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...