One Giro Two Giro

Friendly Friday

The past week was routine, albeit not without its minor annoyances. One example of such is the new roadwork on Norman Francis between Earhart and Washington. There's a bike lane there that I routinely use to get to the overpass on the way out to City Park or the Lakefront. Now that they have torn up the entire northbound roadway, and fenced off the area, I have to make a small diversion to get around it. Bike Easy got involved and there is actually some signage for cyclists, although it's really impossible to figure out exactly what they had in mind. Of course, at 5:30 am it isn't much of a problem one way or the other, but regardless I have shifted to occasionally taking Carrollton, especially now that they finally repaired the big holes just before the underpass. Fortunately, the other side of Norman Francis isn't affected, so it's still the preferred route for riding back home later in the morning when the traffic is heavier and Carrollton is a obstacle course of impatient drivers with cellphones and RTA busses.

One other little annoyance was that someone in a truck or something higher than a car sideswiped the Volvo, and in typical fashion, fled the scene. I ordered a new plastic wheel arch, but the body was dented in such that it would never fit properly. Not wanting to have it fly off on the Interstate somewhere, I texted Woody who sent me to a guy they use for PDR. The dented area had been hit and repaired previously, so I wasn't expecting perfection, and just wanted it to be presentable. I was set to bring the car out to his shop near Veterans and Power Blvd. on Friday morning, but of course first there was the Friendly Friday ride.

This weeks Friendly Friday was well-attended, and I knew from the start it was going to be a fast one, which of course it was. Knowing that I might be riding back from Kenner after dropping off the car, and then riding back out there to pick it up, I tried to just stay in the wheels on that ride, which wasn't too difficult considering how many of them were readily available. After I got back home I had a quick bite to eat and drove out to Kenner with the bike in the back, still wearing my sweaty kit. The PDR guy was there waiting for me, and said it would just take a couple of hours, so I hopped back on the bike and rode out to the lakefront and then to Starbucks on Harrison, then back out to the "western wall." Shortly afterward I got the text that the car was about ready, so it all worked out quite well other than the fact that it was one of the more hot and humid mornings we've had so far this summer. As expected, it wasn't possible to make the bodywork perfect because of the old repair work that involved some Bondo, but it came out looking quite good under the circumstances, and I doubt most people would ever notice it wasn't perfect.

Friday evening Norman Nolan emailed to say he would be in town for the Giro. That meant that either of two scenarios would unfold - (a) people would skip the Giro, thinking it would be too fast, or (b) people would come to the Giro because it would be fast. As it turned out, I think scenario B was more in play than scenario A. As expected, it got really fast once we came down onto Hayne Blvd, and it stayed that way, and as a result of that and one other problem, we lost a few people along the way. Charles had some sort of problem and ended up off the back, riding out Hwy 11 for a change of scenery. Chris had a dead Di2 battery and since he was stuck in the small ring, he turned back early. Somewhere along Chef on the way out a small break went off the front, but the main group still averaged nearly 28 mph out to Venetian Isles anyway. Granted, there was a light tailwind. After the turnaround it took a long time for the pace to ramp up again. It was getting hot and a number of people were feeling the effects of the fast pace, so while the return trip had its fast segments, it wasn't quite a fast as it had been.

That afternoon I drained the old gas out of the Honda generator we bought after the first hurricane but haven't yet had to use. Then I pulled the carburetor and cleaned out the bowl and jets and everything. Somewhere along the way, though, a tiny but critical plastic piece popped off of the float valve, undetected. I reassembled everything, went and got a few gallons of fresh gasoline, replaced the dead starter battery, and fired it up. It ran just fine, but then I noticed the gasoline pouring out of the case. I knew it must be the carb overflow, and figured the float must have gotten stuck or something, so I had to again take it apart. That's when I discovered that the little piece that actually shuts off the gas flow when the bowl is full was missing!  I searched around and found it in the bottom of the case down in a narrow and entirely inaccessible space. After 45 minutes of fishing for it with a piece of bent wire I finally got it to a place where I could grab it with a pair of curved forceps that I've had in my toolbox since I taught frog dissection classes in grad school. What a relief. Then I put it back together, first with the float upside-down, and then with it right side up. Anyway, it's all good now, so that in itself should guarantee we'll have no hurricane induced power outage this year. Meanwhile, I was having a conversation with Danielle who had gotten her scooter out of mothballs to save some gas. She had replaced the battery and it started up OK, so she headed off to the gym only to have the temperature light come on. We never could determine if it was actually overheating or not. It did have coolant (there's a little radiator on that 50 cc thing). She limped back home, stopping occasionally to let it cool down, just to be on the safe side. Could be the temperature sending unit or the thermostat or something.

Sunday morning the forecast was not looking too good and we ended up starting out with only eight, I think. Charles apparently dropped a water bottle and ended up turning back early and I think we lost someone else along the way. It wasn't nearly as fast as Saturday had been, but of course with so few people it's always more work regardless of how much wheel-sucking you do. It was really feeling like summer on the way back.

The forecast for this week is calling for a lot of rain, but the forecasters seem to be pretty uncertain about the details of where, when, and how much. When stepped out the door this morning for the Mellow Monday ride there was a light drizzle falling. I think the temperature was around 80°F, though, so the drizzle didn't feel bad at all. As you'd expect under the circumstances, turnout was severely limited, which is to say there were five of us. Charles, sporting his new power meter crankarm, and intent on following some level of structured training, told us at the outset that he was limited to 120 W this morning, so he dutifully dropped off the back pretty early, not that we ever got going very fast. I didn't make any effort to stay on the front, since I felt like I probably needed a bit of a recovery ride after the weekend. As for what the weather gods have in store for the rest of the week - well, we'll just have to look out the window in each morning and see how it looks. There's a minor disturbance skirting the western edge of the Gulf, so depending on how that plays out we'll either have torrential rain or scattered rain or no rain.

  

Race of Truth

Random leftover trophies for the TT

I had to go back to the NOBC Results website to see how long we've been doing the TT championship on the LaPlace course. Turns out it started in 2009. The event was put on by NBO for the first few years, with some assistance from the NOBC, but time trials on that course go back way farther than that. 

Super-rare photo of me in a TT

In the 80s we did some two-turnaround 40 km and I think some 10 km time trials out there, starting from the Ruddock boat launch, and at one point in 1982 we held a national record attempt there sponsored by the Baton Rouge club. From the NOBC Newsletter, "Brian was shooting for records in the 75, 100, 125, and150 mile time trials, but the 95 degree heat and increasing wind forced him to end his attempt at 125 miles. Nonetheless, Brian set new National records for 75 miles (3.09.18), 100 miles (4:16:42), and 125 miles (5:38:37) before nearly collapsing at the 125 mile turn-around. Brian's first two 25 mile times were 1.02 s, and his 100 mile record represents four 1:04 time trials back-to-back."  That year Brian also set a Louisiana 25 mile TT record of 56:09. This was before Time Trial bikes and aero helmets. Yesterday, at the  LAMBRA TT championships, only ten riders went under an hour. The winning time this year came from Mat Davis with a 53:13, still a bit afar from the course record of 49:32 set in 2023 by Matt Govero.

Thursday afternoon make-up miles. Levee bike path status unchanged.

The week had started off with more rain, ensuring that the flooded part of Lakeshore Drive remained flooded. It's still flooded as I write. Wednesday's WeMoRi route was altered because of that, going around the Elysian Fields traffic circle and then back to the Canal Blvd. spur before returning to LSD and Marconi. It was a fast one. Thursday's weather was not looking too promising, but I really thought the rain would hold off until 9 am or so. It didn't. We got in the Lakeshore Drive part, but somewhere between Bonnabel and Causeway it started to rain. That turned into a full deluge within minutes, but at least it was brief and the temperature was warm. 

Then around midday I was sitting at the computer when the lights suddenly went out. Just some of them. I thought a breaker must have tripped, so went down to the basement and checked them, multiple times, but they all looked fine. Since the lights that seemed to be out were the ceiling lights that still run on knob and tube wiring and for some reason go through a little two-fuse box hidden behind a kitchen cabinet, I thought maybe one of those had blown. Nope, those were fine. I called and set up an appointment for an electrician to come out because I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then of course the lights started working again, so I went out for a ride. When I got back, the house was hot and I wondered if there had been a power surge that had knocked out the a/c. I went outside and saw the condenser fan turning at about 10 rpm. Hmmm.  I called the a/c people to schedule someone for the next morning, but after more investigation I realized that the main problem was that the house wasn't getting full power and that one of the two legs coming into the panel must not be fully powered. I called Branden, who works for Entergy, and half an hour later there was a truck half a block away where a tree branch had taken out one of the power lines. After much tree-pruning they fixed the fallen wire and everything was back to normal except for the piles of oak tree branches left behind. I spent a couple of hours cutting and bundling the ones in front of our house the following day.

Friendly Friday had a big turnout and was therefore predictably fast, but I was mostly hiding out in the group thinking about everything I'd have to pull together for Sunday's Time Trial. I had earlier started up the little generator that I use for races to make sure it was running OK. It ran great for a minute or two, then the RPMs went through the roof and something electrical inside blew up. I knew we could run the race clock and printer from my Jackery power station, so all we'd really lose would be the big P/A system. Fortunately I had two functional megaphones on hand, so no worries there. At one point on Friday the Sewerage & Water Board guys showed up to fix the fire hydrant on the corner that has been leaking since April of 2025. Finally. True to form, they spent about half the time sitting around talking while one guy with a shovel worked and two other trucks loitered nearby.

By the time registration for the Time Trial closed late Friday night we had around 45 riders, which was more or less what we had last year. We've had around 100 in the past, but that was then and this is now. I knew there would be a few late additions, of course. 

We had a good turnout for the Saturday Giro, and with Norman Nolan in town, plus some of the usual workhorses, I knew it was going to be a fast one. It was. The average speed from the bridges out to Venetian Isles, around 15 miles, was just a shade under 28 mph. We lost a few riders along the way, especially along Hayne Blvd. where it practically never dropped below 29 and occasionally surged up to 33 mph. Fortunately I wasn't having a bad day and stayed with the front group, thanks mainly to Todd who bridged me across a gap at 32 mph when a couple of riders ahead of us blew up. As I'd expected, when I got home I had two or three people who wanted to register late, which wasn't a problem since I hadn't put together the start list yet. I finally got that posted and emailed out around noon, and then spent a couple of hours sorting through which things I'd need to bring - clipboards, computer, printer, power pack, stopwatches, signage, tables, tents, megaphones, chairs, medals, and trophies. During the day Branden stopped by to pick up the podium and traffic cones, and Charles came by to pick up a cooler for water and ice. That made packing up the car Sunday morning a whole lot easier.

The trophies I mentioned earlier weren't exactly regular trophies, per se. These were mostly trophies leftover from the 2020 NOLA Motorsports Speed Festival that had been cancelled at the last minute because of the COVID pandemic. There were also a few other trophies from races where people hadn't picked them up or where there had been more trophies than finishers. So we handed those out at random to the winners of the categories and age groups.  I was glad to finally get them out of my basement, and they looked good in the photos, anyway. So on Sunday morning Candy and I loaded up the car and got out to Cajun Pride Swamp Tours a bit after 6 am to start setting up. By 6:30 volunteers and riders started arriving, and by 7:45 we were ready to give final instructions to the volunteers and start the stopwatches. We had 48 riders on the start list, although a few didn't show up. Aside from a couple of DNFs due to flat tires, things went pretty smoothly, and we were back home well before noon, after which I posted the results to the website and sent out notifications to the riders. Ty's podium photos are on the NOBC Facebook Page.

Some time after that I clicked on a text message that Pat had sent earlier. I had assumed it was just a photo he'd taken at the race. It wasn't. Charles had given Pat a ride to the race, and they had both worked the whole thing, heading back home just behind me. Unfortunately, Charles' car didn't make it all the way back. His clutch failed on the Causeway overpass over I-10, leaving them stranded for a while. They were both eventually extracted and the car taken to the VW dealer, but after spending a hot and sweaty morning and being almost in sight of home and air-conditioning and food, it must have been rough.

Rain and More Rain

The title says it all. The occasional popup pond Lakeshore Drive has been wet and closed off for almost a week and with the ground now saturated with water, it shows no signs of receding. The group rides have mostly been riding through it, slowly, but it's been no fun. At the moment, on Tuesday, it's probably about eight inches deep.

Friday

Last Thursday we had a more or less normal Thursday morning ride with just a few of us continuing out to Williams Blvd. The weather forecast had been calling for rain, but we had a little window that was almost long enough. Almost. It started raining on the way back, so I was pretty wet by the time I made it home. The forecast for the following few days offered little in the way of hope, at least in terms of staying dry. Fortunately, Friendly Friday was pretty fast and mostly dry, but things deteriorated significantly later in the day.

Early on Saturday morning I could hear it raining until maybe 6 am. The radar wasn't looking too good, and the roads were still soaking wet, so I didn't figure anyone would show up for the Giro. As I discovered later, a few did indeed show up and did the whole ride in the rain, but there were some special circumstances, including peer pressure and Mexican food at Jaden's house, in play that contributed to that. Despite the rain, that group spent a large amount of time in the 28-30 mph range, so it was by no means a social ride. I, on the other hand, set my sights on the afternoon, and ultimately went out for a ride on the levee at around 2:45 pm. Of course I took the cyclocross bike because I knew it would be wet (it was) and there would have been a high chance of flatting with regular road tires.

Monday - expecting rain

Sunday morning the forecast and radar looked pretty bad. Nevertheless, I hopped on the 'cross bike and rode out to Starbucks just in case someone might show up. Not surprisingly, nobody did. Since it wasn't actually raining, and I had my wool socks on and my ass-saver stuck under the saddle, I went ahead and did a lap of the levee anyway. It was just an easy ride, of course, so zero intensity, again.

Tuesday

Monday morning I was again alone, and again on the 'cross bike, and again everything was wet, but at least it wasn't actually raining. I stopped at the Museum of Art at 6 am just in case someone might show up, but no luck, so I did yet another lap of Lakeshore Drive. This time I rode through the grass to circumvent the flooded part of Lakeshore Drive since, after all, I was on the cyclocross bike.  Again, it wasn't much more than a sightseeing ride. I was about a quarter of a mile from home when it started to rain, so although I got a bit wet, it wasn't enough to really soak through the shoes or anything. 

Finally this morning I was back on the Cervelo. The radar was pretty clear, and aside from some remaining puddles and of course the Lakeshore Drive pond, the streets were fairly dry. We had a pretty decent group for the 6 am ride, but nobody wanted to ford the flooded section of LSD. We ended up turning around at Elysian Fields and then riding out to the Point, and repeating that once again. By then it was just Charles, Pat (in town until Monday), Mitchell, and me. It barely qualified as a training ride, but at least it was fairly dry. We stopped at French Truck for coffee afterward, and shortly after leaving my rear tire went flat. Charles and Pat were a little too far ahead to hear me when I flatted. It turned out to be a piece of wire that I fortunately discovered at the last minute. Surprisingly, I'd run my hand over the tire on the outside, and then again on the inside without feeling anything, and didn't discover it until I was about to hit it with the CO2. Anyway, it was a quick tube change and I was soon back on the road for home, arriving for the first time in three days completely dry.

Cheaha Mia

I threw the bike into the Volvo at the luxurious hour of 9 am and headed northeast toward Jacksonville, Alabama, hoping that the recently struggling A/C would at least keep struggling for the duration. It's a pretty smooth 6.5 hour drive via I-59 and I-20, and I was in no particular hurry. 

The plan was to check into the motel room in Oxford and then make the 20 minute drive up to Jacksonville to pick up numbers and partake of the $15 pasta dinner buffet at 5:00. Somewhere along I-20 traffic came to a standstill because of a crash up the road, adding a good 40 minutes to my drive, which didn't really matter since I was so early anyway. I unloaded the bike and bag at the Hampton Inn and headed north to Jacksonville, enjoying the increasingly hilly scenery. At the school where everything is staged I picked up my numbers and chatted a bit with Stuart Lamp who is kind of in charge of the event. Stuart was our regional USAC rep back when we had those, so we go back far enough that I remember him before the beard and greying hair. After I'd paid for the dinner I found out that Joe Paul, Lisa, MJ, and Jason were having dinner right down the street. Oh well. I had a reasonably nice plate of pasta and salad and headed back. Back at the hotel I affixed the chip-timing number to the seatpost, which of course barely fit between my tiny saddle bag and the rear tire (#shortpersonproblems), watched the highlights of the Giro, Googled how to properly set the time on the hotel's clock, and finally went to sleep around 10 pm.

Not knowing what the event day situation would be like I arrived kind of early, which turned out to have been unnecessary since the parking lot was more than adequate for the turnout. Lisa, Joe Paul, and Jason were all doing the UCI 100-mile qualifer, so they started ahead of the regular century ride group that MJ and I were in. Our group started out surprisingly slowly. I guess all the fast people were riding the UCI rides. There's a significant little climb four or five miles after the start, and as usual my physiology refused to adjust quickly enough. I was soon in the second group about 30 seconds behind the lead group. The next fifteen or so miles are mostly flat, and the lead group was obviously not in race mode or anything, so after a long chase we finally made contact with it shortly before turning onto Talladega Scenic Drive, which is the main road that goes up to the state park at the top of Cheaha. That started with a lot of ups and downs before coming to the main climb at around 38 miles, by which time the group had completely disintegrated. I spent a fair amount of time in my lowest gear, not feeling particularly rushed. Even the "big" climb up to the park entrance was only two or three miles long, so nothing like the longer climbs at Six Gap. On the other hand, the steep sections were definitely steep, so I was constantly going back and forth between the big ring and small ring.

It was getting pretty warm, especially on the steeper climbs where I was crawling along at 4-5 mph. I had one big water bottle with Skratch, plus a smaller bottle with plain water, and by the time I was halfway back I knew I'd need to stop to refill one, which I did at one of the rest stops. I had a full flask of Hammergel, so about the equivalent of five gel packs, plus a few backup packets, and although I emptied the flask by the end, I never resorted to any of the gel packs. One thing that was new for me was the Garmin 540's ClimbPro feature. I had the route loaded, and ended up riding almost all of the route with the map screen displayed. That showed a useful elevation profile and made it easy to know just how steep it was about to get, and how long it was going to stay that way. I think that over the six months that I've had that computer I'd never used anything related to elevation, for obvious reasons.

After coming over the top of the mountain on the way back there was a lot of nice downhill, virtually none of which required any brakes, although I did slow down for a few of the curves just in case they were sharper than I thought. Having the computer showing the route made it pretty easy to know if there was any kind of sharp curve coming up. Fortunately there weren't really any that would require significant braking. I hit almost 50 mph at one point without trying. After the longest of the downhills, there were roughly 20 miles of constant little climbs, some quite steep, and when another rider came past me I followed her. She said something to me that I didn't understand at all, so hopefully I wasn't a problem. I think she was Portuguese, if my post-ride Strava Flyby analysis is correct.

After turning off of the scenic highway, I eventually got in with a small group that was cruising at a nice pace. We were briefly on a part of the road race course from a few weeks ago. That little group kind of fell apart, but there were two other riders who came through, so I stayed with them the rest of the way. 

Although it was pretty hot by the finish, I have to say how nice the scenery was along the way, with a number of impressive scenic overlooks. Lisa ended up winning pretty much everything she could have, and was on the podium three different times - overall women, age group women, and QOM, finishing just under 5 hours. Joe Paul and Jason finished at 5:14 and 5:25, and Devin finished at 5:21. I cruised in at 5:42 and MJ at 6:05, although MJ's time included a fair amount of time at rest stops. His actual ride time was more like 5:48. For the record, it looks like I was around 7th among the non-UCI 100 riders after subtracting the ones listed ahead of me who had turned around early.

It was kind of a long drive back home, but I rolled into town around 9 pm, more than ready for food and a shower. The legs were still a little sore this morning when I went out to the Mellow Monday ride, which got fast enough along Lakeshore Drive to make me question whether I should have paid more attention to Strava that suggested something like three days for recovery. Anyway, I was glad to have finally made my way to this ride after threatening to do so for years. The Cervelo seemed to handle climbs and descents well and despite all of the front chainring shifting, never dropped the chain. 

Road Trip

Waiting for WeMo

Tuesday morning was another rain-out, bit the weather passed through quickly and by 10:30 I'd decided to get in some quality time on the levee despite the stiff north wind. I had already decided to taper off my effort levels a little bit this week since Sunday's Cheaha Challenge was lurking just around the corner, and the last thing I needed was to start that with sore legs. So the levee ride was actually quite nice. The sun was shining, the wind was mostly crosswind, and my 18-19 mph pace was just what I had been looking for. Of course, the two miles on River Road, thanks to the still-unfinished levee bike path section, was a bit stressful, but I again survived it without getting pushed into the ditch by an impatient truck driver.

Tuesday at the upriver end of the levee raise section - still unpaved, no activity anywhere

The next morning I went ahead and rode out to meet the WeMoRi somewhere along Marconi just as the sun was coming up over the eastern edge of Lake Pontchartrain. The group was a minute or two later than usual due to the fact that they had to ford the still-flooded and barricaded section of Lakeshore Drive. I think the group was a little smaller than usual despite the much improved weather. According to plan I was sitting in even more than usual, if that's even possible, but was still a little disappointed when a couple of riders rode off the front after the Wisner overpass. A somewhat haphazard chase ensued, in which I could not resist some brief participation, and the group came tantalizingly close to catching, but didn't. Having burned off the handful of riders willing to work, the chase then completely fizzled, a development that played nicely into my plan to take it easy.

Thursday morning I woke up already tired. I don't know what kind of marathon I must have been running in my sleep, but I very nearly turned back for home before getting to the lakefront. The ride itself was typical, but for reasons unknown I just felt dragged out the entire time. After most of the riders turned off at the end of Lakeshore Drive, only a few of us were left for the long out-and-back to Williams Blvd. That ultimately turned out to be mostly just Matt and me, and fortunately Matt realized that I wasn't quite firing on all cylinders and did most of the work. Some days are just like that.

Friendly Friday - regrouping

This morning's Friendly Friday ride had a good turnout. The weather was pretty great, and aside from having to once again ride though the flooded part of Lakeshore Drive it was a fast one. I'm not sure exactly who all was on the front pushing the pace since I was spending most of my time near the tail end of the strung-out group. Unlike the day before, I felt fine and was going to make one big effort on the Wisner overpass, but that was thwarted when two of the riders ahead of me unexpectedly sat up, trapping me on the right edge of the road. Of course I should have been closer to the front, but thing had gotten reshuffled when we caught the stop light at Harrison.

Steve called last night to say he wasn't going to be able to make it to Cheaha, so I guess I'll be driving up alone on Saturday. At least it looks like the weather will be quite nice. I expect to get to Jacksonville around 5 or so to register and maybe take advantage of the $15 pasta dinner they are offering. Apparently there's also food available Sunday morning before the start, which itself is kind of confusing. In addition to a normal "non-competitive" century (that is apparently only 96.5 miles), and all of the various shorter distances, plus the "ultra" distance at 126 miles, there is also the UCI Fondo Qualifier thing that I guess is basically a race. That is broken up into age groups, with most doing the same 96.5 miles, except for the older age groups that inexplicably do just 84 - as if the extra 12 miles would matter. I registered for the regular non-UCI "century." They have group start times starting at 7:30 but separated by relatively small gaps that guarantee everyone will end up mixed together anyway. The three UCI waves start at 7:30, 7:35, and 7:40, and then my non-UCI groups starts at 7:42. Two minutes on a ride like this is just to help organize the start, I guess. It looks like the first 20+ miles are mostly flat with just one short significant climb, so I am fully expecting it to be fast enough to be dangerous with such a wide variation in abilities until things sort themselves out on the longer climbs.

The other day I compared the 36x30 low gear on the Cervelo with the 39x32 on the Bianchi and found them to be similar, with the Cervelo's lowest gear just a bit lower than that on the Bianchi when I have it set up in Six Gap mode. Since the climbs this Sunday are significantly shorter and less steep than Six Gap, I should be fine, at least in that regard. I ended up putting a new Conti 5000 on the front wheel since the one that had been on there had around 7,000 miles on it. Unfortunately it's a tan-wall version and doesn't match the rear, which I find surprisingly disturbing. I had had it on the workbench for months, and don't know if I ordered the wrong one or they shipped the wrong one.

Rainy Season

Mellow Monday

It was a week of rain-dodging, sometimes unsuccessfully. Wednesday morning I was surprised to feel a wet mist falling as I rolled out to the lakefront. The streets were, of course, wet. Still, it wasn't quite what you'd call "rain" or anything, and the temperature was fairly warm, so I continued on. As has been the case recently, I arrived at Lakeshore Drive earlier than I usually do, turning onto the Bayou St. John bridge about a mile ahead of the WeMoRi group. That got me almost all the way to the Armory loop before the WeMo came screaming past. I jumped onto the end as usual. The pace, I think, was generally a little slower than usual that morning. Toward the end of the ride, as we approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle, I noted how wet the road was. That traffic circle is notoriously slick when wet, a characteristic we have historically attributed to the busses that used to stop and wait at the entrance to Pontchartrain Beach back in the day. Maybe it's just that it's old, worn down concrete. Whatever the cause, it's always been slick and this morning was no exception. Even through we hadn't entered it at full speed, by the time we were halfway around someone up ahead started to slide a bit. That caused the rider in front of me to change his line, forcing me to the outside of the lane that is nowadays lined with flex posts. I went between a couple of those into the dead space between the traffic lane and the bike lane that nobody will use, and when I corrected my line to get back where I belonged, my rear tire slid a few feet to the right. Luckily I, and everyone else, made it through upright, although I had a little bit of chasing to do to get back onto the end of the group.

Friendly Friday

Friendly Friday's ride was at least mostly dry and well-attended, and as usual it got pretty fast in the usual places. I rode down to the river afterward with Dylan and met up with a few of the remaining Tulane students (exams were just ending) for a little cool-down and a huge bagel at Shugg's.

Lakeshore Swamp, Sunday morning

The forecast for the weekend had been looking pretty bleak, and I was kind of expecting Saturday morning to be a washout. When I checked the radar that morning, however, it looked like the worst of the rain wouldn't arrive until 9:30, so I made a quick decision to meet the earlier SaMoRi group instead of the Giro group. It was a distinct possibility that there wouldn't even be a Giro group, considering the forecast. Even the SaMoRi group was quite small that morning, and then a number of riders turned back at the end of Hayne Blvd. or Chef Highway, leaving only about five of us for the rest of the trip out to Venetian Isles. It was a pretty nice paceline kind of ride, and the sky still didn't look too bad. We didn't dawdle much at the turnaround, and started back at a moderate pace. A little while later we saw the small Giro group coming toward us. They all turned around and joined us. By then the sky was beginning to look a little darker. We were almost at the end of Bullard when I felt a cold downdraft hit us, and thought, "this isn't good." It wasn't. We turned onto Hayne Blvd. just as the rain started. This was some kind of front moving through, so the rain could best be described as "torrential" and the wind as "seriously gusty." As we climbed up the overpass the group fragmented. I had a white-knuckle grip on the handlebar coming down the bridge as the wind kept trying to blow my front wheel out from under me. Coming over the Seabrook bridge was similar. Everyone went straight onto Leon C. Simon since that was the most direct route back home. Unfortunately, much of the right lane was already flooded, and I think at one point my entire foot was underwater. I limped back home as the worst of the weather passed, disc brakes squealing like stuck pigs, and water dripping from my helmet. On the plus side, nobody flatted. Of course the bike got a good washing in the rain, so I had to wipe it down, dry it off, and re-lube the chain back at home. When I turned it upside-down (always a good thing to do after a ride in the rain) a fair amount of water drained out of the headset area, no doubt thanks to the opening and extra space to accommodate the brake hoses that go through the bearings and head tube.

Sunday morning the weather was better but the Giro turnout was pretty slim. The Lakeshore Drive Swamp where it always floods was blocked off, since that's so much easier to do than actually fixing the clogged drainage. We rode through the flooded section anyway, of course. As Giro Rides go, it was a pretty easy one. At least we were able to occasionally see some blue sky. So despite all of the rain and rainy forecasts, I still managed nearly 300 miles for the week, and even if most of it was lacking in intensity, I'll take that as a win of sorts.

This morning's Mellow Monday was mostly mellow. Lakeshore Drive was still closed off and flooded near the Elysian Fields traffic circle. For some reason they had caution tape stretched between the traffic pylons, so we ended up riding against traffic to get around them. There shouldn't have been any traffic, of course, since it was supposed to be closed off on the other side at Franklin Avenue, but of course there was a car coming our way. After wading across the pond, we found the traffic cones and caution tape over there to have been all knocked down. Anyway, things got a little fast for a while, but I think only a few people were interested in keeping it that way, including me. For what seems like the fifth day in a row, I had to clean off the bike a bit after riding, thanks to the wet roads.

I'll probably be trying to make this more or less of a recovery week, especially toward the end, since I'll be heading up to the Cheaha Challenge with Steve on Saturday and would rather not start that with tired legs. Last night I put a new tire on the front of the Cervelo. It's one of the GP 5000s with the tan sidewall that I somehow ordered by mistake or perhaps got shipped the wrong one. Anyway, it of course doesn't match the rear, but since it already had around 7,000 miles on it I figured I'd best not push my luck descending Cheaha on it.

Cooldown

Mellow Monday

Another cool front, hopefully the last, pushed through Friday night, leaving behind wet roads, 20 mph winds, and dramatically cooler temperatures. I looked out the window at the wet street around 5:30 am, and then at the outdoor thermometer, and decided to wait for things to improve. Although it wouldn't have been impossible to ride earlier, the forecast was calling for a lot of improvement by 10 am, except for the wind of course. So I met up with Charles on the levee around 10:30, by which time everything was pretty well dried out, the sun was shining, and the temperature had inched above the 60° mark. Aside from the relentless north wind, it turned out to be a great day for a long flat 50-mile ride out to the Spillway and back. The effort level was fairly low for most of the ride, unless you count the considerable effort required to keep my Reserve 40 front wheel pointed in the right direction. 

Later that day I bit the $135 bullet and signed up for the Cheaha Challenge century ride, registering for the "non-competitive" 100 mile ride rather than the UCI fondo qualifier because the latter, for my age group, was cut down to 84 miles, I guess because the UCI thinks that extra 16 miles would somehow matter. Go figure. At any rate, I wasn't really that interested in turning it into a race anyway. I've never ridden this particular event even though it's been around for close to 25 years and is within reasonable driving distance. For most of those years, there were actual races this time of year around here, so missing one of those to go do a Fondo wasn't really a serious consideration. A few years back I'd ridden some of the route with Dustin and Julia. The climbing there seemed to come in shorter segments of three or four miles rather than the much longer ones you see at Six Gap. The downhills, at least the ones we rode back then, didn't seem to be too technical or anything, so there shouldn't be any white-knuckle moments in the curves, although not knowing the descents will probably keep me on the cautious side anyway. The new Cervelo, which still seems quite new despite having logged around 6,000 miles so far, has a low gear as currently configured of 36 x 30, which should be essentially the same as the Bianchi when I set it up for Six Gap with a 39 x 32, so I guess that will be fine. I guess I'll find out if disc brakes matter there. My only concern is accidentally locking up the rear since the bike came with a 160 mm rear rotor and I probably have only 75 pounds tying my rear wheel to mother earth - less with the front brake engaged. I haven't made any arrangements for the trip yet, but I guess it'll be a Saturday drive, one hotel night, Sunday ride, and Sunday evening drive back. Would be nice to find someone to go with, though.

Roadkill

Sunday's weather was super nice, if a bit chilly before sunrise. It was the first morning where I didn't feel like I really needed a headlight at 6 am. We had a good Giro turnout, and for some reason the pace never really went supersonic, which made for the kind of Giro where I might occasionally show myself at the front. Other than an odd unexpected stop for people taking selfies with a dead roadside alligator it was a pretty routine ride. 

It was still chilly this morning, and although I left the arm-warmers at home, I did put on a base layer. I did not regret it. I wanted to keep my Mellow Monday as mellow as possible, so stayed sheltered as much as possible. Chris pulled the whole group, with me on his wheel, all the way out to Seabrook. As usual the pace ramped up a bit as we approached Marconi on the way back, but not enough to cause any damage. By the time I was riding home the weather was practically perfect, so I can't really complain about the pre-dawn chill. Other than some typical thunderstorms, the next ten days should be pretty nice with morning temperatures in the mid-60s to low 70s.

Shoes Still Dry

The forecast for the latter part of this week was looking pretty bleak. Lots of rain, with the hourly rain chances jumping around in the way that they do when the effect of the model's random number generator outweighs that of the actual inputs. In other words, nobody really knew when and where and how long it would rain in the way that you do in the Fall when there's this solid cold front marching quickly southeast in your direction. The only way to play this kind of scenario is to get up in the morning, look out the window, check the radar, and make the call. Fortunately - surprisingly actually - the call every morning this week was to go ahead and ride. Somehow I made it all the way to Friday without getting my shoes wet, even though it's now been raining for hours.

The regular morning rides this week have been pretty routine, and as I've mentioned before, the Tuesday and Thursday long rides have had better turnouts than usual. Earlier in the year it seemed like almost everyone would turn off at the end of Lakeshore Drive, leaving just me and one or two others to battle the ever-present winter winds along the lake. Lately, though, there have been a few reinforcements meeting us at Bucktown, which has made the ride along the lake trail a little faster and more interesting.

Tuesday morning

With Tulane classes having ended mid-week and exams starting tomorrow, Wednesday's WeMoRi numbers were buoyed by a nice little contingent from uptown. Despite the numbers, though, a break went off the front, and then another couple in pursuit, leaving only the motivationally undecided dregs of the pack to its own lackluster efforts for the last Lakeshore Drive stretch. Fortunately the ride home provided a bit of excitement in the form of a couple of impatient drivers, one of which was provoked by Ben when he slotted into the draft of the car ahead of it. Comic relief was forthcoming, however, when the male driver's female passenger leaned out the window and basically told him it was all cool, despite the driver's continuing rant. Ahhhh, life in the big city.

Friday morning I looked out the window at the mostly dry street, then checked the radar which was surprisingly clear. It being "wear your ugly jersey day" or something like that for the final Tulane coffee ride of the academic year, I dug out my old "X-ray" jersey from (who else?) Primal Wear, and headed out to City Park. It was significantly cooler than the day before, and also significantly more windy, but not altogether bad. Turnout was a little lower than usual, but we still had a big enough group to keep me more or less sheltered much of the way. As usual, Lakeshore Drive was flooded in that spot near Elysian Fields where the drains have been nonfunctional for the past couple of years. The group slowed down to a crawl there as if it was three feet deep rather than three inches deep, and I ended up having to chase a little to close gaps since I'd been near the back. On the return trip we had a bit of a tailwind, and when we got to the flooded section I just rolled through it, which left me unintentionally in the wind all the way to the other side of the traffic circle where I was good and well streamed by the entire group that was back up to speed. That left me having to try to get onto the tail end of the strung-out line of riders going 28 mph, a task for which I was woefully unprepared. As I dropped off the pace Lisa came past and glanced back to let me catch her wheel, but I was already pretty gassed and dropped off a bit later. 

Afterward three of us rode down Carrollton to the river and met up with the Tulane coffee ride group that was a bit larger than usual since there weren't any classes. That eventually took us to the Junk Drawer coffee shop on Broadway where we hung out for longer than usual. The rain was still a few hours away, so once again I got home with a mostly clean bike and dry shoes. It's looking like it should be OK for tomorrow's ride, although the temperature will have dropped down to around 60° by then, accompanied by a 25 mph north wind, so we'll see how that goes. There's a century ride up in Ridgeland that morning that I might have done, but I think I'm going to go ahead a register for the Cheaha century scheduled for the 17th. There's also a planned 100+ mile northshore ride the weekend before that. 

Rolling with the Punches

Last weekend was a study in flexibility with a bit of gambling thrown in for good measure. The forecast for Saturday morning turned out to be, unfortunately, spot on. Rain as predicted. Also as predicted, it was all gone by 10:00 am. After a flurry of text messages, a few of us settled on a Spillway ride starting around 11:00, by which time the streets were already practically dry. We ended up with four people, besides myself, each coming from a different direction. I rode out to "the pipes" where I saw Seattle Mike waiting. We were soon joined by Charles from the FQ, and Ben from uptown. Along the way we picked up Pirm, and for most of the 50+ mile out and back he and Ben sat on the front at a steady 20-22 mph talking continuously. The weather by then was practically perfect - low 70s with a moderate south wind. The only fly in the ointment in this case was that all but myself seemed to be having difficulty keeping as much air in their tires as they had started with. Ben and Mike punctured, while Charles and Pirm, both riding tubeless, sacrificed some sealant to the tire gods and had to stop only briefly. Back at home that evening I pulled a shard of rock out of my front tire that would have added me to the list if I'd ridden another ten miles. It was a very Zone 2 effort for me, sheltering as I was in Pirm's draft for 90% of the entire ride, but at least I hadn't gotten caught in the rain earlier in the morning, and hadn't missed a ride, which, it being a Jazz Fest weekend, probably happened to a few people who didn't have the time to ride later in the day like I did.

On Sunday there was a plan to do a 70 mile ride from Bay St. Louis. The forecast was again calling for some significant morning rain as a little front came through from the northwest, where all cool fronts come from. Checking the forecast the night before, it looked like the Giro would definitely get rained out, but the chance of rain over in Mississippi was a lot lower. I went to sleep confident that I had made the wise decision to do the Mississippi ride.

Well, by the time I was on the road to BSL, the forecast had flip-flopped. There were just a few of us on hand for the 8 am start, but it was abundantly clear that there would be a serious line of thunderstorms coming through the area around 9:30-10:00. So the 7 am Giro was probably mostly dry, but our own 8 am start turned out to be less well-timed. So once again, we rolled with the weather punches and decided instead to do a short 26 mile loop, getting back to the cars no more than ten minutes before the torrential rain started. It was actually a good ride, mostly in the 22-25 mph range with a few little efforts, but of course nothing like the full 70 miles would have been. The day before I had changed out the steel bolts on my stem for titanium ones, since the steel ones pretty much always start to rust a bit after a couple of seasons of sweat, and of course I could pretend I was making an upgrade, however cheaply. I was glad to see that nothing slipped, although I wasn't really expecting that to be a problem since I'd replaced them to the correct torque spec one at a time. After the ride I sat in my car for another twenty minutes or so until the worst of it passed before hitting the highway for home. Once again, by the time I got home, the sky was clear and the sun was shining like nothing had happened.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride had a good turnout, and it got fairly fast for a while, but that was thanks only to a handful of riders who were perhaps making up some missed efforts from last weekend.

Easy Riding

Thursday

One thing I probably don't need is a ton of easy riding, but I have to admit it's kind of hard to resist when you're in a group with copious drafting opportunities, as have been most of my rides lately. One exception was last Sunday when the regular Giro was rained out as a little cool front came through. By early afternoon, though, everything had dried out and it had warmed back up into the 60s, so despite the 20 mph north wind I ventured out alone for a levee ride out to Ormond and back. Otherwise, though, the weather has been damned nice lately with early mornings mostly in the upper 60s. It's looking like we'll be in a gradual warming trend for at least the next four or five days, with highs getting into the mid-80s, so welcome to summer, I guess.

Local strade bianche?

The river, and hence the bike path, winds around quite a bit, but it's mostly an east-west affair which translated that day into a lot of crosswind, often partially blocked by the houses and stuff on the northeast side, so it wasn't all that miserable. Along the way I noted that the two-mile closed off part of the levee bike path is still closed off with no indication of progress toward re-paving. All of that was supposed to be finished by "late 2025" but here we are. Of course that meant I had to drop down onto River Road to get around it. Heading upriver along there on River Road is pretty sketchy because there is absolutely zero shoulder to the road and the edge is basically a crumbling ledge of asphalt and gravel. Cars will often wait to pass if there's something coming the other way, but not always. It's a lot better on the way back. For some reason there are maybe 18 inches of shoulder on the levee side, which makes it all feel a little more comfortable. Of course if I'd had a few more riders with me we could have just taken the lane, which would have required everyone except the mass murderers to wait and pass safely. Anyway, it was a little bit of a workout here and there, thanks to the wind.

Most of the regular morning rides this week have pretty routine except that attendance has definitely increased as have the morning temperatures. Considering that Monday and Tuesday featured more of the same strong wind, that's saying something I guess. A 20 mph northeast wind made the return stretch along Lakeshore Drive pretty fast on Monday, which is to say we spent a lot of time at around 30 mph. So much for the Mellow part of Mellow Monday. Tuesday's ride was kind of similar, and we had a good-sized group that went all the way out to Williams Blvd. on the lake trail. Even at it's usual Zone 2 level, that ride probably averaged 24 mph all the way out, but only 20 on the way back.

WeMoRi morning I jumped out of bed unusually early when I realized I'd forgotten to put out the garbage. Since it wasn't quite early enough to go back to bed, I ended up riding out to the lakefront earlier than usual, and probably could have met up with the WeMo group right about at the start, but instead I decided to just head east ahead of them. It wasn't one of the fastest WeMoRi days, so they didn't catch me until I was turning off of Lakeshore Drive onto Marconi, where I usually meet them anyway. Ben and Will from Tulane were in the group, but Liam and Dylan weren't. I learned later over coffee that Liam had nailed a pothole somewhere around Elysian Fields and then discovered he'd forgotten to bring a pump, so he called an Uber to get home. Dylan was still in convalescent mode from a particularly nasty respiratory infection he'd picked up. Anyway, at least the wind had died down by then, and for me it was a pretty good ride since the pace was easy enough in some places to entice me onto the front. I mean, by all accounts I should be doing a lot more longer high-intensity efforts and a lot less Zone 2 wheelsucking, but that seems to be a heavier lift every year. I should also be doing some heavy lifting, but that's a whole 'nother story. 

So this morning's Thursday ride turned out to be a remarkably steady one, and again, of course, mostly Zone two. It was a nice ride, though, and if I end up doing the planned long Saturday ride from Independence with the big boys, I'll be glad I kept this one relatively easy. 

Checking Strava later in the day I saw that Ben, Will, and Liam had done a morning levee ride during which Liam had crashed on that pile of gravel near the upriver end of Jefferson Parish where you have to drop down to River Road. From Strava it kind of looks like they got a ride home.

Wear the gloves!

The other day I ordered some Creatine/D3/K2 gummies to try out for a month or so. I'm not normally one for supplements, but they were on sale at Costco, so worth a shot, I guess. Since I've been essentially poisoning some mitochondrial pathways with statins for the past few years, I suppose it can't hurt, and besides, all the cool kids are using it nowadays. I also made an impulse purchase of titanium bolts for my handlebar stem. With "dripping sweat on your handlebar" season fast approaching, I'm uncomfortable with the steel bolts that came with the Cervelo. I'd always opted for the Ti bolts on my Bianchi because the steel ones are guaranteed to start getting ugly after a few months of being soaked with sweat. I doubt the 1g of weight savings will make me faster, though. Actually, I kind of doubt that anything that would pass USADA scrutiny will make me faster at this point. The place where I order the bolts from apparently spent the whole next week at Sea Otter, so it took a week for them to ship out, not that there's any urgency anyway. I expect that tomorrow's Friendly Friday ride will be fairly spicy, considering the weather and all. There's another long ride on the dance card for Sunday. If I don't chicken out on the Saturday ride, I'll have to see how it goes before committing to that one.

Massive Relative Effort

It's all relative, of course. Last weekend I tagged along with three Tulane riders to the Sunny King Criterium and Choccolocco Road Race up around Anniston AL. The collegiate races also served as the SECCC Conference Championships, so I was glad that the team was represented, even if only in the Collegiate Cat. 4 races. Coach P was also racing in the regular Cat 2/3 races. Sunny King has a long history in this area, so I was glad to finally make my way there, even if I was fully expecting to be rapidly shelled out of the back of the 50+ and 40+ races myself. The Saturday criterium is a pretty big deal, especially for the Pro Men and Women, and is part of the USA Crit series, so although the collegiate Cat. 4 and my own 50+ criteriums would be over well before lunchtime, we were definitely going to hang around for the evening Pro races that didn't start until after 4 pm.

Josiah, Liam, and Ben picked me up in the Biology 12-passenger van right on time at 2:00 pm for the roughly 6 hour drive up to Oxford or Anniston or wherever the hotel actually was. Unfortunately, Ben was just coming off of a round of antibiotics and related off-bike time so would be taking photos rather than racing. This was rather disappointing because I felt like both Liam and he had definite podium possibilities. 

Saturday morning we made a quick stop at the same Starbucks where we'd left Chris and his broken collarbone back in 2022 on the way back from the Georgia Tech race, while Julia, Dustin, and I did a little ride up Cheaha mountain. It was a short drive to the crit course in old downtown Anniston near the abandoned railroad track that is now the Chief Ladiga bike path. We were practically the first to arrive, so we slipped past the traffic cones and parked about twenty feet from the course half a block from the start/finish. It was still pretty chilly when we arrived but as soon as the sun cleared the horizon it warmed up really quickly.

The Collegiate Cat. 4/5 race was one of the first, so after a solid warmup on the bike trail, Liam and Josiah lined up for the start. The course was a 1 km rectangle with wide turns and generally good pavement, so it was going to be fast and not particularly technical. The long finish straight was slightly uphill so the corresponding back side was slightly downhill. I'd been a little concerned about turn #3 following the downhill, but as it turned out, coming into it at 30 mph wasn't much of a problem.

There were about 30 riders on the line for the Cat. 4/5 race. Liam and Josiah started in the front row, which was good. My sense was that the pace in general wasn't super fast, which I'd expect for this category. Liam was spending a whole lot of time in the wind at the front for most of this race, and was definitely not having any trouble doing so, although it probably cost him a little bit by the end. Josiah, who was coming off of being sick a couple of weeks ago and was still not in top form, was staying safely in the middle of the group. He would eventually come off the back with about ten other riders toward the end of the 30-minute race. Liam unfortunately drifted a little too far back in the last laps, but still finished a respectable 12th. 

The Master 50+ race had a pretty stacked field of 38 riders that included at least a couple of current/past national champions. Knowing full well what was likely going to happen, I lined up at the back where I wouldn't get in the way too much when I inevitably blew up. As usually happens when the start is fast and the air is cold and/or dry, it wasn't more than a couple of laps before I was in some minor respiratory distress and slid off the back where I could maintain a more age-appropriate pace. Before the end of the 50-minute race I'd be lapped at least three times. Each time I'd get into the group near the back and do a couple of fast laps before dropping off again. It being the first criterium I'd done in two years, and the first on the new bike, it was not that bad of a strategy, actually, and it wasn't like I was exactly soft-pedaling anyway. Strava proclaimed the ride "Tough Relative Effort," which seemed about right given my 154 bpm average HR. So it was a solid workout for me despite the lackluster performance. The Cervelo felt good through the fast corners, even if a little bit twitchy the rare times when I had to touch the brakes. Having spent practically the entire time on the drops, my neck was very angry with me afterward, however. Pirmin's Cat. 2/3 race looked quite fast, but he was always in a good position near, but not on, the front of the large group. In the final few laps I guess things started to get sketch, and he dropped back as a matter of self-preservation. USAC still had him listed as Cat. 5 since he'd just gotten a USAC license and never requested an upgrade based on his results from Germany. I sent USAC his almost full results list and Trish said she'd approve an upgrade to Cat. 3, so he submitted that request, but the system, using a methodology apparently not susceptible to analysis (likely AI) would only approve an upgrade to Cat. 4, so I sent Trish an email about that this morning. Anyway, he ended up rolling through with the field in 23rd position out of 54 starters.

Later, as I was sitting in the rapidly diminishing shade near the finish line, someone who probably recognized me walked by and handed me two tickets to the VIP hospitality area across from the finish, so Liam and I went over there and enjoyed the free food and drinks for a while as the Pro Women were racing. In that race there was a bad crash in the last corner and I think one of the women was Medivac'd out in the helicopter that was on site.

On Sunday we again arrived at the nearby road course just off of the Choccolocco forest early, which gave Liam and Josiah a chance to pre-ride the 12-mile circuit. The course was, at least by my New Orleans standards, quite hilly with a few little climbs hitting 9 or 10%. None of them were longer than maybe half a kilometer at best, but I knew the faster groups would get split up eventually. 

The three-lap collegiate Cat 4/5 race started around 8 am and it looked like the pace was generally pretty conservative with the group mostly remaining intact for at least the first couple of laps. Somewhere on the last lap Josiah came off the back with a few others but Liam was staying easily with the main field. There was a short climb about 300 meters from the finish, and unfortunately a rider tried to shoot a non-existent gap on the right, slipping off the edge of the road and crashing. Naturally, Liam was behind that which took him out of contention for the finish, although he did manage to salvage 12th out of around 30 despite having to practically stop when the sprint started. I was at the finish getting ready for my own race to start and when I heard there had been a crash in the feed zone, and Josiah was still missing, I rode over there to see if he was the one who had crashed. He wasn't, and in fact showed up right about when I was riding back, finishing 19th.

My road race was a 40+ age group, so I wasn't expecting to be with the group for long. I wasn't. When we made the first turn right after the start the pace ramped up over 30 mph, briefly 36 mph, and by the time we were three miles in and hit the first significant little steep climb I was audibly gasping for breath. When the rider in front of me opened a gap, I didn't even try to come around. The two of us were together off-and-on for about three of the four laps, although the other rider would often drop off of my wheel on climbs (not that I was climbing very fast) and then reappear on the flatter sections. I was just focused on the workout, which Strava ultimately tagged as "Massive Relative Effort," which in reality only reinforces how low the effort levels of my regular rides have been. I was about halfway around the last of the four laps when the Cat. 1-3 women's group caught me. I moved over so they could go through, but was surprised how slowly they were going. For the rest of the lap I just rode far enough behind to be out of the draft, occasionally having to coast so I didn't roll all the way up to their wheels. I actually spent a lot of time basically riding alongside the motoref. Finally, when they saw the 2 km to go marker, one of the women attacked. It was short-lived, however, and I was again right behind them a minute later. So anyway, I was practically DFL for this road race, but on the plus side it was clearly a solid and apparently badly needed workout for me. I don't know why I am having so much trouble with the first efforts in races like this. I've always had some trouble with fast starts, but the older I get the worse it seems to be. By the time I finished everyone was anxious to hit the road for home, so I jumped in the van still in my kit and changed in the car as we drove to the nearest Chipotle for lunch.

For the entire 6 hour drive home we were streaming the replay of Paris-Roubaix on Josiah's tablet. Otherwise it was an uneventful drive except for when we spotted Tulane Water Polo team alongside us, also on their way back from a competition. On the way there we had found the Tulane Frisbee team on its way to some event. Of course in both instances there was an exchange of sign language and clues to figure out what team they, and we, were on.

It's Tuesday morning and after my usual 38 mile Tuesday ride I think I can still feel a little bit of Sunday's road race still in my legs. Situation normal.