Hard Holiday Weather

Scout Island trail

Each year of late Strava has this "Festive 500" thing where people try to ride at least 500 km over the holidays, from December 24 though December 31. That kind of distance over eight days, 310 miles for those of us still measuring things based on the length of somebody's foot, isn't outside of my normal routine, although I suppose there have been years where meeting that goal provided a bit of motivation to get on the bike when the holidays might otherwise provide ample excuses for missing a day or two. This year, however, I suspect only those with legit OCD might not have thrown that goal out the window already. By Thursday the 22nd we were already being inundated by dire warnings of  winter Armageddon, which around here just means it will be significantly below freezing for a significant amount of time. Such events are rare enough that it isn't unreasonable to just take those days as "rest days" and carry on when it warms up, which usually happens by the following day. This time, though, the following day would be a bit worse.

So with faucets dripping to keep them from freezing Friday morning the 23rd started out well below freezing. I was already coming down with a sore throat, so things weren't looking too good for me, but nonetheless I waited until 2:00 pm when the temperature was barely above freezing, and took the cyclocross bike out with the idea of riding some of the trails on Scout Island in City Park where there would be some protection from the 10-15 mph north wind. The ride was just to move my legs and get out of the house, with no effort to do anything that might resemble training. It was quite nice on the trails, actually. Afterward I decided to ride to see what Lakeshore Drive looked like. That mile or so right into the freezing north wind was brutal, and Lakeshore Drive was closed because of the ice on the road from the waves breaking over the seawall. My average speed for that ride barely cracked 10 mph.

Friday night was, I think, even colder, and so on Christmas eve I again waited until afternoon when the temperature was up to around freezing before going out for a short solo ride on the windblown levee. At least the sun was out. I got in 30-odd miles, again at an agonizingly slow speed. The sore throat was still there, and so I was expecting it to all evolve into a chest cold any day.

My brother and niece came in on Christmas day, and between the cold I was nurturing and the cold temperature outside I didn't have any trouble convincing myself of the wisdom in staying off the bike on the 25th and 26th. On Tuesday it was still pretty cold and windy, and I was starting to get some chest congestion, so I went out at 6 am to the levee with the idea of sitting on the back at the lowest possible effort level and turning back early to minimize the chances of turning it all into pneumonia. As it turned out, it was just Charles and me, so we just did an easy ride out to Williams Blvd. and back. On the plus side, the temperature was supposed to be much warmer on Wednesday. 

Since I was already coughing and generally feeling pretty much under the weather I wisely decided not to go out to the WeMoRi and instead aim for a solo ride later in the day when it would be over then degrees warmer. 

I headed out under a nice blue sky around 10:00 am with the idea of keeping the effort level low so as to avoid doing more harm than good. Considering the much-improved weather, and trying to ignore the gradually increasing southeast wind, I put a gel in my pocket just in case I found the motivation to do a longer ride. Knowing that I was already suffering from a chest cold, I went ahead and pulled on the leg and arm-warmers even though I knew it would be in the mid-60s. Up on the levee, and lured by a nice tailwind, I cruised along at a minimal effort level all the way out to the end of the bike path at Gramercy, about 44 miles upriver. I knew it would be a very long ride back, almost entirely into a strong headwind, but I was determined not to push myself too hard. I probably averaged 14 mph at best all the way back and was quite suitably tired and hungry by the time I got home.

With the chest cold in full effect I waited until after noon to go out yesterday, again with the idea of just putting in a few easy miles on the levee. I ran into Charlotte on the way out, so we rode together until she turned back a bit after Williams Blvd. I was not feeling too bad, so decided to continue to the little Dip. I rode a little bit harder on the way back, which again was largely head and cross-wind. This morning, Friday, the forecast had been calling for rain and thunderstorms by 7 am, but when I awoke that had all been pushed back by a few hours. Even so, I decided not to risk it by going out to see who might show up for Friendly Friday. I could have ridden and stayed dry but perhaps it was better to skip it until this chest cold clears up a bit more. It's been raining non-stop now for hours and things will probably be wet until at least 3 pm, so prospects for today are looking rather bleak. Just as well, I guess. With one more riding day left in 2022, I'm a bit over 13,000 miles for the year, which is more than adequate. Here's the past ten years;

Winter Blows Into Town

It was inevitable. Winter. We had somehow been avoiding the worst of it, riding around in summer kit as if it was Fall, but we knew it was coming. One way we knew was because by Wednesday morning we were starting to get tornado alerts that soon enough became tornado warnings. 

Power outages show the tornado's path

It was around 11:30 on Wednesday when I heard a few raindrops hitting the ledge outside my 6th floor window. Looking out toward the Superdome I could see that some of the banners on the lightposts had already been ripped off by the wind. Looking at the radar I could also see that the worst was yet to come, so I rushed down to my bike and made good my escape back home. By 4 pm there was a tornado ripping through sections of the westbank, eventually crossing the river to the east. A number of other tornados had already hit farther up the river as the cold front came through. It was bad and those who were hit were hit hard. Once the front moved off to the east the temperatures started to drop, and by the time I rolled out for the Thursday morning levee ride the temperature had dropped from the low 70s to the low 50s, accompanied as usual by a strong wind. The group was down to only four pretty quickly and the easily reached consensus was to turn back at the Big Dip since we were struggling to maintain 20-21 mph in the crosswind.

Friday morning the temperature was in the 49-50° range and of course it was still windy. As I rode out in the dark to the Friendly Friday ride I wondered who would show up. Surprisingly there was a pretty big group on hand. The combination of ample available horsepower and strong winter wind out on the lakefront, where the temperature was a good ten degrees warmer thanks to the lake, resulted in a ride that seemed a lot harder than you'd think it you just looked at the speed.

I went out to the Saturday Giro already feeling pretty un-recovered, which is never a good thing. The wind out by the lake was probably in the 10-15 mph range, and the temperature was in the low 50s, so turnout was lower than usual, which didn't mean it would be easier. After the warmup along Lakeshore Drive into the northeast wind we came down onto Hayne Blvd. where someone, probably Sam, launched an attack down the left side at about five mph faster than I was going at the time. Riders streamed past on my left, leaving me just enough time to remark, "Really??" before completely blowing up without ever really catching the draft. I quickly made the executive decision to retreat and live to fight another day, giving up the chase to wait for my breathing to go from "gasping" back down to "breathing heavily." Fortunately, experience has taught me a couple of things about the Giro. For one, it probably wouldn't be that fast on the way back. For another, there are a couple of shortcuts. So I turned off of Hayne onto Read Blvd. where I enjoyed a bit of tailwind, and then worked my way over to Bullard and Chef Highway. In a rare bit of perfect timing, I came to the intersection with I-510 just as the group got there, allowing me to slip smoothly onto the back, which is where I stayed because I was not about to put my nose back into the wind at that point. As expected, the return trip was considerably easier other than the usual race to the overpass and Seabrook bridge. My legs had felt sore the whole time and I was just hoping I hadn't done too much more damage.

Skeleton crew on Sunday

On Sunday it was even colder - mid 40s - and still just as windy, and as you'd expect there was a much smaller group on hand. As we were rolling out along Marconi Howard showed up in his car, announcing that he'd left his helmet at home. Well, we weren't about to let him get away with such an excuse and so we stopped at Matt's house where VJ, who knew the combination to his garage door, pulled one of Matt's helmets off the shelf for Howard (Matt was up at Bogue Chitto riding mountain bikes, apparently). Even with Howard, though, the entire group probably numbered only ten, which was not much of a match for the unrelenting northeast wind. We did, however, manage the entire ride even though we were struggling to hold 17 mph on the way out along Hayne. The return trip featured some sections of nice tailwind, and when we got back onto Hayne things picked up quickly to around 28 mph which had my still-unrecovered legs begging for mercy.

Monday in the wind along Lakeshore Drive

This morning's Mellow Monday ride was not exactly mellow. The temperature was in the low 40s and the ENE wind on the lakefront was probably in the 12-18 mph range. The group was down to just a handful as we battled our way to the east at about 16 mph. Then, of course, we made the loop at Seabrook and were immediately going 28-29 mph. This tailwind section was actually a lot harder than the headwind had been. It's always surprised me that people will push themselves more in a tailwind than in a headwind. By the time We hit the Bayou St. John bridge I'd had about enough and pulled out of the paceline for a couple of badly needed recovery miles. My 2022 mileage total is just a tad over 12,900 right now, so it looks like I'll be over 13k miles again this year, even taking into account the really cold weather that is about to hit. Tomorrow morning is looking to be rainy ahead of the next cold front. Wednesday should be windy and not too cold in the morning, but after that things start going south and at the moment Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are showing lows slightly below freezing. The high on Christmas day will only be around 42°. 

I guess I could use a couple of rest days anyway! Meanwhile, they are finally pouring concrete for the sidewalks and driveways along Pine Street, so maybe people will have a place to park soon. Of course they have, in the process, totally destroyed the little triangular neutral ground across the street which has become a dumping ground and storage area for heavy machinery, lumber, concrete, rebar, etc., etc. With the freezing weather I am hoping that the section of water line that they ran ABOVE GROUND between my meter and the sidewalk doesn't freeze and leave us without water over Christmas. I guess I'll put some pipe insulation on it and hope for the best. The dog has recently decided that the bed in the back room is his since Candy put Christmas stuff on it.

Torrential

Thursday morning fog on the levee blowing past the headlight.

It was another week of unseasonably warm temperatures, high humidity, and of course dense fog, or not dense fog, or torrential rain, or sunshine. As unpredictable as it was, at least we did not have much in the way of high winds and cold air. That will be coming later this week as an actual cold front finally blows through late on Wednesday, bringing us back to more normal early winter weather. 

The Tuesday levee ride had a nice little turnout. It wasn't terribly foggy, so that was nice. Jess, who has been riding way, way more consistently than any of the other Tulane riders, was there along with a few of the usual suspects except for Big Rich who has again apparently retreated to his hideaway in NC where unpaved roads are considered charmingly rustic rather than glaring examples of incompetent mismanagement like they are here in town. Jess rolled up to the start with a flat rear tire So we're riding up the river at a moderate pace and coming to the little bypass around some piles, and I briefly think about warning Jess about it but then figure she's probably well aware of it since she's ridden the levee bike path a number of times. Well apparently it must have caught here by surprise because right after I go around them I hear someone yelling behind me. Fortunately Jess had just taken a little detour onto the grass and hadn't actually crashed! Eventually everyone turned back around Williams Blvd. except Charles and me. After then turnaround at Ormond we eased up a bit and were riding side-by-side chatting about one thing or another when I made the absolutely unforgiveable mistake of bringing up the subject of tires. As anyone who rides bikes must surely know, talking about tires while on a ride is guaranteed to put a jinx on the ride, anger the tire gods, and inevitably result in a flat tire or two - which of course it immediately did. So we spent a little time fixing Charles' flat and rode easy most of the way back. Unfortunately the tire gods were not quite done with us yet, though.

The WeMoRi was pretty normal but with a slightly smaller turnout than usual. As was the case every morning this week there was a dense fog advisory posted, but the fog wasn't really all that bad. That afternoon I left work early so I could finish up at home and await an expected call from Bergeron Volvo that my car was finally ready. I'd dropped it off the prior Thursday and it had remained untouched until Monday when I got the $2,000 estimate and a promise it would be ready by the end of the day on Wednesday. I texted the service guy around 4 pm and he eventually got back to me to inform me that they had been shipped the wrong part (I assume the emission test pump assembly that had triggered the "check engine" light) and now it wouldn't be ready until Thursday. Sigh... Later that evening was the annual WeMoRi Christmas party that was at Toe's house this year. There was a great turnout along with copious amounts of food and adult beverages. I stayed until around 10:30, just after Kenny showed up on his way back from a high school football game.

Jess took a little detour around the pipes.

Thursday morning it was foggy enough to consider not riding, which of course I didn't really consider. As we were about to roll out Jess appeared with a flat rear tire and no pump or inflator. That precipitated a big collaborative tire-changing effort that got us rolling pretty quickly. Then, just after we had started back from The Dip (some negotiation had been required to get people to go even that far under the damp and foggy circumstances), Jess flatted again. So we checked the tire, pulled something small and sharp out of it, and got going again. That didn't last too long, though, and soon the tire was almost flat again. We were still quite far out, not even back to Williams, so trying to nurse it back with more CO2 wasn't really feasible. We put another tube (tube #3) in it and that one did the trick. Later I did an autopsy on the last tube that had leaked, which was one of my patched tubes, and discovered that it had a slow leak where the valve stem it attached to the tube. Back at work, I got the call from Bergeron in the early afternoon that the car was ready, so headed back home where I decided to ride the cyclocross bike out there to pick it up. I took the long way around, going all the way to the lake trail and then back down Severn. That ride reminded me why I don't ride much in the city after 7:30 am! I also discovered that at the last cyclocross race my saddle clamp must have slipped a bit, leaving the tip of the saddle pointing a bit upward. It wasn't too bad, but it was a bit of an annoyance. Anyway I threw the bike into the car and drove back home with everything in more or less working order.

Saturday's Giro was pretty nice once the fog lifted.

Saturday's Giro Ride started out with must a little fog and a slightly smaller turnout than usual. It was nice and warm - like 67° - with practically no wind, so it was a nice ride. It was pretty fast, and I did a bit of work, but the combination of warm temperatures, a decent enough sized group, and virtually no wind made it seem easier than you'd have expected. That afternoon I decided it was finally time to fix the screen on the porch door. That's a job that you would think would be easy but actually isn't. I needed to add hardware cloth behind the screen because the damage I was fixing had been caused by the dog jumping up and pushing the screen out. Add to that the fact that it's an old wooden screen door that has been worked on numerous times over the past thirty or forty years, and you have more of a job than you'd think. I decided to take it off the hinges and work on it in the basement rather than try to deal with it in place. I just have removed a hundred rusty staples and brads before I could finally put in the new hardware cloth and screen. Then I had to replace some of the trim and finally slap some paint on the whole thing, so it wasn't actually finished and ready to be re-installed until Sunday afternoon when I also balanced precariously on a ladder placed on the front steps in order to replace the screen alongside the door. All of that left me with a back that was even more sore than it had been before!

On Sunday there was a huge line of storms heading our way and I knew the timing would be hit-or-miss regarding the Giro. Staring at the radar at Starbucks before the ride I had the idea that we might just barely miss the worst of it, and thought that even if we didn't stay dry, it would just be a light rain. We headed out with a smallish group with the idea that we would re-assess at the end of Hayne Blvd. At that point the sky still looked good out to the northwest so we continued on to the usual turnaround at Venetian Isles. The weather for most of the ride was actually pretty nice. Any time you can ride in summer kit in December it feels like a gift, but as it would eventually turn out, the ride wouldn't be without its cost. By the time we got back to Hayne Blvd. it was starting to rain, and moments later the rain went from normal rain to torrential downpour. Will, who was stationed at the front, seemed intent on pushing the pace despite the conditions and as we got closer to the Casino overpass people started dropping off the back. I made a quick decision to stick with him and Norman, who was in from Biloxi, mainly because I didn't want to end out there alone. Regardless, I was thankful for whoever invented daytime-visible LED bike lights because soon the rain was coming at us horizontally from the northwest so strongly that it was filling my right ear with water. The last few miles featured some street flooding and gusty crosswinds, so I was happy when we finally turned off of Lakeshore Drive. When I got home, completely soaked, I emptied about half a cup of water out of my shoes and wrung nearly the same amount out of my socks. My new phone seemed to survive the dousing in good stead, as did the other electronics that now adorn my bike, so that was at least a silver lining. I spend the rest of the day fixing the screen alongside the porch door and then finally re-installing the minimally re-painted door. Annual mileage is up over 12,500 miles now so I guess I should end the year with around 13k.

Kinda Crazy Weather

Tuesday morning starting the return trip from Ormond

It was a week defined more by the weather than anything else. Well, that and Bergeron Volvo, but I'll get to that part later. At least we had a fairly normal levee ride on Tuesday, if you consider 66°F at the end of November "normal." After logging something in excess of 350 miles the week before I was already fully committed to an easier week, especially since I was entertaining the possibility of going up to Ridgeland on Sunday for cyclocross. 

The weather forecast for the last day of November, Wednesday's WeMoRi, was not looking too promising, though, with a line of rain being consistently predicted to come through precisely in the middle of the ride. Of course, weather predictions this time of year are always closer to opinions than scientific fact, so I was still holding out a bit of hope when I hit the sack Tuesday night. Hope springs eternal. When I awoke Wednesday morning I could hear thunder way in the distance, and checking the weather radar confirmed that the forecast had, for once, been right on the mark. WeMo was clearly not going to happen, and even the possibility of squeezing in a few miles after work looked distinctly improbable. Considering my aforementioned high-mileage prior week I took it all as a sign that I should just take the day off and call it a recovery day.

When it's cold and windy you at least get the levee to yourself!

As usually happens after a line of storms like that comes through, Thursday morning was super windy out of the east northeast, the sky was clear, and the temperature was down to the mid-40s. To complicate matters, I was scheduled, after waiting three weeks for the appointment, to bring the Volvo in for service over in Metairie. I figured I'd turn around early, ride back home, throw the bike into the car, drive out to the dealership, and ride back home. Well, when I arrived at the levee for the 6 am ride start it was deserted. Everyone had bailed out because of the wind and the fact that it was going to be considerably warmer the next day. So I went ahead and battled the wind, which wasn't really all that bad because much of it was crosswind, for about ten miles before turning back to head home. Then, as planned I drove out to Bergeron Volvo with the bike in the back to drop it off. Since I'd gotten there a bit before 8 am I decided to go back the long way, riding up Severn which has a brand new "protected" bike lane, to the Lake Trail. Fortunately I didn't hit any of the concrete road furniture separating the bike lane from the other lanes, and also fortunately didn't need to turn left which such things would have made more hazardous than usual. I rode over the levee onto the bike path and turned east and was immediately slammed hard by the unobstructed east wind that was howling at somewhere in the 15-20 mph range. I was at times struggling to maintain 11 mph until I finally got to Bucktown and back onto city streets where the wind wasn't quite so strong. The rest of the 11.6 mile ride home was much nicer except for the rush-hour drivers who seemed intent on murdering me despite my retina-piercing daytime-visible tail light.

Just a handful of us did the full Giro on Saturday.

Friday's Friendly Friday ride was unremarkable except for the somewhat low turnout and nice easy pace. I was hoping to get the car back at some point so I'd have it on Sunday for the drive to Ridgeland, but I was not so lucky. By late afternoon I texted the service department to inquire about the status of the car and was told that there were still two cars ahead of it, which meant that it had been sitting there for two days and nobody had even looked at it yet. I don't know what the point of waiting three weeks for an appointment is if they aren't going to touch the car for two days - actually four since it was now going to sit there all weekend. So that blew my cyclocross plans right out of the water. I'd already known I wouldn't be able to race on Saturday since we had tickets to the Tulane conference championship game that day. Not having the car for Sunday just twisted that knife a little more. Saturday morning it was nearly 70° but it was foggy as hell, which is not unusual when we have that kind of weather this time of year. So despite the temperature I put a base layer under my jersey and slipped on some thin arm-warmers, fully expecting to spend most of the Giro Ride wet. I was not wrong. I hadn't gone two blocks before I had to put my fogged up glasses in my pocket. Out at the Giro we had a small but not unreasonable group by the 7 am start, but as you can imagine the fog was quite thick along the lake. I think that kept the speed down a little bit. Apparently a lot of people had decided to start with the 6:45 SaMoRi group that day, and when we saw that large group heading back on Chef as we were heading out, almost everybody turned around to ride back in with the SaMoRi. Well, everybody but like four of us. We continued on and did the full ride. By the time we were back on Hayne Blvd. the fog had mostly lifted and I was able to put my sunglasses back on. Then, right at the base of the Bayou St. John bridge, we came upon a remnant of the SaMoRi, including a bunch of riders who had started with us, that was fixing one of apparently a few flat tires they had had. Karma, for sure. Anyway, since that put me back with a group that had ridden over from the westbank, and the weather was by then so nice, I tagged along with them through Metairie to the river where they turned off to the right to take the Huey P. Long bridge and I continued on to the levee for the ride back home. 

End of a well-played game.

Saturday afternoon we walked over to Tulane stadium in a warm and light drizzle to watch Tulane play University of Central Florida for their conference championship. I was shocked and amazed to find the student section packed with students from start to finish, which I don't think I have seen in decades, if ever. Also amazing was Tulane's performance. After an exciting game Tulane wrapped it up with another 4th quarter TD to win convincingly, which ultimately slotted them into the January 2nd Cotton Bowl. When the clock ticked down to zero the students, and most of the other fans as well, rushed the field, which was a sight I never thought I'd see at Tulane stadium.

On Sunday the weather was much the same as it had been on Saturday, but the fog was not quite as thick as the Giro rolled out with a significantly larger group than Saturday. Still, it wasn't a normal sized Giro group, so the speeds were mostly a little lower than usual and I was able to actually put my nose into the wind a number of times. I guess that got me a little bit more intensity to make up for that which I was missing by not being able to get to the cyclocross race.

This morning I went out to the Mellow Monday ride where the wind was as flat as the lake and the temperature was in the upper 60s. For reasons Turnout was a little low, probably because of the dire Dense Fog warnings that the forecasters had been emphasizing the night before, and I was expecting it to be an easier ride than usual. I should mention that despite the earlier warnings to the contrary, there was essentially no fog. It wasn't quite the easy ride I'd been expecting, but mainly because Don spent about half the time on the front on his super slick triathlon bike with the rest of us following like a little line of ducklings. For the record, Jen made the whole ride, apparently for the first time. She has been by far the most consistent about riding of all the Tulane riders this fall.