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.