Best Laid Schemes ... Gang aft a-gley

Thursday heading back into the sun ... and wind

The Daughter arrived in town from Olympia last Monday evening, and I was off from work by Wednesday afternoon, having devised a plan to get in some long rides over the holidays without missing out much on family frivolities. Nephews and Nieces and associated kids were also scheduled for post-Christmas visits. A little complicated but manageable, assuming things didn't start to unwind, which of course they eventually did in more ways than one. I rode out to the WeMoRi where I sort of accidentally got onto the 2-person break instead of the group. It was Lisa and Jaden, and they seemed committed to making it to the end without being caught. Meanwhile, I was just sitting on the back, switching smoothly from one draft to the other as they rotated. I doubt I would have been of much help, actually, and they did indeed finish ahead of the group, or at least what was left of it. 

The Thursday and Friday rides were just the usual, although made a little more difficult because of the wind. At least were were finally starting to tilt toward, rather than away, from the sun.

Saturday the 23rd I rode out to Starbucks to meet up with the Giro, and by the 7 am start there was a nice big group on hand. The weather was pretty nice with the temperature just below 60°F. There were even a couple of people from the Mississippi coast on hand. As usual, I was a little over-dressed, probably a result of my habit of riding out there early, in the dark, which always makes it feel colder. The ride itself was going along just fine until someone at the front, in an egregious violation of protocol, attacked after the Goodyear sprint and split the field, leaving a few in no-mans-land and a slowly re-forming chase group. I use the term "chase" loosely here. The group finally got going and wasn't losing ground too fast, but traffic complications on Bullard killed off any chance of catching and also split things up even more. Somewhere around Lake Forest we had lost Apryl. Charles had been in the front group but then that group split again on Hayne. Eventually of course we all ended up on Lakeshore Drive where Charles and I turned back to find Apryl, who was doing her first Giro, and make sure she didn't get lost. She wasn't far back, though, and there were a couple others with her I think. Then, riding down Marconi about a quarter mile from Starbucks she slammed into that big new hole in the concrete and blew out her rear tire, so we made a quick repair before everyone parted ways for the day. The forecast for Sunday was already looking really bad.

So that Sunday morning, Christmas eve, it was raining and wet and it was looking like it would stay that way all day. I sat around the house looking out the window and compulsively checking the weather radar, and around 12:30 I decided to put on the rain jacket and go for a little ride on the levee, mainly for psychological wellness reasons. There was some light rain on-and-off, but it wasn't cold, so I was never particularly uncomfortable. Somewhere out around Kenner I ran into Joey who already had 50-odd miles. He turned around with me and probably ended up with around 70 miles in the rain. Anyway, I was glad I'd gone out and gotten in a few miles despite the weather. 

Mellow Monday

There had been some talk about doing a Christmas morning Giro on Monday, but that never happened, so I went out to City Park to see if anyone would appear for the usual Mellow Monday ride. Not surprisingly, there were just a couple of people, but we had a nice enough ride anyway. I was already nursing a sore throat, though, and just hoping it wouldn't develop into anything more debilitating. Christmas day came and went and along the way the family members who were going to come down for a day or two bailed because they were sick, some with COVID.

By that evening I knew my plans for long rides were down the drain, though. The throat was still a little sore and I wasn't feeling all that great, and the idea of going out on the bike in the cold dry air would have been a bad one, and the plan to ride 100 miles that day would have been worse. It's Wednesday now and The Daughter headed for the airport at 4:30 am, and the throat is much improved, but I didn't feel up to a cold ride, much less the WeMoRi, this morning, and I doubt anyone would have recommended it anyway. The dilemma now is that the temperature here will get up to almost 60 this afternoon, but then a very cold front will be coming through, leaving us with a few really cold mornings. Do I go out for a little ride this afternoon, or do I skip another day just to be better recovered just in time for Thursday morning's cold 44° temperatures?

Winterish

Almost home - Thursday

Along with morning temperatures in the 40s come the time-consuming pre-dawn wardrobe decisions that usually involve substantial amounts of compromise. I usually opt for warmth right out the door, knowing full well that I'll be over-dressed an hour or so later. Or not. It depends on things like cloud cover, wind speed, ride pace, what riding clothes are still clean enough to pass the smell test, and probably the phase of the moon. Suffice it to say, it's a roll of the dice every time. To make matters worse, selecting (and often finding) what to wear, and pulling on layer after layer, takes up valuable time, especially when the gap between the alarm time and ride time is in the 15-minute range, as it always seems to be.

Wednesday morning featured a stiff north wind, and as often happens the clothing decision matrix delayed my departure for a few extra minutes. With every intention of expediting my ride out to meet the WeMoRi group, I put my head down, shifted up a cog, and then managed to catch every single red light along the way. By the time I reached City Park I knew I was running dangerously late and would have to implement Plan B, which is to turn onto Toussant rather than go all the way to Lakeshore Drive. I made a U-turn at Marconi and headed east waiting to be scooped up by whatever was left of the group, which I figured would be smaller than usual thanks to the wind and all. Fortunately there were enough bodies that when I latched onto the back halfway down Marconi there was enough draft and a slow enough pace to allow for the necessary physiological adjustments. Somewhere in the group was Big Red, and at some point Ice Cream Man, but lots of regulars were still missing. I wasn't complaining. I have a hard time pushing myself when it's cold and windy, so despite the moderate pace I was still doing my best to stay in the draft. Toward the end, that draft was directly behind Jaden, who made a surge after the bridge, pulling us past the overly optimistic riders who had launched way too early. He urged me to go past at the end, so I felt obligated and did.

Friendly Friday - regrouping on Canal Blvd.

Thursday morning's levee ride was just plain painful for me. It happens some times. I was cold the whole time, my legs were hurting, my neck was hurting, and my back was hurting. It was just Charles, Rich and me for most of it, and the return trip was largely into the wind, which didn't help. Had I been out there by myself, I would surely have turned back early and limped home at 14 mph. It's an open question whether that would have actually been the better option anyway.

So on Friday the temperature was a little warmer and the wind had died down a lot, which meant a nice turnout for the Friendly Friday ride, to which I arrived with about 20 seconds to spare. The ride itself was relatively civilized, so when we were coasting down the overpass toward the end, I was a little surprised that Dylan wasn't with us. Then, as I turned into the park I got a text from him. He'd flatted both tires out at the Elysian Fields traffic circle, and so needed another tube, so I immediately turned around and headed back out there. 

We got that fixed, even though the valve extender I had was missing the threaded part and was basically just an aluminum cylinder. Somehow it worked well enough that we got the tire inflated, though, so all was good. Later that evening when I had my bike up on the stand I discovered that I'd completely worn through the rubber in one spot on my rear tire and was quite lucky to have made it back home myself. Those tires had over 8,000 miles on them, so I guess I got my money's worth out of them. Fortunately I  had a pair of Michelins I'd taken off of my race wheels before Nationals because there was a little bit of sidewall damage on one of them, so I put those on.

Saturday Fog

The weekend weather was a little sketchy. Saturday morning there was a dense fog advisory. Although the temperature was still reasonably warm at around 60°, the fog was pretty thick and the roads quite damp. As it turned out we had enough to make a quorum and headed out into the patchy fog. I think a few people turned back early. It wasn't until we were practically all the way to Venetian Isles that the fog started to lift. Before that, visibility was dangerously low in some places. It was pretty good ride, though, even if it never got really fast.

Sunday was cooler with damp streets from some overnight rain showers and a hefty 29 mph northwest wind at the lakefront that was gusting to 36. I sat at Starbucks wondering if anyone was going to show  up under the circumstances. An early arrival was Constantine, a rider from Germany who was in town for a conference. Eventually more riders showed up, so we headed out into the wind with everyone doing battle with their front wheels in the crosswind. Had it not been for the wind, it would have been a great day for riding, but as it was I spent most of the time tucked in behind the biggest riders I could find.

Monday morning it was much colder and still quite windy, which not surprisingly resulted in a Mellow Monday ride of just four or five riders. Once again, the ride was mostly a battle with the wind, this time from the northeast, which kept the speed low on the way out along Lakeshore Drive. With so little available horsepower things never got very fast, but it nonetheless felt like a workout.

This morning there were five or six of us up on the levee at six-o'dark. The temperature was till in the 40s with a significant north wind, and by the time I was past Williams Blvd. I was on my own, so I just settled into an easy pace, turning around just before the Luling bridge, since I knew the headwind on the way back would cost me some time, which it did. So it was a nice smooth and easy 39 miles for me this morning, probably a couple mph slower than it would have been if I hadn't been on my own. The next few days should be windy but otherwise pretty good until the next cold front lumbers through at some point on Saturday or Sunday.

Better Judgement

Riding straight into the storm Friday morning.

The weather battles continued most of last week, which I guess is par for the course this time of year. Likewise for flat tires, both tubed and tubeless. I rushed out to Wednesday's WeMoRi with the temperature in the 40s, and not surprisingly found a number of the usual riders were playing hooky that morning. On the plus side, it did keep the speed down a notch, if that's even a plus. The forecast for the next few days was looking particularly bad with a front coming through and then likely stalling on top of us. In those kinds of situations the only thing to do is wait until morning, look out the window, check the radar, and guess.

So Thursday morning it was not looking bad at all. The temperature was in the low 50s with a moderate east wind as I made my way down the still not-quite-finished Neron Place to Carrollton Avenue and then to the levee. For some reason the turnout for Thursday's ride was a little bigger than usual, which is to say there were maybe seven of us up there in the dark next to the recently re-painted "pipes" that had already been decorated with more extremely non-artistic graffiti. Unfortunately, by the time we were past the airport there were only four of us left, and then Subway turned back at the Little Dip, leaving just three of us. We were going pretty well with a nice little tailwind, though, so I was just trying not to think too much about the ride back. Fortunately, we picked up Boyd on his Pinarello e-bike shortly thereafter, which turned out to be a blessing for the ride back. Boyd is doing great after having to deal with some AFib problems that resulted in an ablation plus a pacemaker, and with the assist from the Pinarello he was taking nice long steady pulls into the wind until he peeled off for home at Florida Street. I was happy to have gotten in the full ride, but things were not looking too promising for Friday and Saturday.

Saturday morning flooding - State Street at S. Claiborne

Friday morning I looked at the radar and decided that the rain wouldn't hit us until maybe 9 am. The forecast model seemed to agree with that, so I headed out to meet the Friendly Friday group, what little there was of it. I think we started out with just Steven, Charles, Mitchell, Dave, and me, so the pace was nice and steady heading out to Seabrook on Lakeshore Drive. I was still feeling confident that I'd made the right call on the weather ... until we turned back toward the east. Just as we came around the loop at Seabrook it felt like the temperature suddenly dropped ten degrees and the wind shifted almost 180°. I remarked, "That's not a good sign," and looked up to see an ominously dark sky ahead of us. A moment later it started to rain, and a moment after that it started to pour down rain. We turned off of Lakeshore Drive, and Charles and I headed straight home down Wisner while the others headed home toward Metairie. Dave had dropped off the pace shortly after we'd gotten onto Lakeshore Drive so I was thinking  he was the smart one and got home dry. I was wrong, though. It turned out that he had continued on the regular route behind us, so had to battle all of that alone. I was well soaked through-and-through long before getting home, of course. When I took my shoes off I had to pour the water out of them and then set everything in front of the basement box fan to dry. I rushed upstairs and jumped in the shower right away so I wouldn't get chilled.

More rain ahead - Saturday on the levee.

By Saturday my shoes were almost dried out but the streets weren't. In fact, the torrential rain that had started in the middle of the night and was still coming down had flooded a lot of streets in New Orleans, partly thanks to some non-functional drainage pumps that had "power issues." Situation normal. There was no question that the Saturday Giro wasn't going to happen, so I didn't even get out of bed until around 7 am. I was scheduled to attend the Tulane playoff game at 3:30 that day, so I was looking for a little break in the weather. Around 10:00 it looked like there might be a little respite from the rain, so against my better judgement I went out on the old Orbea (didn't want to risk another flat on the Bianchi) with the idea of riding out to the Dip and back on the levee. Given the meteorological uncertainties of the day I stuffed my rain jacket into my pocket before heading out. At least it wasn't cold, so I knew that even if I got rained on, which I fully expected to happen, I probably wouldn't be too miserable. Well, I didn't even get to Williams Blvd. before I started feeling the raindrops. Up ahead to the northwest the sky was black, and when I started hearing nearby thunder, I stopped and put on my jacket. I probably rode less than a mile further before the rain got heavy and the gap between the lightning and thunder got down to about a second, so I made a U-turn and started back. At least I had a little tailwind and there was nobody on the bike path, well until I saw Will W heading in the opposite direction. Granted, the rain had slackened up a little bit by then. I rode back by way of Audubon Park and Tulane to minimize time in traffic. By the time I got back home and pulled off my soaking wet shoes (again) my front tire was dead flat from some big chunk of glass I must have picked up along Broadway. The flooding around there had washed a lot of stuff out into the street.

Took the Orbea out for a bath Saturday.

Finally, the weather was looking a little better for the Sunday Giro. It was still warm enough for basically summer kit. I got to Starbucks half an hour early, as usual, and sipped on a cup of Christmas Blend as riders started to arrive. There was a pretty good group by 7 am when we headed out. The Seabrook bridge still  has the right lane blocked off, but of course that's where most of us ride since we'd probably get run over by speeding cars in the left lane. As we got close to the top of the bridge, I heard Charles' tire explode rather dramatically as he rode over one of the many bits of debris that have accumulated in the right lane. The group eased up and stopped on the other side of the steel grate at the top while I stopped with him just before it. He'd already had a puncture on the way out to the ride that had sealed itself, but this was a big slash that no amount of sealant was going to help. So began the long and messy process of getting a tubeless tire off the rim in order to put a boot and tube inside. The nut holding the valve in place was frozen and it took quite a while for Charles to coax it off and pour the sealant out of the tire. I had a piece of race number to use as a boot and three CO2 cartridges, so we put Charles' spare tube in with the usual great difficulty that you'd expect with a tubeless tire, only to discover that the tube must have gotten pinched by the tire lever. Luckily I had two tubes with me and two more CO2 cartridges. About that time we heard the drawbridge horn blowing and waved goodbye to the group that was on the other side.

So we finally got the second tube in and inflated, only to find that the boot had moved in the process and the tube was now bulging through the slash in the tire. We were now down to one tube and one CO2, so we dropped the tire pressure down to about 30 psi and Charles headed straight home while I continued on, probably fifteen minutes behind the group. By then, the drawbridge had been back down for a while. Charles didn't make it more than a few miles before having to throw in the towel and call an Uber. On Hayne Blvd. I ran into Howard who had turned back at Bullard to look for us. He turned around and we rode out together, finally turning around well before Highway 11 when we saw the group on its way back.

My little "neutral support" episode had cost about ten miles, so after the ride I went down to the levee with Chris and rode out a few miles to make up the difference. As I started back I heard, "Hey Randy! Get on!" behind me. It was Will and Mark who had done the shuffle route after the Giro and were on their way back along the levee. Will was kind of in high Zone 2 mode just motoring along smoothly, so I had a nice ride back to Oak Street where he continued on to the park and I split off for home. All-in-all it was a wet, low-mileage, low-intensity week that was actually a little better than I would have predicted earlier in the week.

Monday's Mellow Monday ride was pretty normal, although for some reason my legs felt a little sore. It may have been from shoveling river sand out of the street and back to where the rain had washed it out from. The roadwork people had just dumped river sand onto the space between the sidewalk and the street after they re-did the sidewalk, and without any grass, and considering the much greater slope, a couple hundred pounds of sand get washed into the gutter now every time it rains. I put down some grass seed last week but I'm not too hopeful that it will actually germinate this time of year.

Thanksgiving Week Weather

Saturday Birthday Giro Heading Out

As she often does this time of year, Mother Nature has been toying with us. I went out into the dark on Monday morning to meet up with the Mellow Monday group at City Park. The temperature was in the low 60s, so actually not bad at all, but the forecast for the week was a little questionable. There was a steady rain most of that night and I awoke to find the streets soaked. Most of the rain had ended by around 5:30 but considering how things looked I debated for a while if it would be worth going out for a ride. In the end, I decided to take the Pennine out for a spin on the levee, and by the time I pumped up the tires and rolled out the door I knew I wouldn't be at the levee by 6 am. I didn't think that would be a problem, though, because I was pretty sure nobody would be there. So as I rode up the ramp from River Road I was quite surprised to see someone waiting, especially since I was at least five minutes late. It was Mike, aka Gumbo 66, who was still in town from Seattle. Although the bike path was wet, it wasn't all that bad, so we rode out to the upriver end of Jefferson Parish and back without incident ... until he flatted. Riding on the levee when it's wet like that comes with a high probability of a flat caused by a teeny tiny shard of whatever aggregate has been shedding from the asphalt for the past twenty years.

Rain Bike Tuesday

By Wednesday morning there was a strong wind blowing. Strong enough that I considered turning around and heading back home long before reaching the lakefront. In the end I persevered, but by the time I got there the WeMoRi, what little there was of it to start with, had been blown to pieces. I got onto the back of the three or four riders who were left and was promptly dropped along Wisner when the pace surged and my legs and lungs didn't, so I cut across the park and picked them up on the flip-side. It was a shorter ride than usual, battling the front wheel in a 10-20 mph north wind the whole time.

As usual, there was a Thanksgiving Day Giro Ride the next day. It was chilly start, but at least the wind had died down a bit. Nobody seemed to be quite in the mood for a mid-week hammerfest, so while the pace remained brisk it was a little easier than usual. I arrived back home in plenty of time to make the usual two trips to the grocery store as Candy cooked a turkey and related stuff. Fortunately the neighbors came over to eat, because four pies, rice and shrimp, salad, and ten pounds of turkey would have been challenging for just the two of us. 

I was off on Friday, of course, so there was really no good reason to go out at 5:30 am in a cold drizzle to see if anyone would show up for Friendly Friday. Of course I did anyway. It was only slightly miserable with the temperature in the 50s and occasional light rain. I arrived home cold and wet of course.

Saturday was the Giro, and also my 70th birthday. Luckily the weather was much improved, although still colder than I like. Being my birthday I was obliged to ride at least my age in miles, which would mean tacking an additional ten miles or so onto the Giro. As I dropped the bike onto the basement floor that morning I heard the unmistakable "thump" of a flat rear tire. A tiny shard of glass or metal was stuck in the tire and it took me quite a while to remove it. I finally got it fixed, arriving at Starbucks only a few minutes later than usual. The ride itself was pretty steady, and it was easy to sit in the draft where I like to be this time of year. On the way back there was the usual surge between the casino bridge and Seabrook (which still has the right lane blocked off). For some reason I optimistically decided to put in a little sprint halfway up the Seabrook bridge, so I came around whoever was ahead of me and immediately slammed into some big piece of debris in the closed-off right lane that dramatically blew out my front tire as if a bomb had gone off. Fortunately I didn't go down. I gingerly limped to the top of the bridge on the flat front where I could fix it. I still needed to put in a few birthday miles, so Pat and Charles decided to keep me company. We stopped briefly at the gas station on Harrison and then did a couple of laps around City Park before I headed  home with maybe 40 psi in the tire. It was only later that I discovered the casing had been cut and the tube was bulging out of the hole. Good thing I hadn't been able to fully inflate it because the valve stem was too short and I had to MacGyver a valve extender by cutting the end off of a plastic valve cap. The forecast for Sunday was looking bleak.

It rained much of the night and into the morning, so there was no chance of a Sunday Giro, but by noon things were looking better. I ended up going out to the levee alone around 1 pm for an easy 44 miles. By then the bike path was basically dry, thanks in no small part to the 10 mph north wind that accompanied the cold front. After a while the sun actually came out, which made things a little better even if I was generally unmotivated and spent a lot of time coasting and looking at the scenery. I mean, it's the end of November, so what the hell. I still had lots of turkey, salad, and lemon meringue pie to deal with back home anyway.

Another Flat Friday

It was much colder this morning for the Mellow Monday ride. With the temperature around 49°F I finally dug the long tights out of the drawer where they'd been hiding since last Spring. Along with the cold temperature came even more north wind, so I was quite surprised to see a seven or eight people when I arrived at the Museum of Art. I was feeling tired and lazy, but apparently not everyone else was. When we came around the loop at Seabrook and started back, I moved way over to the right because there was a car about to pass us. When I did, I rolled straight through a big patch of glass that had once been a bottle. It took about 30 seconds for the rear tire to go flat. Luckily everyone stopped while I fixed it on Lakeshore Drive with the cold wind blowing off the lake. Then, as we approached the Bayou St. John bridge there was an unexpected surge of speed. Jeff went past me mumbling, "I wonder what got into them?" That's when I went to shift to a bigger gear, only to have nothing happen. I looked down and realized I'd left it in the small ring after changing the flat! By the time I shifted to the big ring there was already a gap and I just couldn't summon the enthusiasm needed to close it, so I rode in the rest of the way behind the group, managing to catch every red light and having to stop behind a line of cars in the left lane in order to turn off of Marconi onto Filmore. I was probably four minutes behind when I got back to the museum and by then everyone had already headed home except for Mike who was loading  his bike into his car. At least the weather should be improving for the next few days before the next cold front arrives.

Easy Week, Tour of Jeff, and then Rain ... Finally

Like the weather, group rides this time feature a totally predictable level of unpredictability. Some riders, myself included, are easing off the intensity and trying to enjoy whatever there is of the scenery down here where there are no majestic mountains or fall foliage photo opportunities. What we do have, however, are some nice marsh fire enhanced sunrises. Last Wednesday's WeMoRi, not to be confused with today's, was definitely a bit less intense than usual, perhaps influenced a bit by the fact that the group caught, and had to stop at, essentially every red light. By mid-week the weather prognosticators were already issuing dire warnings of monsoonal downpours for the weekend, which of course nobody with any experience here was putting much faith in. I went ahead a registered for the Sunday Tour de Jefferson ride on the assumption that any forecast made five days ahead of time would most assuredly turn out to have been premature. Besides, I knew Bill Burke was handling the event services stuff and so throwing another warm body into the mix couldn't hurt, especially if the weather didn't cooperate.

Thursday's levee ride was nice with arm-warmer level weather and a light wind, still our of the southeast. The weather forecast was already backtracking by then, pushing the expected deluge farther and farther back. 

Friendly Friday had a typical turnout and weather suitable for summer kit, which of course meant that I wore a base layer and arm-warmers. The weekend forecast was looking even better by then, with most of the rain expected for the beginning of the following week. Even so, Saturday morning was damp and a little cooler. This would be the first Saturday Giro starting at its regular 7 am time and from its regular location since they'd usurped the SaMoRi back in the summer heat. I rode out to Starbucks on damp streets expecting a low turnout, but looking forward to a little pre-ride coffee. As expected, turnout was a little slim. I had to chuckle this morning when I read an article, actually more of an op-ed, in Outside about how everyone has moved to disc brakes. The author wrote, "Also, here’s a fact: 99% of roadies who say you need disc brakes because of superior wet-weather performance also retreat to Zwift at the very first sign of precipitation. As for the ones who don’t, I don’t know how they can stand the sound of their disc brakes howling as soon as they get wet, because I sure can’t. I’d rather crash into a tree than have to listen to that."  Anyway, once we got started and came down from the still partially closed Seabrook bridge, Will W went to the front, put it on cruise-control at what was probably about 200 watts for him, and smoothly towed everyone all the way out to Venetian Isles and back. Well, almost all the way back. He somehow rode away on Bullard as the rest of us were trying to avoid the potholes and keep from being squashed by traffic. I got back home feeling like I'd just been on a sightseeing tour on the back of a tandem e-bike. Just as well, because I was definitely not expecting the same level of moderation for Sunday's ride.

The Tour of Jefferson is one of those late-season fun rides that, like the Tour da Parish, attracts essentially the entire regular Giro group, plus all of the West Bank riders. The course is actually kind of awful in that it incorporates no fewer than six U-turns, and the longest stretch without a turn is probably six miles, but somehow it still turns into a race at the front and six 30-second intervals at the back. As soon as we were past the neutral start, a couple of miles in, Ben Hall took off just like he did last year. There was a very disorganized chase that never really solidified into anything significant, but nonetheless the pace was mostly pretty brisk with an average speed a bit over 25 mph and, for me sitting in the ample draft near the back, and average heart rate of 134 with a max of 163. 

So not really a hard ride for me. By the time we got to the last segment the front group was down to maybe 25 riders, some of whom wanted to sprint for the imaginary finish line which was essentially Bill Burke's car. We were about a mile out when I noticed a number of the faster riders drifting toward the back to stay out of trouble. The speed was hovering in the 27-28 mph range with a moderate headwind when Eddie C went flying past on the right shoulder taking all of the wannabe sprinters off guard. So I guess that was second place since Ben had finished maybe two minutes earlier. Afterward I had a mini-muffuletta and some lemonade and headed back home.

With the long-predicted rainy weather slowly approaching, the Mellow Monday ride turnout was unsurprisingly thin and the roads unsurprisingly wet, but we still got in a nice little recovery ride, which was good because the outlook for Tuesday and Wednesday was not encouraging. The rain started later in the day, and continued all night. At 5:15 am Tuesday morning I could hear the water outside the window trickling down from the broken gutter left behind by Hurricane Ida and just pulled the covers back over my head to enjoy a rare extra hour of what passes for sleep before making coffee. 

I was scheduled to bring the car in to the body shop to repair some damage done some guy who hit The Wife at a 4-way stop and then took off before she could get any contact information or even a definite license plate number. Typical. Probably didn't have insurance. Fortunately by the time I had to bring the car in the rain had turned into just a cold mist, so my ride down Tulane Avenue from the body shop was dominated more by the possibility of being killed in the ill-conceived bike lane by busses or trucks, rather than arriving at work soaking wet. I was cold all day anyway, of course, and the ride home wasn't any better.

Charley wondering why mom
is driving off without him

This morning's WeMoRi featured enough of a north wind to make Lakeshore Drive inadvisable. As came over the Norman Francis overpass a rather heavy cold mist started falling. I was wearing my goretex base layer, arm-warmers, and full-finger gloves, but even so I briefly considered packing it in and turning around. Fortunately the mist eased up a little, so I decided to continue anyway, even though I figured I might be the only one crazy enough to be riding. Then, as I came over the Wisner overpass I saw all three of the WeMoRi riders heading the other way, which confirmed my suspicions about Lakeshore Drive. Knowing that they had likely opted for a couple of laps around City Park, I looped around at Filmore and joined in for their second lap. This was all in an off-and-on cold mist that sometimes bordered on actual rain, so by the time I was heading back home I was pretty wet and chilled. Then, just to twist the knife, my front wheel went flat halfway up the NF overpass, which was about the worst possible place to  have a front flat. I rode the flat with the tire squirming around on the wet road, and somehow managed to make it all the way down the overpass without crashing. I needed my pocket knife to extract the little piece of glass or metal from the tire, and got rolling again for the last mile or so home. It was not fun. In comparison, my ride to work was much more pleasant since I was wearing a rain jacket and wool socks! It still looks gloomy and miserable outside in the way that only November can make it, but hopefully the weather will start to improve, and maybe the rain will help with the marsh fire in the east.

Climate, Catfish, Computers, and Cars

Tour da Parish - waiting to start

We have now entered that time of the year where the relative stability of summer weather, and life in general, begins its annual downward spiral, "turning and turning in the widening gyre," as Yeats would say it, as things fall apart and we plunge ever forward toward the winter holidays. OK, maybe a little overly dramatic, but suffice it to say that the weather, among other things, has been lobbing a few curve balls in our general direction lately.

Most of last week's mornings, thankfully the last of the really dark ones before the clocks get turned back, were less than ideal. Tuesday morning I stepped out into a cold mist and turned on the headlight only to see it flash it's "My battery is about to die" warning. I switched it to the lowest power mode and rode slowly out to the levee that I knew good and well would be deserted on such an inhospitable morning. I'd dressed warmly enough to survive the cold and wet for a while, so I put in an easy, yet slightly miserable, 26 mile "character building" ride since the forecast for the following day was looking no better. Tuesday was also Halloween, and although the temperature was supposed to drop pretty low, there was a big turnout in the neighborhood. It wasn't quite enough to dispose of the, literally, fifty pounds of candy The Wife had bought, but at least we put a good dent in it.

It wasn't. Wednesday morning the wind was howling out of the north and the temperature was in the upper 40s, and I knew the WeMoRi was not going to happen. However, just like that girl in the movies who just has to open the lid of the vampire's coffin to see what's inside, I went out and rode anyway. Another "character building" ride I guess. I first turned off of Wisner onto the street once called Robert E. Lee, holding some faint hope that there might be one or two hardy souls who were doing the WeMoRi, but of course saw nobody. I turned down Marconi went down to the end, turned around again, and rode out to Lakeshore Drive to have a look. With a 20 mph north wind spray over the seawall, I rode down to Canal and back, and tossed any ideas of riding farther on Lakeshore Drive right into the dumpster. At least I had a tailwind all the way home.  Turned out one person had actually ridden the entire Giro route and somehow I'd missed him. Lucky for me. Somewhere along the way this week the car got hit, again, while Candy was going through a 4-way stop intersection. The offending driver took off without giving any information, of course, which implies that he didn't have insurance. I just got a repair estimate of around $2k on that one.

On Thursday I learned that Rich Raspet, a friend and competitor, had died unexpectedly after finishing a ride. Rich was just a few years older than I, and was a lifelong athlete, lately mixing a good amount of running into his exercise routine. It's always a bit of a reality check when someone like that dies without warning. Then yesterday I learned of the passing of one of my cousins. Sunday evening we were over at my sister's place for a family Zoom meeting with her daughter, currently stationed in Okinawa (she and her husband are MDs in the Navy), who just had a baby. Sort of a virtual baby shower or something like that. Amazingly everyone's internet and Zoom handled it smoothly despite the fact that one connection was on the other side of the planet where it was already tomorrow morning. Circle of life.....

Things were starting to warm up a tiny bit by Thursday, but the levee ride still felt cold and windy and tedious. Friendly Friday was ridden with knee-warmers, but could easily have been done without them. Fortunately the weather for Saturday's "Tour da Parish" not-a-race race was looking to be much better.

Saturday morning I drove out to da parish, arriving much earlier than I'd expected. That got me a nice parking spot and time to indulge in one of the hot donuts and a cup of hot coffee that this ride provided. 

As usual, the front part of this ride was basically the entire Giro crowd, along with one rider from Washington DC who had contacted me earlier because he was in town, and Patrick Hennessey who was in town from Atlanta visiting his mother. Before the ride started I rode down to the place where you have to go around a barricade and through some gravel (actually crushed rock) to see how it looked. It looked like I could go around the barricade on the right and skip the rocks, so I planned on that. Sometimes things get backed up there and you end up chasing just to get back into the front group. This year the ride started out at a pretty easy pace, which was a little surprising because there was a lot of horsepower in attendance. I went around the barricade on the right as planned, but then had to put a foot down and lift the bike back up onto the road, so I didn't really save any time. As usual for this ride I was happily stationed near the back of the slowly dwindling front group for about the first half of the ride, having little difficulty sitting in despite the 26-30 mph speed. Then we made a right turn into a bit of a headwind. The whole group started to get strung out along the right edge of the road. It wasn't a problem, but then someone ahead let a gap open and someone else didn't go around, and next thing I knew there was this huge gap. I eventually went around with Charles and we made a feeble attempt to close it, but the front of the group was in full flight and we weren't making any headway. As we approached the next U-turn we decided to try and turn around a little early so we could rejoin the group, but we waited a bit too long had had to wait for them to go by before we could turn. By then they were going 30 mph with a tailwind and there was no way we were going to catch. We made a bit of an effort, though, picking up and then dropping a few riders who had come out of the lead group, and finally picking up one rider who stayed with us for a while. We were going mostly around 24 mph on average I guess, but the front group was doing more like 29, so by the time we go to the finish we were over six minutes down on them. Actually, it was probably a better workout for me the way it turned out, because even at that speed I'd have been doing less work overall just sitting in the paceline. Afterward there was fried catfish, oysters, and lots of beer. 

Groundfog

Sunday's Giro was even warmer, thanks in no small part to the time change, and was relatively tame, other than a surge toward the end that was nullified when the Seabrook drawbridge opened for a sailboat. That afternoon we finished taking down all of the Halloween decorations. Mellow Monday got a little fast here and there but it was a nice morning and I was happy to be riding in mostly daylight again. Likewise, this morning's levee ride required a headlight for just fifteen minutes or so, and since we are in the middle of a big high-pressure area at the moment, there was hardly any wind, which made for a smooth and steady ride at a pretty mellow pace.

Meanwhile, on the new computer front...

So I got this new Dell XPS laptop with a 1 TB SSD, lots of RAM, etc. But of course no CD drive or USB-A ports, or Ethernet port. Just USB-C and Bluetooth. I had picked up a teeny tiny thumbdrive that is literally smaller than the end of my actual thumb, but has 265 gigabytes of capacity and a USB-A connector on one end and a USB-C connector on the other. Since my first computer had exactly 1 k of RAM on a chip the size of a New Orleans cockroach, the very idea of having 256 gigs on something the size of an Excedrin tablet is pretty mind-blowing. Anway, that all led to buying a new expensive mouse that can connect to the laptop's Bluetooth, and then a bluetooth numeric keyboard that really should have been included in the 17-inch laptop's main keyboard anyway. Then the next challenge was to see if I could install some really old software on this Windows-11 machine. Thanks to Belarc Advisor I had the install codes for Photoimpact and Dreamweaver. Photoimpact came as a free application with a computer I had about fifteen years ago. There are other things I could use, of course, but for simple things it's easier and faster to use this antique bit of software. Fortunately I had the installation files for both on my old computer, so it was just a matter of moving them over to the new computer and installing them, using the original license codes. The thing that took the longest, though, was copying twenty years worth of documents and photos from one computer to the other. At first I tried to do that with Microsoft Onedrive, but moving all of that to and then from the "cloud" (aka some collection of mysterious servers in some mysterious location(s)) was going to take forever. Using the new thumbdrive, however, made it all relatively painless and fast even though it was a few gigs of data. So I think the new computer is more or less fully functional for my purposes. I bought the Office 365 subscription, so at the moment I don't need to install any of the software I can get from Tulane that isn't supposed to be installed on a non-Tulane computer.

Skills

Last weekend I ventured up to Madison Mississippi for the Spooky Cross cyclocross races. This is a fairly low-key event designed as much for Rolando's flock of young kids as it is for the grownups (I use the term loosely since, you know, ... cyclists). With the combined "A" and "B" races not starting until 10:30, I didn't need to leave New Orleans until 6:30 or so, even taking into account that I-55 north from LaPlace to Ponchatoula was still closed from the horrendous superfog-caused crash almost a week earlier in which over 100 cars were involved and seven people were killed. Instead of taking the old two-lane highway 51, I took the Causeway to I-12, and then to I-55, all of which went quite smoothly at that time of the morning. Of course, I arrived way earlier than I really needed to. The weather for the weekend was clear and warm, and was probably one of the last such weekends we'll see this fall. I would be riding my Blue Norcross bike with its classic rim brakes and well-worn tires, neither of which I thought would matter much since I had no plans whatsoever of pushing my luck on this up-and-down course. My not-insignificant criterium skills do nothing but get me in trouble in a cyclocross race, and the fact that I have virtually no mountain bike or, for that matter, "gravel" skills doesn't help either. So the plan for me was to start near the back, lock up my rear wheel on every downhill, creep around the sharp turns, and power up the climbs, assuming I could remember how to shift the mechanical SRAM derailleur. At any rate, it would be a nice change of pace, and even though I'd be riding very conservatively, I knew I'd get a decent amount of intensity for 45 or 50 minutes.

I liked having both of the races starting together, especially since my highly questionable Category 3 cyclocross status put me into the "A" group where I clearly don't belong. I think that I got automatically put into Cyclocross Cat. 2 way back when they first started assigning separate CX categories, based solely on my Road category. At some point I got a downgrade to Cat. 3, but in retrospect should have gone all the way down to Cat. 4, which is certainly where I actually belong. Anyway, I started the race near the back as planned and was probably half a lap down near the end of my first lap where I had to negotiate the BMX pump track section, which I found slightly terrifying. Of course I took that part really easily and carefully and successfully kept both wheels on the ground throughout, so that was good. After a lap or two I started to feel a little more comfortable with the lack of asphalt under my apparently worn-out 33 mm clincher tires (I think I had about 35 psi in them) and started putting a little more pressure on the pedals, which rather predictably resulted in me crashing on a little downhill turn when I dropped the front wheel into a little hole that was hidden by the grass. Fortunately I was barely moving at the time, so there wasn't any significant damage. Soon enough I was lapped by a few of the lead riders like Jason, as expected. So I ended up with an average speed of under 8 mph, but an average heart rate above 150. Although I finished among the "A" race participants DFL, that was also apparently 3rd place. 

After the race I drove over to the Bike Crossing shop which is near the Natchez Trace, and rode around 40 miles along the Trace. There was a lot more traffic there than I would have expected, and I was glad I'd brought along my Garmin Varia radar tail light. I learned that riding a cyclocross bike with 35 psi in the tires for 40 miles is a lot harder than riding my regular road bike. That evening I went over my brother's place in Madison for dinner and a shower and a bed.

Sunday morning was basically a repeat of Saturday's races, except in the opposite direction on the course. That meant hitting the BMX track immediately after the start, and in the direction that presented a few places that I'd call "cliffs." Fortunately I kept it upright the whole time. There were a few more riders for the Sunday race but otherwise it went about the same as the previous day for me, which is to say I was focused mainly on improving my skills without breaking any bones. Mission accomplished. Unfortunately one rider went down pretty hard on one of the twisty sections. Hopefully he didn't break anything, but from the way he looked I couldn't be sure of that. I hit the road for home shortly after the race, so was back by mid-afternoon with nothing but a little scratch and bruise on my right leg to show for it all.

Monday was looking like it would be the last relatively warm day for a while, so I dragged myself out of bed and went out to meet the Mellow Monday group. That ride stayed fairly mellow, getting fast only briefly, which was good because despite my efforts to take it easy over the weekend I could definitely feel some soreness in my quads, and also my right shoulder that I'd landed on in Saturday's race. 

As predicted, a cold front came through on Monday evening bringing a big drop in temperature and a strong north wind. The temperature was in the mid to low 50s when I got up, but there was a light mist falling, so I pulled on arm and leg warmers plus a base layer and some wind protection. I knew turnout would be low to nonexistent, but decided to ride anyway. When I turned on my headlight I flashed its "low battery" warning. I'd failed to charge it. Of course, that was a clear message that I should skip riding. Also, of course, I ignored it, put the light into its most power-saving mode, and rolled out into the cold mist. Naturally there wasn't anyone else up on the levee, so I figured I'd fight the wind and cold and what was essentially a light rain for a while and turn back around Williams Blvd. I ended up going a bit farther. Because of the weather the levee was pretty deserted. Most of the regular walkers and riders were missing, so turned the headlight off for a long stretch on the way out to conserve whatever battery was left so I would have something for the return trip where I knew there would be more pedestrians. I did see Pat heading out on his ride somewhere around Jefferson, but other than a couple of people who were riding to work I think I saw only one other rider. So basically is was a somewhat miserable solo ride. 

By tomorrow morning's WeMoRi the temperature is supposed to be down to 46°F with a 15 mph north wind. It's doubtful there will be much of a group, but I'll probably dig out some warmer clothes and venture out anyway. After that it should start to slowly warm up, and so the weather for Saturday's Tour da Parish ride should be fine. 

Meanwhile, the Tulane cycling team's kit order site opened up and will be live until the 13th, so if you want to get a jersey or whole kit, now's the time! The site itself is a little messed up at this point (the road suit option disappeared and the prices aren't showing) but I'm sure they'll get it straightened out soon. I like the design but don't know anything about the manufacturer. From their sizing guide I may be ordering the XS versions and putting my faith in the forgiveness of Lycra.

Seasons

Fall colors in New Orleans

Technically, it's Fall, and my Strava feed is full of beautiful images of winding roads and colorful foliage, none of which is here. As with gravel riding, we live in a fall foliage desert down here where the months of September through November offer only brief samples of windy arm-warmer weather interspersed with foggy humid mornings that morph into 80° days. There are a few imported trees that actually change color, although not usually until November, but mostly Fall just means that the Live Oaks drop a lot of leaves while those that remain just turn a slightly darker shade of green. All of which is kind of irrelevant since the weekday morning rides right now are completed almost entirely in the dark and photos are mainly of peoples' butts illuminated by headlights or a bunch of dark silhouettes partly obscured by bright red tail lights. 

Last weekend Danielle was in town for her high school reunion. We went to the soirée in the school courtyard Friday evening, which was surprisingly nice, but otherwise the weekend consisted of two Giro Rides interspersed with lunches and dinners with friends and neighbors.

Speaking of the Giro, Saturday's was a pretty fast one that featured some heavy smoke along Chef Highway due to a persistent marsh fire. We haven't had any significant rain around here for much of the summer and fall (I think we are something like 23 inches below normal), so the fire has been smoldering mainly underground in the dried out peat, which makes it almost impossible to extinguish. They are now pumping water *into* the marsh in an effort to control it. Anyway, we all got back without noticeable symptoms of smoke inhalation, and by Sunday the wind had shifted a bit so it wasn't an issue. Monday, however, was another story.

I went out Monday morning to meet up with the Mellow Monday ride. Although there was a dense fog advisory, there was none to speak of on the way out to City Park, but as our small group - I think only four or five showed up - the fog got heavier. Then, toward the eastern end of Lakeshore Drive, it went rather quickly from heavy to impenetrable. I was glad that we all had lights and that there was practically no traffic. I think maybe two cars passed us along the lake. Meanwhile, out to the west on I-55, there was a horrendous multi-vehicle pile-up thanks to the same "Superfog" that formed from the combination of regular fog and another marsh fire in that area. Over 100 vehicles were involved, eight people died, tanker trailers exploded, etc. Complete disaster. As I write, that part of the interstate is still closed as they finish cleaning up the mess and then inspect the bridge for structural damage caused by the crashes and the fire.

So Monday's ride was quite windy, but otherwise fairly mellow, but for some reason Tuesday's levee ride seemed kind of hard. Rich is back in town so we had three doing the full ride, which should have made it seem easier, but the wind direction that morning made it feel like most of the ride was either crosswind or headwind, mainly the latter. By the time we were halfway home my back hurt, my neck hurt, and my legs hurt, even though we weren't really pushing it. On the plus side, my new computer arrived at the house later that day. On the minus side, now I will have to spend hours getting it set up, installing software, setting up passwords, transferring files, etc. It's Wednesday now and I haven't even turned it on because I know that once I do I'll get sucked down that rabbit hole and won't want to stop until I have at least the most critical things working the way I want. That will include some software from the 90s (actually one from the 80s, I think) plus numerous online applications like Box, Teams, Dropbox, Slack, Quorum, Airtable, Zoom, etc. 

Next weekend there are some small cyclocross races up in Ridgeland MS. I'm thinking I might go do those just for a change of pace, although there might be a little push-back on my absconding with the car for most of the weekend since Halloween is Tuesday and Candy has already been sorting out about fifty pounds of candy into little packages for the neighborhood kids. 

Wind and Arm Warmers

Saturday Giro cool-down on a wet Lakeshore Drive thanks to that north wind.

Well, I guess we are getting our first hint of Fall. Most of the regular rides last week were merely warm as opposed to miserably hot, but even as early as Monday the meteorological handwriting was on the wall for the weekend. On Tuesday there were only a few there for the morning levee ride, and by the time I was past Williams Blvd. I was on my own. There was a not insignificant tailwind that kept me going out to Ormond, but I knew it would be a long ride back, which of course it was. As often happens this time of year my training motivation was a little lacking, and every now and then I'd just sit up and coast or soft-pedal before slowly and somewhat reluctantly getting back up to a more respectable speed. I didn't feel guilty about it, though, because y'know, there's always WeMoRi. Granted, my WeMoRi the next day wasn't any thing to write home about, but in terms of actual training it was at least notable for a few moments of high intensity, mostly when I was about to be dropped. Thursday's levee ride was at least not a solo one. Charles and Jeff both did the whole ride with me. The nagging east wind was still there, though, so the ride back was a lot longer than the ride out had been. Along the way we saw an eagle fly right across the bike path ahead of us, having just grabbed some unfortunate creature off of the levee batture. A bit later, near the Jefferson playground, we saw a bunch of pipe that we surmised must be for the parish's plan to run a fresh water pipeline up the river a few miles to alleviate the predicted saltwater intrusion. Later that day the Corps of Engineers pushed their forecasts for the dates that saltwater might affect the city's drinking water - the levee ride starts from the "new" Orleans parish water intake. The bottom line was that it was probably not going to be a problem after all, leading the city and the university to put their mitigation plans on hold.

So an actual cold front came through Friday night, bringing a mostly north wind and dropping the morning temperature down to around 70°F. Not enough to justify arm-warmers or anything quite yet since the temperature drop wouldn't really be until that night. Saturday's Giro turned out to be a pretty fast one despite the wind that was probably ranging between 10 and 20 mph. I never put my face into that wind but felt like I got a pretty good workout just staying in the draft and not getting dropped! The thing about windy days like that is the constant level of concentration required, especially near the tail end of the paceline, as riders are moving around more than usual and the wind makes the pace more uneven. As bad as it was on the way out, I knew it would be worse on the way back, which of course it was.

Indeed, Sunday morning it was down to 60° which led me to pull on a base layer and hunt briefly but unsuccessfully hunt in the dark through my "winter stuff" drawer for real arm-warmers. I ended up using just my thin sunscreen arm-warmers that were more readily available since 60° isn't really what you'd call "cold." Still, I was happy to have the extra layers as I rode out to Starbucks in the dark. Speaking of the dark, more and more of the morning rides are going to be in the dark until we change back to Standard Time on November 5. I'd been thinking that Sunday wouldn't be as windy as Saturday had been, but didn't seem to turn out that way. At least the pace was a little more forgiving.

Back at home it was Halloween decorating weekend and the usual battle between Candy, who wants to put a bunch of things out in front that require electricity, and me who wants to not overload the extension cords that are all plugged into the same outlet so as to avoid burning down the house. Along the way I put back the old garden border that the roadwork people had removed (and of course not replaced) when they replaced the sidewalk. I then went out and got some plastic border to finish off the section where it was missing entirely. While I was at Lowes I picked up a couple of Azaleas to plant in front of the house to replace some of the plants we've lost over the past year and especially during the drought.

Speaking of the drought, it looks like we will be getting some significant rain around Wednesday as a system that crossed over Mexico from the Pacific is now in the Gulf. It's heading straight north so we won't get much of it, but the current forecast for Wednesday is looking like a 100% chance of rain and 17-20 mph east wind. I guess the timing of the rain will determine the fate of this week's WeMoRi.

Backpedaling

Sunday TUCA Northshore Ride - La Tung Road

After returning from Six Gap I figured it was time for an easy week that might allow for a bit of recovery. While a 250 mile week might not seem like an easy one, it is really never about mileage as much as it is about intensity, and if anyone is an expert in minimizing intensity, it's I. After the long drive back from Dahlonega that had me back home around midnight I made the easy decision to skip my usual Monday morning ride altogether. Besides, I had an early meeting that day and was going to be a little sleep-deprived anyway, and of course my bike was still in Six Gap mode with the race wheels and 11-32 and everything. Yeah, I could have ridden the Orbea, but it just didn't seem worth the effort under the circumstances. Also my legs still hurt. 

As expected, I was not very "high-functioning" on Monday, but by Tuesday morning I was more or less good to go, so I headed out to the levee for the 6 am ride, only to find that nobody else was there. Just as well, I thought, since that way I could moderate my effort and help the recovery process along rather than possibly derail it by trying to stay with a fast group. Since I was solo and slow and had yet another morning meeting, I turned back at the Little Dip rather than go for the usual 40+ miles. Then, on Wednesday, I boldly went out to meet the WeMoRi. My legs were a lot better but still not 100% so I was definitely not going to be anywhere near the front. Of course sucking wheels at the back of the group does have its own risks. I jumped into the back of the group along Toussant and hung on with the hope that there would be enough of a lull on Wisner that I could recover from the acceleration, but wasn't quite that lucky. Subway was ahead of me and tried to close a gap when it accelerated but kind of blew up. I looked up and knew there was no way I was going to close that gap by myself, so I just sat on his wheel as we slowed down and discussed where to cut the course. So we got back in on the other side of the park and then somewhere on Lakeshore Drive the exact same scenario repeated itself and we rolled in probably half a minute behind the front group. On the plus side, I was able to pat myself on the back for not going too deep trying to chase.

Thursday morning we had some of the usual suspects up on the levee but as it turned out they all needed to turn back early for one reason or another, so once I was past Williams Blvd. I was on my own. I went ahead and did the full ride anyway, cruising at a moderate steady pace that might be described as Zone two. On Friday, instead of doing the 6 am Friendly Friday ride, which sometimes gets fast, I instead met the Tulane group for an easy 6:30 am levee ride. So with five fairly easy days behind me I figured I'd go ahead and ride the Saturday Giro.

Saturday Giro heading over the still partially closed Seabrook bridge.

Saturday's 6:30 am Giro turned out to be a pretty fast one, but the group was large so despite the fast pace I was mostly able to remain sheltered and keep my efforts short. I was still intent on doing a full week at lower than normal intensity, and felt like I was doing pretty well with that. Part of that strategy was to put together a Tulane Cycling northshore ride for Sunday. I knew we would have one or two riders who didn't have the volume to easily handle the 53 mile route I'd mapped out, even though it was not a particularly hilly one.

We rolled out of Headquarters at University Square about half an hour later than planned, but it didn't really matter since we weren't meeting anyone. I'd forgotten to put my third bike carrier on the roof, so I had two on the roof and one inside the car along with lots of wheels since the other car could just fit two bikes without front wheels. The weather was great and the air actually felt fairly cool for the first hour even though we hadn't started until 8:00. Abita Springs had most of the usual parking spaces along the fence blocked off for their weekly Farmers' Market, so we parked along the bike path where there were "business parking only" signs. Fortunately that didn't turn out to be a problem. 

The ride went pretty smoothly. Sean would up the pace when he'd come to the front which left one or two of the others struggling a bit on the little climbs. After the store stop at Enon we let Sean go on the Firetower climb in order to try and keep the rest of the group together. There were a couple of times when we  had to ease up a bit for one rider who was at that point where every little climb starts to feel like a mountain, but in general we were staying in the 18-20 mph range which was appropriate for this group. Afterward we had an early lunch at the Abita Brewpub before heading back across the lake. That afternoon I went over to Lowes and picked up (literally) a couple of sacks of concrete, once again straining my lower back, and finally finished patching up some of that broken concrete between the house and garage. It isn't very pretty, but it will suffice. Ever since the road work people tore up and subsequently replaced the road and sidewalk on the Pine Street side of the house we've had rats burrowing under the concrete in a few places. I tried this electronic rat trap that basically electrocutes rats a couple of weeks ago, and although I think one rat got zapped pretty well he unfortunately limped off to die someplace under, or in, the basement, resulting in four days of dead rat smell. I searched for the body but could never find it. Yesterday I put out rat poison in those little cat-resistant boxes, one outside the side door and the other in the garage. Hopefully the next fatalities will happen outside the house, but there are really no guarantees on that based on prior experience.

Monday Morning

This morning I went out to the Mellow Monday ride. It was fairly windy and I was feeling a little sluggish, so I mostly just followed wheels. A couple of guys were doing some work on the front but the speed was fairly controlled anyway.