Crashes and Complications

Wednesday's WeMoRi was relatively sane, a key indicator of which is always me actually sprinting at the end. I'd put a TPU inner tube in my front tire after flatting on Tuesday, mostly as an experiment, but also because that tire has a couple of slashes in it, one of which I fixed with a sewn-in boot. I figured the TPU tube might handle all of that a little better than the latex tube I'd just patched. We'll see. At any rate, I'm pretty sure that the 30 grams or so I saved hasn't made me any faster.

Downriver end of the levee closure

I went out Thursday morning to meet the 6 am group at NOMA. The weather seemed particularly nice, and the ride was, as it typical, mostly just steady paceline. Then on Friday we had a pretty good sized group on hand for Friendly Friday. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to ride on Saturday because I was scheduled to help with Tulane's Commencement ceremonies at the football stadium, starting at 3:30 and running until a bit after 8:30. With the Saturday morning forecast promising steady heavy rain, squeezing in a ride just wasn't going to be in the cards. Friday evening the weather was still pretty nice, though, so I took the opportunity to hop on the 'cross bike for a few miles on the levee. I also wanted to see how the work was going where they closed the bike path about a month ago. The storms that had come through the night before had knocked down the temporary fence they'd put up there, but there was absolutely no sign that any actual work had begun, at least at that end of the 2-mile segment. I've noticed that a fair number of riders have been making the detour around the work area via River Road. I haven't tried that yet, but I could see doing it on a weekend day when traffic is presumably a little lighter.

Saturday morning, as predicted, was a complete wash-out. I might have been able to squeeze in an hour or so on the bike before reporting for commencement duty, but it just didn't seem worth it. So at 3:30 I walked over to the stadium where they had a big spread of food laid out for the volunteers, not that I was particularly hungry at 3:30 pm on a day when I'd been mostly sitting around. I headed down to Gate B for 4:15, and was quickly re-assigned to Gate C, which turned out to be nice because there was a nice breeze blowing through the Reily Center breezeway there. I spent about two and a half hours there with a few other volunteers, handing out programs and telling people where the bathrooms were, or where to sit without being in the sun. We eventually ran out of programs shortly before the ceremonies began, at which point I went back to the volunteer room and had something to eat and drink before going back out to the Gate B guest services table. When the ceremonies were about to wrap up I went over to Gate A where all of the ADA people would be exiting through the Athletics building to help direct people. That got to be a bit of a chore because everyone was trying to leave at exactly the same time, so people were sneaking through the ADA exit. I finally walked back home around 8:45, happy that it was over and that there hadn't been any protests or demonstrations, unless you count the airplane that flew overhead for a while towing an Israeli flag.

Sunday morning warmup

So with relatively fresh legs I headed out Sunday morning with the idea of doing what I'd done before - starting out with the Giro group, but looping around on Lakeshore Drive to meet the training race group coming up from NOMA. The first lap of the race got quite fast, and most of the group was chasing a small break until the gap finally closed as we went around the traffic circle at Bayou St. John. Then, coming out of the traffic circle things bunched  up and somebody zigged when somebody else zagged that three riders went down near the middle of the group. Fortunately, I was a few riders behind that and was easily able to skirt the pile-up on the right before turning back to make sure everyone was OK. No broken bones or bikes this time, as far as I know. The front few riders had continued on, so the rest of the group rode relatively easy before turning around out past Franklin to regroup. The rest of the race was a little slower. I guess the crash kind of took the psychological wind out of the psychological sails. Afterward, as I was just following wheels expecting the group to ride out along the lake trail to Kenner, I was surprised that they looped around on Canal Blvd. and did another fairly conversational lap of Lakeshore Drive. Just as well - I still got in the usual 60 miles for the day, including a bit of badly needed intensity.

Mellow Monday - Regrouping on Canal

Mellow Monday had a big group which, as it often does, resulted in a somewhat less mellow pace. This morning, Tuesday, everyone headed home after the lap of Lakeshore Drive except Matt and me. I had a 9 am meeting, so I turned back a little early, at the last outfall canal before the Casino. Fortunately I soon met up with Howard and a few others for the ride back into the wind to Bucktown before commuting back home.

Meanwhile, we finally heard back from the Stoney Point church about using the property to stage the Tour de La road race on June 29, and the news was bad. Somehow that date wasn't available either. So now we are waiting to see if we get a response from the other little church on the route, the one on Sunlight road. It's not the best place for a finish, and we'd have to come up with a new TT route, but at least we wouldn't have to re-do maps, distances, start times, etc. If that doesn't work out in the next day or two, I may opt to switch everything to the Tulane course, assuming we can get the OK from yet another church, this time the Oak Grove baptist church on Lee Road. So many complications this year.