Sunrise Season

Heading home from Mellow Monday a week ago

We will thankfully move the clocks back an hour this coming weekend, but in the meantime we've been treated to some pretty sunrises on the morning rides lately. We've also had practically a whole week with morning temperatures in the 60s, which for most people is comfortable and for me is a bit chilly. I'm not complaining, of course, real winter will come soon enough I guess.

For the past few weeks I've been doing the usual 6 am ride from NOMA on Tuesdays, but have switched to a 6:15 am levee ride on Thursdays. A week ago on Tuesday I was able to blend in with a small group once I got out to the Lake Trail, which was nice. That group was a bit smaller than it has been, which seems to be the trend with most of the rides lately. As if the pre-dawn darkness isn't enough, we have had sustained strong winds for at least a week now. It's getting old.

Friendly Friday was pretty typical, which is to say that it started easy and ended fast as usual. Afterward I braved the traffic and potholes on Carrollton and met up with the Tulane Coffee Ride on the levee. We went over to MoJo on Freret Street this time, coincidentally arriving just as Candy showed up walking Charlie, who of course loved the attention, and the dog biscuit. There was a long line there, but I eventually got my cup of coffee as Candy headed out to continue her morning walk.

On Saturday I went out in the dark with Jupiter and Mars high in the sky to see if anyone would show up for the Giro Ride. It was fairly windy, not too bad, but by 6:55 I'd finished my coffee and was still sitting there alone. It seems that the SaMoRi has officially morphed into the Saturday Giro now. As Doug Haddock once said in reference to riders going the wrong way at the Tour de La, "Bikies are like sheep." So I figured I'd ride solo out to Chef Menteur where I could turn around and get in with the group. I wasn't too keen on riding the stretch on the Interstate alone, so I took Bullard to Chef. I then turned around at Fortier Blvd., constantly looking over my shoulder for the group that I was sure would appear at any second. Eventually I decided that I must have missed them, and went back the way I'd come, only to find out later that they had indeed been behind me the whole time. Since I'd taken the Bullard shortcut and also turned around early, I then just continued out to the lake trail to at least make up the missed mileage.

Sunday was a 75 mile Tulane ride out of Pass Christian. It was in the 50s when we rolled out from War Memorial Park a little late, around 7:50, with eight or nine people, including Charles and Steve. This was a pretty consistent Zone 2 type ride that seemed to be about 70% headwind. I was comfortable for most of it with a baselayer and arm-warmers, although it did warm up nicely by the time we got back. Afterward most of us went over to that little Sea Level place at the harbor, which was nice. My legs felt achy the entire ride for some reason, so I guess it's a good thing it never got fast. On Monday I tried my best to keep my efforts as mellow as possible under the circumstances. Naturally it got pretty fast heading back on Lakeshore Drive, thanks to a pretty strong northeast wind coming off the lake.

Tuesday the wind and temperature were pretty much the same, and as I expected I ended up solo after Lakeshore Drive. The tailwind made the westbound stretch pretty nice, and of course also made the return trip pretty slow, but at least there was a nice sunrise to watch. Later that morning I met up with Dylan, Pirm, and Zach, who handles Club Sports at Tulane, to show him around HQ. Apparently some people have been asking about the club's space at University Square. I'd guess it's Athletics since they recently installed the tennis courts there for the tennis team.

This morning I went out to the lakefront to meet up with the WeMoRi. When I latched onto the end of the paceline along Marconi I was surprised how small the group was. I guess people are getting tired of riding in the dark and at this point are just waiting for the time change on Sunday. When we got to the usual sprint over the Wisner overpass, I let a little gap open, thinking that it would be easy to close it back up on the downhill. Well, it wasn't. Eventually three of us came together and put in a half-hearted chase along City Park Avenue. Actually we were gradually losing ground until the front group eased up a lot after turning onto Marconi, which allowed us to close it back up. Apparently there had been a few other riders in the group before I'd met up with it. None of the usual Tulane riders were there today.

Da Wind in da Parish

Tour da Parish

It was still nice and warm as I rode in the dark out to NOMA to meet up with the Friendly Friday group. Still, in comparison with the prior couple of months, the 75° air felt just a little bit chilly. The forecast was calling for a cold front moving through in the afternoon, and I was already wondering just how windy and chilly it was going to be for Saturday's annual Tour da Parish ride.

We rolled out of NOMA as usual and half a mile later as we made out way through the I-610 underpass, there was a loud explosion. For a moment I wondered if something bad had happened above us on the interstate, but quickly realized that Wes' rear tire had suddenly blown right off the rim. It was quite a mess. He must have had half a gallon of sealant in there because the bike was covered with it. We had barely even started the ride, and most of the group continued on with the usual warmup, but a few of us stopped to assist. I knew that the following day would probably be a hard one, so I didn't feel bad about missing most of the ride. Besides, I was planning on riding down to the river afterward to meet up with the Tulane coffee ride where I needed to hand off a BikeReg check to the treasurer. So Wes quickly pulled out an inner tube, removed the valve stem from the rim, and despite everything being covered in slime got everything back together started pumping the tire up with his electronic pump. The pump buzzed but the tube didn't inflate. It must have been bad or pinched. So someone offered another tube, and he tried again, unfortunately with the same result. Finally, on the third tube and with borrowed CO2, we got it inflated enough for him to limp back home as a couple of us headed to the lake to meet back up with the group on its way back. After regrouping at NOMA I headed off for the levee, but didn't get past Orleans before my own rear tire went flat. I rolled up to the coffee shop and, with my one remaining CO2 cartridge, got it fixed. Of course by then I was running a little late, but did eventually meet up with the coffee ride group. The rest of the day I was obsessively checking the hourly forecast for Saturday morning, which was not offering any better news. We'd be starting out at 7 am with a sub-60 degree NE wind blowing at 20-25 mph. A lot of the people who usually do this ride were already on the fence and leaning heavily to the other side.

The Thursday Levee Ride

So Saturday morning I got up early so I could get to the ride around an hour ahead of the start, which would ensure a nice parking spot and ample time to pick up my packet and generally get my act together. It was a good thing I'd planned to get there early because things started going downhill right away. As I was getting ready to leave, I grabbed the pump so I could top off the front tire that has a latex tube that always loses exactly five pump strokes per day. When I pulled the pump off of the valve stem, something in the valve broke and the whole thing came apart. It took a few minutes to put in another tube, pump it up, and finally get out the door. Although I was still somewhat ahead of schedule, I was starting to feel a bit rushed, and somehow managed to leave my phone at home. The biggest problem with that was that I had been planning on calling Catherine when I arrived so I could lend her my backup Garmin that she wanted to use. Of course, I never found her, but fortunately the route is pretty well marked and it wasn't an issue. It was still dark when I arrived, and after parking I walked over to the registration area and picked up my packet along with a welcome cup of hot coffee. Back at the car I went to open the back hatch, which has been troublesome for quite some time, and it absolutely would not click open. By then time was getting a little short. I ended up removing the front wheel while the bike was still in the car so I could get it out through one of the rear doors. At that point I noticed the front tire, the one I'd just fixed, seemed pretty low. I decided to go ahead and risk it on the assumption that it had just lost some pressure when I'd removed the pump earlier that morning, since it was almost time to start. (When I checked it back at home later that day it had about 50 psi.)

So the ride started right on time at 7 am with a smaller crowd than usual. I think a lot of people skipped the ride after seeing the predicted wind speeds. At the front, though, were Connor, Ben, Liam, etc., so I knew there would be a fast group. The first segment of the route heads generally east, so that meant a crosswind from the left. I was already expecting an early split since the road isn't wide enough for a big group in a crosswind, and I didn't want to die a self-inflicted death. Right away a group of maybe 20 or so split off the front with me and a few others hanging onto the back. As the speed ramped up the back of the group, as expected, started to get strung out along the right edge of the road. Although it wasn't super fast, I was getting pretty uncomfortable riding the tightrope, and finally decided that staying with the front group wasn't quite worth dying for. 

Pretty soon a nice little second group came by and I jumped into it as we made the turn to the south down to Delacroix. That was a nice mostly tailwind stretch, so if was fairly fast despite being entirely disorganized. Once we made the U-turn, which due to some complication was a few hundred meters early, we hit the headwind. The front group, of course, was long gone by then. Our group got semi-organized for a while with a rotating, if uneven, paceline, and after a while I could see MJ and Joe Paul up ahead. They must have dropped off from the front group. Knowing that both of them would work, I pulled our group up to them once we got close, so at that point we had a nice group of maybe eight or ten. We made the right turn onto the road to Hopedale and kept up a fairly nice paceline with a strong crosswind and significant headwind. 

After the second U-turn I pulled off the front and as I dropped back Joe Paul said, "you dropped them." I hadn't really, but I think one of the riders in the paceline blew up and opened a big gap that nobody closed. So the rest of the way it was just a nice steady 3-man time trial with MJ, who was more in race mode than Joe Paul and me, pushed the pace a bit. It was a nice workout, although most of the intensity was in the form of trying to keep the front wheel pointed in the right direction. I don't think I touched either of my water bottles, and I consumed on gel mostly because it was tasty rather than because I needed the carbs.

Meanwhile, Connor predictably ended up solo off the front, followed by Ben, who was also solo, and then what was left of the front group with Liam finishing third. Granted there's no finish line and no actual results, but it was a good ride for them anyway.

This morning it was still windy as hell but we had a decent sized group for the Giro. My legs were just a little bit worse for the wear, so I was limiting my relatively rare pulls. Otherwise it was a good ride. Like Saturday, I had a base layer and arm-warmers on, which was perfect.

A Taste of Fall

Thursday Levee Ride

Hurricane Isaias ended up making landfall around Destin, with impact that looks to me to be around upper Category 2 level. What that ultimately meant for us, as is often the case when something like that goes east of us, was a north wind and a little taste of fall, which is to say that the morning temperature may have gotten down to 60°F. Rather surprisingly, morning temperatures since have remained relatively cool. On Thursday we had a nice little group for the long levee ride with a bit of a tailwind heading out and of course headwind heading back. Friday, when the hurricane ultimately made landfall, the wind was stronger and more northerly. Not surprisingly, Lakeshore Drive was closed due to flooding resulting from the combination of a high lake level and strong north wind, so Friendly Friday was more like Fractured Friday as we decided to do a couple of laps around City Park instead. I wasn't in the mood to suffer and dropped off the pace early, which was probably just as well since I think the group kind of splintered anyway. I went ahead and rode down to the river afterward, rather later than usual, but eventually met up with the Tulane coffee ride as usual.

On Saturday I had originally been planning to do the 6:30 SaMoRi but Chris said he was going to do the Giro at 7, so I went ahead and did that. As usual we had a smallish but motivated group, so it was a good enough workout even if I was sucking wheels most of the time. 

On Sunday Ben had put together a Tulane long ride out of Abita Springs, so it was an early wakeup to get to HQ around 5:15 am for a planned 6:30 am start. I don't think we ended up leaving HQ until more like 5:45, so we didn't roll out of Abita until almost 7, which was fine since it would have still been pretty dark at 6:30 and the temperature was actually below 60°F. I wore my sunscreen arm warmer things, and did not regret it. The ride itself was strictly Zone 2 and it was a pretty beautiful day for the six or seven of us. Of course the ride was followed by lunch at the Brewpub as usual.

Tuesday's morning ride out of NOMA had pretty much the usual crowd, and as usual everyone turned off at the end of Lakeshore Drive except for me and Jeff. As we traversed the parking lot shortcut to Bucktown Jeff inexplicably dropped his chain, and as often seems to happen, it got stuck behind the Trek chain catcher thing. Luckily he had a multitool with him, so he could loosen the little flap and get it out of the way, but in the process he managed to cut his hand badly enough that he was dripping blood on the chain. Anyway, at that point he decided to just head home at Bonnabel to tend to his wounds and get his bike back in order, leaving me to my own devices for the rest of the ride to the west. Fortunately I'd seen the Metairie group earlier, so I cruised along and waited to be swept up by it, continuing out to The Wall and back, which was nice.

This morning I accidentally got out the door a little early, so I got to Lakeshore Drive probably four or five minutes ahead of the group. I went ahead and headed east at a moderate pace, and didn't get caught until we were almost to Marconi. It was fast as usual but nothing unusual, so I think mostly everyone stayed together. As usual I was mostly just following wheels. Ben, Liam, and Jack were MIA, having decided to do a levee ride instead, apparently tapering for Saturday's "non-competitive" Tour da Parish ride. It's looking like Saturday will be cool and windy. The current forecast is calling for NNE wind at 19 (!) mph. The route starts off mostly easterly, then turns south down to Delacroix, then back north, then a long stretch out mostly to the east and then back west. Of course things could change a bit between now and then, but my guess is that a strong wind, especially a crosswind, will wreak havoc on a group like this.

Rain, Dark, and Flat Tires

A lot of this kind of scenery lately

It was, I think, Thursday before my legs felt more or less normal again, which I suppose is about normal after a flatlander foolishly ventures up into north Georgia and rides 104 miles with close to 12k feet of climbing. Apparently going slower did not significantly reduce the damage inflicted, at least on my legs. Last week included a fair amount of wet roads and outright rain, and I think I washed down the bike and drip waxed the chain three times. over the course of seven days. It's just like that sometimes. 

That Thursday ride was a late one, again because of morning rain. I went ahead and headed out for the levee around 6:40 am because it looked like I had a little window in-between the rain. A lot of the bike path was still pretty wet, and I rode through a short bit of rain shower, but otherwise I was glad I'd gone. Well, until I was three blocks from home and slashed the hell out of a basically brand new Conti 5000 on a sharp rock. The also new TPU tube immediately exploded through the cut, and by the time I rolled to a stop it had also been pinched by the rim. Later that day I sewed in a boot, so the tire will at least be usable as a backup. Fortunately I already had a tan wall Conti on hand that I'd mistakenly ordered a while back, so that got me through the next few days until a proper matching black one arrived today. I was a little surprised how much it bothered me having mismatched tires.

Last Saturday I went out with the SaMoRi again since they have now shifted to a slightly more palatable 6:30 am start and I figured my caffeine withdrawal symptoms would probably not kick in until it was over. Nothing much to say about the ride itself except that since most of the regular Giro riders are now there on Saturdays it was basically a Giro ride. The forecast for Sunday was not looking good, and in fact it ended up storming all morning. I finally slipped out on the 'Cross bike around 1:30 and found much of the levee bike path to be reasonably dry. Granted, I did get a tiny bit of rain along the way, and there were some areas that were pretty wet, but considering all of the rain around the area, I am chalking it up as a win, even if I got in only 33 miles. That brought my week's total to 251, so I'm going to call it a recovery week. 

By Monday it was starting to look like something significant was developing in the western Gulf of Mexico. I was really hoping we would get all the way through the hurricane season without a single hurricane in the Gulf, but it doesn't look like that will happen. Anyway, the Mellow Monday ride was good, but the roads were mostly wet and once again the bike needed a bit of a wash afterward.

On Tuesday, things were thankfully dried out a bit, and after the usual fast bits along Lakeshore Drive I was left to my own devices for the out and back on the lake trail. The Metairie group, or what's left of it after last week's crash, was nowhere to be found, but a nice northeast tailwind lured me into going all the way out to the Wall anyway. Naturally that meant a relatively slow slog back to the east, but I wasn't in a hurry. That evening I decided to drop the fork as far as I could considering the hydraulic hoses that run through the headset bearings to see how it was all looking. I can't say it was looking all that good. The bottom headset area was pretty dirty, but at least the relatively new bearings seemed OK, so I cleaned everything off, slathered some Phil Wood grease on everything, and put it all back together. Before brake hoses went through the headset bearings I wouldn't have bothered with this cable since it was so easy and inexpensive to install new headset bearings, but now it's a real chore and if things don't go right you could end up having to run new brake hoses, bleed brakes, re-tape handlebars, etc., etc., so it's probably best to at least try to keep things reasonably clean and lubed.

The morning temperatures have started to come down a little bit. This morning as I rode out to the WeMoRi it was probably around 75°, which may not seem cool to some, but seemed cool to me. I think the 15 mph northeast wind may have contributed a bit to that feeling, though. With the slightly cooler temperature comes a lot more darkness, at least until we make the fall time change at the beginning of November. That has it's own consequences, as we saw later that morning. I don't typically make much of an effort to get out to the lakefront in time to meet the WeMoRi on its way out on Lakeshore Drive. This morning I did get out the door just a little bit earlier than usual, and considering the wind I was rather surprised to see the long paceline climbing the Bayou St. John bridge as I approached it on Beauregard Avenue. Of course, there was no way I was going to be able to chase it down, so I turned onto Lakeshore Drive a minute or two behind it, continuing to the Elysian Fields traffic circle where I looped back around to await the inevitable catch. As I was approaching the bridge I saw a headlight coming my way which turned out to be Ben's. He had broken a rear derailleur cable earlier in the ride and dropped off the back. He turned around to join me, stuck in his 52 x 11, and we continued at a relatively leisurely pace, turning onto Marconi still probably two or three minutes ahead of the WeMoRi group. Just as I hit the start of the Wisner overpass, Jaden and Liam went screaming past in a full sprint, followed shortly by the already diminished group into which I smoothly inserted myself as Ben peeled off to nurse his bike back home.

Things went fairly smoothly after that, at least until we got back onto Lakeshore Drive where Maurizio launched an attack just before the bridge. That had everyone strung out and on the rivet as we turned left around the fountain, still in enough darkness to make it hard to see what was coming. That's when MJ, I think, hit a pothole hard, followed by someone else, resulting in at least one, possibly two, flat tires. Of course the front of the group was blissfully unaware of that commotion and continued hammering away, pulling Maurizio back before we hit the Elysian Fields traffic circle. By that time I had been on the drops in full wheelsucking mode for a couple of miles. Somewhere before the bridge there was another attack, and although I was by then mid-pack at best, with two riders already way off the front, I still saw something a bit over 35 mph between there and the finish at Marconi.

So according to Charles' WeMoRi report, there were three flat tires and one broken derailleur cable during the ride, not counting Calder's flat tire on his way home. Liam and I stopped for coffee, but we were the only ones today.

No problemo

So down in the Gulf we now have Tropical Storm Isaias, which seems to be heading for the Alabama/Florida border on the Gulf Coast, with landfall currently predicted to be some time late Friday or early Saturday as a Cat. 1 or Cat. 2 hurricane. Fortunately we will be on the "good" side, which will probably mean some nice northerly winds and some rain on Friday. Not ideal riding weather, but probably nothing to write home about.