Easy Miles

Dustin's Birthday Ride on Sunday

It was still chilly Wednesday morning when I headed out in the dark toward the lakefront. It was one of those mornings when just getting out the door was a struggle. I guess it must have been the same for most of the rather diminutive WeMoRi group into which I merged along Marconi, because there was an obvious lack of either horsepower or willpower, or perhaps both. The pace remained low, at least by WeMoRi standards, although I did not hear anyone complaining about it. Thursday's levee ride turnout was a little low as well, and by the time we were past the airport it was just Rich and I. The moderate east tailwind had lured us into doing the full route, but of course that meant a long and relatively slow ride back down the river into an increasing headwind. I guess part of the motivation for doing the full ride, in spite of there being only the two of us, was that the forecast for Friday morning was calling for thunderstorms.

So I was a little surprised when I awoke Friday morning and found dry streets and weather radar that I interpreted to mean we'd probably get the entire Friendly Friday ride in before the rain. Perhaps I should have studied the morning weather a little more. I showed up at City Park to find only Mitchell, which was a clear indication that we were the only ones who had misread the meteorological crystal ball. We headed out anyway, riding at an easy pace, but still fully expecting to stay dry. That expectation was soon drowned when we made the loop around the Armory. Heading back toward the west we could now see, and hear, the lightning and thunder of a rapidly approaching storm, and within a minute or two we could feel the first raindrops falling. I was still holding some hope that the rain would remain light, but we decided to turn early and head straight down Wisner to shorten the route. By then the light rain had gotten heavier, and by the time I was heading back home along Norman Francis it had become a torrential downpour. The street was already starting to flood as the water finally soaked through my shoes and wool socks, and by the time I got home I was thoroughly soaked. I went inside, poured the remaining water out of my shoes, and jumped into a nice hot shower. Oh well, at least we tried.

Adding miles after the Saturday Giro. North wind eschelon.

Saturday was a Giro Ride day, and as Giro Rides have been going lately since the Seabrook bridge has been closed, it was anybody's guess which route we would be experimenting with that morning. This time we took Lakeshore Drive down to Press and Congress Drive to get to the Danziger bridge, and then just stayed on Chef Menteur rather than switch over to Almonaster. It worked out OK, but of course everyone missed the long fast stretch on Hayne. On the way back the group was kind of lazy, and a couple of people rolled off the front. Then, instead of going back to Lakeshore Drive, we stayed on Chef, dodging potholes and stoplights. Four of us then continued out to the Lake Trail in order to add some miles. It was still super windy out of the north, so most of the ride could be described with a single word - crosswind. The one exception was the stretch from Veterans to Airline on the airport road where we had a full-on tailwind that kept us at 30-31 mph the whole way with what seemed like minimal effort. The ride back down the river on the bike path was a long slog in the crosswind with tired legs that brought my Saturday mileage up above 80. 

Sunday was Dustin's birthday ride, starting up in Independence. I'd been kind of on the fence about this one, but give that the bridge closing has taken some of the luster out of the Giro, I finally decided to go ahead and commit to the 72 mile ride. I went  up with Dylan. We started with, I think, 13 or 14 riders, including Sean and Evan, and I was glad to see that the ride was going to be a fairly easy one. Even so, I was very much limiting my effort and time on the front, since I could still feel the prior day's 80 miles in my legs. The group stopped multiple times to regroup, with a long store stop at around 50 miles. It was a nice long easy ride on roads with hardly any traffic. Saturday and Sunday pushed my weekly mileage up over 300, but of course most of it was fairly low intensity.

More wind on Monday

This morning we just had a few show up for Mellow Monday, no doubt thanks to the 20 mph wind. Even though nobody was trying to make the pace very fast, the northeast wind made things a bit challenging anyway. Instead of going straight home, I rode down to TUCA headquarters at University Square to meet Zion who wanted to spend some time on one of the Wattbikes in preparation for one of the USAC talent identification events he is planning to attend in California.

Spring Breaks

This was probably a 30-minute tire change.

This is perhaps the most unpredictable time of the year here in New Orleans. It seems like I spent all week second-guessing the weather forecasts, which were clearly second-guessing themselves. It was another of those situations where the weather coming from the northwest was going to move progressively more and more slowly, only to finally come to a halt just north of us, or just south of us, or right on top of us. To spare you the suspense, it was the latter, albeit a little later than originally expected. On the plus side, the weekly rides all went off nicely. The weekend rides, well, not quite so much.

The WeMoRi on Wednesday morning seemed to be going along just fine until we got to that right turn onto City Park avenue. As we approached, in the dark of course thanks to DST, we could see a big yellow school bus stopped at the red light. Normal people would have stopped and waited. WeMoRi people, don't all quite live up to that appellation. The riders in the lead unwisely squeezed past on the right just as the light turned green. I was already committed to the left and turned in front of the bus, signaling to the bus driver mostly to alleviate my own sense of guilt for doing something so blatantly stupid. A number of more intelligent riders behind me stopped and waited for the bus to move on. So by then there was a huge gap I was increasingly unlikely to close by myself. Just as I was about to throw in the towel, Steven came past with a, "Come on, Randy" and pulled me and a few others back up to the front group where we had a bit of a chance to recover. A bit later we came to the light at Toussant after the Backdraft sprint, rather strung out as usual. Half the group went through on the green before the light changed. Looking to the left, there was a car barreling toward us showing no sign of slowing, so the rest of us had to stop, which as I understand it, is what you are supposed to do when a light turns red. Well, at that point it was "game over" for us, but we at least kept the pressure on the rest of the way.

Saturday morning I rode out to Starbucks feeling a little chilly, but knowing that the sun would be out and it would warm up into, at least, the 70s. I knew there would be complications with this ride. The Seabrook bridge, which had been partially closed since May, was now fully closed with the drawbridge in the "up" position, and unlikely to be re-opened for months, optimistically. Lots of opinions about alternatives had been stirring around on Strava and Facebook and such, none of which was ideal, most of which were doable. There were a number of possible work-arounds, route-wise, but the only viable way across the industrial canal was the Danziger bridge regardless. After that, the options involved various combinations of Chef Highway, Almonaster, and Old Gentilly Road. But there was yet another wrinkle that, at least for some of us, might be considered a complication, and that was the fact that the group this day was kind of stacked with horsepower, virtually guaranteeing that the stretch down Almonaster and Chef was going to be very, very fast in a very non-conversational way.

Ouch!

So things were going along nicely, and we made it over the bridge and then around to Almonaster without a problem. I moved a little closer to the front as we came over the overpass that dropped us down onto Almonaster. As we started down I shifted down at least three cogs anticipating the worst. I found myself maybe fifth or sixth wheel as I tucked low to stay in the draft. The road flattened out and our speed levelled off at 27-28 mph as a little paceline started to form at the front, a front to which I was way too close. As I went past Brett who had just pulled off, I remarked, "What the hell am I doing here?" I eased out of the paceline before coming to the front and sought refuge back in the draftier part of the group where I figured my longevity might be better. It had been raining overnight and we almost immediately came across a section where there was water all the way across the road. Everyone slowed down, but the front five or six practically attacked coming out of it. Back on a somewhat drier surface I looked up to see that group rapidly approaching the horizon. I think one, maybe two, made the bridge up to them but the rest of us were hopelessly off the back and our somewhat anemic and disorganized attempt to chase was as sad as it was comical. A bit later we came upon a few riders from the earlier SaMoRi group on the side of the road struggling to get a flat tire off the rim. We were there for a good fifteen minutes before prying the thing away from the rim bead to which it seemed practically glued, and changing it. Back out on Chef we saw the front group on its way back and Chris and I made a quick u-turn. Fortunately they hadn't ramped it up yet, so we had a minute to get ready for what we knew would be a race back into town. We slotted in smoothly at the tail end of the paceline as the speed hovered in the 28-31 mph range with Peyton, Brett, Lisa, and a few others driving the train.

The batture trail in springtime.

So we turned off onto Old Gentilly Road and crossed the dangerous diagonal railroad tracks, with the pace holding at around 30 mph with me clinging to the back of the paceline. Just as we got close to the main gate at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility I heard some warning from up ahead. There was a long 1 x 6, probably the cross-member of a wooden barricade from the streets department facility, lying across the road. I was behind Steven. There was a rider dropping back from the front on the left. Steven didn't have much room to avoid it and clipped it, throwing him off to the right. He almost saved it, but by then I think he was overlapping the wheel ahead of him and he went down pretty hard. I had just a moment to contemplate the likely trajectory of his bike. Fortunately for me he and his bike fell to the right as I was going around the board to the left. The bottom line is that he had broken his collarbone in two places. So Chris and I waited until Steven's wife came to pick up the pieces. In the meantime, MJ, who had been late for the ride, showed up, so at least we had three for the ride back, which was still at a respectable pace, I think. By then it was turning into a beautiful day with the temperature in the 70s. 

Later that afternoon, and knowing that Sunday would probably be rained out (which it was), I went out for a little easy ride on the levee and the batture trail, which was amazingly quite dry, on the cyclocross bike. The flowers were blooming, but looking more closely I could also see the poison oak making its spring comeback.

By Tuesday morning the temperature will be in the mid-40s. Sigh...

Bad Week

Sunday Giro

Just when you are starting to think you might be starting to get in shape, Mother Nature swats you right back down to the ground. I'd had a nice enough time at the March 4th Mellow Monday ride, but knew that the weather was going to get worse by the end of the day. 

By mid-day it was storming with no end in sight. I waited at the office, hoping there would be a break before it got dark, but eventually submitted to my fate, which in that case was a very wet ride home. I pulled on my rain jacket and waterproof cap and rode out of the parking garage onto aptly named Perdido Street, which was already under about six inches of water. A couple of blocks later, crossing S. Claiborne, the water was so deep I could barely keep the bike moving. Switching over to Gravier things were no better. The water wasn't quite so deep on the sidewalk, so I rode there instead of in the street where there were already a couple of stalled cars. The problem, however, was that I couldn't quite see where the sidewalk ended, so naturally I rode off the edge once, which meant putting a foot down into about two feet of water. And so it continued. Of course I was completely soaked from the waist down by the time I got home. At least it wasn't very cold.

Tuesday morning it was still wet, so I didn't get in my usual morning ride, but at least I did make it out to WeMoRi, which had a smaller than normal turnout. Things looked better Thursday morning but I had an 8:15 am appointment for a checkup at Ochsner, so didn't ride that morning. In retrospect, I should have gone out early and put in a few miles. I had been nursing a scratchy throat for a couple of days, but it wasn't progressing, so I went ahead with the checkup, which was mostly routine blood work and conversation with the current Resident at the primary care clinic. That resulted in my getting a Shingrix booster shot before leaving. By evening I was already feeling the effects, which included a mild fever, headache, and various other aches. That kept me off the bike for Friday and Saturday.

Saturday afternoon my brother and niece were in town. Thankfully I was starting to feel a little more normal by then. I'm not quite sure how much of the headache and fever were caused by the vaccine or by a head cold, or by allergies (the oak trees are just about in full bloom). At least I got some decent sleep Saturday night, so by Sunday morning I felt like I may as well head out to the Sunday Giro. It was cooler, and with the time change having happened that morning, it was dark. I figured I'd have a cup of coffee and leave my options open in case I didn't feel quite as good as I thought I did. Turnout was pretty low that morning, thanks to the strong north wind that accompanied a little cold front, and probably also to the fact that Rouge Roubaix had been on Saturday. That made the Giro relatively mild, as Giro Rides go, and so I was feeling fine hanging out near the back and staying in the draft. Rouge Roubaix kind of lucked out in that the rain didn't seem to have had too much of an effect on the unpaved segments of the course. In fact, I suspect that it may have made them faster by packing down the rocks into the damp ground. Lance Abshire won the 92-mile race at just under 4:02, and the post-ride photos I saw showed bikes and people that were fairly clean, so the roads must not have been too bad. I ended the week with what was probably my lowest-mileage in a long time.

Monday morning it was again down into the 50s, where it will apparently be for the next couple of mornings too. I rode out to the Mellow Monday ride in the dark, arriving right when they were rolling out. Dylan was spending a lot of time on or near the front on his Tri bike, pushing the pace a bit into a significant northeast wind. It got fast when after the Seabrook loop when we picked up more of a tailwind, so it was maybe a little harder than I'd have liked for a Monday, but really not all that bad. Charles was back in the group after being off the bike for three or four days with another COVID infection, but it didn't seem to keep him from taking a few hard pulls on the front. Hopefully I'll be able to get back my usual routine this week, but there's a lot of rain in the forecast for the next week or two at least.