Forked

The weekend seemed a little longer than usual this time. After a nice Friendly Friday ride on the lakefront, I wrapped up work early so I could head up to Hattiesburg for the Farm to Fork criterium that evening and ride the following day. I was holding out just a little bit of hope that I might be able to jump into the masters criterium, the second of three races that started at 6:30 pm. 

Packet pickup was the entire second floor of a local bank building, and with a criterium, ride, and foot races on tap there was lots of activity. The day before I'd received a copy of the pre-registration list, and knew that things were going to be a little more complicated than usual. The list was basically just a list of names indicating which race the riders were registered for. I immediately noticed a couple of problems. There were no USAC license numbers, gender wasn't indicated (there were prizes for both men and women), and I could see that there were people registered for the Master 35+ race who I knew were not old enough. In fact, one was 16. I'd emailed the promoter about it and so at packet pickup they were writing in license numbers on a printout of the registered riders (scratching through the bib numbers of those who showed up!). As I was leaving, I heard them tell someone that numbers should go on the right. I headed over to the start finish, arriving at exactly the same time as Ricky and Cole, the other officials. The race crew had already set up a low stage for the officials -- on the left side of the course -- along with one of those big generator powered lighting units. As I was getting the computer and printer set up for results, I noticed riders starting to warm up on the course, and of course they had their numbers on the wrong side. I stood out in the road for a while yelling, "numbers go on the left," which should have been obvious to experienced racers since that's where the officials were. Meanwhile one of the event staff was trying to contact the riders who had registered in the wrong race(s). Neither of us was particularly successful. We should have held up the start and made everyone re-pin their numbers where we could see them, but inexplicably we didn't. The first race went off fairly smoothly except, of course, for the unidentifiable riders, which made it particularly difficult to keep track of the multiple lapped riders. 

Friendly Friday

By the time the second race started it was getting dark. This race was an open-category masters race combined with elite women. As a result of the registration system not enforcing age or category restrictions, there were a couple of under-35 men, and a Cat. 5 women. This wasn't the world championships or anything so we didn't worry about it, although it could have become an issue when it was time to hand out the 3-deep prizes. 

Finish of the B race. One readable number, one semi-readable number, three unreadable numbers.

I spent this entire race at the laptop trying to straighten out the start lists and plug in license numbers that I was trying to read from an image sent as an email attachment on my tablet. By the time I had all of that straightened out, the second race had already started, so I started scoring the laps along with Cole and Ricky. We had two finish cameras set up that were working OK under the circumstances (darkness and lighting flicker rate issues typical of night races), but the big problem was the number of riders whose bib numbers we, and the cameras, could not see. This race had a wide range of skill levels, so despite the course being a bit over one kilometer, riders were being lapped all over the place and things at the judging stand were getting very messy. By the end we were reasonably confident about the first five or six places, but it wasn't until Tuesday that the rest of the places were assigned, some a bit tentatively, and thanks in no small part to some crowdsourcing of placings. Fortunately, the Cat. 1/2/3 race had a small field and despite the fact that half of them had numbers we couldn't see, it wasn't too hard to get those results right. I hadn't eaten a thing since about 4:30 when I finally headed for my hotel room around 10:30, reluctantly stopping at McDonalds along the way.

Past and Future all in one photo.

Saturday there was a 60+ mile ride that I knew was going to get fast. In fact, the average speed was a hair over 24 mph. There was initially a pretty big front group, but after forty miles or so we started losing riders, ultimately ending up with around 20. Then, maybe ten miles before the end, the group split for reasons unknown, and of course I was on the wrong end of that split. I figured we'd just roll in as the second group, but the gap just hovered at around 45 seconds, I guess. After turning onto the Longleaf Trace, it looked like the front group eased up, at which point some of the second group started to chase in earnest, finally closing the gap just before the end. Anyway, it was fun, and kind of a hard ride, even though I had mostly kept my nose out of the wind.

So Sunday Lisa had planned this ride starting on St. Claude right before the bridge and heading out to the newly paved 40 arpent canal bike path, and then down to Hopedale. That meant 81 miles for me, and as if my somewhat sore legs weren't bad enough, there was a brutal 18-23 mph headwind all the way down there. I immediately knew I wouldn't be taking any pulls, and wouldn't be contesting the two planned KOM segments either. The first planned fast segment was about 5 miles straight into the wind, so I didn't even try to stay with the group. When I came up to Steve, he got onto my wheel and I took a long pull and a nice moderate speed, only to pull off and discover he was MIA. I later learned that right after he'd gotten onto my wheel, all the stuff fell out of his saddle bag, so he stopped for a long while to collect it all. That was the last we saw of him. As it turned out, he had continued on but turned around at the bridge crossing before Hopedale. Then, on the way back, it looks like we passed him when he stopped at a gas station or something. Anyway, at the next intersection the group waited for me and then Dave, who said he thought Steve must had turned around (he hadn't), so we continued on. There were about a dozen riders, so although staying in the draft into that gusty headwind was no walk in the park, it was at least manageable even in my suboptimal state, and we made it to the end of the road where we stopped at a store that was a converted cargo container set about 20 feet above the ground, or water, which were basically the same. 

Tuesday morning Dawn Patrol ride. 

With the way the road curved, I knew that there would be a strong crosswind for the first few miles back before we'd feel the tailwind. Unfortunately, the way back started with a 10-mile KOM segment. I knew that starting at the back there would be zero draft, so Devin and I were never really with the group once it started. Eventually we saw riders getting dropped from the group ahead, first Mike, then Charles and someone else, and we got pretty close at the bridge crossing, but we didn't catch them before the next re-grouping. After that, I thought the pace would settle down a bit, but when we hit the highway with that 20+ mph tailwind, things quickly got out of hand. I dropped off when I saw the computer registering 36 mph, and again found myself with Devin and Mike and Charles. After that it was just the bike path and a commute back. Actually, I enjoyed the ride, and felt like it was a good time of year for a couple of back to back hard rides. It wasn't until a few days later that I learned that Dave, who had been on the ride, had suffered a heart attack a day or two afterward while at the gym. He was apparently scheduled for heart bypass surgery the following week.

So I Went to a Meeting

It all started back in 2014 when the local bicycle advocacy organization pushed a plan that would turn Lakeshore Drive into a 2-way bike path plus a 2-way narrow-lane roadway. For fitness and competitive cyclists, who have called Lakeshore Drive home for over fifty years because it has been the only unobstructed five miles of road in the city on which to train, it looked like a major disaster. We rallied the troops and, thanks mainly to a lack of funding I think, things settled down. Then, in 2021, two things happened without any input from us that made parts of Lakeshore Drive more dangerous and less useful for us, while also revealing a shocking lack of understanding about how cyclists like us ride. The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East (SLFPAE), which really should not have any authority at all over Lakeshore Drive, but does by claiming they need it for flood control transportation, together with, I have to assume, the Regional Planning Commission, put up a big sign showing how they were going to re-make Lakeshore Drive from Canal Blvd. around to Lake Marina Drive. That was the first we heard of it, and by then the contracts has been signed and the work was ready to start in about two weeks. Fait Accompli. I contacted them about it and was told that it was all about pedestrian safety around the restaurants and the curve because of speeding cars. About the same time, the City, which strangely has control of the Elysian Fields traffic circle because it is on the city side of the levee, with some participation from SLFPAE, installed the crazy bike path that hugs the gutter there, reducing the 2 lanes down to one, and putting in a million random flex posts and road striping pretty much where the bike lane should have been if you were intent on putting one there in the first place. That bike lane puts whatever naïve cyclists who use it in a situation where traffic turning out of the circle have to cross the bike lane. It was better, and safer, when cyclists continuing through on Lakeshore Drive could just take the right lane to prevent cars exiting the circle from cutting across their paths. 

So since then we have eliminated any actual training west of Canal, and now have to merge into the left lane at the traffic circle while avoiding the flex posts, aka "death spikes," because there is no way a group of 25 riders going 27 mph could possibly survive the debris-laden bike lane, not to mention the survival of any casual riders or young children who might have been lured into it. Since then, I'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop, since the West End work was called "Phase 1."

Fast-forward to April 17, just 7 days ago, when I was scanning posts on "formally Twitter" that I loosely monitor for work. There, I found a post by City Councilman J.P. Morrell, that consisted of a screenshot of a Public Meeting notice regarding "Phase 2." Fearing the worst, I contacted the SLFPAE to see what the plan was, but was politely told they didn't have anything to share with me until the meeting. So fearing the worst even more, I posted it to the NOBC FB group and elsewhere. Bike Easy didn't know about it (for the record, nobody there now was around back in 2014), the NOBC didn't know about it, pretty much nobody I knew knew about it. It had apparently been announced in the newspaper (remember those?) and their social media page.  Why would anyone expect something about bike lanes on Lakeshore Drive to be on that Facebook page? Anyway, the meeting was yesterday evening at 6:00 pm, at Lakefront Airport. It took me 45 minutes to get there, since it was basically rush hour, and the Seabrook bridge has been closed for over a month, and various other roads I tried were also torn up for road work. Although clearly they didn't want actual input into their plans from actual cyclists, either through ignorance or design, I felt obligated to attend to at least explain what was going to happen when it came to things like group rides, or just individual riders going more than 10 mph. A few of the other people who I often ride with were also there.

The motivation for all of this proposed work appears to be entirely focused on reducing the speed of cars on Lakeshore Drive. The bike lane seems like more of an afterthought to justify eliminating two of the existing traffic lanes. This will, of course, be nice for casual cyclists looking at the scenery, enjoying the 20 mph winds, and navigating around the inevitable runners, baby carriages, dog-walkers, young children, and others who will be attracted to the bike lane, at least the 1.2 miles of it that will result from Phase 2. Riders like us, however, are being basically, perhaps even literally, thrown under the bus in the name of vehicle and pedestrian safety. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, at least for now. 

The main focus of Phase 2 is a continuation of the 2-way bike lane and narrow traffic lanes from Canal, where it currently ends, east to the Orleans Canal, which is essentially Marconi. That is a distance of about 2,000 feet. Past that to the east, it will be back to the normal two lanes in each direction, until you get to Elysian Fields where you hit the existing clusterfrack of ill-advised debris-ridden bike lanes in the gutter and flex post obstacle course where we are forced to merge into the left lane while simultaneously negotiating the traffic circle. 

The other part of Phase 2 involves some as-yet undetermined road striping or flex posts or something between Elysian Fields and Franklin that may have us remaining in the left lane, depending on what they actually do. So from the entrance to the traffic circle where the two lanes go down to one, that's a distance of just under a mile (like 4,000 feet). Part of the goal there is to do something about the lack of visibility for cars coming down the levee from Franklin and turning onto Lakeshore Drive. That might result in some kind of push-out at the intersection. Frankly, the problem there is not so much a lack of visibility. As we all know, it is a problem of not stopping at the stop sign. Beyond that, there is no plan from there to the Armory loop. So all of this will, obviously, make it a little more dangerous for us, and given the piecemeal sections of bike lanes I seriously doubt the number of cyclists using Lakeshore Drive will increase very much. We will be switching from right lane to left lane multiple times over the remaining 8-mile out-and-back. As we all know, the way that some of the bike lanes are laid out in this city defies logic, unless you assume that the designers don't actually ride bikes, in which case it makes perfect sense.

North end of Norman Francis.

So at the meeting I took the opportunity to, as diplomatically as I possibly could, explain to Stacy, the Public Information Officer, Ryan the Engineering Manager, and the two East Bank Levee police officers in attendance why it was unsafe for us, and others, to be riding in the bike lane at 20-30 mph, usually with a group, and that we would therefore be forced to ride in the remaining roadway lane, and that we would undoubtedly be blocking traffic when we do so. I also  took the opportunity to point out that putting in what is a crosswalk as the way for cyclists to cross over from the right lane of the roadway into the 2-way bike lane that basically heads into oncoming traffic was kind of stupid and that no actual cyclist was ever going to do it that way. Apparently they don't think we are capable of moving from the right lane into the left lane to make a left turn like we do everywhere else. This is typical of some of the other stuff coming out of the NORPC, like what they just did where Norman Francis meets Moss, and where Fontainebleau meets Broad, and the unbelievable thing they did on the northbound side of the Broad Street Overpass, not to mention the flex posts that are in the way at the overpass exit onto Poydras, or the corner of Toussaint and Wisner. 

Surprisingly, all of this did not seem to be a cause for concern to the administrators in attendance, I guess for a few reasons. For one, the speed limit in the areas with bike lanes will be lowered to 25 mph. For another, our presence in the traffic lane will turn us into de facto human traffic calming devices. Granted, it will no doubt incur the wrath of motorists stuck behind us who may or may not, intentionally or otherwise, murder us, to which the authorities will then be able to say, "well, we did provide them with a nice little bike lane, so it's their fault." We, as a group, also suggested lowering the speed limit for all of Lakeshore Drive rather than having it go back and forth from 35 to 25 mph, although I should point out that it would mean that we ourselves might sometimes be speeding. 

How this will all play out remains to be seen. I did not hear or see anything about a timeline, but as we know from prior experience at West End, this kind of stuff can be done pretty quickly and I expect that those wheels are already turning.

There were, of course, some motorists in attendance (I'd say there were probably about 25 people on hand for this meeting) who were leery about the single-lane sections and speed limit and various other motorist problems unrelated to the subject of the meeting. Interestingly, there were people there from Blue Crab restaurant who were not too happy about some of the apparently ad hoc road closures the police occasionally set up around West End when things get really busy there. There were also a couple of people from Bike Easy, the Ghost Bike guy, and one or two casual cyclists.

So to summarize:

• There will probably be another 3,000 feet or so of single-lane roadway from West End, increasing the total length to around 1.2 miles.
• There will be a 25 mph speed limit, at least in the sections where there is a bike lane.
• The police are expecting to receive in-car radar to help with the speeding problem.
• The purpose of all of this appears to be to reduce vehicle speeds since apparently they can't otherwise enforce the speed limit and are tired of picking up the pieces and sending people to the hospital and getting sued.
• The competitive and fitness cyclists like us are basically collateral damage.
• I don't actually think this will cause us too much of a problem for our early-morning rides.
• We should be worried about where this is going in the future.

Conspiracies and Evolution

Tuesday on the Lake Trail

It's a season of transitions here in New Orleans. One day it's 80° and the next it's 55° with a 25 mph north wind. So - situation normal. The evolution of the Tuesday - Thursday morning rides have been slowly picking up more people since the move from the river levee to the lakefront. Tuesday was pretty breezy, and turnout was a little slim, but once we finished the lap of LSD and got out onto the Lake Trail we were easily cruising along at 24 mph. Of course, that meant that the ride back to the east was a bit of a slog and mostly at speeds in the 18 - 20 mph range, but that's not unexpected along the lake where the wind always seems to exceed the official forecast by 8 - 10 mph.

A big group for Friendly Friday

The next day's WeMoRi was a good workout as usual, still with a significant SE wind but far less of a factor with the larger group. By Thursday the wind had died down a bit more, which made for a nice ride. Friday morning was even better, with a starting temperature in the low 70s and only a very light breeze. That resulted in an unusually large Friendly Friday turnout that, remarkably, did not feature a blistering pace.

On Saturday I once again opted for the lakefront training race rather than the Giro, although I did start out with the Giro group at 7:00, looping back around on Lakeshore Drive to meet the 7:30 group as it headed up Marconi. This week the training race, which basically has a rolling start heading east after the bridge, blew apart almost immediately when someone, I think maybe Rob, attacked. I was dragged along briefly at 29-31 mph until I went to seek shelter, which as it turned out was farther back than I'd expected. A second group formed up fairly quickly and for the next fifteen miles or so we weren't losing much ground on the small lead group that was around a minute ahead, but the chase kind of lost it's motivation on the last lap, of course. Afterward, we had a good sized group that headed out to The Wall and back, leaving me with around 70 miles for the day. 

My plan was to do the Giro on Sunday. It had rained overnight as a cold front came through, leaving the streets wet and the radar unpromising. I rode out to Starbucks anyway, and as I sat there drinking my coffee there was a brief rain shower that ended just as VJ rode up. Of course, nobody else showed up, so VJ and I rode a lap of Lakeshore Drive. He peeled off to go home and I continued down Marconi. It still wasn't raining, so I thought I'd cut across City Park and maybe do another lap of Lakeshore Drive. Naturally, that's when it started raining again, so I aborted that plan and headed back home before I had a chance to get too chilled. Mellow Monday's ride featured a 20 mph northeast wind and a temperature in the 50s, which of course meant that just a few showed up. It was 15 mph heading east and 25-30 heading west.

The potholes on Marconi become so bad that the locals had to take matters into their own hands.

This morning we had a nice group for the Tuesday ride that featured almost no wind, a clear sky, and a starting temperature around 57°. It was nice. Even nicer, we found that the huge potholes along Marconi had been patched (I'd reported them to NOLA311 a week or so earlier, complete with photos), and the final layer of asphalt overlay had been put down around the Bayou St. John bridge. So that was nice. 

Total crap for us

This evening I'm going to have to go to a Public Meeting called, almost in secret, by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority and Lakefront Management Authority so they can tell us how they will completely screw up Lakeshore Drive for us. I swear, it's like there is a regional conspiracy afoot to screw up every single route we use. Lakeshore Drive, Seabroook Bridge, and the Levee bike path. Anyway,  nobody, and I mean nobody, in the cycling community would have known about this meeting if councilmember Morrell hadn't posted an image of the announcement on his (formerly) Twitter feed that I happen to subscribe to for work. There was no involvement or notification by or to the local cycling clubs or, amazingly, even Bike Easy, which had actually floated a plan like this back in 2014 that we collectively opposed. I sent that around to everyone I knew, and then emailed the Flood Protection Authority contact for more information, which they refused to provide until the meeting. I also sent an email to our two at-large City Council members. As far as I can tell, the Flood Protection Authority answers to nobody and does whatever it wants, and this public meeting is just window dressing for a project that is already a done deal. Later, someone with contacts told me that the plan is, as I'd feared, to continue the 2-way bike lane in the gutter and road diet and road furniture clusterF that currently exists at West End for the full length of Lakeshore Drive, which will make the multiple daily group rides there even MORE dangerous while concurrently causing us to hold up motorists who will hate us even more than they already do. I hope I'm wrong, but I seriously doubt they give a damn about us and just want to try to force the cars to go slower by making it too dangerous and inconvenient to do otherwise. Of course, we will end  up in that narrower traffic lane with oncoming traffic on one side and probably flex posts on the other, since riding 30 mph in a two-way bike lane occupied by young children and beach cruisers and probably also runners and walkers would be even more dangerous for all involved.

Ripple Effect

Mellow Monday Morning Sunrise

A long, long time ago, while discussing the Tour de La, a teammate summed up the entire situation with the words, "Bikies are like sheep."  He was not wrong. Rides are always better with a larger group, so riders tend to follow each other and stay together the same way Sheep do. 

Over the past month or so that fact, combined with a certain ripple effect that began almost a year ago when the La Dept of Transportation plunked the first little pebble into the placid waters of local training rides, has created a level of chaos that is only now beginning to subside. That first pebble was the closure of one lane of the Seabrook bridge, which is the main route over the industrial canal that the Giro Ride uses. That wasn't too terrible, but it did screw up the final sprint that had traditionally been to the top of said bridge, and required negotiating a little gap between the curb and the concrete barricade at the entrance to the bridge. 

Then, not too long ago, a much larger rock was unexpectedly plunked into the water when, rather than finally begin the long-awaited repairs, they completely closed the bridge for a, thus far undetermined amount of time. That resulting ripple precipitated numerous weekly Giro Ride experiments aimed at finding the least bad alternate route across the canal via the Danziger bridge and Almonaster, or Chef, or Hayne, or France, or some combination of the above. Regardless of the route du jour, the warmup segment was extended quite a bit, a few additional complications like unrepaired road sections, water features, railroad tracks and traffic signals were added, and in general the warmup became longer, the fast part became shorter, and as participation understandably dropped for all of the above-mentioned reasons, the pace became just a bit slower (which isn't necessarily a bad thing for a lot of riders). It's still a workout for sure and most of the route is great, it's just the complication of getting to and from and over the Danziger bridge that has thrown a monkey wrench into the works.

Friendly Friday ride

As if the disruption of the weekend rides wasn't bad enough, the levee district and Corps of Engineers almost simultaneously closed off two miles of the levee bike path from the upriver Jefferson Parish line to St. Rose in order to raise that section of the levee, requiring the Dawn Patrol cyclists to fend for themselves on the narrow shoulderless River Road along a stretch that carries a fair amount of distracted and speeding early morning traffic that includes trucks coming and going from the Vulcan Materials operation.

Thursday morning

So the 6 am levee ride has changed, and is now meeting at NOMA and doing a lap of Lakeshore Drive plus an out-and-back on the Lake Trail to and from the Casino. The ride itself is fine, and is in fact what we did the last time a portion of the levee bike path was closed back around 2015-16. The only issue is that the additional commute out and back to the lake adds about 10 minutes to the 40+ mile Tuesday/Thursday ride. The other ripple effect is that lots of people haven't quite figured out all of the when and where information, so turnout for that particular ride, which would normally be in the 6-12 rider range, is still low. Hopefully that will change and we will pick up some of the lakefront and Metairie riders, which will make the ride better and faster.

Heading out Saturday morning with the Giro before meeting up for the training race

Two weekends ago a Saturday training race idea was floated around, largely as a replacement for the usual two or three Saturday morning rides that had traditionally done some version of the Giro route. That ride looks like it has some legs now. It starts at 7:30 am at NOMA for a warmup out to Lakeshore Drive, and then begins a 4-lap training race on the old 6-mile training race loop between the Bayou St. John traffic circle and the Seabrook loop, finally finishing with a sprint up to the top of the BSJ bridge. I did it last Saturday, for me starting from Starbucks at 7 for a preliminary easy lap of Lakeshore Drive, finally meeting the group on Marconi on its way to the lake. Aside from all of the flashbacks to the famous Tuesday/Thursday training races of yesteryear, it was a great workout with a good sized group. Afterward, those who want to can continue out to the Lake Trail at a more moderate pace. Last Saturday we had I guess eight or so who continued around to the Levee, which made for a 70+ mile ride for most, I think. That may be my default Saturday morning ride if things remain as the are. Hopefully, we can continue to have a decent enough turnout for the Sunday Giro as well. 

Local citizens have taken to making their own warning signs since the city is too dysfunctional to do simple pothole repairs

Last Sunday we had I guess a dozen for the Giro. I think that the route that has about achieved consensus is LSD to Franklin to Leon C. to Press to France, across the bridge, left and around to Jourdan to Almonaster to Chef to Venetian Isles. The return is like the usual route, Chef to the interstate, to Lake Forest, to Hayne, but then a left at the end of Hayne to Dowman, then back over the bridge and back to France, Leon C., Franklin, and Lakeshore Drive. I think it adds a couple of miles to the Seabrook Bridge route, but all of that is basically warmup or cool-down pace.

The weather around here is finally getting warm, although I admit I have still been wearing a base layer and, often, arm-warmers for the early morning rides. I hope those days will be coming to and end soon, though. This morning's Mellow Monday ride had a nice group. It's still dark enough that I need my headlight to ride out to NOMA for 6 am, but it's getting light earlier now and by the time we turn off of Canal back onto Lakeshore Drive we're looking at the sunrise. This morning there was almost no wind and a nice steady pace, which was good. I've been over 270 weekly miles for the past four weeks, and am finally feeling like adding in some more intensity, so looking forward to the WeMoRi and Saturday training races. I'm scheduled to be in Hattiesburg the weekend after next for the Farm to Fork criterium on Friday and ride on Saturday. I'll be helping with officiating for the criterium, so it's questionable whether I will be able to race as well. I can just play that by ear. It will depend on who else is helping with scoring and how big the fields are. There will be three criteriums, with the first starting at 6:30 pm, so the final one will be in the dark, which always complicates scoring and makes the camera a bit less useful depending on the lighting situation at the finish line.

Whatever

Friday

So here we are at the tail end of March when it can be summer one day and winter the next, which is pretty much how things went last week. Tuesday morning there was a light rain falling when I awoke, my response to which was a whispered "f*^k this" and an extra few minutes of sleep. Seeing as it was a Tuesday, and the forecast was for sunshine later in the day, and it looked like I'd be able to skip out of the office a bit before 5 pm, I decided I'd ride out to the Tuesday Loops ride at 6 pm. Tuesday Loops is kind of a strange one, but it is not without its upside. It consists of three laps of a course that goes from City Park out to the Lakefront, and then back to City Park. Each "loop" is maybe eight miles, of which half is done at a conversational pace, and the rest at a fast pace. Everyone re-groups after each lap, which makes it an especially good training ride for newer riders, or just those who might not be quite in shape enough to stay with a long fast ride. The downside, at least for me, is that the course includes three traffic lights and a particularly inadvisable hairpin turn at the bottom of the Bayou St. John bridge. The group is reasonably careful, but I just find all the starting and stopping kind of irritating. Anyway, I figured I could do two laps with the group and be home before dark, and at least get in a few miles with a couple of short efforts. It worked out fine, and it was great to be riding in summer kit, in daylight, which isn't as common as I'd like this time of year.

By Wednesday morning it was considerably colder with a strong north wind blowing. I went out to the lake to meet the WeMoRi, and by the time I got there the group had been pretty much shattered already thanks to the crosswind coming off the lake. I jumped onto the tail end of what was left of the group on Marconi, at which point one of the guys looked over at me and remarked, "It was carnage." Riders who had been dropped were taking shortcuts all over the place to get back into the group. By the time we got to the end of Wisner we'd picked up a few more, but a car was stopped at the light at City Park Avenue, leaving just a couple of feet to its right. The first few riders slipped through but then the rest of us had to basically come to a stop in order to squeeze through one at a time. By then there was a huge gap that I think only one person managed to bridge. I ended up alone, so I just continued, eventually making a u-turn on Lakeshore Drive to pick up the diminutive group on its way back from the Elysian Fields traffic circle. It was a workout. I think that maybe three riders actually did the whole route.

It was still windy on Thursday, and with just Charles and I on the levee, once Scott turned back at Williams, it felt like a much harder ride than you'd guess from the speed. By Friday, I'd decided to do the Saturday northshore ride despite the fact that it would be stacked with strong riders, so my plan was to take it as easy as possible. I was running a couple of minutes late, and knew I'd miss the start, so I headed straight to the lakefront to Wisner. That worked out OK and I met up with the group shortly after I got there.

On Saturday I headed north on the Causeway to Abita Springs for what I was certain would be a good ol' fashioned ass-kicking. Peyton was about to head off to Europe with the national team for a month's worth of racing. Also on hand were Ben H, Eddie C, Stephen M, Stephen L, Mark G, Nick L, Blake M, Reggie T, and all of the usual suspects, making for a good-sized group of 12-14, I think. I decided from the outset that I would stay at the very tail end of the group, at least until after the planned excursion up and down the infamous House Creek Road segment that was probably about 45 miles into the 60+ mile ride. I wasn't the only one who was somewhat unprepared for the fast segments. The group split on Million Dollar Road when the speeds went up to the 30s, but fortunately we regrouped at the end. Then of course it split again, followed again by a regrouping. We were about halfway down Factory Road when somebody up front put the hammer down once again. I was at the tail end, and when the rider in front of me let the gap open I decided to just stay where I was rather than try to make the bridge up the second group that was itself chasing the lead group that was going full-gas. It was maybe not the wisest decision because I probably could have made it into the second group. So anyway, the two of us rode together to the end of Factory where we turned onto Lee Road. Up ahead I could see the second group closing on the front group, so they must have eased  up a little bit, but the rider I was with was cooked, so I continued on ahead of him, still losing ground the whole way, of course. I was figuring that by the time I got to House Creek Road the front group would probably already be on its way back up the hill, so my plan was to get back in with them there. I got to House Creek and rode about halfway down without seeing anybody before I turned around. I didn't want to have to make a u-turn on the 8% grade a little farther down, since I was assuming the front group was about to appear at any moment. I got to the top and turned onto 40, but looking back couldn't see anybody. I started wondering if they had been going so hard that they were still ahead of me. If not, I was sure they'd catch me pretty soon anyway, so I just continued on. Well, fifteen miles later I got back to Abita Springs where I was surprised to find ... nobody. As it turned out, they had indeed been coming back up House Creek when I was there, but had stopped for a long time at the top to wait for someone. I probably missed them by just a minute or two. It was a pretty good workout anyway, you  know, the kind that Strava calls a "massive" effort. 

So on Sunday it was back to the Giro. The route has been fluctuating from week to week since the bridge was closed, but the group, which is understandably much smaller than usual, seems to be slowly narrowing in on a consensus of sorts. We went straight out to Chef on Press, which still has some bad patches where the road has been torn up, and then all the way out to Venetian Isles on Chef. That worked out pretty nicely. On the way back we took the traditional Giro route via Lake Forest and Hayne, then turned down France Road to get back to the Danziger bridge. Fortunately nobody went down on either of the two diagonal railroad track crossings. It's a toss-up whether Dowman is a better choice, though. For some reason the group stayed on Chef after the bridge rather than going back to the lakefront.

This morning, Monday, it was around 70°F but for some reason there were only three of us who showed up for the Mellow Monday ride. Well, that's not counting Dylan who had gotten stuck a at a train crossing and had to find us along Lakeshore Drive. I think I was still a little bit tired from the weekend. It should be warm with a strong south wind tomorrow morning. The word going around is that the levee work upriver from the Jefferson Parish line is supposed to start tomorrow, so we will have to play it by ear. It should be possible to drop down onto River Road to bypass the two mile construction zone, so I think we'll give that a try and see whether it is feasible or suicide. The speed limit there is 35 mph, but there is zero shoulder to the road and probably some truck traffic. If it's bad, we will have to investigate some other options because it'll be only about 11 or 12 miles from the start to the path closure.