Hot town, summer in the city

A Thursday morning with waterspouts over the lake

It's mid-summer now, and it shows. The pre-dawn rides start at 82°F with the relative humidity in the 90s. Then it gets hot. Surprisingly, though, turnout for the regular rides has been high, especially the Friendly Friday and Saturday Giro rides. Go figure.

There's a lot to catch up on this week, so I'll turn the clock back all the way to the week after the Tour de La., starting with the July 3rd WeMoRi. I was feeling pretty decent for that one. It was one of those where most everybody was still there for the finish. As usual, we came screaming down the Bayou St. John bridge at 30+ mph as people started to set up for the Marconi sprint about a kilometer away. This time of year there are some big groups of high school cross-country runners that meet up along Lakeshore Drive in the mornings. It's not really a problem for us, but this time I guess one of them inadvertently left us a surprise. 

July 3 Skid

I was still toward the back of the paceline when I heard what I thought was someone hitting a coke can. What it actually was, however, was one of those Yeti insulated cups. Charles nailed it and immediately hit the ground a couple of bikes ahead of me. He went more or less to the left as his bike spun off to the right. I hit the brakes hard and barely made it through between the sliding bike and a parked car on the right, clipping some part of his bike with my rear wheel in the process. Fortunately, Charles and his bike were more or less OK. Later that evening I was cleaning my bike and realized I'd taken off a big chunk of my rear tire when I locked up the rear wheel. Good thing I checked. Also, good thing I happened to have a new tire on hand.

That Thursday was July 4th, so of course there was a Holiday Giro that morning. I rolled out the door around 6 am into the relatively mild but predictably humid 80° air with an official "feels like" temperature of 87°, hoping for a reasonably controlled ride. With the "interim" Giro route upon which we seem to have finally arrived at a consensus, my usual 59-60 mile Giro rides are not more like 68-70 miles, with that extra half hour tacked onto the hottest part, of course. The ride out to Venetian Isles was still pretty fast, with an average speed a bit over 25 mph, but by the time we were halfway back every one was pretty wilted and hot.

Big Friendly Friday Group

The next day, the Friendly Friday ride had a pretty big group, relatively speaking, so of course it wasn't quite as easy as it sometimes is. Still, having a bigger group always make the ride better and usually also makes it seem a little easier since all those bodies make for a much sweeter draft zone near the back.

Big Saturday Giro

The on Saturday we had possibly the largest group we've had since the bridge closure. That guaranteed a fast pace, at least on the way out before it became oppressively warm, but the big long paceline also made it feel a little easier. It really reminded me how much better the ride is when you have 20-30 people on hand. The last part of the ride, of course, was super hot, which kept both the pace and hydration levels well below normal. I was thoroughly dehydrated by the time I got home, and subsequently took the hint to order up a fresh bag of Skratch, since I was just about out of the one I had. 

Steve and Charles had planned a ride out of Pass Christian for Sunday, so I made my way over there. We had a nice group of six, and the pace was pretty controlled, so other than, again, the heat, it was a nice 52 miler with a little bit of terrain. It wasn't until I got back home and looked at Strava that I realized Apryl had ridden from a friend's house to the ride, and then ridden back afterward, logging over 100 miles. She's apparently planning on doing the 200-mile LoJoTa ride in early September. Considering how drained I was by the end of my own 52 miles, I was impressed. That ride brought my weekly mileage up to 316, which was probably more than generally considered advisable considering the fact that practically every single morning my Garmin greets me with a Heat Advisory.

Last week wasn't much different, really. We have under this heat dome lately, so winds have been fairly mild and temperatures have been fairly high. Considering the prior week, I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised to find nobody at NOMA for the 6 am Tuesday ride. Just as well, really, since I could clearly use a bit of recovery anyway. I did run into Keith Noonan who turned around and rode with me for a while. As I usually do when I'm solo for this ride, I turned around a little early so I'd get back  home at the usual time. Wednesday's WeMoRi was pretty fast, at least it felt that way to me. In reality, it was probably a pretty normal one. 

Thursday Morning Sunrise

On Thursday we had more of a group at NOMA, which made for a better ride. On the way back from t he casino we could see a line of rain clouds out over the lake that had spawned a number of waterspouts. Then again on Friday we had a surprisingly big group, which again meant an unsurprisingly fast pace. Mid-way through the ride we lost Charles, who I figured had a flat or something. He had come over to the house a couple of days prior to replace handlebar tape, and when I rolled the bike into the basement I could tell that the headset was very badly pitted. It was hard to imagine how he was even riding the bike like that. He had a replacement headset at home, and subsequently brought it over to the LBS in the Quarter, since replacing it would involve disconnecting and bleeding the hydraulic brake lines that run through the handlebars and head tube. He had gotten it back in time for the Friday ride, but soon realized something wasn't right. He wrote that it felt like you'd "just done a bong hit every time you take a tight turn or stand on the pedals."  Back at NOMA I looked at it and you could see the fork moving below the head tube, even though the preload adjustment seemed tight. My diagnosis was simply that something wasn't installed right and it would have to be taken apart to find the actual problem, which turned out to be an upside-down headset bearing. Anyway, it was a really good Friday ride.

What everyone looked
like after Saturday's Giro

The Saturday Giro was, again, a big one with at least 30 riders on hand for another exercise in group dehydration. There was some horsepower at the front, so it got quite fast and stayed that way all the way out to Venetian Isles. Fortunately the winds were light, which, combined with the large group, made it manageable despite some long stretches that stayed in the 27-31 mph range. Not surprisingly, the ride back was a bit slower as the temperature got up into the low 90s and everyone started running out of water. One new feature on the Giro route lately has been a regular encounter with two or three small dogs that have been running out into the group near the end of Hayne Blvd. The group really scattered on Saturday when they ambushed us, but somehow nobody crashed and the dogs didn't get hit. Later in the ride, somewhere on the I-510 segment, Matt and Jaden got into some kind of argument about somebody's riding, I think. Anyway, the pace remained fairly fast, and I got home on Saturday completely drained, just like my water bottles. I wasn't the only one. Later that day I went over to Tulane HQ and picked up the 56 cm Specialized so I could take it home and check it out. Gavin was flying into town on Sunday morning for a conference, and would be borrowing it for the week. I stopped by GNO Cyclery on the way home and picked up a couple of rolls of handlebar tape because what was on there was kind of shredded on both sides from what had to have been a crash. Otherwise, though, the bike was functional. I cleaned it up, cleaned and lubed the filthy chain, cleaned the cassette and chainrings and jockey wheels, adjusted the derailleur, lowered the handlebar, and of course changed the tape. The bike is one of three Specialized bikes that were donated to the club a few years back. It's a basic aluminum Specialized Allez with the low-end Tiagra components, so it's a little on the heavy side, but otherwise pretty nice.

Mellow Monday

Sunday's Giro was a little smaller and although the pace was a bit slower, it felt harder to me. I think that all those long hot rides had finally caught up with me. By the time we turned back onto Hayne Blvd. I was already rationing the water and Skratch that I had left, and all I could think about was the cold Coke in the refrigerator at home. I had originally been considering doing a long ride on the northshore, but was glad I'd decided to instead just do the Giro. Gavin's flight was scheduled to arrive at 10:15 am, and I got home at 10:00 even after taking a shortcut, but fortunately the flight was delayed about fifteen minutes, so the timing actually worked out great. I picked him up and we go the bike adjusted, then went to lunch, and hung around the house long enough to watch the day's Tour de France stage before dropping him and the bike off at the Marriott. This morning's Mellow Monday ride  had a pretty good turnout, and although it got a little fast here and there, it wasn't a particularly hard one, which was good because I was definitely feeling like I was in need of a little recovery.

Meanwhile, back at home, I am dreading the next electric bill, still hoping that one day the city will show up and clean out the clogged catch basin next to the house, and thinking about the inevitability of needing to have a lot of expensive exterior work done to replace rotting wood, install new gutters, and paint. For now, the hurricane situation has been quiet, but it's expected to ramp up again fairly soon, things usually get pretty spicy in August and September, into the early part of October. Keeping fingers crossed. Charley has been moving up in the local Dog rankings, and is currently in 2nd position as measured by number of steps. He shows up also on Candy's Strava page whenever she takes him for a walk and actually remembers to bring her phone and have the app running. Their typical daily walks are in the 5-7 mile range, so that's a lot of dog steps.