Undecided Weather - Tour de Jeff

An early 7:30 am start for the Tour de Jefferson

This is always a complicated time of year around here as Winter seems generally undecided about venturing this far south and spends the better part of two months coming and going. Complicating the whole situation are the extra-dark mornings around the end of Daylight Saving Time, and the fact that the wild swings of morning temperatures never really allow one to fully adjust - physiologically or mentally, mostly mentally. 

This week's cold front dropped temperatures down into the low 50's I guess on Tuesday morning, which wasn't nearly as much of a factor as the unrelenting north wind that battered those of us doing the full distance up on the unprotected levee. Although we'd started out with a pretty big group of eight or nine, the narrow bike path provides decent crosswind protection for only four, and as often happens when you try to cram nine riders at a table for four, those at the back in need of a good draft were left to fend for themselves. At one point early in the ride I dropped back after taking a pull and realized I was getting essentially NO draft back there. Eventually we were down a more manageable group of five to complete the full Tuesday distance.

Wednesday was no better wind-wise, and in fact the wind had already blown the diminutive WeMoRi group apart well before I arrived at LSD and Marconi. Looking to the east for the cluster of headlights yielded nothing but darkness and by 6:12 or so I decided they must have skipped Lakeshore Drive because of the wind or something, so I turned around and headed back down Marconi thinking I might find the group coming the other way. A few minutes later I found Geoff and a couple others so I turned around with them. Apparently the rest of the group was just running very late but doing the full route, so I'd missed them by just a few minutes. So we had a relatively easy ride around City Park and I got back home just a few miles shorter than normal.

Thursday morning the wind had finally died down, although it was still around 50°F at the start which allowed for a pretty normal Thursday levee ride. Friday's Friendly Friday ride had quite a big group for some reason. The temperature was warmer and the wind was light, which made for a nice ride with a few faster sections in the usual places. By Saturday I guess people were starting to think about Sunday's Tour de Jefferson, which always seems to be dominated by the Giro Ride group and practically serves as the annual Alt-Giro Championship, although technically it's not a race, which it totally is for the front group. Anyway, Saturday's Giro was going along nicely until we got onto Chef Highway, stopped at a light, and then the front of the group got onto the bumper of a truck that was accelerating at just the right speed. Those at the back, including me, weren't getting much of a draft and as the speed got up to 32 mph I, and a number of others, dropped off and eventually came together to form a nice paceline, ultimately about a minute and a half behind the front group. Then on the way back we got diverted at the Elysian Fields circle because of some footrace or something and switched over to Leon C and Toussant. Anyway it was a relatively short and non-intense Giro for me.

So Saturday I headed out early for the Tour de Jefferson in order to get a good parking spot (turned out I could have left half an hour later and been fine on that account. It was a little chilly for the 7:30 am start but would warm up quickly once the sun started to rise. As usual, most of the Giro Ride group was in attendance, and looking around at the start I was glad I'd decided to put the race wheels on the bike. I wasn't planning on riding it like a race, but I also didn't want to get dropped when the inevitable gaps opened up after the multiple U-turns on the rather strange course. Over the course of the 50-mile route I don't there there was ever more than four miles between turns. Like last year my main concerns were the traffic cones separating the left from right lanes for much of the route. Every now and then we'd come to one of them that was farther into the right lane than the others which resulted in a number of close calls and at least a couple of people hitting them. Like most non-race races like this the first ten or fifteen miles were, for me, very stressful thanks to the combination of overly enthusiastic riders trying to crowd the front and the ever-present traffic cones and frequent turns. There were also a number of attacks and breakaways resulting is long fast surges. 

Eventually, well almost immediately, one rider (Ben Hall) got clear and things kind of settled down as the still-large group sorted itself out into the front ten or so who were actually willing to put themselves into the wind and the rest of us who weren't. There were a number of attacks and some small groups that dangled off the front for various periods of time, but I think everything was pulled back except for Ben. Rob was up there in one of those groups but something must have happened because we saw him standing by the finish when we went past it at one point. I was glad that I'd created a route from my prior year's Strava data and loaded it onto my computer. I think I did the whole ride with the map screen visible, which I don't normally do. At one point I saw that we were approaching a U-turn and took the opportunity to move way up close to the front. Even so, I had to put in a pretty good effort to close gaps afterward, and I think a few people were dropped after that one. Finally we got back onto the 4-lane road leading to the finish and again people started trying to crowd the front in anticipation of the sprint. Meanwhile others were launching futile attacks way too early down the shoulder or on the other side of the traffic cones. The only casualty was Mary Beth who dropped a wheel into one of those lengthwise seams in a grade-level bridge and went down somewhere behind me (I didn't realize she'd crashed until afterward). She was a bit scraped up but otherwise fine. We finished the 49.9 miles with a typical average speed of 24.4 mph, having spent a fair amount of time in the 26 mph range. Ben Hall finished probably five minutes ahead of the front group, essentially solo I think. After the finish I found Tulane riders Jess and Josiah who had done one of the shorter rides. I hung around for a little while eating Jambalaya and veggies and stuff, but was back home before noon.

Next weekend there are cyclocross races up around Jackson so I need to negotiate with Candy about that, given that we usually have some pre-Halloween preparations to make for Halloween night, which will be Monday this year. I'd like to try out the "new" cyclocross bike on an actual cyclocross course, but have no intention of trying to be competitive in the process. I think the officiating will be covered with Ricky and Rolan and maybe one other official, although I suspect they may all be planning on riding one of the races too, so I might be of some assistance at some point. The masters races are at 9 am both Saturday and Sunday, so it's really just a question of whether I can do both days or just one, and if the latter, which day. 

She situation at the corner a week ago - still unchanged.

Meanwhile back at home the roadwork people had been working regularly on Pine Street for a while, but in typical fashion seem to have abandoned the job once again for some undetermined amount of time, leaving us with a dusty dirt road (still arguably smoother than Pine Street ever was when it was paved). The western part of Neron Place is still a complete closed-off disaster area and although I have always been endowed with an extraordinary level of patience, after two years of this mismanaged incompetent BS it is wearing dangerously thin.

Swamp

Tuesday heading back down the river

It was another low-volume week for me, mainly because of some self-inflicted weekend officiating. Other than that, though, it wasn't too bad. As all of my rides have been lately, Tuesday morning's ride started out in the dark, and although there was a slight hint of Fall in the pre-dawn air, it was still feeling mostly like summer around here. After the ride I had an ad-hoc visit to the dentist again so he could have a look and see if there was anything amiss with that pulled tooth because it was still hurting more than it should have. The consensus was that the clot that normally protects the nerve had gotten dislodged. He changed me from Penicillin to Clindamycin to be on the safe side but it wasn't really until the end of the week that I was able to make it through the day without Ibuprofin.

Slimed

The WeMoRi is now entirely in the dark, start to finish, so as we do our cool-down on Lakeshore Drive we see the sun coming up over the horizon. It seemed like a particularly fast one last Wednesday. Somewhere toward the end I suddenly noticed what felt like raindrops, but looking up at the dark sky it didn't look like it was cloudy. As it turned out, the rider in front of me had punctured his tubeless tire and sealant was spraying out of the hole for a little while until it sealed. I ended up with spots of blue sealant everywhere, but mostly on my helmet. Fortunately, the leak sealed and he didn't even realize he'd punctured until afterward. Of course the back of his bike was splattered with sealant, though.

Thursday morning there was some slight threat of rain which kept the regular group from showing up. We started out with just two and by Williams Blvd. it was just me. The levee trail was a bit damp past there but I never got rained on. In fact, it had been over a month since there had been a drop of rain at my house (we finally got a little rain shower this weekend).

So this weekend was the Swamp Otter Classic over in Chalmette. It's kind of half cyclocross and half gravel with the course running along the levee and floodwall of the 40 Arpent Canal. I was scheduled to officiate, solo, both Saturday and Sunday. For reasons I cannot fathom turnout was very, very low this year. I think that while the larger bike racing areas are bouncing back fairly well from the COVID disruption, the smaller ones like LAMBRA are having a really hard time getting people back into the racing scene. At any rate, I think we had maybe 20 people altogether for each day. Considering how much work goes into setting up even a simple cyclocross course like this one, and then putting on the event, it is getting hard for the clubs and race directors to justify putting on races. Classic self-fulfilling prophecy stuff. Because of the low turnout a lot of the races and categories were combined, so the start was pushed back by an hour or so and it went from I think five separate races to three (and then only two on Sunday).

Anyway, the riders who did race had a pretty good time, I think, and of course the combination of the relatively long lap length and the small fields made officiating pretty easy. For Saturday's race I loaded the generator into the car, along with the tent, chair, table, camera, computer, clock, etc., etc., but planned on using my Jackery 300 power station to see how it would handle running the camera, laptop, and clock. The latter two have their own batteries, so I was pretty confident it would make it through the four hours, but wanted to have the generator on hand just in case. I'm sure that if I had to also run a P/A system it would have been a problem, but I'll save that for another day. As it turned out, I still had about 70% at the end of the day, so it handled everything easily. I should probably spring for the solar panels as well, but they are kind of expensive. As a result, I left the generator home for Sunday's race. For such a small race, neither the camera or clock were really essential anyway, and Townsend was transferring my hand-written results into the results workbook way over at the registration table anyway (where they did have a P/A system and generator). Later that evening I ran into all sorts of trouble uploading results and completing the post-event report on the USAC site. Parts of the system think the event was a single day while other parts know it was two days. They are still running both their Legacy and New systems and the two are increasingly out of sync as they are finally, after four years, nearing the end of the transition.

For this event I brought my new-to-me cyclocross bike, mainly so I could get around because the finish line and registration table aren't close to each other and the bathroom is even farther away. Although I didn't bring any cycling clothes or shoes or anything I did ride around a bit on the bike just for fun. Along the way I noticed that one of the jockey wheels was cracked all the way through, so I ended up ordering a new set and while I was at it a pair of 40mm gravel tires in case I get a chance to do some of that. The tires on the bike right now are "cross-legal" 32s. 40 is probably overkill for me but they were on sale.

The weather forecast is saying that Winter will be arriving down here tomorrow with a low in the upper 40s, although that's probably what they'll see on the northshore and it will be ten degrees warmer down here on the south side of the lake. Of course this means we'll have a strong north wind to deal with for a few days, and I guess I'll have to dig out the knee-warmers and arm-warmers and gloves and stuff for a couple of days, after which it will be summer again. 

Extraction

Wednesday morning cool-down on the lakefront

The week started out well, but I knew it wouldn't last. On Tuesday we had a good-sized group for the morning levee ride, which is to say that there were still more than two of us left to do the full distance. Although last week's wind had died down, it wasn't entirely gone, and even though it was largely out of the north, its easterly vector was hard to ignore on the return trip. I wasn't sure but I thought that might be my last longish ride for a couple of days because I had a dreaded dentist appointment scheduled for Wednesday morning. Fortunately, I'd have time to do the WeMoRi and still get there before 9 am.

Heading back from Ormond Tuesday morning

So I headed out on Wednesday in the relatively comfortable 70°F darkness, arriving at Lakeshore drive in just enough time to catch the group that showed up a good two minutes earlier than usual. As it turned out, things has started out uncharacteristically fast that day, and indeed I would find they would stay that way. In the blink of an eye I went from 15 mph to 28 mph as my lackadaisical physiology attempted to get on terms with my legs, a process that seems to take longer and longer with each passing year. Eventually, though, all systems achieved equilibrium as I tucked myself into the draft back in the cheap seats. I knew I shouldn't stay there, but the pace was fast and I wasn't feeling too motivated, which is always a bad combination. We came back around to Lakeshore Drive where the pace was hovering in the 27-28 mph range, which seemed more than adequate for my purposes that day, even at the back. As we approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle I found myself on Judd's wheel, way, way at the back of the strung-out paceline. As we started around the circle I noticed a gap slowly opening ahead of him and knew I should go around ... but didn't. By the time we'd completed the 180 I knew I was in trouble. I finally went around and made a feeble effort to close, but at the speed the group was going it was clearly impossible, so I backed it off and cruised in the last couple of miles as the group rode off in the distance. It wasn't until we we were on the cool-down and heading the opposite direction that the sun finally came up. The sky was a bright red, which seemed appropriate considering what was to come later that morning.

The visit to the dentist was predictably unenjoyable, as it involved removing a large but cracked tooth using various implements that might be generally considered more suitable for automotive repair jobs. Fortunately I'd been given enough Novocain, or whatever they use nowadays, that the whole left side of my face would be numb until mid-afternoon. It was an easy decision to work from home that day. When the anesthetic finally wore off I took a couple of Tylenol and had a smoothie. So now I'm on Penicillin for a week and then another appointment in two weeks to see how the bone graft is doing. Wednesday night was uncomfortable, and although I skipped riding I went ahead and went to work. That actually went fine. I had another smoothie for lunch and later that evening made a salad for dinner. Surprisingly things were still pretty painful last night so I skipped another day of riding. I'll probably go ahead and do the Giro tomorrow. Hopefully it will all feel a little better by then. 

I've still not ridden the cyclocross bike more than around the block, so hopefully I will be able to take it out for a proper shakedown this weekend. The Swamp Otter races are the following weekend, although I think I will probably be too tied up officiating them to race. Perhaps I will try to make one or two of the Spooky Cross races in Jackson the 29th and 30th, although there could be complications with Halloween preparations since that's on the following Monday. Frankly, one day of cyclocross would likely be more than enough for me.

Windy Week

Riders arriving at the rest stop just upriver from the Spillway with around 125 miles
already in their legs.

Fall weather, and I use the term "Fall" in its broadest sense here in New Orleans, is always a bit of a compromise. As the occasional cool fronts move through they tend to keep the hurricanes, such as Ian that did a lot of damage on the west coast of Florida, at bay. Also, they bring in some nice dry air so that the locals can briefly experience the sensation of sweat actually evaporating. But of course there's the downside. For one thing, I don't think we've had any significant rain around here in a month. I've actually had to water the expensive new plants in front of the house that I recently put in to replace the ones that the Roadwork crew destroyed and the big 35+ year old Camelia that just mysteriously died. As a cyclist, though, the things you notice most about the arrival of Fall are the morning rides in the dark and the relentless wind. It seems like we've had wind out of the northeast to northwest for over a week straight.

After a cool but very windy Tuesday morning ride where most people turned back early, or didn't show up at all, I went out to meet the WeMoRi on Wednesday into a strong north wind. I knew from experience that the group would be smaller than usual, but I was a little surprised to find just two headlights coming down Lakeshore Drive when I got there. I got in with them and wondered if they had been the only ones to show up. Neither was pushing the pace, and we cruised down Wisner at an easy 23 mph, looping around the park and onto Marconi where we stopped for the traffic light at Harrison. At that point a few more riders caught up. As it turned out, the small group of ten or so that had started got shattered into bits and pieces in the crosswind on Lakeshore Drive. I guess the wind on the lakefront was blowing around 10 mph and as I'd ridden from the bridge to Marconi earlier I had felt the spray from the waves crashing against the seawall. When we came around to Lakeshore Drive again it was an easy decision to bail out onto Wisner rather than continue to Elysian Fields as usual. I did another lap around City Park and went back to Lakeshore Drive to take a photo or two, which ended up being a short video of the water coming over the seawall and flooding much of the road between Marconi and Canal Blvd. So it was kind of an aborted WeMoRi this week. Thursday's shortened levee ride was just slightly less windy, and the northeast wind made for a long slog back with just Charles and me. Friendly Friday was, like may Friday rides are for me, an exercise in expending the minimal amount of energy to avoid being dropped. For some reason there's always somebody who wants to go fast on Friday. I was already planning some significant extra mileage for the weekend, so a hard Friday ride was not something I wanted.

Jess is a new Tulane rider

This was the weekend for Sunday's NOMA to NOMA ride which is now an annual event in which riders do a long 150+ mile loop around Lake Pontchartrain starting at 6 am on Sunday. A good number of the usual Giro riders were signed up for that, so that made the Saturday and Sunday Giro Rides a little easier than usual. Even so, there was still that mostly northerly breeze. My plan for Sunday was pretty simple. As I'd done the prior year I planned to ride the Giro, stop briefly at home to pick up water and carbs, and then ride up the river to the Spillway to watch the first groups of NOMA to NOMA riders come through. Last year I'd left home around 10:30, arrived at the spillway around 11:45, and watched the first riders come through around noon. This year I was scheduled to meet a couple of the Tulane riders up on the levee at 10:15. I figured we'd be going a little slower than I would have on my own, but felt pretty confident that we'd be at the Spillway before the first riders came through. As it turned out only Jess was there at 10:15. The other rider has been late and missed us by probably just a minute or two. There was moderate NNE wind when we started, so the ride felt fairly easy at a nice gentle 18-19 mph. We picked up Steve for a while but he turned off at Ormond to go home.

We were around NORCO, still a mile or two from the Spillway, when the lead group of three, containing Brett, came flying past. I looked at my watch and realized that they were probably over half an hour ahead of last year. As planned we arrived at the Spillway right at 11:45, by which time a few more riders had come through. We went ahead and crossed the spillway as a small group that included Charles, who finished 7th, came through. Then we stopped for a while at the rest area / feed zone at Montz Park just on the upriver side of the Spillway. While we were there another group came through, and I thought we might be able to tag along behind part of that as the got rolling again but the pace was a little too fast for Jess, so we backed off to an easier speed of 17-18 mph. Then my computer battery died at around 93 miles. On the way back a number of other riders passed us, and just before I exited onto Oak Street a small group of two, including Bo, came past. I caught up to them on Oak Street and rode with them for a bit until I turned off at S. Claiborne to head back home. I'd started Strava on my phone when my Garmin died, so a little arithmetic told me I'd logged around 115 miles for the day, most of which was at a pretty easy pace. Still, it was more than adequate to dismiss any feelings I might have been harboring about feeling left out of the 150-mile ride - or race. 

I learned there had been a big crash somewhere on Highway 22, but fortunately no serious injuries except to carbon-fiber. The leaders finished in around 6:45 for the 148+ miles, if Strava is to be believed, which was considerably faster than last year. Official results should be available today, maybe. One rider I was a little worried about was Allene from Bike Easy whose preparation for this type of thing had been minimal to say the least. I was happy to find that a friend had followed her on Hwy. 22 and that she had indeed finished in somewhere around 14 and a half hours. That must have felt like a much harder effort to her than finishing in 6:37 had felt to the leaders!

Meanwhile in other news, I finally broke down and bought a Blue Norcross cyclocross bike. Granted, it's ten years old and has rim brakes, but I think it'll be more than adequate for my purposes and of course it was pretty cheap. I haven't really ridden it yet, but perhaps I will go for a spin one evening this week. With some many of the roads in Carrollton torn up there should be plenty of readily available "gravel."