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."