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.