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.