Collegiate Shenanigans

Skilz

Last Wednesday's WeMoRi had a particularly large turnout, which made the weekly sunrise race simulation a bit more fun than usual. As usually happens when there's a big group, there were slightly fewer "Oh shit I'm about to get dropped" moments than normal. It wasn't a super-fast one, averaging just under 26 mph (for the part that I ride) and a maximum speed of only 32.5, so that probably played a part as well. We had a nice coffee stop on the way home, and then a brief delay when one of the Tulane riders flatted just after we'd gotten going again. 

Thursday morning it was around 82° as I left home in the dark, which is pretty much how it's been for weeks. It seems like the sustained high temperatures have started getting to people, which has resulted in group ride speeds that are just a tad lower than usual. On this day there were still three of us for the extended ride out to Williams Blvd., and although we were by no means soft-pedaling, we weren't really pushing it too much either. That part was mostly in the 22-23 mph range, which for me means a heart rate of 100-110 when I'm in the draft, ramping briefly up into the upper 130s when I'm on the front. In other words, barely Zone 2. Still, it was a good ride that maybe left a little bit in reserve for Friendly Friday's expected efforts.

As it turned out, though, Friendly Friday kind of lived up to its name this time and in comparison with those of the past few weeks, it was quite civilized. Go figure. Of course I guess the starting temperature of 82° and relative humidity of 87% may have had something to do with that. Friday was the day that the Tulane Cycling & Triathlon club was putting on its "Tulane Rides Hard" event on campus, starting at 9 am, so I rushed over to campus right after I got home to help out. We were using my laptop to run MyWoosh and display it on the big Jumbotron. Getting that to actually happen turned out to be a bit of a problem that had the tech guy scratching his head for the better part of an hour, but eventually we go it to work. The laptop was connected to one of the Wattbikes so we could have a competition where random students could see how high they could get their average 5 minute power. Obviously the big guys had an advantage here, but it was still surprising to see how many would start out hitting like 900 watts, only to fade down to like 240 by the end. Also surprising how many were doing it wearing flopflops or, in a few cases, barefoot. Of course, by late afternoon a big thunderstorm rolled in, complete with hail, so we had a big scramble to secure things and had to end about an hour earlier than planned. I think around 90 people put their names and email IDs on the contact list, so hopefully a number of those will end up actually joining the club and participating. When the rain started blowing in underneath the tent, I quickly threw my laptop and phone into my messenger bag for safekeeping. When I got home the laptop was hot as a firecracker. I think water got into one of the USB-C ports and drained the battery in a rather dangerous way. Fortunately it recovered once I dried it off and charged it up again. Then, when I got back from riding on Saturday my phone was completely discharged and when I plugged it into the charger I got a message that there was moisture in the charging port and that I should immediately disconnect it.  Fortunately a couple of hours in front of a fan dried everything out and I was able to get it charged up later in the day.

Saturday's Giro had a small but lively turnout, so despite the heat it was a good workout. Again, after the ride I rushed over to HQ to help out. After the storms Saturday evening that dragged on into the night (see below), I headed out to Starbucks for the Sunday morning Giro only to find that only three other people were there. I guess the rain scared some people away, but the streets were dry by then. Anyway, everyone but me turned back before getting off of Lakeshore Drive, so I just rode out Lincoln Beach Blvd to the Interstate and turned back there. I was solo, so couldn't quite summon up enough motivation to put in much of an effort.

So Saturday and Sunday we had prospective Tulane riders coming over to HQ in waves to put them on bikes for a bit, do a minimal amount of skill practice - like stopping, cornering, and negotiating a row of traffic cones. That kept us busy from like 10 am until 2 pm both days. By then the LAMBRA tent we'd used the day before had dried out, and I was able to take it and the other borrowed stuff  home - traffic cones, ice chests, extension cord, etc. There are already 24 people who have paid the $300 annual dues, so I guess that's good. Now we have to sort out who gets the newer team Specialized bikes and who gets the older bikes, deal with pedal needs, bike sizing, etc. That will probably take another couple of weeks.

This morning we had a smallish group for the 6 am ride, and when Dave peeled off at Causeway I was left to my own devices again for the ride out to Williams Blvd. I saw the Metairie group go by just before I got to Causeway, so after riding out to Williams and turning back I turned around again when I saw them coming so I could tag along all the way out to The Wall and back. It was just a bit cooler this morning - like by two degrees - so it felt relatively cool on the way out to City Park.

On the good news front, it appears that the river levee is fully rideable again, so perhaps some of us will switch back to that on Tuesdays and Thursdays soon.

Yesterday I went over to Ochsner for an echocardiogram to see if my somewhat disappointing performances in recent years were due to something heart related or just from being 72 years old. Looks like the latter, which is I guess the better of the two options. It wasn't a big surprise, really, but I figured it was worth checking out at this point since the last echo I'd had was back in the 70s when I'd been having some minor arrhythmia and the diagnosis was mitral valve prolapse and dilated left ventricle, neither of which showed up on this one. With apologies to the Rolling Stones, "what a drag it is getting old."

Crashy Weekend

Friday Coffee Ride

It took quite a few days to come down from the workout I got up in North Carolina, but I nonetheless eventually settled into my usual dull routine of Zone 2 rides occasionally interspersed with beyond category efforts to keep from being dropped. Fortunately, the university riders finally started to filter back into the picture, which is always a good thing.

Last Wednesday's WeMoRi was a good workout despite my getting dropped due mostly to a moment or two of hesitation hoping the riding in front of me, who was clearly losing the draft and showing little hope of regaining it. Of course I sat on his wheel a little too long hoping for some kind of miracle. Branden came around us on City Park Avenue in an attempt to bridge me up to the group, but even that was too little too late. Apparently there had been another attack in the front group while we were trying to make the bridge, so that kind of explains it. There's often a little lull after the sprint on City Park Avenue, but no such luck that day. Naturally I later made a u-turn on Lakeshore Drive so I could enjoy the usual final surge to Marconi. There were a number of Tulane riders on hand, all in their new jerseys, and we had a nice long coffee stop on the way home at The Bean Gallery on Carrollton. On Friday there was the usual super-fast "Friendly" Friday ride, followed by the easy Tulane coffee ride and a stop at Junk Drawer Coffee on Broadway, right around the corner from home.

The weather for the past few days, including last weekend, has featured extreme heat advisories. Although the early SaMoRi group has ballooned in size with people trying to avoid a little bit of the sunshine, we still had a solid group for the Giro. Aided by a light tailwind, the speed rarely dropped below 28 mph the whole way out, making it a pretty fair workout even without spending much time in the wind. Much of the return trip was more in the 24-25 mph range as the mild headwind and increasing heat began to take a toll. Still, thing were rolling along nicely as we made our way down Hayne Blvd (apparently recently renamed Lincoln Beach Blvd.). 

At one point the whole group swung out into the left lane. I later learned that it was because whoever was at the front thought we were about to hit a section of broken up road. As it turned out, that section was just a little bit farther down the road, and when we got to it we were back in the right lane going 25 mph. Someone near the front saw it at the last minute and apparently hit the brakes, resulting in a big pile-up. The earlier group had plowed right across the broken concrete, which had resulted in multiple flat tires. We weren't quite so lucky and four riders hit the ground, with TJ getting the worst of it. I rode back in with TJ and Eddie D as a large hematoma grew on TJ's left elbow and his right brake lever dangled from the handlebar. We were going slowly and I was wondering why Nico and Chris didn't catch us. It turned out Nico had flatted. Despite the crash and everything it was still a pretty hard and hot training ride, and I was feeling lucky I'd been able to stop in time. Chris, who had been right in front of me, went down, but fortunately landed mostly in the grass. When I got home I reported the broken up concrete, accompanied by a photo, to NOLA311. From what I heard later, it had been temporarily patched in time for the Sunday Giro.

So on Sunday there was a 50 mile Tulane ride from Abita Springs that included a couple of new riders. Considering that they wanted to meet at 5:30 am for the drive across the lake, I was impressed that everyone who said they were coming actually showed up. I rode over with Jack and three bikes. Charles met us over there, along with a couple others, so we ended up with a good sized group of eleven. It was probably the longest ride ever for a couple of the people in the group. This was initially organized by Tessa (Pirm is in Germany) and was scheduled to be a fairly easy Zone 2 ride, which it definitely was. We made three store stops along the way, one at Isabel, another at Enon, and the last at Barker's Corner. That was a good thing because it was getting pretty hot toward the end, two or three people fell over trying to unclip, and there was one minor crash when a couple of riders bumped each other on Lee Road. Fortunately we were never going quite fast enough for any of that to have done a lot of damage, and everyone had a nice lunch at Abita Brewpub before heading back to town.

With such an easy ride on Sunday I kind of felt like I was in uncharted waters as I rode out to meet the Monday morning 6 am ride. For that one we had a pretty good turnout, and the pace didn't stay in the "Mellow Monday" range for very long. It was in fact quite a bit afield from anything you might call mellow. Later that morning I went over to Ochsner for my annual checkup, which is mostly a bloodletting for lab work, all of which turned out to be more or less normal. BP was 112/72, so no worries there. I'm scheduled for a cardiac echo next week since the last time I had one the results were printed out on heat sensitive paper. I was diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse back in the late 70s or early 80s when I had some arrythmia going on, so probably a good thing to check. I'd expect a dialated left ventricle at least by now, and perhaps a good excuse for getting dropped to keep in my pocket. At this age you never really know if something's wrong or if that's just the way it is now.

No Place for Sprinters - Up in Asheville

I pretty much knew what I was getting myself into from the get-go. Nonetheless, it was virtually impossible to resist a trip up to Big Rich's hideout in the Blue Ridge mountains with Charles and Jeff. So throwing caution to the wind, I loaded my bike and bag into Jeff's BMW early on a Sunday morning for the long drive to Asheville NC for four days of verticality. If there's anything that over a decade of riding the annual Six Gap Century has taught me, it's that I am not what you would ever call a "climber." Fortunately, whatever cycling ego I once had is now greatly diminished, which is probably nature's way of keeping me from having a self-induced heart attack on a 10% grade. The drive up to NC was pretty uneventful unless you count the usual traffic jams going through Atlanta, and so we arrived at Rich's place well before dark. Charles and Jeff were stationed in "the treehouse," a separate guest house next to the main residence perched on a steeply sloping lot overlooking the forest, complete with deer and bears.

On tap for Monday's ride was an out-and-back up to the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center. This 43 mile ride featured over 4,400 feet of arduous climbing with grades ranging from 4 to 10%. Barry came by to join us for the ride, and we all trudged up the long gravel driveway that is too steep and loose to ride on a road bike. 

After going immediately into the red before we even started the main climb I quickly decided to do focus on my heartrate, keeping it in the general vicinity of 140-144 bpm. My lungs were clearly not happy with something, so any sustained efforts above that made me sound asthmatic. Interestingly, Strava awarded me with my "biggest climb" for the continuous 17 or 18 miles at the blazing average speed of 9.2 mph and an average heart rate of 140 bpm. My legs felt fine, my breathing not so much. Of course at my age one wonders if it's impending heart failure, or pneumonia, or just the way it is now. It was definitely a challenge, and I was definitely the last one to arrive at the visitor center. 

After a brief regrouping at the top, we headed back down the way we'd come. 

The three flatlanders were being especially cautious with the speed since we were on unfamiliar roads and the road was, as it probably always is, a bit damp. That kept my top speed down to 43 mph, while confirming that the 140 mm front rotor was, at least for me, sufficient. Strava accurately tagged the ride as "Massive Relative Effort." On the plus side, I barely drank any water since the temperature was somewhere in the 60s the entire time. Although the Garmin's ClimbPro feature of course kicked in immediately, it would have been better to have had the route loaded on the computer, so Rich sent us the gpx files for each of the other three rides we'd be doing.

Later that day we took a walk down to the edge of the property at a stream where there are the remnants of a very old mill.

Tuesday's ride was a bit shorter at 36 miles, but with over 4,000 feet of climbing. Rich's friend and neighbor, Jim, joined us for this one. This one was mostly a loop, so there were two long climbs followed by two long descents, neither a long as those on Monday. When the grades got above 6% or so, I'd just say goodbye to the others and climb at my own pace, mostly in the 36 x 30. The two climbs were about six miles each, and the downhills were fun even though we were taking them rather cautiously.

Wednesday was our longest ride at around 46 miles. With only 3,700 feet of climbing broken into two climbs, this was what passes for a flat easy ride up there. It was by no means easy, but it was perhaps easier.  As far as I could tell, there aren't more than ten feet of flat ground anywhere around Asheville.

Our plan was to make the drive back to New Orleans on Thursday, but fortunately we had enough time to get in one last ride in the morning. This one was only 26 miles, up the Rose Hill climb. I think this route probably had the steepest grades of the four we rode. Despite being relatively short, the average grade up the Rose Hill climb was over 8% with some short spots in the 10-16% range. For reference, my average speed on that climb was 8.2 mph. Earlier this year Lisa had averaged 12.5, and the fastest Strava segment speed is apparently 18 mph.

So is was a great challenging weekend with friends, and a welcome break from the 80-90° New Orleans temperatures. Although the weather forecast had initially been calling for a lot of rain, we never got any during our rides, and although the roads were usually damp enough to keep me from letting the bike go on the downhills, the only problems they caused were strictly psychological. As slowly as I was climbing, I don't really think I could have gone much faster without doing more damage than I'd like. As it was, my lungs felt kind of raw much of the time I was there.

The drive back was fine despite a short detour caused by an accident up ahead of us, and we arrived back home at a reasonable hour.