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.
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| 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.
