Summer Sun, Summer Storm

It is such a relief to have enough light at 6 am to see more of where I'm going than the little spot of road in the headlight beam. Now that summer is essentially here the early morning wardrobe decisions are quick and simple, and the only delay in getting out the door is time spent cleaning yesterday's sweat out of the inside of the sunglasses.

Tuesday's levee ride had a nice group and even nicer weather, which kept the outbound leg a bit faster than usual. I think it was the last day that Michael Laiche was in town and riding with us before jetting back to Seattle. Wednesday's WeMoRi seemed likewise pretty fast - certainly fast enough to quickly quash any ideas I might of had about putting my nose into the wind at the front anyway. Thursday's levee ride was pretty normal, although I felt like I was suffering a little bit more than I should have been. Sometimes it's that way - no real obvious explanation. That led to Friendly Friday which started out friendlier than it ended. The last segment on Lakeshore Drive got pretty fast, as did the usual drag race down Marconi to the infamous Mount Wisner KOM. That particular Strava Segment has always seemed kind of screwy. If you look at the KOM detail it shows average speeds for a number of people, including me, of 35.6 mph, and although the segment does include a fair amount of flat road prior to the actual climb to the top of the overpass, 35.6 mph doesn't make much sense. For example, looking at my actual Strava data for the day on which I supposedly went 35.6 mph, which was back in 2014 before the overpass was demolished and re-built, my maximum speed for the entire ride was only 33 mph, which was clearly on the downhill side of the overpass, which is not part of the segment. Go figure. Another KOM for basically the same segment but established later shows Jordan with a speed of 42.8 mph for the same day in 2014 that the other one shows 35.6 mph. Looking at his actual Strava data for that day, his maximum speed was never over 32.2. 

But I digress.

Friendly Friday

So all of this is leading up to the Saturday Giro. The evening before it was looking like the Giro might be rained out entirely, but when I got up that morning the approaching storms were way off to the west and the hourly forecast was looking quite favorable until about 10:00 am. So of course I headed out to Starbucks from which we rolled out with a somewhat reduced group. Some people, I guess, just didn't want to risk getting wet. Others apparently decided to ride with the 6:45 SaMoRi group to maybe get a little jump on the weather. Also, it was Jazz Fest weekend.

Shelter from the storm

So despite our relatively small group, the pace going out was fast and steady. I wasn't worried at all about rain, and thought that, at the worst, I might get some light sprinkles on my way home. On the way back, Chris flatted on Chef just before the turn onto the interstate, so we all waited for that, which was really a pretty brief delay. Heading down Bullard a few miles later the sky to the northwest started looking considerably worse, and when we turned onto Hayne the sky in front of us was blacker than black. Somebody at the front put the hammer down just after the turn, which immediately opened a gap. Chris put his head down and made the bridge, but Jaden and I didn't. I looked over to Jaden and commented, "Do they think they are going to outrun that rain??" I mean, we were heading straight into it and already clearly doomed and could already feel the rain starting. Then, just as we got to the overpass, all hell broke loose. The temperature dropped, and the wind started gusting at easily 40 mph, and the rain and likely hail was coming down so hard I wondered if it would draw blood on my arms. I was down to maybe 6 mph going up the overpass, struggling to keep the bike both upright and moving forward. We were lucky that it was more headwind than crosswind, because if it had been a direct crosswind it wouldn't have been rideable. 

Convenient!

Anyway, as I coasted cautiously down the overpass on the shoulder I saw the whole front of the group (we were by the down to maybe seven riders) stopped at the bottom. They'd decided it was too dangerous to try to ride over the Seabrook bridge with its steel grate at the top and were going to hide out under the over pass until things settled down. As it turned out there was a big open abandoned trailer next to the overpass, so we all piled into it. Eventually the wind settled down a bit and although a few had already called for extraction I headed out again with Jaden, Kenneth, and VJ. Naturally I was well soaked by the time I got home but at least it was warm enough that I didn't get too chilled. I quickly put some lube on the chain, put my shoes out to dry, and jumped into a hot shower. That afternoon a new helmet (Lazer Vento) I'd ordered on sale arrived. It had been a very unusual impulse purchase for me since usually the only time I buy helmets is right after I have broken one by whacking it on the asphalt with my head inside. I was pleased to find that it fit fairly well. My head is always right in-between the small and medium sizing, so buying a new helmet without being able to try it on beforehand is kind of a roll of the dice. I'd spoken with Lisa earlier about hers, since that's their team helmet, and she said that the small wasn't too small, so I guess that gave me a little extra confidence. 

A quick store stop on the Talisheek ride

By Sunday the weather was great and I'd earlier decided to drive across the lake to join the regular northshore Talisheek ride, mainly just for the change of scenery. That ride is getting to be kind of the northshore Giro, since the route seems to have been selected specifically to keep it almost entirely flat. It was a nice test ride for the new helmet, which didn't present any problems at all during the ride. 

The ride itself had a particularly good turnout that day with probably twenty riders at one point or another. The pace was brisk but not super fast, and with such a long paceline I had just a few opportunities at the front. Much of the first and last parts of the ride were on the Tammany Trace, so those sections were just conversational speed anyway. I was a little edgy on the Trace because there was a fair amount of debris on the bike path from the prior day's storm, plus there are those yellow posts at the intersections that you can't see if you're behind someone. Not having ridden there in a long time, I was constantly trying to look around riders to see what was coming. It was a nice ride, though, with a bit of intensity here and there. I was glad I'd loaded the route onto my Garmin because I don't think I'd ever ridden some of the roads on the second half of the ride.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride turned decidedly un-mellow once we were on Lakeshore Drive. That sometimes happens. Looking at who was in the group during the warmup segment, which itself was faster than usual, I could see the handwriting on the wall and decided to stay protected as much as possible because I figured it would get fast on the way back along Lakeshore Drive and, later, Wisner. So I did, and so it did.