Too Long in the Rain

Mellow Monday

It seems we are stuck in a classic south Louisiana winter weather pattern lately. You  know, the one where cold fronts stall out more or less on top of us, it rains, gets warmer and foggier for three days, and then another front comes through and pushes it out. Then the temperature drops and it gets super windy for two or three days, and then another front stalls out on top of us. Rinse, repeat, rinse. Some years are better than others, and so far this hasn't been one of those better ones.

Last Monday it was a little chilly, like in the mid-upper 40s, but otherwise not bad, and unexpected coincidences resulted in a pretty good turnout for this time of year. We had a couple of Tulane riders, since the Spring semester had finally started, and Apryl was in town from Mississippi, and a few other riders showed up who are often questionable. Things went smoothly until we made the loop at the Armory and picked up a tailwind, at which point the speed ramped up to the upper 20s as riders started getting shelled off the back. Eventually everyone regrouped at Marconi, though, so it was fine. The weather forecast for the rest of the week was not looking very promising, however.

Tuesday was just nothing but flat tires.

Tuesday morning it was even warmer, but overnight rain had left the streets quite wet. Apryl and her friend Regan (who had an inoperable rear derailleur stuck in the 11), and a bunch of the regulars made for another nice-sized group. Looking at how wet the levee bike path was, I was just waiting for the first flat tire. I didn't have to wait very long, either. Bo flatted first, but told us to go ahead, then just a mile or two later Regan flatted. Then, just another mile or two later Regan flatted again. By then we'd already lost a good fifteen or twenty minutes, so we turned around at the Big Dip. We all made it back to the start without any more flats, but after arriving  home I found out that Regan had flatted again, and I think Charles had also had a puncture. By then, the three of them were fresh out of CO2, so Charles rode to his house to retrieve a tube and more CO2. Aside from those flats, there were reports of numerous other flats that morning from other local riders. Somehow, my own Michelin tires that had come off of my race wheels survived, although I did have to pluck out a sharp shard later that evening that would have eventually added my name to the list.

Wednesday on the rain bike

Wednesday morning the streets were again super-wet from overnight rain, and there were all sorts of dire warnings of impending storms and flooding clogging up my message app. Looking at the radar, though, it didn't look like it would rain for a while. There was a huge front off to the west with lots of heavy rain, but it seemed to be just streaming toward the northeast and barely moving from west to east. I decided to go out on the old rain bike, heavily over-dressed, to just tap out a few miles without worrying about flats. It was fairly warm, and with the bike's full fenders I at least stayed more or less dry. As it turned out, there was, unsurprisingly, no WeMoRi group out at the lakefront, which was probably a good thing because part of Lakeshore Drive was flooded anyway. On the down side, it was yet another day of minimal intensity, even though pushing the old Pennine with its fenders and heavy tires and Mr. Tuffys and antique Concor saddle into the east wind did seem to provide a bit of a workout even at 16 mph.

Finally lumbering through on Wednesday.

So that brings us to this morning, Thursday. It had again rained overnight, but the really bad weather was still temporarily stalled off to the west. It was practically 70°F, though, so the prospect of wheel spray didn't seem quite so bad, leading me to roll the dice on flats and ride the Bianchi out to the levee. The problem this morning wasn't the temperature or the wet streets, it was the fog. With the warm humid south wind blowing across the freezing cold Mississippi River, much of the bike path was shrouded in a dense fog. I headed out with just Charles, and it was clear we wouldn't be getting much of a workout because going more than about 15 mph was rather terrifying in the dark in the places where the fog was thickest. A couple of times I hit the brakes because I hadn't seen a curve in time, and when we approached the little bridge over some pipes we both hit the brakes because at first it looked like we were about to run right into a wall. As the sky got lighter, though, our confidence improved, but we turned around at the Big Dip since our average speed had probably been in the 14 mph range. As we headed back we picked up Rich who had planned on riding indoors until his Wahoo trainer blew up or something and he resorted to the levee. It was another nice enough ride, but another super low-intensity one. 

The upriver gate near the bathroom

The weather is really messing with my training lately. It looks like this pattern will continue, too. On the plus side, I am not seeing any low temperatures below 42° for the next ten days, and a lot of mornings with lows above 50°. To make matters worse, we are just waiting for the bike path to be shut down at the Jefferson/St. James parish line for levee work that is going to take at least a year. Perhaps we'll do two laps of the shortened route, or just go out to the lakefront. Getting around the closure via River Road seems like it will be kind of sketchy and I don't think we will be up for that except perhaps on weekends when traffic is lighter.