my warmup was dramatically insufficient. I lined up in the back row for the masters race so I wouldn't get in the way. There was no question that I'd be dropped, I just didn't yet know when or where. The answers to those two questions came quickly, though. The course started heading east on Lakeshore Drive for just a couple hundred meters before a U-turn in the middle of the road. Naturally Acadiana and maybe a couple others went from the gun, so by the time I finally came around the U-turn, way on the outside where the wind was, I looked up to see them attacking down the left side to gutter as many people as possible. I never even got into the draft and by the time I made the left turn onto Franklin and went up and over the levee I knew this would be a training ride for me. Heading back toward Lakeshore Drive on Franklin was brutal with the combination of the strong headwind and the rise over the levee. I kept some pressure on, though, and eventually caught and passed a few riders who had been ejected from the group. The wind eventually shattered much of the field and the lead rider lapped me a lap or two before the finish, with the remnant of the chase group sprinting past me just before the finish line. I was actually kind of surprised it took them so long. 

Russell showed up with his new TR-3

It was a really long day because there were a lot of separate raced on the schedule, some of which were pretty sparsely attended. In the case of the Women 1/2/3 race, sparsely would mean zero. Three separate races for Women attracted a total of only 7 women, which was pretty disappointing. Even the men's 1/2/3 race had only nine. The other races had reasonable fields, but I thought they all should have been better attended for something right there in the city with zero chance of rain. As the day went on the wind calmed down a little bit, so that was good, but it also got hotter. I went through quite a bit of gatorade and water that, thankfully, Jason had provided, and even had a nice lunch from a food pop-up that he got to come out. It was probably 6:30 by the time I got back home and unloaded the car. Jason still has some stuff with him, like traffic cones, etc.

The obsolete drain parts for the old sink arrived on Monday, so yesterday after work I went over to Lowe's and picked up a plastic p-trap and stuff, knowing full well I'd probably run into some kind of problem and would be back there later. The replacement drain was not quite an exact fit, and of course everything it was attaching to was old and corroded, so I didn't go into it with very high hopes. The drain line threads were so bad that I couldn't thread on the plastic nut on the trap, and I ended up going back to Lowe's at 9:30 pm to find, luckily, a metal one. That one was strong enough to kind of chase the threads, so that kind of worked, but the seal at the bottom of the sink was never good and even after a couple of hours and a rubber gasket it still leaks like it always has. There's always been a little bucket underneath to catch the leaks. Still is. At least I was able to wash a load of cycling clothes without flooding the basement. I can probably seal things up a little better, but I think a new wash basin and a plumber are in my future there.

No good news here

Monday morning I got to work and instead of our in-person staff meeting we did it via Zoom even though most of us were in our offices because we're back to an indoor-masking advisory due to the Delta variant that has already driven up the positivity rates to where they were back around Christmas holidays. At the start of the meeting Marcia said she had a head cold and had lost her sense of smell. She said she was fine. We sent her home anyway. Yeah, she ultimately tested positive for COVID-19, and yeah, she had been vaccinated. Lots of vaccinated people are testing positive - way more than I'd have expected - right now. Most seem to have mild symptoms, which of course means they're still out and about and likely helping spread the virus around even more. Danielle had tested positive a couple of weeks before coming here and Shannon has been sick for weeks.

This morning I went out to meet up with the WeMoRi. There was already a break of five or six off the front, so I jumped in with them after the turn onto Marconi. I mostly just hung onto the back of the paceline. A gap opened a couple of times but we were mostly still together back on Lakeshore Drive. After the Elysian Fields traffic circle another gap opened somewhere up ahead but then Eddie C, who was on his TT bike, came back and ultimately dragged me back up the group. After coming over the bridge, though, I threw in the towel and let them go for that last half mile. It was a good enough workout already.

Summer Pattern

I've been meeting the Friendly Friday group lately since there's no Tulane coffee ride right now.

Picking up from where I left off last week, I was up and out early to meet the WeMoRi Wednesday morning. It was hot and humid, as it has been every morning, and there was quite a large group into which I merged on Lakeshore Drive. The wind was negligible, which kept the group together despite a fast pace. 

Nigel and the EMS people with Nisha
on Wednesday

Up near the front I noticed Nisha who was doing a much better job of staying up there than I was, and I made a mental note to compliment her on her riding. I was getting quite a good enough workout somewhat farther down the line, myself, but as we came around the Elysian Fields traffic circle for the last few miles before the end, at Marconi, I allowed myself to entertain thoughts of contesting the sprint. I guess I wasn't the only one, though, because somewhere in-between the bridge and Wisner things momentarily and uncharacteristically bunched up. I was somewhere behind Eddie C as we passed Shelter #2 and was thinking he might be a good wheel, but then he decided to go around a number of riders on the right by taking advantage of the parking area. A quick calculation told me that although he might make it before the parking area ended, which he did easily, I probably wouldn't, so I instead moved to the left thinking that maybe I'd get enough of an opening to put in a little effort. I was too far back to really contest the sprint by that point, of course. Then, out of the corner of my eye I sensed some kind of bumping going on ahead and to the right of me. Next thing I knew Nisha was on the ground with her head right in front of me. I swerved hard to the left, just barely missing her, and luckily didn't take anyone else down in the process. I coasted for a moment to make sure nobody was coming past me and turned back to see if she was OK. She wasn't. She'd landed hard on her left side, smashing her helmet and shoulder on the pavement. Riders hovered around her telling her to just stay there for a minute as someone called 911. I asked her what day it was and it took her a little while to process it, so I was pretty sure she'd had a concussion. Also pretty sure she'd broken her collarbone, which turned out to be the case. She called Nigel who came out to pick up her bike and take her to the ER. When he arrived, I told him to make sure she did indeed go to the ER because I thought she needed to be checked out for concussion, at least, and likely broken bones. The had asked "What happened" a number of times. Unfortunately I couldn't provide much information there since I didn't actually see what happened. I was just super glad I hadn't hit her when she was on the ground. We were going around 29 mph at the time. The collarbone turned out to be worse than I'd hoped. The collarbone had multiple fractures so needed surgery. I think from what I heard they kept her in the hospital until the surgery was done. Anyway, I found it all quite upsetting on multiple levels. We sent her a GrupHub gift card. Hopefully it doesn't get lost in her email. Tulane seems to have moved up another level with Microsoft's spam filtering so I have to go into the quarantine folder daily now to find stuff that shouldn't have been filtered out. They are also going to multi-factor authentication (really dual-factor authentication) in a day or two, so if my phone isn't handy or is broken or dead all bets are off.

The levee rides have been pretty good this week and we had another good group on Thursday, so that's good. Of course this time of year I get back home completely soaked in sweat, which isn't so good, but definitely better than frozen fingers and toes IMHO.

This weekend Chris M had organized a little 77-mile Sunday northshore ride up on what has become the "regular" State Line route, so I tried to take it as easy as possible on Saturday's Giro. I don't think I was particularly successful at that, however. Sunday morning we had, I think, nine riders on hand for the 7:30 a.m. roll-out. It was a good group, but I knew we were starting out at a slightly faster pace than advisable, so I was taking shorter pulls for the most part. On the plus side, there wasn't much wind and it didn't get super hot until later in the ride. Way up by the state line after the nice climbs where we turn left, a couple of riders who were a bit off the front missed the turn. We yelled and turned and figured they'd look back soon enough and realize what happened, but about a mile later there was still no sign of them. A couple of phone calls ensued and we ended up riding back to the turn to meet up with them. I think that netted us a few bonus miles for the day. After the store stop in Pine a few decided to skip the Sie Jenkins look through Plainview and South Choctaw, and we'd lost Randy H on the way out, so I think we were down to just five or six by then. Coming out of Enon I thought we held a nice moderate pace up the firetower climb but by the time we turned onto Tung Road there were just four of us and we were pretty well-toasted. I was glad I'd gone. It had been a while since I'd ridden on roads that weren't flat as a pancake, and it showed. I'd felt a little tired right from the start, so some parts of the ride were a bit of a struggle. Sorry about the paucity of photos but I've been saving jersey pocket space of nutrition lately, and I hate trying to take photos with my phone while riding.

Next weekend is a race on Lakeshore Drive, kind of similar to the old Rocktoberfest  race. It should be fun. I've been helping Jason F with some of the details and will be helping with officiating, I hope, and maybe jumping into a race. I say "I hope" because Candy has her hip replacement surgery on Thursday and Danielle is coming in around midnight on Wednesday, so my ability to help with the race will depend largely on how Candy's doing. Jason is coming over on Wednesday to pick up equipment and stuff so he can get the course set up since I am a little bit questionable for Saturday.

Not good

This morning I went out for a really easy spin on the levee. My legs are still feeling Sunday's ride for sure. Then I rode to work. As I rode down Poydras from Broad I noticed that the traffic signal at S. Galvez was out. Then, as I rode past LSU medical center I could hear the big generators running and saw a lot of people hanging around outside the doors. I figured there had been a power outage. As it turned out, an "animal" had caused a transformer to blow, knocking out power for much of the CBD. As I was walking into the building, everyone was walking out. I ended up turning right back around and riding back home. Fortunately, we're all well-equipped to work from home now. Speaking of which, COVID cases are spiking faster than I've seen in a long time, basically at least doubling in the past week, as all sorts of people, including some who were vaccinated, are turning up positive. Not good.

4 Spokes and You're Out

Somehow he got it stopped before is self-destructed

It's truly summer now. Every ride starts with a hopeful look at weather radar and ends with sweat-soaked jersey and gloves clinging to dehydrated skin. I love it. Well, maybe love isn't quite the word, but I definitely like it a lot better than frozen toes and fingers. Last week was kind of an exercise in slipping rides in-between raindrops, sometimes unsuccessfully. Even so, there were lots of riders out and about, so the group rides were fun and challenging. Back at the office full-time now, I think I got rained on twice coming home from work, but neither time was much more than a light rain and insufficient to get my feet too wet. 

The weekday morning rides were mostly pretty well-attended last week, so that was nice. A few people have been meeting up with the 6 am group along the levee, which has been kind of making up for Charles and Rich who have been AWOL. With things to do at home on the weekend, like fixing that big hole in the bathroom wall, and thinking about trimming hedges and cutting grass (never happened) I never even considered anything other than two Giro Rides, both of which were fine, at least until the incident on Sunday. 

We were maybe 300 meters from the Goodyear Sign Sprint on Sunday when I heard a very strange sound somewhere in the middle of the group. It turned out to be Jeff neatly severing four spokes out of his formerly nice Enve carbon front wheel when Steve's rear derailleur attempted to occupy the same space at the same time. Fortunately nobody crashed, which is notable since losing four adjacent spokes out of maybe 20 could have easily resulted in catastrophic rim failure leading to a big crash. Of course, once he stopped it was clear he wouldn't be riding home on that wheel. A few of us waited to make sure everything was OK while he called for extraction. As the rest of us started back I found myself behind Steve. Looking down at his rear derailleur I could see that the cage was bent dangerously inward, so he stopped for a second and straightened it out by hand. After that it looked fine to me, although he said it wasn't shifting quite right.

Sticker Shock

I headed over to Lowe's to pick up a piece of plywood so I could fix the hole in the bathroom wall. It wasn't really a simple task since I'd be working with the tiles I'd earlier pried off of the now-removed sheetrock. They still had a fair amount of mastic on them. I wanted to replace two rows of tiles and the same thickness sheetrock that had been removed, the tiles with the old mastic would be sitting higher than the surrounding tiles. Also, I wanted to use plywood since we'd had to cut into a cross-piece in order to get to the shower pipe, and I wanted to strengthen that area. So a decent half-sheet of plywood was basically fifty dollars, which was considerably more shocking than what the plumber had charged, but I really wasn't willing to go with something cheaper. So the two rows of tile went in just fine, but then of course making the removable panel was complicated by the usual old-house complications, which is to say that nothing is quite square, or level, or flat. I eventually got it all sorted out thanks to sandpaper and a little planer and a lot of patience, but it took an extra hour or so. I moved the little antique oak washstand back in front of it all and you'd never know there had been a problem there. Still need to get the drain line replaced, of course. Meanwhile, the road work crew moved our water meter over about three feet to presumably free it from the tree roots, and the plumber had already removed the flow restrictor from our hand-held shower head, so if you turn the shower full-on the water pressure is probably now sufficient to take the skin off your back. Incremental progress.

Jered Gruber's photo of Sepp

Last week was an interesting one for the Tour de France. As happy as I have been to see Mark Cavendish again winning sprints behind an awesome leadout train, I was even happier to see Coloradoan Sepp Kuss finally get the opportunity to do what I've known he could do since last year's Tour, which was to win a stage. Although I can personally relate a lot more with Cavendish and sprinting, albeit at much, much slower speeds, it was great to see a U.S. rider win a stage after such a long drought. It'll be interesting to see how this last week plays out. Sepp doesn't have much left in the way of domestique duties, and Mark doesn't have many surviving sprinters left to deal with.

Slippery When Wet

Slippery when wet!

We seem to be in the midst of some kind of monsoon season around here lately. Where and when it will rain seems to be entirely unpredictable, but the fact that it will rain somewhere, sometime, is an absolute certainty. Often the where and when coincide with wherever I happen to be.

It was like that last Saturday. I went out to do the Giro Ride rather than an 80-miler that was happening on the northshore because it looked like it might rain ... somewhere. Despite the almost useless weather forecast there was a pretty good crowd on hand for the ride and it turned out to be a pretty good ride. Well, that is until we got onto Hayne Blvd. and it started to rain. It wasn't too bad, though, and the pace remained pretty high as we went over the casino overpass and blasted across the dragstrip between that and the Seabrook bridge. By then I was well toward the back of a string of riders, and as we got closer to the bridge I called out, to nobody in particular, "don't forget about the grate!" referring of course to the steel grate on top of the drawbridge that has taken down more than a few riders. When it's wet, it's very slippery, and when you fall on it you don't slide. Well, my voice definitely didn't carry all the way up to the front of the group, and as I watched the first few riders sprinting to the top I said out loud, "Oh shit." Sure enough, the first couple of riders made it across but the third slid out right in the middle of the right lane and was very slow to get up. He had hit his head and done some pretty significant damage to his left hand. As we got him sorted out and riders started rolling down the overpass, he noticed that he'd lost his Garmin watch. It's probably at the bottom of the industrial canal now, because we couldn't find it. Anyway, Eddie D and I stayed with him all the way back to make sure he was OK. Back at home the streets were dry, of course. 

Monday was plumber day. The plumber came in the morning and replaced all the valves and plumbing for the tub and shower, which involved me cutting a big hole in the wall that I have yet to repair. On the plus side, you can actually turn the water all the way off now. On the minus side the wife hates the handles he put on, so I'll probably end up spending another hundred dollars for something different. I told the plumber I'd call him next week to set up time for him to replace the tub drain lines and trap since they have been fairly clogged up since we bought the house thirty years ago. I think the road work crew finally moved my water meter out from the roots of the oak tree the other day. Anyway, the road is still a complete disaster area but it looks like they are finishing up most of the underground work, so I guess next will be the curbs and such before finally getting to the re-paving part. 

Neighborhood kids and parents making the most of the dirt road after a rainstorm

On Tuesday the forecast was also pretty inconclusive and it was just Scott and me on the levee at 6 am. We learned that Charles, who had crashed at the Tour de La road race on a slippery wet turn, had finally gotten a good MRI done and was told he had, "Nondisplaced acute fractures of the left hemi sacrum, anterior wall of the right acetabulum, right inferior pubic ramus and right side of the pubic symphysis." Some of that sounds familiar, and indeed I had told him that I thought he had probably broken something like his pubic ramus based on the fact that his symptoms were so muck like mine were a year and a half ago.  In other words, he probably shouldn't have been riding with us the prior Thursday. Actually, since that injury was almost a month prior, it should be well on it's way to healing, so I guess he'll take another couple of weeks off to be on the safe side. We did a good ride out to the Big Dip and back, but it was not without incident. On the way back, Scott's rear tire went soft so we stopped to change it. Then, when he got back on the bike the chain came off and he tried to force it, which resulted in the chain getting lodged underneath the pin on the drive-side crankarm. You know, that pin that is supposed to keep the chain from getting stuck between the crankarm and the chainring. It took is about fifteen minutes to get it back out of there using a combination of multitools, four hands, and brute force. 

Yesterday I made it out to the WeMoRi which seemed to be a bit faster than usual, which felt good. Then I got rained on coming home from work. Then today there were just three of us at 6 am so we were talking about turning around early, but then we started picking up more riders along the way and were up to eight eventually, so we went all the way out to Ormond.

There are some races finally being planned. Jason F is putting on a criterium at the lakefront later this month, then there are criteriums in Mobile the following week. Robert L is working on a road race and criterium weekend up around Jackson for some time in September. I've been back in the office full-time as of Tuesday (I kind of was for a week prior to that), along with everyone else. It was nice to be here with other people and even nicer that they got the coffee maker fixed. We might be trying out a kind of flex schedule where we would take turns working remotely on Fridays. I'm not real sure what the benefit of that is in my case, but whatever.