Back to the Summer Pattern

Tuesday morning. Getting darker. Sunrise season for the morning rides.

There were a few mornings lately with pre-dawn temperature and humidity that hinted at a change. They were just teases, of course, and by later in the week we were firmly entrenched in the usual summer pattern of warm mornings and scattered thunderstorms, or worse. After a month or so of unusually little rain and quiet weather out in the Atlantic, it's like someone just pushed the big red Tropical Storm button, and BAM, we're looking at two or three potential systems heading toward the Gulf. So, situation normal, AFU.

Meanwhile, this week it was back to the routine group rides for me. On Saturday we had a really big and strong group on hand for the Giro. There was a pretty good northeast wind blowing, which kind of helped keep things under control along Hayne, but of course as soon as we turned south on Paris Road the speed shot up, gaps opened, and a group got off the front despite my way-too-late 34 mph effort to bridge up to it. Fortunately, there were enough people on hand to allow for multiple groups, so once the chase fizzled we still had a nice paceline going. Of course, with the partial tailwind on the way back, the speeds got pretty fast, as expected. The Chef segment was mostly in the 29-32 mph range, and when we hit Hayne the front of the group could apparently smell the barn and the average speed along that stretch was well above 30 mph, topping out, for me, a bit over 37 on the way down the overpass. We came up to the Seabrook bridge at a solid 30 mph, at which point I slammed into a hole into the concrete that I never even saw, pinch-flatting my rear tire. I limped across the bridge on the flat so I could fix it where it wasn't so dangerous. Fortunately a couple of people stayed with me, because my CO2 inflator was mysteriously broken and unusable. 

Sunday Giro

Sunday, the weather was threatening rain, so of course the group a bit smaller and hence the speed a couple of mph slower. It was a good thing, because legs were still feeling Saturday. By the following day's Mellow Monday ride, my legs were still not feeling very recovered, but fortunately we had a good-sized group and a reasonable pace. Jess, one of the Tulane students, was on hand and happy to have been able to stay with the group the whole way. She has really upped her riding over the past month or so, and it shows.

On Tuesday we had a nice group to start with, but by the time we hit the Lake Trail we'd lost everyone except William J and me. There was a significant north (yes, north!) wind blowing in from the lake, and Will had a sore back from something he had done with his daughter, so we ended up turning back a little bit early. It was still a pretty good workout, as it always is when it's just one or two. Wednesday's WeMoRi seemed pretty fast, at least to me, with a 25 mph average and 32 mph half-hearted sprint. I swear, though, I was still feeling the prior Saturday in my legs!

Thursday's 6 am ride was a little different, although I didn't know why until much later. We had a relatively small group at the start, and so the lap along Lakeshore Drive was at a moderate, but steady, pace. It was just a touch under 80 degrees to start, for a change, but there was still a bit of east wind. As we turned into the parking lot that provides a shortcut to Hammond Highway via Lake Marina, I was on the front and going a little faster than usual. Then, when I went to hop over the sharp edge where it goes up the levee to run along the floodwall heading toward Hammond Highway, I mis-calculated and slammed my rear wheel onto the edge. Well, it took a little while, but by the time I got to the access road that goes up the levee at the start of the Lake Trail, the rear tire was flat ... again. I'd pinched it ... again. Fortunately I had re-stocked the saddle bag and put in a functional inflator, so all was good five mintues later. Just after we started back up, the two Wills came up to us from behind, so we jumped onto that train like it was the last one to Clarksville. Will was on the front, and apparently locked into some number from his wattmeter, so we just got towed all the way out and back at a steady effort level that equated to 25 mph out and 20 mph back. Then we followed him back uptown at a faster speed than usual. With all of the school and rush hour traffic already picking up, it felt like being in a Alleycat. I was probably home five minutes earlier than usual, although perhaps mildly traumatized. It was, however, a somewhat better workout than my usual Thursday.

I later learned that a number of riders, including Chris, Lisa, Will W, Will J, Brett, etc. had met up earlier with the goal of crushing the Friendly Friday Strava KOM. With that kind of horsepower on hand, and a common goal, they moved the mark by over 2 mph to a bit over 26 mph average speed. So that explained the low turnout, and why the two Wills were together when they came up on us after fixing my flat. I was kind of glad I hadn't known about it ahead of time, because that would have been a hard workout even at the back.

Friendly Friday

This morning's Friendly Friday ride had a good turnout and was pretty typical, which is to say that it got a little fast on Lakeshore Drive, but then didn't really slow down a whole lot for the out-and-back on Canal which is typically a little regrouping and recovery section. Still, it wasn't super fast or anything, so nice and Friendly.

There are some developments in the Tropics lately that could turn into a problem, or two, in about a week, but in the meantime the local weather gods have apparently been making up for the lack of rain for most of August. The long Labor Day weekend is here, so that may mean three Giro Rides for me. We have the Org Fair on Sunday, so I won't be able to do anything too long or far away that day, but perhaps Monday if the weather cooperates.

A Week Away

Rainier

It never fails. Plan a little vacation, and for sure things are going to start falling apart around you. In this case, it started with the air-conditioner. Our flight out to Olympia was scheduled for Thursday morning. On Sunday (it's always on a weekend, isn't it) the air-conditioner stopped working. Naturally, it was also the warmest weather we've had all summer. On Monday we amazingly got someone to come look at it right away, and by early afternoon it was back in action. Or so we thought. 24 hours later it shut down again. So now it's Tuesday evening and the quick fix this time (it was 15 years old) involved a blower assembly that, as we discovered on Wednesday afternoon, was not available for an estimated four weeks. 

By then the temperature in the house was around 90 degrees, so we had dragged the big 20 year-old emergency window unit up from the basement and stuck it into the living room window. Doesn't everyone in New Orleans have an emergency window unit? Of course they do. So the best option at that point was to just replace the whole thing, which could be done on Friday. We had someone coming over to dog-sit while we were out, so I paid (a lot) for the a/c in advance since we wouldn't be there ourselves. I packed the old Orbea into my trusty Airport Ninja bag, and we headed to the airport around 4:30 am on Thursday. Way down at the very end of the long line of airline counters is the tiny little Alaska Airlines counter where a very nice and relaxed agent helped us get checked in. By then I was actually looking forward to the long 4 hour and 40 minute flight to Olympia during which I read a book about AI.

Olympia was quite a bit colder than I had expected for August. We went from New Orleans heat advisories and city-sponsored "cooling centers" to mornings in the low 50s and highs in the 60s. Fortunately, I was on vacation at The Daughter's house, and could lounge around watching the Vuelta and drinking coffee until it warmed up into the low 60s. I admit, I was still a little chilly anyway, even with a short-sleeve base layer, but considering the fact that it was August, I refused to pull on the arm-warmers.

Olympia has some nice Rails to Trails bike routes, and since I was always riding alone in somewhat unfamiliar territory, I did a lot of riding on them. I did do one ride out to Summit Lake that was mostly on public roads, though. That turned out to be a pretty good training ride with a decent amount of climbing, most of which was short but steep little segments. The only way to get there involved a few miles on the shoulder of a major highway, which was a little stressful I guess, but the shoulder was quite wide and I never felt particularly uncomfortable. The loop around the lake itself was a real roller coaster. I think I just kept it in the small ring the whole time. The climbs were really short, but also really steep.

I was almost back when I got a text to meet the family for lunch, which worked out pretty well. I had been following my own route on my Garmin, but of course had to use my phone to navigate to the restaurant, which is difficult. I had to stop a couple of times to figure out exactly where I was. At any rate, I made it there without too much of a problem, so that was good.

We had planned on doing some longish hikes while we were there, but the weather was a little sketchy so we only did one. Of course it started raining while we were there, so it ended being a pretty short one. Sometimes it's like that. 

On Wednesday, the day before we had to fly back to New Orleans, I had been hoping to meet up with a local Tuesday evening group ride. It rained most of Wednesday, and I ended up not going out at all, which of course I later regretted because it had eventually stopped raining. Oh well, best laid plans and all.

Thursday morning was the longish drive up to Seattle. The Seattle airport is always packed, and this was no exception, but compared to some previous visits we got through TSA and everything relatively quickly. The flight home was uneventful, although I was disappointed that it was cloudy and/or hazy the whole way. I always prefer a window seat, but there wasn't much to see as we made our way back to MSY. 

On the plus side, the house was nice and cool when we got back. All-in-all it was a very nice, but very expensive, week.

Hot Start to August

Last week I wrote up a blog post and then somehow it was mysteriously deleted. Perhaps by me. I probably got interrupted at some point and hit the wrong key. Who knows? That Wednesday had been particularly eventful, and not in a good way. I had arrived home around 5:30 to find multiple police cars in front of the house, and soon learned that our neighbor who lived in one of the apartments across the street had died, apparently a few days prior, and was discovered after someone had called in for a wellness check. So we're sitting on the porch watching all of that and ten minutes later I  hear the sound of a car crash out on S. Claiborne. A moment later a car goes driving past Pine Street with front-end damage, dragging various parts of the car along with it. I ran around the corner and saw a car up against the bit oak tree at S. Claiborne and Lowerline, and start walking down there to see if they need help. There were already a few people there, and someone was sitting on the ground outside the driver's side of the car. As I got closer, I realized it was another neighbor, and she was injured. Her 18-year-old dog was also with her, and fortunately someone there offered to take the dog to the dog hospital (turned out to be OK). I ran back around to my house and alerted the police that there was an accident with injury, and tried to contact my neighbor's husband, who was apparently already on his way over there from the opposite direction. The police arrived right away, as did an ambulance. Down the street, about four blocks away, I could see another police car stopped in the left lane with its lights on. It was apparently behind the car that had hit my neighbor. Anyway, just in general not a good Wednesday evening on the block when five police cars, an Ambulance, a Fire Truck, the Crime Unit, and the Coroner are all involved. The neighbor had some significant broken bones and spend a few days at the hospital.

So I'll just leave that there and move on to last week, during which a relative of the next-door neighbor died suddenly and, then on Sunday, the A/C at my house stopped working. Riding-wise, the week was a pretty typical one, and the weekend was just a little bit atypical. All week we were in this heat dome of some sort, with clear skies and blazing August sun. Most mornings, the outdoor temperature at my house was reading around 82°F before dawn. 

Friendly Friday

On Wednesday I went out to meet the WeMoRi as usual, jumping onto the back of the group somewhere along Marconi. This is always a little difficult because I'm going from 18 mph to 27 mph, and it always takes a couple of miles to adjust. In the meantime I'm deeply in what we used to call "oxygen debt." The problem is always made worse by the relatively sharp turn from Toussaint onto Wisner. If you are anywhere near the back of the group, there's a major accordion effect there that typically requires a full-gas effort to close up the gaps. That morning there was one rider a couple of wheels ahead of me who let the gap open too much and tried to close it too late. A couple of riders went flying past me and made the bridge, but by the time I went around, still gasping for air, my brief 27 mph effort was clearly not going to suffice. It looked like we were all good and well dropped at that point until William J came past on the left and put in a long Hero Pull at 30 mph that dragged a few of us across the gap and back into the draft. It was a workout.

It was some time on Friday afternoon when MJ messaged me with a dire warning. "Peyton is riding Giro tomorrow" was all it said, and all it needed to say. Saturday morning there was a good group on hand as we rolled out for the Giro Ride. With Will and Peyton and a few others fast riders on hand, I knew it was going to be a hard ride. There was a northeast wind blowing, so I figured that, with so many riders in the group, it wouldn't be too hard to sit in the group. Everything was going along nicely down Hayne Blvd., but when we turned south onto Paris Road the front of the group hit the gas, and exactly what had happened on Wednesday happened again. One rider let a gap open, a couple of rider barely bridged across, and despite our 29 mph speed from Hayne to Chef, we were left to fend for ourselves. Once on Chef there was a very brief lull in the group up the road, but everyone in our group was apparently too gassed to take advantage of it. 

Saturday Giro

Meanwhile, I think Will and Peyton had gone off the front, so right away that group was in chase mode, which effectively killed any slim chance we might have had to regroup. So the rest of us got together in a nice paceline out to Venetian Isles as the front group receded into the distance. I figured we'd all get back together for the ride back. I was wrong. As we approached the turn-around spot, Will and Peyton were already on the way back - I guess they didn't stop to regroup. Everyone else was kind of scattered all over the place, so it took a while for the group to get back together. On the one hand, it made the ride back a little better, but I'd have preferred to have had the big motors on the front. Anyway, it was still a pretty fast ride back. Rumor  has it that the Seabrook bridge could reopen to single-lane traffic around the end of the month, so that will be nice if it actually happens.

So with the Saturday Giro in the books, I decided to make the drive over to Bay St. Louis (more or less) for a 65-mile ride with Steve and Charles and Apryl and a few others. It was a 7 am start, so I was on the road around 5:45. When I arrived at the parking lot on Vidalia Road I was quite surprised how cool it was. I was not surprised that my legs were clearly not recovered from the prior day's thrashing. Fortunately, this ride was going to be just paceline stuff, so although the little climbs were probably going to hurt a little, I knew I'd be fine. The first couple of hours felt amazingly cool, but by the time we were fifty miles in the weather was starting to remind us that it was, indeed, August. Even so, compared to the prior week's rides, this one was a welcome relief, and it was still cool enough that we sat around under the big oak tree in the parking lot for a while afterward. Back at home I unloaded the car and then when I walked into the house I thought it felt a little warm. I figured the wife must have been sitting on the porch with the front door open, but a little later I realized that the air-conditioner compressor wasn't running. These things always seem to happen on weekends, don't they? So I called my long-time A/C folks at Taylor and Tyler, who have apparently now merged with Surgi's and Bryan's, and to my great amazement they had someone at the house 45 minutes later. Naturally, I was dreading what the guy was going to find. As it turned out, the condenser unit's coils were completely clogged with dirt (thanks again to the Road Work people leaving us on a dirt road for a year), which had caused the unit to overheat. Fortunately the system detected that and shut itself down before any more damage was done. The coils got cleaned, a leaky valve got replaced, the unit was reset, and by mid-afternoon we were back in business, although my wallet was $400 lighter. Even so, it was a far, far better outcome than having to replace the compressor unit which would have cost thousands of dollars.

With our trip to Olympia coming up later this week, I took the old Orbea apart and stuffed it into my Airport Ninja bag, so at least that is ready to go. I think that bike is close to 20 years old now. I'd bought it from Gina about a year after Katrina. It's still functional, and this will be the second time I've flown with it. Compared to the Bianchi, I wouldn't be quite so devastated if the airline destroyed it, since it is my main backup bike.

Nationals Weak

Pretty happy and surprised to have made the podium in the criterium this year

Last week was Masters (and Juniors) Road Nationals week up in Augusta. A couple of weeks earlier I had gone ahead and registered for the road race and criterium, despite the nagging feeling that I was not really in race shape. Not that being in sub-optimal shape has ever stopped me before, of course. I admit that there was still some hesitation, but it was more because of the cost and the fact that I would probably be making the trip solo, again, like last year. The entry fee for the two races was $240 and three hotel nights came to $500, plus a couple of tanks of gas, so basically we're talking about something like $20 per race mile. The forecast a few days prior was calling for rain on Friday, the day of my road race, and possibly also on Sunday, the day of the criterium. On the other hand, when you are in the 70-74 age group and nationals is within driving distance, why the hell not? I mean, it might be your last chance, right?

Earlier in the week I had been intentionally limiting my efforts on the usual group rides, having taken the fact that I overslept on Tuesday and missed half of the ride to be a divine message of some sort. Thursday was going to be a nine-hour drive, so I was confident that my legs would at least be reasonably fresh. I left home on Thursday around 6 am or so, and had a nice uneventful drive up to Augusta.

With my road race scheduled for around 10 am, I had lots of time in the morning and arrived at Fort Eisenhower (previously Fort Gordon) a couple of hours early. I quickly found Tom and George and the rest of the Texas Geriatrix team, and also old-time racing friend Lonnie Kennedy. I'd been feeling some nagging chest congestion for a few days, which only served to amplify the dearth of confidence I already had, so I was really hoping that the race would go more or less like it had the prior year, which could best be described as "slow and defensive." Basically half of the riders were afraid of the 1 km climb at the end of each lap, and the other half were planning to attack on the 1 km climb at the end of each lap. This year I was firmly in the prior camp. The course is fairly hilly, with almost no flat sections, which can make it really hard if riders are aggressive on the climbs. Luckily for me, that wasn't the case. Kent Bostick and Tom Bain were both monitoring the front, and I think were sufficiently confident about their ability to handle the finish climb that they weren't too worried about how much of the packfill like me they brought along for the ride. George Heagerty took a long solo flyer at one point, but I don't think he got more than about 45 seconds before being gradually reeled back in. I was feeling my lungs every time there was a surge, and so unlike last year I was just hanging out near the back, knowing full well I wasn't going to be contesting the finish climb. Luckily for me there was no attack there on the first lap like there was last year. I moved up a little bit as we got to the final couple of kilometers, and was in a pretty good position for the finish if I'd been feeling good, which I wasn't. I mentally pulled the plug about halfway up the climb, which tops out about 400 meters from the finish, then accelerated again once it flattened out, but of course by then a lot of riders had gone past me. I ended up 13th, which was about what I'd expected under the circumstances. Kent got out-sprinted on the line, and Tom was 3rd.

With the Criterium scheduled for Sunday, I had all of Saturday to contemplate my condition while watching the first weekend of the Olympics on TV. I went out early in the morning for an easy 27 mile spin, and then a nice dinner at the local Olive Garden where I'd also eaten the day before. By the end of the day I was feeling marginally better, but would definitely be going into the criterium with no expectations.

Tom, Lonnie, and little ol' me

I got to the course a couple of hours early on Sunday for my race, which didn't start until around 10 am, mainly so I could get a good parking spot. That gave me a chance to chat with some of the USAC folks I know, like Bonnie and Venesia, before squeezing into my kit and getting the bike set up for a little warmup. The criterium had originally been set up to include the 65-69 age group, so would have been basically a 65+ race with potentially 75 riders, but people had complained and they had decided at the last minute to give the 65-69 riders a separate race. That brought our field size down considerably. I think we had around 30 on the start line. I was glad to see that everything was dry and rain was unlikely, at least for the morning races. 

Still feeling rather unconfident, I spent a lot of this race farther back in the field than I had the prior year. That probably saved a little energy, but also made for much more sketchy riding. Unsurprisingly, there was no successful break, so most of the field came into the final seven laps together. We were probably somewhere around 5 to go, coming into turn 2, when a rider came flying past me on the right around mid-pack and I thought to myself, "Where does he think he's going?" Well, I guess where he was going was into the barricades or something because as I went through the turn I heard someone yell something, followed by the sound of a significant crash. I guess at least a couple of riders went down, but with it being so close to the finish I didn't look back since I was more concerned about trying to maintain a position somewhere in the front half of the field, mainly for reasons of safety. 

Results

As usual, halfway through the last lap riders started to fight for position, and unlike last year I wasn't really inclined to fight back too much. I guess I went around the last turn about 10th wheel. I did launch a respectable sprint and passed a few riders before the finish, so I think I was probably 7th or 8th across the line, with no idea how many ahead of me might have been in other age categories. Last year I was 5th, when turned out to be 4th in my age group. This year I figured I was definitely off the podium, and after a couple of cool-down laps headed off to the car to get ready for the drive home. At that point I could hear the announcer starting the awards for the first three or four races, so I checked the online results (never saw paper results posted) and was kind of shocked to find that I was 5th. I turned around and went back to where they were doing the awards, and a few minutes later stepped onto the lowest step where Bonnie put a medal around my neck and we raised arms for a quick photo. I actually felt pretty good about 5th this year, considering. Tom ended up 2nd and Kent 1st, again.

The drive back was uneventful except for the usual alternating Indy 500 and gridlock around Atlanta where I image body shop techs are the highest paid in the nation. I still had a bunch of granola bars and drinks in the car, so I stopped just once for gas, which got me back home just a little bit after sundown. Eddie Corcoran was the only other NOLA rider who raced, and unfortunately he had gotten some kind of food poisoning or a stomach virus the night before his road race. Somehow he gutted out (pun intended) his road race, which was quite a bit longer and faster than mine had been, finishing 38th in a field of about 60 in his 60-64 category. His criterium on Sunday had been pushed back to accommodate adding that 65-69 race, and some other change, so he ended up skipping it. I think the re-scheduled time was late in the afternoon, so he wouldn't have gotten home until after midnight, and might have ended up racing on wet streets, so it wasn't an unreasonable decision under the circumstances.

It was back to the routine, and the heat advisories, on Monday, and then on Tuesday the lakefront bike path was wet and full of puddles and cut grass which made quite a mess of the bike. Yesterday I went out to the WeMoRi, jumping onto the group along Marconi as usual. That put me near the back as we made the right turn onto Wisner. Some of these riders seem to have a deep-seated fear of that corner, and when gaps started opening ahead of me I yelled "Pedal!" but it was to no avail. There was a half-hearted chase, but the gaps wasn't closed and I ended up with Charles all the way around City Park as the front of the group vanished up the road. Back on Lakeshore Drive we turned around when we saw the group coming, so at least we were there for the last couple of miles. 

Thank goodness for airbags! That curve used to have a cautionary 25 mph speed advisory sign,
but it hasn't been there since at least Hurricane Ida.

When I got home from work late Wednesday following a little end-of-academic-year party at Superior Grill, there were multiple police cars in front of the house. As it turned out, one of our long-time neighbors who lived in the apartment across the street had been found dead. The crime lab was there for a while, but we never found out anything more. As we were sitting on the porch watching all of that unfold, I heard the unmistakable sound of a car crash around the corner on S. Claiborne. A moment later I saw a car driving down Claiborne with heavy front-end damage, dragging various car parts along the way. I rushed down the stairs and around the corner where I could see a car up against the big oak tree at Lowerline and Claiborne. 

There were already some people there, but as I got closer I realized that the person lying on the ground next to the car was one of our neighbors! She was definitely injured but fully conscious and concerned about her dog, Wally, who was also in the car and is something like 18 years old. One of her friends took the dog straight to MedVet, where they pronounced him OK. I ran back to the house to find the neighbor's husband and to alert one of the police officers who were conveniently still there, so a unit was on the scene right away. The car was clearly not fixable. I'd guess the car that hit it was going at least 50 mph around the curve. Four or five blocks down the street I could see another police car behind a car stopped in the left lane, so I assume the car that hit her hadn't gotten too far in the attempt to flee the scene. The neighbor was finally loaded into an ambulance for a trip to the hospital that ultimately confirmed a bilateral pelvic fracture, some broken ribs, lung contusion, etc. Later that evening we met someone from MedVet who dropped off the dog who we left in the neighbor's kitchen. Ken came back from the hospital I think around 11 pm to take care of the dog and get a little sleep before returning to the hospital in the morning.