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.