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.