Wet Wheels

The weekend weather was forecast was anybody's guess. The forecast was calling for rain Saturday afternoon, overnight storms worthy of severe weather alerts, a clearly unpredictable Sunday morning, and rain all Sunday afternoon. The Tulane riders who were planning on racing the NorthBeast races up around Piedmont the following week were planning a northshore ride for Sunday that got wisely moved to Saturday because of the forecast.

I picked up Liam on Broadway around 5:40 am via a circuitous route to avoid the ever-changing road closures, unpaved sections, and water main explosions, and four of us arrived at Abita Springs in time for our planned 7 am start that had been designed to minimize our chances of getting rained on, based on the forecast. The sky was cloudy and there was some occasional light rain - maybe you'd call it a heavy mist - falling, but at least it wasn't cold. The first hour or more of the 61-mile not-very-hilly route was on roads wet enough to produce some significant wheelspray. Ben's route took us in a kind of unusual direction down Hwy 36 with a detour because of road work that took us eventually to the new section of 3241 that now looks like an Interstate with a 65 mph speed limit, silky smooth asphalt, and little traffic (at least until it is eventually connected to I-12). We then looped around to 40 and an out-and-back on Isabel Swamp for a store stop, before returning via a more direct route on Ben Baxter, 1083, etc. back to Abita.

Along the way there were a couple of very short prescribed leadout practices that were kind of fun. For some reason, my neck was hurting the whole time, so I felt like I was not firing on all cylinders. Still, it was a reasonably good workout, and by the time we were on the way back the roads were pretty dry. That evening we had a Teams meeting with Pirmin, who was in Germany, to go over plans for the races next weekend up in Georgia.

As predicted, there were some impressive thunderstorms overnight, and as not predicted it continued to rain most of the morning, which rained out the Sunday Giro. Earlier, it had looked like the morning would be better than the afternoon, rain-wise, but quite the opposite turned out to be the case. So by 2:30 or so the streets had dried out and I headed out for a few junk miles on the levee. It was a little windy up there, but then again I was just out for an easy spin so it didn't really matter.

Monday morning the temperature was around 70° with a bit of wind for the Mellow Monday ride. As I crossed S. Claiborne on my way out there, I saw some flashing lights down around Carrollton and figured there must have been an accident. I would later find out it was quite something else entirely.

There was a good turnout for Mellow Monday, and as usual the pace started creeping up after we came over the Bayou St. John bridge. Also as usual, the road was flooded between Elysian Fields and the levee where the storm drains have been non-functional for the past couple of years. We traversed that section, which wasn't as deep as it sometimes is, and the pace quickly ramped up again, and stayed nice and brisk for most of the rest of the ride. Charles was still riding Jeff's bike, waiting for the shop to finish building up his new Bianchi frame. After we got back to the museum for the post-game commentary I learned that there had been yet another water main rupture on Panola Street near Carrollton that had inundated the entire neighborhood starting around 3 am that morning. On my way home I rode around the area to see where the break was, but didn't go quite far enough down Short Street to find it because everything was still wet and covered with sand and mud and leaves all the way to S. Claiborne, and from Carrollton down to Burdette. A lot of cars were flooded, along with gound-level apartments, and I guess Riccobono's as well.  

Of course, everyone points the finger at the Sewerage and Water Board, and/or the City, but the reality is that nobody has wanted to deal with the 100-year old plumbing and replacement costs/inconviences under those streets for decades. In this case, a big leak had already been reported at that location and they had started excavating the site a day or two before it all exploded. So once again we are under a precautionary boil water advisory. I think the plan is to replace the entire water main incrementally in 20-foot sections, one emergency overtime disaster at a time. On the plus side, we have plenty of water pressure at the house.