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).