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.