Aggieland Road Trip

Last weekend I went with the Tulane riders, of which there were only four, over to the Texas A&M "Tunis Roubaix" collegiate omnium. Although the only legitimate reason I had to go was to do the 13+ hours of driving, I was actually looking forward to the trip and hoping to get in a few miles on Saturday while the road races were going on. All week prior to the race the weather forecast had been looking pretty dismal. It wasn't until Friday that things started to change and the rain chances got bumped down from 90% to more like 50%. Still, I was fully expecting to spend most of Saturday and Sunday in the rain. We had a couple of Tulane motor pool minivans lined up and they wanted to get to College Station at a reasonable hour, so I decided to take Friday off from work so we could pick up the vans at 11 am and one of them, mine, could get an early start. After a quick ride Friday morning I stuffed enough riding gear into my bulging race bag to handle anything from 40° and raining to 70° and sunny. The forecast seemed to be changing hourly and there was just no telling what we'd actually see for the weekend.

After loading up the minivan with three people, bikes, tent, wheels and luggage we headed out before noon and right away Waze re-routed us north of Houston for some reason. I guess the combination of ongoing road construction and probably a major accident made what would normally be a 15 minute longer route the better option. So we left I-10 around Beaumont and spent a lot of time on smaller state and county highways with stoplights and constantly shifting speed limits.

On the subject of speed limits, I should mention that the Tulane motor pool vans now have GPS and cameras recording and reporting everything, including speeding, so I was trying not to stray much above the speed limit the whole time. The whole trip I had that feeling you get when you're getting dropped and watching the pack stream past you but you just can't keep up. To say it was stressful would be an understatement. On the plus side, we lucked into a practically new Toyota Sienna that had a number of features I wasn't expecting to find in a motor pool minivan (they are actually from Enterprise car rental under some sort of special arrangement). This one had a rear camera, numerous USB ports, Lane Departure Alert, and Dynamic Radar Cruise Control. Once on the interstate you could basically take your hands off the wheel and if it drifted too far to one side or the other of the lane, it would automatically steer itself back to the middle. Meanwhile, if were on cruise control and started to roll up on the car ahead of you, it would automatically slow down to maintain a safe distance. It was strange to have a car making its own decisions like that, but I could certainly see how it would be helpful for really late night driving when you're tired and maybe not quite as alert as usual. Anyway, other than the long detour, the drive went fine and both vans arrived in time for dinner.

Saturday morning the weather was way better than I'd expected. There was virtually no chance of rain until evening, winds were light to moderate, and the morning temperature was above 50°. Dustin and I decided to start behind the Cat. A race, which was the first one of the day. The Cat. Bs would be starting ten minutes later, with the Cs and Ds not starting until the first two races had finished. There was a short stretch of "gravel" for the start that was maybe 0.8 miles and was by no means actual gravel except for a section right in front of the parking area. Otherwise it was well packed down dirt with a few little washboard sections. No problem at all, really. I had decided to bring my old Orbea, both because I didn't want the Bianchi to get banged up in the van and because it had some wider "gravel-king" tires on it. Since I wasn't technically in the race and was supposed to stay at the back, I had my usual heavy seat bag with a couple of tubes, along with my daytime-visible tail light. Compared to the Bianchi in race mode, the bike felt like a truck, especially when I'd get out of the saddle to accelerate.

Photo by Brooks Bixler

As soon as we got out of the "neutral" gravel section the attacks started. It was really hard hanging on at the back where the accordion was in full effect with the pace constantly surging from 25 to 35 mph. When we made a right turn into a crosswind and the front of the group attacked again I decided it was time to let them go rather than ride in the oncoming traffic lane to get a draft. This was probably only about 7 miles into the race. A little while later I came up on another rider who had been shelled from the group, so we rode together for a lap of so until the Category B group caught us. At that point I went to the back of the Bs and followed them for a couple more laps, which was way, way easier than it had been with the As. With a lap or two left to go I felt my front tire going soft and just made it around to the start/finish area where dropped off the back of the B group and stopped to fix it. While I was there the Cat. A break came by, followed by a 4-man chase group. With the flat fixed, I took a shortcut to the feed zone and just as I arrived I saw the 4-man chase group coming, so I jumped onto the back of that group for most of a lap. That was by far the most fun part of the day. They were taking pretty smooth pulls and it was super easy to just shift over the wheel of each riders as he dropped back. Well, they were going fast enough, and the B group slowly enough, that we caught the B group, at which point I let them go and once again went to the back of the Bs, following them until they finished.

After those races finished I lined up again with Dustin behind the Category C group when they started. This time I brought my camera so I could take some photos (we had two riders in that race, and one in the A race and another in the D race). That was fun but significantly slower, and when they had one lap left to go I dropped off, rode across the loop to the feed zone and then back to the finish to watch the sprints. Jerry won the pack sprint for 3rd with Elliott finishing 10th. Gavin, who was in his first ever road race in the D race, finished 4th out of 35 in his road race. I ended up with like 80 miles, some of it hard, so I was feeling pretty satisfied.

That evening for the TT it started getting colder and a steady mist started falling, making the streets wet. They shortened the Cat. A and B Time Trial from 20 km to 10 km. As usual, full road race results weren't available and there was no start list. Dustin and I tried to keep the riders lined up more or less in number order, with moderate success. By the time that was done we were pretty wet and cold.

Sunday morning was more mist and fog and wet roads. I was a little surprised, since I thought the rainy stuff would be gone by then, but no such luck. Fortunately the on-campus course was all pretty good concrete, so there were only a couple of crashes, one of which was Elliott, who nonetheless took 3rd after establishing the race's winning breakaway in the first few laps. In the C race Jerry and Gavin worked well together with Gavin instigating the winning break and finishing 3rd and Jerry taking 2nd in the pack sprint for 5th. Grayson raced really well in the A races but kind of blew up toward the end. In the criterium he was in the winning break for a while, but the other riders basically kept attacking until they dropped him a few laps before the finish.

All-in-all, it was a good weekend. Now I just have to decided if I want to make the 8-hour trip to Auburn next weekend where I can get my butt kicked some more.

Red Dirt

There was a big group for the Saturday Giro.

It was another week of interrupted training, which is pretty much normal this time of year. I always say that February is actually my worst winter month, and I'm usually right about that. After a decent enough start to the week, Friday morning arrived wet and nasty and I decided it would be a good day to skip my morning ride and set my sights on Saturday instead. By the time I was ready to go to work things looked better, so the commute downtown was fine. There were to be complications, however.

Yes, Woody still rides bikes.

Danielle had left with the car the day before for Natchitoches, LA to help Shannon who would be doing the Red Dirt Ultra 100 mile trail run that started at 6 am on Saturday. We were scheduled to go up there ourselves, mostly as moral support, on Saturday after my 11 am LAMBRA meeting. That meant I needed to rent a car. So I left work a little after 4 on Friday and rode down Tulane Avenue to the Enterprise car rental place to pick up a Nissan Rogue. I threw the bike in the back and rushed home, grabbed Danielle's two dogs, threw them into the car, and headed down to Tchoupitoulas Street to drop them off at Canine Connection where they would be staying until we got back. My timing was looking pretty good, but then I ran into parade preparations at Nashville where various marching bands and other assorted parade components were staging. For a minute I was afraid they had already closed Tchoupitoulas, but fortunately they hadn't and I was able to make it to the doggie country club before they closed at 6 pm.  On the way out I had to wait for some horseback riders to go by. Yeah, it's getting to be Mardi Gras time in New Orleans. Saturday was going to be kind of tight, but I was determined to get in the full Giro Ride prior to the LAMBRA meeting prior to hitting the road for the 4 hour drive to Natchitoches.

This is what the trail looked like Sunday morning -
after the rain had stopped - and there was light.

The forecast for Saturday, whether in New Orleans or Natchitoches, was not looking too good, especially for people running through the woods in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with significantly degraded cognitive and motor skills. On the plus side, we had a great turnout for the Giro Ride. It wasn't very cold or terribly windy, and the whole entire group managed a few solid paceline rotations on Chef Highway before descending into chaos prior to the turnaround. The local riders are just now starting to think about getting back in shape before the spring races start, I think. The speeds never got out of hand or anything, but it was still probably the quickest Giro we've done this year. That was a good thing because it got me back home with enough time to jump in the shower and get something to eat before driving over to the Tulane Cycling headquarters for the annual LAMBRA meeting. The meeting itself went fine. It's really just a good time for everyone involved to exchange ideas and information about the upcoming year. Some ideas will actually come to fruition, some won't, but as long as we all keep heading in the same direction I guess it's fine. The LAMBRA Crit championship is still pretty much up in the air. One suggestion was to see if LAMBRA itself could promote it in Natchez. Another option would be downtown Jackson, MS. The fall-back plan would be do designate the Harbor Master crit in New Orleans as the championship. The Road championship is also a little bit up in the air as well, at least as far as the date is concerned. I think the consensus is that we should try to have it on the course we used last year in Flora, MS., so that's good. I think some decisions still have to be made about the date of the Mississippi Gran Prix stage race and then which other weekend will work for the Flora venue. We'll see. So anyway, I ran out of the meeting and rushed home where I threw some warm clothes into a bag and we somehow hit the road around 2 pm or so. By then it was starting to rain, and it would stay that way until some time Sunday morning.

Danielle helping Shannon immediately after finishing
as the timer chases her down to record her bib number and time.

The Red Dirt Ultra is held in the Kisatchie National Forest, near Natchitoches. The start is so far in the middle of nowhere that even in 2017 you can't get a reliable cellphone signal. That also means that Google Maps has some difficulty figuring out where you are once you get close. Fortunately we had the written directions with us, because by the time we exited the interstate it was dark and we were on lonely wet forest roads that we weren't familiar with at all. Amazingly we found our way to the parking area without any problems, and stepped out of the car into rain-soaked mud. Danielle had a pop-up tent set up but it took us a little while to find her.

Stream crossing near the finish

Shannon was expected to show up in a few hours for the, I think, 70 mile checkpoint, so we hung around in the cold rain. Every now and then you'd see a headlamp bouncing through the woods toward us and someone would yell, "runner!" Some were just finishing the shorter 100k run or even the 50k run.  Others had been planning to do the full 100 miles but quit. Their rationale was the same. It was too wet and slippery and they didn't want to get injured. By then I was giving Shannon about a 60% chance of finishing since she's injured knees and ankles and feet numerous times in the past and there was really no way to run on that trail in the dark without crashing a few times. Finally we spotted two headlamps coming our way through the trees. It was Shannon and another female runner. Shannon was, of course, absolutely soaking wet and, as expected, had fallen a few times already. She sat down and Danielle helped her change to dry shoes and socks and clothing as she tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to eat the rice and chicken she'd prepared. By the time she was ready to start going again she was shivering pretty badly. The woman she's been running with took off a bit before her with a Pacer, which was allowed for the last part of the run. A few minutes later Shannon disappeared into the darkness. Candy and I drove up to Natchitoches to get a little sleep at the hotel. We were up again at 5:00 to head back to the finish. By then it was chilly and very foggy, but at least the actual rain had stopped.

Checkpoint before the final 31-mile loop - cold and wet

It would still be a few hours before Shannon would finish. She had planned to mostly walk the stretch from the last mid-loop checkpoint to the finish, and by then it was clear that should would easily make the cut-off of 32 hours. Her optimistic goal had been 24 hours, although with the trail conditions that goal had pretty much gone out the window by the time she started the last loop. As the sun came up somewhere behind the solid cloud cover we decided to walk down the trail a bit. It was much, much warmer than it had been the night before, and by then we were expecting to see Shannon fairly soon. The trail was a combination of rocks, white sand, grey clay, and red clay/dirt, punctuated by the occasional shallow stream crossing. I couldn't imagine actually running on most of it, although we walked only a mile or so. As I was walking one of the finishing runners came by. He told me he'd been holding off someone behind him for hours. There wasn't anyone behind him. He'd been hallucinating, which isn't particularly uncommon after 25 hour of running. Anyway, not too long after that Shannon came sprinting out of the forest finishing at 25:58:49, which was pretty impressive, and yeah, there were still a number of people behind her. I doubt she'll be walking normally for a few days to a week. It all made me happy I'm not a runner!

The drive back home was nice and smooth and dry - way better than the drive up there had been. By the time we got home I was pretty tired. I guess it was mostly just the lack of sleep and long drive.

The Week Before

The Saturday Giro, what there was of it, tip-toeing across the slippery steel atop the Seabrook drawbridge

Running a bit behind, writing-wise, but since nothing interesting has happened this week, yet, I'll write instead about last week. It was the best of weeks. It was the worst of weeks. I swear, I've spent more time riding alone lately than I remember doing in a long time. Of course, I don't remember what I had for breakfast, so perhaps it hasn't been all that bad. As is typical this time of year, the weather has been all over the freaking place. Monday in the 60s, Tuesday in the 40s, Thursday almost 30s, Saturday wet, Sunday windy. On Tuesday I was rather disappointed to find just a couple of riders for the morning levee ride. It was chilly, and a little windy, but when the others decided to turn back early, I pushed on anyway. Thursday, perhaps feeling bad about having turned early on Tuesday, they soldiered on for the full distance. But distance is one thing, effort another, and lately the latter's been in rather short supply. Then on Saturday the streets were wet but the temperature was warm which resulted in a really low turnout for the Giro. Just a handful of us did the full ride, and of course I got home wet and dirty and had to hose the bike down, but I was glad I'd ridden.

Small turnout for what turned out to be a really good ride

On Sunday I'd planned a 75-mile ride on the northshore for the Winter Training Ride series. First, though, was a long slow drive across the Causeway under fog restrictions, which means single lane, no passing, and 45 mph unless, as was the case, you get stuck behind someone going 35 most of the way. Up north of Covington it was pretty chilly and damp, and the turnout was predictably much lower than the prior week had been, but we ended up with a really nice ride all the way up to the Mississippi line that took in a few new roads. Of course I flatted somewhere out there as we were trying to figure out which way to turn at an intersection none of us had seen before. On the plus side, I did a fair amount of work on this ride and felt like I got a good early-season workout. It turned out to be the first week since November that I got to ride every day, and the mileage total came in at just under 300, so not a bad week.

This week hasn't really been much to write about except that Tuesday the temperature was in the 30s and it was super windy and of course nobody showed up except me. With my speed often dipping down into the mid-teens I turned around early, logging only 28 miles but glad to get home to hot coffee before my toes started to freeze.

This coming weekend should be interesting. I've got at Tulane meeting tonight, then the Friday coffee ride in the morning, after which I'll be picking up a rental car because Danielle has the Volvo up in Natchitoches where she'll be supporting Shannon who is doing the Red Dirt Ultra trail run. I have a LAMBRA meeting after the Saturday Giro, and then we'll be driving up there to witness the carnage as the runners try to finish the final lap of the 100 mile run. There will be rain, but at least the temperatures should be mostly in the 50s.

The South Wind

Coming over Watchtower Hill on the way to Enon on Sunday

The forecast for Saturday morning looked pretty good, relatively speaking. An early morning temperature around 50, warming considerably during the day. I didn't even bother to check again Saturday morning as I headed out to Starbucks a bit after 6 am to meet the Giro Ride group.

Wet streets and rain decimated the Saturday Giro,
leaving only 4 of us to do the full route.

When I arrived, though, one of the guys immediately commented on the approaching rain.  Rain?  Wasn't expecting that. I checked the radar and it looked like there was a decent enough chance that the rain would skirt the city to the west. By 7 am there was a good-sized group on hand, and we rolled out as usual to the lakefront, heading east. Behind us I would see some dark clouds, all of which should have been moving slowly toward the northeast, so at least we were going in the right direction. It wasn't long, though, before I started to feel the raindrops. Then there was a flat on Hayne Blvd. for which I think most of the group stopped. By the time we started up again riders were already talking about turning back early. At Chef Highway, we caught up with the front of the group that hadn't stopped for the first flat. They were busy fixing another flat. By then there was a very light rain falling and the streets were good and wet. We headed down Chef and when the group saw the 5:45 group on its way back, almost everyone turned around. I did too. Then I noticed that a few riders had not, so I turned around again. It was too large of a gap for me to close, so I just rode steadily to the turnaround where what was left of the group, four riders including myself, started back. Other than the wheel spray and messy bikes, it wasn't that bad of a ride thanks to the warmer temperature. When I got home I had to spray down the bike and throw all of my clothes into the washer, but at least I never got too cold.

Great weather for the Sunday Winter Ride Series #2

On Sunday we had the second NOBC Winter Ride Series ride. I'd decided to do the same loop we'd done two weeks ago, which hadn't been my original plan. I figured a lot of riders had gotten pretty far behind on their training because of the cancelled WRS ride the prior week and the freezing temperatures and everything. I'd originally planned to add 15 or 20 miles to the ride for this week, but decided to keep it at the same 65 miles we'd done two weeks prior. Although the temperature was 48 or so at the start, we had a clear blue sky and lots of sun, and it warmed up quickly. The ride was smooth and steady, ramping up a bit toward the end, which was a lot of fun. I certainly felt like I'd gotten my money's worth out of the ride. At the start, there was hardly any wind at all, but as we turned back toward the south an hour or two later we were confronted by an increasing south wind. I guess is was around 8 - 10 mph by the time we got back to the cars.

So despite the freezing temperatures and sleet and ice that shut down the City of New Orleans for two full days earlier in the week, I ended up with a respectable 276 miles in the books. Granted, most of those miles were barely zone 2 quality, but hey, it's still January. This morning I'd been expecting rain, but that never happened, so I got in a nice little recovery ride on the levee before work.

At the moment the wind is shifting back around to the north which should push the morning lows back into the 40 through Thursday when it will be back out of the east along with more rain. That is looking to be the cycle for the next week or two - chilly mornings, lots of wind shifting around from north to southeast, and rain preceding each shift. Situation normal.

Spocalypse of '18

Tuesday morning 

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards New Orleans? 

(apologies to W.B. Yeats). 

Sunday Giro returning - things split up on the way back

The weekend weather had been cold - very cold. Saturday's Giro Ride turnout could be counted on one hand, and the usual route was discarded because of the 35° air. I ended up riding the lakefront levee with a visitor from New Jersey (I think), so got in 50 miles or so. Sunday, it was even colder, 32°, but the turnout was better and we did the usual Giro. Go figure. By noon on Sunday it was much, much warmer, but apparently winter wasn't done with us quite yet.

Someone left the sprinkler on Saturday night
along the Lafitte Greenway

The respite from serious cold weather was predicted to be brief, and since Monday was MLK day and I was therefore off from work I planned for a longish ride out to the Spillway. I also planned to start after, rather than before, sunrise. It was still a little chilly, but in comparison to some of the previous mornings, the low 40s at 8 am seemed practically balmy. I'd sent out some notices about the ride in case there were any others who might be interested, but that had netted me only Pat. It was fine, though.

Out at the Spillway Monday morning. A little windy but otherwise beautiful.

I wanted to get some miles in the bank early in the week because it was looking like Wednesday and possibly Thursday would be out of the question, riding-wise. We put in 50-something easy miles riding up the river under a clear blue sky with a moderate wind, averaging under 17 mph.

Just a few of  us on Tuesday morning

Tuesday morning would be colder for the pre-dawn Tuesday ride, but the real weather wouldn't arrive until Wednesday night. Tuesday morning's ride netted us only four riders, one of which we lost at Williams Blvd. despite the relatively mild 43° temperature. The wind, however, was already noticeably increasing ahead of the cold front slowly creeping its way across Louisiana from the northwest. With only three of us and a significant wind we cut the ride a little short in order to get back on time.

Wednesday morning. Unusual and slippery and cold,
but not as bad as it was elsewhere.

By the time I rode to work an hour or so later, the wind was probably over 10 mph, but the front was still a long way off. By mid-afternoon that day, however, the weather warnings started coming out. Rain, sleet, and snow were already causing massive traffic problems to the west in a state with no salt trucks or snow plows, and drivers who are adept at dealing with rain but completely overconfident about driving on ice. By 4:30 the city, along with practically every school in the state, had shut down, was in the process of shutting down, and had announced a closure for at least the following day. My office basically evacuated at 4:30, and I rode home into a stiff wind. It wasn't until late Tuesday night that the rain and sleet started. If there was any snow around my house, I didn't see it, but the sleet was impressive enough. By morning everything was covered with a layer of ice, including the streets, and every interstate highway into and out of the city had been shut down. The temperature in town got down into the lower 20s, I guess, but the real problem was the ice. It was like being snowed in without the snow. There were a lot of reports of frozen plumbing, and I was glad that my pipes all run through the enclosed basement where the temperature never dipped below 48° or so. Needless to say, I didn't ride. Not that I didn't think about it, of course, but I didn't want to risk starting out the year with a broken bone from slipping on ice.

Fortunately, I had a new chain and headset that I'd been waiting to install, so at least there was something productive I could do at home other than repeatedly raid the refrigerator. I scanned a few old NOBC things for the website before they turned to dust, but otherwise just hung around the house bored out of my mind. I don't think the temperature ever got much above freezing. Candy and Danielle decided to walk over to the Tulane Reily Center to work out. Candy slipped on ice and hit her head pretty good, but they stayed for an hour anyway. When they got back she asked if I thought she should go to the ER to get checked out, but since she wasn't showing any concussion symptoms other than a mild headache where she'd hit, we decided to just keep her under observation. Late Wednesday night Tulane send out another notice that the university would remained closed today. For those right in town, travel was back to normal, but I think things were still a mess outside of the metro area. Right now the temperature is at 27° officially, although the thermometer on my front porch is showing 31°. At any rate, things will finally start warming up and I'm planning on going for a ride around noon, by which time it should be above freezing. Should be in the 60s by Saturday. This has been one of the worst winters so far that we've seen in at least ten years. Last winter I hardly missed any riding at all because of the cold. This year, I've already missed a number of ride days. Fortunately, other than rain, I don't see anything below 40° for the next ten days.

Warmer, Wetter, Colder

Finally fixing the pot hole that caused the crash back on July 14th. Better late than never, I guess.

It's that time of year. Every morning it's like a whole new weather adventure.

On Wednesday I rode out to meet the WeMoRi in humid 59° air. The streets were still damp, but at least there was no rain around. Based on the forecast, I'd expected it to be dangerously foggy, so despite the warm temperature I'd put on a vest, shoe-covers, and long tights since I just knew I'd be wet. It wasn't very foggy at all, however, and by the time I got out to City Park the vest was already in my pocket, the jersey was un-zipped, and I was wishing I hadn't worn a base layer. Out on Lakeshore Drive I switched my tail light from retina-burning mode to group-ride mode and rode back and forth between the bridge and the levee a couple of times, passing one of the guys who had already flatted. I saw Sam come flying by with the group in not-too-hot pursuit. I slotted in toward the front with a nice little easterly tailwind, cruising over the bridge. We approached the wet left turn onto Marconi at 25 mph, and as I crossed the slick metal floodgate track I felt my front wheel slide a good foot or two before thankfully grabbing the asphalt on the other side. We passed Kenneth Legeai on the side of the road fixing a flat. A minute later, on Robert E. Lee, two riders bumped each other right in front of me. I thought for sure one of them was going  down and took quick evasive action, but luckily they both kept it upright. Sam was still way off the front, but for me, entirely out of sight and out of mind. We came back together at the end of Marconi, but then Sam took off again with a couple others who he soon dropped, and it stayed that way. At the end, Chris went to the front early and dragged us up to 30 mph for a long time before a few riders sprinted past at the last moment.

It was 4 am this morning and I could hear the rain falling outside. I hadn't been expecting that. The temperature was 63°, however, and when the clock finally got around to 5:45 am I could see the rain had stopped. The streets, of course, were soaking wet and full of puddles. Perfect conditions for the rain bike. Shorts, summer jersey, and shoe-covers. I headed out to the levee where, predictably, nobody showed up, and headed out with the idea that I might make it nearly to Ormond before the clock forced me to turn back. The bike path was soaked, of course, but with fenders and shoe-covers and new tires with Mr. Tuffy's I just plowed through the puddles with reckless abandon. Here and there were stretches of thick fog where the southeast wind was blowing it off the river and over the levee. I was maybe a mile past Williams Blvd when I saw the police patrol car with flashing lights coming toward me. As I approached, he waved me down and told me that the road just ahead was closed. I'd already passed a number of sections of repaired asphalt, so wasn't too surprised to find more work going on, although I wasn't too happy about the whole path being closed thing. Neither was the police officer who had apparently not been informed about it either. Anyway, I had to turn back early because of that, and so rode all the way back to Audubon Park where I put in one lap on the bike lane before heading back home. It was nice to be riding bare-legged for a change, but it won't last. This south wind will be shifting around to the west and northwest tonight and tomorrow morning, and the forecast for 6 am seems to be changing from hour to hour. Right now it's looking like the colder air and heaviest rain will hit around midnight, with the temperature dropping down into the 40s by 7 am. A high of 74° today, and a high of 49° tomorrow. We won't be back into the 50s until Monday. They've got the rain probability fluctuating between 10 and 25% until 9:00 tomorrow, so I guess anything could happen. Most likely the streets will still be wet, though, so it may be another ride on the trusty rain bike.

The weekend is looking like it will be clear and pretty cold. Saturday morning's forecast is at 33-34° with a 13-18 mph north wind right now, which is not conducive to a good Giro Ride turnout. They have it dropping down to 29° on Saturday, so Sunday morning might be around 35° here and in the upper 20s on the northshore. I'm guessing the Sunday northshore Winter Training Ride won't have any takers, but I'll wait until tomorrow to make the call on that. 

Winter Rides

I don't remember exactly when it was that I started an NOBC Winter Ride Series. It was probably some time around the mid-90s. One of the first web pages and first photos that I put on the NOBC website was for the "virtual training ride" which was one of the early northshore winter rides. I think I took the photos with a Kodak pocket instamatic camera. My rationale for these rides was pretty simple. If you put yourself in charge of a weekly ride series in the middle of the winter, you are under some presumed obligation to actually show up for them. Also, you have established a somewhat firm placeholder on the calendar for those Sunday mornings that provides a credible excuse for avoiding whatever else life might try to foist upon you on those days. In the beginning, there were only a few riders who actually lived on the northshore. Now, there are lots of them. Anyway, after due consultation with club members last week, I posted five dates for the 2018 WRS that should take us right up to Mardi Gras, which of course is the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the day that is 46 days (40 fasting days, if the six Sundays, which are not days of fast, are excluded) before Easter, which itself is, using the Gregorian calendar, the Sunday between March 22 and April 25 inclusive, within about seven days after the astronomical full moon. 

So naturally it will be February 13 this year.

Earlier in the week I'd been worried that our first WTR would get rained out, but the forecast slowly shifted and eventually moved the rain from Sunday to Sunday afternoon to Monday. Now, the only problem with riding on the northshore rather than the southshore in the winter is that the temperature will always be 5-10 degrees colder up there in the frigid north of south Louisiana above the lake. On the plus side, the tree-lined winding country roads do sometimes provide some occasional shelter from the wind. On this particular Sunday the temperature started out at around 45°F with maybe a 7 mph wind. By the end of our 65 mile ride it would be up to 64°F with what must have been a 12-14 mph wind. Not really too bad by winter standards, really.

The start of the winter rides continues to migrate farther and farther north as more and more people build two-car garages where there used to be piney woods and farmland. The early rides started at the Tammany Trace trailhead just north of I-12. Wanting to get to the more interesting and hilly sections faster, they later moved to Abita Springs, and then to the Lee Road Middle School. This year we moved a few more miles north on Lee Road to the relatively new Ball Park. This was my first ride from there and I liked the location and fact that there's a nicely maintained bathroom and parking area. We had twelve or thirteen riders on hand for this ride, and looking around I could see that it wouldn't be one of the hammerfests that we sometimes have. I was initially a little worried that the ride would be too easy, but after a kind of slow start things settled into a nice tempo pace that was just what I'd been hoping for, especially for my first ride in a couple of months that involved hills of any sort. Later that evening, walking down the stairs at home, I was kind of surprised that my quads were sore. I guess that's just proof of how much I need to get over there and ride somewhere that isn't flat.

As expected, it was raining this morning so I skipped riding altogether. I might have gone out on the rain bike that I recently equipped with new wide, heavy tires and new Mr. Tuffy's, and new heavy inner tubes, the installation of which took a significant toll on my thumbs and CMC joints. But I didn't. Tomorrow morning should be a pleasant 53°F, and Wednesday morning should be close to 60, so at the moment the rest of the week isn't looking too bad. Things will get cold again, like in the 30s, for Friday and through the weekend, but as usual that means it will probably be dry and windy as well, so hopefully there won't be any more missed days this week. The only problem is that Sunday morning will probably be very cold, like in the 20s, which could kind of kill WTR #2. We'll see.

Chilled Out, Wimped Out

Oh, so that explains why I was so cold this morning.

I made a classic mistake this morning. I think my outdoor thermometer must have been showing a higher temperature than it really was, which was apparently 32°F, otherwise known as freezing.

I apparently went out under-dressed for reality.

Up on the levee in the dark was just Darren, who was probably wearing half of what I was. Still, I was already chilled and not really looking forward to the ride. We started out side-by-side, but I was just feeling colder and colder, so I dropped back into his draft, thinking it might give me a chance to warm up a bit. He cranked the pace up a notch because he was feeling pretty cold by then himself and thought the extra effort would warm him up. I don't know if it was working for him, but it definitely wasn't for me. As we approached Williams Blvd. I pulled up alongside and told him I'd be turning around in hopes of getting home before hypothermia set in. I never did warm up, so turning back early was definitely a good call today. Some days are just like that. You start out on the wrong foot, or in this case you get too cold too fast, and there's just nothing you can do after that to fix. Today was one of those days. I trudged back home, fingers and toes getting colder and colder the whole way. With considerable difficulty I got my frozen arms to turn the key in the lock at home. Then I had trouble opening the plastic snap buckle on my helmet strap because my fingers weren't working so well. All-in-all, it was not a fun ride, but at least there was hot coffee at the end.

Tomorrow morning is looking like it will be nearly as cold as today. The 7 am forecast is showing 33° F. This time, though, I will definitely not be under-dressed. On the plus side, Saturday should be pretty nice. Sunday morning is still a little bit up in the air, and I'm waiting until tomorrow afternoon to see what the hourly forecast shows before deciding what to do about my planned northshore ride. If we're lucky, we'll be able to get in a good ride with temperatures in the 40s and 50s before the rain moves in. If we're not lucky, the rain will move in halfway through the ride. If we're really not lucky, it'll be obvious that we'll get rained on right away and the ride will be scratched. We'll see. All I know is that my normal training routine has been suffering a lot for over two weeks now and it's really taking its toll both mentally and physically.

Cold Snap

It was all over the news. Winter Armageddon was upon us. Lists of school closings were hastily prepared as news outlets promulgated both time-tested and untested strategies to avoid exploding the water pipes. Which faucets to leave open? How much water is "pencil-thin?" Does anyone under the age of 35 know what a pencil is? Granted, the northshore would be getting cold enough, long enough, to burst un-insulated plumbing, what little of it there might be over there. In the city itself, south of the lake, plumbing precautions were merely precautionary despite the numerous raised century-old houses under which hung miles of un-insulated galvanized pipe with leaky rust-stained joints . The coldest night would be Monday, with temperatures in the city dipping down to 27 and 28° F for four or five hours. Nothing to ignore, but not the kind of thing that would bring the city to a standstill, at least not more of a standstill than normal.

So I went out Monday morning with the temperature in the mid to upper-30s dressed more for the 15 mph north wind than the temperature. Thermal knickers with tights on top and my trusty NOBC Giordana winter jacket with a couple of layers underneath. I was quite comfortable temperature-wise, even with the biting north wind that made maintaining 15 mph a bit of a challenge. The levee was, unsurprisingly, deserted. I saw one cyclist and a couple of dog-walkers, but otherwise I had the whole river levee bike path to myself, which was a good thing when the occasional crosswind gusts would redirect my front wheel. It was one of those character-building rides, I guess. It was also January 1, and of course one should do a ride on the first day of the new year simply on principle. I got back home no worse for the wear, logging an entirely unimpressive 30.4 miles. Later that day I saw that the northshore mileage mistress Alison had ridden 100 that morning in temperatures significantly lower. That night I left the old gas heater burning in the living room, along with a little electric heater in the basement strategically positioned underneath the bathroom plumbing. I loaded up the dishwasher and programmed it to start at 2 am just to be on the safe side, but it was a little overkill. I doubt the basement temperature ever got much below 50° F thanks to the general leakiness and lack of insulation between basement and living space.

Tuesday morning arrived as predicted. I glanced at the outdoor temperature, which was holding at 27° F, also as predicted, and decided it would be a good day to skip my morning ride. The winds were still in the over-10 mph range, and around here there's just no reason to deal with that on the one day every four years that it happens. I even took the car to work, which meant a windy five block walk from the Tidewater garage to the office that was rather chilly. I told myself I'd go over to Tulane in the evening and put in an hour or so on one of the WattBikes, but of course I never did.

By Wednesday morning the temperature was warmer, at a relatively balmy 36° F and the wind was lighter at maybe 8 mph. I figured the WeMoRi group would be pretty small, but conditions weren't so bad that nobody would show up. That's what I thought, anyway. So I headed for the lakefront in the dark, fighting a moderate north wind all the way, and hit Lakeshore Drive at Bayou St. John around 6:05 am. The group would normally be on its way back from the loop at Seabrook by then, so I headed over the Bayou St. John bridge that a boat has never gone under and rode back and forth between the traffic circle and the levee a few times looking for the cluster of blinky lights I was expecting. No blinky lights were in sight, though, so I figured they were going slowly because of the wind and the cold and so I went back over the bridge toward Marconi where I turned around and did a couple more back-and-forths on Lakeshore Drive. Still no lights. By then it was obvious that they weren't coming. Perhaps they had decided to skip the Lakeshore Drive section and just ride a couple of laps around City Park, so I went ahead and continued on the usual route, riding all the way around the park, still without seeing another rider. I figured, "What the hell, I may as well do the rest of the usual route since I'm out here anyway," which I did. By the time I got home my toes were pretty cold but otherwise I was pretty comfy and still wondering if I'd somehow missed the group. Checking Strava Flybys (I love that feature!) later in the morning I found the only other rider out there was Brian Bourgeois, and he hadn't even attempted to meet the group that didn't exist, instead riding rather randomly around the City Park area. In fact, We'd passed each other in the dark along Wisner, although at the time I couldn't tell who it was. Anyway, I ended up with precisely the same 30.4 miles I'd done on Monday and a minor sense of satisfaction that I'd gotten my ass out of bed and onto the bike in the first place. I'd post some photos, but I didn't take any. It's kind of difficult to manage the camera when wearing two or three pairs of gloves. It's looking like one more chilly morning in the low 30s, and then a warming trend with nothing below 45° F for the forseeable future. I'm hoping to put together a few Sunday northshore group rides over the next three or four weekends before the gravel races and other things start to complicate things.

Winter Comes

Winter comes.....

It was almost 8 am when I finally got up and checked the radar. I'd been hearing the water dripping from the broken gutter above the bedroom window for hours, but now it seemed to be slacking off. Outside, the streets were wet but the rain was barely noticeable in the little pools of water in the potholes.

The radar was looking surprisingly good, which is to say the rain appeared to be about over. The wind and the temperature, well, those were rapidly going from bad to worse. By 10:00 it looked like the rain was gone for good and I decided I might as well take the Rain Bike out for what would be essentially a ceremonial end-of-year spin on the levee. I knew it would still be wet, and I knew the temperature would be dropping and the wind increasing, but it was the last chance to get in a few miles before the arrival of even more uncomfortable winter weather later in the evening.

The temperature was still 52 F when I went out. It would be 48 when I returned less than two hours later. Knowing that my feet would probably get wet despite the Rain Bike's ample fenders, and considering there would probably be a cold mist falling, I dressed as if I was going out for a ride in the low 40s - long tights, shoe-covers, and wind vest. I didn't regret it.

By New Orleans standards, this week is
looking to be miserable.

I was quite surprised by the number of other riders I saw up on the levee. Perhaps they were all thinking the same thing I was. An easy spin in this morning's wind meant spinning along at like 14 mph a lot of the time, so I was not very motivated to go beyond Williams Blvd. where I turned around, picking up a bit of tailwind here and there, but mostly just more crosswind. Coming down off of the levee at Dakin Street I felt my rear tire go squishy as I made the fast downhill right curve onto River Road. Another flat. I barely made it across the railroad tracks before the rim started hitting the ground, so I stopped at Breads on Oak to fix it, finally putting about 35 psi into the tire with my ancient and barely functional Silca frame pump before limping the last couple of miles home.

At least I know that absolutely my last flat tire of the year. The coming week is looking to be really cold, at least by New Orleans standards. Multiple days that dip below freezing are fairly unusual, and for those of us who ride before work in the mornings the combination of wind and cold is definitely going to take its toll. At least I nowadays have enough winter riding gear on hand to make it feasible, if not comfortable or even advisable, to ride. The city has its freeze warnings up and although it probably won't get cold enough long enough to freeze anybody's pipes here in town south of the lake, folks on the northshore and elsewhere are probably busy insulating pipes and bringing in plants today.

Last Giro of the Year, or Not - Playing it by Ear

Après-Giro scenery along the lakefront bike path. Too nice to go home yet.

What a difference a day makes! Despite the clear sunny sky, yesterday's ride was rough because of the wind and the cold. This morning, however, the Giro Ride enjoyed much warmer temperatures, barely noticeable wind, and the same clear sky. There was no comparison. I left home in the dark at 6 am with the temperature hovering at 48F. As soon as I stepped out the door I knew I'd end up a little over-dressed, but at least I was comfy-cozy on the way to Starbucks with my long tights, base layers, shoe covers and vest. By the time the group was halfway down Hayne Blvd. the temperature had risen a good seven or eight degrees and riders, most of whom were in knickers or shorts with knee-warmers, were already peeling off vests and gloves. My vest and long-sleeve jersey were unzipped and I was looking forward to the turnaround when I could safely stuff some of the excess wardrobe into my pockets. The ride out to Venetian Isles was brisk with a few fast sections, but this time of year the number of people willing to take hard pulls is small so the efforts tend to be relatively short.

Heading back along the service road. I called the city a
couple of weeks ago and they actually came out and
picked up the piles of junk that had been dumped along
this section of road.

On the way back, just as things were starting to ramp up a bit, one of the guys flatted. Everyone stopped, and the interruption must have taken the wind out of everyone's sails because most of the rest of the ride was at a nice conversational pace.

Since the weather was so nice - it had warmed up to 57 by the time we were back to Lakeshore Drive - and since the forecast for Sunday was calling for rain, I decided to add a few miles by riding out along the lakefront bike path to Kenner. I'd planned to turn left at the end, go over the levee, and ride along the floodwall at the edge of civilization, but it was fenced off and I didn't want to get off the bike to climb over the erosion barrier and up the gravel road just for a few additional miles, so I turned around and headed back in to a light headwind. A few miles later I saw Pat coming toward me. He'd ridden the Giro, and maybe stopped at his boathouse for a minute before riding out to the bike path a few minutes behind me, so we had a nice ride back into town. I ended up logging 83 miles, arriving home feeling hungry but enormously better that I had after a mere 59 miles just the day before. Go figure.

Conversational pace along Hayne Blvd. to finish out the Saturday Giro Ride

Today's ride brings my 2017 total up to 12,225 miles, not counting my daily commutes to and from work, and I suspect I will have to be satisfied with that unless we get very lucky tomorrow morning. The rest of next week is looking like it will be pretty challenging. From Monday morning the wind won't die down to less than 10 mph until Friday, which is also the first time the morning temperature will be above freezing. On the plus side, there's no rain in the forecast once the cold front comes through. My guess is that there may be a few mornings in there where it will be just above freezing at my house, but when it's in the 30s with a 15 mph wind blowing, two or three degrees don't help very much. So when I got home from riding today I gathered up all of the sweaty dirty winter riding clothes from last week and threw the whole batch into the washer so I can at least start out 2018 on the right foot. I'll probably need all of it if I'm going to be doing morning rides over the next five days.

The Hardest Rides

Out at the Spillway

Sometimes it seems like the hardest rides are the slowest rides. It usually start with a hard time actually getting out the door. Wednesday morning I was determined to make the WeMoRi despite the wet streets and strong wind and cold temperatures that seem to have become normal around here lately. I went out anyway, of course, a little late, of course. I was worried I might miss the group if I went straight to Lakeshore Drive from Wisner Blvd., so I turned onto Robert E. Lee and then Marconi so I'd be sure to see them coming. When I got to Lakeshore Drive there was a brutal north wind coming off the lake and no blinky lights in sight. I figured they had decided to skip Lakeshore Drive and do an extra lap of Lakeshore Drive instead, so I turned around and continued alone on the WeMoRi loop. As I made the turn back onto Wisner I looked back and saw some riders, so I figured I'd made the right decision. As it turned out, the "group" was composed of only four riders, including Scott from D.C., and they hand actually done the Lakeshore Drive lap but were going so much more slowly than the usual group does that my timing had been wrong. Anyway, we all came together and had a nice ride, even if it wasn't particularly fast. Once again, I got home cold, wet and dirty.

The forecast for Thursday hadn't looked too bad, and I didn't check it when I got up in the dark that morning. I dressed for the 40-something degree temperature and headed out the door and was immediately surprised to see a light drizzle in the beam of my headlight. I thought that perhaps it was just one of those quick little showers passing through and continued on, but by the time I got to the deserted meeting spot it was a legitimate light rain so I had to turn back and head home, logging a total of 3.8 miles for the day. Oh well.  Later that evening we took a long walk down to Freret Street for lunch at High Hat Cafe, which was nice except for the walking part.

This morning the sky was finally clear, but the temperature was in the low 40s and a steady north wind was blowing. I decided to wait until the sun came up since there wasn't a group ride and I didn't have plans anyway. I wanted to ride out to the Spillway, which would give me a nice 50 mile ride. I'd already decided it would be an easy ride. This turned out to be one of the slowest, hardest rides I'd done in a while. I tacked on a few extra miles on the other side of the Spillway up to Airline Highway just to see what that road was like. The entire ride seemed like it was either headwind or crosswind, and although I got back home just shy of 60 miles with an average speed of something south of 17 mph, I was tired and achy and hungry like I'd just finished a 90 mile group ride.

Tomorrow is what might be the last Giro Ride of the year. It should be in the mid-40s with little chance of rain and a light wind, so that's good. Sunday's forecast is not looking so good, though. Looks like a pretty good chance of rain that morning ahead of a very cold front that will be hitting full-force on Monday. The low on Sunday night will be around freezing and then Monday night will be in the 20s, which is pretty damned cold for New Orleans. Morning lows will be in the 30s through next Friday, so that's going to make the morning rides difficult.

Holiday at Home

This pretty much sums up the weekday morning rides last week.

As predicted, the weekday morning rides the week before Christmas were less than ideal. Tuesday's long ride turned into a shortened ride with Darren, the only other person who showed up, on a wet and foggy levee bike path. I got home wet and dirty, but was glad I'd taken the old Orbea that eliminated any feelings of guilt when I took it out back and sprayed it down with the garden hose before lubing the chain. I was hoping for a good WeMoRi on Wednesday but I got my timing wrong and when I met up with the unusually small group on Lakeshore Drive, it was right at the place where there's a median and so I couldn't make the necessary U-turn and missed the group. I ended up short-cutting across City Park to get back into the pack, but by then it was only five or six miles from the end, so basically I didn't get much intensity out of it. And then there was Thursday. That turned out to be another wet lonely shortened ride on the levee. At least I had taken Thursday and Friday off from work and so spent a while drinking coffee in front of Zotz before going home to hose down the bike again. Friday was basically more of the same, although at least I had time to add a few extra miles.

Heading back from Venetian Isles - not feeling too optimistic as Adrian rides off into the rain.

With some extended family coming to town for the weekend through Christmas, options for the weekend were limited to the Giro. Saturday morning it was still fairly warm, but there was a cold front making its way across Louisiana that included a narrow but dense band of rain heading straight for New Orleans. Once again, I went out on the old Orbea because I knew there was no way in hell I'd be making it back home dry. But after all of the shortened rides earlier in the week I was feeling a little desperate for mileage. Looking at the radar, I figured we had a chance we'd get in most of the Giro route before the rain, so I went out to Starbucks to find out who the other insane people were. As it turned out, we had maybe fifteen by the time we started. Most of the strong riders who normally populate the front of the Giro stayed home, however, so the pace wasn't anything to write home about. Adrian was spending a lot of time on the front, along with Jim and me, and nobody else seemed very interested in coming around to take a pull. On the service road heading toward Chef Highway, the three of us found ourselves strangely off the front. I looked back and though someone had flatted, but apparently not. We waited up to re-group and headed down Chef. Soon, just the three of us were rotating at the front again. We weren't going all that fast, so that was fine with me. We were maybe halfway out to Venetian Isles when we saw the 6:45 am group heading back. At that point everyone except the three of us turned around and joined them. Unfortunately, the three of us didn't know that!  Mike W. appeared somewhere and Jim sprinted with him to the line at Venetian. That's when I turned around and realized we had been abandoned. It's also when I realized that there was a huge, dark cloud between us and home! I was with Adrian, while Jim was well behind us since he and Mike had gone all the way to the turnaround. I sat up to wait, but Adrian didn't, so I ended up with Mike for a bit, but by then I could feel the first little raindrops falling and Mike wasn't waiting. I told him I was going to wait for Jim. Of course he just kept going. So Jim and I get together and soon the real rain starts falling. I was really glad I had my new super-bright Bontrager Flare tail light, a gift from Danielle, especially for the ten of fifteen minutes when we were on Chef in a heavy rain. As expected, though, the line of rain was thin and passed through quickly, so although the rest of the ride was wet, the rain eased up quickly and stopped before I got home.

Sunday's Giro was much better attended, although being Christmas eve, nobody was pushing the pace very hard. It was considerably cooler, though, and at least I put in a few brief but reasonably intense efforts. Somewhere out there on Sunday my total 2017 mileage inched past the 12,000 mile mark, which for me means a pretty decent year, especially considering that it was one of those broken collarbone years.

Christmas at Ginger's Place

Christmas day was much colder and I was more than happy to take the day off from riding, but in retrospect perhaps I should have gone out early and logged an hour or so anyway because Tuesday morning was another messed-up ride. Christmas day we went over to my sister's place for a big late lunch, and lots of wine with pecan pie and lemon meringue pie, and blackberry pie.

I got to the start this morning at 6 am to find only four, including myself. I'd looked at the forecast, and it looked like some light rain was in the area. It was. We weren't five miles into the ride when a light rain started falling and immediately two of the guys turned around. Having seen the radar, I didn't think it would be a downpour, so even though the temperature was in the 40s, I continued, along with Scott from D.C. who shows up around here occasionally. He was definitely looking for some exercise, so we traded pulls in the off-and-on misty drizzle. It wasn't quite rain to soak your feet right away, so I figured I'd stick it out until my feet started to get cold.

Breakfast on Panola Street

We got a bit past the little dip before the rain got a little heavier and more steady, at which point we turned around. A few miles later we'd out-ridden most of the rain, but the path was wet and by then my feet and legs were starting to feel cold despite the cotton shoe-covers and thermal tights. Every time I'd go to the front I'd get in 30 or 40 pedal strokes and then my quads would load up and start to ache, which is pretty normal for me in cold weather. Anyway, I was happy to have gotten in 32 miles under the circumstances, even if it did leave my bike a mess. Scott ended up riding another 25 miles or so by himself while I went to Riccobono's with Candy and her sister and friend for coffee, eggs, potato, and toast (I passed on the breakfast Bloody Mary and Andouille Omlette). The forecast for tomorrow has more rain, so I guess I'll be checking the radar at 5:30 am.

Crazy Weather

The front of the Giro Ride regrouping after the turnaround on Saturday.

The crazy weather continues to interfere with my normally comfortable routine. I know I shouldn't be complaining. It's not like I'm in Minneapolis or something where by now I'd probably be riding a pretend bike in a pretend race on a pretend course with other pretend riders while dripping sweat in a basement or garage or something. Looking back, I did at least get out on the road five days last week, which under the circumstances wasn't all that bad I guess.

After being rained out Friday morning I was glad to see a break in the rain Saturday morning that would easily accommodate the Giro. Things had warmed up a bit into the 40s, and a decent enough group was on hand, so I was a little surprised that the pace rarely got out of the "moderate" range. I suppose the rather brisk east wind had something to do with that. On the way home I took a little detour and rode a lap around Audubon Park to log a couple of extra miles since the forecast for Sunday was for more rain.

Wheel spray in the headlight on Sunday

Indeed, when I awoke and looked out the window Sunday morning the streets were wet. Checking the radar, though, it looked like, maybe, if I was lucky, and if I was back home before 8 am, I might possibly be able to get in a couple of hours on the levee. So I rushed out the door at 6 am, figuring that the Giro wouldn't be happening anyway, and headed for the levee. Despite the relatively balmy 65 degree temperature I was wearing a wind-resistant base layer and arm-warmers because I knew there was no chance in hell I'd actually get back home dry. The levee bike path was wet, of course, and I rolled along upriver for a while with a nice southeast tailwind while watching the spray from my front wheel as it caught the beam from the headlight. The sky was nothing but grey clouds and every now and then a light rain would fall. If the temperature hadn't been in the 60s, I would have turned back right away, but as it was, I decided to go at least to the parish line. That would get me around 25 miles, which was about as much as I could hope for. By the time I got out to the far end of the ride there was a steady light rain falling and my feet were starting to get cold, but it wasn't too bad. I'd taken the old Orbea for this ride since I knew it would end up full of grit and dirt and water, which it did. The rain stopped for most of the ride back, but returned a bit for the last couple of miles. The rest of the day it rained. Heavily. Although I ended up wet and chilled and dirty, I'd at least gotten in an hour and a half during what turned out to have been the best part of the day.

More of the same.....

This morning it was raining again. I went downstairs and found that both tires on the rain bike were flat. I went back upstairs, got under the covers, and decided it was a sign and I should stay out of the rain today. As it turned out, the rain stopped an hour or so later and I ended up riding the bike to work. The forecast for the rest of the week looks a little sketchy, especially for the end of December. On the one hand, it won't be very cold at all. On the other, there's a chance of morning rain on Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday looks like a potential wash-out. More of the same. As much as I hate riding in the cold, I'd take that easily over riding in the rain every day.

Abbreviations

"Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it's always something — if it ain't one thing, it's another." -Roseanne Roseannadanna

 Things were going along quite nicely until a couple of weeks ago. Sure, the intensity was dropping and the mileage was getting inconsistent, but those are just normal things that happen every year in November and December. Then I came down with a head cold, and then the weather got nasty, and then I had to officiate cyclocross races. In the last couple of weeks I logged about as much mileage as I did when I was riding around with a broken collarbone last February. It's been pretty frustrating. Ideally, I'd have spent the week or two after the cold symptoms subsided sitting on the back of the group rides, gradually building back up to normal. Unfortunately, the weather, and I guess also the early pre-holiday entanglements, have been making that almost impossible. Of course I have a couple of rather unsavory options, namely riding a trainer indoors and/or riding alone in the dark.

I started the week with high hopes of getting back into the groove even though I still have some nagging head and lung congestion. That didn't last long. Candy had some sort of stomach virus Sunday night and when I woke up with a scratchy throat I decided not to go out into the cold for my usual Monday solo ride on the levee. In retrospect, that was a mistake, but at the time I figured that I'd be doing a good solid 42 mile ride on Tuesday morning, so it wouldn't be much of a loss. Well, Tuesday morning there were only I think three of us. As often happens when the turnout is low and the wind is high, we did a somewhat abbreviated ride, turning around at The Dip. It was a decent enough paceline and I definitely spent a good bit of time pulling into the wind, but I still came up ten miles short. Not to worry, I'd just ride harder the next morning at the WeMoRi.

So Wednesday it's 39 degrees and windy but I intentionally under-dress since I'm planning on a hard ride. I ride out to the lakefront in the dark and jump into the group somewhere along Lakeshore Drive. The group splits when it turns onto Marconi because some of the riders at the front turn in front of an oncoming car. The car slows, the rest of us slow, eventually we get through and chase back up to the front half of the group which is much smaller than usual because it's cold and windy. We make the turn onto Robert E. Lee and I feel my rear tire going flat. I haven't even recovered from the effort of jumping into the group without an adequate warm-up. It's still dark. My fingers are freezing. I pull a piece of glass from the tread and struggle to get the tire bead off the rim with my gloves on. I put the new tube in, re-seat the tire, and pump up the tire with my CO2 inflator. I remove it and then ever so carefully start to unscrew the cartridge. There's always residual pressure in the cartridge, of course, but it's so cold out that as it escapes, it's making CO2 snowflakes. Once it eases I unscrew it all the way, only to have more CO2 suddenly explode from what I assume was the frozen-up hole. I see something white and round go flying into the grass. Crap! It must be the o-ring. I look down and see a little white circle in the grass and pick it up. It's so cold it burns my fingers. Then it evaporates!  It was a ring of frozen CO2 and perhaps water. Anyway, I assume the O-ring is lost. I pack everything back into pockets and saddle bag and head for Lakeshore Drive hoping to catch the group, but I never see them. I must  have just missed them. I'm all the way back to Canal before I see a few of them coming toward me for the cool-down quarter-lap of Lakeshore Drive. By now I'm freezing cold since I've spent almost as much time standing in the dark as I have riding hard enough to generate any heat. I decide to skip my usual stop at Starbucks and head straight home. Total mileage for the morning: 24.5, about ten miles short. Total number of miles of moderate intensity: 2. Not a good morning.

This morning it's a little warmer but for some reason there are only four of us who show up. Once again we do an abbreviated ride that nets only 33 miles, mostly at a pretty moderate pace. So going into Friday I'm down by at least 50 miles already and the forecast for Sunday is 100% chance of rain.  Hopefully I'll find a long ride on Saturday and salvage whatever's left of the week.