Zone 2 Sunday Miles Out of BSL

Front half of the Sunday ride paceline, somewhere in Mississippi.

It was around Friday when my back finally started to feel more or less like whatever normal is nowadays, which basically means I could bend down and put on my socks without holding onto something for support. That was good because it was a busy weekend. One of my nephews and his wife, along with their two kids, were at the house for a little visit which always entails various activities like trips to the zoo. Fortunately I was able to keep up with my usual rides while Candy kind of covered for me. That allowed me to skip the trip to the Aquarium and a few other excursions, which was nice because we were still operating under daily "excessive heat warnings" all weekend.

Looking for the WeMoRi

On Wednesday I went out to meet the WeMoRi. The right side of my lower back was still hurting any time I stood up on the pedals but as long as I could stay seated it wasn't too bad. I merged into the group as usual along Marconi where, also as usual, I went from 18 mph to 28 mph as my physiology struggled to deal with the suddenly increased demand ... rather late as usual of course. I was still way at the back when we went around the right-hand corner onto Wisner, which turned out to be a fatal mistake. The back of the group always seems to slow down way too much on that turn, maybe because the inside of the corner is festooned with entirely unnecessary flex posts. If you're at the back going around that turn you are going to have to sprint immediately after it just to stay in contact. I was still unrecovered from the effort of merging into the group, and when the back of the group slowed to 18 mph for the corner I knew it was going to be bad. It was. The accordion effect had me maxed out right away and I pretty much blew up a little while later, along with a few others. I cut across City Park before the overpass and eventually got back into the group.

Thursday's ride didn't get off to a very good start. As I worked my way around the dangerous tracks at the streetcar barn on my way out to t he levee I suddenly heard the air escaping from my rear tire, accompanied by a loud "whack, whack, whack" of a big nail that was stuck in the tire. I hit be brakes hard to minimize the damage to the frame, which actually set off the Garmin incident detection alarm. I came to a quick stop, turned off the alarm before it started calling for help, and looked down to find a four-inch nail sticking out of the tire. I sent a quick text to Charles to let them know I wouldn't be meeting them for the 6 am start. So I had a nice easy ride up the river, eventually finding the group on its way back about a mile short of the Luling bridge.

Friendly Friday - last ride of June

Friday's Friendly Friday ride was, for a change, a legit recovery ride, which was definitely a good thing for me. The heat and humidity was still pretty intense and I think everybody who has been riding in it for the past two weeks was feeling the need for a little break prior to the weekend. I know I was. My back was finally starting to feel like it was getting better, but it wasn't quite up to considering picking up that sack of concrete mix I need yet. Friday night I installed a new 53t chainring. The old one came with the Campi Record crankset I'd installed 47,000 miles ago. It was pretty badly worn and when turning the cranks while on the workstand you could feel how rough it had become. For good measure, I also installed a new Campi Record 11 chain. The result was a very noticeable improvement in smoothness. Not so much in speed!

I knew Saturday's Giro Ride was going to be on the small side thanks to the heat and the continuing closure of the Seabrook bridge. Still, it seemed pretty fast once we got onto Almonaster and stayed fairly fast all the way out to Venetian Isles. I was still being a little cautious with my back, especially since I was seriously considering doing an early morning 80+ mile ride out of Bay St. Louis on Sunday. That ride was supposed to be a nice Zone-2 affair, which was just what I felt I needed in order to make sure I didn't have any setbacks with regard to my back. Shortly after getting home I was off to the Zoo to meet up with everyone. They had already been there for about an hour and a half, and we were all supposed to go to the "Cool Zoo" from 2-5 pm. Needless to say, it was hot. Also needless to say I was still a little dehydrated and tired. Fortunately I got there right as they were all ready for lunch and then was able to sit in the shade with a cold drink while the rest of the crew rode the little zoo train around to the swamp exhibit and back. After that we were off to the Cool Zoo section where I managed to avoid sticking my head out from under the umbrella at the table. Apparently the water in the "lazy river" was so hot that people were getting out of it early and the staff were considering closing it down for the day. The kids had a blast, though. We finally headed back home a little before 5 pm. By then I'd pretty much decided I'd be able to do the Bay St. Louis ride since the relatives were planning on leaving in the morning anyway.

Sunday's ride was scheduled to start at 5:45 am, so with the hour drive that meant a 4:30 am departure from home. At least we'd be a couple of hours into the ride before it got really hot. I arrived at the little park where the rides start to find Steve M, Charles, Brandon, Alison ( who recently moved back to the area from TX), and Robert B who was on his Trek e-bike. I was looking forward to the ride since it seemed perfectly designed to give me a nice long ride without any fast steep climbing. As usual with these rides I was glad I'd loaded the route onto my Garmin because I still don't know the roads around there very well, and in this case I'd be on some roads I hadn't been on before. The ride went nicely according to plan. Thanks to the early start, the first couple of hours didn't involve too much in the way of heat stress, plus we made a long store stop after only an hour and a half or so. We were at about 66 miles by the time we made our second store stop, and by then it was getting seriously warm and my water supply was getting seriously low. I downed a bottle of powerade or something and refilled both bottles with cold water, so was feeling fine by the time we headed out for the last twenty miles. I'd brought along a packet of Skratch gummies and had started with Skratch electrolyte mix in one of my bottles, so I was in pretty good shape since the pace had been nice and steady the whole time. We finished the 84 miles with an average speed of just over 20 mph, so although it was pretty hot by the end I wasn't feeling too terribly toasted, although the inside of the car was probably around 120°F at that point. Afterward we stopped for lunch at a little place over around Long Beach.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride started out pretty mellow, although the pace definitely picked up on the way back along Lakeshore Drive. It never too too intense, though, so I think I can still call it a recovery ride thanks to staying in the draft almost the entire time. Hopefully the weather will start shifting back to seasonal normal this week. We could definitely use some of those afternoon showers to cool off the rooftops and keep the foliage alive.