Another Early Turn

The pre-dawn temperature was again around 40F, but the wind had diminished considerably when I arrived, a couple of minutes late, at the ride start. Scott and Richard were there, but that was about it.  We picked up Pat and Lenny and Judd by the time we hit the playground, but it was already clear that there wasn't enough combined horsepower to keep the pace much above the low 20s today.  That was fine with me because for some reason my quads were loading up quickly every time I'd take a pull, even at the serene 21-22 mph consensus speed.  Nobody had said anything about turning around early, at least not that I heard, but I knew they were thinking it. A small group and slower pace translates into a late arrival back home when we do the longer ride all the way out to Ormond.  As we approached The Dip, where I figured we'd probably turn around, Lenny was on the front.  He had been pushing the pace a bit. At the last minute the others ahead of me sat up and started asking each other "are we turning around here?"  Lenny was already heading down the Dip, oblivious to what was going on behind him.  I had to grab the brakes as I tried to guess who might be following him and who might be turning back.  In the end, everyone stopped except for Lenny.  We watched him as he pulled off and motioned for the next rider to come around.  There wasn't a next rider.  Finally he figured it out and turned around.  Oh well.  That was a clear lack of planning on everyone's part. I wasn't feeling very good at all, so the ride back into a slight but increasing wind was frustrating, even though I was taking short pulls.  Just after the bridge I started to feel some mushiness in my rear tire and gave the bike a little bounce.  I felt the rim touch the asphalt and knew I had a flat, so I coasted to a stop around the playground to change it.  Still wearing my gloves, I stuffed the new tube into the tire as Judd walked up with a floor pump that he had in his car. I probably got about 90 psi in there before it blew off the rim because I hadn't taken the time to check that the tire was properly seated.  Fortunately I had another tube and was more careful that time.  I was glad I'd picked up a big can of tire patch glue at Auto Zone last weekend and had patched a couple of extra tubes. Of course my rear tire most definitely needs to be replaced.  I can see the casing in a couple of spots.  I just haven't taken the time to deal with that.  Guess I'll have to now.

So this week's mileage isn't adding up very well so far. I didn't ride on Monday, and then we turned around early both Tuesday and Thursday.  Perhaps I'll do another ride out to Slidell on Saturday to balance things out, assuming that this achy feeling I have right now doesn't turn out to be the early symptoms of a cold or something.

Acclimating

It was another cold and breezy morning and I had to dip into my diminishing reserve of self-discipline just to get out from under the covers.  This is the time of year when just getting out the door in the morning becomes a laudable goal.  Really, though, there is no point to skipping rides when the temperature is still, however barely, in the 40s, unless of course you happen to be one of those people who seek winter refuge in air-conditioned fitness centers, returning to the roads only when the first hints of spring appear.  I'm not one of those.  Although I have been known to attend winter Spin classes and have even ventured into the Reily Center's weight room on occasion, I would in general prefer to be riding an actual moving bike on actual roads in the actual weather, assuming conditions aren't overwhelmingly dangerous.  So there I was riding up to the meeting spot on the levee this morning at precisely 6:40 am wondering why I was again the only person there.  A minute later Big Rich rode up and, knowing there would be no others, we headed off down the road.  A couple of miles later we spotted Donald and Mignon coming toward us and waited as Donald, whose knees were bare, turned around to join us. We did the usual Wednesday ride at a moderate pace as I dreamt of hot coffee and hid from the wind behind Richard. On the way back we saw Ben who turned around and rode with us for a while looking all toasty warm in his Assos winter jersey. 

Yesterday afternoon we had the dedication ceremony for Flower Hall, a science/engineering research building that our office worked on just over a year ago as part of a grant from the Economic Development Administration.  While I was standing there I heard someone say, "Hey Randy."  I looked over and saw Brett Reagan, all dressed up in a nice suit looking like quite the executive (which technically he is).  It turns out he is on a Board with the building's major donor, Paul Flower.  Small world.  I still had work to do, so I passed on the free wine, which took quite a bit of willpower, checked out the finished 4th floor and its spectacular view, and headed back to work.

It wasn't too long after I got home this morning that the workmen started to arrive.  The kitchen demo is essentially done and we're entering the sheetrock and electrician phase now. I wrote another check to the contractor and hopped on the bike to work.

Cold and Grey December Day

It was still just arm-warmer weather on Sunday, so Ben and I drove across the lake to make the northshore ride rather than spend yet another day on the asphalt of Chef Highway.  I guess there were around twenty when we rolled out from Lee Road Junior High for the regular 64 mile winter ride.  This year the standard course has shifted a bit, eliminating Tullos Road and most of 1072 in favor of south Choctaw and Dummyline, and a couple of miles of 1072.  It was a good ride that turned out to be a bit faster than I'd been expecting.  I was pleased to find that my legs were responding reasonably well after Saturday's 90+ miles.  Not that I wasn't feeling those miles, of course, but at least it wasn't bad enough to have me throwing in the towel on the climbs.  So the bottom line was 312 miles for the week, which was the best I'd seen since July and more than ample excuse for skipping Monday morning's ride, especially once I checked the radar and saw the line of rain storms moving in my direction.  Monday turned out to be pretty dismal with lots of rain and dramatically falling temperatures behind the cold front.

Back at home, the kitchen renovation is moving along fairly well.  The old pine floors look to be salvageable after spending the better part of the past sixty or seventy years with linoleum glued to them.  The beam to (hopefully) support the roof once the back wall studs come out is in place, so the whole thing should be opened up by this afternoon.  Meanwhile the old concrete back staircase that is also scheduled to be replaced is literally crumbling as the result of the extra use by the contractor and so that job may need to be moved up before they completely collapse underneath someone.

By this morning the temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees and I rolled out the door at 6:15 to a cold and grey December day with a strong north wind. With the temperature below 40F for the first time this fall, it finally felt like winter.  I was wearing my trusty NOBC winter jacket, skull cap, long tights, etc., so I was pretty comfortable when I arrived right on time atop the levee to find nobody there. I stopped for a minute, hiding from the wind behind one of the big stacks, and a little while later Big Richard rolled up. There was nobody else in sight so we headed out, soon picking up three more riders who were coming from the playground.  It was going to be a long ride, but with so few in the group I knew we'd be turning around early. On the plus side, the strong crosswind and resulting eschelon would allow only five to get any degree of shelter for much of the ride. The pace stayed moderate today and I think we were all just glad to be out there getting acclimated to the colder temperature. For much of the return trip I was getting in about forty pedal strokes at 22 mph at the front before my quads told me it was time to pull off.  I listened to them.

Long Giro

I clipped on an extra tail light before heading out to the Saturday Giro this morning.  We've had a lot of morning fog lately and there was a pretty good chance we would run into some during the ride.  The fact that there was not the slightest trace of fog as I rode out to Starbucks offered little comfort.  There was barely any wind and the temperature was around 60F under a clear blue sky today.  Great riding weather, to say the least.  I hadn't been planning on doing the long ride out to Slidell, but it was sounding like a lot of the riders were.  When we got to the turnaround and nobody around me turned around I figured, "Why not?" and continued on over the Chef bridge.  It was right about that time that I remember we were supposed to be having an NOBC meeting after the Giro to discuss the new team kit.  Damn.  It was already way too late to get back to the group that had turned around.  Fortunately, the "long" group numbered over 20 riders today, so at least I'd have some shelter.  As it turned out, the ride was fast but steady.

We were halfway back along Hayne Blvd. when something caught my eye.  It was Rob's Shimano Di2 battery hanging below his bottom bracket, suspended by only its wires.  The bolt holding it on had come loose, so ater fishing around for the right Allen wrench, we finally got going again.  Basically it was a very enjoyable ride

More Wet Than Rain

It was still quite foggy way up the river at Ormond this morning.

It seemed darker than usual at 6 am when I left for the levee.  Of course the days are still getting shorter and it just takes a few clouds in the east to make a big difference right now. The thermometer was reading 60F, but I'd pulled on the arm-warmers more out of habit than anything else.  The one thing I hadn't been expecting was fog.  There had been none at the house, but as I neared river and all of its millions of gallons of icy northern water, I started to notice the fog.  By the time I'd met the group up on the levee I knew it was going to be one of those foggy rides that gets you more wet than a light rain.  Indeed, we rode through a fairly heavy fog for most of the long morning ride.  By the time we were five miles out I'd already taken my clear glasses off and stuck them into the holes of my helmet.  Every now and then a couple of drops of water would drip off of the front of my helmet onto my nose.  My fronts of my arm-warmers, which by then I was quite glad to have worn, were accumulating a layer of water droplets, and I was glad I had picked the ones with the brushed lining. On the plus side, the group was a little on the small side and the pace was moderate.  Right after the turnaround, though, Howard and Robert rolled off the front undetected by me and disappeared into the mist.  We didn't see them again until the playground.

Remodeling

Monday they started tearing my kitchen apart.  Literally. We have started down that long dark road of renovation.  These things never go quite as planned, nor under budget.  After ripping out one wall I was glad to see that other than some old termite damage there wasn't any evidence of rotten wood.  There were surprises, of course.  When we took out an old cypress pantry that had clearly been added to the kitchen a very long time ago, we found a sheet of newspaper from 1940 on top of it.  The house dates from 1920, so I guess it took 20 years for the first remodeling job. There are all sorts of other little surprises, such as walls that don't line up with each other. We are hoping to salvage the original pine floor, which was hidden under three strata of renovations.  First, there was sheet linoleum glued to the original floor. 

On top of that was that particle board stuff, and glued on top of that was the rubber or vinyl tile that we've been living with for the past twenty-five years.  Since the relatively porous particle board was sandwiched between two basically waterproof layers, and since you knew water was going to find its way into it, I wasn't too surprised to find a fair amount of mold growing in there.  Anyway, I'm sure there will be more surprises to come.

So this morning the sky was cloudy and there was rain slowly approaching the city.  After missing so many miles last week, I was in no mood to throw in the towel too quickly today, so I aired up the tires on the rain bike, put on my old shoes with the old Look cleats on them, and headed off for the levee in the thick 65-degree morning air.  It had been raining for much of the night and the streets were damp which resulted in a fairly deserted bike path.  Without a speedometer I felt a little lost, and was running a little late, but I got in a good 22 miles anyway.  It's looking like the rest of the week should be fairly nice with mild temperatures and low chances of rain.

On the new bike front, I'm waiting for a couple of things to arrive before starting to build up the Bianchi, and just picked up a pair of Mavic wheels from Dwight so I will be able to leave my regular training wheels on the Orbea. 

I had my final collarbone followup appointment at TISM this afternoon. Although I have been feeling rather frustrated with the rate at which things have been healing, Dr. Savoie seemed pleased with the x-rays and commented that the callus looked good.  He said I was basically good to go and that it would probably be the better part of a year before everything was fully, totally healed.

Rough Week

It's been a rough week for riding thus far, having started out with two rainy mornings.  I went out into the humid chill on Monday with every expectation of doing a normal recovery ride.  It was overcast and therefore darker than usual, but I'd checked the forecast the night before and rain wasn't expected until later in the day.  I should have checked the radar.  I was only four miles from home when I felt the first light droplets hitting my cheeks.  By five miles I knew it was here to stay and I circled back toward home.  By then it was a steady but light drizzle.  I wanted nothing to do with getting soaked, being cold, or sliding around on slick streets, and was happy enough to make it home before getting truly wet. The next morning was even worse and I didn't even consider trying.  By Wednesday the front had passed and it was cooler and drier. I had two full days of meetings on my dance card, however, and would have to improvise.  On Wednesday that meant a short early morning ride that was mostly in the dark, but at least it was something. I'd normally have accumulated around 85 miles by the end of Wednesday's ride.  This week it was a mere 30.  I had an extra half-hour on Thursday, so I met the 6:15 group and was able to ride out to the little dip with it before turning around and coming back with Woody and Mignon and Daniel.  That one netted me 30 miles and even though I had to rush to get downtown in time for the first meeting, it was worth it. Today it was just Scott and me, ticking off the regular 26 mile ride at a steady 21-22 mph.  I'd received an interesting "gift card" from my sister-in-law for coffee at Zotz.  They don't actually *have* gift cards there, so she gave me this handwritten thing that said "Absolutely Legit" at the top.  Anyway, they did indeed have a little tab set up for me so I had a nice little Americano this morning after the ride.  Tomorrow I should be able to do the regular Giro Ride, but then on Sunday I have to go up to Brookhaven for the annual LAMBRA meeting.  As usual, a number of clubs are backing out of sending anyone there, claiming it's too far or that nobody can make it.  I'm about ready to just do away with the meeting and make up the rules and settle the schedule all by myself -  take it or leave it. Later, they will be complaining about the schedule or the LCCS rules or something else that happened in their absence. The fact that I will be giving up my first good opportunity this Fall for a long ride in the country is just another twist of the knife.  On Monday our contractor is going to start tearing up our kitchen, which I'm sure is going to present all sorts of unexpected challenges and expenditures, none of which I am looking forward to.  On the plus side, I bought a Bianchi Sempre frame (used, of course, and Celeste, of course) on Monday and am waiting for a few little bits and pieces to arrive before starting to build it up.  The geometry is extremely close to that of my Orbea, so I'm not expecting any big surprises and had originally planned on transferring stem, bars, seatpost, etc. from that bike to the new one, but late one night after a couple of glasses of wine, and considering the effects of the impending renovation project, christmas, and property taxes, I decided I deserved some new stuff instead.

The Long Weekend

It all started Thanksgiving morning.  Earlier in the week Mignon had innocently sent out an email suggesting a 7 am start time for a Thanksgiving Day ride.  We will often put together these "holiday" rides when a lot of people are off work on a weekday.  Of course, I was thinking this would be a nice smooth little group ride with some light conversation and just a sprinkling of actual training.  Apparently a number of others, however, were thinking of a long hammerfest race simulation to atone for the gluttony in which they were planning to indulge later in the day.  The group soft-pedaled for a while as it waited for a couple of late arrivals to catch up from the Playground, but as soon as they arrived the speed went up to 26 mph and pretty much stayed there. We lost a number of riders right off the bat.  The return trip felt more and more like a race the farther we went and when yet another surge took it up to 29 mph somewhere around the country club I decided it was time to dial it back a bit and let them go. The front group was basically sprinting for the bridge, I guess, because we caught up to them around the playground as most were heading for their cars. My daughter flew in that afternoon and we had a big Thanksgiving dinner that night, so I was more than happy to do a nice easy ride Friday morning.  Riding alone, I was able to enjoy the scenery and spotted a bald eagle near the bend in the river at the country club.  This is the time of year when I always seem to see eagles around here.

So on Saturday morning Joey D stopped by the house and joined me for the ride out to meet the Giro.  There was a pretty big group that included some of the LSU riders.  Apparently a few of the riders had deicded amongst themselves that the traditional warmup section of the Giro was too slow and decided to make it faster. Normally, riders roll out from Starbucks in a long disorganized string with lots of big gaps because they know that the group will be going slowly and everything will come back together halfway down Lakeshore Drive.  Well this time it didn't because the riders at the front were pushing the pace way above "normal."  Some riders had to chase hard to catch.  Others got dropped for good in the strong crosswind.  There was even a crash that I'm sure nobody at the front even knew about.  The rest of the Giro that day seemed like a windy road race in south Florida. There was a pretty strong northwest wind that kept the speed low but the effort level high. When the speed ramped up about a mile before the Venetian Isles sprint I backed off as the group started to shatter.  A moment later I saw the group coming back.  They had turned around way, way early for some reason.  In the process, they had left Brett Regan and Mike Williams, who had raced all the way to the usual turnaround, behind.  They ended up chasing all the way back and were not too happy about it, either. 

It was deep in Lakeview after Katrina

The return trip got pretty fast as well, especially when the route took us westward with the tailwind, and we spent a lot of time in the 26-30 mph range. It wasn't an easy ride, nor a very civilized one.  Afterward I stopped at NOLA Beans on Harrison Avenue for a club meeting to discuss our 2013-14 team kit and didn't get home and out of my own team kit until nearly noon.  A little brass plaque on the wall near the bathroom noted the Katrina water level.

Sunday morning I had to take The Daughter to the airport, so I missed the Giro, which was probably a good thing under the circumstances.  It was pretty cold in the morning, so I waited until around 10:30 and set off for a long solo ride on the river bike path, staying mostly in the 18-20 mph range and enjoying some pretty great weather.  I was still feeling guilty about all of the pecan pie, lemon merangue, turkey, turkey soup, stuffing, and wine I'd consumed when I went out this morning for what I expected to be 25 miles at a moderate pace. It was cloudy but the last weather forecast I'd seen had put the chance of rain at around 10% until later in the day.  It was wrong.  Five mile in I started to feel the drizzle and promptly made a u-turn for home, arriving rather damp but not yet drenched or cold.

Two Hundred Fifty

Two Hundred Fifty miles a week has always seemed to be the point at which, for me, I feel like I'm actually making progress. If I can string together two or three weeks at around that mileage I start to feel like I'm getting in shape. Of course there are some weeks during the racing season during which I might not hit that mark, but those are usually weeks in which I make up for lower mileage with higher intensity, otherwise known as "racing."  So anyway, last week I finally got back up to a 250 mile week for the first time since mid-September.  Although it should last, it probably won't if the weather and my unreasonable fear of cold have anything to say about it.

The wind that had been plaguing us around here for the better part of a week finally started to die down yesterday, and that, combined with the aforementioned 250-mile week, had me feeling particularly frisky on yesterday's long levee ride.  This morning the wind was nearly calm, and for some reason we had a rather large group of ten or twelve when we started.  With the slack wind and the traditional steady 22 mph Wednesday pace, it was an enjoyable ride. The temperature was in the mid-50s, riding to maybe 60, the sky was clear, and there was a light fog hugging the ground here and there.  Since the bike path is now closed downriver of the Orleans/Jefferson parish line to the Corps of Engineers Building, everyone dropped down onto River Road at Dakin Street with me today. Unfortunately, we got caught by a particularly long train.

Things are pretty quiet here in the office today. Faculty and students are both in short supply ahead of the holiday weekend, so I'm just hoping against hope that one or two of my emails will actually generate replies.  We have some consultant meetings next week and scheduling for them has been particularly difficult.  The annual LAMBRA meeting is scheduled for a week from next Sunday and as usual practically none of the clubs has put its race dates on the planning calendar.  I'll send out a reminder tonight and see if we can get some action on that. 

Tomorrow we have a 7 am  holiday ride up on the levee that should be nice.  We'll have a bunch of people over for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow evening so I know I'd better get my ride in early since the rest of the day will probably involve vacuum cleaners and trips to the grocery store.

So I should be working on building up a new (to me) bike soon. I'm guessing it will be a couple of weeks before I have everything together, assuming neither time nor money runs out first.  Yeah, I know.  The suspense is killing you, right?

Fair Weather and Festivals

November is always an interesting month around here.  One weekend the weather can be spectacular; the next it can be absolutely miserable.  Last weekend was a prime example of the former.  While our more latitude-challenged brethren to the north are busy selecting new snow shovels and expensive high-tech outerwear, we're just adding arm-warmers and full-finger gloves to our wardrobes and, when mother nature cooperates, enjoying brisk group rides under blue skies and feasting at Po-boy festivals.  I suppose there must be some benefits that come with living in places where the average winter temperature is below that in my refrigerator, but for the most part they escape me.

I had been expecting, perhaps hoping, that the Sunday Giro Ride would be a relatively civilized affair with speeds just above the training-effect threshold and well below the hypoxia threshold.  Some of it actually was, but as usual there were complications.  It was still pretty windy.  I was getting pretty damned tired of that wind which had been with us relentlessly for nearly a week, and as the pace ramped up along Hayne Boulevard I could tell it was going to be a factor. Sheltered in mid-pack, my effort level was merely moderate as the riders up front busted a hole through the chilly headwind.  I knew, however, that as soon as we turned south the speed would go up dramatically.  We went from 23 mph to 28 mph right away, slowing briefly as we turned east underneath I-510, and then surging right back up to 28 as we again turned south on the service road. Near the end of that road I heard some loud voices behind me that had been precipitated by Kenny slamming over a big chunk of concrete in the road at about 30 mph and pinch-flatting both tires. I think I'd hit the same thing on Saturday. He knew it would take a while to fix, so he told people to go ahead without him, but a number of us had already circled back to assist.  As it turned out, he'd actually managed to pinch-flat a tubeless tire on one wheel and a regular tube on the other.  One of the spare tubes was leaking at the stem, so it took about ten minutes, three tubes and four people to get him going again.  On the plus side, that meant a few miles of smooth easy paceline as we made our way down Chef Highway looking for the group on its return trip.

The first two or three riders we first saw were way out in front of the group and hammering away with the tailwind.  Nobody even considered turning around to latch onto them.  Instead we turned ahead of the main group that, at least for the moment, was going around 24 mph.  Soon, that 24 mph became 26, 29, 31 mph, but it was for only a few miles and there was a strong tailwind.  There was another section like that when we got onto Hayne Blvd., again with a tailwind.  That tailwind, however, wasn't much help with getting me over the two overpasses, however.  It still hurts to pull hard on the handlebars, so riders were passing me like I was standing still on the uphill sections.  After riding back home I went right back out to meet a few of the Tulane riders to do a few easy laps around Audubon Park, which at least let me make up for the miles I missed while criticizing Kenny's tire-changing technique.  Later that afternoon I walked over to Oak Street for a brief visit to the Po-Boy Festival that included a Shrimp Remolade Po-boy and a frozen Nectar cream soda, neither of which you are likely to find elsewhere.

The Small Group

All indications were that it would be an awesome day for riding. The 40F morning temperature would be climbing up to around 70, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the wind was relatively light.  As riders began filtering in to the Starbucks patio where the Giro Ride starts, it became clear that almost everyone was planning on "going long" today.  The winter Giro Rides, particularly on Saturdays, usually have a group that goes past the usual turnaround point at Venetian Isles and continues all the way to Slidell. I guess that works out to around 40 miles each way, so for those who ride out to meet the group and ride home afterwards, that can mean a 100-110 mile ride.  Of course, it's dead flat and there's a group to ride with, but still, it can be a hard ride, especially if you have to deal with a lot of wind out there where there's water on both sides of the road.  And there's always a lot of wind out there.  I'd decided to give it another week before venturing out on a long group ride like that.  I'm still getting home with some soreness around my neck and shoulder.

Long shadows as the Giro rolls out along Lakeshore Drive

Since so many people were planning on going long, the pace out to Venetian Isles remained mostly moderate.  Mostly.  There were a couple of surges into the upper 20s, but for the most part we were rolling along in the 22-26 mph range.  When I finally turned around at the usual spot I was surprised how few other riders did likewise. I guess there were only ten or so who didn't continue out to Slidell today. As we started to get rolling again Jeff came up and said there were a few others chasing, so we eased up to let them catch.  In the meantime, Brian had gone off on his own, and when the gap went out to thirty seconds or so a couple of other riders took off to bridge up to him.  The rest of the group just kept rolling along at 24 or so. I contemplated going after them for a while because the gap wasn't really growing very fast.  When we had to stop for traffic at an intersection, though, they pretty much disappeared up the road and we didn't see them again.  I arrived back home with about 60 miles on the computer, as usual.

Little Jorge

It was easy recovery ride day today, so I decided to go meet the Tulane riders over at the nearby Reily Center for their 6:30 am ride. The early morning temperatures are still hovering about the 48-50 degree mark down here on the south side of Lake Pontchartrain, and I'm still dressing as if they were in the 42-45 degree range.  Since I knew we would riding easy and that there was still a significant north wind, I was pretty sure I wouldn't have to deal with any heatstroke-related issues anyway. I had been over at the LBS the night before for a "fit party" and was glad to see a couple of new faces there.  Likewise, the Friday ride included one rider on a brand-new Giant. The ride was pretty mellow, as planned, but still separated on the way back into the headwind.  My right hand kept going numb and the shoulder felt particularly achy today, and I guess it will be another week or so before all those muscles and tendons stop complaining. Pat, who was coming from the Ormond end of the levee bike path, met us on the way out and then stayed with us all the way back where the two of us stopped at Zotz for coffee.  I was already running late but couldn't resist the offer. 

Jorge, some time in the 80s

While we were sitting there a rider in full team kit pulled up and I was surprised to recognize him as Jorge Cardona.  I think he's been up in Massachusetts where he works as a bike mechanic, as I recall.  Jorge (everyone uses the English "George" version) is from New Orleans and did a lot of racing here in the 80's.  He was always really strong and, since he is hearing-impaired, we used to say that he just couldn't hear his legs complaining.  At the time, there was another Jorge, namely Jorge Merle, racing here.  We called the former Jorge "Little Jorge" and latter "Big Jorge."  Jorge Merle is still a very active racer in Houston, and Jorge Cardona, judging by his Facebook page, seems to do a lot of travelling and shows up in New Orleans every now and then.  Anyway, he picked up a drink and stopped to shake hands before riding off down Oak Street.  I'm sure that one of the things that lured him down here is the Oak Street Po-Boy Festival coming up this Sunday. A few minutes later I followed suit, already running forty-five minutes behind schedule.

Strava

Almost a year's worth of Strava

A long, long time ago, back in the days when the only things that were wireless were AM radio stations, bike racers kept training diaries.  Every year around Christmas I'd buy a new one.  They were usually intended for runners, as those were the most readily available.  Occasionally I'd plan ahead enough to order one from Velo-News, and once in a while I'd get the ones Joe Friel was selling.  I'd start the year enthusiastically, determined to log valuable information after each ride -- distance, time, effort level, ride type, terrain, wind, etc.  There were even a few years when I actually managed to do that for almost the whole season.  It was extremely valuable information, and I'd often find myself looking back at prior years to see how my training and racing compared to a particular year during which I raced well.  Usually, however, the consistent half-page diary entries of February would sputter down to a handful of characters by June.  Often, I'd just write down the number of miles I'd ridden and perhaps a note along the lines of "felt terrible" or "cold and rainy." The one thing that I usually managed to salvage, however, was the mileage number.  When I started using a bike computer that was actually reliable enough to survive an entire season, around the late 80s or early 90s, I could at least keep track of my annual mileage without writing it down and adding it up.  By then I had a pretty good feel for what worked and what didn't and keeping up a detailed log seemed redundant. In addition to the many little nuances regarding intensity vs. recovery, a couple of very consistent things emerged from those twenty or twenty-five years of records.  I learned that I don't start to feel like I'm really in shape until late April or May, and only when I have been able to string together a few 250 mile weeks.  I also discovered that in a typical year I consistently, without ever setting it as a goal, logged something very close to 11,000 miles.  These are not remarkable numbers for a mid-level bike racer.  So I went maybe ten years without keeping any sort of daily log, training by feel and prior experience, riding those 11,000 miles over and over again.

So at the end of January of this year, having recently acquired a nice Samsung smartphone, I downloaded Strava and decided to track all of my rides with it.  So far, so good.  So for the first time in a decade or so, I can look back on the season and get some glimpse of how it all went.  The first surprise was finding three months in the early season during which I rode exactly the same number of hours.  Indeed, of the nine full months I've tracked so far, seven had between 48 and 54 hours of training.  I can see where, except for the Tour de Louisiane weekend when I officiated, May and June were very solid months, and I remember going into the Vuelta de Acadiana on the last weekend of June feeling pretty good, at least until I crashed and broke a couple of ribs.  So July suffered a bit for that, and also because I spent three or four weekend days at the velodrome.  August brought a reasonably good race despite having spent much of July at low-intensity because of the broken ribs, but mileage suffered because of another weekend of officiating.  So I started September with some consistent mileage and a few decent races, but never got back to that fitness I'd been approaching way back at the end of May, so I was looking forward to my now-traditional trip to the 6-Gap Century at the end of the month to put a decent bookend on the season. I was feeling pretty good for that, having been careful to allow for some recovery time the week before, and for the first fifty miles I was feeling confident I'd be able to post a good time. Well, we all know how that ended up. I would have been a lot happier if I'd crashed and broken a collarbone *after* the Hogpen climb rather than before it!  So the broken collarbone basically eliminated the entire month of October.  I did a little riding, mostly alone and never really worthy of the term "training," and then spent another week off the bike entirely with travel.  It was the second week of November before I did anything that I would call training, and by then I'd gained weight and lost a lot of fitness, and with no races on the calendar I've already resolved myself to a couple of months of long, slow distance base training.  Even so, it's been great to be able to look back at my training miles with Strava, and would probably be even more enlightening if I had power meter data as well.  It has certainly been a lot easier to maintain than those old training diaries were.  So thanks, Strava!  On the down side, I can clearly see that I'll end the year maybe 800 miles short. Of course I shouldn't be surprised under the circumstances, but still.....

All the Wrong Places

It was 49F this morning when I took off in search of the Wednesday morning levee ride, and it still feels really cold to me.  At least it's not dark at 6:30 am right now.  I can't really imagine making my way out to the WeMoRi ride that starts at, I think, 5:45 near the lakefront.  Like yesterday, there were just a few of us on hand, but fortunately the wind has finally started to die down a bit, allowing for a far smoother little paceline out to the parish line and back. Although there is always this mild dull ache over the place where my collarbone broke, the things that were really bothering me today were the stiffness all the way from elbow to wrist from the tennis elbow and a fair amount of soreness all around my right shoulder.  I guess I've been kind of pushing the range-of-motion envelope lately, and between that and the cold air and the weaker than normal musculature, and perhaps the somewhat altered shoulder geometry, I shouldn't be too surprised.  I just hope it all resolves itself over the next couple of weeks because I would really like to make some of the winter northshore rides without being too miserable, or too off-the-back.

So now that I am getting back into a more regular training routine I'm starting to think again about the bike.  It's clearly time to look into finding a new frame and building it up with that Campi 11-speed stuff I got from Matt, but which way to go?  The choices are (a) a nice used frame, (b) a new brand-name frame, or (c) a "generic" frame.  It goes without saying that a, b and c would be carbon-fiber, although I might still consider something along the lines of the aluminum Cannondale Caad-10.  Each choice, however, has it's drawbacks.  Finding a nice used frame in my size with race geometry is difficult, and of course a little risky.  The brand-name route is great, but of course it gets really expensive really fast.  Frames like the Bianchi Sempre would fall into that category. A lot of the frames in the right price category have those ridiculous long-head-tube "comfort" geometries that make no sense at all for the type of riding I do, especially considering my somewhat abnormal handlebar height preference. The "generic" frame category would include frames like the ones Neuvation sells.  Those are usually rather plain looking but still tempting.

Winter Wind

Ten miles in and my shoulder muscles were already screaming. Granted, the muscles in my shoulder, especially the right one, are used primarily to deliver food and wine from table to mouth. I'd pushed myself out the door this morning into a cold, gusty north wind, with no plan other than to ride the bike. Along with the wind, the night's cold front had also brought a morning temperature in the upper 40s.  It was the coldest it's been so far this fall, and as a result it felt about ten degrees colder than it was.  I dressed extra-warmly, which I never regretted.

The turnout was predictably sparse up on the levee, but it worked out nicely since five is the maximum number of riders that constitutes a functional eschelon on one of these severe crosswind days on the narrow bike path.  Fortunately for me they all knew how to control their bikes. Even so, the ride felt like a massive struggle with my own front wheel, trying on the one hand to keep it in the draft, and on the other to keep it out of the wheel of the rider ahead.  I use the term "ahead" loosely of course, because there were lots of times when the best drafting location had my front wheel even with the bottom bracket of the rider ahead of me. There was no chance to relax, and we were only halfway out when I could feel all of the muscles around my right shoulder and neck starting to tighten up and hurt.  The extra work of keeping the bike pointed forward and staying in the paceline was taking a toll on a shoulder that had not been exercised in six weeks, and although the pace was only moderate at best, I was hurting.  After we crossed the parish line upriver of Jefferson, I came alongside Woody to tell him I was going to sit up and relax for a while.  It helped.  Soon enough, however, I turned around and merged back into the paceline, taking only an occasional pull and mostly just surfing the wheels at the back.

Yesterday evening I'd had a followup visit at TISM, the upshot of which was that the collarbone was healing normally, the callus formation looked good, and try as he might, Dr. Savoie couldn't detect any bone movement at the break.  So with a slightly more-sore collarbone thanks to the manipulation, and directions to "come back in about a month for a final x-ray," I had headed home as the temperature was dropping, knowing already that Tuesday's ride would be a tough one.

Square One

The Sunday Giro

I rode out from the house into the quiet Saturday morning air.  With the streets still deserted I could hear the light "tick, tick, tick" of the computer's wheel sensor each time the magnet passed it. I felt like I was starting back at square-one, riding-wise. This would be, hopefully, my first full Giro Ride since I'd broken my collarbone on the last day of October. Even worse, I'd been off the bike for a full week attending first the USAC Local Associations conference in Colorado Springs, and then the NCURA annual conference in Washington D.C., finally returning home in the wee hours of Thursday morning.  It had been a long week, and even now I'm still playing catch-up.

Looking west near USAC headquarters in Colorado Springs

The LA conference had gone well.  USAC is working on a new insurance and officiating structure for track racing, which is long overdue.  There was, of course, a lot of discussion about doping.  USAC gets about 350 tests a year from USADA, but is trying to add some additional funding so they can do more.  Even so, the most efficient mechanism for catching dopers is the USADA hotline. They are looking closely at the Florida model for that, along with taking a more pro-active approach to information dissemination and working with promoters.  It still costs about $6,000 to do maybe ten tests at an event, so for many races it will be impossible without some sort of subsidy.  Shawn is working on a major revision (mostly structural) of the rulebook that will rearrange things in a more reasonable way, clarify some things that are fuzzy, and, interestingly, officially allow riders to race up a category in time trials. There was also a lot of discussion and analysis of the "new rider" experience.  Where they come from, why they start racing, why they don't renew their licenses, etc.  The top two reasons for not continuing to race:  Distance to races (85 mi. seems to be the key distance), and lack of appropriate categories.  They're working on a curriculum for racing skills clinics and will be offering a Skills Instructor certification for coaches.  There is also now the Race Director certification program where RDs can take the test online to get certified. Since each club gets one free RD license, they should all designate someone for that position.  We listened to the always terrifying discussion of insurance, the only bright light there being a new optional bicycle insurance program that they will be rolling out in 2013 through Markel.

From chilly Colorado I flew over to even chillier Washington for the annual NCURA conference and three solid days of sessions and nights of "networking" that included trying to keep track of the election returns in the midst of the party and, later, in our region's hospitality suite.  Being the Southeastern Region, we had two full bars going so we ended up with a lot of people from other regions.  Anyway, I was pretty wiped out by the time I got a standby seat to Chicago for a long wait for the last leg back home.  I lucked out on the standby seat, since my original flight ended up seriously delayed because of the big storm that came through in the northeast.

So, getting back to this weekend, I felt reasonably good on the Saturday Giro, although it was a little stressful trying to find that balance between staying in the draft while at the same time leaving a little more reaction space than usual between my wheel and the one ahead of me.  The group split on the way back down Chef, and I was kind of glad I ended up in the second group because that old competitive instinct would probably have found me taking more chances than I should have otherwise.  The collarbone is still a little ways from completely healed, but yesterday marked six weeks post-injury, so it wasn't too much of a distraction.  I spent the rest of the day standing behind a table in City Park where I'd been volunteered to sell beer tickets a the annual SPCA New Orleans on Tap beer festival.  I was handling the credit card purchases using an iPhone and Square, which I'm thinking we should get for the NOBC so we can take credit cards at events in the middle of nowhere.

Having survived Saturday, I decided to up the ante on Sunday and put in some extra make-up miles. The plan was to ride the Giro as conservatively as possible, ride back home to refuel, then ride out to the levee and head upriver to around Norco and hopefully meet the LSU riders who were doing their annual Baton Rouge to New Orleans 100+ mile ride, along with a couple of Tulane riders. It had been pretty windy on the Giro Ride, and by the time I got out to the levee around 10:30 there was a relentless gusty southeast wind blowing at 10-15 mph.  I knew the ride back would be long and hard, and I had no good idea of where the LSU ride was, so I rode at an easy sightseeing speed out past Ormond.  I'd figured that the earliest they could possibly get to the spillway was 11 am, and that noon was more likely. I rode around there for a little while and then stopped at the benches in front of Ormond plantation for quite a while to wait, hanging around there until 1:00 with no riders in sight.  By then I was getting pretty hungry and was starting to wonder if they had been seriously delayed.  I finally decided to head back alone in to the headwind.  All the way back I was in the 12-15 mph range.  I saw David and Celeste heading the other direction as I got nearer to town.  I think they were able to meet the group and ride in with those riders, but by then I was looking at over 100 miles on the computer and thinking obsessively about food, and specifically about the big bowl of leftover Halloween candy in the living room.  Tonight should be my final follow-up visit to the orthopedist!

Off-Track

Having survived at least the conversational part of the Saturday Giro Ride, along with the ride to and from, with my collarbone still intact, I set about gathering up the items needed for the weekend's volunteer officiating duties.  While this is normally a fairly quick process, doing so with a still-healing collarbone required a slower and more deliberate process.  The heavier items, like the PA system and tent, would have to await assistance from Mark and Graeme who would be going up with me to the Baton Rouge Velodrome for the QDS Systems Track Omnium. I filled a plastic bin with clipboards, paper, stopwatches, bell, megaphone, printer, table, chair, etc., and went upstairs to pack some warm clothes.  The races wouldn't be starting until around 5:30 and the temperature was going to be dropping rather dramatically, and since I would be spending a few hours standing in the wind on the wrong side of the Blue Band, I knew I'd best plan for Arctic conditions.  The night before I had been particularly proud of myself for discovering the "Large" function in Excel which would allow me to build the results spreadsheet for the omnium in such a way that it would automatically total only the top five scores for each rider.  I had also downloaded the "SloPro" application for my iPad.  I had heard of people using it for bike race finish judging and since the LAMBRA cameras were all up in Monroe I figured I'd give it a try.  Of course I knew it wouldn't work once it got dark unless we had some heavy duty lighting on the finish line, which we didn't, but the schedule called for races on Sunday morning too, so that looked like it might work. 

By 3 pm we had packed Mark's new car to the ceiling with equipment and the three of us headed west on I-10 for the drive up to Baton Rouge. By the time we arrived the sky was clear and sunny and there was a stiff north wind blowing.  I was glad I'd brought lots of warm clothes.  The turnout was fairly good by our standards, which is to say there were more than twenty riders on hand for the evening's events.  Everyone was grouped into Cat. 1/2/3, Cat. 4, Cat. 5, or Women since we didn't have enough Masters or Juniors, which is not uncommon.  The events went off pretty smoothly thanks to the LSU team which has hosted a number of track races over the last few years, and we wrapped things up for the evening around 8:30 pm or so, leaving us time to get something to eat before heading over to Dustin's place.  As we pulled up to the house, Dustin was just getting out of his car.  He shuffled over to me and said he had just come down with a bad migraine headache and would be heading immediately for a dark room.  He was in really bad shape and ended up emptying his stomach a few times that night.  The three of us crashed in the living room where I had a decent night's sleep zipped into my trusty old 1983 vintage Marmot sleeping bag.  Sunday morning it was probably in the upper 40s when we headed off to the track, and although I knew it would be warming up a bit, I still went pretty heavy on the clothes.  It's one thing to be racing, it's quite another to be standing around with a stopwatch and clipboard.  Anyway, the races went smoothly despite the usual last-minute rearrangements to accommodate the relatively small field sizes.  A miss-and-out with only three women is really just a very short scratch race, so we changed that to matched sprints.  We also combined some of the categories for the Miss-and-Out to save a little time and make it more interesting.  I was quite impressed with the little iPad and SloPro software which produced quite nice frame-by-frame finish line video.  It's not exactly FinishLynx, but with adequate lighting it was just about as good as our usual digital camera system, plus it was extremely convenient -- no wires, no files or flashdrives to transfer, etc.  Just aim at the finish line, shoot the video, and then view the video in real time or frame-by-frame by dragging a finger along the timeline. While the races were going on, they had someone cooking up a big pot of jambalaya - real jambalaya, not that red creole version you sometimes get here in New Orleans.

So by the time I got home and unloaded everything I could tell that my collarbone and shoulder in general had gotten a pretty good workout despite my efforts to avoid it.  It wasn't so bad as to keep me off the bike Monday morning for another easy solo ride.  This morning I went out and met the 6:15 am group on the levee.  The plan was to sit safely off the back and turn back early, which is almost what I did.  Almost.  Actually, since there were only three or four of us at the start, I went ahead and stayed in the paceline for a while (still keeping a bit of a gap between the guy ahead and myself).  Along the way we picked up a few more riders and by the time we got out to the country club the pace was getting faster.  Of course it was still over half an hour before sunrise.  Just after the country club curve there was a walker on our side of the path and also an oncoming rider or something, so we had to hit the brakes amid much loud verbalizing that practically scared the hell out of the lady who was walking (in the dark without so much as a reflective stripe on her shoes).  At that point I decided it would be prudent to revert to my original plan of hanging a bike length or so off the bike to allow for a little extra reaction time.  That's where I stayed until we go to the parish line where I eased up and rode a few more miles to the dip alone before turning around and heading home.  So I'm still gradually working my way back into a training routine as the collarbone continues to solidify, but I think it will be a couple of weeks yet before I'm ready to jump back in to the big group rides. I'll be heading to Colorado Springs on Friday for the annual Local Association conference at USA Cycling and from there to Washington DC for a research administration conference, so after those six days off the bike I figure I'll be ready to ease right into early Base Training mode for the rest of November and December.  It's a plan, anyway.

Not There Yet

A cool front pushed through overnight and after checking the temperature I decided it would be wise to hunt through the "winter clothes drawer" for the knee-warmers.  Ordinarily I might have just suffered through the first hour of chilly legs, knowing that once the Giro Ride got going I would warm up quickly.  Since my collarbone is clearly not there yet, however, I knew I'd better dress warmly because I wouldn't be riding hard enough or long enough to really get warmed up.  I was glad I did.  I headed out to meet the group straight into a pretty strong north wind, and for a little while even wondered if the two jerseys, arm-warmers and knee-warmers would be enough to keep me comfortable on this first truly chilly ride of what passes for Fall around here.  Since the Voodoo Fest was in full swing this weekend, and I didn't want to have to deal with any early-rising Metallica groupies, I decided to take the Canal Blvd. route instead of my usual route through City Park.  As I was making my way down Canal, Woody and Eddie came by, so I latched onto them for the rest of the trip to Starbucks.  I shouldn't have been surprised to find a fairly long line waiting for coffee this morning.  The other thing I was surprised to find there was Ben, who had gotten his broken jaw un-wired earlier in the week and was out for his first post-crash cautious ride with the group.  This was good because I was planning on riding just to the end of Lakeshore Drive.  The collarbone is still a pretty long way from being ready for action, and it will be another week or two at least before I'm comfortable doing fast group ride.  Ben was being equally cautious, and I could tell that he was feeling every little bump in the road.  The sky stayed overcast the whole time, so I was glad I'd piled on the clothes this morning.

So the collarbone seems to be progressing normally, which is to say that it is getting kind of frustrating.  There was a lot of noticeable improvement between week 2 and week 3, but that has slowed down a whole lot this week.  I guess part of it is that without the brace I tend to try to do more with the arm and pushing the "range of motion" envelope, usually unintentionally, results in a more consistent dull ache, especially when I'm doing things like typing.  I probably should have invested in some kinesio tape last week to ease the transition.  Oh well.  Maybe next time.....

This afternoon I'll be heading up to Baton Rouge with Mark to officiate the track races at the Baton Rouge Velodrome tonight and tomorrow morning.  I'll be bringing a lot of warm clothes with me for sure!

Followup

The Sports Medicine Institute was still going strong at 7 pm last night when I showed up for my followup appointment. I leaned back against the x-ray machine's film plate, which I'm sure doesn't actually contain "film" nowadays, as the technician set things up for the standard two pictures. 

Later, as I stood in the waiting room, I listened as Dr. Savoie discussed another case with the residents just outside the door.  A few minutes later he popped into the room and said, "It's looking pretty good.  Come see." The x-ray showed the somewhat diffuse fuzziness around the break indicative of the early stages of healing.  He said I could stop wearing the brace and start gradually getting back to normal activities as long as I promised not to fall.  I didn't tell him I'd already been back on the bike.  While he was there I described the stiffness and pain I've been having in my right elbow ever since the hurricane. He reached up and put his finger precisely on the spot where it hurts the most.  "Tennis elbow," he said, launching into a description of the problem and saying, basically, that it's a tough thing to get rid of.  He said he'd tried injecting all sorts of things into such elbows and that it didn't really seem to matter what it was. His impression was that the needle itself was what helped the most, causing enough irritation to stimulate the increased blood flow that is what is really needed.  His best suggestion was frequent massage, but he handed me a prescription for something that I could get the pharmacist to mix up.  I suspect it is based on horse liniment. Anyway, I walked out with the x-brace in my hand and a followup appointment in three weeks.

This morning I decided to ride over to the Reily Center to meet the 6:30 am Tulane group so I could drop off my "recreational" membership dues.  I felt kind of vulnerable riding without the brace, and after a few miles could feel a little soreness around my neck as the muscles that hadn't had to fully support my arm and shoulder got an unfamiliar workout.  I'd expected to drop off the back of the group or maybe even just ride laps around Audubon Park, but the group was doing an easy ride today so I stayed with them for a couple of laps around the park and then up onto the levee bike path, always trying to keep a couple of extra feet of space between the rider ahead and myself.  Although normal steady riding doesn't seem to be a problem at all, sudden braking definitely hurts and any kind of fall would be really painful at best.  Even so, it was a perfect morning for riding -- not too cool and not too warm, with virtually no wind at all.  I finally pulled off on the way back to drop down the ramp onto River Road and pick up Oak Street to go home.  As I came down the ramp I glanced over my left shoulder, calculating the speed and timing necessary to merge smoothly into a gap between the cars.  Then I noticed some guy who was stopped at the bottom of the ramp.  As I was contemplating my options, he picked up his bike and turned it sideways, completely blocking the path.  Sheesh.  Of course I had to hit the brakes and go around him on the grass, which meant I completely missed slotting into the traffic, so I ended up on the edge of the road for a while until a couple of cars went by and I could move away from the edge. No problem, really, but under the circumstances I'd have preferred a smoother transition.

Test Rides

I rode slowly, carefully, down the dark and quiet streets toward the lakefront.  I could feel the cool October air blowing through the new crop of hair on my legs and made a mental note to do something about that. The Orbea was still sporting its Rolf race wheels and 6-Gap cassette, since it really didn't seem worth the considerable effort to swap out cassettes and wheels one-handed at the end of the season. 

It had been almost three weeks since I'd smashed my right collarbone and I had decided it was time from a little test ride out to meet the Saturday Giro.  I figured that the five and a half miles to Starbucks would be a good start, providing I took my time and stuck to the quiet streets.  I was surprised how well it went, actually.  The first broken collarbone, back in 2008, was still quite painful after five weeks, but this one felt quite different.  I rode for a long time with my hands on the tops with no complaints whatsoever, and eventually slid down onto the brake hoods where I was equally comfortable.  The only discomfort came when I changed hand positions, so for the most part I just didn't do that with my right hand. Of course I was still wearing the x-brace.  On the one hand, the brace definitely helps stabilize the whole collarbone and shoulder.  On the other, it makes it difficult to reach upward and forward with my right arm (which is pretty much its intended function).  Riding more on the tip of the saddle than usual seemed to help a bit. So after the Giro rolled out (it will be a couple of weeks yet before I'm willing to risk getting in the middle of a group ride) I headed back home to formulate plans for the next week.

I didn't ride on Sunday, and instead took a long walk and did some work around the house. I'd had the electrician over during the week to change the routing of the house's electrical service.  For reasons lost to history, the main service to the house came in to one corner, and from there three separate wires, in places devoid of insulation, wrapped around the back of the house, through three separate porcelain insulators, across the back shed roof (that used to be the back porch) with only about four inches of clearance, to the opposite corner where they finally entered conduit and came down to the meter located mid-way down the length of the house on the opposite side of the drop.  It was basically an electrical inspector's nightmare.  We are starting on an expensive remodel of the kitchen and this was basically step one.  Anyway, on Sunday I fabricated some sheet aluminum sections to seal off the holes left in the antique aluminum siding where the meter had been.

So this morning was test ride number two. I was aiming for twenty miles on the levee bike path, which is always especially quiet on Mondays. This time I was going to try to get just a little bit of exercise without going too fast or taking any chances.  It worked out fine, although I was feeling pretty paranoid as I rode the last mile or so down Carrollton Avenue in traffic.  I have a followup visit with Dr. Savoie tonight (7 pm!), so I'll wait until I see how that goes before making plans for the rest of the week.