End of Summester

Christmas parade awaiting Santa's helicopter arrival

In typical fashion, the cold fronts have been coming through in close succession lately, bringing with them some wild swings from spectacular weather to miserable weather and back again. 

A week ago on Sunday, the 7th, it had again been rainy in the morning, so I headed out in the afternoon for a long solo ride out to the end of the levee bike path, which makes for a 90 mile ride with essentially zero elevation. I'd gone out to the levee the day before when the road was still wet from rain, and managed to puncture twice, which is actually not that surprising. There's something in the asphalt up there that always causes flats when it's wet. Anyway, by the time I headed out the next day the temperature was in the 60s and there was a moderate east wind, so it felt fast and easy heading out and not so much so heading back. Along the way I had to pick my way through the crowds gathered for the Norco Christmas Parade at which Santa arrives via helicopter. The police almost stopped me because the helicopter was approaching, but I made it through just as it was circling overhead. 

Upriver from the Spillway there were multiple groups working on their Christmas bonfires. The bike path drops down to street level in a few places there, and was designed that was specifically to allow for the annual bonfires. It was a nice steady LSD type of ride.

Last week was the usual roller-coaster weather. Wednesday morning started out in the low 40s with a small WeMoRi group. I jumped in as usual, but some big gaps opened ahead of me on the Wisner overpass, leaving just Rich and me to fend for ourselves. We backed off pretty quickly. Then, on the way home, two cars nearly killed me by cutting in front of me. One at the start of the Norman Francis overpass, and the other along Vendome. For the latter, I had to lock up the rear wheel to keep from hitting the idiot. Thursday was a bit warmer but also quite a bit windier. I was left to my own devices heading west along the lake with a nice little tailwind. I turned back a little early since I knew the headwind in the opposite direction would take its toll, but was lucky to have a little group come along just after that, which made it much nicer. Friendly Friday turned out to be pretty nice, and it was looking like Saturday's weather would be ideal for the Tulane "end of the semester" ride. 

I'd been fighting my handlebars for a week or so because of an inexplicably pitted headset bearing. Perhaps I'd over-tightened it at some point, or maybe just slammed into a bump somewhere. The Cervelo has only around 2,600 miles on it thus far. I had gotten replacement bearings plus a bleed kit, olives, barbs (as they are called), mineral oil, and isopropyl alcohol since the brake hoses go through the headset bearings. The weather for Sunday was looking like rain in the morning, so I penciled in a few hours of bike maintenance for then.

On Saturday I met up with some of the Tulane riders for a nice 67 mile ride out of Abita Springs. Earlier that day I'd gone out to Starbucks to meet the Giro riders, but turned back at the end of Lakeshore Drive. The northshore ride didn't start until 1:30 or so. By then it was a beautiful day with light winds and a temperature in the low 70s. We had a nice little group of six, so it was a good steady ride for the most part. We had to stop on Dummyline to fix a flat at which point some woman drove by, stopped, rolled down the window, and asked Ben, "Y'all aren't from around here, are you?" to which he responded "Yes m'am, I am." We were planning on dinner and a bonfire at his house in Abita Springs after the ride. Regardless, she felt compelled to tell us that we should know better than to stop at the top of the hill there (where we had a clear line of sight for about a mile in both directions, making it arguably the absolute best place to stop). Go figure. We were probably 20 miles from the end when Pirman kind of launched with Josiah on his wheel, at which point one of the guys dropped his chain as we started to chase, so the rest of us stopped. That was the last we saw of Pirm until Abita Springs, but he did manage to drop Josiah, so we regrouped after Isabel Swamp Road for a nice quick ride back, followed by gumbo and beer and stuff. I left pretty early since I'm old and it was already past my bedtime. I later noticed that I'd ended up with 99.7 miles for the day. If i'd known I would definitely have ridden another 0.3 miles just to round it out!

Silly disc brakes

Sunday morning was once again wet and a little rainy as predicted, so after breakfast I worked on the bike for a couple of hours. Since I had to pull the fork to replace the bearings, that meant I also had to disconnect both brake hoses, then reconnect them and bleed them. I cheated and didn't cut the ends to install new olives and barbs, and it looks like that worked without causing any leaks, but I'll be checking on it for a while to be on the safe side. Since I had the fork out I went ahead and cut it down by about a centimeter so I could eliminate the spacer I had on top of the stem, and also took the opportunity to swap the short bearing cap for the tall one, eliminating another couple of spacers, and adding the plug that they'd neglected to install earlier. Of course, the morning rain had been the next cold front coming through, so by the time things dried up and I went out for a short ride on the levee there was a 20+ mph north wind blowing. On the plus side, the headset felt good and the brakes worked, and most of the levee runs more east-west than north-south. Meanwhile, the temperature was starting to drop rapidly.

This morning it was around 34° at the house with a 25 mph wind at the lakefront. I piled on a bunch of bulky clothes that I hadn't worn since last winter and met up with Charles at NOMA for a low-gear Mellow Monday. We did not see any other riders, but it wasn't super cold at the lakefront, and once we turned back toward the west, it was not bad at all. Still, we did cut it a little short since there were just the two of us and we were mostly going barely 15 mph. It's looking like the morning temperatures will be mostly in the low to mid-50s through the holidays, so that should make for some decent riding. This will be my last week at work until January since the daughter is coming in on the 23rd.

Wind, Weather, and Winter

Well, it looks like winter, such as it is in New Orleans, is here to stay for a while. The 10-day forecast isn't offering any morning temperatures above 54°, and for me that crosses the line from Fall to Winter. At the moment I'm looking out my office window at a gloomy, dark, and rainly Thursday, and feeling lucky to have gotten in an hour or so this morning on the levee, on the 'cross bike, before the rain moved in. At least it looks like there's a chance of rideable weather tomorrow morning if you consider 51°, wet streets, and a 10+ mph north wind rideable. It's going to be one of those mornings when you look out the window and then look at the radar and then look out the window again while contemplating the level of misery you are willing to tolerate that day.

Nice try, Mother Nature

This morning the forecast was pretty bad. It had been raining overnight, and at 5:30 am the radar was showing a huge line of heavy rain stretched, as it typical this time of year, from southwest to northeast, moving slowly in our direction. I figured I might get in an hour or so before the rain started again, so I intentionally overdressed, stuck the ass-saver under the saddle, and rolled out in the dark on the cyclocross bike that hasn't seen any cyclocross in over a year. The heavy gravel tires that I have on it right now at least minimize the chance of flatting on the wet levee bike path, though, and in general the bike keeps my speed down enough to limit the wind chill while still requiring enough effort to make it worthwhile. I managed get in 26 miles without getting wet, so I guess that will just have to do for today. On the plus side, that ride put me just over 12,000 miles for the year. On the minus side, that's almost 1,000 miles fewer than recent years thanks to that unfortunate crash back in the spring.

The weather, and in particular the wind, has definitely been having an effect on the local rides lately, and I'm seeing more and more Zwift and Rouvy rides showing up on Strava as people resign themselves to the realities of December. Tuesday's weather was just as bad, and I was lucky to get in 20 miles on the levee, again on the cyclocross bike, on soaking wet roads. It was slightly miserable, as you'd expect. The following day I went out to meet the WeMoRi with the temperature hovering around 40° and found only the dregs of what had been a small group to begin with. I saw Steven zoom by as I was on Lakeshore Drive but didn't really have a chance to go with him, which was unfortunate there were only three riders behind him and they were clearly not chasing. I made my usual U-turn and headed down Marconi, but by the time I was caught, only Charles was left, the other two having gone straight back toward West End for unknown reasons. We did a lap around City Park and called it a day.

At least last weekend wasn't too bad, and I was able to make both Giro Rides. Sunday's Giro was going along nicely until we got to Lake Forest on the way back. As we started to get up to speed after turning onto the road, JC somehow managed to snag his rear derailleur on a spoke and ripped it off, shearing off one of the spokes in the process. A few of us stopped to assess the situation and since someone had a multitool with a chain tool, we decided to shorten the chain to see if we could make it rideable again as a single speed. After much effort we finally got him going again, but then the chain decided it would rather be one cog higher, which made it so tight you could barely pedal. We stopped again and set it up on the small chainring, which meant shortening the chain again. That seemed to be working great, and we got about halfway down Hayne Blvd. before the chain broke. 11-speed chains aren't made so you can push the pins back in like you could in the old days, so it wasn't too surprising. Anyway, we just went ahead and pushed him the rest of the way, except for the bridge which he had to walk, and got him back to his car at Elysian Fields. 

MacGyver would have been proud.

Meanwhile, I have noticed that the headset on the new Cervelo has somehow become slightly pitted. I may have overtightened it at some point, or maybe just hit a pothole somewhere, but I wasn't expecting that with only around 2,200 miles on the bike. Of course, thanks to disc brakes, that means I will have to disconnect the front brake hose to replace the lower bearing. I was hoping to avoid having to deal with the hydraulics quite so soon. So I ordered new headset bearings, plus a bleed kit, plus the compression fitting (aka "olive"). The headset isn't bad enough to make much of a difference at the moment, although it's somewhat noticeable when riding with hands off the bars. It'll probably be next week before I have everything I need and summon up the motivation to take everything apart. Hopefully there will still be enough tubing so I don't have to replace that as well. We'll see.