Weekend Mishaps

The weekend weather was better than you'd expect for the end of February. Rouge-Roubaix was on Saturday up in St. Francisville, and as usual I'd decided to pass on that one for the usual combination of fiscal and musculoskeletal reasons. I had been thinking of making the trip anyway, with a plan to ride, on asphalt, up to the Pond Store for some photo opportunities and the change of scenery, but decided instead to ride the Giro and then a little group ride over in Bay St. Louis on Sunday.

We had the usual smallish group as we rolled out from Starbucks at 7 am. with the temperature comfortably in the low 60s, and I was expecting a nice medium intensity ride. As we came over the top of the overpass that comes down onto Hayne Blvd., I heard a commotion behind me and was able to make out the word "flat," so I slowed to a stop to look back. Just before the crest of the overpass, JC was stopped on the side of the road, having flatted, so I turned around and started back toward him. He quickly waved me on as I approached, saying that he wasn't planning on doing the whole ride anyway and that I should just go ahead. When I turned around again, the group, except for one other person, was already rapidly fading into the distance and there was zero chance I'd be closing that gap. So when I got to Read Blvd. (actually thinking it was Bullard) I turned right to take a bit of a shortcut over to Chef Highway. I didn't think there was any way it would be enough of a shortcut to put me back into the group, but at least I'd be able to make up a little time. When I got to the intersection with I-510 I didn't see anyone, so assumed that my group was a bit ahead of me, so I figured I'd turn around early and get swept up by the SaMoRi group that leaves half an hour earlier than the Giro. When I got to the Dong Phuong bakery I made a u-turn and then immediately saw the Giro group coming the other way. Unfortunately there was too much traffic to allow me to get back over to that side of the highway in time, but at least I knew where they were. So I continued outbound, but was afraid that some or all of them might turn around when they met the SaMoRi group coming the other way, so when I saw that group I made another u-turn (that's three in case you are keeping count) and got in with it. As I later learned, a few of the SaMoRi riders had turned around and gotten in with the Giro group, so I probably would have done well to have continued out to Venetian Isles. On the plus side, they apparently have one lane closed off somewhere out there for road work, so at least I missed that drama. Anyway, when I got back to Lakeshore Drive I turned around again at Marconi and rode back out to Seabrook in time to meet up with the Giro group as it was coming off of the bridge. It wasn't a bad ride, just a little complicated.

So on Sunday I headed over to Bay St. Louis for the 8 am 74-mile ride that Steve and Charles had lined up. It was a little chilly at the start, but definitely warmer than previously advertised, and I ended up being a little over-dressed. I think we had nine riders for this one. The pace was just a notch higher than usual for these rides, which was fine with me. Around 42 miles in we had a pretty long stop at the famous Beer  "Beer Chicken Vapes" store where I picked up a Payday bar.

Just as we were about to leave, Charles looked down at his crankset and frowned. The drive side Ultegra crank was coming apart. This was the failure mode that had precipitated huge 2023 Shimano recall of 680,000 cranksets, and I guess Charles had never gotten his checked out. We were still a bit over 30 miles from home, and the chances that the crank would hold together looked to be 50-50. Peter and I went into the store to see if they happened to have any zipties or wire of something that we could use to MacGyver into a temporary fix. Fortunately the cashier found a couple somewhere, so I put those on there to at least reduce the chances of the whole outside of the crankarm catastrophically separating from the rest of the bike. At any rate, it was fortunate that Charles had noticed the problem because having it come apart while standing on the pedals on an uphill would not have ended well. After a few miles Charles and Steve decided to take a slightly shorter route back to the cars.

Meanwhile, our group kept up a pretty decent pace all the way back, eventually coming apart a bit on the bridges just a couple of miles from the end. Back at the cars, I was glad to see that Charles had made it back in one piece. For background, he was riding his old Bianchi that day because his Ventum had developed a crack around the bottom bracket. He had just the day before gotten delivery of a new Bianchi Oltre frame. The Ventum was already disassembled while he waited for a few parts to arrive so he could transfer most of the components over to the new frame. Bad timing indeed.

This morning was a little bit cooler but still somewhat foggy, so I went out with knee and arm-warmers, knowing it wouldn't be fast enough long enough to get very overheated. I think this is the last week before we shift to DST and the morning rides get plunged back into darkness for their full duration. I hate that.

Over in St. Francisville on Saturday they had pretty great weather for Rouge Roubaix. A number of Tulane riders were on hand for that. Pirm stayed mostly with the front group, I think, placing 6th behind Sam on the 100+ mile long route, and Josiah, Ben, and Liam finished pretty much together in the top 40 of the 98-rider group. Will apparently had a minor fall and finished a bit behind them, while Donata crashed hard and hit her head, so Dylan, who was volunteering, picked her up and eventually sent her to the local hospital for a scan to be on the safe side.