Hard Holiday Weather

Scout Island trail

Each year of late Strava has this "Festive 500" thing where people try to ride at least 500 km over the holidays, from December 24 though December 31. That kind of distance over eight days, 310 miles for those of us still measuring things based on the length of somebody's foot, isn't outside of my normal routine, although I suppose there have been years where meeting that goal provided a bit of motivation to get on the bike when the holidays might otherwise provide ample excuses for missing a day or two. This year, however, I suspect only those with legit OCD might not have thrown that goal out the window already. By Thursday the 22nd we were already being inundated by dire warnings of  winter Armageddon, which around here just means it will be significantly below freezing for a significant amount of time. Such events are rare enough that it isn't unreasonable to just take those days as "rest days" and carry on when it warms up, which usually happens by the following day. This time, though, the following day would be a bit worse.

So with faucets dripping to keep them from freezing Friday morning the 23rd started out well below freezing. I was already coming down with a sore throat, so things weren't looking too good for me, but nonetheless I waited until 2:00 pm when the temperature was barely above freezing, and took the cyclocross bike out with the idea of riding some of the trails on Scout Island in City Park where there would be some protection from the 10-15 mph north wind. The ride was just to move my legs and get out of the house, with no effort to do anything that might resemble training. It was quite nice on the trails, actually. Afterward I decided to ride to see what Lakeshore Drive looked like. That mile or so right into the freezing north wind was brutal, and Lakeshore Drive was closed because of the ice on the road from the waves breaking over the seawall. My average speed for that ride barely cracked 10 mph.

Friday night was, I think, even colder, and so on Christmas eve I again waited until afternoon when the temperature was up to around freezing before going out for a short solo ride on the windblown levee. At least the sun was out. I got in 30-odd miles, again at an agonizingly slow speed. The sore throat was still there, and so I was expecting it to all evolve into a chest cold any day.

My brother and niece came in on Christmas day, and between the cold I was nurturing and the cold temperature outside I didn't have any trouble convincing myself of the wisdom in staying off the bike on the 25th and 26th. On Tuesday it was still pretty cold and windy, and I was starting to get some chest congestion, so I went out at 6 am to the levee with the idea of sitting on the back at the lowest possible effort level and turning back early to minimize the chances of turning it all into pneumonia. As it turned out, it was just Charles and me, so we just did an easy ride out to Williams Blvd. and back. On the plus side, the temperature was supposed to be much warmer on Wednesday. 

Since I was already coughing and generally feeling pretty much under the weather I wisely decided not to go out to the WeMoRi and instead aim for a solo ride later in the day when it would be over then degrees warmer. 

I headed out under a nice blue sky around 10:00 am with the idea of keeping the effort level low so as to avoid doing more harm than good. Considering the much-improved weather, and trying to ignore the gradually increasing southeast wind, I put a gel in my pocket just in case I found the motivation to do a longer ride. Knowing that I was already suffering from a chest cold, I went ahead and pulled on the leg and arm-warmers even though I knew it would be in the mid-60s. Up on the levee, and lured by a nice tailwind, I cruised along at a minimal effort level all the way out to the end of the bike path at Gramercy, about 44 miles upriver. I knew it would be a very long ride back, almost entirely into a strong headwind, but I was determined not to push myself too hard. I probably averaged 14 mph at best all the way back and was quite suitably tired and hungry by the time I got home.

With the chest cold in full effect I waited until after noon to go out yesterday, again with the idea of just putting in a few easy miles on the levee. I ran into Charlotte on the way out, so we rode together until she turned back a bit after Williams Blvd. I was not feeling too bad, so decided to continue to the little Dip. I rode a little bit harder on the way back, which again was largely head and cross-wind. This morning, Friday, the forecast had been calling for rain and thunderstorms by 7 am, but when I awoke that had all been pushed back by a few hours. Even so, I decided not to risk it by going out to see who might show up for Friendly Friday. I could have ridden and stayed dry but perhaps it was better to skip it until this chest cold clears up a bit more. It's been raining non-stop now for hours and things will probably be wet until at least 3 pm, so prospects for today are looking rather bleak. Just as well, I guess. With one more riding day left in 2022, I'm a bit over 13,000 miles for the year, which is more than adequate. Here's the past ten years;

Winter Blows Into Town

It was inevitable. Winter. We had somehow been avoiding the worst of it, riding around in summer kit as if it was Fall, but we knew it was coming. One way we knew was because by Wednesday morning we were starting to get tornado alerts that soon enough became tornado warnings. 

Power outages show the tornado's path

It was around 11:30 on Wednesday when I heard a few raindrops hitting the ledge outside my 6th floor window. Looking out toward the Superdome I could see that some of the banners on the lightposts had already been ripped off by the wind. Looking at the radar I could also see that the worst was yet to come, so I rushed down to my bike and made good my escape back home. By 4 pm there was a tornado ripping through sections of the westbank, eventually crossing the river to the east. A number of other tornados had already hit farther up the river as the cold front came through. It was bad and those who were hit were hit hard. Once the front moved off to the east the temperatures started to drop, and by the time I rolled out for the Thursday morning levee ride the temperature had dropped from the low 70s to the low 50s, accompanied as usual by a strong wind. The group was down to only four pretty quickly and the easily reached consensus was to turn back at the Big Dip since we were struggling to maintain 20-21 mph in the crosswind.

Friday morning the temperature was in the 49-50° range and of course it was still windy. As I rode out in the dark to the Friendly Friday ride I wondered who would show up. Surprisingly there was a pretty big group on hand. The combination of ample available horsepower and strong winter wind out on the lakefront, where the temperature was a good ten degrees warmer thanks to the lake, resulted in a ride that seemed a lot harder than you'd think it you just looked at the speed.

I went out to the Saturday Giro already feeling pretty un-recovered, which is never a good thing. The wind out by the lake was probably in the 10-15 mph range, and the temperature was in the low 50s, so turnout was lower than usual, which didn't mean it would be easier. After the warmup along Lakeshore Drive into the northeast wind we came down onto Hayne Blvd. where someone, probably Sam, launched an attack down the left side at about five mph faster than I was going at the time. Riders streamed past on my left, leaving me just enough time to remark, "Really??" before completely blowing up without ever really catching the draft. I quickly made the executive decision to retreat and live to fight another day, giving up the chase to wait for my breathing to go from "gasping" back down to "breathing heavily." Fortunately, experience has taught me a couple of things about the Giro. For one, it probably wouldn't be that fast on the way back. For another, there are a couple of shortcuts. So I turned off of Hayne onto Read Blvd. where I enjoyed a bit of tailwind, and then worked my way over to Bullard and Chef Highway. In a rare bit of perfect timing, I came to the intersection with I-510 just as the group got there, allowing me to slip smoothly onto the back, which is where I stayed because I was not about to put my nose back into the wind at that point. As expected, the return trip was considerably easier other than the usual race to the overpass and Seabrook bridge. My legs had felt sore the whole time and I was just hoping I hadn't done too much more damage.

Skeleton crew on Sunday

On Sunday it was even colder - mid 40s - and still just as windy, and as you'd expect there was a much smaller group on hand. As we were rolling out along Marconi Howard showed up in his car, announcing that he'd left his helmet at home. Well, we weren't about to let him get away with such an excuse and so we stopped at Matt's house where VJ, who knew the combination to his garage door, pulled one of Matt's helmets off the shelf for Howard (Matt was up at Bogue Chitto riding mountain bikes, apparently). Even with Howard, though, the entire group probably numbered only ten, which was not much of a match for the unrelenting northeast wind. We did, however, manage the entire ride even though we were struggling to hold 17 mph on the way out along Hayne. The return trip featured some sections of nice tailwind, and when we got back onto Hayne things picked up quickly to around 28 mph which had my still-unrecovered legs begging for mercy.

Monday in the wind along Lakeshore Drive

This morning's Mellow Monday ride was not exactly mellow. The temperature was in the low 40s and the ENE wind on the lakefront was probably in the 12-18 mph range. The group was down to just a handful as we battled our way to the east at about 16 mph. Then, of course, we made the loop at Seabrook and were immediately going 28-29 mph. This tailwind section was actually a lot harder than the headwind had been. It's always surprised me that people will push themselves more in a tailwind than in a headwind. By the time We hit the Bayou St. John bridge I'd had about enough and pulled out of the paceline for a couple of badly needed recovery miles. My 2022 mileage total is just a tad over 12,900 right now, so it looks like I'll be over 13k miles again this year, even taking into account the really cold weather that is about to hit. Tomorrow morning is looking to be rainy ahead of the next cold front. Wednesday should be windy and not too cold in the morning, but after that things start going south and at the moment Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are showing lows slightly below freezing. The high on Christmas day will only be around 42°. 

I guess I could use a couple of rest days anyway! Meanwhile, they are finally pouring concrete for the sidewalks and driveways along Pine Street, so maybe people will have a place to park soon. Of course they have, in the process, totally destroyed the little triangular neutral ground across the street which has become a dumping ground and storage area for heavy machinery, lumber, concrete, rebar, etc., etc. With the freezing weather I am hoping that the section of water line that they ran ABOVE GROUND between my meter and the sidewalk doesn't freeze and leave us without water over Christmas. I guess I'll put some pipe insulation on it and hope for the best. The dog has recently decided that the bed in the back room is his since Candy put Christmas stuff on it.

Torrential

Thursday morning fog on the levee blowing past the headlight.

It was another week of unseasonably warm temperatures, high humidity, and of course dense fog, or not dense fog, or torrential rain, or sunshine. As unpredictable as it was, at least we did not have much in the way of high winds and cold air. That will be coming later this week as an actual cold front finally blows through late on Wednesday, bringing us back to more normal early winter weather. 

The Tuesday levee ride had a nice little turnout. It wasn't terribly foggy, so that was nice. Jess, who has been riding way, way more consistently than any of the other Tulane riders, was there along with a few of the usual suspects except for Big Rich who has again apparently retreated to his hideaway in NC where unpaved roads are considered charmingly rustic rather than glaring examples of incompetent mismanagement like they are here in town. Jess rolled up to the start with a flat rear tire So we're riding up the river at a moderate pace and coming to the little bypass around some piles, and I briefly think about warning Jess about it but then figure she's probably well aware of it since she's ridden the levee bike path a number of times. Well apparently it must have caught here by surprise because right after I go around them I hear someone yelling behind me. Fortunately Jess had just taken a little detour onto the grass and hadn't actually crashed! Eventually everyone turned back around Williams Blvd. except Charles and me. After then turnaround at Ormond we eased up a bit and were riding side-by-side chatting about one thing or another when I made the absolutely unforgiveable mistake of bringing up the subject of tires. As anyone who rides bikes must surely know, talking about tires while on a ride is guaranteed to put a jinx on the ride, anger the tire gods, and inevitably result in a flat tire or two - which of course it immediately did. So we spent a little time fixing Charles' flat and rode easy most of the way back. Unfortunately the tire gods were not quite done with us yet, though.

The WeMoRi was pretty normal but with a slightly smaller turnout than usual. As was the case every morning this week there was a dense fog advisory posted, but the fog wasn't really all that bad. That afternoon I left work early so I could finish up at home and await an expected call from Bergeron Volvo that my car was finally ready. I'd dropped it off the prior Thursday and it had remained untouched until Monday when I got the $2,000 estimate and a promise it would be ready by the end of the day on Wednesday. I texted the service guy around 4 pm and he eventually got back to me to inform me that they had been shipped the wrong part (I assume the emission test pump assembly that had triggered the "check engine" light) and now it wouldn't be ready until Thursday. Sigh... Later that evening was the annual WeMoRi Christmas party that was at Toe's house this year. There was a great turnout along with copious amounts of food and adult beverages. I stayed until around 10:30, just after Kenny showed up on his way back from a high school football game.

Jess took a little detour around the pipes.

Thursday morning it was foggy enough to consider not riding, which of course I didn't really consider. As we were about to roll out Jess appeared with a flat rear tire and no pump or inflator. That precipitated a big collaborative tire-changing effort that got us rolling pretty quickly. Then, just after we had started back from The Dip (some negotiation had been required to get people to go even that far under the damp and foggy circumstances), Jess flatted again. So we checked the tire, pulled something small and sharp out of it, and got going again. That didn't last too long, though, and soon the tire was almost flat again. We were still quite far out, not even back to Williams, so trying to nurse it back with more CO2 wasn't really feasible. We put another tube (tube #3) in it and that one did the trick. Later I did an autopsy on the last tube that had leaked, which was one of my patched tubes, and discovered that it had a slow leak where the valve stem it attached to the tube. Back at work, I got the call from Bergeron in the early afternoon that the car was ready, so headed back home where I decided to ride the cyclocross bike out there to pick it up. I took the long way around, going all the way to the lake trail and then back down Severn. That ride reminded me why I don't ride much in the city after 7:30 am! I also discovered that at the last cyclocross race my saddle clamp must have slipped a bit, leaving the tip of the saddle pointing a bit upward. It wasn't too bad, but it was a bit of an annoyance. Anyway I threw the bike into the car and drove back home with everything in more or less working order.

Saturday's Giro was pretty nice once the fog lifted.

Saturday's Giro Ride started out with must a little fog and a slightly smaller turnout than usual. It was nice and warm - like 67° - with practically no wind, so it was a nice ride. It was pretty fast, and I did a bit of work, but the combination of warm temperatures, a decent enough sized group, and virtually no wind made it seem easier than you'd have expected. That afternoon I decided it was finally time to fix the screen on the porch door. That's a job that you would think would be easy but actually isn't. I needed to add hardware cloth behind the screen because the damage I was fixing had been caused by the dog jumping up and pushing the screen out. Add to that the fact that it's an old wooden screen door that has been worked on numerous times over the past thirty or forty years, and you have more of a job than you'd think. I decided to take it off the hinges and work on it in the basement rather than try to deal with it in place. I just have removed a hundred rusty staples and brads before I could finally put in the new hardware cloth and screen. Then I had to replace some of the trim and finally slap some paint on the whole thing, so it wasn't actually finished and ready to be re-installed until Sunday afternoon when I also balanced precariously on a ladder placed on the front steps in order to replace the screen alongside the door. All of that left me with a back that was even more sore than it had been before!

On Sunday there was a huge line of storms heading our way and I knew the timing would be hit-or-miss regarding the Giro. Staring at the radar at Starbucks before the ride I had the idea that we might just barely miss the worst of it, and thought that even if we didn't stay dry, it would just be a light rain. We headed out with a smallish group with the idea that we would re-assess at the end of Hayne Blvd. At that point the sky still looked good out to the northwest so we continued on to the usual turnaround at Venetian Isles. The weather for most of the ride was actually pretty nice. Any time you can ride in summer kit in December it feels like a gift, but as it would eventually turn out, the ride wouldn't be without its cost. By the time we got back to Hayne Blvd. it was starting to rain, and moments later the rain went from normal rain to torrential downpour. Will, who was stationed at the front, seemed intent on pushing the pace despite the conditions and as we got closer to the Casino overpass people started dropping off the back. I made a quick decision to stick with him and Norman, who was in from Biloxi, mainly because I didn't want to end out there alone. Regardless, I was thankful for whoever invented daytime-visible LED bike lights because soon the rain was coming at us horizontally from the northwest so strongly that it was filling my right ear with water. The last few miles featured some street flooding and gusty crosswinds, so I was happy when we finally turned off of Lakeshore Drive. When I got home, completely soaked, I emptied about half a cup of water out of my shoes and wrung nearly the same amount out of my socks. My new phone seemed to survive the dousing in good stead, as did the other electronics that now adorn my bike, so that was at least a silver lining. I spend the rest of the day fixing the screen alongside the porch door and then finally re-installing the minimally re-painted door. Annual mileage is up over 12,500 miles now so I guess I should end the year with around 13k.

Kinda Crazy Weather

Tuesday morning starting the return trip from Ormond

It was a week defined more by the weather than anything else. Well, that and Bergeron Volvo, but I'll get to that part later. At least we had a fairly normal levee ride on Tuesday, if you consider 66°F at the end of November "normal." After logging something in excess of 350 miles the week before I was already fully committed to an easier week, especially since I was entertaining the possibility of going up to Ridgeland on Sunday for cyclocross. 

The weather forecast for the last day of November, Wednesday's WeMoRi, was not looking too promising, though, with a line of rain being consistently predicted to come through precisely in the middle of the ride. Of course, weather predictions this time of year are always closer to opinions than scientific fact, so I was still holding out a bit of hope when I hit the sack Tuesday night. Hope springs eternal. When I awoke Wednesday morning I could hear thunder way in the distance, and checking the weather radar confirmed that the forecast had, for once, been right on the mark. WeMo was clearly not going to happen, and even the possibility of squeezing in a few miles after work looked distinctly improbable. Considering my aforementioned high-mileage prior week I took it all as a sign that I should just take the day off and call it a recovery day.

When it's cold and windy you at least get the levee to yourself!

As usually happens after a line of storms like that comes through, Thursday morning was super windy out of the east northeast, the sky was clear, and the temperature was down to the mid-40s. To complicate matters, I was scheduled, after waiting three weeks for the appointment, to bring the Volvo in for service over in Metairie. I figured I'd turn around early, ride back home, throw the bike into the car, drive out to the dealership, and ride back home. Well, when I arrived at the levee for the 6 am ride start it was deserted. Everyone had bailed out because of the wind and the fact that it was going to be considerably warmer the next day. So I went ahead and battled the wind, which wasn't really all that bad because much of it was crosswind, for about ten miles before turning back to head home. Then, as planned I drove out to Bergeron Volvo with the bike in the back to drop it off. Since I'd gotten there a bit before 8 am I decided to go back the long way, riding up Severn which has a brand new "protected" bike lane, to the Lake Trail. Fortunately I didn't hit any of the concrete road furniture separating the bike lane from the other lanes, and also fortunately didn't need to turn left which such things would have made more hazardous than usual. I rode over the levee onto the bike path and turned east and was immediately slammed hard by the unobstructed east wind that was howling at somewhere in the 15-20 mph range. I was at times struggling to maintain 11 mph until I finally got to Bucktown and back onto city streets where the wind wasn't quite so strong. The rest of the 11.6 mile ride home was much nicer except for the rush-hour drivers who seemed intent on murdering me despite my retina-piercing daytime-visible tail light.

Just a handful of us did the full Giro on Saturday.

Friday's Friendly Friday ride was unremarkable except for the somewhat low turnout and nice easy pace. I was hoping to get the car back at some point so I'd have it on Sunday for the drive to Ridgeland, but I was not so lucky. By late afternoon I texted the service department to inquire about the status of the car and was told that there were still two cars ahead of it, which meant that it had been sitting there for two days and nobody had even looked at it yet. I don't know what the point of waiting three weeks for an appointment is if they aren't going to touch the car for two days - actually four since it was now going to sit there all weekend. So that blew my cyclocross plans right out of the water. I'd already known I wouldn't be able to race on Saturday since we had tickets to the Tulane conference championship game that day. Not having the car for Sunday just twisted that knife a little more. Saturday morning it was nearly 70° but it was foggy as hell, which is not unusual when we have that kind of weather this time of year. So despite the temperature I put a base layer under my jersey and slipped on some thin arm-warmers, fully expecting to spend most of the Giro Ride wet. I was not wrong. I hadn't gone two blocks before I had to put my fogged up glasses in my pocket. Out at the Giro we had a small but not unreasonable group by the 7 am start, but as you can imagine the fog was quite thick along the lake. I think that kept the speed down a little bit. Apparently a lot of people had decided to start with the 6:45 SaMoRi group that day, and when we saw that large group heading back on Chef as we were heading out, almost everybody turned around to ride back in with the SaMoRi. Well, everybody but like four of us. We continued on and did the full ride. By the time we were back on Hayne Blvd. the fog had mostly lifted and I was able to put my sunglasses back on. Then, right at the base of the Bayou St. John bridge, we came upon a remnant of the SaMoRi, including a bunch of riders who had started with us, that was fixing one of apparently a few flat tires they had had. Karma, for sure. Anyway, since that put me back with a group that had ridden over from the westbank, and the weather was by then so nice, I tagged along with them through Metairie to the river where they turned off to the right to take the Huey P. Long bridge and I continued on to the levee for the ride back home. 

End of a well-played game.

Saturday afternoon we walked over to Tulane stadium in a warm and light drizzle to watch Tulane play University of Central Florida for their conference championship. I was shocked and amazed to find the student section packed with students from start to finish, which I don't think I have seen in decades, if ever. Also amazing was Tulane's performance. After an exciting game Tulane wrapped it up with another 4th quarter TD to win convincingly, which ultimately slotted them into the January 2nd Cotton Bowl. When the clock ticked down to zero the students, and most of the other fans as well, rushed the field, which was a sight I never thought I'd see at Tulane stadium.

On Sunday the weather was much the same as it had been on Saturday, but the fog was not quite as thick as the Giro rolled out with a significantly larger group than Saturday. Still, it wasn't a normal sized Giro group, so the speeds were mostly a little lower than usual and I was able to actually put my nose into the wind a number of times. I guess that got me a little bit more intensity to make up for that which I was missing by not being able to get to the cyclocross race.

This morning I went out to the Mellow Monday ride where the wind was as flat as the lake and the temperature was in the upper 60s. For reasons Turnout was a little low, probably because of the dire Dense Fog warnings that the forecasters had been emphasizing the night before, and I was expecting it to be an easier ride than usual. I should mention that despite the earlier warnings to the contrary, there was essentially no fog. It wasn't quite the easy ride I'd been expecting, but mainly because Don spent about half the time on the front on his super slick triathlon bike with the rest of us following like a little line of ducklings. For the record, Jen made the whole ride, apparently for the first time. She has been by far the most consistent about riding of all the Tulane riders this fall.

Holiday Miles

Thanksgiving Day waiting for the bridge to open.

It was some time on Wednesday afternoon when some sort of consensus seemed to materialize on doing a Thanksgiving Day Giro Ride. Thus started for me a string of longish city rides that would ultimately push my weekly mileage well over 300. Thanksgiving day started out really nicely, with warm temperatures and moderate wind. One never knows who will show up for these holiday rides since some people actually have lives outside of cycling, but as it turned out we had a pretty good-sized group for what I hoped would be a moderate-paced Giro. After getting stopped on the Seabrook drawbridge just as a sailboat was coming, we came down onto Hayne Blvd. at a relatively tame speed, and with really only a handful of riders interested in pushing the pace, things stayed mostly under control. The weather forecast was calling for rain on Friday, and since Thursday morning's weather was still rather spectacular, other than a significant east wind, I decided to get in a few extra miles along the lakefront bike trail before going home. I ended up with 74 miles and by the time I was on my way home the sky was already getting cloudy. I had been planning on doing a long birthday ride on the levee the following day, but considering the weather was not making any promises to myself or anyone else about that. Also, Thanksgiving evening was going to involve some slightly excessive eating and drinking.

So Friday morning was rainy, as predicted, but the last of the bad weather moved through in the morning and by 8:00 or so it was looking like things would dry up and aside from some wind the feasibility of a long ride was looking pretty good. Charles had asked me to let him know if I was going to go out for a long ride, so I told him I'd be hitting the levee for 9:30. I figured that would give the road a little time to dry out. My optimistic prognostication was soon dashed, however, and by the time I rolled out of the house there was a heavy cold mist starting to fall. I dressed more warmly than I would have otherwise, since I figured I'd be a little wet for a while. As it turned out, I would be much more than a little wet, and for much longer than a little while. Despite the fact that we were essentially riding in a cloud, we headed  up the river at a gentle pace. My only goal was to log at least my age in miles. I kept thinking that the mist would go away, but it never did, and by the time we were halfway out I could feel the water squishing around in my shoes. We continued anyway, riding two-abreast on the deserted bike path, and probably didn't break 20 mph the whole time. It wasn't pretty, but at least I logged 72 miles for my 69th birthday.

Naturally I'd just put on a new tire a couple of days earlier.

By Saturday morning the weather was a little better so I headed out around 6 am for coffee and to meet the Giro Ride. It was still fairly misty and damp, but not quite as bad as it had been on Friday. Going up the Seabrook bridge I somehow managed to impale my rear tire with a big sheetrock screw. Fortunately everyone stopped while I quickly threw in a new tube and got going again. There was a pretty strong east wind blowing, and we were missing a fair amount of the usual Giro horsepower, so the speeds stayed relatively low all the way out to Venetian Isles. Of course that meant there was a tailwind for much of the way back, which of course meant that it got pretty fast even though only a handful of riders were willing to put a whole lot of effort into it. We hadn't gotten to the end of Hayne when someone else flatted, so a few of us stopped to help with that while most of the group continued on, presumably unaware. After that we just got a little paceline going at an easy pace until we saw the group on its way back somewhere out on Chef Highway where we turned around and got back into the pack. I was fairly wet from the mist by the time I got back  home with another 55 miles.

Mississippi Amish??

Charles and Steve had been hatching a plan for another Pass Christian ride for Sunday, so I decided to make the drive over there for a change. I loaded the 68-mile route map into the Garmin early Sunday morning right before jumping in the car. This ride had a small group of about six, and from the first pedal stroke I could tell it was going to be kind of a difficult day for me. The weather was warmer and there was no mist for a change, so that was good. I guess it was really time for an easy recovery ride rather than three hours in the rolling hills. It seemed like half of the group wanted to go a little faster and half a little slower, with me somewhere in the middle trying to cautiously parse out my efforts to avoid doing more damage than I'd already done over the prior three days. The ride was a bit of a struggle for me for some reason - manageable but by no means feeling easy. By the end I knew I'd probably strung together one long day too many and was going to need a couple of easier days to fully recover. So the bottom line for the week, through no fault of my own, was 358 miles, which although not my highest mileage week of the year, was one of the highest. I usually consider a 250 mile week to be a pretty solid one, and indeed my monthly average tends to be around 1,000 miles. Somehow, though, those extra 58 miles seemed to push me just over the edge this time!

More fog on Monday

This morning's Mellow Monday ride had the usual group and once again there was a thick fog here and there, especially along the lakefront. The pace was mostly slower than usual with just a couple of brief surges in the usual places, so thanks to staying mostly off the front, and despite my tired legs, I didn't feel like I'd done any more damage.

Next weekend is going to be complicated. Tulane won their football game last week so they are hosting their conference championship next Saturday. There are cyclocross races up in Ridgeland Saturday and Sunday. I have to take the car in for service on Thursday. Candy bought football tickets for the game on Saturday, so I definitely won't be racing on Saturday (although I'd prefer that to watching a football game). Sunday will be up in the air until I find out if I'll have the car back before the weekend. It's at around 110k miles so aside from the usual oil change it's time for a new timing belt and possibly brakes, and the "check engine" light has been on for about three weeks. That could be the oxygen sensor or something at this point, so until they read the codes on Thursday I won't really have a good idea of what's going on there.

Grass, Asphalt, and Advil

Flat and twisty

There was little about last week that went as planned. OK, well there was actually little that was planned in the first place. One thing that was on my calendar for Tuesday afternoon, however, to get the new COVID-19 booster that was being conveniently offered at work. I had been kind of on the fence about getting this one, and I think if I was 35 years old it wouldn't even have been on my radar. But of course I'm not 35 years old, a fact of which I am painfully reminded daily. That morning it was chilly and dark and overcast, and when I pulled the bike down off the hook I found the rear tire to be flat. It was a sign that I shouldn't have ignored. I quickly grabbed the old Orbea, moved the lights from one bike to the other, and stepped out the door at 5:45 am only to be greeted by a heavy cold mist. I didn't get two blocks before I could feel the mist starting to soak through the two layers I had on my arms and quickly made the executive decision to turn right back around rather than spend a couple of hours trying to get pneumonia. Later that afternoon at work I walked over to the big empty room where they used to do the COVID tests and were now using temporarily for the vaccinations. I'd gotten the first booster about a year earlier, so it had been essentially a full year. Like last time, I awoke in the wee hours the following morning feeling achy and a little feverish. I knew better than to even think about going out to do the WeMoRi and instead took some Advil and tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep. That Wednesday I stayed home. It was practically a complete write-off as I spent the day with achy joints, headache, and low-grade fever, wondering if the vaccination was really worth it.

By Thursday I was feeling slightly better. The headache was gone but based on the occasional chills I knew I was still running a bit of fever. I bundled up and went out to meet the crew for the Thursday levee ride, intending to drop off the back early and turn around early, which is exactly what I did. For most of that day at work I felt less than stellar, but by Friday morning things were starting to return to normal so I did the usual Friendly Friday ride which was sparsely attended thanks to the cold and wind. Earlier in the week I had been considering going up to Ridgeland MS for the weekend cyclocross races but under the circumstances was still very much on the fence about it when I got home from work on Friday. The forecast was calling for a Saturday morning low right around freezing up there but about twenty degrees warmer at home. The problem, however, was the rain forecast that was getting progressively worse locally but not looking bad at all up in Ridgeland. About an  hour before pre-registration closed I went ahead and registered for the Saturday race. It looked like Sunday would be even colder, and it just wasn't feasible to take the car all weekend anyway.

Not as impressive as it might look

So Saturday morning I got up around 4:30 am, threw the 'cross bike and a whole lot of cycling clothes into the Volvo, and was on the road by 5:00 for the 3-hour drive. It was already raining when I left. The Check Engine light was glowing softly on the dashboard as it has been for a couple of weeks now as I cruised up I-55 in the dark watching the thermometer fall. It eventually got down to 32°F for a bit but fortunately the races didn't start until 9 am and by then there was some sunshine. It was probably around 40° when the masters race started. I had multiple layers on, and I knew I'd be overdressed halfway into the 40-minute race, but as always I'd rather be warm at the finish than cold at the start. Also, aerodynamics and going fast were not considerations at all. The course was all grass, some of it still a little damp. It was extremely twisty and basically all flat, and as usual my focus was on not falling rather than going fast. I succeeded in not going fast but not quite on the not falling part, catching my foot on one of the barriers at one point and hitting the ground rather gently on my knees to the amusement of a couple of spectators. I'd been following another rider for much of the race and quickly caught back up to him during the next lap. As usual, my confidence improved from lap to lap, although it never approached that of the two leaders who quite conveniently lapped the two of us on their final lap, which meant that we finished just behind them. Jay and Elise showed up during the race, so I threw some civilian clothes on top of my riding clothes and we went off for some coffee and pastries, and then headed over to Jay's new house for a while, eventually returning around noon ahead of the Cat. 1/2/3 race that I had decided to do for the exercise. 

As I pulled my bike out of the car I found the front tire was dead flat. I thought I must have pinch-flatted it during the morning race (turned out that it was a leak along one of the tube seams), but anyway I had a spare tube that I quickly put in. By then the sky was more overcast and it actually felt colder to me than it had earlier. There were only four in the 1/2/3 race, including me, plus the women who would be doing one fewer laps. This race was for 60 minutes and I liked that the lines were a little bit worn in and the grass was dry by then, which gave me a little more confidence. Still, for me the race was against just the course and myself as I continue to learn how much I can get away with on cyclocross tires. I still find it rather amazing that I can fly into an asphalt criterium corner at 30 mph with reckless abandon, but am heavily on the brakes coming into a dirt path around a tree at 5 mph. Halfway through the course I went past the Junior rider who was also doing the 1/2/3 race. That was only because he was walking at the time, having flatted his mountain bike's rear tire. As I went through the finish area on that lap Ricky called out, "You're in third place!" which was true. "You're in last place" would have been equally true. Although I felt awkward every time I had to dismount and jump over the barriers, I felt pretty good the rest of the time. I like how snappy the cyclocross bike feels, even though I occasionally hit my foot with the front tire when going really slowly around sketchy sharp turns. After the race Rolando told me that I had won the series jersey, essentially by default since I think you had to ride at least three of the four races to qualify, so somewhere there is a photo of me on the podium with that jersey on. There's also the photo above with me on the podium for Saturday's 1/2/3 race, which looks a lot more impressive than it really was. On the plus side I did get in some nice intensity and skill work on a day that, back in New Orleans, was nothing but rain. If I hadn't gone up to Jackson I probably wouldn't have ridden at all. By the time I was half-way back to town it started raining, and stayed that way. 

Just a few survivors from the windblown Sunday Giro

By Sunday the rain was gone but had been replaced by a brutal northeast wind and colder temperatures. I went out to the Giro knowing turnout would be slim, which it was. When we hit Hayne Blvd. we were struggling to maintain 18 mph. There was a Saints game scheduled for noon and about half of the riders we had on hand had ridden over from the westbank and had already announced their plan to turn off early. Since that would have left us with just four or so riders to battle the wind on Chef Highway, we all turned with them at Bullard to head back early. Nobody was complaining about that. To add a few miles we rode with them out Metairie Road and Central Avenue, where they headed over to take the Huey P over the river while we continued to the levee. I ended up with almost 50 miles for the day which I guess was OK under the circumstances. My legs were a little sore from the cyclocross efforts anyway. 

Weather Worries

It is getting to be that time of year when the weather complicates everything, and most of the images on Strava go from pacelines and sunrises to animated landscapes with questionable Watts/kg numbers. After a fairly routine week of moderate weather that saw a surprisingly large turnout for Friendly Friday, the forecasters left little good news in their upcoming weekend prognostications. A cold front started crawling through Saturday morning with the rain perfectly timed for the start of the Giro Ride, which for all practical purposes did not happen. I waited until around 8:30 when the rain had mostly stopped and headed out to the levee on wet streets, riding the old Orbea for a change. It was overcast and windy and supposed to become even more windy, but I thought I could get in a ride out to the Spillway and back before the colder air moved in. So I dressed a little on the heavy side with knee and arm-warmers and thick base layer, sticking a PayDay bar and my chest protector in my pocket just in case. The wind was already mostly out of the north, so much of the 50+ miles would be crosswind. On the other hand, I was not feeling any need to push myself. November and December have always been more about volume than intensity, at least for me. I was just a couple of miles from the Spillway when the sky got a little darker and the wind a little stronger, and by the time I'd started back a heavy wet mist was starting to fall. I stopped for a moment and stuck the wind barrier inside my jersey, silently congratulating myself for having brought it along. Every now and then a bend in the river would grant me a brief reprieve from the steadily increasing crosswind and my speed would go from 17 to 22 mph even with the meager effort level I was willing to supply. I got home quite wet, despite never having been really rained upon, and quite chilled, despite the low-60s temperature. Still, I was happy to have gotten in some quiet miles on such a dreary day. I was about half-way back when I came up on a cycle tourist towing a trailer at about 8 mph. I stopped and chatted with him for a little while and found that he was on his way from somewhere in Arizona to Key West Florida, having already taken a few side-trips along the way. He soon turned off of the bike path to find the Jefferson Parish Library near Clearview Parkway. I didn't get to ask him why he would be going there.

So by Sunday morning the temperature was in the low 40s and there was a north wind blowing at around 12 mph with gusts well into the 20s, but not real chance of rain. I dug out the long tights and long-sleeve jersey and wool socks and headed to the Starbucks to see what kind of turnout, if any, there would be for the Giro. Although the temperature was entirely manageable, the gusty wind was another matter altogether. We had maybe a dozen riders on hand at the start, but it was tough going along Hayne where just two or three were willing to put their faces into the wind. We were struggling to maintain 17-18 mph, and the advertised north wind seemed actually to be much more out of the east. Near the end of Hayne the front of the group made an executive decision and we all made a U-turn. That immediately precipitated a return trip during which the speed stayed around 31 mph until we got to the overpass. After that we did a fairly easy lap around City Park where it wasn't quite so windy. I ended up riding all the way down Esplanade with Charles and Dan before returning for another lap around the park before heading home to a nice bowl of hot soup.

This morning the temperature was still in the low 40s and the wind was still strong. I got to City Park for the Mellow Monday ride about a minute and a half late. As I turned into the park from Wisner I could see the tail lights of the group just disappearing off toward the Children's museum. Fortunately they weren't going too fast yet and I caught up to them just after turning onto Marconi. Even so, the combined effects of wind, cold, and layered clothing really take a toll on one's speed. As it had been on Sunday, the speed heading east into the wind stayed pretty low, but I knew that as soon as we went around the Armory loop and started back to the west it would pick up dramatically, which of course it did, and the 16 mph quickly ramped up to 27-30 mph. It's looking like morning temperatures will stay in the mid-upper 40s all week with highs in the upper 50s. I'm thinking about the cyclocross races in Ridgeland this coming weekend and wondering if I am really up to making the trip since the morning temperatures Saturday and Sunday will be just below freezing and the highs barely out of the 40s. I'll have to think about that.

November Summer

The Sunday Giro - Lakeshore Drive warmup

It was 5:25 Saturday morning and I was standing in front of the dresser drawer stuffed with cycling clothes, looking for something to wear for the Giro Ride. Earlier, the forecast had been calling for a front with a lot of rain to move through in the morning, but looking at the radar it now looked like it wouldn't come through until closer to noon. The annual Tour da Parish ride that had been scheduled for that day had already been postponed until Sunday because of the forecast. Then Candy walked in from feeding the dog and said, "It's raining outside." Indeed, the street was a bit wet, but the rain was barely a light sprinkle. I thought about it for a minute and, on the assumption that it was just going to get more wet and that nobody would show up for the Giro, threw the clothes back into the drawer and myself back into the bed. Naturally, it didn't rain any more until late afternoon and I could have ridden, even if it had been alone.

Friendly Friday Fog

Anyway, it was clear that Sunday's weather would be fine, and since the Tour da Parish ride had been pushed back until 1:00 pm, I figured I could ride the Giro, chill out at home for a couple of hours, and then head down to St. Bernard for the ride. I would be picking up Josiah, one of the Tulane riders, at 11:15. As expected, the Giro was a little thin attendance-wise, considering that many of those riders were planning on doing the afternoon ride, but there was still a group of 25 or so on hand. The "front" that had come through Saturday evening hadn't brought much in the way of cooler temperatures so everyone was in summer kit for the first day back on Daylight Saving Time. It was nice to have a little light for the ride out to Starbucks after weeks and weeks in the dark. The ride itself was mostly nice and steady - just a bit slower than usual. I got back home with the usual 59 miles a little hungry and thirsty but quite far from tired. That was good because I was expecting the afternoon ride to be fairly fast.

The Tulane riders - their new team kits came in the following day!

We got to the Tour da Parish an hour before the start, as planned. For me, this 50-mile ride would be similar to a regular Giro Ride, just on a different course. For Josiah it would be one of his longest rides ever. Turnout looked pretty good as we wrapped the color-coded wrist bands around our handlebars and pinned on the oddly large numbers that, really, served little purpose since the ride was not timed and there would be no "results" posted. A few minutes before the start I lined in near the front of the group with a subset of Giro riders and four or five of the Tulane riders. To accommodate my split loyalties that day I was wearing my NOBC/Apolline shorts with my Tulane jersey.

capture from TJ's video

These kinds of rides always seem pretty chaotic and sketchy for the first few miles until the speed and course eventually sort the group out generally by fitness level. As expected, there was a surge after we went around the road closure via a short section of crushed rock, but was wasn't expected was the riders who managed to get into the draft of the lead police motorcycle at 29-32 mph. There was a feeble attempt to chase that down, but pretty quickly the rider came back to the group anyway. I was trying to stay closer to the front than the back, and for me it was a little stressful for the next ten or fifteen miles because of the unfamiliar riders. Mary Beth was there on her Specialized E-bike, and there was one other rider there on what looked like the same E-bike. I rode alongside Mary Beth for a while as she remarked, not entirely without good reason, things like, "This is dumb. All of you guys are dumb!" Nevertheless, she was having no trouble staying with the group as we rolled down the narrow strips of asphalt alongside little bayous packed with fishing boats. I would later learn that at one point when there was a brief surge up into the 30s she had accidentally switched the E-bike to "off" instead of "turbo" and lost contact with the dwindling front group. For me, though, it was mostly just a moderate effort, cruising along in the ample draft among the front ten or fifteen riders. If there was a paceline at the front it must have been limited to just a handful of riders because I found myself at the front only a few times.

Allene of Bike Easy

As expected, the speed started to ramp up a bit on the last 6-mile stretch, which is about when I saw Dustin accelerate down the left side to the front. We still had to navigate that little crushed rock bit around the barricades about a mile and a half from the end, and I had no intention whatsoever of risking life or limb there. Naturally, though, I think Dustin attacked there, taking a short-cut through the turn in the grass and surging back up to 28 mph or so. I think he then looked back, saw nobody chasing, and put the hammer down for the last bit. I came through fairly close to the front but got held up a bit by riders ahead of me, so when I got back onto the asphalt there was a pretty significant gap ahead of me to a little group. As I debated the wisdom of putting in the major effort it would take to get up to them in a ride with no places or prizes or results, the E-bike rider came past me on the left. Knowing that he would be easily able to ramp up to 28 mph, the limit of the bike's assist, I figured, "what the hell" and latched onto his wheel. So a minute later we were back in the group just in time to watch a few of them sprint for the "finish" that was marked only by a few police officers standing in the road. All-in-all it was a fun ride with lots of food and drink at the end. All of the Tulane riders survived unscathed, as did I.

Somewhere near the end I had noticed that Charles had disappeared from the front group. After the finish I turned around and rode back in the opposite direction for a mile or so, finally finding him. "I flatted" he said as I passed. Charles and Dan had ridden out to the ride from the French Quarter. I waited around for quite a while until Josiah finished. Just as he wandered off to change clothes and have a drink or something my phone rang. It was Charles. Dan had flatted on their way home and they had had some problems fixing the flat, leaving them without any more CO2, so I gathered up Josiah and we headed off on a little search and rescue mission. Christian, as it turned out, had left a bit before us and seen Charles and Dan at a gas station, so by the time we arrived Dan had decided to just get Christian to give him a ride home. That left Charles to ride back alone in the last bit of sunlight, so instead we loaded his bike into the car to give him a lift back as well since the ride back can be a little sketchy even under the best of circumstances. All was going well until we caught a train in the Bywater and were stopped for the better part of 45 minutes as the sun set. Eventually enough cars drove over the neutral ground to find another way that we were able to turn right and make our way over to Claiborne where there is an overpass over the tracks. So it turned into a long day, but I was happy to have gotten in around 110 enjoyable miles without really doing much damage. 

Tuesday morning on the levee

This morning, Tuesday, we had a visiting rider from Vermont for the morning levee ride. It was still summer-like weather. For some reason my phone hadn't charged overnight so I had left it at home. We started with a pretty good-sized group, ending up with I guess six after some riders turned back early. The way back was into a moderate headwind but we were rolling along at a nice pace anyway. When Martin turned off around River Ridge I looked back and realized that Jared, the visiting rider, was suddenly missing. Then I remembered thinking that his rear tire had looked a little low and figured he must have flatted, which turned out to have been the case. So Charles and I turned back to find him and we were later joined by Martin for a little while. Jared and I then stopped at Zotz on Oak Street for coffee. I hadn't been there since COVID started, so it had been almost two years. By the time I got home Candy was about to go out and search for me since I was a good 45 minutes later than usual and had picked the wrong day not to have my phone which would normally have been showing her my location via Garmin. 

Knobby Ridgeland Weekend

A little cyclocross race up in Ridgeland the weekend before Halloween was looking like perhaps a chance to get the 'Cross bike dirty and work on improving sadly lacking skills. The fly in that ointment, however, was a consistent forecast calling for rain, first on Sunday and then on Saturday, that had me teetering on the fence. I was thinking I'd go up for just one of the two days, ride the masters race, and head back, but then my brother called. He moved recently to Madison and had been planning on retrieving some of my mother's old furniture that has been languishing in my basement for the past 12 or so years to use for one of his daughters, also in Madison, but he'd been super busy repainting the interiors of two houses and basically starting a remodeling of one, so when he heard I was planning on driving up it presented an opportunity. So I went ahead and registered for both days, and on Friday afternoon picked up a rental minivan that could easily accommodate the furniture and my bike. Pre-registration for the race was extremely low, no doubt due to some degree to the forecast. Even so, you'd think there would have been more local riders signed up. I'd ridden the Friendly Friday ride that morning. Earlier in the week I'd gone out to meet the Tulane Wednesday evening ride on the 'cross bike, mainly to make sure everything was working since I'd barely spent any time on it at all and had changed the saddle and made a slight adjustment to the saddle height too.

TUCA riders at Williams Blvd. levee turnaround

The forecast for Saturday was still looking like rain, but at least the temperature would be mostly in the low 60s, and what's a cyclocross race without a little rain and mud anyway. Actually, neither my skill level or motivational level was really consistent with a successful wet CX race, but, you know, what the hell. Indeed, I had no intention of being competitive, and was focusing only on breaking in the "new" bike and not crashing - too much. I drove up Saturday evening and we unloaded the furniture, leaving me with a spectacularly voluminous space for my little bike. The house was only five minutes from the course, and with a 9 am start time I had the rare luxury of heading out the door in actual daylight. My morning training rides have mostly been finishing right around sunrise lately. The weather radar was looking surprisingly encouraging with most of the rain well off to the west and moving eastward at only a snail's pace. It was entirely possible there would be no rain until the afternoon. 

The course for this race was just under a mile around, located at the local BMX park. It was almost all grass, still just a bit damp from the morning dew. I had around 35-40 psi in my 32mm tires, which turned out to be about twice what I needed for this course, but my roadie fears of pinch-flatting were very difficult to fully dispel, even on this relatively gentle terrain that was devoid of roots and sharp edges. I rode a really slow couple of laps to check out the course and found a few rather sketchy (to me) off-camber turns, a couple of very short but steep uphills (no problem), and of course a couple of artificial barriers apparently designed, as they all are, to discriminate against short people. As planned, I started the race pretty much at the back of the very small field that included all of the masters age groups plus some of the juniors. I rode the first couple of laps quite gingerly, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to get used to the SRAM shifters and mountain bike pedals. It wasn't that they weren't working fine, of course, just that I was having difficulty convincing my brain that has been conditioned to Campi shifters for two or three decades to shift (pun intended) to SRAM shifting. As a result there were a number of times when I was going for a lower gear but actually shifted into a higher one. The other issue was that my roadie instincts had me using the front brake way too much, which at one point resulted in me sliding out on an off-camber turn and falling, dropping the chain, hitting my head, and doing something to the CMC joint on my right hand, which still hurts. Fortunately I was way off the back of the real race, and frankly wasn't in all that big of a hurry. I did notice that the front of my shoe was hitting the front tire if I wasn't careful about that going around sharp turns at like 2 mph. It didn't cause any problems, fortunately. As expected, I was lapped at some point which provided the added bonus of having to do one fewer lap! It was a good learning experience and I came away mostly unscathed, earning the dubious honor of winning the 60+ age group by virtue of being the only rider in it. I found that I was really enjoying the flatter more technical parts of the course, and also the sharp uphill sections, but still  had virtually no confidence on the downhills and off-camber grassy turns.  All of the races went off without rain that day, and I hung around for almost all of them. Later that evening the rain finally arrived, but it was looking like it would be all gone by Sunday morning.

The other old guy.

Sunday's races were essentially the same as Saturday's but in the opposite direction. The grass was still fairly damp when my 9 am race got started, but fortunately the prior day's races had at least bedded in a bit of a path on the course that didn't seem quite as slick as it had on Saturday. Considering the fact that there was no place on the entire course where I might reasonably expect to pinch-flat, I dropped my tire pressures down to around 20-25 psi for this one, which turned out to be about right. One other precaution I took was to back off the front brake cable a few clicks to keep my road instincts from locking up the front wheel. I was one of the few riders with actual Cross-legal tire widths, and in fact a lot of people were riding mountain bikes. I started out at the back again so as not to interfere with the two or three riders who were actually good at this. Doing the course in the opposite direction didn't seem all that much different except for that one off-camber turn where I'd fallen the previous day. There was also a steep drop down to a sharp left turn that was a little concerning, at least to me. For that drop I was basically dragging my rear wheel until just before the bottom when I'd finally let go of the brake. I could probably have taken it a lot faster if properly motivated. For that off-camber turn, I was crawling around it, often with my rear wheel sliding a bit here and there, but I felt like I was handling it a lot better than I had on Saturday, probably because I was trying hard not to touch the front brake. Anyway, I ended up finishing second in the 60+, which was also second-to-last in the 60+. I hung around for an hour or so afterward until a brief bit of rain started to fall, which I took to be my cue to load up and head back to New Orleans. So I actually enjoyed riding this course and maybe learned a little bit in the process despite the blazing average speed of like 9 mph over the 40-minute races. Even so, pushing a bike through grass and mud did keep my heart rate up pretty high the whole time.

Monday was Halloween, and as usual my street was fully engaged. I didn't get to rush home from work until about 4:30 or so, and of course the younger kids start showing up around 5:30, so there wasn't a whole lot of time left to make final preparations like lighting candles and setting up fog machines and strobe lights (both of which were underwhelming). 

It always amazes me how many people show up between 6 and 7:30 every year. Then around 8:00 everybody suddenly disappears. Candy had made a huge pot of gumbo, even though we just had a few people coming over to eat. At one point I had to chase the dog down the sidewalk when he snuck out the porch door as I was sliding candy down the "candy chute" to the trick-or-treaters. We had decided to keep the COVID candy chute this year since it would keep the little kids from having to climb up and down the steps, which always worries me a bit. Otherwise, things went fine and the dog was reasonably well-behaved considering all of the action going on around him. Although we gave out a ton of candy, I'm pretty sure there's enough left over for another entire Halloween, which should come as no surprise if you know Candy (the person not the junk food).