Clear Blue

Last weekend's riding wasn't much fun for me. The combination of wind and cold lasted a bit longer than I was willing to deal with, I think. I went out Sunday morning to find both the temperature and wind a bit lower than Saturday, and put in just a bit over an hour. From the start I was not too enthusiastic. I rode out seven or eight miles into the wind on the levee and turned around to head home. Then I ran into Realdo, so turned around again and rode with him and, eventually, Tim for a few more miles before finally bagging it and heading for the showers. Sometimes it's just not worth kicking a dead horse. Reo and Tim probably put in another two hours at least. I spent the rest of the day feeling cold, lazy and hungry.


This morning, though, I was feeling better. Not coincidentally, the winds had died down to zero and there was a clear blue sky. Although the temperature was in the low 30s when I left, and the levee was covered with frost, the lack of wind and the steadily improving daylight made me far more interested in riding than yesterday. As is typical for Mondays, there was just Joe F up on the levee, so after chatting for a mile or so, I got him on my wheel and just rolled steadily and a moderate 19.5-20 mph pretty much all the way out and all the way back. This kind of riding almost qualifies as on-the-bike meditation. The skies were blue, the sunrise was beautiful, and for the first time in days it felt like I had control over my own front wheel.


After a two-hour strategic planning meeting in the morning, I thought I'd step out onto the roof and snap a couple of pictures (with my cheap backup camera). The first photo looks southeast over the French Quarter and the bend in the river at Algiers Point. Far in the distance would be the now-famous lower ninth ward. The other pic looks more to the northeast over the housing project and old St. Louis #2 Cemetery (where my great-great grandfather who started this whole U.S. klan is), mid-city and the section of I-10 that comes through the city. Part of Lake Pontchartrain is in the distance. As you can see, there's still a lot of blue in the pictures, and I'm not talking about the sky.

The Krewe de Vieux paraded Saturday night, and although I wasn't able to convince The Wife that it was our civic duty to go out in the freezing weather to attend, I did check out their website. No photos yet from this year's parade, but I'm sure they'll show up soon. As usual, they did a great job at taking jabs at all of the local, and federal, politicians. They really have a lot of material to work with this year! I liked the float that asked France to buy Louisiana back!

So The Wife made airline reservations for our next visit to Iowa City for the same weekend as Rouge-Roubaix. Hmmm. I could send her up there alone, I think. I just wish I knew if The Daughter's knee would be well enough by then for her to compete or not. If not, I wouldn't feel too bad about paying the cancellation fee and saving the ticket for the next time. We'll see...

Blown

After an evening of food, conversation, wine and ale, not necessarily in that order, it was hard enough to get up this morning. The temperature was cool but not freezing, but I could hear the wind from inside the house, and that's never good this time of year. I debated for a while what to wear, and ended up putting the vest on top of everything to help break the wind. I knew it was going to be a tough day the minute the north wind hit me. Even worse, it was really gusty; the wind grabbing at my front wheel unexpectedly. When I finally arrived at Lakeshore Drive I was running a little late and as the road went over the levee I looked down and saw just a single digit on the computer. Windy wasn't the word for it.

When I first saw the Giro group coming toward me I wasn't quite sure it was the right group. There were only five riders. As they approached someone said "this is it." Apparently the strong winds had scared almost everyone away this morning. Perhaps I should have been one of them! When we got to the end of Lakeshore Drive and the road curved briefly to the south, I sat up and peeled off my vest. I was just finishing stuffing it into my pocket when a gust of wind caught my front wheel as the road turned back to the east. I came just a heartbeat from going down before grabbing the bars underhanded with my left hand just in time to avoid plowing right into the concrete barrier wall at a 45 degree angle. The rest of the day was a constant struggle between me and my frong wheel that was getting blown around like leaf in a hurricane. It was definitely not fun.

By the time we hit Hayne Blvd., we were down to just five riders and I was skipping pulls when it would get fast in order to avoid having to call a cab to get home. Pretty soon, there were just four of us and I was really struggling in the brutal crosswind. It was impossible for me to hold a straight line in the crosswinds, and the fast pace wasn't helping, either. Even though I was skipping pulls, I was still dying at an alarming pace and my back and hands were starting to ache. I finally rode home with Realdo, happy at least that I had a nice tailwind all the way back. For the next couple of hours I felt pretty wasted and beat up.

Hibernation

It seemes like my hibernation instinct must have kicked in last night. After tolerating a dull headache all day at work, I finally took a Motrin and washed it down with a glass of wine. By 9:30 I was out for the count. I must have needed a break, because when the alarm went off this morning I thought I'd try and get in just a few more minutes of sleep. That really never works, does it? Naturally I finally awoke too late to get in a ride.

The Daughter's MRI didn't show any major damage, but she's injured a ligament or something and won't be able to handle any landings for a while. On the one hand, she's relieved that she didn't tear anything important, while on the other she's disappointed that she probably won't be able to compete for a while. They're going to try some knee-taping to see if they can tighten up that knee. After a couple of surgeries, the joint has become rather "loose," and that's what contributed to this injury.

Well, with all the elections coming up, the "Katrina response" is all over the news. Everyone's trying to point fingers at everyone else, mostly for political purposes. What else is new?

Oh well. There's always the Giro ride tomorrow, weather permitting. Rumor has it that the Levee Board is about to start ripping up parts of Lakeshore Drive to make repairs.

A Long Ride Back

Again it was windy and gusty this morning, and as I started out down Neron Place the thought of bailing out in favor of a nice hot cup of coffee on the front porch did indeed cross my mind. But, hey, it's February already and time to start building so I'm not getting dropped in March. So I soldiered on, knowing it would be a hard ride, like it or not.

There were about a dozen up on the levee. As I rode up to meet the first group, Big Richard rolled up, looked at my bike, and said something like "that's an interesting way to carry a water bottle." It took my still-sleepy brain a little while to process that, but eventually I looked down and noticed my water bottle was upside-down. Yesterday, when I hung it from the hook where it sleeps in my basement, the water bottle was leaking a little bit, so I had turned it around and stuck it back in the cage so that I wouldn't be bottleless the next morning. I had been distracted this morning because the Rat Wars have officially begun. While I usually have a rather tolerant attitude toward other species, particularly those so similar to our own as Rattus rattus, the furry little creatures of the night crossed the line yesterday and now the gloves are coming off. One of the little rodents chewed a three-inch diameter hole in the bag I keep my riding stuff in (which as always was on the floor in the basement). Since that particular pocket was wide open, there was just no excuse for that. It was the rat equivalent of a slap across the face with a glove. Besides, the powerbar that I had left in my bag after last weekend's time trial was in a different pocket, where a more courteous rat had more delicately chewed a neat hole through the plastic bag and the industrial strength powerbar wrapper, and eaten a healthy portion of it. Sorry guys, but your next big meal in my basement will be your last. I still haven't forgiven you and your fleas for that whole Black Plague thing, and you've about worn out your welcome now.

Anyway, I digress . . .

So this morning we were graced with the presence of Mr. Matt, astride his slick TT bike, looking all Euro without a helmet since he had forgotten it up in Colorado where he's currently in exile after his house in Lakeview was flooded out in the hurricane. We also had Howard "SRB" Luna, Rob, VJ, Luke, Donald, and Brooks, among others. I already knew that half of them wouldn't be doing the whole long ride.

Eventually, the SRB ignited as I knew it must, and Brooks and maybe another rider went along for the ride. I watched from 10 sec back with the group, waiting for the inevitible "pop" as the exploding bolts fire, followed by separation of the SRB and its uncontrolled re-entry back into the pack. The group's speed increased a bit and we soon caught, but after that it seemed like everyone wanted to take a flyer off the front. The SRB fired a few more times, and it got very disorganized for a while, but ultimately the speed was pushed up a bit, with help from an occasional tailwind, and Matt, so that by the time we arrived at the turnaround there was only a handful left. The ride back was long, long, long and it felt like it was mostly into the wind. After Howard turned off and we lost a couple more riders, it was just Matt, Rob and me for the last stretch, at which point Matt went to the front and pulled for a few miles at a few miles per hour faster than was comfortable. He finally eased up and pulled off just as we hit the curve at the Country Club where the wind turned directly into our faces. Our speed dropped about 5 mph in about 50 feet.

Just as we approached the Orleans parish line where I turn off to head down the levee, I heard the train whistle. Damn! I sprinted down the levee as the line of cars started to come to a stop, crossed over into the now-empty oncoming traffic lane, made a hard left in a full sprint and made it to the next crossing ahead of the train. That was the second time I've had to do that in the last week. My legs were pretty much fried after that, and my commute to work was really, really slow today. It was all I could do to get my sorry ass up the Broad Street overpass without putting a foot down!

Smooth Ride

It was pretty cool this morning, or at least it felt that way to me. It was probably no coincidence that the turnout up on the levee was a bit low. The ride today was very steady and smooth at a moderate pace - fast enough to get a little training effect, but slow enough to daydream. I didn't daydream very much, though. By the time I got home, I was sweaty underneath my vest, but my feet were still cold. Eventually I headed off to the office on the commuter wearing my penny loafers and button-down collar shirt, and was glad that the sun had warmed things up considerably.

I've felt like I was in a fog all day today, and the two glasses of wine I just polished off didn't help much. The Daughter did something to her knee during the meet last weekend in West Virginia and is really pissed off about it. After working so hard to come back after her October surgery, she's back having MRIs and taking anti-inflammatories just a week after finally getting back into the lineup for floor. Hopefully it will all work out.

Looks like the weather around here will be a real roller-coaster this week. What else is new??

Riding' Against the Wind

Much cooler this morning, but the temperature wasn't the issue. The wind was. A strong north wind promised nothing more than a few miles of tailwind in an otherwise all-crosswind 44 mile ride. When Luke rode up to meet us he immediately gave early notice that he was turning around at the dip, and I figured that Donald would have to turn around there, or earlier, as well. Bikies being like sheep, the odds were that most of the rest would follow suit rather than risk a long headwind ride with Rob and I who collectively move less air than Ronnie on his time trial bike. Indeed, once past the parish line it was just Rob and me once again. We were both of the same mindset today, looking for a good steady aerobic ride, and we rode the rest of the ride taking long pulls at maybe 75% effort, which turned out to be mostly 21-24 mph. As he often does, Rob spent a fair amount of time in weight-lifting mode, riding along into the wind in a 53x12 (or maybe 11?). While I very often find myself to be more comfortable about one cog higher than most riders, that sort of thing is just not my cup of tea! Then again, neighter is weight lifting.

Shortly after arriving back home and doing the dishes left over from last night (seafood gumbo dishes need to be washed pronto!), The Wife called to say she was stopping by the house to pick up the last of the women's health calendars to drop them off at the Audubon Zoo where there are having a huge health fair with free screenings, check-ups, and even dental work. Well, I couldn't resist getting a ride in to work rather than having to lug all my stuff up the Jeff Davis overpass into the wind today, so I hurried through and made the connection. Unfortunately, by the time we dropped all that stuff off, battled our way through the rather heavy traffic, bypassed blocked streets and a movie shoot going on in front of the Tidewater Building, I had lost about an hour. As usual, I should have just ridden my bike and been there in 15.

Here at the office, construction continues unabated. Various large workmen are in and out of the office all day, there's lots of loud noise, and there are three or four wireless tools plugged into the hallway outlets getting recharged. Of the nine elevators in the building, only two are operational. We have all become more patient since Katrina. Since New Orleans was never noted for being impatient in the first place, that's saying something. Out the window I can see the large U.S. flag atop the Entergy building (Entergy is trying to avoid bankruptcy in the wake of Katrina and the need to completely rebuild the city's entire power grid). The flag that was starting to rip last week is now split completely in two horizontally. As I write, someone on the roof over there has just lowered the flag, either to untangle it or replace it. That's good. Maybe it's just a holdover from my junior ROTC experiences in both grammar school and high school, but it just drives me nuts when people don't take care of the stars and stripes. Just to the left is the old Plaza Towers building, once the city's tallest, with its rooftop crammed full of antennas. Before the hurricane, they were all nice and vertical. Now they are all bent and leaning looking like the bristles of a very old hairbrush. Most of the view from my office window, usually a fairly spectacular panorama overlooking the CBD, French Quarter and Algiers Point, is still blocked by a large lattice of 2x2 aluminum that was removed from the roof above where it had been hiding the building's chiller until the hurricane destroyed it. I can only hope that one day, after they finish replacing the chiller, they replace it. My guess is that it's not high on the priority list, though.

Discussions over the $95M in Dept. of Education funding for higher education continues, and everything has been hammered out except for the $9.5 M that the Board of Regents wants to control for a scholarship program that all of the university presidents agree is not needed. It looks like I will end up on the committee that will have to work out how to actually handle the awarding of the funds to the various universities and colleges. You know, the unglamorous administrative part. The others will then move on to the three or four other ongoing and developing battles for federal funding.

Whoo Hooo! Entergy just raised a brand spanking new U.S. flag!

... And so it begins - again.

Today was the start of my 35th racing season. The weather was cold when Realdo and I arrived at the River Road starting location, a few miles downriver from Baton Rouge. I am not a big fan of cold weather, and with the temperature in the upper 30s, I was hoping that the sun would warm things up quickly. The turnout was quite good for this early-season 2-man Time Trial. Good enough to delay the start by about half an hour. Realdo and I were scheduled to start almost an hour after the first team, so at least there was a lot of time for warm-ups. I ended up riding in shorts with two jerseys and arm-warmers, but kept my warm jacket on until we headed over to the starting line to queue up. By then, it was noticibly warmer - I guess around 44 or so.

Our start was picture-perfect. Realdo had elected to take the first pull and when the starter said "go" he accelerated at just the right rate so that I was never more than six inches from his wheel. There was a moderate wind this morning and from the starting line we headed directly into it for the first quarter mile or so. I looked down at my computer a few seconds after the start and noted our speed - 28 mph. I chalked it up to start line adrenelin as we made a smooth right-hand curve with Realdo still on the front. Within a mile we made a 90-degree right at a stop sign and again it was one of the smoothest TT turns I've ever done. With the wind now at our backs, our speed rose quickly to 28, 29, 30 and for a few moments 31. By now the effort was starting to catch up with me, but I dumped it into the 53 x 13 anyway to take full advantage of the short tailwind section.

Gradually, the road continued to curve to the right and the tailwind switched around, first to a crosswind and finally to mostly headwind. We were begining to hurt, but in a 10-mile TT there's no point backing off to recover. Realdo was taking longer pulls than I, spinning a lower gear at around 24.5 mph. Sitting in his draft, I was comfortable and able to recover quickly and when he would pull off, I'd come through just a bit faster, holding 25-25.5 mph as long as I could.

Each of the last three mile miles was marked by a manilla older duct-taped to the asphalt with the mile marked on it in ink. This particular 10-mile time trial was more like 10.5 miles, actually, but I remembered that from last year. One final effort over the last mile and we crossed the line with a respectible time and an average speed of 26.9 mph. That left us just a few seconds short of the fastest time in the 35+ group, but probably close to a couple of minutes slower than the fastest times of the day.

Personally, I was pretty pleased with the ride. Considering how early in the season it is and my own dislike for racing in the cold, I felt like I was about where I wanted to be right now, fitness-wise. I'm waiting to see the official results, hopefully tonight, to see how we measured up overall.

After the race we had a LAMBRA meeting to go over the revised bylaws, LCCS rules, and discuss some other issues related to the track series and race calendar. During the meeting The Daughter sent me a text message saying that she had won Beam and done well on Floor at the 3-team meet in West Virginia. She said the team kind of fell apart toward the end of the meet, so they didn't do so well team-wise.

Girrrrrrrrro!

It got much cooler last night and as usual the falling thermometer was accompanied by a strong north wind. It wasn't too bad as I rode out to the lakefront but once I hit Lakeshore Drive I knew it would be a difficult Giro Ride today. The plan was to try and stay in the shelter of the pack today, since I didn't want sore legs for Sunday's little time trial up in Baton Rouge. The plan went out the window pretty quickly, though. Since there was a rather small group today, there weren't many places to hide, and even if there had been, the crosswinds would have allowed shelter to only a handful anyway.

On the way out, as we came down the Seabrook bridge, and before the pace started to pick up, I was watching Rick up ahead. Suddenly his bike swerved and his rear wheel locked up in a cloud of smoke. It was amazing that he didn't go down. A long piece of heavy wire had wrapped itself around his casette a few times and then gotten tangled up in his lightweight super-aeordynamic spokes, ripping about half of them out before he came to a stop. It was ugly. Jay ended up riding back into the headwind to retrive his car because Rick wasn't going anywhere on that wheel.

As usual, a little group split off the front at the end of Paris Road while the rest of us were regrouping. Once we got to Chef Highway, the pace ramped up, but there were only a few of us actually taking pulls. It seemed like every time we got a good rotation going, Howard would hit the front and pick it up to 30 mph and blow everything up. Every time he did, a couple more riders stopped taking pulls. Anyway, the bottom line is that I ended up doing a lot more work than I had planned.

The ride back was going along just swell until we hit the service road and Brett said he needed to stop to take a leak. The rest of the group just kept going, so Jason and I eased up to wait for Brett. By the time Brett got back to us, the rest of the group had a pretty good gap and they were going fast, too. We took a few pulls, but eventually Brett came around and we just latched onto his wheel while he pulled for the next five miles or so, finally closing the gap just before the Seabrook bridge. The legs were a little tired by the time I got home.

Strange Week

It has certainly been a strange week. The weather has been all over the place, from spring-like temperatures in the 70s and clear blue skies to heavy thunderstorms and major tornado damage. From my office window I can see the top of the Entergy Building which atop which is a big U.S. flag. Since the storm the other night, the flag is badly torn and the ends are frayed. They really ought to fix that. It seems like all I have to show for this week is a longer list of unfinished stuff than I had when it started. I'm going to have to break down and actually make a dreaded "to do" list, because I keep remembering things I need to do late at night when I can't do them.

This morning there was a pretty big group, for a Friday. I'd say about ten or twelve. As is customary for Friday rides, we rode most of the way in a double line at a moderate pace. Things were going along smoothly until just after we started back from the turnaround at the parish line when suddely John R's Look pedal body ejected itself from the spindle and he found himself with the pedal firmly attached to his shoe, but not to his bike. This one was not to be fixed on the road, I'm afraid, and he really wasn't able to put any pressure on that pedal, so after a while he told us to go ahead. I assume he eventually limped back home. I don't think I've ever seen that happen, and it's been so long since I've been inside a Look pedal that I don't remember how they're held together.

Some of the most significant tornado damage from the storm happened to be right alongside the levee near where we start, and I have to say, it was pretty impressive. There was a huge piece of metal warehouse siding completely wrapped around the top of a power pole, easily 25 feet off the ground. They're going to have to shut off the power to untangle that thing, and it won't be easy. Down on the ground there is a whole line of industrial buildings that are just completely trashed. It looks like a bomb went off. The tornado missed the company where my sister works by about a block.

So we have a little 2-man time trial this Sunday up in Baton Rouge. It's all of 10 miles, which seems more than just a little bit short to me. At least the weather is looking like it will be fairly good, if a little bit on the chilly side, with temps at race time in the upper 40s, light winds, and clear skies. Since there's a LAMBRA meeting afterwards (I still don't know where), I guess I'll be stuck in B.R. for a while. Not sure how I'm going to work the logistics on all that yet. I'm still in a stalemate with this head cold, so I haven't been too anxious to ride really hard the last couple of days. I'm hoping I can keep it from getting into my lungs before Sunday.

Dark and Stormy

Wednesday's morning ride turned out to be a very nice and smooth ride at a moderate pace. In a way, it was kind of a throw-back to the early levee rides, with Donald taking three-mile pulls and everyone else quite content to sit in the paceline and daydream. I was nursing a scratchy throat and hoping I wouldn't end up with The Wife's head cold. The weather was again cool and clear in the morning, but by afternoon there were some clouds rolling in and the forecast was deteriorating.

The evening news warned of a line of heavy thunderstorms expected to hit the city some time after midnight. This time, the forecast was accurate and I was awakened around 2 a.m. by howling winds, blowing rain and relentless thunder and lightning. I got up to make sure there was no water leaking through the patched (and unpatched) parts of the roof and then fired up the computer to check the radar. It looked bad. A couple of minutes after downloading the radar image, the DSL line went dead. Half an hour later, the power went out. I looked out the window and it was deja vu all over again. The streets looked just like they did at night the first couple of times I came back after the hurricane. It was completely dark and silent, other than the pelting rain and howling wind, without a single light visible in any direction. As it turned out, thousands of people were without power and there were reports of at least a couple of possible tornados touching down during the storm. The airport suffered some damage, a huge radio tower at the state police station collapsed and fell across Veterans highway, and a probable tornado did a lot of damage along the street near the spot on the levee where we meet in the morning. I finally went to sleep again, and since the power never came back on, there was no alarm clock, and I didn't wake up until it was too late to try and get in even a short, wet ride. Instead of riding, I drove in to the office with The Wife, stopping for a big cup of hot water extracted drugs (with four sugars) along the way. I added a couple of tablets of pseudoephedrine to the mix since it's pretty clear I'm getting a head cold. The weather now is rather nice, of course, as it always is after a storm blows through from the west.

There's an article in the news this morning about HANO (the housing authority of New Orleans) asking residents of one of the city's housing developments, the one downtown just off Canal St. that has been thwarting efforts to revitalize the downtown area for the last twenty-five years, to return. HANO is a largely corrupt local organization that handles funds from HUD. About the Ibberville housing project, they say they want to "integrate it both socially and economically."

Yeah, right. That'll work.

Better Ride

Finally a clear, crisp and DRY day! There was a nice group for the long Tuesday ride today, and for a change the pace didn't surge so much on the way out to shatter the group. It was a much better ride than yesterday. As much as I was enjoying the nice weather (temp around 50F, clear sky, light wind), I have to admit that I was struggling at times for some reason. I guess it didn't help to have taken those two days off. So a few guys turned back at the dip this morning, but I think this time they were just the ones who needed to be back early. I think a lot of the guys decide on where to turn around based on how fast the pace is, and today it was fast but reasonable. The lack of a crosswind also helped immensely, allowing riders to recover at the back rather than languish in death row waiting to be dropped.

On the return trip, Todd and Rob slipped off the front while nobody was watching right at the start. Once the rest of the group finally got its act together, the pace ramped up, but by then Todd and Rob were going pretty hard. I was thinking we'd probably catch if everyone started to work together, but right about then Howard came by and I latched onto his wheel. He looked back for a second, and then, in a repeat of last week, he towed me across to the lead duo at 30 mph. It was a while before I could start taking pulls after that, and after a mile or two Howard said he was going to drop back and pick up the rest of the group. I was starting to die, but Todd was pulling at around 25-26, Rob at around 25, and I at more like 24. Luckily, I had Todd's wheel so I was getting a little better draft. Todd finally headed home somewhere out around River Ridge and we slowed down a bit. After that, it didn't take too long for a few of the survivors of the larger group to catch us, and everyone rolled back in at a more civilized pace.

After spending a few hours reading through a recent issue of PC World while on the airplane(s) yesterday I decided to try out one of those free web-based services that provides access to your office computer's files. Last weekend I really needed a couple of files that I had been working on, but they were stuck on my office desktop computer. So I installed Avvenu's free software. Amazingly, it seems to work. We'll see what happens when I try to access the files from home tonight! I just know it can't be this simple.

There's a nice video on the "Daily Iowan" website with some clips from last weekend's Pink Meet against Iowa State.

In a Fog

This weather is really whacky. I stepped out this morning right into the middle of a 60-degree cloud. As I rode to the levee my bare legs were immediately wet and cold, and by the time I got to the river water was already dripping off the front of my helmet. It was so wet and clammy that I came very close to retreating back to the house, but after a whole weekend off the bike I was determined to put in a few miles today.

The only other rider I saw was Joe F, and so we headed out at an easy pace. So I got in a short and wet ride, mostly at a very steady 19-20 mph. I got home soaking wet, but not too cold thanks to the warm temperature. Hey, it was the best I could do. Looks like tomorrow will be a lot better, though, and indeed the weather was looking a lot better this afternoon. One of the guys who rode Kenny B's "Tour de Bris" last weekend sent a link to his photos. Worth a look.

I had a morning meeting at the uptown campus this morning and it ended right in-between classes, so there were lots of students out on the quad going from class to class. It was great to see, really. By then the sun was out and it was warm, and I was glad that the 40 percent chance of rain never really materialized. I had thought I might have to take the shuttle bus downtown after the meeting, but instead I had a nice ride across town. Downtown, the guys on the roof were very busy and loud and it was sometimes hard to concentrate because of the noise. At one point their erector-set crane kind of folded up the wrong way while they were pulling up a big roll of cable and the thing swing down and banged against the side of the building. Oops! Good thing it didn't go through one of the office windows in the process.

Scott dropped off the most recent batch of team jerseys, shorts, etc., and so despite many years of successfully dodging the task it looks like I'll be the jersey man this time. Considering that this batch had to be ordered within a few weels after the hurricane, it's pretty amazing that Laura got it done.

Home Again, Home Again

Back in New Orleans now after a couple of rather long airplane rides that took us to through Dallas, TX (and a brief stop at the airport Chili's for a badly needed Samuel Adams). It was a whole weekend completely off the bike, and considering the dreary, wet and cold weather in Iowa City, I should add that I never once wished I had my bike with me! I did, however, notice one rider in shorts on Saturday when the temperature was around 40F and there was a steady light drizzle that had been going on all day. The Daughter had a good meet Saturday night, and although they didn't beat the highly ranked Iowa State girls, they had a very good showing, posting their highest score so far this season. The Daughter was especially happy to have finally convinced the coach to let her at least do her floor routine as "exhibition," racking up in the process the highest score of anyone on the team (which of course didn't count since it was exhibition). I think she may have convinced them that she has recovered from her ankle surgery last summer and her knee surgery last October, and she seems determined to make the floor lineup. The coaches, of course, don't want to risk further injury and so have been fairly conservative.

So I guess I've probably gained a couple of unwanted pounds this month. The combination of readily available chocolate, a heavy workload at the office, and reduced riding time is a bad one, and I'll have to start paying more attention to the balance of caloric intake and expenditure. I hate being hungry, and certainly won't go too far in that direction, but for sure I'll be pushing back from the table a little earlier than usual for a couple of weeks and making more carefully considered choices when it comes to diet. Even at my relatively light weight, I quite easily notice the effect of an extra couple of pounds, and trust me, it's not good. Being older makes it even worse. Sometimes it seems like after 12 hours off the bike I'm already starting to lose fitness. At my age, that might be pretty close to the truth.

Up in Iowa City

Arrived in Iowa City yesterday about eight hours before my luggage did. The little planes that they use to fly between Chicago and Cedar Rapids never seem to be able to hold all of the luggage, so they bump some of it to a later flight. Yesterday, mine got bumped and it wasn't until midnight that they delivered it to the hotel.

The weather up here has been rather dismal today. There's been a steady drizzle all day. At least it's not too cold. The Daughter's meet was pretty good, and although they lost to Iowa State, they posted a good team score and were mostly happy. The Daughter tied for 2nd on Beam and finally talked the coach into letting her to an exhibition Floor routine, which she nailed.

Gotta go to sleep!

Need to Get Some Zs

Considering that I was going to be off the bike entirely Saturday and Sunday, I went out this morning with the intention of getting in a decent workout, and although I wasn't disappointed in that regard, it wasn't exactly what I expected either. After an early delay waiting for a flat to be fixed at the playground, the group started out at a fairly decent clip, again with a bit of a crosswind. For some reason, guys were letting gaps open all over the place today, and I had to make a few really hard efforts, especially once Howard showed up. In trying to close one of the gaps Howard came by pretty fast at a point when there were about four riders off the front and generalized chaos in the back. For a moment, I hesitated, hoping that the guys behind me would be able to close the gap, but it wasn't happening. Howard looked back, saw the gap, and eased up until I caught his draft, and then proceeded to ramp the pace up from 24 mph to, eventually, about 31 mph, pulling me up to what was left of the disintegrating lead group. I don't know how he does that. Soon afterward, it was just me and Rob, so we continued a pretty hard pace all the way to the turnaround.

It should have been no surprise that the group turned around early, and we never saw them again except for one of the guys who continued upriver as we were on our way back. Rob and I were both pretty fried at that point, and with no others to share the pace we rode back into the wind side-by-side and not very fast. At any rate, I got in quite a bit of tongue-dragging and pegged my heart rate more than once, which was pretty much my plan. When we went past Howard's house on the way back, he hollered something out the back door, but I didn't catch it.

I realized this morning when the alarm went off that I haven't been getting a whole lot of sleep lately. I was up again last night till around midnight trying to figure out what the Carnegie people had done with their classification system and use of Z scores. Quite a bizarre way to classify research institutions when you end up with two universities in the same category - one with $291M in R&D and the other with $4M. Give me a break! Anyway, perhaps I'll be able to get a couple of nights of good solid "hotel sleep" this weekend up in Iowa City. Not as good as "hotel sex," but I'll take what I can get.

The Sun!

I walked out the door this morning at 6:30 and was surprised at the amount of sunlight already filtering over the horizon. After what seems like weeks of cloudy, foggy mornings, today's clear blue skies reminded me that we must be starting to tilt back toward the sun again. We had ten riders this morning and a pretty nice Wednesday ride on the levee. Although the wind was certainly more calm than yesterday, it was still a factor, and it made the return trip a bit harder than I would have liked.

Somehow, despite the wonderful weather, I'm feeling tired and lazy and frustrated. There are a whole bunch of guys working out on the roof today, but as far as I can tell nobody is working on the blasted elevators. There are still only two in operation (there are normally six). I just got back from a long walk to find food, since there's nothing in the immediate vicinity of the building. It's still odd to be able to walk across some of the major streets in the CBD at will. Most of the big office buildings still seem to be barely occupied and traffic is extremely light. Under the circumstances, I would much prefer to be uptown!

Wrong Side of the Gap

A nice little cool front dragged through yesterday evening, and by morning the temperature was a fairly pleasant 50F or so, but as usually happens the front brought with it a brisk north wind. Since the levee bike path offers absolutely no protection from the wind, and since it generally runs more east-west than north-south, I knew today's training ride would be all about the crosswind. I hit the levee right on time this morning, finding only a couple of other riders there, and we were starting to think we might have to shorten our ride because of the combination of abundant wind and insufficient wheels when riders started appearing all over the place. By the time we went under the Huey P bridge the group was pretty large, or I should say "long," and I rode at the front for a long time waiting for the inevitable.

Pretty soon a line of riders streamed past me and I latched on somewhere past the middle, maybe ten riders from the front. The pace would surge whenever the usual suspects hit the front, and even though I was far from the end of the paceline, I was grovelling along the edge of the asphalt for whatever sliver of draft I could get. I noticed that Jeff, who was in front of me, started letting the guys coming off the front back into the paceline ahead of him. About the third time he did that, I was just about to tell him to stop because all he was doing was dooming us to a fast pace and slim draft when the pace surged again. This time he eased up and motioned me to come by. By the time I did I was already five seconds on the wrong side of the gap and had to really bury myself to make any progress closing it. I guess I was doing around 27 into the cross/headwind. The last rider in the lead group was Donald, and so I was focused on getting his wheel. Just as I was about get his draft and enjoy the reward for my effort, Donald sat up! Auggggh! That was it. There was no way I could make another effort like that unless there was a finish line and a big prizelist in sight, so I eased up a bit too and latched onto Donald as the lead group rode off down the levee. We soon picked up another rider who had come off the lead group and were rolling along at a reasonable clip as we approached "the dip."

Suddenly I looked up and saw that the whole lead group had turned around and was heading back early. You know, riders are like sheep. I knew that Donald probably needed to turn back there in order to get to work on time, but it was unusual for Todd and the rest of them to cut the ride short. Maybe that's why they felt like they needed to be riding like they were 5k away from a Tour de France stage win. Anyway a couple of us continued on and eventually caught Tim who was on his way home (he's temporarily living out that way near Destrehan), and had a nice ride to the turnaround. The trip back was maybe just a little bit easier, wind-wise, but toward the end it was just BJ and me and my legs were really starting to hurt. We did ease up after making the bend near the country club, but those last few miles felt really hard to me anyway.

So it looks like the Tulane student who has been living with us will be able to move back into her apartment on Thursday, so that's a good thing all around, and the sun is finally starting to come out so we should have a few days of cool but nice weather for a change. I am finally starting to feel like I'm getting caught up a little bit for the first time since the hurricane and can maybe start to focus on getting my own house fixed up now.

More Fog

The streets were damp, the skies cloudy and the fog thick on the levee this morning, but I went out anyway for an easy "on the bike recovery" ride. Not that I needed all that much recovery, you understand, although the concept does tend to provide a convenient excuse when you're just too lazy to do a proper bit of training. Acually, my legs felt fine, but I really have had enough of wet streets and sloppy rides. I went out on the old Pennine again, and just couldn't help but ride intentionally through a few little puddles just because I had fenders! Anyway, the weather's getting cooler now and I suppose I'll be back in long tights and arm-warmers tomorrow.

So we had power at our office today where I spent most of the day working on some impossible and ridiculous methodology for allocating some higher education funding. Leave it to a committee to take something simple and straightforward and twist it into something completely incomprehensible. They're building some huge crane on the roof now in order to be able to lift some new hvac equipment up there. Some very serious iron and steel. Hope they did their math and don't end up ripping half the roof off.

Put up some pics from the LSU meet on the "Inside Stuff" website. It's really hard to get any decent photos at a gymnastics meet unless you're on the floor and you have a really good (as in expensive) camera. I also finally got the basic racing calendar updated on the NOBC website, and uploaded the long-awaited BioScience working group report to the Bring New Orleans Back Technology website.

Cloudy, Wet and Warm

The third tube I put in the tire finally held air this morning, and by then I was running rather late. I quickly loaded up the car and made the dash over to the Morning Call to meet the guys going over to do the northshore ride. John R called as I was turning onto Causeway Blvd. to see where I was. David was also there. David's from Ohio and is in town this week doing volunteer work for a church group.

We started out with twelve for what turned out to be a 65 mile ride this morning, losing two along the way who turned back early. The skies were cloudy and the air was thick and humid with the wind blowing out of the southeast, but the pace stayed steady, much of the time hovering around 22-24 mph. Of course there were the usual surges and harder efforts here and there, and we had to ease up a number of times to regroup, but it was a good training ride and I was glad we didn't get rained on, at least not enough to get really wet. I felt fairly good this weekend and in fact I think I felt stronger toward the end of the ride than I had at the beginning. Go figure.

Spray in the Face

We got home late last night from the gymnastics meet up at LSU, where the team lost but actually turned in a pretty good score (The Daughter made the podium for Beam). The forecast for Saturday called for rain, rain, rain, and when my alarm clock went off this morning I hardly needed to look out the window. I could hear the sound of wet car tires on the road outside, so I rolled over and figured I'd ride another day. When the phone rang a little while later, I was surprised to hear Charlie D on the other end. He said he thought there would be a little break in the rain and that if we went out now we should be able to get in a couple of hours on the bike. So naturally I agreed to meet him up on the levee around 8:00. Since I knew it was going to be wet the whole time, I decided to ride my old Pennine, completely equipped with nice solid steel fenders. I didn't regret it, either. For the entire ride there was water spraying off of everyone's wheels, except of course mine, and for the most part I found it better to be in front than in back today. The Pennine is circa 1972. Steel Reynolds 531 with Simplex derailleurs, Campi cranks, and a mix of other obsolete components. It's a nice ride on a day like this, and despite the ever present spray from the other bikes, my feet didn't feel really wet until the ride was almost over, and it was a nice change not to have cold gritty water being sprayed up my ass the whole time.

Later in the day, The Daughter and her entire team from Iowa came over to the house so I could lead them on a tour of some of the key areas impacted by Katrina. Thanks to Kenny B, I had a good idea of where to go, and we visited the areas around three of the biggest floodwall breaches. As we drove through Lakeview and then down Bellaire Drive alongside the 17th Street Canal, it became very quiet inside the van. Like most people, they soon realized that this was much, much bigger than they had thought. Anyway, a valuable learning experience for all.

A rider from Ohio is in town and is planning on meeting me at the Morning Call tomorrow to do the Northshore ride. Hope the weather cooperates!

Finally Friday

The overcast skies made it seem particularly dark this morning when I hit the levee, and being a Friday I wasn't surprised that there was nobody waiting up at the usual spot. A mile or two later I was surprised to see Courtney coming the other way. She stopped and turned around so we could ride together. Courtney's house in Gentilly was flooded in the hurricane and she had to move to Baton Rouge for the Fall school semester while her kids were in school there. Then she bought a fixer-upper in Mandeville, across the lake from New Orleans. The plan was to commute across the causeway with her son in school at Ben Franklin and her working out at Elmwood leading Spinning classes. There were a couple other folks in Mandeville in the same situation, so the commuting chores could be shared. Then at the last minute the others backed out, enrolling their kids in Mandeville High instead, so Courtney was practically forced to follow suit, at least for this semester. Anyway, she was in town to meet at Elmwood and see what she could work out there.

Along the way we ran into a couple other riders and for a little while had four whole people, but the pace stayed slow and conversational. This afternoon I'll be heading over to Baton Rouge for a gymnastics meet between Iowa and LSU. It will be fun, even if I already know the probable outcome, and The Daughter and the rest of the team is planning on making a road trip over to New Orleans on Saturday for some sight-seeing, so that will keep us pretty busy. Kenny B gave me some ideas as to where to take them so they can get a little tour of the hurricane impact. Meanwhile, I'm still working out of the house because they're not expecting our office downtown to have power again until some time during the weekend, and they don't really seem all too sure about that.

Lack of Power

There was a smallish group on the levee this morning for the Thursday long ride, and once we got past the Huey P. bridge I went to the front to get things started. My legs are still sore from my stair-climbing episode on Tuesday, especially my calves, so I wasn't trying to turn it into a race or anything. I was OK spinning, but I really didn't have any power in my legs at all because of the sore muscles. I just wanted to get the pace up above 20 mph. So after a while Rob pulls through and since there's a gap behind him, I slip in. Next thing I know, it's just Rob and me. So we rolled along at mostly 24 mph with a very light tailwind, dropping down to 23 now and then, trading pulls every 50 or 60 pedal strokes in a 53x16. At one point I looked back and could see Donald pulling the rest of the group just about 10 seconds back. They could have easily closed the gap if they'd wanted to. Rob and I got a nice workout all the way out to the turnaround and when we started back we were surprised that the group was nowhere in sight. We figured someone had flatted, but when we met Kevin coming the other way he said that they had all turned around at the "dip" and so he had been chasing us solo for miles.

I had been looking forward to an easier ride back home, but with only three of us and an increasing headwind, it turned out to be a long and, for me, painful haul. My sore legs were really screaming by the time I got back onto city streets a couple of miles from home.

Headed in to the downtown office this morning to check out the electrical situation. The office still lacks power, so I went out onto the roof to gather some intel. and learned that the plan was to work all weekend in hopes of having everything working again on Monday. On the plus side, they did have the freight elevator working so I didn't have to climb 25 flights of stairs this time. Right now I'm sitting in my powerless office working on my battery powered laptop listening to the workers out on the roof. I guess I'll ride back uptown in a few minutes and work out of my house again today.

In the meantime, you should really check out the funny but oh so true editorial from yesterday's newspaper on the "Chocolate City" controversey. If only he'd said "cafe au lait!"

Lights Out - Update

A little excitement at the office today! An hour or so after I got in to the office, I noticed some Otis elevator people in the office and on the roof. Come to find out that the elevators had all stopped working. They had just figured out that there was no power to the elevators about the time I was noticing water on the stairwell landing on the very top floor (even with the elevator motors) and on the 25th floor where the elevator electrical controls are located. Obviously there was some sort of leak, and with the steady rain something must have gotten wet and thrown the circuit breaker. Meanwhile, a couple of the staff arrive in the office, rather exhausted after hiking up 25 flights of stairs. So we're sitting there wondering when they will get the elevators working again when there's a big explosion (about 30 feet from us) and the lights flicker a few times and then go out altogether. I can hear someone screaming from the elevator electrical room, and about that time one of the guys runs in from the roof and asks if we have a fire extinguisher. I was standing right next to it, so I hand it to him and follow him out the door. There's smoke billowing out of the electrical room and some sort of secondary alarm has now gone off. The main building fire alarm never sounded. Luckily, the sprinklers didn't activate either. So we gather up our laptops and evacuate down 25 flights to street level. Just as I'm leaving, one of the guys who was in there told me it was under control and they had put out the electrical fire that had started when they tried to switch the elevators back to normal power (extremely bad move under the circumstances). So anyway, eventually they let people back into the building, although of course the elevators were all out. I trudged back up 25 flights only to find that our floor, unlike the rest of the building, has no power, so I guess I'll be working from home today. No problema. Since Katrina, I'm set up to work anywhere!

Cold Feet

Now don't you just know that if you skip a day the weather the next day is practically guaranteed to be miserable? When I woke up this morning I felt around on the night table for my little penlight, shined it on the outdoor thermometer, and saw an encouraging 65F. So I put on my short and jersey before looking out the window. Mistake. The streets were slick with water and even though the sun hadn't risen yet I could tell the skies were heavily overcast. I walked quietly to another room to check the weather radar on the computer and it was worse than I thought. Just west of the city was a huge line of yellow and red rain. If I had gone out I wouldn't have made it more than five miles. Half an hour later it was pouring rain and the temperature was in a free-fall, dropping over ten degrees by the time I headed off to work with The Wife around 7:45. The parking garage in our building isn't supposed to open until later this week and all of the usual above-ground walkways are still closed, so there's not escaping a walk in the rain. Thanks to the tall buildings and gusty winds, I slogged the two blocks in horizontal rain, wishing the wishing the whole time I had thought to wear my boots. These penny loafers just don't cut it when it's wet outside, and by the time I got into the building the front of my pants was soaked and the water had already found its way to my socks. Looks like it will be a day with cold feet! There are a few guys hanging around in our suite speaking Spanish and waiting for the rain to ease up so they can continue their work on the roof, so I'm not going to complain about my little damp socks. Sucks to be a roofer on a day like today. Yesterday, when we were finishing up at my mom's apartment, it was after dark and a few housed down there was still a crew of roofers on a house on the block working away in the dark on a steep 80 year-old roof with a single light. I hope they got everything covered up before the rain this morning.

Oh yeah. Naturally The Mayor made the national news:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/17/nagin.city/index.html

Way to go, Ray. Perpetuate the stereotype. I'm sure that will really play well in D.C.

No Play

Since today was a holiday and my riding has been in the dumpster lately, I decided I should take today off in case I was either getting sick or in need of a rest, so I slept late and tried to relax. It worked - for an hour or so. Then I decided it was time to install the new wiper blades on the car and investigate why one of the speakers has stopped working. The former job required a bit of a field modification and the latter involved trying to re-solder an impossibly located wire to another impossibly located wire. The speaker now works, but probably won't for long. I then spent all afternoon at my mom's rental apartment where I installed a new toilet and three ceiling fans, arriving back home just in time to get a call from Megan, the Tulane student who is staying with us until her apartment is finished. She arrived about ten minutes later. Her computer couldn't deal with my router's security, so I went to disable it and somehow managed to screw up the whole network. I spent the next couple of hours trying to get the modem and router talking to each other again. So anyway, it was a long day and I never got out to play. On the plus side, it's always so satisfying when you install something and it actually works. Now my back hurts and I'm sure my neck will be sore tomorrow. Oh well. The chance of rain tomorrow morning is 50-60%. Damn.

Our esteemed mayor, playing up to the local (and specially imported) African American population at a MLK day ceremony, actually uttered the following: "We ask black people ... It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans -- the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans..." "This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be."

Oh, is that what God wants? What was he thinking? I could almost hear the screams of his political advisors all the way uptown.

Disappointing

It was cold Sunday morning for the northshore training ride, but by the 8 am start it was probably nearly 40F. There was nobody but me at the Morning Call at 7 am, so I drove across the causeway alone, watching the thermometer as it rose into the 50s over the warmer lake waters and then plunged back down to the mid-30s on the northshore. There were only six of us this morning, and it seemed like everyone was feeling pretty tired. I was disappointed with how I felt. My legs were still sore for Saturday's Giro ride and every time the pace got fast, which wasn't very often, I would be hurting much earlier than I should be. Maybe the cold had something to do with it, or perhaps I'm fighting off the head cold that's been going around. I dunno. Something hasn't been right all weekend. Hopefully I'll feel better next week. Anyway, Mike L said he's heading out to California for a while to work, so we'll probably miss him for at least the spring races.

Tomorrow we're off from work for the annual MLK day ritual. They had a parade today with lots of imported people but couldn't get through it without gunfire that sent a number of people to the hospital. I feel sorry for the idealistic folks who organized it. I wonder if they'll make it through tomorrow without more of the same. Anyway, it's disappointing, if not predictable.

Spent most of the afternoon today trying to figure out why the Carnegie Foundation's new classification scheme tags Tulane and a few other serious research universities as "high research" instead of "very high research." How do you figure to identify the level of research using a scheme that is supposed to normalize for institution size, but includes all faculty instead of just research faculty, and uses total research expenditures (including institutional funds and Ag funds at the land grant universities) instead of federal research expenditures?

Hard North Wind

The temperature dropped last night into the mid to low 40s, but compared to the strong, gusting North wind, it was nothing. Riding out to the lakefront to meet the Giro ride, I was struggling in a 39x17 and often managing only 14 mph as I rode straight into the wind. I knew it would be a hard ride today, no matter what.

The group was, not surprisingly, rather small for a nice sunny Saturday morning. The wind coming off the lake was strong enough to spray lake water onto the road here and there, and riding west in the crosswind my vererable old 36-spoke front wheel was getting tossed all over the place and riding a reasonably straight line required a lot of attention. The ride down Hayne was into a head/cross wind, and although the speed was rarely over 25 mph, a small group went off the front and by the end of Hayne, even that group had split. I ended up in a 4-man group unenthusiastically chasing the lead group all the way out to the turnaround. When I finally sat up to remove my skullcap and unDshirt, a gust of wind very nearly put me on the asphalt. My legs were hurting all day as often happens to me when the weather turns cooler, and today's ride was, at least for me, just plain hard the whole time. From the start I was looking forward to the tailwind that I'd get on my way back home from the lakefront.

I sure hope the wind dies down before tomorrow's northshore ride!

Interference

I had an early morning meeting today and although I could have gotten up extra-early for a ride in the dark, I didn't. I hate it when work interferes with my riding. By the time I left home for the office it was pouring down rain but after a couple of hours the cool front came through and it cleared up nicely. It was a busy day, though, with meetings both uptown and downtown. Next week the office will be open until 10 p.m., and the parking garage is schedule to re-open on Wednesday, so the building will be nearly back to normal except for the elevators. When I stopped by my mom's rental this evening on the way home the lights were on downstairs and the brother-in-law was inside installing the bathroom cabinet. Progress! Lots still to do, but as long as we're moving forward, it's good. The Daughter's gymnastics meet starts in Oregon in a couple of minutes. If you're quick, check out the live scoring.

Out the Door

Yesterday morning I bailed. I got up, got dressed, got on the bike, went two blocks, realized I was under-dressed, turned around and went home for some hot coffee. Sometimes, making it out the door just isn't quite enough. It's always hard for me to get myself out the door the day after that sort of thing, so this morning I made sure I was suitably attired; maybe even a bit over-dressed, just to be on the safe side. It was in the mid-50s and there was a light fog in the morning, but instead of burning off as the sun came up, it hung around. In fact, I think it got a bit thicker. That extra humidity always makes it feel much cooler than the thermometer would imply, and indeed I was quite comfortable in my long tights.

There was a small group this morning for the long levee ride. Todd, BJ and Eddie had taken off early on their TT bikes, and all I saw of them was a blur as they zipped past us in the opposite direction as we neared the Luling bridge. Donald had to turn back at "the dip" today, and when he did a few of the guys went with him, so it was just a skeleton crew that made the whole ride, and that kept the pace comfortably in the 20-23 mph range most of the morning. It was a nice enough ride - nothing to write home about, though. I was feeling kind of tired and still am. It's one of those days when my head just seems to be in a fog all day. It was a struggle to proof a report that a group of Harvard B-school students had written on the biomedical industry. The report was OK, I guess, with only a couple of things that made me mutter "Oh my God" as I scribbled mark-up in the margins. It was mostly cut-and-pasted stuff from a couple of the draft "Bring New Orleans Back" reports (including ours, of course), plus some demographic info from the census bureau. Anyway, I've still got a long list of things I need to finish today before I can get out the door and ride home. I think maybe a glass of wine tonight.

Maybe two.

A Quick Fifty Grand

Yesterday afternoon I walked over to the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center that is set up in the New Orleans Public Library, a few blocks from work, to turn in my SBA Loan Application, since the deadline is tomorrow. I figure that if they'll OK a low-interest loan then we might be able to put in a proper a/c-heating system rather than grafting some replacement parts onto the existing one. Anyway, it was about as pleasant as a trip to the dentist. Not that the SBA folks weren't nice and all, it was just that there was a lot of waiting around. The person sitting next to me was a young woman with a bright orange mohawk, numerous scalp tatoos, and multiple facial piercings. She seemed pretty nice, but I have never figured out what people get out of those kinds of body modifications. I mean, did they look less attractive before they did that?

When The Wife arrived home from work she pulled out a set of four new beer glasses that she had picked up on sale, and since we still have a bunch of beer around, I obviously had to try one of them out. I opened an Abita Turbodog with my handy magnetic Orbea bottle opener, courtesy of one of last year's races, and she popped open an Abita Purple Haze. She looked at it, commented on how nice it looked in the glass, took a sip and asked me if I wanted it. Since it would be wasteful to pour perfectly good beer down the drain, I had to drink it, of course, even though its slightly fruity taste isn't really my cup of tea. About the time I finished those two beers, the sister-in-law and her friend showed up and we ended up spending three hours or so out on the porch where we emptied a nice bottle of Kendall Jackson Merlot and some other Merlot, and whatever was left in the bottle of Little Penguin in the 'fridge, while I tried in vain to avoid the constant cigarette smoke that seemed always to be blowing in my direction. I lost count after the sister-in-law snuffed out her seventh or eighth cigarette. Damn those things are evil.

So anyway, it was with a stuffy and slightly foggy head that I dragged myself out of bed this morning and made my way out to the levee for the Tuesday long ride. The weather is still quite warm, and I was a bit overdressed with two jerseys and arm-warmers. When I arrived, I found a pretty good-sized group there already, and by the time we really got rolling down around the country club I guess we had about fifteen riders. It was darker than usual because the skies were, and still are, overcast, but we somehow managed to avoid hitting any pedestrians. By the time we were half-way to Kenner the speed was staying up around 27 or so and the number of riders staying in the rotation up front was getting smaller and smaller. Todd and Eddie were pushing the pace a bit, while Rob, who would ordinarily be doing the same, was hiding out near the back. He was just getting back on the bike after a bout with the head cold that's been going around lately.

The group made a pretty quick turn-around today and we held 24-25 mph all the way back, although there were only four or five of us doing most of the work. I was pretty tired by the time we got back to the playground and so I rode the rest of the way home pretty easy. All-in-all, and nice quick training ride. I checked the odometer after the ride and noticed that it had rolled past the fifty thousand mile mark some time toward the end of Monday's ride.

Another Good One

I woke up a little bit early this morning, and had plenty of time to hit the ATM machine, gas station, and CC's coffee before meeting up the Morning Call. We ended up waiting about ten minutes extra for Reo and Kevin, but still arrived at the Lee Road school just a tad after 8 a.m. As it turned out, we would more than make up for our late arrival during the course of the ride.

The winter northshore training rides have had quite a streak of good luck. Here we are in January already and except for last week, which I missed, the weather has been fantastic. Today was no exception. Although the temperature on the northshore was in the upper 40s when Charlie D and I arrived, the skies were blue and the wind was out of the south and it already felt warmer. Shorts and two jerseys were more than sufficient as the temperature quickly rose into the 60s. This morning the krewe was a little different than usual. We were missing a couple of the regulars, like Jay and Rick, but had picked up Tim and Realdo in their place. Pushed along by a steadily increasing southeast wind and Tim and Reo's extra horsepower, the group's speed stayed high all day and hardly a yard of the 60-mile ride went to waste. There were a couple of good sprints and some hard efforts up the usual hills. We lost Jaro for the second time shortly after Enon, and knowing that he was familiar with the roads we continued on after that. I think the warmer weather had everyone wanting to go a little harder than usual today and half-way up the hill on Sie Jenkins Road the pressure went up a notch and stayed there all the way to the end of that short but tough little stretch.

I think there were a couple of guys really looking forward to a stop at the Enon store, but when we arrived we found it closed with a sign on the door about not having enough "staff." We stopped briefly anyway and chatted with a couple of other riders who were there before heading up the watchtower climb in what was now a pretty strong head/crosswind. I was sitting at the back of the paceline scrapping for a sliver of draft on the edge of the road when a gust of wind very nearly blew me right into the ditch.

After I got home, I checked the computer and found that my cumulative mileage is just a bit below 50,000 miles now. I spent an hour or so over at my mom's apartment putting in a few more outlets and switches.

You know, it strikes me that all of my pictures show guys riding along at a nice easy pace, talking or looking at the scenery. Well, the reason for that is that when we're going hard, there's just no way I can fish the camera out of my pocket, and even if I could, I'd end up with (a) a blurry picture and (b) dropped. So I guess you'll just have to take my word for it when I say we had a hard ride.

Cold Giro

It was down in the 30s this morning when I left, and although I was pretty well bundled up and I felt fairly comfortable on my ride out to the lakefront, my fingers got really cold as the Giro ride started because, as usual, the pace for the first few miles is really slow. One thing that I really noticed today was the increased amount of traffic, especially in the areas that were badly flooded like Lakeview and New Orleans East. This was the first time since the hurricane that the ride through Lakeview at 6:30 a.m. wasn't like a ride through a ghost town. There was at least some traffic everywhere. Meanwhile, a 50-person delegation is heading to The Netherlands tomorrow to learn about the impressive storm-control system that the Dutch have developed.

Thanks to the cold, the group was smaller than usual, and most of the time the pace was fairly controlled. Apparently Todd was somewhere up the road most of the day. I don't think I ever saw him, though. As usual, it got fast along Chef Highway, and after taking a couple of pulls I dropped to the back as the pace ramped up into the upper 20s. I was determined to stay in low gears and spin today, and it was a little easier to do that on the tail end. I think I ended up in a 53 x 16 toward the end, so I guess I cheated a bit, but at least by then my vest was in my pocket and my fingers had thawed out. It should be warmer tomorrow for the northshore training ride. In fact, it's looking like the weather will be really nice.

The Wife and I spent most of the afternoon installing electrical outlets at my mom's rental apartment. It took a lot longer than I had expected. One reason was that the Brother-in-law had rewired the place with a rather heavy gauge wire so I couldn't make the connections the easy way. By the time it got too dark to see what we were doing, we had both cut our hands a couple of times. When we arrived, we met one of the students who lives in the upstairs apartment who had arrived early. He was hoping that the electricity would be turned on soon. I checked the breaker box, and could see that the electrician hadn't been there yet to install the breakers and connect up all of the wiring. That's supposed to happen this weekend, but I'm thinking it won't. He did say that the gas was working and so he had hot water. Luckily, he has someplace else in town he can stay until things are working again. Classes start on the 17th. It'll be tight.

Twelth Night and Cakeless

It's Twelth Night, and around here that has some special meaning. For one, it's the last day you're supposed to have christmas decorations up. For another, it's "King Cake Day." And finally, of course, it's the official beginning of the Mardi Gras season. There are really only two carnical krewes to which I'd really like to belong. One of them is the Twelth Night Revelers, the krewe that opens the Mardi Gras season. The other is the Krewe of Comus, the one that closes it. The Twelth Night Revelers have their Ball tonight, and the Phunny Phorty Phellows have their streetcar parade today. This year, since the streetcars aren't running on St. Charles, they're doing it on Canal Street. Gotta roll with the punches nowadays! Anyway, I never did get any King Cake. Damn.

So I finally got in a ride, however brief, early this morning. It was colder and very windy, and I didn't have much time, but after two whole days off the bike, I was desperate enough to suit up for an 18 mile ride in the dark. Hopefully I can get in a full weekend of rides this weekend, although tomorrow morning is supposed to be quite cold. It's always January that turns out to be the hardest month for training. You'd think it would be November or December, but January is always colder and windier and the big races still seem like they're a long way away, so it's easy to make excuses.

It was moving day for the office, and so I had to drop The Wife off at the office early, then go to the uptown office, load up everything and move it to the downtown office. It wasn't all so difficult, really, but anyway it took up a lot of the morning.

Missed Again

Well, I had to skip the morning training ride today because of a morning meeting downtown. Tomorrow I'll be moving what little we have at the uptown office down to the downtown office, but I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do that without missing another morning on the bike. I may end up riding the bike downtown to get the car so I can drive back uptown to make the move. It is getting cooler around here again, and tomorrow morning will be a bit chilly and more than a bit windy. Locally, the volume of traffic around here seems to have increased dramatically over the last few weeks, and the fact that many of the major intersections still don't have working traffic signals is slowing things down a lot.

Now here's a surprise. Entergy not only replied to my email about my crazy gas bill, they emailed back saying that they would cancel the original bill, correct the apparently incorrect meter reading, and send out a new bill. Wow. Competence. Weird.

Work, work work

The weather today is just wonderful and St. Charles Avenue has been packed with cars all day. Many of the schools are open now and things are looking pretty lively. It's really kind of exciting.

I could have, should have ridden this morning, but I was up 'till 1 a.m. or so working on a scheme to divide up $95M in federal disaster relief funds among the area universities in preparation for a meeting tomorrow, and I really wanted that extra hour of sleep. I was also trying to figure out how my electricity and gas bill suddenly jumped to $350. I figured out that they must have gotten the starting meter reading wrong by 100 cubic feet when they installed it after the hurricane, and was shocked when Entergy not only responded to the email I sent this morning, but actually agreed with me! I'll probably be downtown much of tomorrow and then on Friday we'll be moving everything back into our regular office where I will have my very own telephone! Whoohooo! I will certainly miss the lovely view of St. Charles Ave. and the entrance to Audubon Park and the easy commute to work.

I finally got the OK to put up the new Office of Research website that I re-designed for them, and maybe now I can find some time to work on the bike club and LAMBRA website and put the latest newsletter up on the LPMA website.

Had lunch with a few people including a Harvard MBA with three years of med school who is down here to help out with some of the Biotechnology committee's recommendations and strategic planning. Should be interesting. Rebecca took him for a little tour down to the 9th ward and said he was pretty shocked. He said that he now felt kind of stupid for some of the things he wrote in his initial planning document.

Early Enough

Yesterday afternoon I headed downtown to check out our office space up on the roof of the Tidewater Building. We'll have to give the classroom from which we've been operating back to the students in a couple of weeks, but still have to officially request permission to move back into our regular office space downtown. There's supposed to be a list of people who are allowed to enter the building, but when I arrived I just signed in and headed for the elevator. I guess since I had my Tulane ID on, the security guard figured I was OK. When I entered the office I was greeted by a big pile of construction tools and equipment in the middle of the floor, and noticed that the construction guys had apparently set up a television on the receptionist's desk. Otherwise, though, things looked pretty good. There's still a lot of work going on on the roof, and they've installed a big crane up there in order to haul up the big air handlers for the GLP lab (the year-old ones got trashed by the hurricane). We're kind of used to having the building maintenance guys coming in and out anyway, so that won't be much of a problem, and I certainly don't want to slow them down by getting in their way. I sat down at my desk for the first time since August, made some phone calls, and sent out the necessary emails to get us approved for re-entry on Friday. It was so nice to actually have a desk and a telephone all to myself! I had almost forgotten what a luxury that was. The maintenance folks said they could get the place cleaned up and the a/c working again by then, and some time around 10:30 last night the VP approved our request, so we should be good to go. I think Friday should be early enough. Once we're back, we'll have to be out of the building by 4:30 each day, and the parking garage still isn't open, and only one or two elevators are working, but it will still seem like one more step forward. I sure will miss my easy one-mile commute on quiet tree-lined residential streets, though!

I know that most of the rest of the country has already moved on, content that things in La and Ms are all patched up by now. Indeed, it's tempting to encourage that notion since we definitely want people to come down here for Mardi Gras and school and to work. The reality, however, is that everything is still kind of broken, even in the least-affected areas, and the road ahead still looks long, risky and difficult for everyone. Even the Federal Government's U.S. Postal Service still can't seem to manage to deliver my mail after over four months.

I actually woke up more or less on time this morning and arrived at the levee promptly at the usual 6:15 a.m. meeting time. It was still dark enough to see the stars in the eastern sky, and quiet enough to hear a little squeaking noise coming from my jockey wheels which haven't had any attention since around mid-summer. There was nobody up there when I arrived, but in a minute or so big Richard showed up and we rolled off toward the playground. It wasn't until we were there that we spotted a couple of tail lights ahead of us and realized that they had actually left EARLY. Geez! Like 6:15 isn't early enough? A few miles later I found out that there were two riders (guess who they were) ahead of the group. Anyway, nobody was interested in trying to chase down a couple of TT specialists who already had a couple of minutes on us, so we rolled along at a nice moderate pace until somebody's rear tire exploded loudly just past the "dip." It took a long time to fix since we had to improvise a boot from a food wrapper that required Howard to eat his breakfast a little early, so we turned around and headed back without going all the way to the turnaround. It wasn't long afterward that the morning's escapees caught us and as they rolled past I was surprised that nobody seemed interested in at least hanging on, so I made a little effort and latched on myself. The three of us were trading pulls at 25-29 mph, depending on the wind direction, but most of the rest of the group did eventually catch. I got in a good fifteen or twenty minutes of hard work before we eased up at the playground. It was a little cooler today, but not quite cool enough for me to pull on the long tights yet, and the weather now is pretty damned nice out there.

Springtime in January?

Really. It looks like a nice spring day today in New Orleans. It's 75F with a nice breeze and partly cloudy skies, and if I didn't know better, I'd think winter was over. This morning the levee bike path was quiet, and on the way out I passed only a few people commuting to work. Eventually I saw some people out training, but not until I was almost back. The office is rather quiet today, no doubt due to the various Bowl games on tap throughout the day and evening. Our own Sugar Bowl will have to be played in Atlanta this year since the Superdome is still being put back together after being trashed by the combination of hurricane and fine citizens. They're hoping to be able to have games there again around September.

I did an easy ride this morning, typical for a Monday morning, and as I often do on solo rides this time of year, I set the computer to show cadence and spent a lot of time above 100 rpm working on efficiency rather than strength. It looks like this warm weather will continue for a few days. Meanwhile, all of the plants are totally confused. Grass is growing, flowers are budding.

If only they knew . . .

First Ride

New Year's Eve night was a bit different this year. For the first time in a very long time, I heard only fireworks at midnight - no gunfire, none of the characteristic pop-pop-pop-pop-pop sounds of automatic weapons. Earlier in the evening I had checked out the BurboCam to see how things were looking down in the Quarter. They do a live web video show, interviewing people on the street and that sort of thing, whenever there's something big going on down there. Then at midnight I stood briefly on the front porch watching the fireworks coming from someplace about a block away as they exploded into the foggy night air. I worried about the sparks that rained down onto the plastic-covered roofs.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. There were three options this morning. A 6:15 a.m. ride out to the levee for another Giro ride, a drive across the lake in the fog for a noon ride on the Northshore, or a 9:30 ride on the levee. Since I hadn't gone out last night, I could have done any one of those, but riding alone in the dark before dawn on New Year's Day isn't particularly safe, and the Northshore ride would have ended up consuming most of my day.

I opted for the levee. It is still unseasonably warm, and this morning I happily rode off into the thick warm mist wearing shorts and a summer jersey. The fog was still thick enough to make it seem pretty dark. Before I got to the playground, I ran into a couple of the guys who were fixing a flat. As always, the damp roads played havoc with the tires. It was another ten minutes before most of the riders finally showed up and we headed off down the bike path in a double paceline. We started with about eight, but by the time we got to the turnaround at the end of the bike path out past Destrehan there were maybe a dozen. There was a lot of conversation, and so the pace stayed quite steady.

Tim and Kenny were out on their new team bikes that had been picked up yesterday. Rather nice carbon fiber Orbea Opal models decked out with Campi Chorus. For some reason, the whole group stopped for a while at the turnaround - I think a couple of the guys had to answer calls of nature - and we all stood around up there for a few minutes before we finally got moving again. On the way back Tim rolled past me and said "come on, let's make them work a little bit." A little bit. Yeah, right. Reo soon got in on the action, as did Charlie and Howard, and "CLICK" the switch went from "training ride" to "race."

It stayed fast, up around 27-29 mph, all the way back to about Williams Blvd. when Howard flatted and Tim or someone peeled off to head home. So we waited up for the rest of the group that was by now a couple of minutes back. The easy pace didn't last all that long, though, and things picked up pretty good, although they didn't get quite as out of hand as they had earlier.

An article on nola.com that was pretty good: Cry Me a New Year. The Christmas decorations are starting to come down today, and tomorrow we'll be back at work. My office will be moving back into the Tidewater Building some time around mid-week, and I'm planning on going over there tomorrow to check it out and make sure there aren't any big surprises.