White Kitchen Ride

Coming back over the Rigolets with Fort Pike off to the left.

Last week the state unexpectedly closed the old Highway 90 bridge over the West Pearl River, which reminded me that it had been probably thirty years since I'd ridden east past the Rigolets. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Charles soon suggested doing a "long Giro" out to White Kitchen, and considering my recent steady diet of same-old same-old, I figured that would be worth doing. It's really not all that much farther than the regular Giro, which for me, from home, is around 60 miles. The additional distance would add maybe 30, and since we'd be starting with the SaMoRi group at 6:30 rather than with the regular Giro group at 7:00, I'd probably be back home just an hour or so later than normal. 

I remember stopping at the White Kitchen on
family road trips to Florida. It burned down 
decades ago.

Still, it was going to be hot and sunny, so I brought along a large water bottle with a bunch of Scratch Superfuel mix in it, plus a regular bottle with just electrolyte mix. I stuffed a couple of gels in my pocket just in case, but since we were planning to stop at the marina at the Rigolets I knew they would probably just be along for the ride, which they were. I left home at my usual time Saturday morning, but of course had to skip my wake-up coffee at Starbucks. I think this was the first time I'd ever ridden with the "early" group, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but whatever it was I was planning on minimizing my efforts until Venetian Isles where the regular group would turn back but we would continue east. Things were going pretty smoothly on the way out with the pace hovering mostly in a very reasonable 23-25 mph range along Hayne, so that was good. Shortly after turning onto Chef Highway we had to stop for the light at Michoud, and then for some unknown reason some of the riders decided it was a good time to launch an attack while the rest of us were still trying to clip in. That required a mile or two of chasing at 28 mph before we were back together and things settled down a little bit.

At Venetian the "long group," which consisted of about six of us, regrouped and crossed Chef pass, gradually ramping the pace up to a nice steady 22-23 mph paceline. I was feeling pretty good and was taking somewhat longer pulls than usual.

End of the road. Bridge is closed "indefinitely"

Once past the marina on the east side of the Rigolets the nice smooth asphalt changed to 50 year old concrete which wasn't too bad except for the annoying expansion seams every thirty feet or so. It was just about five miles to the bridge that was, as expected, barricaded. Apparently a recent inspection discovered some significant structural problems. I'm sure we could have climbed over the barricades and crossed if we'd wanted to, as I expect the weight of a bike rider wouldn't turn out to be the final straw for the old bridge. Anyway, we turned back, then stopped at the marina briefly for refreshments as the locals who were launching boats and buying bait eyed us cautiously, the way you'd watch aliens debarking a flying saucer. 

By the time we were heading back it was getting warmer and there seemed to be a very light headwind. A couple of the guys seemed to be starting to wilt a bit, some of us started taking long steady pulls to keep it smooth and keep everyone together. I guess the pace was more in the 20-22 mph range by then, which seemed to be fine. I got back home with 90 miles of the computer but feeling none the worse for wear thanks to the moderate pace.

On Sunday I went out to the regular Giro Ride, which was a pretty normal Sunday Giro - sometimes fast, but not debilitating. A little group rolled off the front along Hayne on the way back, and although there wasn't really a chase, they were still only maybe 30 or 40 seconds up the road as we approached the Seabrook bridge. That's when Brandon, whose wheel I was on, pulled over at 28 mph, looked over at me, and said, "Go get 'em, Randy." So naturally I had to put in a little dig, sprinting up the bridge and closing much, but not all, of the gap before blowing up just before the top and then immediately feeling my rear wheel come to a skidding stop. I'd picked up a roofing nail that had momentarily caught on something and stopped the wheel. Rather than try to put in a new tube at the top of the bridge I cautiously rolled down onto Lakeshore Drive, choosing a spot in the shade of a big oak tree to make the repair. Cliff stopped with me, so that made the ride back home much more enjoyable.

95

Sunday Giro starting to ramp back up on Chef Highway

I wish there were some races around here right about now because it was just another week of routine sweat-soaked training rides. Yeah, it's hot and all, but if we survived the Tuesday/Thursday training races and all of the weekend races back in the 80s when the only electrolyte replacement was Gatorade and shorts were lined with actual leather, we could certainly handle it now. Anyway, it seemed like a decent enough week of riding for me. It's funny how one's "fitness" ebbs and flows in the absence of actual racing. It's mostly all in the head, though. 

Last weekend I watched the Saturday night pro Criterium in Salt Lake City, which looked plenty fast and featured some controversy in the end that resulted in a little punching match and a couple of disqualified riders. Whether the move in question was intentional or accidental is impossible for me to say but I can certainly see how it might have looked intentional to some, especially the rider involved, considering where and when it happened.

Big Friendly Friday Group

Last Friday's Friendly Friday ride drew a pretty good crowd which of course made it fairly fast. 

The Saturday Giro had a pretty decent turnout, though, and so the ride out to Venetian Isles averaged around 27 mph. I was atypically in a reasonable position when the sprint started, which took me up to 36 mph before I bailed with about 100 meters still to go. Felt good, though. We had a delay in starting back because of a flat, and as often seems to happen the return trip was a bit slower. Quite surprisingly, the roads out to the east were quite wet from a rain shower that we kind of mostly missed, so there was a lot of wheel spray for a while and even a little bit of actual rain, I think.

Sunday's Giro was at least dry, and as is usually the case, a bit slower than Saturday's. I felt good both days, and for a change didn't end up riding in with just a handful of people after stopping to help someone with a flat. After the Sunday ride we went over to Poydras Home for a brief 95th birthday party for my father. My brother is in the midst of moving from Orlando to Madison MS, so he was there with a couple of my nieces, and of course my own sisters were there as well. Dad's attention span is pretty short nowadays, and it was all over in an hour or so.

Monday, Monday

Monday's Mellow Monday ride was more mellow than usual. For unknown reasons, only four of five were on hand, which at least had the effect of keeping the speed down a notch or so. Sometimes that ride has four of five miles that get pretty fast, which isn't really quite the kind of recovery ride I probably need, but let's face it, recovery rides can be pretty boring, and I don't need that either. 

Meanwhile, Charley the dog has been chewing up anything he can find when we're not looking. This week it was a baseball cap, my pocket comb, and the TV remote, the latter being kind of an issue since it's for the DirectTV box. Candy went over to the AT&T store where of course they didn't have any and they ordered a replacement that is theoretically coming via US postal service one day. Fortunately the phone app lets me cast to the TV, so that worked fine. Last week I finally broke down and ordered a bike travel bag. I've never been too keen on dealing with the big rigid cases. Last time we went to Washington I packed my old bike in a simple soft bike bag that we originally got when we toured Colorado back in 1983. It was about at the end of its useful life, of course. So I sprung for a rather expensive Airport Ninja bag that is nice and small and can be carried as a backpack. 

The latest victim

Of course in order to do that you have to remove the seatpost, handlebars, front brake, fork, pedals, rear derailleur, etc., but that's not really too much of an issue for me.  Given the size of my bike it's entirely possible that I will be able to leave the seatpost and just lower the saddle and still get it in there. We shall see. We're planning a visit to Olympia at the end of August that unfortunately means I'll miss the criterium in Hattiesburg, but the tickets were already purchased before we knew the race date. 

Now we just have to worry about whether there will be enough pilots and airline personnel to keep the flight from being cancelled. I'm also a little worried about the COVID situation which is currently blowing up across Europe and has been on a steady rise here for over a month. I'm hoping that the Tour de France survives all the way to Paris without losing too many more riders to positive tests. I'm also hoping that I survive all the way to Olympia without any more positive tests. I've been on the fence about getting a second COVID booster since the currently circulating strain is now pretty far removed from the original and immune responses from that don't seem to be doing a whole lot to prevent mild and asymptomatic infections, although the vaccine has certainly brought the number of ICU cases and fatalities down dramatically. 

My data are kind of fuzzy right now because the amount of testing is way down but the percent positives are way up. Louisiana today was showing 24.5% positive and New Orleans was showing 18.3, both of which are pretty high percentages. Although hospitalizations have been rising persistently but slowly, deaths have been quite low. In the last two weeks New Orleans has reported only one fatality and the state has reported only 43. I think it's likely that a whole lot more people are being infected but aren't having symptoms serious enough to get tested at a location that is reporting to the LDH, especially since the at-home test kits are so readily available now. What I'd really like to see is a new version of the vaccine that targets the more recent variants, and although they're working on that, the variants are changing more quickly than they can get the new vaccine versions ready. They're saying we may see something in the fall. 

  

Pushing Zone One

Mellow Monday

Last week was what I'd have to call "high-volume," at least for me. It all started on Monday, which was July 4th, which meant a Holiday Giro Ride following up on the regular Saturday and Sunday Giro Rides, one of which had been quite fast. As holiday rides typically go, Monday's ride was notable more for the heat and humidity than the speed, but anyway I covered the details in an earlier post. 

I went out on Wednesday morning, still with a bit of the long weekend miles in my legs I guess, and met up with the WeMoRi as usual. It was a pretty normal ride - not too terribly fast, but by not means slow either. Thursday was the usual morning levee ride, including the detour around Powerline Drive which will likely be the status quo for another couple of weeks, and then the regular Friendly Friday ride which was occasionally fast, but not so much as to prevent me from making a little effort on the Wisner overpass.  And then there was Saturday.

Friendly Friday

I got out to Starbucks at my usual time, around 6:30, and as I was settling into one of the chairs out on the patio a guy walked up to ask me about the ride. Turned out he was in town from Houston and would be riding with us, so I gave him the usual summary - where it would get fast, where the holes were on Hayne, etc. As usual we had a nice warmup along Lakeshore Drive, and then once we came down onto Hayne the speed went up to 29 mph and stayed there. It was fine sitting in the draft, as there didn't seem to be much wind, but I couldn't really check up on the guy from Houston who was somewhere behind me. I heard he was still there when we turned onto Chef, but I never saw him again. We passed the early SaMoRi ride earlier than usual on Chef, and I surmise that they have started rolling out from West End at 6:30 lately to avoid a bit more of the summer sun. 

Saturday Giro

Anyway, it was a normal Giro, which lately means it's fast until somebody flats, which happened that day on Bullard shortly before the turn back onto Hayne. I stopped along with a few others, but the rest of the group didn't. We still had a good brisk ride back down Hayne after fixing the flat, and somehow I found myself out in front of the little group along Lakeshore Drive. I looked back and wondered why they were going so slow. By the time I got to the traffic circle at Bayou St. John they were nowhere to be found, so I did a loop around the fountain. I was afraid there had been another flat, but they soon appeared so I was able to get back together. Someone mentioned stopping for water at Starbucks. There had been some talk earlier about extending the ride. Once again I found myself way out ahead of them on Marconi, but figured we'd all regroup at Starbucks. I waited for a while, chatting with Howard and Todd. Apparently they decided not to stop, so never showed up. Oh well. I was feeling pretty well toasted anyway so I headed back home.

Saturday Giro

Early Sunday morning around 4 or 5 am I could hear it raining outside. By 6:00 it looked like the rain had stopped, at least for the moment, but the streets were soaked. Figuring that nobody would show up for the Giro I decided to wait a bit longer and go do a solo ride on the river levee bike path instead. I knew it would at least be a little more dry up there. I finally rolled out around 6:45 am and by the time I was two or three miles up the river the bike path was dry as a bone. The sky was overcast and it looked like it was going to stay that way. My legs were feeling heavy so I kept the effort level down as I pedaled into the light headwind, contemplating just how far I was willing to go. I'd already been considering riding all the way to the end of the bike path, about 44 miles, so had half a bottle of gel and two water bottles, one of which was a big one with Scratch in it. 

Upriver end of the levee bike path, 44 miles and change from the start.

So I ended up doing that full ride, probably almost exclusively at a Zone 1 effort level. On the way back I spotted what we call a brake tag station and what everyone else calls an inspection station. In this case it was a tiny little building that had once been a roadside gas station. Outside, however, was a coke machine! I had a couple of dollars with me, so I stopped and gulped down two cans of fruit punch in quick succession. None of the buttons on the machine had indicated fruit punch, of course, but I wasn't complaining. Anyway, by the time I got back to around Oak Street my calculations indicated that I'd be just a couple of miles short of 90, so I went ahead and rode a lap around Audubon Park for good measure, which brought me conveniently back home with 90.3 miles on the computer. Good enough under the circumstances, even if my average speed was barely over 16 mph.

Cold Drinks!

So I ended up with a 367 mile week, which is a lot for me, especially this time of year, but still infinitely preferable to sitting on the couch second-guessing team strategies in the Tour de France.

This morning I was back up on the levee for the 6 am ride. We rolled out with 6 or 7 riders, and as had been the case last Thursday, the bike path was still open at Powerline Drive. I could see all of the workers gathered on the river side of the levee, and up above I could see that they had already pulled one of the big transmission cables across the road to the top of the new tower. I knew the path would be closed on the way back. After losing all but three of us at Williams Blvd., and then picking up one rider around there, Jeff said he would need to turn back at the Big Dip, so that's where Charles and I turned back as well as Dave continued on to Ormond where he lives. By 11:30 this morning it was raining buckets. There's some disturbance down in the Gulf just south of us that is apparently going to be causing a lot of rain for the next few days. In fact, the daily weather forecast right now just says "Scattered Thunderstorms" all the way to the 28th with the chance of rain between 42 and 58% throughout, which basically means that wherever you are at any time it might or might not rain on you because there's just no way to reliably predict where and when it will rain. 

Midsummer Rides

The July 4 Giro heads out along Marconi

We are more or less back into our summer pattern now, both meteorological and cyclelogical. The relentlessly hot temperatures have been slightly subdued by the occasional thunderstorms and replaced with a mostly suffocating blanket of humidity. One arrives back home after a ride soaked to the skin with sweat, an occurrence that even the $100 high-tech fabric jerseys through which you could read a book in the dark are nonetheless powerless to prevent. Glasses are smeared with sweat halfway through the morning ride, and top tubes are splattered with body fluids, mostly sweat. Still, I admit I prefer all of that to those 30° winter rides into those 15 mph north winds. To each his own, I guess.

Sunday Giro - some wet roads out to the east made for a nice sauna feeling

The group rides this week were sometimes a little less intense than usual, probably because after a while people were feeling like wet dishrags that had been left out in the sun too long. After the usual Monday and Tuesday rides I went out earlier than usual to meet the WeMoRi, turning onto Lakeshore Drive a few minutes ahead of the group so that they didn't sweep me up until I was already on the way back from the Armory loop. The pace was still pretty fast, and after the turn onto Wisner a big gap opened up ahead of me (of course). There was a little help with the chase, but it was looking pretty hopeless until the group ahead had to stop for a light and were able to re-group. Then, crossing Toussaint, the front of the group blew through just as the light was turning red, causing another split as the rest of us chose life over WeMoRi fame. A few reacted quickly and made the bridge. I wasn't one of them. Still, it was a good enough workout and my early arrival meant some bonus miles as well. The Thursday morning levee group turnout was sparse and since apparently I wasn't the only one with dead legs, we turned around really early, chopping about 15 miles off of the usual 41 mile ride. I wasn't complaining, though.

By Saturday I was feeling a little better for the Giro Ride, which in this case turned out to be moderately fast and more than moderately hot. It was July 4th weekend, and as things were going it was looking like I'd be doing three Giro Rides in a row. On Sunday we had one flat shortly after turning back from Venetian Isles, and then one of the riders slammed into one of the big cracks on Lake Forest and pinch-flatted both tires. I gave him one of my tubes and an valve extender, and although obviously it took longer than usual we were back on the road in a reasonable amount of time. Somehow, though, stopping in the sun mid-ride on a hot summer morning really takes the wind out of your sails.

Mellow Monday before the July 4th Giro

The July 4th holiday Giro had a reasonable turnout, and fortunately nobody was trying to really push the pace. I had gone out early to do the usual Mellow Monday ride, which had only four people including me, before turning off just in time to meet up with the Giro group at Starbucks. Shortly after we got onto Hayne, JC slammed into one of the broken up concrete potholes over on the right and not only flatted both tires but also practically destroyed his rear rim. Luckily after changing the tube the tire didn't blow off the rim where it was badly dented, so he was able to limp back while the rest of us continued on. As if we hadn't had enough holiday weekend flats already, there was yet another just as we were getting back onto the Interstate at Lake Forest. By the time we were halfway back my neck and upper back were on fire despite the Naproxin I'd taken earlier that morning. I guess the extra miles and extra Giro finally took their toll. At any rate, the ride home was kind of miserable.

We had a couple of the neighbors over for dinner that night, which was nice even if I did end up drinking a glass or two more than the recommended daily allowance. The dog is slowly getting better, having refined his begging style to minimize the incessant barking, but he's still got a long way to go. As we were saying good-night to everyone at the front door he managed to get both paws up onto the table and take a big bite out of the cake. Frankly we were both too tired by then to give him much grief about that.

This morning we had a small group for the Tuesday levee ride. Charles was at home waiting for the long-awaited air-conditioner replacement that involved an extra thousand dollars or so for a crane to lift the equipment over the front part of the French Quarter building. At least the Vieux Carré Commission didn't make him get the color of the compressor approved for historical correctness. Anyway, I was still clearly feeling the effects of the long weekend but nonetheless hung in there for the full ride that was mostly just Boyd, Martin, and me, and eventually just Martin and me. I was feeling pretty wasted by the time Martin pulled off to head home and pretty soon I just shut it down and cruised in on whatever fumes were left in the tank. It looks like Entergy has finished building the big new towers on the levee to support the transmission lines over the river. Those were the ones that came down during the Hurricane when the tower on the westbank collapsed. They have signs up now saying that the levee bike path, and likely also River Road, will be closed from July 6 (tomorrow) through August 01. I guess we'll find out how it's going to work on Thursday. I guess we won't have a problem on the way out since we will be there by about 6:10 am. Coming back, though, will be another matter. I can't see them closing down the road full-time, but who knows?

There's not much on the calendar for July, but things will start to pick up again in August. I'm hoping to finally be able to make the Mobile races on the 20th and 21st, but will miss the next weekend's races in Hattiesburg because we'll be visiting The Daughter up in Olympia. 

I did my time a long
time ago!

People are inexplicably rushing to sign up for the NOMA to NOMA "race" which is traditionally basically a 160-mile Alleycat. They're limiting registration to 100, probably in hopes of keeping it all under the radar of the various jurisdictions through which it secretly passes. They're charging only $15 to register, so I guess people are figuring "why not?" I'm sure they will fill the 100 slots within a few days. The route, which last year was more or less optional, involves a fair amount of Tammany Trace bike path and Highway 21 on the northshore. Some of the riders will actually race it and finish in a mere seven and a half hours or less. Some will do it at a more moderate pace with a couple of brief stops and take more like eight and a half hours. Some who probably shouldn't have registered in the first place will be halfway around the lake and already an hour and a half behind before realizing they've made a horrible mistake and will be out there for ten or more hours. Last year one rider took 14 hours and the last rider was out there for around 16 hours. None of them will be me, as I'm quite sure I'd need narcotics to handle the expected neck and upper back pain, but if the weather is OK I may ride out to at least the Spillway as I did last year to see the first of the riders come through. Hopefully everyone survives and nobody ends up in the hospital ... or back seat of a sheriff's car.