Early Mardi Gras Year

January and February, especially February, are always the toughest, and some years they are tougher than others. This year we seem to have had more than our share of early morning rain, or cold, or cold rain. Just last week we had quite a bit of street flooding in the city, no thanks to one of the ancient turbines having gone down in the middle of a rainstorm ... again. Then, to make matters just a little more complicated, Mardi Gras is early this year. You see, Mardi Gras (aka Fat Tuesday in English) is the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the day that starts the period of Lent, which is supposed to be a 40-day period of fasting prior to Easter. The problem is that Easter, which you would think would be a fixed date, was long ago determined, probably by some committee that couldn't come to an agreement and had a flight to catch, that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon (basically closest to the summer equinox) that occurs on or soonest after March 21st. Which of course makes no sense whatsoever but has nonetheless survived more or less unchanged for centuries. In order to include enough (6) Sundays in Lent, that means Mardi Gras is 46 days prior to Easter. Makes sense, right? Anyway, the bottom line is that every now and then, depending on the phase of the moon and earth's orbit around the sun, Mardi Gras comes really early. This is one of those years. Having Mardi Gras in the middle of February puts it at possibly the time of the year then the weather around here is least predictable. And when it comes to unpredictable weather, this particular year has knocked it out of the park. Anyway, the bottom line here is that we've had a lot of sketchy morning weather that has impacted those of us who don't like riding bikes that go nowhere quite a bit.

Friendly Friday

So this morning, Sunday, I lounged in bed an extra fifteen minutes, as usual for a Giro Ride morning. The temperature outside was nearly 70°F, and the wind was negligible, neither of which you'd expect for mid-February. Saturday was nearly as warm. By Mardi Gras morning on - you guessed it - Tuesday, it will be in the low 40s. For the first time in a while I went out in, basically, summer kit. Saturday's Giro had been quite fast, but surprisingly my legs felt none the worse for wear. I cruised down Orleans where the street had already been cleared of the tons (literally) of abandoned Mardi Gras beads and related trash from the prior evening's Endymion parade. If there's one thing this city does remarkably well, it's cleaning the streets following parades. Of course, I'm sure the parading organizations who put on these free spectacles pay for that too because if the city had to do that it would probably happen on the same timeline as pothole repair. 

Given the Mardi Gras festivities that have been in full swing for about a week now, it wasn't surprising that the turnout was pretty slim for Sunday's Giro. On the other hand, considering that the forecast for Monday is looking pretty bad, I would have expected a few more people to have dragged themselves out onto the road this morning. Now, you'd think that a small turnout would mean an easy ride, but if you did, you'd be wrong. More often than not it means you'll be spending more time than usual on the front. As it turned out, the ride was pretty good. It was by no means slow, or easy, but the limited amount of horsepower available kept the speeds down to levels that allowed people like me to actually see the front now and then. It was a good ride, actually.

Afterward, I rode down to Magazine Street at State Street to catch some of the Thoth parade - the closest parade to my house, and the only one I've seen so far. It was threatening to rain the whole time but never really did, unless you count a few random raindrops that fell here and there. The uptown crowd there was friendly and easygoing and since it was only 12:30 or so not yet drunk enough to be obnoxious. We stayed for maybe 30 of the 40+ floats.

Thoth

So this year, since early Spring, I've been using Silca Super-Secret drip wax on my chains. At first I considered it to be quite an extravagance, considering the relatively high cost of a little bottle of the concoction, but it has turned out to be quite cost-effective since you waste so little of it. Yeah, I know that using the "immersion" chain waxing technique is the best, but this stuff, when done right, is a pretty reasonable compromise that required little effort and definitely extends chain life, keeps the chain impressively clean, and at least theoretically saves a couple of watts here and there - as if anyone could ever really feel the difference. The one thing you have to be sure to do is to thoroughly clean the new chain in mineral spirits to remove absolutely all of the factory lubricant. I do this by putting the new chain in a pickle jar with mineral spirits (aka paint thinner) and shaking it up and letting it soak and shaking it up again, etc. etc. Of course for me it's practically a waste since I have been in the habit for many years of replacing chains when they reach the 2,500 - 3,000 mile mark regardless of how worn they might be. Anyway, I think I like this drip-wax thing. 

One other think I recently did was to put latex tubes in my training tires. It's not something I'd normally do, but some place had them on sale so I figured I'd give them a shot. I put one of the latex tubes in my front training wheel, which had an old Michelin race tire on it, and it worked nicely, so the following day I did the same with my rear wheel which immediately exploded. One thing about latex tubes is that they will squeeze through the smallest of slices in a tire sidewall and blow out quite dramatically. Anyway, I ended up having to ditch that tire and install a new one that I fortunately had on hand. I can't say they made me any faster or anything, and of course they bleed air quickly enough that I have to pump up the tires every couple of days, but otherwise they seem fine. I suppose I could pretend that they make me faster. I mean, it's a possibility, right?

After the Saturday Giro

Last week, despite some discouraging weather forecasts, I somehow managed to log a little over 250 miles. While that is actually a little low compared to my typical weeks, I was nonetheless somehow pleasantly surprised. Tuesday's levee ride had been 40 miles of unrelenting crosswind followed by a mad dash to make an early meeting. Wednesday's WeMoRi had been good, but just a bit easier and smaller than usual. Then on Thursday we had only three of us up on the levee with a 10 mph east wind that turned the entire return trip into a slog and saw us turning around at the big dip rather than going all the way out to Ormond. 

By Friday it had started getting warmer and so we had a pretty big group on hand for Friendly Friday, which of course resulted in a rather fast ride that shelled a few people. It was great to be riding without three layers of clothes, though, and that really made it a lot more enjoyable. 

Sunday

As I said before, Saturday's Giro had a pretty good sized group with some significant horsepower, which made for quite a fast ride. I spent a lot of time focusing on the finer points of wheelsucking, of course, so although the speeds were consistently high, I was never in any real difficulty and felt pretty good.

So I'm off from work tomorrow ("Lundi Gras") and Tuesday, and as luck would have it the forecast is calling for a lot of rain all morning. Of course the forecasts have not exactly been batting 1,000 lately, so I'll just have to look out the window in the morning before making a decision. It looks like the cold front will be through around noon, though, so an afternoon ride is looking like a possibility. Going to have to play that by ear, I guess. Mardi Gras is going to be kind of cold, unfortunately, starting in the 40s and not getting out of the 50s, but at least the rain should be gone. Christian sent out an email about doing a Mardi Gras Giro, although I may just play that one by ear too.