Hurty and Hot

Friendly Friday

Wednesday was the summer solstice, and also WeMoRi, which just meant that it was mostly headlight-optional but hydration non-optional. Actually, the morning temperature was a bit cooler than it's been, hovering around 77°F before sunrise. I'd rolled out of bet a little earlier than usual and as a result almost, nearly, came agonizingly close to getting into the group at the base of the Bayou St. John bridge. As it was, I hit Lakeshore Drive just as the group was streaming past, already strung out into a long line. I had to come to a virtual stop at the intersection as they whizzed past on what was probably one of the fastest WeMoRis on record. That meant a full-on sprint from almost a dead stop straight up the bridge, which had an entirely predictable outcome. I blew up without ever getting into the draft. So I eased up and continued on, eventually turning around and jumping into the group as it came back from the Seabrook loop. There was some sort of battle already going on up at the front that kept the speed relentlessly high. That meant that I never really recovered from the initial acceleration I needed to make to get into the group. So a while later we're flying down Wisner at 28-30 mph and I find myself on Matt's wheel. He's on his TT bike, so the draft is in somewhat short supply, even for me, and I'm thinking to myself, "This is not the wheel I'm looking for." We push up the overpass with me glued to his wheel, but as we come over the top he eases up for a moment and I see a gap open in front of him. I'm already on my limit, and when he surges to close the gap on the downhill I just can't hold his wheel any more at 38 mph and I lose the group. Fortunately I wasn't the only one, and pretty soon we have a little grupetto that cruises in the last few miles at a more humane 22-24 mph. The front part of the ride ended up setting a new KOM for the city park look on Strava, but it was at the expense of at least half of those who had started.

A week or two ago I did something to my lower back that continues to be a nuisance, making it hard to stand on the pedals for climbs or sprints. I keep thinking I'll wake up one morning and it will be mostly gone, but no such luck so far. On Thursday we did our usual long levee ride. My back was hurting, my legs felt a little sore, and I was just struggling to hold 22-23 mph when I was on the front. I wasn't feeling too recovered by Friday morning so I was hoping that the Friendly Friday ride would be easy ... which it wasn't. Donald and Mark kind of attacked on Lakeshore Drive and even though there wasn't what you'd call a chase, some of those at the front didn't seem to want to give them too much rope. Eventually they eased up and things came back together but we probably lost a few people in the interim, resulting in some discussion after the ride about keeping the friendly in Friendly Fridays. And yeah, my back was still hurting. That evening my brother came down from Madison MS with two of his son's kids to spend the weekend with us since their parents were out of town until Sunday night and he'd need to drive them back to Pensacola on Monday to rendezvous with their parents and head back home to Thomasville GA. I'd earlier hoped to make the race up in Hernando MS but I guess it was just as well missing it since my back was still giving me problems. 

With the temperatures rising back above seasonal normal, again, I headed out Saturday morning for the Giro. The Seabrook bridge is still closed and it looks like it will be a couple more weeks before it might reopen. As a result, there is kind of an extended commute tacked onto the usual Giro warmup until we get past the Danziger bridge and work our way through the eternally unrepaired water leaks to finally come down onto Almonaster. What used to be a 5-mile warmup is now more like an 8 or 9-mile warmup. Anyway, it got pretty fast on Almonaster as usual but since there was only a limited amount of willing horsepower on the front the pace stayed at a fairly reasonable 26-27 mph most of the way out to Venetian Isles. By then it seemed like the heat and humidity was starting to get to everyone and that kept the speeds on the return trip down a bit. This time we came back via France Road, riding through more unrepaired water leaks but eventually getting back to Lakeshore Drive.

The rest of Saturday was kind of family stuff that included a trip to the little Cool Zoo water park at Audubon Zoo. I was still kind of dehydrated and tired and achy, so my main goal was to stay in the shade as much as possible.

Sunday was another Giro Ride for me. With all of the complications caused by the Seabrook bridge closure, some people have been doing alternate rides and so we had a relatively small group on Sunday. Of course that kept the speeds down a bit. There was a stopped train blocking Michoud so we had to turn back and continue out Almonaster, crossing the "train tracks of death" before getting onto Chef Highway. This time the group just stayed on Chef Highway / Gentilly Blvd. all the way back to City Park. It was warmer and more  humid than it had been on Saturday so despite the more forgiving pace I was still a little wiped out by the time I got home where everyone was waiting for me to go out to City Park with the kids and wander around the little amusement park where the kids had a blast despite the muggy suffocating heat. That evening I broke down and changed handlebar tape, mainly to check the handlebar for the corrosion that always happens with aluminum bars when you spend months soaking them with sweat. Thankfully they were in pretty good shape, and although I really should have taken the opportunity to change out all of the cables, I just cleaned them off and re-wrapped them with fresh black handlebar tape. My 53 tooth chainring is getting pretty worn now. I installed a new crankset in late 2019, so it has around 46,000 miles on it now, most of which has been on the big ring. It will no doubt be a challenge to find a 53t Campi chainring for that specific 2011-2014 crankset since everything has been 12-speed for a few years now and Campi went to a 4-pin spider after 2014, I think. So basically I'm looking for an antique chainring, at least by racing bike standards. I don't think many bikes come with a 53t chainring any more since cassettes now mostly go down to 11 or 10-tooth cogs.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride was actually pretty mellow. I was determined to take it easy to give my back at least some slim chance of recovering, so I spent most of the time on the back. The forecast for the rest of this week can be summed up with two words, "Head Advisory." The "feels like" highs every day are supposed to be in the 113°F range with actual highs around 96°. Welcome to summer in New Orleans. I fully expect my next electricity bill to be upward of $300, especially since the wife likes to sit out on the front porch with the door open and a/c running.

Hot Summer Rides

Front part of the group heading out for the Tali ride

Well, it's late June now and while I expect it to be hot and humid, last week Mother Nature treated us to the added bonus of multiple "heat advisory" days with "feels-like" temperatures sometimes well over 110°F. Every morning now the outdoor thermometer is reading 80-83°F before dawn as I prepare for my morning ride. Fortunately, road riding makes that kind of thing a bit more manageable than, say, running, thanks to the self-generated breeze, ability to carry fluids, and the occasional store stop. Still, I've come home from every ride lately in clothes soaked through in sweat that weigh easily triple what they did when I departed. Rides to and from work have been exercises in managing effort to the bare minimum required to keep moving forward. Even so, with those last couple of miles devoid of shade I'm still pretty sweaty when I arrive which makes walking into the air-conditioned building feel like walking into a freezer while wearing a wet bathing suit. Meanwhile, hurricane season is getting off to an early start with one named storm already heading for the Caribbean and another possibly close behind. Nothing aiming for New Orleans just yet, fortunately.

The regular weekday rides transpired as the regular weekday rides do, although for some unknown reason I was feeling kind of dragged out every time I got on the bike. Perhaps fighting off some little illness, or perhaps just struggling to adapt to the summer heat and humidity. At any rate, I haven't felt particularly energetic at all, a feeling that has apparently not been shared by everyone. 

Wednesday's WeMoRi, at least the part of it that I do, seemed fast enough that I was never tempted to put my face into the wind or even attempt to contest any of the sprints. The average speed was around 26 mph with a few surges into the 30s, which isn't unusual at all. I was still feeling Wednesday by Thursday morning, and it took me a while to get the old engine started on the levee ride. We were about halfway back when Martin's rear tubeless tire erupted into a volcano of sealant and although there was one bike between his wheel and myself I still got a pretty good dose of sealant spray. His tire mostly sealed itself but was still leaking enough that it was almost flat by the time he turned off for home a few miles later. It was the second time in a few days that I'd been sprayed with tire sealant, which I guess might be an indication that I need to be spending more time at the front and less at the back.

Friday

The Friendly Friday ride was reasonably moderate, which is to say it just got fast in the usual places, but for me it still didn't seem to provide quite the amount of recovery that I apparently needed because I was kind of hurting from the get-go for the next morning's Giro Ride. 

The Seabrook bridge is still closed, so the Giro Route has been kind of in flux, which is to say it's pretty much up to whoever happens to be in front. This Saturday we were following Lisa, which took us down Press to Prentis to Congress, which put us conveniently right at the base of the Danziger bridge. From there it was the usual "bridge closed" route down Almonaster to Michoud to Chef. Once on Almonaster the pace stayed in the 28-32 mph range mostly, and when it surged again up to 34 mph a couple of miles before Venetian Isles people started dropping like flies off the back. I was one of those flies. The pace going out was apparently enough, combined with the rising temperature, to keep the speeds a lot lower on the return trip. We took an usual route back, staying on Chef to Elysian Fields, then over to Mirabeau back to Wisner. That involved a lot of traffic lights and stuff so the pace never got fast, and then once we got to Wisner, some went left and some went right. Anyway, I was still hot and tired by the time I got home.

Waiting at the store stop on the Tali ride.

Charles, having just returned from a quick work trip to Norway, announced that he and a couple other southshore riders were going to do the northshore Talisheek ride on Sunday, and at the last minute I decided to do that too. It starts in Mandeville at 7 am and is just 50-ish miles, so even with the 40-minute drive across the lake I'm still back home well before lunchtime. The route is pretty flat, which is kind of a shame since I could use some terrain variety, but it does get fast here and there so it's a good enough workout and considering what the bridge closure is doing to the Giro route right now it seemed like it would be worth the drive.

So with coffee in hand I headed across the lake Sunday morning around 6 am for a nice uneventful cruise-controlled drive across the causeway, arriving a little early along with Steve Martin. By the time we rolled out at 7:00 the group was probably up to 15 or so, and I guess we picked up a few more at Abita Springs. I never feel too comfortable riding on the Tammany Trace with a group, mainly because I can never see the yellow posts in the middle of the bike path before and after every intersection. Once past Abita Springs, though, we're back onto the road and the pace picks up a bit. Like the Giro, with so many riders you don't really need to spend much time in the wind if you don't want to, but unlike the Giro there is usually a longer paceline at the front, or often one that includes everyone, so it's easy to just stay in the paceline and take a short or long pull, depending on how you are feeling, when your turn comes up, which isn't all that often. So for the most part the pace is in the 23-25 mph range and well within zone 2 for me while sitting on wheels.

At one point, around halfway into the ride, the route takes us onto Hwy. 41 for a few miles. There's a wide shoulder there, so the group rides on the shoulder dodging the usual collection of roadside debris, or, as happened near the end of that segment, not dodging it. We were almost to where we turn off of 41 and I was comfortably sitting about third wheel waiting patiently for my next turn at the front, when I heard the unmistakable sound of a crash behind me. Jeff had hit a chunk of broken asphalt about the size of a baseball that I hadn't even noticed. Luckily he didn't break any bones and amazingly nobody else went down. He did almost destroy his right SRAM shifter, and his derailleur hanger was bent a bit, but otherwise it looked like just some road rash on his arm and leg. It did take him a while to figure out how to activate the shifter with a fingernail since most of the plastic lever had broken off.

After the little sprint just before the store stop on Hwy 434 things eased up a little as we headed down to the Tammany Trace for the last stretch back to Mandeville. They still go 20-25 along the trace which is interrupted by a number of cross streets replete with those yellow posts, so I was spending a lot of time trying to look around, or under, the riders ahead of me. I guess if I rode it more often I'd know where the intersections are and could relax a bit more. Anyway, it was a good 53-mile ride that was probably just slightly less hot and humid than the Giro would have been, albeit with a little less intensity, even if my heart rate did eek just past 170 for a nanosecond at the sprint even though I never really sprinted. 

On Monday I went out to the Mellow Monday ride that got kind of blown apart by Donald and Mark. Even though I, and most of the group, let them go it still clearly wasn't as much of a recovery ride as I needed. This morning's levee ride was moderately fast on the way out and from the start I wasn't feeling great. Part of that was no doubt from the dentist visit I'd had on Monday that left me with some residual pain from a healing incision. Eventually it was just Martin, Charles and me, and it seemed like we were riding into a slight headwind the entire time. After Martin pulled off for home Charles had a little puncture and so I got a little spray of sealant for the third time in about a week. On the plus side, it sealed, so we didn't have to stop, but by then I think we were both feeling a little cooked so we rode the rest of the way at conversational pace.

Natchez

Although I'd not ridden a single mile over the Tour de La weekend, I felt like it still took me a few days to get back into the swing of things the following week. It was almost as if I'd been racing all weekend. By Wednesday, through, I'd pretty much decided I'd take a quick road trip up to Natchez on Saturday to ride the Natchez Bicycle Classic, which is a well-supported fun ride largely on the Natchez Trace. I felt like I needed a little change of scenery, and besides I wanted to support the ride which I think is largely organized by Curtis Moroney who was always one of the key organizers of the Natchez Classic back when it was an actual stage race. I'd originally planned to drive up at 4 am on Saturday but then at the last minute I went ahead and reserved a hotel room at the Hampton - the same hotel where we stayed many times back when it was a race. I have always been rather amazed at the amount of sponsorship cycling events seem to be able to raise in Natchez.

Down to just five somewhere on the way back

Just the week before I'd finally gotten the faulty wheel speed sensor fixed on the car, and had filled the windshield washer fluid and changed the headlights, so for the first time in about a month the dashboard was entirely free of warning icons. After an uneventful 3-hour drive listening to 60s music on Sirius XM I arrived just in time to swing by Smoot's to sign in and pick up my packet that surprisingly included a t-shirt, socks, and various other freebies, along with a wrist band that I suppose was to show that you had actually registered. It was already pretty loud inside Smoot's but they had some free food available so I picked up a few burrito things and sat outside to eat.

The front group near the start of the Trace

Saturday morning I was of course up at my usual time of 5:25, which was way early considering that the start was about half a mile from the hotel and wasn't until 8:00. On the plus side, the hotel breakfast opened at 6 am, so I went down to the lobby for my usual hotel breakfast of coffee and raisin bran. All hotels seem to have coffee and raisin bran. Of course they had the other usual things like waffles and scrambled eggs and sausage and pastries, none of which I really needed prior to a 60-something mile ride. So despite my best efforts I was probably one of the first people to arrive at the start along Broadway Street up on the bluff above the river and in the shade of the new-to-me Grand Hotel. Parking in the big parking lot a block away I looked over at the old train station and remembered when Candy and I officiated the first Natchez Classic Stage Race back in the early 80s. The last stage that year was a criterium that went down the bluff and back up. It was brutal. We were doing results on my Osborne computer with a program I'd written in CPM Basic and were set up in the old train station because there was electricity there. There was no generator or finish cameras or timing chips or music or anything back then, so finish placings and times were all done entirely by eye and turning out final stage race results took a good hour after the last race finished, and then there were the inevitable errors that had to be corrected before the final awards could be done. 

Waiting for the start with Brandon

Since I'd arrived so early and the temperature was still fairly cool I went for a short ride up the river along Cemetery Road. That brought back lots of memories of warm-up rides for the criterium and time trial. By the time I got back people were starting to filter in for the ride and I had a quick chat with Curtis and some of the other folks who organize the event. I think turnout was probably in the neighborhood of 125 or so, although it really should be more like 300. This event doesn't keep track of finishers or finish times or anything so you never pin on a number or timing chip or anything.

Shortly before 8 am I lined up near the front with TJ, Brandon W, Frank Moak and a number of other riders I recognized. Behind us it was a sea of Primal Wear jerseys. Frank was riding a vintage Eddy Merckx that he'd recently built up with 1980s stuff - mostly Campi. I was hoping that the pace wouldn't get too crazy but on the other hand wanted to stay with the front group, whatever that turned out to be. 

Frank on his retro Eddy Merckx

There was a neutral start behind a police car until just before we turned onto the Trace, and I was happy to find that the speed didn't go ballistic at that point. Pretty soon the front part of the group formed up into a nice long paceline with the speed fluctuating between 22 and 30 depending on the terrain. The scenery was quite nice along the well-manicured Trace with the road lined with wildflowers. As usual for this kind of ride I was a little worried about being in a paceline with so many "unknown" riders, some of whom were on triathlon bikes. Near Emerald Mound we turned off onto 553 which isn't graded like the Trace but is just nice low rolling hills. I moved a little closer to the front along there, sensing that the pace might get a little more challenging, and wanting to get more into the rotation at the front. I suppose we starting to lose a few people along there. Eventually we came back to the Trace near where the finish sprint had been the first time I did the race. I was having flashbacks of the sprint up the hill just past the loop where Rich Raspet and I sprinted it out. I think that was the last year the race used part of the Trace. 

TJ took a few photos - this is the neutral segment between the river and the Trace.

Anyway, once we were back on the Trace we continued about seven miles to the turn-around at a little parking area. By then the number of people near the front of the group had started to dwindle so it was more like a six or seven person paceline. At one point after the turnaround there is a nice long climb that's close to two miles long but only maybe 3-4% mostly. Frank just motored that whole way at a steady pace and the next time I looked around we were down to just 5 or 6 riders. Not too much later it was just TJ, Frank, Brandon, and me, which is how it stayed. After exiting the trace we were back on unprotected city streets so the last few miles were just conversational. Coming into time I was again getting flashbacks of Natchez Classic road race finishes and all of the many road race and criterium sprints I'd done over the years on Main Street. You never forget that stuff!

Another TJ photo somewhere near the end of the Trace I think.

I showed a ride time of 2:41 for just under 63 miles. By then it was getting pretty warm but the ride had been so nice and steady that I wasn't feeling very tired at all. Coke was one of the event sponsors which meant there were tons of ice cold liquids of all types of Coke brands, which was great because I was definitely a little dehydrated. There was a beer truck too, of course, although that's usually about the last thing I want to drink after a summer ride. Across the street they had a nice lunch setup, so I sat around in the shade chatting and eating for a while before finally rolling down the street to put the bike in the car and head back home. I was probably home by 3 pm even with the inevitable and unexplainable traffic delay on the elevated interstate between Laplace and Kenner. So it was a really nice ride that I though was well worth the drive.

Sunday morning I went out for the regular Sunday Giro Ride. With the Seabrook bridge still closed for repairs we took Franklin to Chef, went over the bridge there, and then took Almonaster to Michoud back to Chef. The pace going out was pretty fast once we came down onto Almonsaster and didn't really let up all the way to Venetian Isles. After that, though, I think the heat was starting to get people and the ride back was considerably slower. It definitely felt like a classic summertime Giro where I arrive back home with empty water bottles and soaking wet clothes. Just like I like it.

TDL Local

The Cat. 4/5 group on Lakeshore Drive

After being basically disinvited by Covington after last year's Tour de La, likely precipitated by the small fields and resulting difficulty justifying closing down the city streets that long, it was again time to re-think the race format. Around mid-October I was over in Chalmette to officiate the annual Swamp Otter CX races and when I drove past Torres Park I thought, "that looks like it could be a criterium course. After checking out the distance I contacted Howard, who is on the parish council, to see if it would be feasible to close off the streets and the parking lot that constituted one side of the course, and he said it probably wouldn't be a problem. So I thought that maybe we should try to have all three stages here on the southshore since there are probably 150 people out on racing bikes on any weekend day around here and maybe some of them would come race if they didn't have to spend most of the weekend across the lake. It was basically an experiment. So around February I contacted the Orleans Levee District about the possibility of closing the east end of Lakeshore Drive for a circuit race and time trial. I had thought that should be less expensive than the seven or eight deputies we usually have for the road race course and the three or four that we usually have for the time trial on the northshore. Turned out it wasn't, but by that point the wheels were in motion so we went with it. For the record, the Lakeshore Drive police cost was just under $3,500 for police and the extra $500 fee. That turned out to be practically all of the pre-registration revenue, but more on that later. I'd wanted to have the course turn onto Franklin Avenue to make an L-shaped course but then they told me that I'd need to get a separate permit from the City of New Orleans for that little 900 feet of city street. We'd done numerous races using that section of road before but this was the first time they wanted us to get a city permit that, I had no doubt, would be a huge PITA and might increase the already high cost. So I worked it out with the Levee District to have the course make a U-turn just before the flex-post obstacle course at Elysian Fields. I didn't really like that, but it was the best I could do at that point, and at least it increased the lap length to about 3 miles. Anyway, as we got closer to the race date I contacted BikeLaw and they generously offered $1k in sponsorship. Then Joe Paul called on some of his contacts on the Westbank and came up with another $1.5k. That helped a lot, even though I was still figuring the club would lose $2,500 - $3,000 (which it did) if turnout wasn't higher than last year (which it wasn't). Robert had suggested making the criterium also serve as the LAMBRA criterium championship, so I went with that which meant allowing riders to race individual stages of the stage race rather than requiring them to register for and ride all three. I knew that would cause some complications and confusion since only those who registered for all three stages would qualify for the prizes, but what we really wanted was more bodies on the starting line and figured this might help.

So then I started promoting the race with help from Mignon and a number of local racers and clubs, especially Semi-tough, who all want to see the racing scene get back on track. It was especially nice to have a few people contact me an offer to make donations to the event. That's pretty rare and it added another $150 or so to the cause. The final result, judging by pre-registration, was definitely disappointing. We had only 45 people register for the full stage race and a total of 62 for at least one stage, all of which was below last year's number. In 2009 we had over 200 riders and were supporting a much larger prizelist as a result. On the plus side, we didn't need as many volunteers and didn't need to bring in as many moto-refs and didn't need motel rooms for officials and me. 

Saturday:  Having a race on Lakeshore Drive is always a roll of the dice. If the weather is good, it's great but if a thunderstorm comes through it can be a disaster. Fortunately the weather was good and with the small fields everything went pretty smoothly. I think we cut the Cat. 4/5 race short by one lap since we were running a little bit behind and didn't have much time between the circuit races and the time trial. I was back home with Ricky and Steve, the referees, by mid-afternoon. I think riders were OK with the course, but a lot of us kind of missed having the real road race.

The 1/2/3 field was bolstered on Sunday by a few people who had already ridden in
the Masters or Women, plus a couple who were registered only for the criterium.

Sunday:  The course in Chalmette turned out to be excellent. Howard had gotten most of the more significant cracks in the concrete fixed, although I'd missed marking one of them on the inside of Turn #1 because it was under water when I was there. I think there were two minor single-rider crashes the whole day and the police were great with keeping the course closed. Steve drove lead Moto which is always helpful just in case some local person is walking across the course to get to the park or something. At one point he had to get a turtle off the course. I had put the start/finish on the west side of the park in the shadow of some big Oak trees, which really made the officiating as pleasant as you could possibly hope for. The police were fine with us, and ultimately a bunch of other people, parking on the neutral ground, which was great. The criteriums turned out to be really competitive and fast and interesting. Everything went great and feedback on the criterium course was extremely positive, so that course is definitely a keeper. Pat and Mignon and Ty did a great job with the awards and podiums which were kind of complicated since we had both the overall GC prizes and podiums, some "bonus" categories that had additional prizes and podiums, and then the LAMBRA championship medals and podiums where only LAMBRA riders were eligible.

Right now I'm thinking of trying to do the RR and TT on the northshore on Saturday next year and then the criterium in Chalmette. For that, though, We're really going to need significantly more sponsorship and hopefully more riders. We were missing a number of very strong riders who are out there every weekend at the front of the group rides, and I really don't know what has to happen for them to actually race. I feel like COVID really hurt the smaller areas like ours because the field sizes were already on the smaller side and when you cut that down by like 40% people start to wonder if it's worth entering, which of course practically guarantees that the field sizes will stay small. Riders need to step up and register and get their friends to race. Bigger fields are much more fun, especially if you are riding basically as pack-fill like I usually do nowadays. I'm clearly the world's worst fund-raiser and promoter, so all I can do reasonably well is organize the actual racing parts of the event and then just hope someone can help with sponsorship and the other things that make the event fun like food and drinks and stuff.