No Ride, My Choice

Yeah, I know. It's all relative.

I woke up early this morning, a bit after 5:00, and listened for a moment for the sound of car tires on the streets outside the window. I knew without looking that the streets were wet, but I looked anyway. Picking up the cellphone on the nightstand I pulled up the weather radar which just confirmed what I already knew. The line of very light rain ahead of the next cold front was almost past us on its way east. Outside, it looked cold and windy. In reality it was little of the former and more of the latter, but I could have easily gone out on the rain bike to slog out twenty or thirty miles on the levee. I chose instead to take a day off the bike. It had been fifteen days since my last day off and this particular chilly, damp morning seemed like a good time to cash in whatever virtual chips I'd accumulated. Tomorrow I'll be back on the bike as usual, a bit over-dressed to ease myself into what will likely be a couple of slightly chilly mornings.

Over the years I've learned a few things about myself and the month of November. As much of a psychological struggle it may be for me to get out the door when it's cold and windy, it's always worth it. In another month, providing I get out there and ride every day, I'll be acclimated and it will all be better. For the morning rides I'll add an extra layer, or two, so I'm warm and comfortable at the start. That's not how everyone does it, of course. Lots of riders dress for how they will feel ten miles into the ride rather than how they will feel as they step out the door. Totally understandable. For me, I know that if I did that all I'd remember the next morning would be how freaking cold I was at the start, not how hot I was at the end. Anyway, it's not even winter yet, at least not around here. I doubt I'll see a temperature below 50 on the bike until December. But it's all relative, isn't it?

At lunch time today I walked the three blocks over the the Med School cafeteria with the wind whipping through the buildings so I could have a slightly warm vegetable plate. There's a cafeteria right here in my building, but when I went down there around 1 pm there was absolutely nothing there that looked even remotely appetizing, which is saying a lot because my standards for lunch are extremely low to begin with.

At the moment I'm kind of dreading the ride from work back home. In just half an hour or so the sun, which has spent most of today behind the clouds anyway, will be down and although the temperature will be just barely below 60F, I know it will feel colder than that and I'll wish I'd brought more than a light wind vest with me this morning.

Sun and Fog

Saturday Giro heading over the Seabrook bridge in the fog.

Finally on Sunday we switched back to standard time, which meant it was only a little dark as I rode out to meet the Giro group at Starbucks. The prior day's Giro had been fairly foggy, but still quite fast, and by Sunday I was starting to feel the effects. I guess we'll be dealing with morning fog off-and-on for the next month or so depending on the wind direction and speed. This time of year, if the temperature is warm like it's been, and the wind is fairly calm, fog forms over the river and lake and basically anywhere there's water, which is to say most of New Orleans. So despite the time change that put the Giro start just about ten minutes before actual sunrise, I left the lights on the bike since riding in a fog is probably more risky than riding in the dark when it comes to distracted speeding car drivers. The Saturday Giro seemed pretty fast. A bunch of the Tulane riders were there, so I think there was a fair amount of competition going on up near the front. I was content to sit in the group and just make some brief but intense efforts for a few of the sprints.

At the game.

For a change, I hadn't had any major complications that impacted my morning riding routine, so going into the weekend it was looking like I'd easily hit my normal 250-275 miles for the week. Following Saturday's Giro we walked over to Tulane to watch the homecoming football game. I'd spend much of Friday at the LBC on the uptown campus handing out name-tags to alumni and families. Homecoming seems to be more of a big deal than it used to be, and although the football stadium was a long way from being sold out, I was glad to see a solid turnout in the student section at the South end. The game itself was pretty good I guess, as football games go, and the home team put on a decent show even though they lost by one point after blowing a field goal in the final couple of minutes and having had a touchdown called back earlier because of a holding penalty. Going to football games doesn't do anything good for my nutritional plan, of course. Dinner was basically a warm beer, french fries, and peanuts.

TUCA Sunday Social - such nice weather!

So Sunday night I set my wristwatch back one hour and remembered not to set anything else back since most of the other clocks do that automatically nowadays. By the time I got out to Starbucks, around 6:30 am, it was already fairly light, which was nice. There wasn't too much in the way of fog like there had been on Saturday, although it was still around here and there. The ride itself was a bit more civilized than Saturday's, although it did have its moments. About half-way through I decided I'd try and also make the Tulane Cycling Sunday Social starting at 10:30. Arriving back home around 9:45 or so, I had lots of time to refuel before heading over to campus. There I found a nice group of six or seven. By then the weather was getting a bit warm but it was otherwise nearly perfect for riding. The ride kind of meandered its way out to the lakefront by which time one of the new guys was starting to lag behind. The plan, such as it was, had us heading over to Rouler on the way back, but when we got to Esplanade a couple of riders split off to head back early. Of course they were already off the back before we turned onto Esplanade, so we ended up waiting for a while before figuring out that they weren't coming. I was kind of dreading having to ride through downtown, myself, but figured I'd tag along anyway. After stopping at about a zillion stop lights we finally made our way to Rouler, but by then a few more needed to get back, so I didn't even go inside and instead rode back uptown with two of the riders.

Things are starting to drop off. Situation normal.....

So I ended the week with over 300 miles, most of which wasn't anything to write home about. I've been kind of tracking my imaginary fitness this year with the Stravistix Google plug-in for Strava, and it makes it really obvious how the general level of ride intensity has been dropping off now that we are into "No Pain NoVember." As it should be, I guess.

Tuesday morning on the levee. There's a group up there.

Next weekend is the annual Varsity to Varsity ride from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, and I guess I'll probably end up driving riders up to Baton Rouge, driving back, jumping on the bike, and riding upriver until I meet the group. I think I ended up getting around 90 miles doing that last year, so it still makes for a long day. Then the following weekend there are a couple of cyclocross races in Mississippi for which I will probably help officiate.

Tuesday morning's ride on the river was really foggy the entire way. We weren't going very hard, but by the time I got home I was soaking wet from the fog. I'd had to take my glasses off as soon as I got to the levee. That Mississippi River water is still ice cold!

Chilled Out

Wednesday morning cool-down - windy and cooler but not yet "cold."

Last week was my lowest mileage week since I broke my collarbone on a car way back in the Spring. The reasons were numerous - work responsibilities, officiating responsibilities, domestic responsibilities. Somehow these things always seem to come together this time of year, so I guess it was "situation normal."

Most of the weekday rides were largely in the dark, not particularly hard, and not particularly cold. Speaking of cold, the air-conditioner stopped cooling again last weekend and so on Tuesday I was at home with the technicians who installed a new coil for the bargain price of about two grand. The weather around here had already been cooling down a bit, and I knew that the mere act of repairing the A/C would practically guarantee the prompt arrival of a cold front. Indeed, by the time the thing was fixed Tuesday evening it was already cool enough that it has only rarely kicked on at all (although I think it will be running a bit next week). For the past three or four days we've been quite comfortable with just open windows and ceiling fans.

I went out on Wednesday for the WeMoRi, arriving a little later than I've been recently, merging into the group on Marconi. It's so freaking dark for the morning rides right now that I'm really having a hard time putting in much effort. We've got just one more week until the switch back to standard time on Sunday, and for those of us who ride in the mornings, it can't come soon enough. It was cool enough on Wednesday for arm-warmers or long-sleeve jerseys. Another cold front moved through shortly afterward, so by Thursday and Friday I was searching through my stuff for knickers and long-sleeve jerseys. Unfortunately, Friday was my last day to ride because I had to go up to Baton Rouge on Saturday morning to officiate the LAMBRA Track Championships.

Linescan finish camera image from the Velodrome

Up at the Velodrome I was wearing a fleece pullover and winter jacket, and every time I'd step out of the sun, which fortunately wasn't very often, I'd get cold. Everybody has complications this time of year, and officials are no exceptions. I could officiate on Saturday morning, but absolutely had to be out of there at 1 pm because we were having our annual neighborhood Halloween party that night. Ricky had come down from Monroe to officiate on Saturday, but had to go back for Sunday.

Closest finish of the day

Mike was out of town, but the LAMBRA camera and stuff were at his house, so Ricky had to pick that up in the morning.  We ran the flying 200 qualifiers, the Points races, and the first round of Matched Sprints, finishing up right at 1 pm, which worked out great for me. The Points Races are always hard to judge. You have to pick four-deep for each sprint, keep track of the leaders, keep track of the "pack" (if any), keep track of lapped riders, keep track of riders to gain a lap, and remember to score double points for the finish sprint. Luckily there were only one or two sprints where we had to confirm the finish order with the camera. In the afternoon after I'd left, Chris came in to help officiate the evening session, which from all reports was freezing cold, which means it may have touched the upper end of the 30s.

The Halloween party was fun and we went through a lot of food and I think eight or nine bottles of wine in addition to beer. I'd been up since about 5:30 am, driven to Baton Rouge, officiated, driven back, set up Halloween decorations, etc., so by the time everyone left I was more than ready for bed, especially since I'd have to hit the road for Baton Rouge again at 6:30 the next morning. I think everyone had a good time at the party, which was nice. The Halloween party really started on Halloween night in 2005, two months after Katrina, and the first week when most of the people on our block were back in their houses. We sat out on the front porch at the neighbor's house that night and got re-acquainted with each other, told our Katrina stories, and handed out candy to the one lonely trick-or-treater who came by.  Most of the city was still not back at that point.

On Sunday I headed out before sunrise again, stopping at the Maple Street Starbucks for a cup of Thanksgiving Blend first. The drive was actually quite nice. Traffic was sparse, so I was just cruising on cruise-control, listening to the satellite radio, and watching the thermometer drop. Fortunately the racing didn't start until 9 am, the sky was clear and sunny, and the previous day's wind had died down considerably, so I was pretty comfortable without the winter jacket. The racing went smoothly. We finished up the Sprint competitions, held the Scratch Races, and finished  up with the Pursuit/TTs. I got back home to New Orleans in the early afternoon, posted the results to the LAMBRA website, finished up the USAC Post-event Report, and spent the rest of the day eating things I shouldn't be eating like leftover party food, Halloween candy, cookies, etc. Not riding and eating a lot of junk food makes for a bad combination, but for some reason the arrival of cold weather always makes me hungry. I could have gone out for a ride in the late afternoon, but frankly I just didn't have it in me. I was tired, it was chilly outside, and I felt like I needed a little break. From what, I don't really know.

So Monday morning was pretty chilly. I had a 9 am conference call that I wanted to take at the office, so I was out the door a few minutes after 6 am, which is over an hour before sunrise right now. I knew I'd be chilled, so I was wearing the thermal knickers, base layer, and long-sleeve jersey, which turned out to be just right, considering the fact that I wouldn't be going particularly hard. It looks like it will be warmer for the next couple of weeks, so that may be the last time I'll need the thermal stuff until the next cold front comes through, probably around the second week of November.

October Transitions

Last week's rides felt mostly robotic. I guess I'm in a mid-October slump where it's gotten hard to generate much enthusiasm as things begin to transition into Fall. I didn't even take may photos, partially because it's usually too dark to get anything good, and partially because there just wasn't anything interesting. I always find it hard to push myself very much when I'm riding in the dark. We don't switch back to regular Central Time until November 5, which I think it ridiculous, so there will be a lot more dark morning rides before then. As we got closer to the end of the week it became apparent that an approaching cold front was threatening to mess up the weekend's outdoor activities, of which there were many. The first thing to go was the Oak Street Po-boy Festival that re-scheduled for November 12 rather than risk getting rained out at the last minute. Since that festival involves a huge number of restaurants that set up tents and food preparation equipment, it was wise to make the call earlier rather than later.

On Saturday I rode the Giro as usual. There was a pretty big group on hand despite the weather forecast. Fortunately they had been pushing back the arrival time for the rain since Friday and so Saturday morning's rain chances were still pretty low. Heading out on Hayne Blvd. it was nice to see that all of the holes in the concrete roadway had been patched. That was not the work of our fine city, of course. That was the work of Premier Event Management, promoters of Sunday's Ochsner Ironman 70.3 race that had still not been cancelled. That race uses the traditional Giro route for most of the bike portion. Saturday's Giro seemed kind of fast, although I think that was largely due to just a handful of riders at the front who were perhaps trying to get in a hard workout on the assumption that everything would be rained out on Sunday. At the time, Sunday's rain forecast was still pegged at 100%. We were on the way back, on the service road alongside I-10, when I saw Daniel dropping back. His rear tire was almost flat. The pace at the front, however, had just started to ramp up, so although somebody yelled "flat!" the only person to stop with him was me. I was actually fine with that since I was not feeling very good anyway and had been doing little except sucking wheels at the back anyway.

So the air-conditioner stopped working again last week. I spent most of the day on Friday at home waiting for the service guy who told me that the evaporator coil was leaking, which we had earlier suspected was happening. He put some more Freon (or whatever they actually use now) in and got it running again, but the plan is to replace it on Tuesday at the bargain price of about $2k. Having to fix the air-conditioner, of course, virtually guarantees that summer is over. Anyway, it cooled down the house nicely and ran just fine until around 9 pm when it shut itself off again, which made Friday night rather uncomfortable, especially since Danielle was away at a conference in Orlando and as a result her two dogs were in our bed. When I got home from the Giro on Saturday, still wearing my kit, we dragged the big old backup window unit up the stairs from the basement and stuck it into the bedroom window.

Inched over the 10,000 mile mark this morning

Sunday morning the bedroom was freezing cold and when I got up all I could hear was the window unit which was about a foot from my head. In my usual early morning daze I got up, pulled on shorts and jersey, and headed for the basement stairs to get the bike and go out to meet the Giro. The forecast from the night before was showing the rain moving in around 10 am. It was wrong. When I walked into the kitchen I could see S. Claiborne Avenue through the window and it was obviously wet. On closer inspection, I could see that it was actually raining. Crap. 6:00 am, all dressed out, and no place to go. I fired up the computer and the radar looked bad. There was a whole line of rain well ahead of the real cold front and it was right on top of us. The real front wouldn't be arriving until around noon. I also noticed that they had announced a last-minute cancellation of the Ironman. I had been planning on doing only part of the Sunday Giro because my brother was going to be passing through town on his way from Baton Rouge to Orlando and we were meeting for coffee at CC's on Magazine at 10:30 with him and the sisters and everyone. I ended up down in the basement putting a new chain on the Bianchi and cleaning up the whole drivetrain before it was time to go. Afterward, I ran over to SuperCuts and got a somewhat overdue haircut, getting back home just as the sky turned black. The cold front came through right on schedule, and by 3 pm the sun was out, there was a strong breeze blowing, and it was already feeling a bit cooler. I had to pick Danielle up from the airport around 6:30, so I jumped on the bike and got in a couple of hours of riding on the levee. After I got home and checked Strava I realized I was just five miles short of 10,000 for the year. That milestone would have to wait until Monday.

This morning it was cool enough for a little wind protection underneath the jersey, but not quite what you'd want to call "cold." I guess it was around 60F. I went out and did a fairly casual 20-odd miles on the levee where it was pretty windy. At least that pushed my annual mileage over the 10,000 mark. I guess I'm on track for the usual 11k - 12k miles again this year. Having to spend a few weekends officiating instead of riding in the fall and winter usually takes a bit of a toll on my mileage. The first cyclocross race was yesterday up in Baton Rouge, but the other officials had that one covered so I was quite happy to stay home where my feet were dry. The Track championships are next weekend, so I guess I'll be helping with the officiating for that. Then there are eight cyclocross races in November and December.

A Front

Tuesday morning on the levee, heading back downriver

Last week's weekday morning rides seemed mostly hot and dark and humid. Just the other day I mentioned how surprised I was that, halfway through October, I hadn't yet pulled out even the arm-warmers.

It was hard to get out of bed Tuesday morning. It always is this time of year when 5:30 am may as well be midnight for all the sunlight there is, or isn't. Although I can't deny that there's a certain rush that one feels when riding down quiet streets in the dark, I've never been much of a fan of nighttime riding. It's at best a necessary evil for working stiffs like myself who aren't up to fighting it out with post-rush-hour distracted-driver evening traffic on city streets. So once again I was up atop the levee at the designated time, which happens to be 6 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, along with a handful of other riders. Riding the levee bike path in the dark requires a lot of attention. If you're not on the front, your headlight is likely shining mostly on the rider ahead of you, which kind of blinds you. If that rider also has a bright tail light blinking two feet from your face the situation is even worse. So it really amounts to trust. You have to just trust that the rider on the front is paying attention and will give ample notice as the group comes up on pedestrians, dog-walkers, bike riders, coyotes, chickens, alligators, and potholes. I'm not really all that good at the trust thing, myself. Right now, if the sky is cloudy, it's pretty dark for most of the first hour of riding. Anyway, Tuesday's ride was about par for the course with mostly just a smooth paceline where each rider takes long steady pulls.

WeMoRi cool-down

On Wednesday I rode out as usual to meet up with the WeMoRi group at the lakefront. Since the Wisner overpass was finally re-opened, my route to the lakefront is a bit shorter now, and since I somehow managed to get on the road a little early I met up with the group only a mile or two after the start. That was nice since it allowed me to get warmed gradually as the pace ramped up. Unfortunately there were a couple of traffic issues that brought most of the group to practically a stop, which kind of spoiled the fun, but not as much as having the group hit by a car would have spoiled it, so I guess it was OK. At the end, around a mile from the sprint, Daniel came by on the left and I took his wheel as he rode past the group. I was hoping he'd take me to within attack distance, but as luck would have it, he moved over to the right and dropped me off with about half a K to go, which is pretty much my worst-case scenario, so I took a brief pull up to 33 mph that basically constituted a lead-out. Afterward I stopped in at Starbucks for a recovery coffee since I knew we were out of coffee beans at home.

Thursday's long ride on the levee seemed darker than usual but was otherwise normal. Nobody seemed too interested in going very hard. I moved the pace up a notch or so when I came to the front but it was never sustained very long.

Saturday's Giro group heading out on Lakeshore Dr.

Saturday's Giro had a small group. The weather actually wasn't all that bad, except that it was pretty windy. There were a lot of things going on in town and elsewhere and so a number of the usual riders were missing. There was a headwind going out and so it was by no means an easy ride. We were just part-way down Chef highway on the way out when we came upon most of the 6:45 group on the side of the road watching Geoff fix what was apparently his second or third flat. After slowing down the group kind of decided to merge in with that group, some of which had continued on to the turnaround, so when we saw then coming back we turned around. That gave us a larger group plus a tailwind, so it was like 30 mph all the way back down Chef. Then Brian flatted on the service road and the group split with just a few of us going back to help. We still had the tailwind most of the way but the effort level was a bit dampened after that. Coming down the Seabrook bridge we found a police car blocking the curve onto Lakeshore Drive because of the Bike the Big Easy ride, so Stephanie and I went straight on to Leon C. Simon, only to look back and discover that the police officer had let the rest of the group through. We got back onto Lakeshore Drive a little later at Franklin but had to chase a bit to catch up with everyone. I spend the afternoon putting up Halloween decorations. I hate putting up decorations. Then we went and voted. All I can say about the Mayor's race is that whoever ends up winning the runoff -- well, we're pretty much screwed either way. The City Council actually doesn't look to be quite as bad, so maybe there's hope, but I wouldn't bet on it. After voting we went town to Magazine Street for the Art for Art's Sake night where most of the shops stay open late and offer things like wine and cheeze and stuff. It was actually pretty nice and we ran into a few people we knew, including Andrew, Kenny, Brian, and their assorted significant others and/or progeny.

Sunday's Giro had a big group so the pace was brisk, at least until someone flatted on Chef near that first stop light. Again, some of the group kept going while the rest of us circled back. That kind of took the wind out of our sails, making the rest of the ride back relatively serene. The rest of Sunday went kind of downhill weather-wise because there was finally a cold front on the way. That made Monday morning windy but much cooler, which is to say it was 70 instead of 80. It'll be a bit cooler tomorrow morning but I don't know if I'll be able to justify even arm-warmers. I mean, is 59F cold enough for arm-warmers? Temperatures in the 50s always confuse me.

Hurricane Hype

The Giro coming back across the still-open Hwy 90 floodgate.

It was an emergency, an imminent disaster, the end of life as we know it. At least, that's what it sounded like on Friday. The mayor put on his disaster costume (as if he was out there filling sandbags himself) and got onto television with his entire entourage behind him - Disaster Response, Sewerage and Water Board, Police Chief, etc., etc. He imposed a city-wide curfew to which I knew nobody would pay the least bit of attention. I had been following the storm for days via spaghettimodels.com and was pretty sure this wasn't going to be much of a disaster. Of course, there's always the possibility of a tornado, or just having some old termite-damaged part of the house collapse, but at the worst I was expecting maybe one day without electricity and a few tree branches on the ground.

The price of riding Chef Highway through Gentilly.

Hurricane Nate was supposed to make landfall late Saturday night. I immediately began making plans - for how we would get in our weekend training rides. On Friday they started closing floodgates, of which there were many. The Giro Ride crosses two floodgates on the way out and three on the way back, so it was by no means certain that we'd be able to do the usual route. Putting some faith in the city's sluggishness to do anything, however, a big group rolled out from Starbucks at 7 am anyway. We figured that the floodgates at the lakefront would be closed already (they were), so we headed out down Robert E. Lee to Leon C. Simon, and from there it was the usual Giro out to Chef Highway. The Highway 90 floodgate was open, so we rode hard out to the turnaround at Venetian Isles (which was under an evacuation order with the streets already under water because the lake was so high from two days of strong southeast winds). On the way back we again made it through the open Highway 90 floodgate, but by the time we got to the Casino bridge near Lakefront Airport there was a police car blocking the overpass. The floodgate at Dowman Road was already closed, so we had to detour to the Highway 90 bridge, which meant riding back in to town on Chef Highway, which is not a whole lot of fun because of stop lights and traffic and sketchy roads. Matt flatted. Twice. Even so, I was only a few miles short compared to a normal Giro, so that was good.

By the time I got home it was already looking like the hurricane, which was moving at the unheard-of speed of 25 mph, was going to come ashore somewhere in Mississippi. Of course, nobody was making any promises, so much of the day was spent watching local newscasters and Weather Channel people kill time with painfully repetitive talk. They were doing their best to make something big out of the story, but the reality was that this was going to be a fairly minor hurricane, as hurricanes go, and since it was moving so quickly, the effects would be minimized even more. By early evening it was obvious we were going to miss out on all of the excitement. I went downstairs and cleaned the bike and started thinking about Sunday morning. Around midnight, when I was sound asleep, the hurricane finally came ashore around Biloxi as a Category 1. Basically they had about 30 minutes of significant wind and some flooding. It was a bit worse to the east around Mobile where there were more power outages, but in general this storm was more of a nuisance than anything else.

Nice weather for Sunday's ride out to the Spillway.

As it turned out, we never got much rain, or wind even. Nothing even approaching a normal summer afternoon thunderstorm, really. The power never went out, the streets never flooded, the party on Bourbon Street never stopped. I felt strangely disappointed even though I had made only the most minimal of preparations. I took the fern plant and chair cushions inside from the front porch and put the barbecue pit in the garage. Candy had taken the opportunity to stockpile food and water and after work on Friday we'd made a special trip to Whole Foods on Broad to buy more water. I have no idea why. We could survive for weeks just on the wine, beer and soft drinks already in the house. Anyway, I sent out a FB post Saturday evening to the Tulane group, and later to the NOBC group, saying I'd be riding the levee at 7 am on Sunday since I was pretty sure that various lakefront floodgates would still be closed and that Lakeshore Drive would probably be pretty wet.

Sunday morning Elliot, Jerry and Grayson showed up and we did a really nice ride up the river to the Spillway and back, which got me around 55 miles, so I felt satisfied with that even though it would turn out to be one of the lowest mileage weeks I'd had in a while. It wasn't even particularly windy. I spent the afternoon trimming hedges and trees at home, from which my back will probably not recover until Wednesday.

Ride it Out

Nice weather for the Friday morning Coffee Ride.

The weather this morning for the Friday Coffee Ride was so very nice. It was likely the last nice weather we'll see for a few days, though, because Tropical Storm Nate is making a bee-line for New Orleans right now, and doing so at 21 mph. This morning there was a pretty brisk ENE wind blowing, but the sky was clear and air was reasonably cool and dry. I would have liked to have ridden for another couple of hours since I'm going to be really mileage-deprived this week.

On Wednesday I rushed out of work a few minutes early, rode home, jumped in the car, and drove up to Baton Rouge to officiate the first race of the Track series at the velodrome. There was a healthy turnout of 23 riders and some really close finishes in the match sprints. Even with just 200 meter TTs for qualifying and then the double-elimination match sprints, I wasn't back home until around midnight. Then on Thursday I had to go right back to Baton Rouge for a morning meeting at the Board of Regents and didn't ride at all. These things always seem to happen this time of year.

I am hoping to get in a ride tomorrow morning, possibly some version of the Giro Ride, depending on which floodgates have been closed by then, but by midnight on Saturday it should be pretty much on top of us, possibly as a Category 1 hurricane by then. As hurricanes go, Category 1 isn't generally all that bad, but it's nothing to ignore either. Right now we're planning on being back at work as usual on Monday. At any rate, I expect that most of Saturday will be spent battening down whatever hatches we can at home, depending on how the situation looks at that point, and then "hunkering down" for the duration. I don't know who invented the term "hunkering," but I've never been able to come up with a more elegant way of saying what we do when we decide to ride out a hurricane at home. It's really more like waiting for the power to go out and then just hoping the roof doesn't get blown off.

Not Over Yet

October is always a transition month - on multiple levels. The last LAMBRA road race was last weekend, but really that just opens up the calendar for a whole string of "it's not a race" races, the Track Series, and of course the impending cyclocross season. I remember back when late October and early November constituted the "off" season. For a number of years I'd cut back a bit on riding and start doing a little running, entering various little local 5k type races and collecting T-shirts.

Yesterday I spent the whole day at home because the A/C had gone out (again) and I had to wait for the service guys. It turned out that some components on the condenser circuit board had gotten fried, shorted out, and therefore the system thought the refrigerant pressure was too high and shut down the compressor. That little glitch, along with topping up the refrigerant that is apparently leaking very slowly, cost just a hair under $1,000. If the leak gets worse I'll probably be looking at something more like $4,000. This is why I can't have nice things, like race wheels less than ten years old.

So there's another Tropical Depression about to enter the Gulf now. Hurricane season doesn't officially end until the end of November, but generally if we can get through September things start to settle down considerably. This one, which is still going by "TD-16," is expected to become a Tropical Storm shortly and could make it up to Hurricane status by Sunday when it should be coming ashore around Alabama and the Florida panhandle. If it actually sticks to that track we will be on the "good" side, which means north and northeast winds.

This morning the WeMoRi was finally back to its original route, or at least mostly its original route, now that the Wisner Overpass, closed since December of 2015, has been re-built and re-opened. I rode out there a little early, and since I could now go straight up Wisner to the lake I hit Lakeshore Drive considerably earlier than usual. It was super-windy as it's been for the past couple of days, and the lake was really high - up to the top two steps on the seawall - because of the consistent east winds. I was actually just a couple of minutes behind the group, which was apparently taking its time riding into the headwind. I rode all the way down to Elysian Fields, turned around, rode all the way down to Marconi, and still couldn't see the group. I rode back a minute or two and then finally saw the group coming over the levee a the Swim Hole, so turned around again and made it to the turn onto Marconi just as the breakaway came flying by. I jumped onto the last rider, gasping and wheezing and drooling as one does when going from 14 mph and 85 bpm to 27 mph and 150 bpm in half a mile.  Suffice it to say I was already gassed as we turned onto Robt. E. Lee. The small breakaway group of maybe eight started coming apart at the turn onto Wisner and two of us were spit out the back. I was still trying to catch my breath and couldn't do much except hang on for dear life. A couple more guys came out of that break, and we saw Eddie C. at the base of the overpass putting his chain back on, but we never caught the lead group. I'd been hoping that after sprinting to the top of the overpass, and then again on City Park Avenue, they would ease up after the turn onto Marconi, but no such luck. Back on Marconi we were thankfully absorbed by the main group around Harrison Avenue. There was coffee and cake for the group at Robert's grocery since it was a "birthday ride."

This evening I'm going to have to hustle to get over to Baton Rouge to officiate the first race of the Wednesday night track series. Given the rush-hour traffic, I'll be lucky to get there by 6:30 (it starts at 7:00) even if I can get out of the office a little early. My regular track bike is out on loan to Jerry, so I'm thinking about bringing the old Viner with me so I can ride a few laps, although the tires on that bike are about twenty years old, so I won't be doing anything dramatic on them. I'm more concerned with the base tape separating from the casing than from the rim. I pumped them up yesterday and they seem OK, but you never know. If I'm really pressed for time this afternoon I may end up leaving the bike at home anyway.

On Sunday I'll probably go up to St. Francisville for the annual collegiate ride. It's also the annual MS Tour weekend, so I'm sure some people will be doing that.

Up to S'port

The Sunday Giro coming down the Casino bridge onto Hayne Blvd.

After eighteen hours of driving the prior weekend, I was kind of dreading the 5-hour drive up to Shreveport for the Rocky Mount Road Race. On the other hand, I've always liked the course up there, even when it's kicked my butt. The race had originally been scheduled as a Stage Race back in May, but was cancelled at the last minute because of severe weather. I was glad that they had quickly decided to re-schedule it, even though it was ultimately shortened to just the Road Race. Given the late date on the calendar, that made a lot of sense because a low turnout was to be expected. A couple of days earlier I had installed a new set of Campi Record shifters to replace the old Super-Record ones that, by then, had at least 55,000 miles on them and were pretty worn out with broken return springs and generally sloppy action. It was quite a change to have shifters that actually shifted immediately and with a reassuring click!

Fortunately, I was able to leave work early and was on the road by 4 pm or so, not that it saved me from being stuck in traffic heading out of New Orleans and then again coming into Baton Rouge. I was travelling alone, so between the satellite radio and Spotify, and the fact that I wasn't in any particular hurry, it was a relatively easy drive if you ignore how much my back was hurting by the time I arrived. Naturally, when I got to the hotel they were checking in an entire high-school basketball team. Then my room key didn't work so I had to go back down to the desk to get them re-coded. I put the bike and the bag in the room and then went down the street and was that lonely looking guy eating dinner alone at Burger King.

I was up early Saturday morning and enjoyed a relaxed cup of coffee at the Starbucks near the hotel (frankly, that was a major factor in my choice of hotels) before making the half-hour drive up to the road course at - you guessed it - Rocky Mount, Louisiana, which consists of an intersection with a small school, two houses, and an abundance of insect life. Thanks to the 9:30 am start time, the officials were all there early as well, so I got the radio base station set up, handed out a few of the handhelds to the EMS and lead vehicles, dropped off my spare wheels, and rode a couple of easy miles before my 10:10 am start. Despite the expected small turnout, the LaS'port team had everything well under control with lead and follow cars, a couple of moto-refs, police at the intersections, etc.

The Master 55 race would be three laps of the rolling 21-mile course, and with ten riders at the start, ours was actually one of the largest of the day. I have no idea why people don't seem willing to make the effort to go to organized races lately, especially the well-established ones with nice prizes and good organization. The LaS'port folks even had food for everyone after the race. Anyway, looking at the riders around me I realized that I was once again rather badly outnumbered. Six of the ten riders were from the LaS'port team, unless you count Tim Perry who rides for Ft. Wayne Outfitters who lives right down the road and is practically a LaS'port teammate as well. For the past few years Tim has been focused on time trials, and just this year has won his age group at the state championships in Louisiana/Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, and Missouri, and also won the National TT Championship. So you can probably guess what his race strategy was. I was coming into this race feeling still a little tired from 6 Gap, but was determined to make it a workout regardless.

The first lap was pretty steady, although I was pushing the pace a bit on the climbs. Master's races sometimes get really slow, and I just wasn't in the mood for it I guess. Around the end of the first lap Tim attacked and opened a gap that we closed fairly quickly. He attacked again a while later and that resulted in only two of us making it across. Although I knew Tim would eventually take off on a 30 mph time trial, I liked the group of Tim, Grant and me and when we came together said, "let's keep this together!" The next lap and a half was a nice 3-man rotation. Tim was obviously soft-pedaling when he'd come to the front and was going up the hills particularly slowly. I knew there was a group chasing us, so I didn't want the pace to lag too much. I also knew that Tim probably didn't care if we were caught or not since he was probably going to launch a decisive attack on one of the bigger hills on the second half of the loop and drop everyone anyway. Of course, that's exactly what happened about seven miles from the finish. Grant and I were starting to hurt, and when Tim went flying past me about five mph faster all I could do was shake my head and make a feeble and largely unsuccessful attempt to match his pace. Grant and I traded pulls the rest of the way in. I jumped at about 200 meters to go and immediately felt my calf muscle start to cramp. I'd caught him a bit by surprise and had a nice gap, but when I glanced back I could see him gaining on me so I had to accelerate again, just barely making it across the line in time.

I was pleasantly surprised how good I'd felt in this race. I'd been expecting the effects of 6-gap to still be lingering like they had been for most of the week, but I guess the easy ride on Friday gave them that final bit of recovery time they needed.

I rode out to the Giro Ride this morning in a pretty stiff ENE wind, knowing that the wind and moderate threat of rain, along with other things going on in town, would make for a small group. Jaden was there, though, so things were reasonably fast and although my quads were complaining a bit from Saturday's thrashing I was otherwise fine. Granted, I spent a lot of time sitting on the back of the group, especially on the way back when the speeds got fast because of the tailwind. By the time I got close to home I could feel a light rain starting to fall. I'd been planning on riding with the Tulane Sunday Social group at 10:30, but by then it was genuinely raining so I called it a wrap for the week at 284 miles.

Ten of Six

The usual last-minute photo before heading down to the start

I think perhaps the worst thing about returning every year to ride Six Gap is that the ride just crushes one's illusions. This was my tenth trip to Dahlonega and I can confirm that it didn't get any easier since last year.

As I have for the past few years, I went up with the Tulane riders of which there were eight. A couple of them weren't able to leave until 8 am on Saturday, and I knew that was going to make it difficult to arrive by the 6 pm deadline to pick up packets that evening. Complicating things a bit was the fact that we would be taking two of the Tulane motor pool vans that are equipped with GPS tracking, so it would be like having Big Brother looking over you shoulder at the speedometer. Fortunately, the weather was great all weekend and everyone arrived on time. The nine-hour drive went pretty well, although since we were pressed for time, lunch was a quick stop at a Subway for to-go sandwiches. Grayson was driving his own car ahead of us a bit, and we were all in communication via Zello. We were lagging behind the other van by maybe ten minutes, and as we approached Atlanta, Google Maps was initially showing an estimated arrival time right at 6 pm. That soon became 6:01, and then 6:02, and so on. Fortunately, Grayson talked the folks up there into waiting a few extra minutes for us, so when we finally arrived at maybe 6:10 we jumped out of the van and grabbed our packets immediately. I was particularly  happy to find that the bike shop tent at the Expo was still up, and, even better, they had a bottle of Montana Huckleberry HammerGel. I'd run out of it at home and was afraid I'd have to survive on Powerbars, so this was a great relief!

After picking up packets we went straight over to Pueblo's for dinner, and then made the 20-minute drive to Cleveland, GA (who knew there was a Cleveland in Georgia?) where we checked into a rather sketchy Knight's Inn along with a bunch of power company linemen. The room itself wasn't too bad, other than the soft spot in the floor and air-conditioner that seemed to be turning itself on and off randomly all night. Can't say I got a lot of sleep. Anyway, we were up early enough to go next-door to Dunkin Donuts for some coffee and donuts before heading back to Dahlonega. Of course it was still dark since we knew we had to get there by at least 6:30 to get a good parking spot in the school lot. That worked out really well. By the time the sun was starting to come up we headed down to the line for the 7:30 am start. We had 7 riders doing 6-Gap, one doing 3-Gap, and one doing the Valley Ride. The start was the usual scramble, and I pretty quickly lost track of the rest of the group, most of which were up closer to the front. I had done something bad to my back, probably when loading up the van, and was getting sharp pain on one side when I twisted just the right way, so I was being really careful not to do that. Even so, I wondered if it was going to turn into a show-stopper at some point during the ride.

Louisiana riders at 6-Gap

Soon enough I found myself in a pretty large group that was a bit behind the equally large lead group as we approached the first climbs. My legs were feeling pretty good and as usual I didn't have much trouble on the first couple of Gaps, although I was being a little conservative since I knew what was still to come. By the top of Jack's Gap, the first real climb, Grayson, Cameron, and Elliott were way, way up the road somewhere and Steve was somewhere ahead as well. I was fairly comfortable in the 39x25 and 39x27 for this climb as well as for the next one, but I knew that the longer, steeper sections of Hogpen were going to be a problem. After coming down Unicoi I caught up with Steve and we went up Hogpen in sight of each other at the blazing average speed of 8.3 mph for 45 minutes. Here, I was wishing I'd sprung for a cassette with a 29 as there were many times when my Garmin was auto-pausing (the speed sensor isn't working so the speed really jumps around when I'm in single digits like that!). Steve stopped at the rest stop, but I didn't, so that was the last I saw of him until afterward. After trudging up Wolfpen at 7.6 mph, I stopped to fill a water bottle and down a little cup of Coke, where I found Grayson and Cameron who had been stopping at the rest stops a lot, apparently. Elliott was already way up the road somewhere. We rode the downhill from Wolfpen, with a little group coming together at the bottom, but when the next section of climbing started I had to let them go. After the relatively short final climb up Woody Gap, I enjoyed the long downhill with the super-sharp 180 at the bottom and finally looked the clock. It was impossible to make it in under 6 hours for sure, but my legs were still functional, so although I was alone in a headwind I kind of pushed it for the final ten miles, rolling across the finish with 6:13 riding time on my Garmin and an official clock time of 6:15, which was essentially the same as last year. It was particularly encouraging to see that three of the Tulane riders, Grayson, Elliott, and Cameron, posted ride times well under 6 hours this year. It was also good that we had two new women riders making the trip. Kaitlyn did a pretty good 3-Gap time despite riding with a broken cleat, and I think Lucia had a nice time doing the Valley ride on her hybrid bike even though the handlebars slipped and she had to get someone at the rest stop to fix them. Meanwhile, Stan Prutz, who had just returned from doing three of those Haute stage races back-to-back in Europe, rode in at 5:38 which was of course the fastest time in the 55-98 age group and 37th overall.

The ride home was, for a change, uneventful. We didn't have to drive through any blinding rainstorms, there were no frantic midnight searches for gas stations that would take Tulane's fuel card, and even though we were stopped for about half an hour because of a major accident that shut down the Interstate, we still got back to New Orleans around 12:30 am or so, and that was driving with cruise control set at or slightly below the speed limit practically the whole way. Today I'm really feeling it, though. My back is sore, my quads are sore, and even my triceps are sore. So, basically situation normal. I went out for an easy 20 miles on the levee this morning just to spin the legs and was happy to see an eagle, which is a sure sign that Fall is coming - eventually.

Visitors

Thursday on the levee, heading back from the turnaround.    

The awesome cooler weather that graced us with a nice long visit recently was great, until it wasn't any more, which was around last Wednesday. The evening before, I'd gotten together for dinner at High Hat with Roger Brown, a high-school classmate from Jesuit who was visiting town from Chicago. That morning I went out in the really, really dark and met the WeMoRi which for some reason didn't seem to be killing it as much as usual. With an early meeting at work I had to skip my usual twenty minutes of lounging around at Starbucks and instead rushed through a quick shower and pedaled off to work, once again beating the odds by not getting run over by any cars, trucks, buses or dumbass wannabe "track" cyclists commuting on brakeless fix-gear bikes with time trial handlebars set so far forward it would make Graeme Obree cringe.

Ripped that thing right off with my awesome arm power.

That evening Rich Hirschinger, visiting from L.A., came over to borrow a bike while he was in town for a conference. Rich rides with the Velo Club la Grange, so I was particularly pleased to be able to repay the club in some small way for lending me a bike some years back when I was in L.A. for about a week watching Danielle's UI team compete at gymnastics nationals. Also, he's a Tulane Biology alumnus. Anyway, as I was removing the Keo pedals from my Orbea in order to install Rich's Speedplays, I inadvertently ripped my Thompson seatpost apart with my awesome upper body strength. Oops. Fortunately, it was easy to resort to Plan B, which was to set him up on the old Cervelo instead. That worked out OK, although the shifters are so worn out and finicky that there was a time or two when he couldn't shift into a high gear when he needed it, at least until I explained to him the secret handshake required.

Rich came out for the Thursday levee ride, which was nice and smooth and uneventful. By then you could feel the humidity moving back into the city, and I knew that our brief respite from summer would soon be over. Afterward we stopped for coffee at Zotz and I filled him in on the Tulane Friday Coffee Ride and Sunday Giro Ride info, since he was planning on making both of those. I also mentioned that U2 was in town for a concert and I think he'd snagged tickets within about an hour of that. He did show up Friday morning for the Tulane ride, which included a coffee stop at Fair Grinds. That evening I went out to the Airport to pick up Danielle who was finally coming back for the semester.

Ray and I got back a good five minutes before the lazy puncture-ridden main group. No, we weren't going that fast.

The Saturday morning Giro was a little messy. There are a lot of rides and things going on this time of year, including the Pensacola stage race, so although there was a good-sized group on hand, we were missing a few of the regulars. Anyway, that didn't keep things from getting fast on Hayne Blvd. Unfortunately, it remained fast after the turn onto Paris Road where they are doing all sorts of road construction that forces us to ride through some bad patches of asphalt, so of course someone pinch-flatted. Most of us waited, although a small group kept going, never to be seen again since they didn't wait around at the turnaround. As we started back, Ray and I rolled casually ahead as the rest of the group emerged from the shade of the pee-pee tree and attempted to avoid having to actually pedal their bikes. Soon, our pace started creeping up and before I knew it we were in 2-man time trial mode, which in this case was more like 1.5-man time trial mode, with me taking much shorter pulls than Ray. The whole time I'm expecting the group to come flying by at like 30 mph, but every time I looked back I saw nothing but empty road. So we went all the way to the turn-off onto the service road, at which point we eased up. We were all the way to Hayne Blvd. before I could see the group starting to approach from behind, and then they were gone again -- someone had flatted.  So we ended up riding the entire way back alone. I turned around on Lakeshore Drive and went all the way back to the fountain before finding the remnant of the main group. Strange Giro.

Heading out for the Sunday Giro

Sunday's Giro had a particularly small group, which of course meant there weren't as many places to hide from the wind. We had a nice paceline going most of the way out on Chef Highway, which was nice, but by 8 am it was clear that the summer humidity was back in full force. Unaccustomed to this level of humidity, Rich was going through his water at a fairly rapid rate, and as the pace ramped up on the return trip I could see that he was starting to suffer a bit. When it got fast leading up to the Goodyear Sign sprint on Chef Highway, Rich came off the back with a couple others. It turned out that my old Campi 9-speed shifter wouldn't give him access to anything smaller than the fifteen tooth cog because he didn't know the trick of pushing the paddle lever all the way out so the worn-out shifter could complete the earlier shift. I sent the other Rich ahead to slow the front of the group so I could make sure he didn't miss the turn onto the service road, at which point I told him how to make the thing actually shift. I guess those shifters have, conservatively, 40,000 miles on them.

Next weekend is Six Gap, so assuming that the Tulane guys get things lined up travel-wise and we're actually going, I figure I will be taking it easy this week. Regardless, I think the legs are probably due for a little recovery time.

Weather Here and There

A very mixed MS Tour Training Ride group

The cold front that saved most of the Gulf Coast from Hurricane Irma ushered in a long stretch of fairly spectacular weather that we don't usually see until closer to October. Of course, it was all accompanied by brisk northerly winds, but under the circumstances I'm not complaining. I spend much of the weekend watching the Weather Channel and having flash-backs from 2005, but got to enjoy some nice weekend rides.

Saturday was the usual Giro Ride. As I rode out to Starbucks that morning I paused to zip up my jersey since it was a relatively frigid 72 degrees. They've been doing a bunch of re-paving work along Hayne Blvd. lately and it seems like every time we ride through there somebody flats or something. On Saturday, somewhere between Hayne and the Interstate (is that technically Hayne, or Paris Rd.?) Jaden hit a hole hard enough to dislodge his water bottle and jam it between his wheel and chainstay before ejecting it. All I saw was a water bottle go flying that I nearly hit. A few of us slowed down thinking someone had flatted, but the front of the group kept going. As it turned out, Jaden had tweaked his rear wheel and started heading back home. At that point Woody and a couple others who had stopped with Jaden caught up to me as I was soft-pedaling up the overpass and we started trying to chase back to the group. Most of them had slowed down so we made contact back on Chef Highway without too much of a problem. In a way I was kind of disappointed because I'd been hoping for a nice team time-trial with a group of four or five all the way out to Venetian Isles. Anyway, Jaden apparently changed his mind and turned back around and met up with us at Venetian where borrowed a multi-tool to, I think, loosen up his aero rear brake so it would't rub on his now-wavy rear wheel. It was a fairly fast Giro, regardless, and other than the wind, the weather was perfect.

Nice day, nice roads

On Sunday we had a small group that met up at Lee Road Middle School for a northshore ride. There was a MS Tour training ride scheduled to leave from there at 8:00, so we planned on leaving at 7:45. We were late, and then we turned back because Jaden and Stephen who had started with us suddenly disappeared. Apparently they had decided to do the MS tour route instead. Our route was basically the same for the first twenty miles, so shortly after we got going we were caught by a fairly big group that had left at 8:00. We merged in with them until we turned off onto Choctaw Road. At that point it was just Steve, Pat and me. I was determined to get in some intensity here and there, which Pat wasn't too interested in, so Steve and I spend some time pushing it up ahead and then circling back to pick  up Pat. He was never more than a minute behind, so it wasn't a problem at all. When we got back to Lee Road for the final five miles or so we saw Jim coming the other way. He had intended to go with us but had missed the turn so had finished with the MS tour group and then headed back to find us. He turned around and went to the front and dragged us in the last few miles. All-in-all it was a great ride with spectacular weather.

Historical marker at the top of our loop

Meanwhile, Hurricane Irma was already starting to diminish after slamming through the Keys and tracking up the east side of Florida. My brother and family in Orlando lost power around 7 pm on Sunday night but otherwise everything was OK over there. There are a number of folks in New Orleans from places like Tampa right now, but I guess they will be anxious to return home as soon as they can. It looks like much of Florida was spared the worst-case scenario that, for a while, was looking like a real possibility.

Three in a Row

A turbulent world.  

I woke up, briefly, around midnight to thunder and lightning. It was the welcome cold front that will, we are assuming, save us here in Louisiana from the approaching hurricanes. Yes.  Plural. The air was noticeably cooler than usual this morning when I went out in the dark to meet up with the WeMoRi group on the Lakefront. That's if you can call 75F cool, which I definitely can. Of course, there was also a north wind. With some lingering cloud cover, it remained dark for a long time this morning, and with various sections of street lights along Lakeshore Drive out, I was glad I'd added a second rear light to the bike before leaving. I hovered around in the darkness between Marconi and Shelter #2 for a while until I saw the cluster of blinky lights coming and rushed to make the turn back onto Marconi before being absorbed into the group, which this morning meant hanging onto the tail end and sprinting onto Robert E. Lee to close a gap before finally catching my breath halfway down Wisner.

An hour later, sitting at Starbucks with my cup of coffee, I checked Mike's Weather Page to see what the latest was on Irma. The morning forecast models had shifted it a bit to the east, but I knew they couldn't really be trusted quite yet. Still, it was comforting to know that the cold front had moved through as expected and the models were still in agreement about the rather dramatic turn to the north on Saturday. Hopefully by the time it gets up to the Orlando area where my brother lives it will have lost some intensity. By afternoon we had three named hurricanes all in a row. Irma's the big one, still at Category 5, and trailing behind it out in the Atlantic is Jose which is expected to turn north well before reaching us (we hope). Over in the western Gulf, Katia has just been upgraded to a hurricane and is heading into Mexico. Looks like we're going to luck out on all three of these this time around. We now have a FB page for the Cajun Airlift - a bunch of pilots that seem to be loosely connected with the Commemorative Air Force who have been airlifting supplies into the areas affected most by Hurricane Harvey and who are expecting to be needed again in Florida. It looks like the BVI, Puerto Rico and Cuba will be hit pretty hard first, and it looks quite bad for a lot of the Bahamas. The only good news is that the hurricane is moving fairly fast, currently at 16 mph.

Labor Day Weekend Rides - Cat. 5 is Bad

A few of the Tulane riders on the Independence ride

Finally a few days without rain in the forecast. Sitting at Pagoda Cafe with the Tulane group on Friday morning I learned that they were planning a ride up in Independence for Saturday. Feeling the need to get out in the country a bit, I decided to tag along. Quentin, Elliot and I headed out right on time for the one-hour drive, parking along the railroad tracks near the BBQ place where we'd later have lunch.

First TUCA ride of the semester

The ride turned out to be a pretty steady 58 miles, a bit shorter and easier than I'd expected but still a good ride. The first hour or so felt almost cool, which is to say it was below 80F. For a minute or two I thought I could see Fall coming, but an hour later when the temperature was approaching 90 I realized it was just wishful thinking. I felt pretty good on this ride, probably thanks to the prior week's rain and resulting reduced mileage and intensity. It didn't seem like any of the riders were ever in difficulty, so I'll take that as a good sign for the team. By the time we got back it was good and hot, and I was glad to be able to sit down in the air-conditioning for a quick lunch before hitting the road back to New Orleans. That evening we walked over to the Tulane stadium to watch the season opener against Grambling. Tulane won the game pretty convincingly, although Grambling's band most definitely won half-time.  It was rather sad seeing the tiny Tulane band sitting in the end zone waiting for the huge Grambling band to finish its performance.

Giro Ride heads out along Lakeshore Drive

Sunday was a Giro Ride day and pretty uneventful. The pace was fairly moderate, relatively speaking, with an average speed just under 23 mph and a very brief max of around 40. I wasn't feeling much of an effect from the prior day's ride in the hills, so I guess that was good.

Monday turned out to be a holiday Giro Ride. Nobody seemed interested in organizing anything special for Labor Day, which I guess was OK, although I might have been easily convinced to do a northshore ride if something like that had materialized. We had a brief stop on Haynes Blvd. when Noel flatted, but otherwise it was steady and reasonably fast on the way out and about half of the way back. Things got kind of conversational toward the end of the ride, though, at least until we got close to the overpasses where it sped up. Naturally, there was a nice little sprint to the top of the Seabrook bridge. Along Lakeshore Drive Taco started rolling off the front as we were cooling down and I eventually made the effort to catch up to him for the ride back uptown which turned out to be a little faster than usual for some reason. This morning's long levee ride started with only three of us, although we picked up a few more along the way. Somewhere out around Kenner, Dustin Ducote's headlight suddenly disconnected and hit the ground, so we waited for him to retrieve it. Then, as we were going down "the dip" his rear tire went flat. We continued on, though, planning to pick him up on the way back. Heading back we came upon him on the side of the bike path with his bike upside-down fixing another flat. He was not having a good day.

So Hurricane Irma is looking worse and worse. It's now a Cat. 5, which is bad in both cycling and hurricanes, but for very different reasons. The forecast track keeps shifting south and west, which is bad for us. Our only hope is the on-time arrival of a cold front later this week that should force it to turn north. Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like that turn won't happen until it's on top of Florida. Although the jury's still out as to whether it will track up the east of west coast of Florida, there's not much doubt that it will be one or the other. I guess we'll have a better picture by Thursday or so. My instinct keeps telling me that this thing is going to enter the Gulf, however. When hurricanes get to be that big and strong they start making their own weather and not responding the way the forecast models predict. If it remains Category 5 and hits Florida it will not be good at all.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking I'll do Six Gap again in a few weeks, followed by the last road race up in Shreveport. I could possibly make the Pensacola stage race the 16th and 17th, but that would make three long road trips in the same month and I'm not sure I'm quite up to that. We'll see. Stranger things have happened.