Whatever

Friday

So here we are at the tail end of March when it can be summer one day and winter the next, which is pretty much how things went last week. Tuesday morning there was a light rain falling when I awoke, my response to which was a whispered "f*^k this" and an extra few minutes of sleep. Seeing as it was a Tuesday, and the forecast was for sunshine later in the day, and it looked like I'd be able to skip out of the office a bit before 5 pm, I decided I'd ride out to the Tuesday Loops ride at 6 pm. Tuesday Loops is kind of a strange one, but it is not without its upside. It consists of three laps of a course that goes from City Park out to the Lakefront, and then back to City Park. Each "loop" is maybe eight miles, of which half is done at a conversational pace, and the rest at a fast pace. Everyone re-groups after each lap, which makes it an especially good training ride for newer riders, or just those who might not be quite in shape enough to stay with a long fast ride. The downside, at least for me, is that the course includes three traffic lights and a particularly inadvisable hairpin turn at the bottom of the Bayou St. John bridge. The group is reasonably careful, but I just find all the starting and stopping kind of irritating. Anyway, I figured I could do two laps with the group and be home before dark, and at least get in a few miles with a couple of short efforts. It worked out fine, and it was great to be riding in summer kit, in daylight, which isn't as common as I'd like this time of year.

By Wednesday morning it was considerably colder with a strong north wind blowing. I went out to the lake to meet the WeMoRi, and by the time I got there the group had been pretty much shattered already thanks to the crosswind coming off the lake. I jumped onto the tail end of what was left of the group on Marconi, at which point one of the guys looked over at me and remarked, "It was carnage." Riders who had been dropped were taking shortcuts all over the place to get back into the group. By the time we got to the end of Wisner we'd picked up a few more, but a car was stopped at the light at City Park Avenue, leaving just a couple of feet to its right. The first few riders slipped through but then the rest of us had to basically come to a stop in order to squeeze through one at a time. By then there was a huge gap that I think only one person managed to bridge. I ended up alone, so I just continued, eventually making a u-turn on Lakeshore Drive to pick up the diminutive group on its way back from the Elysian Fields traffic circle. It was a workout. I think that maybe three riders actually did the whole route.

It was still windy on Thursday, and with just Charles and I on the levee, once Scott turned back at Williams, it felt like a much harder ride than you'd guess from the speed. By Friday, I'd decided to do the Saturday northshore ride despite the fact that it would be stacked with strong riders, so my plan was to take it as easy as possible. I was running a couple of minutes late, and knew I'd miss the start, so I headed straight to the lakefront to Wisner. That worked out OK and I met up with the group shortly after I got there.

On Saturday I headed north on the Causeway to Abita Springs for what I was certain would be a good ol' fashioned ass-kicking. Peyton was about to head off to Europe with the national team for a month's worth of racing. Also on hand were Ben H, Eddie C, Stephen M, Stephen L, Mark G, Nick L, Blake M, Reggie T, and all of the usual suspects, making for a good-sized group of 12-14, I think. I decided from the outset that I would stay at the very tail end of the group, at least until after the planned excursion up and down the infamous House Creek Road segment that was probably about 45 miles into the 60+ mile ride. I wasn't the only one who was somewhat unprepared for the fast segments. The group split on Million Dollar Road when the speeds went up to the 30s, but fortunately we regrouped at the end. Then of course it split again, followed again by a regrouping. We were about halfway down Factory Road when somebody up front put the hammer down once again. I was at the tail end, and when the rider in front of me let the gap open I decided to just stay where I was rather than try to make the bridge up the second group that was itself chasing the lead group that was going full-gas. It was maybe not the wisest decision because I probably could have made it into the second group. So anyway, the two of us rode together to the end of Factory where we turned onto Lee Road. Up ahead I could see the second group closing on the front group, so they must have eased  up a little bit, but the rider I was with was cooked, so I continued on ahead of him, still losing ground the whole way, of course. I was figuring that by the time I got to House Creek Road the front group would probably already be on its way back up the hill, so my plan was to get back in with them there. I got to House Creek and rode about halfway down without seeing anybody before I turned around. I didn't want to have to make a u-turn on the 8% grade a little farther down, since I was assuming the front group was about to appear at any moment. I got to the top and turned onto 40, but looking back couldn't see anybody. I started wondering if they had been going so hard that they were still ahead of me. If not, I was sure they'd catch me pretty soon anyway, so I just continued on. Well, fifteen miles later I got back to Abita Springs where I was surprised to find ... nobody. As it turned out, they had indeed been coming back up House Creek when I was there, but had stopped for a long time at the top to wait for someone. I probably missed them by just a minute or two. It was a pretty good workout anyway, you  know, the kind that Strava calls a "massive" effort. 

So on Sunday it was back to the Giro. The route has been fluctuating from week to week since the bridge was closed, but the group, which is understandably much smaller than usual, seems to be slowly narrowing in on a consensus of sorts. We went straight out to Chef on Press, which still has some bad patches where the road has been torn up, and then all the way out to Venetian Isles on Chef. That worked out pretty nicely. On the way back we took the traditional Giro route via Lake Forest and Hayne, then turned down France Road to get back to the Danziger bridge. Fortunately nobody went down on either of the two diagonal railroad track crossings. It's a toss-up whether Dowman is a better choice, though. For some reason the group stayed on Chef after the bridge rather than going back to the lakefront.

This morning, Monday, it was around 70°F but for some reason there were only three of us who showed up for the Mellow Monday ride. Well, that's not counting Dylan who had gotten stuck a at a train crossing and had to find us along Lakeshore Drive. I think I was still a little bit tired from the weekend. It should be warm with a strong south wind tomorrow morning. The word going around is that the levee work upriver from the Jefferson Parish line is supposed to start tomorrow, so we will have to play it by ear. It should be possible to drop down onto River Road to bypass the two mile construction zone, so I think we'll give that a try and see whether it is feasible or suicide. The speed limit there is 35 mph, but there is zero shoulder to the road and probably some truck traffic. If it's bad, we will have to investigate some other options because it'll be only about 11 or 12 miles from the start to the path closure.

Easy Miles

Dustin's Birthday Ride on Sunday

It was still chilly Wednesday morning when I headed out in the dark toward the lakefront. It was one of those mornings when just getting out the door was a struggle. I guess it must have been the same for most of the rather diminutive WeMoRi group into which I merged along Marconi, because there was an obvious lack of either horsepower or willpower, or perhaps both. The pace remained low, at least by WeMoRi standards, although I did not hear anyone complaining about it. Thursday's levee ride turnout was a little low as well, and by the time we were past the airport it was just Rich and I. The moderate east tailwind had lured us into doing the full route, but of course that meant a long and relatively slow ride back down the river into an increasing headwind. I guess part of the motivation for doing the full ride, in spite of there being only the two of us, was that the forecast for Friday morning was calling for thunderstorms.

So I was a little surprised when I awoke Friday morning and found dry streets and weather radar that I interpreted to mean we'd probably get the entire Friendly Friday ride in before the rain. Perhaps I should have studied the morning weather a little more. I showed up at City Park to find only Mitchell, which was a clear indication that we were the only ones who had misread the meteorological crystal ball. We headed out anyway, riding at an easy pace, but still fully expecting to stay dry. That expectation was soon drowned when we made the loop around the Armory. Heading back toward the west we could now see, and hear, the lightning and thunder of a rapidly approaching storm, and within a minute or two we could feel the first raindrops falling. I was still holding some hope that the rain would remain light, but we decided to turn early and head straight down Wisner to shorten the route. By then the light rain had gotten heavier, and by the time I was heading back home along Norman Francis it had become a torrential downpour. The street was already starting to flood as the water finally soaked through my shoes and wool socks, and by the time I got home I was thoroughly soaked. I went inside, poured the remaining water out of my shoes, and jumped into a nice hot shower. Oh well, at least we tried.

Adding miles after the Saturday Giro. North wind eschelon.

Saturday was a Giro Ride day, and as Giro Rides have been going lately since the Seabrook bridge has been closed, it was anybody's guess which route we would be experimenting with that morning. This time we took Lakeshore Drive down to Press and Congress Drive to get to the Danziger bridge, and then just stayed on Chef Menteur rather than switch over to Almonaster. It worked out OK, but of course everyone missed the long fast stretch on Hayne. On the way back the group was kind of lazy, and a couple of people rolled off the front. Then, instead of going back to Lakeshore Drive, we stayed on Chef, dodging potholes and stoplights. Four of us then continued out to the Lake Trail in order to add some miles. It was still super windy out of the north, so most of the ride could be described with a single word - crosswind. The one exception was the stretch from Veterans to Airline on the airport road where we had a full-on tailwind that kept us at 30-31 mph the whole way with what seemed like minimal effort. The ride back down the river on the bike path was a long slog in the crosswind with tired legs that brought my Saturday mileage up above 80. 

Sunday was Dustin's birthday ride, starting up in Independence. I'd been kind of on the fence about this one, but give that the bridge closing has taken some of the luster out of the Giro, I finally decided to go ahead and commit to the 72 mile ride. I went  up with Dylan. We started with, I think, 13 or 14 riders, including Sean and Evan, and I was glad to see that the ride was going to be a fairly easy one. Even so, I was very much limiting my effort and time on the front, since I could still feel the prior day's 80 miles in my legs. The group stopped multiple times to regroup, with a long store stop at around 50 miles. It was a nice long easy ride on roads with hardly any traffic. Saturday and Sunday pushed my weekly mileage up over 300, but of course most of it was fairly low intensity.

More wind on Monday

This morning we just had a few show up for Mellow Monday, no doubt thanks to the 20 mph wind. Even though nobody was trying to make the pace very fast, the northeast wind made things a bit challenging anyway. Instead of going straight home, I rode down to TUCA headquarters at University Square to meet Zion who wanted to spend some time on one of the Wattbikes in preparation for one of the USAC talent identification events he is planning to attend in California.

Spring Breaks

This was probably a 30-minute tire change.

This is perhaps the most unpredictable time of the year here in New Orleans. It seems like I spent all week second-guessing the weather forecasts, which were clearly second-guessing themselves. It was another of those situations where the weather coming from the northwest was going to move progressively more and more slowly, only to finally come to a halt just north of us, or just south of us, or right on top of us. To spare you the suspense, it was the latter, albeit a little later than originally expected. On the plus side, the weekly rides all went off nicely. The weekend rides, well, not quite so much.

The WeMoRi on Wednesday morning seemed to be going along just fine until we got to that right turn onto City Park avenue. As we approached, in the dark of course thanks to DST, we could see a big yellow school bus stopped at the red light. Normal people would have stopped and waited. WeMoRi people, don't all quite live up to that appellation. The riders in the lead unwisely squeezed past on the right just as the light turned green. I was already committed to the left and turned in front of the bus, signaling to the bus driver mostly to alleviate my own sense of guilt for doing something so blatantly stupid. A number of more intelligent riders behind me stopped and waited for the bus to move on. So by then there was a huge gap I was increasingly unlikely to close by myself. Just as I was about to throw in the towel, Steven came past with a, "Come on, Randy" and pulled me and a few others back up to the front group where we had a bit of a chance to recover. A bit later we came to the light at Toussant after the Backdraft sprint, rather strung out as usual. Half the group went through on the green before the light changed. Looking to the left, there was a car barreling toward us showing no sign of slowing, so the rest of us had to stop, which as I understand it, is what you are supposed to do when a light turns red. Well, at that point it was "game over" for us, but we at least kept the pressure on the rest of the way.

Saturday morning I rode out to Starbucks feeling a little chilly, but knowing that the sun would be out and it would warm up into, at least, the 70s. I knew there would be complications with this ride. The Seabrook bridge, which had been partially closed since May, was now fully closed with the drawbridge in the "up" position, and unlikely to be re-opened for months, optimistically. Lots of opinions about alternatives had been stirring around on Strava and Facebook and such, none of which was ideal, most of which were doable. There were a number of possible work-arounds, route-wise, but the only viable way across the industrial canal was the Danziger bridge regardless. After that, the options involved various combinations of Chef Highway, Almonaster, and Old Gentilly Road. But there was yet another wrinkle that, at least for some of us, might be considered a complication, and that was the fact that the group this day was kind of stacked with horsepower, virtually guaranteeing that the stretch down Almonaster and Chef was going to be very, very fast in a very non-conversational way.

Ouch!

So things were going along nicely, and we made it over the bridge and then around to Almonaster without a problem. I moved a little closer to the front as we came over the overpass that dropped us down onto Almonaster. As we started down I shifted down at least three cogs anticipating the worst. I found myself maybe fifth or sixth wheel as I tucked low to stay in the draft. The road flattened out and our speed levelled off at 27-28 mph as a little paceline started to form at the front, a front to which I was way too close. As I went past Brett who had just pulled off, I remarked, "What the hell am I doing here?" I eased out of the paceline before coming to the front and sought refuge back in the draftier part of the group where I figured my longevity might be better. It had been raining overnight and we almost immediately came across a section where there was water all the way across the road. Everyone slowed down, but the front five or six practically attacked coming out of it. Back on a somewhat drier surface I looked up to see that group rapidly approaching the horizon. I think one, maybe two, made the bridge up to them but the rest of us were hopelessly off the back and our somewhat anemic and disorganized attempt to chase was as sad as it was comical. A bit later we came upon a few riders from the earlier SaMoRi group on the side of the road struggling to get a flat tire off the rim. We were there for a good fifteen minutes before prying the thing away from the rim bead to which it seemed practically glued, and changing it. Back out on Chef we saw the front group on its way back and Chris and I made a quick u-turn. Fortunately they hadn't ramped it up yet, so we had a minute to get ready for what we knew would be a race back into town. We slotted in smoothly at the tail end of the paceline as the speed hovered in the 28-31 mph range with Peyton, Brett, Lisa, and a few others driving the train.

The batture trail in springtime.

So we turned off onto Old Gentilly Road and crossed the dangerous diagonal railroad tracks, with the pace holding at around 30 mph with me clinging to the back of the paceline. Just as we got close to the main gate at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility I heard some warning from up ahead. There was a long 1 x 6, probably the cross-member of a wooden barricade from the streets department facility, lying across the road. I was behind Steven. There was a rider dropping back from the front on the left. Steven didn't have much room to avoid it and clipped it, throwing him off to the right. He almost saved it, but by then I think he was overlapping the wheel ahead of him and he went down pretty hard. I had just a moment to contemplate the likely trajectory of his bike. Fortunately for me he and his bike fell to the right as I was going around the board to the left. The bottom line is that he had broken his collarbone in two places. So Chris and I waited until Steven's wife came to pick up the pieces. In the meantime, MJ, who had been late for the ride, showed up, so at least we had three for the ride back, which was still at a respectable pace, I think. By then it was turning into a beautiful day with the temperature in the 70s. 

Later that afternoon, and knowing that Sunday would probably be rained out (which it was), I went out for a little easy ride on the levee and the batture trail, which was amazingly quite dry, on the cyclocross bike. The flowers were blooming, but looking more closely I could also see the poison oak making its spring comeback.

By Tuesday morning the temperature will be in the mid-40s. Sigh...

Bad Week

Sunday Giro

Just when you are starting to think you might be starting to get in shape, Mother Nature swats you right back down to the ground. I'd had a nice enough time at the March 4th Mellow Monday ride, but knew that the weather was going to get worse by the end of the day. 

By mid-day it was storming with no end in sight. I waited at the office, hoping there would be a break before it got dark, but eventually submitted to my fate, which in that case was a very wet ride home. I pulled on my rain jacket and waterproof cap and rode out of the parking garage onto aptly named Perdido Street, which was already under about six inches of water. A couple of blocks later, crossing S. Claiborne, the water was so deep I could barely keep the bike moving. Switching over to Gravier things were no better. The water wasn't quite so deep on the sidewalk, so I rode there instead of in the street where there were already a couple of stalled cars. The problem, however, was that I couldn't quite see where the sidewalk ended, so naturally I rode off the edge once, which meant putting a foot down into about two feet of water. And so it continued. Of course I was completely soaked from the waist down by the time I got home. At least it wasn't very cold.

Tuesday morning it was still wet, so I didn't get in my usual morning ride, but at least I did make it out to WeMoRi, which had a smaller than normal turnout. Things looked better Thursday morning but I had an 8:15 am appointment for a checkup at Ochsner, so didn't ride that morning. In retrospect, I should have gone out early and put in a few miles. I had been nursing a scratchy throat for a couple of days, but it wasn't progressing, so I went ahead with the checkup, which was mostly routine blood work and conversation with the current Resident at the primary care clinic. That resulted in my getting a Shingrix booster shot before leaving. By evening I was already feeling the effects, which included a mild fever, headache, and various other aches. That kept me off the bike for Friday and Saturday.

Saturday afternoon my brother and niece were in town. Thankfully I was starting to feel a little more normal by then. I'm not quite sure how much of the headache and fever were caused by the vaccine or by a head cold, or by allergies (the oak trees are just about in full bloom). At least I got some decent sleep Saturday night, so by Sunday morning I felt like I may as well head out to the Sunday Giro. It was cooler, and with the time change having happened that morning, it was dark. I figured I'd have a cup of coffee and leave my options open in case I didn't feel quite as good as I thought I did. Turnout was pretty low that morning, thanks to the strong north wind that accompanied a little cold front, and probably also to the fact that Rouge Roubaix had been on Saturday. That made the Giro relatively mild, as Giro Rides go, and so I was feeling fine hanging out near the back and staying in the draft. Rouge Roubaix kind of lucked out in that the rain didn't seem to have had too much of an effect on the unpaved segments of the course. In fact, I suspect that it may have made them faster by packing down the rocks into the damp ground. Lance Abshire won the 92-mile race at just under 4:02, and the post-ride photos I saw showed bikes and people that were fairly clean, so the roads must not have been too bad. I ended the week with what was probably my lowest-mileage in a long time.

Monday morning it was again down into the 50s, where it will apparently be for the next couple of mornings too. I rode out to the Mellow Monday ride in the dark, arriving right when they were rolling out. Dylan was spending a lot of time on or near the front on his Tri bike, pushing the pace a bit into a significant northeast wind. It got fast when after the Seabrook loop when we picked up more of a tailwind, so it was maybe a little harder than I'd have liked for a Monday, but really not all that bad. Charles was back in the group after being off the bike for three or four days with another COVID infection, but it didn't seem to keep him from taking a few hard pulls on the front. Hopefully I'll be able to get back my usual routine this week, but there's a lot of rain in the forecast for the next week or two at least.

Sunshine on My Shoulders

Friday morning with the Friendly Friday Dawn Patrol

It's not quite the end of February, so still far too early for declarations about springtime, but this is New Orleans and as always we are relentlessly teased by Mother Nature. The mornings last week were, by my standards, still chilly, with temperatures in the low to mid-50s, but hey, I'll take that any day instead of low 40s or, heaven forbid, low 30s.

Last Friday we had a big group, no doubt a direct result of a morning conducive to summer kit. It's always funny how that first warm morning brings all sorts of people out of the woodwork. Riding home I briefly contemplated putting in a few extra miles, just to enjoy the sunshine. Back at the house, the oak leaves were falling like rain. If you live under live oak trees you soon realize that the season called "Fall" is a misnomer. Although the trees do drop a fair amount of leaves in the Fall, it is early spring when they shed most of their leaves, just as the new ones are starting to develop. At the moment there are at least ten big bags full of leaves out on the street waiting for Wednesday's garbage pickup. I hate to see them disposed of that way, but the front yard is well covered already and all of the leaves that fell, and are still falling, in the back yard are still there. These were just the leaves in the street that were clogging up the storm drains.

Free tools!

The weekend weather was looking to be better than anything we have had thus far this year. Saturday's Giro Ride had a good-sized group and was quite fast. I think Will was probably on the front for half of it all by himself. Even sitting toward the tail end of the paceline I can usually tell when Will has settled in for a long pull at the front because the pace becomes so steady that you'd think you were motorpacing. Although it was a pretty good workout, I arrived home feeling surprisingly good, probably thanks to my careful attention to wheelsucking. We were planning a longish ride over in Mississippi for Sunday, so I didn't want to do too much damage the day before. 

As a special reward, I found a nice soft-face hammer on the roadside when I was riding back from the lake, so I stuffed it into my pocket to add to my roadside tool collection. Over the years I have picked up some really nice tools that have no doubt found their way out of pickup truck beds.

Sunday morning over in MS

On Sunday I was scheduled for an 80 mile ride that Steve and Charles had organized over in Mississippi, starting at a playground just off of I-10. It was one of those days that challenges your wardrobe selection abilities. When I arrived at the parking lot around 7:30 am the car thermometer read 49°, but there was almost no wind and the sky was clear. The forecast was calling for upper 60s later in the morning. Although I usually opt for at least knee warmers when it's below 60°, I knew it was going to warm up quickly and decided to go with bare knees. Yeah, it was a little chilly, but that didn't last more than about twenty minutes after we rolled out just past 8:00. We had a good group of, I think, nine, plus one other rider on an E-recumbent who tagged along the whole way about five bike-lengths off the back. Most of the route was fairly flat, with some little hills up toward the northern part of the big loop that we rode. Riders were taking super long pulls at the front on the way out. I think we may have had a light but increasing tailwind, and with the pace mostly in the lower 20s riders seemed content to stay on the front a little longer than usual. I think we were at least twenty miles in before my turn came up for my second pull of the day.

After avoiding a bunch of peacocks that were crossing the road in front of us, we eventually came to a store stop at maybe 42 miles into the ride. I got a Coke, but was still carrying around two nearly full water bottles and emptied half of one of them so I could fill it back up with my leftover Coke. I ate a little granola bar that I'd brought along, but wasn't particularly hungry quite yet since the pace had been fairly moderate. I think some were probably just a little apprehensive about the distance. Indeed, when we got to around 65 miles I could tell that a few of the riders were starting to feel the distance. Also, this was where the terrain was the least flat. I was definitely starting to feel the prior day's Giro in my legs on some of the uphills. It wasn't terrible, but I certainly knew I'd ridden 60 miles the day before. 

This morning, Monday, the temperature was in the upper 50s and the wind was light. I went out with covered knees, a base layer shirt, and arm-warmers. I was a little chilly at first but otherwise pretty comfortable. The Mellow Monday group kept it fairly mellow this morning, which was nice because there was still just a bit of residual soreness in my quads from Sunday's ride.

There is a weekend of racing over in Mobile this coming weekend. I am hoping to go, but kind of tapped the brakes this morning when I looked at the forecast, which was calling for thunderstorms on Saturday and some more rain on Sunday. Of course it's still early, so hopefully that will improve. I don't bounce as well as I used to, so that is something that I have to consider nowadays. A rainy road race wouldn't be too bad if it's not very cold, and the criterium is on a pretty non-technical concrete course, so even it the rain it probably wouldn't be sketchy, but I would probably still hesitate to rail the one significant corner like I might otherwise. We'll see. Not looking forward to the time chance coming up on March 10 when all of my morning rides will be thrown back into the dark.

The Longest Month

Obligatory Rex Photo

February is the longest month. Not technically, of course, but definitely mentally. Throw in Mardi Gras complications and posts from other people who are actually racing already, and it just makes it seem even worse. It's always like that. Cold temperatures, strong winds, and lagging motivation. The only thing that kind of saves me would probably be diagnosed by some as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Or perhaps just the knowledge that the older I get the costlier become those skipped days. Anyway, somehow I survived Mardi Gras week without too big a hit to the training log.

We were off from work on Monday, probably because everybody knows that nobody would show up the day before Mardi Gras anyway. That offered an opportunity for a long ride, but of course Mother Nature had other ideas. I woke up that morning, as I'd expected, to a weather radar that was entirely green and a light rain falling outside. It was also pretty cold. So I initially set my sights on early afternoon, by which time the rain was supposed to taper off. As it turned out, though, a lot of the rain that was showing up on radar was not actually rain, and by 10:00 or so it looked like the streets were drying up a little bit. What I did not find was the motivation to push myself very hard into a wind that was occasionally trying to wrest away control of my front wheel. I still managed to log 40 miles, albeit with speeds ranging from 12 to 31 mph depending on the sinuosity of the Mississippi River. 

Tuesday was Mardi Gras and it started out very cold. I decided it would be a great day to skip riding, except for my usual ride to and from the French Quarter. Candy and I rode over to Napoleon Avenue around 10:00 and watched all of the Rex parade, after which I made my way downtown via, mostly, Prytania. Riding along toward downtown just a couple of blocks from St. Charles, I could see the parade off to my left at the intersections. By the time I was past Jackson Avenue I'd already passed all of Rex and was looking at Zulu floats. Zulu always comes down Jackson to St. Charles and ends up ahead of Rex. Fortunately, Zulu turns left when it gets downtown instead or right like Rex, so as long as you're ahead of Rex you can usually cross Canal Street pretty easily. 

I locked the bike up on St. Louis street where I ran into Dustin & company. We headed over to Royal, or maybe Bourbon, but as I was taking photos I soon lost track of them entirely. I wandered around downtown for a couple of hours as usual before finally heading back home, by which time the temperature had risen enough to make the ride quite nice.

So Wednesday's WeMoRi was pretty much of a disaster for me. I rode out to the lakefront as usual, with the group catching me just after the turn onto Wisner. Jaden came past me and I jumped to catch his wheel since nobody else was there, and immediately thought to myself, "This is not exactly the ideal wheel to be on right now." My speed went from 19 mph to 26 as my heart rate went from 94 to 155 bpm, at which point I moved over and motioned for Brian, who was behind me to come through. It was a small group and at the back I found little draft as the pace remained fast. I was barely hanging onto the tail end of the group as we went over the overpass and things got strung out. I wasn't recovering at all, and so just after turning on to City Park Avenue I quietly drifted off the back. I was thinking I'd take some time to recover, turn onto Lakeshore drive, and make a u-turn ahead of the group on its way back from the traffic circle, but then I ran into Jeff who was sitting in the parking lot fixing a flat, so I stopped there before riding out to LSD where I missed most of whatever was left of the group before heading back home.

Thursday's levee ride was going along nicely, even though there were just three of us left by the time we were past The Dip. Then, within sight of the Luling bridge, I noticed my front tire going soft, so I told the others to continue while I stopped to fix it. I assumed I'd pinch-flatted on a sharp little hole I'd plowed into earlier, but later that night when I did a post-mortem on the tube I discovered a piece of metal wire sticking a millimeter or two past the inside of the tire. How it didn't puncture the new tube before I got home I'll never know.

Old bike, old kit. Expecting to get wet but stayed dry.

Friday we had a big turnout for Friendly Friday, and the pace remained pretty moderate, so that was nice. Saturday, though, was a completely different story. It had rained all night and into the morning, so the Giro was completely out of the question. There was an off-and-on light rain falling most of the morning, but nothing too serious, so around noon I decided I may as well go for a ride. Assuming the streets would still be wet, and/or that it would start to rain again, I dressed for colder temperatures than we had. There was a strong northeast wind blowing at around 14 mph when I finally hit the road around 12:50, but the levee path turned out to be essentially dry. Still, it was a long battle in the wind, stopping occasionally to take pictures of the eagles that are so easy to spot this time of year when there's not much foliage on the trees along the river.

Saw four eagles on Saturday

The weather was a little better on Sunday, but it was still quite cold and windy, which resulted in a pretty small turnout for the Giro. We did the entire route anyway, although certainly not as fast as usual, and then a whole group agreed to continue down the lake trail to add what is inexplicably called the "shuffle," which took us eventually over to the river levee. By then the sun was out so it was a nice ride that added enough miles to make up for the missing mileage, if not intensity, earlier in the week.

Only three on Monday

This morning's Mellow Monday ride had only three of us. It was still rather windy and cold, so I guess a lot of the usual people decided to skip it altogether. I was feeling a little tired, so it felt like a good enough workout even though I didn't spend much time in the wind. Fortunately it looks like temperatures will be rising a bit for the rest of the week!

Early Mardi Gras Year

January and February, especially February, are always the toughest, and some years they are tougher than others. This year we seem to have had more than our share of early morning rain, or cold, or cold rain. Just last week we had quite a bit of street flooding in the city, no thanks to one of the ancient turbines having gone down in the middle of a rainstorm ... again. Then, to make matters just a little more complicated, Mardi Gras is early this year. You see, Mardi Gras (aka Fat Tuesday in English) is the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the day that starts the period of Lent, which is supposed to be a 40-day period of fasting prior to Easter. The problem is that Easter, which you would think would be a fixed date, was long ago determined, probably by some committee that couldn't come to an agreement and had a flight to catch, that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon (basically closest to the summer equinox) that occurs on or soonest after March 21st. Which of course makes no sense whatsoever but has nonetheless survived more or less unchanged for centuries. In order to include enough (6) Sundays in Lent, that means Mardi Gras is 46 days prior to Easter. Makes sense, right? Anyway, the bottom line is that every now and then, depending on the phase of the moon and earth's orbit around the sun, Mardi Gras comes really early. This is one of those years. Having Mardi Gras in the middle of February puts it at possibly the time of the year then the weather around here is least predictable. And when it comes to unpredictable weather, this particular year has knocked it out of the park. Anyway, the bottom line here is that we've had a lot of sketchy morning weather that has impacted those of us who don't like riding bikes that go nowhere quite a bit.

Friendly Friday

So this morning, Sunday, I lounged in bed an extra fifteen minutes, as usual for a Giro Ride morning. The temperature outside was nearly 70°F, and the wind was negligible, neither of which you'd expect for mid-February. Saturday was nearly as warm. By Mardi Gras morning on - you guessed it - Tuesday, it will be in the low 40s. For the first time in a while I went out in, basically, summer kit. Saturday's Giro had been quite fast, but surprisingly my legs felt none the worse for wear. I cruised down Orleans where the street had already been cleared of the tons (literally) of abandoned Mardi Gras beads and related trash from the prior evening's Endymion parade. If there's one thing this city does remarkably well, it's cleaning the streets following parades. Of course, I'm sure the parading organizations who put on these free spectacles pay for that too because if the city had to do that it would probably happen on the same timeline as pothole repair. 

Given the Mardi Gras festivities that have been in full swing for about a week now, it wasn't surprising that the turnout was pretty slim for Sunday's Giro. On the other hand, considering that the forecast for Monday is looking pretty bad, I would have expected a few more people to have dragged themselves out onto the road this morning. Now, you'd think that a small turnout would mean an easy ride, but if you did, you'd be wrong. More often than not it means you'll be spending more time than usual on the front. As it turned out, the ride was pretty good. It was by no means slow, or easy, but the limited amount of horsepower available kept the speeds down to levels that allowed people like me to actually see the front now and then. It was a good ride, actually.

Afterward, I rode down to Magazine Street at State Street to catch some of the Thoth parade - the closest parade to my house, and the only one I've seen so far. It was threatening to rain the whole time but never really did, unless you count a few random raindrops that fell here and there. The uptown crowd there was friendly and easygoing and since it was only 12:30 or so not yet drunk enough to be obnoxious. We stayed for maybe 30 of the 40+ floats.

Thoth

So this year, since early Spring, I've been using Silca Super-Secret drip wax on my chains. At first I considered it to be quite an extravagance, considering the relatively high cost of a little bottle of the concoction, but it has turned out to be quite cost-effective since you waste so little of it. Yeah, I know that using the "immersion" chain waxing technique is the best, but this stuff, when done right, is a pretty reasonable compromise that required little effort and definitely extends chain life, keeps the chain impressively clean, and at least theoretically saves a couple of watts here and there - as if anyone could ever really feel the difference. The one thing you have to be sure to do is to thoroughly clean the new chain in mineral spirits to remove absolutely all of the factory lubricant. I do this by putting the new chain in a pickle jar with mineral spirits (aka paint thinner) and shaking it up and letting it soak and shaking it up again, etc. etc. Of course for me it's practically a waste since I have been in the habit for many years of replacing chains when they reach the 2,500 - 3,000 mile mark regardless of how worn they might be. Anyway, I think I like this drip-wax thing. 

One other think I recently did was to put latex tubes in my training tires. It's not something I'd normally do, but some place had them on sale so I figured I'd give them a shot. I put one of the latex tubes in my front training wheel, which had an old Michelin race tire on it, and it worked nicely, so the following day I did the same with my rear wheel which immediately exploded. One thing about latex tubes is that they will squeeze through the smallest of slices in a tire sidewall and blow out quite dramatically. Anyway, I ended up having to ditch that tire and install a new one that I fortunately had on hand. I can't say they made me any faster or anything, and of course they bleed air quickly enough that I have to pump up the tires every couple of days, but otherwise they seem fine. I suppose I could pretend that they make me faster. I mean, it's a possibility, right?

After the Saturday Giro

Last week, despite some discouraging weather forecasts, I somehow managed to log a little over 250 miles. While that is actually a little low compared to my typical weeks, I was nonetheless somehow pleasantly surprised. Tuesday's levee ride had been 40 miles of unrelenting crosswind followed by a mad dash to make an early meeting. Wednesday's WeMoRi had been good, but just a bit easier and smaller than usual. Then on Thursday we had only three of us up on the levee with a 10 mph east wind that turned the entire return trip into a slog and saw us turning around at the big dip rather than going all the way out to Ormond. 

By Friday it had started getting warmer and so we had a pretty big group on hand for Friendly Friday, which of course resulted in a rather fast ride that shelled a few people. It was great to be riding without three layers of clothes, though, and that really made it a lot more enjoyable. 

Sunday

As I said before, Saturday's Giro had a pretty good sized group with some significant horsepower, which made for quite a fast ride. I spent a lot of time focusing on the finer points of wheelsucking, of course, so although the speeds were consistently high, I was never in any real difficulty and felt pretty good.

So I'm off from work tomorrow ("Lundi Gras") and Tuesday, and as luck would have it the forecast is calling for a lot of rain all morning. Of course the forecasts have not exactly been batting 1,000 lately, so I'll just have to look out the window in the morning before making a decision. It looks like the cold front will be through around noon, though, so an afternoon ride is looking like a possibility. Going to have to play that by ear, I guess. Mardi Gras is going to be kind of cold, unfortunately, starting in the 40s and not getting out of the 50s, but at least the rain should be gone. Christian sent out an email about doing a Mardi Gras Giro, although I may just play that one by ear too.

Too Long in the Rain

Mellow Monday

It seems we are stuck in a classic south Louisiana winter weather pattern lately. You  know, the one where cold fronts stall out more or less on top of us, it rains, gets warmer and foggier for three days, and then another front comes through and pushes it out. Then the temperature drops and it gets super windy for two or three days, and then another front stalls out on top of us. Rinse, repeat, rinse. Some years are better than others, and so far this hasn't been one of those better ones.

Last Monday it was a little chilly, like in the mid-upper 40s, but otherwise not bad, and unexpected coincidences resulted in a pretty good turnout for this time of year. We had a couple of Tulane riders, since the Spring semester had finally started, and Apryl was in town from Mississippi, and a few other riders showed up who are often questionable. Things went smoothly until we made the loop at the Armory and picked up a tailwind, at which point the speed ramped up to the upper 20s as riders started getting shelled off the back. Eventually everyone regrouped at Marconi, though, so it was fine. The weather forecast for the rest of the week was not looking very promising, however.

Tuesday was just nothing but flat tires.

Tuesday morning it was even warmer, but overnight rain had left the streets quite wet. Apryl and her friend Regan (who had an inoperable rear derailleur stuck in the 11), and a bunch of the regulars made for another nice-sized group. Looking at how wet the levee bike path was, I was just waiting for the first flat tire. I didn't have to wait very long, either. Bo flatted first, but told us to go ahead, then just a mile or two later Regan flatted. Then, just another mile or two later Regan flatted again. By then we'd already lost a good fifteen or twenty minutes, so we turned around at the Big Dip. We all made it back to the start without any more flats, but after arriving  home I found out that Regan had flatted again, and I think Charles had also had a puncture. By then, the three of them were fresh out of CO2, so Charles rode to his house to retrieve a tube and more CO2. Aside from those flats, there were reports of numerous other flats that morning from other local riders. Somehow, my own Michelin tires that had come off of my race wheels survived, although I did have to pluck out a sharp shard later that evening that would have eventually added my name to the list.

Wednesday on the rain bike

Wednesday morning the streets were again super-wet from overnight rain, and there were all sorts of dire warnings of impending storms and flooding clogging up my message app. Looking at the radar, though, it didn't look like it would rain for a while. There was a huge front off to the west with lots of heavy rain, but it seemed to be just streaming toward the northeast and barely moving from west to east. I decided to go out on the old rain bike, heavily over-dressed, to just tap out a few miles without worrying about flats. It was fairly warm, and with the bike's full fenders I at least stayed more or less dry. As it turned out, there was, unsurprisingly, no WeMoRi group out at the lakefront, which was probably a good thing because part of Lakeshore Drive was flooded anyway. On the down side, it was yet another day of minimal intensity, even though pushing the old Pennine with its fenders and heavy tires and Mr. Tuffys and antique Concor saddle into the east wind did seem to provide a bit of a workout even at 16 mph.

Finally lumbering through on Wednesday.

So that brings us to this morning, Thursday. It had again rained overnight, but the really bad weather was still temporarily stalled off to the west. It was practically 70°F, though, so the prospect of wheel spray didn't seem quite so bad, leading me to roll the dice on flats and ride the Bianchi out to the levee. The problem this morning wasn't the temperature or the wet streets, it was the fog. With the warm humid south wind blowing across the freezing cold Mississippi River, much of the bike path was shrouded in a dense fog. I headed out with just Charles, and it was clear we wouldn't be getting much of a workout because going more than about 15 mph was rather terrifying in the dark in the places where the fog was thickest. A couple of times I hit the brakes because I hadn't seen a curve in time, and when we approached the little bridge over some pipes we both hit the brakes because at first it looked like we were about to run right into a wall. As the sky got lighter, though, our confidence improved, but we turned around at the Big Dip since our average speed had probably been in the 14 mph range. As we headed back we picked up Rich who had planned on riding indoors until his Wahoo trainer blew up or something and he resorted to the levee. It was another nice enough ride, but another super low-intensity one. 

The upriver gate near the bathroom

The weather is really messing with my training lately. It looks like this pattern will continue, too. On the plus side, I am not seeing any low temperatures below 42° for the next ten days, and a lot of mornings with lows above 50°. To make matters worse, we are just waiting for the bike path to be shut down at the Jefferson/St. James parish line for levee work that is going to take at least a year. Perhaps we'll do two laps of the shortened route, or just go out to the lakefront. Getting around the closure via River Road seems like it will be kind of sketchy and I don't think we will be up for that except perhaps on weekends when traffic is lighter.

Low Temperature, High Wind Winter Week

Three-fifths of the Sunday Giro. Would have been a great day without the wind.

The winter vortex dipped down into the south this week with unsurprising results. Monday was MLK day, which provided the questionably nice opportunity for a third Giro Ride in a row. It was kind of a typical holiday Giro, which is to say it wasn't particularly fast, and at least it wasn't too cold. Of course to me, 50°F always feels plenty cold enough, and you can bet my knees will be covered if it's below 60°, but there are always others for whom 50° doesn't seem to require much more than summer kit. The hourly forecast for Monday was calling for a dramatic temperature drop later in the day, and a Tuesday morning temperature in the high 20s. I'd love to post a bunch of photos, but operating a phone camera while wearing two layers of gloves is just not worth it.

Late Monday night I dusted off the old wind trainer that I hadn't used in about two years. I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere, and a morning temperature in the 20s fits that criterion for me. Tuesday morning I managed 55 minutes on the trainer at a average speed, which doesn't really mean anything, of like 13 mph. It was something, I guess. It was cold enough on Tuesday that I decided to make it a WFH day, like pretty much everybody else. Wednesday morning wasn't much better, though. The temperature was again in the 20s, accompanied by a stiff north wind. I went out anyway, knowing full well that the WeMoRi was unlikely to happen. Charles had said he was going to ride but would meet whoever might be out there at the same place I usually do. We met up along Wisner, and got to the end of Marconi at the lake a few minutes later than the WeMoRi usually arrives there. Looking east, there was no sign of headlights, so we figured everyone else had bailed and decided to just do half a lap around the park and then go home before any of our sensitive extremities succumbed to frostbite. As we found out later, thanks to Strava, Little Joe and MJ had indeed set out on the WeMoRi route earlier that morning, but Joe had flatted at Elysian Fields, so they were significantly delayed. I don't even know how they managed to change a flat with frozen hands, but they did, and actually rode the full route without ever seeing us, or vice-versa.

Friendly Friday a week ago - before the freeze

By Thursday the cold had moved away a bit, leaving us one morning with the temperature in the 40s. Fortunately, a few people showed up for the levee ride that morning, so we had a good ride out to Ormond and back. Later that day we learned that the construction crew had put up fencing from River Road up to the levee top between the bathroom at LaRose and the Jefferson Parish line. 

This was in preparation for a levee raise project there that will tear up the bike path there for at least a year. We're hoping there might be a way to circumvent the closure, but I don't think we'll know until it happens. It looks like it might be another week or two before they close it off. Coming home from work I got caught in a rain shower and was pretty well soaked. Glad I had my Assos rain jacket on. Friendly Friday the next morning had a low turnout of five or six thanks to the winter wind, and although it wasn't freezing cold, yet, it felt harder than I would have liked.

So that brings us to Saturday. The temperature was hovering around 0°C when I went out into an absolutely brutal north wind. I was wearing three or four layers of high-tech winter gear, but I very nearly turned back within the first mile. I arrived at Starbucks a little later than usual, but still with enough time for a cup of coffee. By the time 7 am rolled around there were just three others there. It was also the day of a gravel ride/race up in Hattiesburg that drew away a few riders who I guess wanted to pay money to ride where it was even colder and the roads weren't paved. The ride was about as miserable as you'd expect, given the wind that was probably averaging 12 mph with gusts up to 25 or so. We ended up turning onto the service road along the interstate and looping back, which made for a short 37 mile ride. Although the temperature was pretty low and I was fairly cold by the time I got home, the real story was the wind rather than the temperature. 

It was still better than being on the trainer.

That's a winter morning sky for sure.

Unfortunately, the weather on Sunday was a carbon copy of that on Saturday. So was the turnout! The temperature was again right at freezing, and the wind was again right at ridiculous. We ended up with five people, so we did the same shortened route as Saturday, but ended up adding a lap or so around the park before heading home. At the moment it looks like we'll have at least a week or more without any more freezing temperatures, so at least there's that. Hopefully I'll feel better on the rides once it warms up a little. I never did set up a northshore winter ride schedule this year. With this year's early Mardi Gras, and the unusually cold temperature, I guess I'll just play it by ear this time.

Meanwhile, there are a few races showing up on the calendar for March and April. Entry fees, however, are getting kind of ridiculous. Rouge-Roubaix is $150 for a fondo-style event with no or minimal course control or other support or prizes. I was looking at La Primavera over in Texas and those entry fees are like $50 and $60 for each day of the 3-day event. There's another gravel race in Mississippi in a couple of weeks. Those are $75. I'd like to do a gravel race, but most definitely not in the freezing cold and/or mud. The Auburn collegiate race weekend is February 24-25, so I may be going there if we have a couple of Tulane riders who want to do it. The Mobile races are scheduled for March 2 and 3, and the entry fees and prizes are both good, so that's a possibility. If I do Auburn, Mobile, and Rouge, that would be three race weekends in a row, which hasn't really happened for me in a few years. We'll see. The way things are going, I'm not likely to be in shape for any of those, but then again, I never am this time of year.

Fine Anno Giri d'Orleans

Monday's Holiday Giro heads out along Marconi

Made it through another orbit of the Sun, and as is usual for this time of year my fitness has already been in a steady decline for over a month. Back in the day that was status quo for everybody because few had the mental fortitude to endure long workouts on wind trainers or rollers or cold, windy country roads. We rationalized that we needed the recovery, as if we were Pros who had been racing every week since February and actually needed it. We didn't, of course, but at least we were kind of all on the same page from November through at least the end of February. Then, however, came major improvements in winter cycling clothing with vests that were actually wind-resistant, and shoe covers that blocked the wind but didn't leave your feet in a pool of sweat, and technical fabrics that were soft an fuzzy on the inside but smooth and aero on the outside. I remember doing winter rides in cotton summer shorts and jerseys underneath snazzy jogging suits that did nothing to block the wind, and knit caps pulled down over our ears. You'd use safety pins at the bottom of your right leg to keep the baggy jogging pants from getting caught in the chain, and all you had for riding in the dark were reflectors and anemic arm-band lights that ran little flashlight bulbs on two C batteries that lasted about a week. Now, though, there's hardly any valid excuse for not riding outside on most winter days around here where typical pre-dawn temperatures are usually in the 40s to low 50s. Still, the allure of interactive indoor training "systems" like Zwift and Rouvy are certainly tempting and make it easier to do actual structured workouts, if that's your preferred form of masochism. It's not mine, though, and even though it is hard to get out the door into the dark on a cold windy winter morning, I still prefer the company of humans over avatars, and wind resistance over computer generated hills. Guess I'm crazy like that. Or stubborn. Maybe both.

Anyway, things have sort of gotten back to relative normal following Christmas. Earlier, I had thought I'd be able to log a lot of enjoyable mileage between Christmas and New Year's Day, the weather and that lingering head cold made that pretty much impossible and definitely inadvisable. Nevertheless, I ended 2024 with a record 14,179 miles, thanks mainly to the hot arid summer that didn't provide as many rain days as usual, I guess. Since I started logging rides to Strava back around February or March of 2012, I've ridden an average of 10,530 miles per year, including three or four significant orthopedically induced sabbaticals. All of which serves as compelling empirical evidence that riding more miles does not make you faster, although perhaps it has its psychological health benefits.

New Year's Day fell on a Monday this year, the net result of which was that I rode three Giro Rides in a row, each substantially different from the others. 

It was a rather cold start for Saturday's Giro, but there was a big group on hand and the wind was relatively light for this time of year. As we came down the overpass onto Hayne the riders at the front dropped the hammer, resulting is a lot of gaps and chasing and droppage. The sudden jump in intensity, and available draft, put me into the red almost immediately, and in consideration of my still scratchy throat and distaste for pneumonia I backed off, hoping that things might come back together, which of course they didn't. I ended up off the back with a couple others, so we took the Bullard shortcut, arriving at Chef well before the group, into which I merged fairly easily once it streamed past. There was a lot of action up at the front with riders launching attack after attack, but by then I was warmed up so it wasn't too much of a problem sitting at the back in the draft. The return trip was also pretty fast. Afterward, I rode down to Faubourg Marigny with Dan and Charles and Apryl for coffee before making my way back home.

Sunday's Giro, the last ride of the year, was mostly just nice smooth tempo. I think perhaps some, including me, were still a little unrecovered from Saturday's thrashing. 

11 years of Strava

After a night listening to a whole lot of fireworks (and around 3 am gunshots), I dragged myself out of bed for yet another Holiday Giro on Monday to get the year started off right. With the annual odometer reset to zero, and the starting temperature at least out of the 40s, it was a pretty typical holiday Giro - not particularly fast. There was lots of sun, and I was fairly over-dressed by the time we were halfway back, but the pace was relatively collegial and I'd already stuffed the wind vest in my pocket. 

On the way back I stopped with Will, Charles and Dan at French Truck on the Lafitte Greenway for coffee, which was quite nice. I had ordered a Redshift suspension stem for my cyclocross bike and it arrived later that day, so I went ahead and installed it so I could take a short ride. I'd gotten it in case I wanted to do any extended gravel riding, knowing that the 'cross bike wouldn't be too forgiving on my neck and shoulders and back without it. I have some 40mm gravel tires that I just can't seem to bring myself to install on the narrow aluminum 'cross bike's non-tubeless rims. They are tight as hell, so fixing a flat out in the middle of nowhere with cold hands would be problematic at best. I figured that the extra cushioning from the stem might allow me to stick with my regular 33 mm 'cross tires, since I have no intention of pushing my luck speed-wise on dirt roads anyway. The stem made quite a difference when riding on the brake hoods, especially since I had probably 45 psi in the tires, and if there was down side to it, I couldn't detect it. There's not nearly as much cushioning when on the drops, but the only time I'm on the drops on the 'cross bike is when I'm on nice smooth asphalt anyway. The stem is, of course, a little heavy, especially since I got the regular one and not the even more expensive lighter one, but saving weight and going fast on unpaved roads is definitely not a priority for me, so I'm pretty happy with it. I just need to give it a try on some long stretches of dirt/gravel, which are unfortunately in rather short supply around here. Maybe a trip out to the mountain bike trail at the spillway and some unpaved levee riding out there is in the cards. We'll see.

By Tuesday morning the weather had gone from warm and sunny to cold and windy. It was so cold and windy that I fully expected to be riding the levee alone and had decided to do a shorter ride even before I got there. Then, I was surprised to find Boyd waiting at the top. I was not surprised that my legs felt pretty dead. The two of us battled the 10 mph northeast wind out to the upriver end of Jefferson before turning back. By then I was really glad to have Boyd on hand because he was taking long pulls at the front into the headwind on his Pinarello Nitro. If I'd been up there alone I'd definitely have been going three mph slower, and probably would have turned back even sooner, but I was happy to have gotten in a ride because the forecast for Wednesday was offering no hope at all. Indeed, it was raining Wednesday morning, and in fact much of the day, so I took the day off. Besides, it was the first day back at work since Christmas and things were really busy at the office.

This morning's levee ride was pretty nice, even though the increasing northeast wind made the return trip feel a lot harder than it looked.