Unaffected

The past week has been a rare one. For once, finally, it was a whole week of riding that wasn't significantly affected by the weather. Everything around here is currently coated in yellow-green Oak tree pollen, and it's even been feasible to ride in just summer kit. At least as our government rapidly devolves into a willfully ignorant idiocracy, the riding has been nice.

As usually happens this time of year, attendance at the local group rides has been picking up. Last Saturday's Giro had a solid group thanks to the sunny sky and welcome arm-warmer optional weather. I did a little somewhat cautious work, while trying not to compromise myself for a planned 70-mile ride our of Bay St. Louis on Sunday.

Sunday morning I headed for I-10 for the hour-long drive to BSL, stopping in Slidell for a cup of coffee. While there, I heard the staff talking about seeing a whole lot of police on I-10, and wondering what had been going on. A couple of minutes later, as I merged onto the Interstate, I noticed a helicopter flying straight down the highway about 500 feet off the ground. I later learned that a police chase had resulted in the death of a St. Tammany police officer. 

I got to War Memorial Park about fifteen minutes before the start to find a group of nine or ten. The weather was pretty nice, with just a moderate wind and mostly sunny skies. The night before, I had installed a new chain, and was hoping that my old cassette with over 20k miles on it already, wouldn't cause it to skip. It didn't. The combination of using drip-wax and my usual routine of replacing chains at 2,500-3,000 miles has been quite a game-changer when it comes to cassette life, and clean hands.

As these BSL rides usually go, this one was a typical smooth paceline with some people, notably Connor and Todd, taking really long pulls, and others, notably me, taking substantially shorter ones. I hadn't brought any nutrition with me except for one gell packet that I was saving for emergencies, so when we hit our store stop at around mile 40 I got a big Payday bar and a small Coke. The former I ate immediately, the latter I mostly poured into one of my water bottles. Steve J was on hand for this ride, having warned us at the start that he was probably getting in over his head. He gutted it out, though, finally dropping off the back to cruise in alone for the last ten miles or so. It was a good ride on a nice day.

This week has been remarkably routine, at least for riding. We had a good group for Tuesday's ride, but as often happens it was just Rich and I for the part out to the casino and back. It's definitely still sunrise photo season. Wednesday's Giro was going great until Steve K pinch-flatted his front tire on Marconi. I was right behind him at the time, and I backed off quickly because it looked like he might lose it as his bike suddenly went kind of squirrely. He kept it under control, but the damage was done, and there was already a whole lot of space between me and the rest of the group. MJ came around quickly and I latched onto his wheel as he made an effort to close it. I was just hoping that the group would have to stop for the light at Toussaint, but when it didn't, I knew we were done for. 

Of course, we regrouped after the sprint for the "ride home" group. After Charles split off at Norman Francis, Will and I continued on, soon spotting Jaden with his kids on the way to school.

Thursday's ride had a good group, some of which actually did the whole ride, which was nice. This morning the temperature was around 70° and wind light as I rode in the dark to the Museum for the 6 am Friday ride. The weather forecast for tomorrow is not looking too good, so perhaps that was one reason we had such a big group - close to 20 I think - , at least for the start. As we rode easy up Marconi toward the lake, Charles realized one of his derailleur batteries had died and stopped with a couple others to swap the front one to the rear. Right after that, I think his computer ejected itself from the bike and they had to go back and search for it, so we didn't see him or Will until later. The pace going east on Lakeshore Drive was brisk but not unusual. I was near the front as we came around the Armory loop and started heading back to the west. One or two riders pulled off the front, and then Connor, who I was behind, ramped it up quickly to 29-30 mph as I hung tenaciously to his wheel for a mile or two. As we got close to the Elysian Fields obstacle course I realized there was nobody behind me, and decided to do myself a favor and wait for the group. Connor eased up shortly thereafter, so it was grupo compacto again. Soon enough, Connor was at the front again, and after crossing Marconi things started to disintegrate a bit. Connor wasn't familiar with the Friday route, and missed the turn onto Canal, but eventually found his way back to NOMA. Meanwhile, as we streamed down Marconi, someone flatted around Toussaint, leaving just a handful of us off the front. 

Yesterday I finally broke down and did surgery on my Bont Vaypor SL Shoe. I had stripped one of the cleat nuts months ago. This particular shoe has a slotted 3-hole cleat attachment setup, so rather than having three individual T-nuts, it uses a single triangular piece that incorporates all three threaded nuts so you can slide it forward or backward to increase the range of cleat positions. It's not something I needed. Anyway, replacing it meant slicing the sock liner with an Exacto knife and removing a triangular cover, cutting some more fabric, and finally pulling out the offending piece and inserting the new one. It went OK, and of course the damage is all covered up by the insole. I made sure not to over-tighten the bolts this time (used about 4.5 nM) and as always greased the threads. I'd never stripped a cleat nut before, and I think perhaps these have fewer threads in order to reduce the stack height. 

Replacement cleat nuts

Meanwhile, I've been finishing up plans for the Tour de La. Joe Paul has arranged for T-shirts, I ordered some imprinted tape measures, trophies and bib numbers were ordered and received, and so basically all we really need are riders and volunteers. I am hoping to do a ride on the northshore, maybe Sunday, so I can re-mark the course and make sure there are no big road surface surprises. I was hoping to do that Saturday, but if it's raining, I can't. We'll see. 

Northbeast Classic Weekend

WeMoRi finished; sun still not above the horizon

The annual arrival of Daylight Saving Time is celebrated by some and despised by others. I fall solidly in the latter category. For those of us who need to get our riding in before work, it means a whole lot more miles ridden in the dark, which inevitably leads to more unexpected interactions with New Orleans road surfaces and the copious amounts of debris thereupon. In other words, more punctures, and an increased risk of plowing into a pothole or chunk of broken concrete or whatever.

Wednesday morning I went out in the above mentioned darkness to meet the WeMoRi. The temperature was in the mid-50s and the wind was light, which made for a fast but fun ride. After the official finish at the invisible finish line at Marconi, we did our usual cool-down out-and-back on Canal Blvd. before turning back onto Lakeshore Drive. The sun had still not crept over the horizon, but at least the pollution and haze made for a colorful pre-dawn horizon.

Thursday's ride was warmer, but with a bit of a south wind. There was a nice little group at the 6 am start, but as usual, most turned back for home by the end of the Lakeshore Drive segment, leaving just a few of us for the ride out west along the lake. We kept the pressure on all the way out, then took a little break on the way back before gradually getting back up to speed. It was OK.

Friday was road trip day, this time up to the collegiate race weekend at Piedmont University. As usual, a couple of riders bailed for one reason or another, but we still had seven, including me, by the time we rolled out around 9:45 am, I think. I had been kind of dreading this race because the weather forecast had originally looked really bad, but by Friday things had improved considerably, and it was looking like the Saturday road races and time trial would be fine. The only question was whether the approaching line of storms would go through overnight and be gone by the time the Sunday morning criteriums started.

I was registered for the Masters race, of course. I had inadvertantly registered for 50+ because I hadn't realized they also had a 60+, but it didn't really matter. I didn't have any plans or goals other than some solid training. We had a big field of over 40 riders for this one, so I thought it would be easy to just sit in the pack. That turned out to have been a little optimistic. After about a mile the pace shot up dramatically. I think our first lap average speed was in the 28+ mph range. I was doing OK sitting in the big draft of such a large group, but I didn't feel sufficiently motivated to maintain even that level of effort for the full 50+ mile race. The course was mainly just low rolling hills, but with a few short but steep little climbs on the back side. Somewhere around the end of the third lap I decided to pull the plug and eliminate the stress involved in staying with the group. Being at the back of a 40+ rider group while flying down a hill at 40 mph when you can't even see the front of the group, much less the road ahead, is indeed a little stressful. I still kept the pressure on, so my effort level just dropped a little bit, although my average speed probably dropped from 26 mph to 22 mph. With an average heart rate of 146, which for me is much higher than, for example, a typical Giro Ride, I felt like it was a good and much-needed workout. The other riders in the group, aside from Jess who had a very good race, all came off the backs of their respective groups fairly early. For a couple of them, it was their first ever race, so that was no surprise, and for a couple others, they were racing in a combined Collegiate B/C category, having both just upgraded from Category D. The Cat. B riders definitely put the hurt on the Cat. C riders in that one.

The Time Trial started and finished at the Road Race start line, but it went out one way, turned around, came back past the start/finish, and continued to another turnaround before finally finishing at the start/finish. Jess was the first rider to go off. Well, unfortunately, someone had stolen the traffic cones that the promoter had placed at the second turnaround, so when the turnaround marshal went out there he or she couldn't find the turnaround. Jess had the route on her Garmin and realized she must have passed the turnaround just as she was flying down a hill at 30 mph. She eventually turned around, but at any rate the first fifteen or so riders, all women, all did different distances. They ended up just counting the times for the first out-and-back segment.

That evening we had a really nice dinner at an Italian restaurant in Cornnelia, near where Sunday's criterium would be held. As expected, the storms rolled through in the middle of the night, and by 6 am the rain had stopped. They had pushed back the start time of the first race from 8 to 9 am, which worked out quite well. By the time Jess' criterium started, the road was just a little damp and the sun was starting to peek out from behind the clouds. As often happens with criteriums, a lot of the lower category riders didn't show up, so Jess' race had just 7 or 8 riders, I think. Their group split a few laps in, with a 2-rider break, then Jess, then the rest. Eventually one other rider caught up to Jess, but she dropped her on the final lap. Our other riders in the Cat. D and Cat. B/C races all came off the back fairly quickly, but finished in good spirits and with all the skin they had started with, so it was a successful confidence booster. Dylan didn't race because he was clearly coming down with a cold by Sunday morning. As usual I didn't enter the masters criterium since that would have kept us there three additional hours. All-in-all it was fun weekend and although I would have liked to have gotten in some riding on Sunday, I think the sustained intensity from Saturday more than made up for it.

We had a long and uneventful drive back, arriving around 6:40 pm.