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.