Southern Magnolia

Mellow Monday a week ago

The past week or so has been quite a mixed weather bag. August should have ended with a Saturday Giro Ride but was instead a slow mid-afternoon levee ride during a lull in the rain. The following day we lucked out and got in the full Giro.

The next day, Monday, the weather was pretty nice, and so we had a good Labor Day Giro. Knowing that the forecast for the rest of the week was calling for nothing but rain, I went ahead and extended my ride out to the end of the lake trail, and then back down to the river levee, which left me with around 91 miles for the day. The holiday Giro was fairly fast, but for the rest of it, I wasn't pushing myself, so it was longer than it was hard. My legs were still feeling Monday when I headed out to the NOMA for the 6 am Tuesday ride. It wasn't raining (yet), so that was good. We had a nice tailwind on the westbound stretch, which of course made the return trip harder than I would have liked, but, again, I was expecting the weather to mess up at least a couple of days that week. Somehow we did get through the WeMoRi, which seemed to have been pretty well splintered by the 10 mph east wind that was still hanging around, but a number of riders who had been shelled at one point or another managed to find their way back into the group for the last few miles.

My weather luck ran out on Thursday, and so I never did get a chance to ride at all, which was probably a good thing considering the prior three days. Sometimes when the weather gods decree a rest day, you should listen. The rain pretty much never stopped from then through Saturday. I did sneak out on Friday afternoon for a short ride on the levee. Although the rain never really stopped, it had been pretty light all day, so I dusted off the old rain bike with its full fenders and tire liners and thick touring tires, pulled on my rain jacket, and logged a few rather soggy miles. The temperature was warm enough that the wet feet and legs weren't a problem at all. Saturday morning was more of the same, though, and I just could not force myself to go out in it again. Fortunately I had already set up the track bike on the old wind trainer down in the basement, so I did eventually spend an hour and a half or so riding into a box fan and dripping sweat on the floor, despite never having elevated my heart rate much above baseline. Better than nothing, I guess. Besides, I was planning on riding the Southern Magnolia "century" ride near Biloxi on Sunday, and for that the forecast was looking much better.

The Southern Magnolia ride started at 7:00 am, and for some reason I woke up a bit before 4:00 am and was therefore in the car and on the road around 4:15, which would get me there rather early. As soon as I started the car I got a warning that one of the headlights was out, so I spent a lot of time with the high beams and fog lights on, which probably wasn't much of a problem for oncoming cars since the plastic headlight housing are so cloudy anyway. As it turned out, when I went to replace the bulb I discovered that the problem was actually the plastic connector, which was cracked and broken. It's working now, but I'm sure if it jiggles the right way it will lose its connection again. Just another car problem for the week. First there was the bad tire, then there was the accident, then it was time to schedule the 120k mile routine maintenance, and then the broken headlight connector, and now a hurricane gets thrown into the mix. 

Anyway, I had been expecting the 98 mile ride to be pretty fast, so I made sure I was near the front at the start. The weather was practically perfect, with a morning temperature below 70°, which felt chilly to those of us who haven't ridden in anything under 80° in months. I was a little worried about the north wind, but it never seemed to be much of an issue. That's typical for rides on quiet country roads that are lined by trees. Of course, the pace picked up right away with the first 20 miles being completed at an average speed of 25 mph, which was pretty much what I'd expected. Up at the front were a lot of the local Giro Ride people, along with some of the Mississippi riders who I recognized from Steve Martin rides. Mixed in was at least one rider on a TT bike, and a few others who I thought might be riding more on optimism than experience. Even so, thanks in no small part to the relatively flat course and mostly steady pace, there was still a pretty fast group well into the "out" part of the out-and-back course. At one point there was a big surge that I think must have split the group, so we arrived a the turn-around with what I'd guess to be maybe 20 riders. Shortly after the turnaround there was a rest stop. The whole group pulled over there except for a couple of riders and me. I still had tons of water on hand, along with the equivalent of four gels in my little plastic flask, so I just took the opportunity to spin easily for a few miles until the group caught back up to me. There were a couple of other riders ahead of me who had been with the group, but I don't know if either of them stayed with the group when they were caught. I was still feeling pretty good, since I'd been careful not to do very much work. I was expecting the ride back to get pretty fast because we'd have a tailwind. It mostly was. 

I should have taken a few photos, but didn't, so here's one someone else posted. Devin V posted some video on Youtube, though.

We were about 70 miles in when we came to a sharp left-hand turn, at which point Connor and "Powered by Donuts" (Michael Giem from Biloxi, I think) flew through the intersection at the front. The turn kind of spit up the group so the rest of us took a little while to get back together, by which time the duo had a pretty good gap and was showing no signs of slowing down. We did eventually get the rotation going again, and although we were holding them at about a minute for the next ten miles or so, some of our group were starting to feel the miles and we weren't really in chase mode. By then our group was down to 8 or 9 riders, and for the last 20 miles or so people like me were skipping pulls. I was actually feeling pretty good, and in retrospect was being way too conservative. Toward the end I finally realized that I wasn't going to die or anything, and by then our pace had eased up a bit in order to keep everyone together, so I started taking more and longer pulls. By then the lead duo was out of sight and out of mind, and our speed had dropped one or two mph, I guess. I finished up with a moving time of 4:07, which included that stretch where I was just spinning and waiting for the group to come back up to me after they had stopped at the rest stop. That made my time about five minutes longer, I think. The lead duo came in just under 4 hours. I definitely could have gone harder, I think, but anyway it felt like a really good workout. Somehow, I ended the week with 327 miles despite one skipped day, one day on the trainer, and one short day in the rain, thanks in no small part to that long Labor Day ride and the Southern Magnolia ride.

This morning on Lakeshore Drive

This morning we had a good turnout for the Mellow Monday ride, possibly because of the weather forecast for the rest of this week. That made it a little faster than my tired legs would have liked, but it really wasn't too fast for too long, despite the 15 mph wind along the lakefront that had me escheloned into the left lane where there was, fortunately, almost no car traffic.

So here comes Tropical Storm Francine. It was just named a TS today, and is fully expected to develop into a hurricane by Wednesday when it will probably make landfall Wednesday evening somewhere between east Texas and New Orleans. We are well with the uncertainty cone right now. The 10 am Intensity guidance is predicting Cat. 1 or 2 at the moment. I'd plan on a solid Category 2 for this one, with New Orleans on the bad northeast side. Naturally we are supposed to be bringing the car in for repairs Wednesday morning. It's also due for scheduled maintenance, which I've been putting off until the body work is done, so all that's kind of up in the air at the moment. I plan to get a rental car Wednesday morning when I drop off the car, but I guess all of that is a little bit uncertain at the moment. With the Gulf water currently at hot tub temperature, I won't be surprised if this thing develops quickly. When it rains, it pours.