Tour da Parish Week

Thursday heading back in the wind

This is an odd time of year down here. The morning temperatures have been nice and cool for the most part, and the highs just barely touch 80°F, but things can vary dramatically as cold fronts sag down across the area, sometimes quickly, somtimes not. Along with those fronts come north winds, often in the 12-20 mph range, that gust unhindered across Lakeshore Drive. It's not unusual for the local riders to check the early morning weather, not for the temperature, but for the wind velocity. This time of year it's best to look at the actual readings from the Lakefront Airport weather station rather than those from places like weather.com, because the former often gives a much more accurate reading of the situation on Lakeshore Drive. There are some riders who basically refuse to show up if it's over 10 mph, especially if it's cold. To be fair, it hasn't been cold yet, and I still haven't pulled even the arm-warmers or base layers out of the drawer. That may well change toward the end of this week, however, when the forecast is calling for early morning lows in the low to mid-50s. I truly hate having to make those wardrobe decisions this time of year.

On Wednesday the aforementioned wind was 8-10 mph out of the north, and as I struggled toward Lakeshore Drive to meet up with the WeMoRi I wondered how it would go. I met up with what I assumed to be a breakaway along Marconi. There were only three or four riders, and as usual I tucked in behind the last of them as I went from 15 to 25 mph and my heart rate increased by 40 bpm in less than a minute. We made the turn onto Wisner and I ended up behind Rob, who I think was on his track bike because of course you would take a single speed out on a group ride with 10 mph winds. There was a little slowdown at the light at Filmore, and as Rob sprinted to close a little gap, I didn't, thinking I'd just slip into the main group that was just behind, except that there wasn't a main group just behind. The crosswind along LSD had apparently shattered the rest of the small group that had at least shown up earlier, so I was left to my own devices. Back on LSD, I turned around early and latched back onto what was left of the group, which I think was down to maybe three or four, for the last bit. 

So dark!

Thursday morning was still pretty windy but at least it had shifted a bit out of the east, so I had a nice steady fast ride out to Williams Blvd. at 25-27 mph with Jason and Charles, and then a long ride back at more like 16-17 mph. By then I was already thinking about the upcoming Tour da Parish ride on Saturday. Friday's Friendly Friday ride got kind of fast as usual along Lakeshore Drive, but I was being careful not to spend much time in the wind, considering. Afterward I rode down to the river to meet up with the Tulane coffee ride, which was a nice easy recovery pace.

With nobody to shuttle out to da parish on Saturday, I had an easy drive in the dark, arriving at the start of the Tour da Parish ride with almost an hour to spare, which gave the mosquitoes plenty of time to inflict a couple dozen bites despite the bug spray I had brought along. I probably should have tried for more complete coverage because the bugs had no trouble at all biting me right through my lycra kit. The start was a bit delayed for some reason, but the first part went pretty much as usual, which is to say that the front of the group basically attacked out of the gravel bypass at 1.5 miles, leaving me quickly maxxed out in no-mans-land. I should have held back and gone through there a little farther back so I'd have wheels to follow, but as it was I kind of blew up chasing and then was streamed by a bunch of riders before I could recover. It looked like there was a lead group of maybe six, and then a second group that was a little larger. My group came together fairly quickly and hovered just 40 seconds or so ahead all the way out to Delacroix. For a little while I thought we might catch them, but I don't think too many in our group were sufficiently motivated for that. There was little taste of tailwind after that U-turn, and I think the group ahead of us took advantage of it but mine didn't, so they were soon out of sight as our group just cruised along mostly at 23-24 mph. Turning onto the road to Hopedale there was more of a headwind and our speed became even more inconsistent as some riders seemed content to plod along at 18-20 on the front. Right after the U-turn there I unexpectedly found myself with Boyd who had dropped out of the second group at some point. It turned out that somone had dropped something right around the turnaround and the rest of the group had waited, which explained why we were suddently alone. Anyway, by then we had picked up a nice tailwind, so we had a really nice smooth 2-man time trial, mostly at 26-27 mph, which was actually fairly conservative considering the tailwind and the fact that Boyd was on his Pinarello e-bike. It was really fun, though, and although it felt fairly moderate, it was probably the most intensity I got that day.

Soon after turning onto Bayou Road, however, Boyd's rear tire exploded in dramatic fashion. I think we were about 5.5 miles from the end, so I turned back to assist. He was riding tubeless tires, so he pulled out a plug and after a few tries finally got it into what he assumed to be the puncture. Unfortunately, the tire still wouldn't hold air, and we found a four-inch section where the tread had completely separated from the casing. At that point we should have put a tube in it, but Boyd didn't want to mess with all the sealant and everything and decided to just ride in on the flat since we were so close. We should have taken the time to put a tube in it, as it turned out. So we were riding along at maybe 10 mph, which was going as well as it could when riding on a flat, when we came to a section of road that had a little bit of a lateral slope to it. At that point Boyd's tire slipped completely off the rim and he crashed, bumping me a bit as he went down. His battery, which is about the size of a water bottle, had come unlatched from the seat tube, and I had to pull out my tire lever just to get the flat tire back onto the rim, and so at that point Boyd decided to just walk the rest of the way since we were maybe 1.5 miles from the end, so I rode alongside to make sure he was OK (he had hit his head just a little bit, along with his elbow and knee). We couldn't get the battery back in place, and as it turned out later we were trying to do it with the battery upside down. He secured it in his water bottle cage, so it was ok, though. We came to a police officer at an intersection about half a mile from the end who offered to get him a ride back, so I went on at that point. I think the EMS people kind of insisted that he should get checked out at the ER, which he ultimately did. 

Later, as I was enjoying the fried catfish that they always provide I found Dustin manning his Deviate Physio tent and noticed that he was also a little bloody. He had been with the front group all day, and on the fast tailwind stretch, when they were down to like four riders, he'd unexpectedly hit one of the blue fire hydrant road reflectors that they always put in the middle of the lane. I think he had one hand off the bar at the time, so he crashed, but seemed to have survived it OK. Anyway, although I was feeling a little frustrated at not having been able to make it into that second group in the first few miles, I totally enjoyed the ride back from Hopedale with Boyd -- except for the flat tire and crash part of course. I think it took is over 45 minutes to do the last five miles. Boyd ended up going to the ER to get checked out because of the head hit just to be on the safe side (he was fine).

Sunday morning another front came through with lots of rain and thunder, so the Giro was entirely out of the question. Once it passed, however, the sky cleared up quite a bit, so I went out around noon for an easy ride out to the Spillway and back. It was a little windy, of course, but otherwise pretty nice. I took a picture of the upriver end of the "levee raise" project that has closed down two miles of the bike path near Larose since April with an end date of "whenever we finish," which does not appear to be any time soon.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride had a surprisingly decent enough turnout considering the 12 mph north wind. As usual, it eventually got fairly fast along Lakeshore Drive, but everything came back together by the time we were back onto Marconi, except for Jess who didn't slow down when we met  back up with Josiah and Claudia.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Melissa is setting records down in the Caribbean and is probably going to flatten Jamacia. Winds are about up to Category 5 levels. It's expected to take a sharp turn toward the northeast, so not likely to cause problems here, but the islands are going to take a major hit. We have been super lucky this year that nothing has so far made it into the Gulf.

Waiting for the Sun

The mornings have been getting a little cooler -- and darker -- as we suffer through the last weeks of Daylight Time. That combination usually means more people on the group rides, and more surprises on the road. We don't switch back to Standard Time until November 2, which seems way to late for those of us constrained to early morning rides. Next Saturday is the annual Tour da Parish ride that starts at 7:15 am. which, as usual, will be just after sunrise. Also, as usual, we will start heading east with the rising sun in our eyes, unless of course it's cloudy and/or raining, always a possibility this time of year.

The weekday rides were pretty typical, except for the extended darkness and flashing tail lights. I do wish people would figure out how to set their tail lights to a lower setting for these group rides. Yesterday's Mellow Monday ride got pretty sketchy on the way back along Lakeshore Drive. A front had come through in the early morning hours, so in addition to the wind there was a lot of debris on the road, including palmetto fronds, Water Hyacinth blown out of the lake onto the road, and a big upside-down road sign with aluminum L angle reinforcements sticking up that we barely avoided. I uncharacteristically spent a fair amount of time out of the draft over on the left along there just to be on the safe side (literally). These would not be my only close calls that week.

After a windy and fairly sparsely attended WeMoRi I somehow didn't quite set my morning alarm right and woke up Thursday morning knowing I'd miss the start of the 6 am ride. I rushed out the door into the dark, flew down Carrollton Avenue because it's shorter (but riskier), and went straight to Lakeshore Drive where I eventually found the group. Then, after most turned off for home and I continued out to the lake trail, I found one of the regular groups there. They had decided to change their route a bit that morning, so luckily I had a nice group for the ride out to the Casino. That ride featured some patches of fog that had my glasses going in and out of my pocket a couple of times.

On Friday I did the regular Friendly Friday ride. As usual there was a good sized group for that one, but the pace, while in no way slow, never got too much out of hand as it sometimes does. Afterward Charles and I rode down Carrollton to meet up with the Tulane coffee ride which was a nice conversational ride with a stop at French Truck on Maple Street at the end. Plans were already afoot for a group ride over in Waveland for Sunday.

Saturday's Giro had a decent enough turnout and provided a pretty good workout. A little bit of a southeast wind had me up to 36 mph between the bridges chasing down the front group that seems to always put the hammer down coming over the first overpass. It was a good workout even though I was being a little cautious about doing too much work since I was planning on a 70+ mile ride the next day over in Mississippi. I did a quick turnaround after I got home to make the Tulane - Army football game, which was surprisingly good. It wouldn't be until later that evening that I would hear about a crash on the northshore group ride that landed John Egan in the trauma unit at UMC with a broken pelvis. He had surgery the following day, which apparently went well. I texted him on Monday afternoon and he replied right away, so he seemed to be doing well under the circumstances, although dreading the extended recovery process he was about to start.

So on Sunday I was up before 5 am to head over to HQ to meet up with the Tulane group going to Waveland. Since I knew I'd need all three spots on my roof rack, and I only have two thru-axle adapters, I brought the Bianchi for this one. After a couple of weeks riding mostly the new Cervelo I can't say it's noticeably faster or anything, so it isn't much of a difference going from one bike to the other anyway. 

We started on the beach in Waveland with a group of around 20, I think. A few would be doing a shorter route, but most would be doing the full 73 mile route. Despite not being familiar with the bridge between Waveland and Bay St. Louis, some of the Tulane riders took the lead right away and turned onto the bridge traffic lanes instead of the bike path, so everyone followed even though the traffic lanes are specifically marked as "no bikes." We survived anyway since it was 7:30 am on a Sunday. Of course, the early ride surge of adreneline split the group badly and I finally had to get everyone to stop for a couple of minutes so the rest could catch up. After that the pace stabilized a bit as the short-route riders dropped back. As usual on these rides I was kind of monitoring the group from the back.

Pretty soon someone flatted, so we stopped for that. The weather and route were about as good as it gets, and we had a nice double paceline going for a while. Pirmin, Jaden, and Kenny were on hand doling out advice. We were about 32 miles into the ride and coming down a little downhill into a gradual lefthand curve when one of the riders hit the rumble strip and ended up off the asphalt and on the sandy shoulder. The instinct to try to steer back toward the road washed out his front wheel and he did a beautiful flip, landing on his back along with one of the riders behind him. Charles rolled over the rear wheel of his bike that went flying across the road, bumping my own rear wheel as I went past. Fortunately both riders survived with just a lot of road rash mostly on their backs. The rear wheel, however, was badly out of true so it took a little while for Jaden and a multitool to make it a little less wobbly. 

After a long store stop around 45 miles in, we got going again only to have another rider snap a rear spoke. We stopped again and wrapped the broken spoke around its neighbor so he could continue. Luckily another spoke didn't break. We were around ten miles from the end when the front of the group rather unexpectedly dropped the hammer. That split things up a lot and left me closing a bunch of gaps. Eventually five or six of us came together about 40 seconds behind the front group that itself eventually shed almost everyone except Pirmin and Josiah, I think. Anyway, that got me a little intensity, even though we never got anywhere close to closing the gap. Other than the crash and broken spoke it was a pretty good ride on a really nice day. After a stop for lunch I don't think I got home until around 3 pm.

Fall and Falling

Friendly Friday - almost sunrise

The last few days have treated us to some beautiful Fall weather. Here in New Orleans, of course, what we might refer to as "Fall" is fairly similar to what they call "Summer" in other lattitudes. The morning temperatures in the 60s and highs in the low 80s have provided some welcome relief to both cyclists and air-conditioner compressors, and by the looks of the long-range forecast, the cool mornings will stick around for a while. It still won't likely get cool enough for me to start the annual "where did I put those arm-warmers" search, however. The morning rides now are largely in the dark, at least until the first week of November when we shift back to Standard Time. At that point, sunrise will be around 6:15 am so at least it won't be pitch black when I leave the house for a few weeks.

After Six Gap I took it pretty easy for a week, logging only 207 miles, most of which were pretty low intensity. The Tuesday after Six Gap I managed to put a stick into my rear wheel just as we were about to drop down the curb from the little bike path section along the 17th Street Canal onto Old Hammond Highway. That broke a spoke in my trusty Campi Scirocco wheel, so I just limped slowly home. Fortunately, I wasn't riding the new Cervelo Soloist yet because I was waiting for a new saddle to arrive. I called Adam at Bicycle World that afternoon, and luckily they had a couple of suitable replacement spokes. The car was in the shop, so I rode straight over there after work to pick them up, along with a roll of rim tape. I forgot to ask about spoke nipples, but back at home I found one that would work in a box of antique Schwinn branded spokes I'd inherited from Billy Richards, so the wheel was back in action for the following day, albeit with one brass spoke among all of the other aluminum ones (the original Al nipple had broken). The hardest part about the whole repair was coaxing the broken nipple and aluminum washer out of the rim through the valve hole. There was also some rain that week that interfered with a ride or two, all of which was just fine because it wasn't until Thursday before my legs felt reasonably recovered.

Great weather for the northshore Sunday ride

Last week's Friendly Friday ride was, as usual, more fast than friendly, so I was kind of staying out of the wind as much as possible despite my legs feeling back to normal. It was practically my first regular ride on the Cervelo. Afterward, Charles and I booked it down Carrollton to meet up with the Tulane coffee ride, which is always a nice recovery pace on the river levee. They'd decided to stop at Shug's Bagels on Maple Street, so the plan was to turn off of the bike path at the Corps of Engineers crossing on Burdette. As we approached the Corps building I dropped back with a couple of riders who were a bit off the back. Then we heard the train whistle from a train that was slowly approaching from around Audubon Park. We sped up just a bit before dropping down the levee and making an immediate turn on the bumpy asphalt to cross the tracks. I was almost at a stop as I met the group that was waiting there when one of the newer riders kind of miscalculated the turn and quite unexpectedly slammed right into me. I ended up on the ground with one arm neatly lodged in the groove of the train track. Fortunately, nothing was broken, although I probably jammed or dislocated my left ring finger, which is still pretty swollen.

On Saturday there was a planned Tulane northshore ride starting from Abita Springs. Since October is Festival Season around here, there were a couple of minor complications, one of which was that they were having their Fall Festival where we usually park. Fortunately one of the riders who lives in Abita pointed us to a big public parking lot that I didn't know existed, so that was great. I was riding my Bianchi since I have only two thru-axle adaptors for the roof rack and needed to transport four bikes. We headed out with seven riders for the planned 64 mile ride with a starting temperature of maybe 59°F. Yes, I was a little chilly. Pirmin was there, back from Germany, and I think he, Josiah, and Dylan were on the front of the group most of the time. Of course the pace was moderate by design. The weather was spectacular, as was the scenery. There was a charity ride going on that day starting from St. Benedict's, so we ran into a few of the riders and passed a few of their rest stops along the way, although I guess we missed most of the faster riders. We were kind of going in the opposite direction for some of their segments. Anyway, it was a really nice ride. Unfortunately, people had stuff to do afterward, so we just packed up and headed right back across the lake. I was probably home around 1 pm.

Sunday was a Giro for me. Again, it was just a bit chilly riding out to Starbucks in the dark, but the day's weather was again practically perfect for riding. There were about a dozen on hand for the ride, which was reasonably fast, mostly around 23-28 mph with a somewhat unexpected surge up to 39 coming down the overpass and then an unsuccessful chase from there to Seabrook. I did feel kind of wiped out by the time I got home, but that wasn't surprising after a 297 mile week. I was riding the Cervelo that is mostly functional except that I haven't quite sorted out all of the button functions and Garmin 540 data screens, etc., and probably need to go through the derailleur alignment process. I thought I'd immediately need to change out the 80 mm stem for a 100 mm one that I have on hand, but the Shimano Di2 hydraulic brake shift levers are so long that I barely notice any difference except on the drops. I guess I'll ride it like it is for a while and see how that works out. The Reserve 40/44 wheels feel kind of heavy to me, but I think that may be partially because of the tubless-ready Vittoria tires that are currently set up with tubes, and perhaps also the 11-30 cassette. Also, with an internal width of 25 mm (compared to 17-20 mm that I'm used to) makes the 28 mm tires seem huge. Again, I'll probably just ride them like they are for a while before doing anything drastic. I've always leaned toward light weight when it comes to wheels, but I'll probably try some lighter non-tubeless Conti tires and latex or TPU tubes first.

This morning it was pitch dark when I left the house. I glanced up and said hello to Orion, turned on the headlight, and headed off. Along Fontainbleau just before the turn onto Vendome I saw two riders fly by from Nashville. I thought they might be the Tulane riders, so I upped my pace, finally catching them somewhere after Washington Blvd. It turned out to be Connor and Jess (who was recently accepted into the graduate program at Oxford). It sounds likek Connor may be moving to Colorado to start ATC work, having just passed the course. At the museum there was a pretty big group for a Monday that included three Tulane riders in addition to Jess. Dylan and Josiah sat at the front all the way out to Seabrook. Then, after the loop, riders started wanting to go faster and the group split. I stayed with the second group that was just cruising at 20 mph or so. As we approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle we found Connor and Jess over by the curb kind of going the other way. I figured one of them must have dropped something, but it turned out that Connor had flatted. Anyway, we mostly regrouped after Canal for the last stretch down Wisner, after which a lot of riders just kept going on their way home, leaving just a few of us back at the museum. We found the Tulane riders who had kept to their easy pace and we all rode back toward uptown.

 

Six Gap for Sixteen

Thanks largely to Tulane's purchase of a bunch of new bikes for the team, together with the addition of Triathlon, the collegiate club's membership count was well into the 40 when the annual Six Gap road trip was being organized. It would be my 16th trip to Dahlonega, and this year we would have a total of 16 riders. We ended up at a huge Airbnb that was large enough to handle such a group but 40 minutes from Dahlonega. On the other hand, these were luxury accommodations compared to the local Motel6, and actually less expensive. Naturally, herding 16 cats, including myself, from New Orleans to Jasper GA in five minivans was a bit of a logistical challenge, but Dylan, Josiah, and Will pulled it off rather smoothly. For the first time, we decided to drive up on Friday, giving us all day Saturday to register, get in a short ride, and prepare all of the bikes and stuff for a 5 am departure Sunday morning.

View from the deck of our Airbnb in Jasper I will spare you the hot tub photos

On Wednesday evening I got the bike set up for Six Gap with the Roadlink derailleur extender and the 12-32 cassette that I pretty much reserve just for this particular ride. I'd planned to check everything out on the Thursday morning ride, but that was rained out. I'd used this setup twice before, though, and was pretty confident there would be no problems, even through I knew the chain was a link or two shorter than it should have been. It's a bit of a kludge anyway since the gear range definitely exceeds the derailleur's actual capacity. Thursday night I packed everything up so I'd be ready to help pick up the minivans at 7:30 am on Friday. Friday morning I loaded my stuff into the Volvo, pushed the start button, and heard just an ominous low growl from the engine. Yep, the battery had chosen that morning to die. So alternate arrangements were made and after everyone regrouped at HQ we all hit the road around 8:30 or so. I was in the van with Ben and four bikes. The drive went as usual, which is to say we all stopped at Buckees in Auburn for too long, and then got stuck in traffic in Atlanta, before finally making it to the house. This place was quite an upgrade from my usual accommodations and included things like a pool table, hot tub, deck, fire pit, and gigantic master bedroom with a walk-in closet the size of a nice New York apartment.

Saturday evening dinner at Pueblos in Dahlonega

The club had a great time Friday night until around midnight while I finished reading a book and worried they might be disturbing the neighbors. On Saturday we headed over to Dahlonega and got in a nice little 20 mile ride just after a tiny bit of rain before picking up our event packets and heading over to the practically traditional pre-ride dinner at Pueblos. Given our 4:00 am wake-up plan for Sunday, everybody turned in earlier Saturday night. Six were planning on doing the shorter Three Gap ride, while the rest were registered for the 104 mile Six Gap ride. The plan was to get to the high school just as the parking lot was opened so that we could park all five vans together. Amazingly, everyone was on the same page Sunday morning and we arrived just as planned, in the dark of course, but with plenty of time to unload all of the bikes and stuff pockets with nutrition. The excitement level was high and the weather nearly perfect as the 6-gappers rolled down to the start area about 20 minutes before the 7:30 am start. The temperature was 59° with an expected high around 80°. There was a short delay to the start as the organizers delt with a tree that had fallen somewhere on the course.

Waiting for the start. There were a bit over 800 doing the Six Gap ride.

As usual the start was a little chaotic, and also as usual I was being hyper-cautious, both about avoiding potential crashes and keeping my effort level fairly low. Back in the day I would have been more in race mode, but I figure I've done my time and deserve to look at the scenery at least a little. It was spectacular, by the way. I had one full flask of Hammergel and one half full flask of Hammergel, plus one bottle with electrolyte and another with plain water. I was feeling OK for Stonepile, the "warmup gap" and Neel's, the first official gap of the six, climbing at a conservative 6-7 mph, tempered by the upcoming Hogpen climb starting at around 34 miles. I should have put a little more effort into Hogpen, but it's hard to guess where your limits are for that sort of thing when you do it only once a year and haven't been racing all summer. I thus spent a lot of time in the 4-5 mph range where the grades were in the 10-12% range. As I have for the past few years, I didn't push it at all on the downhills, and as a result was only occasionally into the 40-45 mph range, never going over 46 mph.

About ten miles after descending from Hogpen you start the climb up Unicoi. This one is a little less steep, so I was mostly in the 7-8 mph range for the steeper segments. By that time I was actually feeling a little better than I had earlier. Again, I took the descent cautiously, never dropping down onto the drops, and mostly coasting. Somewhere after that downhill I somehow shifted my chain off the outside of the cassette where it jammed against the frame, so I had to stop for a minute to dislodge it and put it back where it belonged. The worst part about that was that I had to drop out of a little group I'd been with, and ended up alone for a while.

There was a rest stop somewhere along there that I rolled past, confident that I still had a full flask of gel and a full water bottle. Although it was starting to get warm, most of the morning had been cool enough that I hadn't been drinking a huge amount of water. I was thinking I could probably make it to the finish without having to stop. So I climbed Jack's Gap next without much difficulty since it is mostly more like 6-7% in the steepest sections. After Jack's, around 65 miles into the ride, I reached back for my still full flask of Hammergel and discovered that it was missing. It must have fallen out when I pulled out the other flask earlier. So I stopped at the next rest stop at around 70 miles to refuel because there was no way I was going to make it comfortably to the finish on just water. I didn't see any gels at that stop, so I picked up some packets of gummies and filled a water bottle with Coke.

The last couple of Gaps are relatively short and quite scenic, and although I was definitely starting to feel my legs, I felt pretty good for those. I came flying down Woody Gap, my favorite descent, into the sharp downhill curve a the traffic circle, which is arguably the most fun part of the whole ride for a crit rider, and shortly after that a rider came past me at just the right speed, so I hopped on his wheel. He happily pulled me the last ten miles or so at a nice pace to the finish after which we introduced ourselves and I thanked him for the draft. So I ended up with a chip time of 6:36 and a Strava ride time of 6:33, which is about average for the last five years or so. That put me 13th in the 60+ group. There were only a handful of 70+ riders, of which I finished first for whatever that's worth. My legs were pretty well cooked by the end, and although my neck and back were hurting, they weren't as bad as they have been some years. 

Some of the local riders had spectacular rides.The fastest time this year was 4:38 (these are all chip times). Miguel Davis, who is 16, finished at 5:15 (38th overall), and Connor Prestenback, also 16, came in at 5:29. Nick was 5:36, Sam at 5:45, Apryl at 5:46, Joe Paul at 6:07, and Dustin at 6:12 among others.

The Tulane Six Gap riders did remarkably well for the most part. Liam did a very impressive 6:08 ride time, and Josiah, Ben, and Dylan all finished with faster ride times than I. We did have a couple of casualties, though. Daniel had a little crash somewhere around the turn of death, but got patched up and still finished with a chip time of 8:02. Michael abandoned somewhere along the way and had to wait a long time for a shuttle back to the high school. By the time everyone had gotten back, had something to eat at the cafeteria, got cleaned up, and got the bikes all loaded back into the vans it was probably at least 4:30 pm. The drive back was uneventful except that we all got split up because of varying fuel stops and one missed turn. All of the other vans did meet up at Buckees in Auburn, but Ben and I had needed to get gas prior to that, so we stopped at a Love's and picked up dinner there instead. Still, the late departure had us back in New Orleans after 1 am, and by the time we unloaded at HQ, dropped Ben off at his place, and returned the vans to the motor pool it was after 2:00 am. I finally hit the sack around 2:30 am. 

All-in-all it was a great trip and a big accomplishment for many of the riders, some of which are quite new to challenging rides like this one. For me, I guess it is rather inevitable that this ride seems a little harder every year, but I'm glad I can still do it.

Needless to say, I didn't get up at 5:30 am on Monday to ride. Instead, I connected the battery charger to the car battery and waited a few hours for it to charge enough that I could drive it over to Bergeron Volvo. It was also due for its 120,000 mile service, so I wasn't too surprised the next day when they told me it would be a bit over $4k to take care of everything. Still cheaper than a new car, I guess. 

Of course this sort of expense always comes when you have just bought something expensive that you didn't really need. In this case, it was a new Cervelo Soloist that was still partially assembled at home. It was a bit of an impulse buy, but it was on closeout, happened to be about my size, and was priced a couple thousand off retail, and of course the trusty Bianchi Sempre has now accumulated 132,800 miles and probably needs a rest. I had broken down and ordered a proper saw guide and blade since I had to cut down the seatpost to clear the cutout for the rear wheel. It's a 48 with 165 crankarms and an 80 mm stem, so I'm sure it will take me a while longer to sort out the position and everything. Cervelo uses the same seat tube angle on all their frame sizes, so that makes the virtual top tube longer, as it was on my old Cervelo Soloist. The head tube is considerably shorter than it is on the Bianchi, but I think the spacers with which they shipped it put it at just about the right height. Anyway, I had it put together by last night, so now I need to ride around the neighborhood a bit and fine tune the saddle height, fore-aft position, handlebar position, possibly stem length, and handlebar height if not a touch high. Of course it came with insanely wide 28mm tires that are tubeless ready but with tubes, which is to say they are super heavy, so all of that, plus the Di2 shifting and disc brakes will probably take some getting used to.

Yesterday I cut my ride short when a stick got into my rear wheel and brought me to a rather sudden stop with a broken spoke. I limped home and later called Adam at Bicycle World to see if he happened to have a replacement spoke in the correct length. He found a couple, so I rode there after work and picked them up along with a roll of rim tape, forgetting completely about the fact that the original spoke nipple had mysteriously disappeared. Amazingly a brass spoke nipple that I pulled out of a 30 year old box of Schwinn branded spokes that I'd been given by Billy Richards' son threaded on nicely, so I was able to put the wheel back into service in time for this morning's WeMoRi where my legs were still feeling a little bit of Dahlonega.

Evolution

Saturday Giro heading out

Evolution is driven by change in the environment, and enabled by the random "experiments of nature" that occur, by design, with each new generation. Most of them are abject failures or dead ends, of course. Bikes are kind of like that too. Some experiments, like 20mm clinchers and 650C wheels turn out to be dead ends, while others, like disc brakes and electronic shifting, survive just long enough to continue an evolutionary path that eventually absorbs and displaces their ancestors, as modern humans did with Neanderthals. If you get a new bike only once per decade, the leap from one generation to the next can feel pretty dramatic, like "should I go ahead and mate with this attractive Homo sapiens, or stick to my own kind?" More on that later...

Sunday Pass Christian Ride

Last week was another 300+ mile week for me, thanks mainly to slightly cooler mornings and the notable lack of recent rain that once again has salt water creeping up the bottom of the Mississippi in our direction. That mileage was despite a slightly shortened ride on Tuesday when I flatted somewhere out on the Lake Trail. 

As I did last week, I rode the regular Friendly and Fast Friday ride at the lakefront, and then hustled down to the river to meet up with the Tulane coffee ride group for some easy cool-down miles and a stop at the relatively new coffee shop on Maple Street - Shug's Bagels. It did not disappoint, except that there is only minimal outdoor seating, and what is there is directly in the morning sun. It'll be better when the weather is cooler, I think.

On Sunday we had a big group of Tulane riders making the trip over to Bay St. Louis for a 75 mile ride with a 55 mile option. I think we started with around 20 riders. This was more or less a shakedown ride for the Tulane riders planning on doing Six Gap or Three Gap next weekend. The Tulane riders' plan was to do a couple of longish threshold intervals during this ride, but as it turned out the pace was quite fast enough to make that entirely unnecessary. For some, I suspect most of the ride was pretty close to threshold. The timing with the short and long rides fortuitously turned out perfect, with both groups pretty much meeting up at the store stop, and again at the finish. I was taking short and relatively rare pulls on the front, already cognizant of my accumulated weekly mileage, but actually felt pretty good throughout, and arrived at the finish none the worse for wear despite the fact that the pace was definitely one notch faster than the usual BSL rides. I was glad to see that everyone planning on doing Six Gap next Sunday survived. I think we lost a few riders in the last ten miles when there was a sustained surge into the upper 20s, but that was to be expected under the circumstances.

Some assembly required

So a little over a week ago I made an uncharacteristic impulse decision and ordered a new bike that was on clearance sale. It's a 48 cm Cervelo Soloist with the 12 speed Ultegra group, which is kind of in the same place in the Cervelo road lineup as the Bianchi Sempre was in the Bianchi lineup. The last Cervelo I had was also an entirely new bike (a very rare thing for me), a Prodigy, that also represented a big jump from one generation of bikes to another. In that case I was going from a 6-speed friction shifting all-steel Cinelli that I'd been racing on for a decade, to a 9-speed Campi Ergo setup with a carbon fork. This time, I'll be going from a 50 cm 11-speed with Campagnolo stuff and rim brakes and 170 crank arms to a 48 cm 12-speed with Shimano Ultegra Di2 semi-wireless setup, hydraulic disc brakes, 165 crank arms, and frightenly wide carbon wheels with huge 28mm tires. For someone who  raced on 22 mm, 28 spoke 280 gram rims with 190 g tubulars, these wheels seem insanely wide and heavy, but this is where evolution seems to have taken us. Perhaps the added cushiness will be a welcome relief to my ageing back and neck without the collateral damage of getting me dropped out the back. Remains to be seen.

This changeover is going to take a little while. Electronic shifting is a whole new world for me, and I guess I'll be watching YouTube videos about it for a while and then still reaching for the missing thumb shifter. Even assembling the bike is going to take a little time, thanks to some of the usual short person challenges. I'm going to have to cut down the aero carbon seatpost since it hits the cutout part of the seat tube well before it's inserted far enough for my normal saddle height. I guess they provide the same length seatpost regardless of frame size. I think this seatpost is about as long as the entire seat tube. I will probably have to use a longer stem (it comes with an 80mm one) since I'm right at the top of the height range for this size frame. Getting the handlebars in the right place will have to wait until I have the seatpost sorted out, and since the battery is in the seatpost, getting the shifters set up will also have to wait. So all of that is now on hold until after Six Gap since I also need a pair of pedals, bottle cages, and a cutting guide that can handle the aero seatpost. Of course I could just eyeball the seatpost and cut it freehand, but I've always wanted to have a proper guide, and there is really no urgency.

Meanwhile, I need to get the trusty Bianchi Sempre, which has thus far logged 132,670.9 miles according to Strava, set up for Six Gap. That involves installing the Roadlink derailleur extender, and changing the cassette on my carbon wheels to the 12-32 that I reserve just for this ride. Neither of those are really recommended for this short cage derailleur, but the setup, if something of a kludge, served me well the past couple of years and should at least keep me from having to walk up the 12% segments!

Miles and Miles

For the past month or so it seems I've been rather unintentionally piling on the miles, which by no means recommended practice, especially for me. Sometimes, though, it just works out that way because of favorable weather, extra group rides, and available time. Normally, I think of 250 - 275-mile weeks as good solid routine mileage, so I was a little bit shocked to find two weeks that were over 350 miles and that the last four weeks were all practically 300 miles or more. I may be paying for that now, of course.

Monday a week ago was Labor Day so of course there was a Holiday Giro. Also, of course, that came on the heels of two regular Giro Rides on the prior days, plus the annual Fall Expo at Tulane where we recruited a ton of new riders thanks to having bikes available and the fact that we added triathlon. Giro Ride turnouts lately have been rather low, which makes the rides considerably harder, if not faster, because there's a huge difference between sitting near the back of a 40-rider group and working in a 9-rider paceline. A good thing, perhaps, but exhausting.

And so on Tuesday when everyone else turned off after the Lakeshore Drive section, I was kind of relieved to be able to ride solo out to Williams and back on the lake trail. There was a pretty significant East wind blowing, so although it felt great on the way out, I definitely could have used a few wheels to hide behind on the way back. That evening we had the introductory meeting for Tulane Cycling & Triathlon, which I thought went really well. At last count we have 35 students who have paid their annual dues, which is by far a record. Wednesday's WeMoRi was as usual brisk but uneventful.

On Thursday it was just Jess and I for the Lake Trail segment which felt really smooth and steady. Then on Friday I rode the Friendly Friday ride which turned out to be really fast. The Tulane group was doing a levee ride that morning, so I rode straight down Carrollton afterward and met up with them on the bike path, which made for a really nice cool-down ride.

Saturday's Giro had a small but fast group that included Peyton, Connor, Rob, Rachel (in town for a few days) and at some point Jaden. The group split pretty early on Hayne Blvd. but those of us in the gruppeto had a pretty good paceline going anyway, so it was a good enough workout.  

Sunday was kind of a repeat of Saturday, but without the faster riders. That was good because by then all those miles were starting to catch up with me. The Tulane group had scheduled its first "long ride," heading up the levee and then over to the lake trail and then a lap of Lakeshore Drive and City Park, so I was able to meet up with them after the Giro. That ride had a planned stop at Cafe' du Monde where I had a badly needed frozen cafe' au lait. After a long afternoon walk around Audubon Park with the dog, I was starting to feel a little sketchy. 

Monday morning I went out to the Mellow Monday ride. There were a number of new Tulane riders there, and of course it got a little fast on Lakeshore Drive, dropping a few. I turned back and met up with them at Marconi and we rejoined the group for the last stretch. That evening I felt like I might be running a low-grade fever, and considering how much time on the bike I'd been piling up, I figured it was time for a day off, so I skipped riding altogether on Tuesday, which was good because I still wasn't feeling quite right. This morning I went out to meet the WeMoRi but the group didn't show up when it usually does. I figured something was wrong, which turned out to be the case. I went ahead and headed down Wisner, and eventually the group, what was left of it after a crash they'd had on Lakeshore Drive, swept me up. That was shortly before the overpass, so naturally I kind of blew up going over that and was quite happy to just let them go, but then Charles, who was a few bike lengths ahead of me, started to chase and I thought maybe I could latch onto his wheel. Of course he was chasing hard, so I never quite made it into his draft before throwing in the towel somewhere on City Park Avenue. Then, on the way home, Maruizio flatted, so I stopped with him before continuing home.

Variety

Sunday on the northshore

The Saturday Giro over a week ago was hampered by yet another closure of the Seabrook bridge, and although it was otherwise a prefectly acceptable ride, I decided to venture across the lake the following day for a little variety. There was a small group planning on riding the old "Mailman" route, and although I knew it wouldn't be a fast ride, at least a lot of it would be in the shade since it started from the Mandeville trailhead of the Tammany Trace. So that was a fairly easy 69 mile ride to finish off a 350 mile week. 

Last week was more or less routine, except for a ride over in Mississippi on Sunday. On Wednesday I went out to meet the WeMoRi as usual, but there was a 3-rider break that was way off the front. I looked back and couldn't even see a chase group, so I hopped onto the back hoping for the best. After a few miles I realized that the group, composed of Lisa, Rob, and Maurizio, would probably soon be just Maurizio. Indeed, as we approached the Wisner overpass, Lisa looked over and told me she would be turning off to go home. I figured that Rob would be leaving for home at the turn onto Marconi, and for some reason I just didn't feel up to the challenge of hanging onto Maurizio's scant draft after that, so I eased up, hoping that the group was somewhere behind me. It took forever for them to catch me, which wasn't surprising because there were only a few of them left, none of which obviously had any interest in chasing. Maybe I should have stuck with Maurizio.

Friendly Friday has its usual good-sized group, and as has been the case of late, it did get pretty fast for a while. As we rounded the Armory loop at the eastern end of Lakeshore Drive, Jess launched a big water bottle when she hit that bump right after the bridge traffic merges onto Lakeshore Drive. That was also where the speed ramped up. Luckily, the water bottle seemed to stay off to the left, so that was good. After the ride she went back to look for it, but it was gone. Later that day I went over to Ochsner for a routine checkup which was, well, routine. BP was 110/80 and labs looked pretty much like they have for the past couple of years, so status quo for now.

On Saturday was the usual Giro, this time with a pretty good-sized group that included Connor. I wasn't feeling too hot from the start. After coming down from the overpass onto Hayne, the riders on the front put the hammer down, as usual. As sometimes happens, I was immediately in the red as the speed was stuck at around 28 mph and my heart rate was stuck in the upper 150s. After a couple of miles I decided I needed a little recovery and dropped off the back. Charles did the same a minute later, so we both took the Bullard shortcut. That usually cuts off a minute or two. Considering how fast the group was going, and how relatively slowly we were going, I was a little worried that we might miss them when we got to Chef Highway, but when we got there we couldn't even see them. It was a couple more miles before they finally caught us and we easily merged back into the group.

Sunday was a planned ride from the ballpark in Mississippi at 6:30 am. On Friday evening I got a call from Dylan and Josiah saying that they had about five Tulane riders who wanted to go, so we made arrangements for me to pick a couple of them up on Broadway so we could all meet at HQ. Amazingly everyone was on time, and after mounting three bikes on the roof we headed for I-10, arriving just a few minutes after 6:00 am. Jess arrived a couple of minutes later, so from Tulane we had Dylan, Josiah, Jess, Liam, Daniel, and Jack. The latter three were new Tulane riders, but Liam and Daniel had solid road experience, so no worries there. Jack was on his own bike with clip-on aero bars, wearing running shoes with toe clips, and looked pretty unsteady from the start, so I knew he was going to be seriously challenged sticking with the 12-person group we had on hand. Indeed, he was off the back early, so we waited for him at a couple of intersections. I eventually told the others I'd drop back and keep track of him so they wouldn't have to worry about him, and so he wouldn't get lost and end up calling us from somewhere in Alabama. We were probably 20 minutes behind the group when we got to the store stop at 49 miles, but at least everyone waited a while longer so he could get something to drink before heading out again. Right after we left the store the front of the group basically attacked and a big gap opened, and so I was in full chase mode for a few miles before catching. Of course, I knew Jack wouldn't be able to handle that, so when we got to the next intersection I turned back to pick him up. He was doing OK up to about 16 mph on the flat, but would drop off immediately on every climb, so I spent a lot of time enjoying the scenery and looking over my shoulder to make sure he was still there. So although it was almost 70 miles, most of it was kind of on-the-bike recovery for me. No complaints, though. We were five or ten miles from the finish when Jess came past in her car! She had gone back to look for another water bottle that had ejected itself from her bike. I don't know if she found it. So that made for a 294 mile week for me, although with definitely less intensity than the prior week. That left me with enough energy for a few hours of yardwork in the afternoon that unexpectedly didn't seem to take too much of a toll on my lower back.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride had a nice turnout that included some of the Tulane riders who had done the Mississippi ride the prior day. Three of them were planning on making it a true recovery ride, which they did, but not everyone in the group was on the same page, so things split up on the way out to the armory, so there was a group of four or five well up the road. Once we picked up a little tailwind on the way back down Lakeshore Drive, a couple of us rolled away from what was left of the main group, but by then the gap to the front group was way too large to have any hope of closing. We turned around a few blocks early on Canal to rejoin the group, though. Not much rain in the forecast until around the weekend. The tropical disturbance that was heading into the Caribbean doesn't currently look like it will amount to much, and there doesn't seem to be anything else that's threatening to get organized out in the Atlantic, so that's good news as we approach the 20th anniversary of Katrina on the 29th.

Up in Olympia

Last Sunday I packed up the old Orbea (aka my "travel bike") and headed for Moisant Field at around 4:00 am. I had an early morning flight to Seattle where I would be taking a shuttle from there down to Olympia. The wife had already been there for a few days. Our task for the week was to dog-sit for the daughter's two dogs while she was out in the wilderness around Mt. St. Helens leading a team that was supporting her partner Sharon who was entered in the Bigfoot 200, a 200 mile ultra run. I had already reserved a parking spot at the U.S. Park place, just down the road from the airport. By the time I pulled into a parking space, the shuttle was already there waiting for me, which was nice. It was reasonably quiet at the airport. I shoulderd on my Airport Ninja bike case and deposited it and my other bag at the Alaska Arlines counter, and headed over to the short TSA line. This time they didn't ask me to remove my shoes or to take the laptop out of my carry-on messenger bag that was stuffed with all sorts of electronics, including the laptop itself, an android tablet, my cellphone, a bag full of cables, a small battery pack, my bike computer, headlight, and tail light. I was a little surprised they didn't need to open up the bag, considering. Anyway, despite all my efforts to get to the airport really early, the flight was delayed for at least half an hour, which put my shuttle ride connection in jeopardy. I texted them before boarding and they moved me to a shuttle leaving half an hour later.

I was flying first class this time, thanks to the daughters copious Alaska Airlines points, which meant I had pre-ordered a breakfast that was served on an actual plate with a real glass and everything. The flight was uneventful, but of course SEA is a big and busy airport, which meant I had to get from one terminal to another to get to baggage claim, which was still under construction and kind of a mess. I stood in front of the luggage carousel wondering if the bike would come down the regular luggage chute, or get diverted to one of the two oversided chutes. Just as the bike came down the chute, the shuttle company called to check on me, and a few minutes later I found my way over to the parking garage where they were waiting for me, so that all worked out pretty well. An hour later I was at the house in Olympia and ready to put the bike back together so I could ride the next day.

I ended up riding over 200 miles between Monday and Thursday. Everyone there seems to ride in the evenings. At 6 am the temperature was usually 58-60, but by early afternoon it was in the mid to upper 80s the first couple of days. I had a few routes that I'd more or less ridden before, so although I was solo, at least I wasn't in entirely unfamiliar territory.  There was a GBC team ride on Tuesday and Thursdays starting at 5:30 pm, so I went out to meet it on Tuesday. Unfortunately, since there was actually a heat advisory that day because of the high temperature of 90, nobody showed up except one person who led me a few miles to the slower group ride that left at 6 pm.  That was quite a nice little ride, actually, and considering that I'd ridden almost 70 miles the day before, it's not like I really needed a hard ride. I ended up riding alone again on Thursday rather that trying to make the team ride because by then Danielle and Shannon were back, and I needed to take the bike apart for an early drive to Seattle the next morning.  Shannon survived the race pretty well, although it was a couple of days before she was walking normally again, and Danielle was relieved that the very complicated support logistics involving multiple pacers and rest areas and satellite phones worked out. 

We had a nice time with the dogs, walking to the nearby Starbucks every morning for coffee. The trip back was pretty smooth, although the flight was again delayed, this time because the Captain was still in the air on another flight at boarding time and they had to wait for him to land and get to our plane. The flight back was nice, again in first class, and we were back home before dark. 

The entire time I was riding there, the old Orbea was making various creaking noises that, as always, sounded like the bottom bracket. When I was taking the bike apart to pack I noticed that the freehub was actually coming loose, which was obviously causing the noise. It just took a couple of allen wrenches to tighen it up again and all was well. Granted, the crankset bearings are just a little bit looser than I'd like, but I'm pretty sure the noise was all coming from that loose freehub.

Back in town, I headed out on Saturday for the Giro. There was just a small group on hand, which has been status quo lately since a lot of people have been doing the SaMoRi to escape half an hour of summer heat. It was a good fast ride, though. It's always a better workout with a smaller group since there's no place to hide. Unfortunately, the Seabrook bridge was closed for repairs (again) and we had to take the alternate route down the Danziger bridge. So on Sunday I decided to meet the northshore ride. They were doing the "mailman" route, which is pretty much the same as the training race route they used to do back in the 80s, but the pace was pretty relaxed. For some reason my neck and shoulders were hurting from the start and were absolutely on fire by the time we finished. No idea why. 

On Monday there was a good turnout for the Mellow Monday ride. With Tulane back in session now, we had four or five Tulane riders. As often happens with a larger group, the ride didn't stay mellow for very long, so it was more of a workout than I'd planned for, especially since my legs were still a little sore from the weekend. This morning's Tuesday ride also had a pretty good group and got fairly fast, especially once we picked up a bit of a tailwind heading westbound. By the time we got to the lake trail it was just Jess, Matt, and me, though. Matt was on his TT bike and towed us all the way out to Williams Blvd., and most of the way back. We were still a couple of miles from Causeway when he sat up and I rolled through, not realizing that he had flatted. I continued on with Jess on my wheel and was past Causeway when I finally looked back and reailzed he wasn't there any more. Oops! Right about that time Jess's Di2 rear derailleur locked itself into the small cog. I think it probably went into crash mode when she hit a bump just right. Anyway she rode all the way back like that.