You Never Can Tell

There are lots of group rides around. I typically do some or all of a group ride four or five times a week. One thing about group rides I've learned is that you never can tell who's going to show up. Lots of things influence the turnout, especially the chance of rain and the certainty of strong wind. But every now and then the stars align in just such a way that nobody can come up with a credible excuse for staying in bed. And so it was for yesterday's Giro. It was supposed to be Rouge-Roubaix race weekend, so some riders were in decent early season shape. The wind was light. The morning temperature, which had been rather cold all week, was up to the mid-50s. It was the last day before we set clocks ahead and would be back to riding in the dark. Rain was predicted to start an hour after the Giro ended. A couple of riders were in town, one from Texas, another from Australia. The Tulane riders were planning to ride. So by the time we rolled out from Starbucks I guess there were 35 or 40 riders, and it was pretty clear we were in for a fast one.

Indeed, as soon as we came down the bridge onto Hayne Blvd. the speed went straight up to about 30 mph and mostly stayed in the 25 - 32 mph range all the way out to the turnaround at Venetian Isles. My Garmin said our average speed for the way out was something like 26.5 mph. Unfortunately, just as I put some power to the pedals on Hayne one of the old aluminum spoke nipples on my rear wheel broke. It wasn't quite bad enough to start hitting the chainstay, so I just kept going, being careful to avoid the bumps, and sprints. The latter was particularly frustrating because I would definitely have liked to have done some of them.

The whole way out on Chef Highway I was looking at 28-31 mph, but with such a big group it was relatively easy to stay in the pack. When there would be a little lull and the speed would drop down to 27, it felt like I was coasting. The return trip was definitely slower, but finally got going toward the end of Chef and was looking to stay that way until Brian flatted on the service road. About ten of us stopped and the rest continued, so I was thinking we'd just have an easy ride back. Well when we went around the curve there was Woody and a few more riders fixing another flat. Up the road, the rest of the group was waiting at the gas station at Bullard, so we ended up with practically everyone coming in together. Definitely the best Giro Ride this year. Even better, I made it home with my rear wheel still in one piece. So after I got back I rummaged around and found a brass spoke nipple that was threaded right, ran over to the bike shop to pick up a new rim strip, and had everything back in action half an hour later. I think that's the fifth spoke nipple I've replaced on that wheel - so far. Basically I'm rebuilding the wheel one spoke nipple at a time.

Wind and Water and Winter Again

A windy morning on the Lakefront

I guess that easy ride I did on Monday morning shouldn't have been so easy because Tuesday morning was rained out entirely, and while I can pretend that old guys like me need more recovery and skipping days must be good, I know better. The value of recovery days depends heavily on one thing - something from which to recover. Tuesday's rain, of course, ushered in a cold front and by Wednesday morning the temperature was down to the mid-50s, which is probably more or less normal for this time of year, but which was substantially lower than we've had for the past couple of weeks. So that morning I dug out the thermal knickers and long-sleeve jersey and headed off in the darkness for the lakefront battling a gusty and unrelenting north wind. Out on the unprotected Lakeshore Drive the wind was a bit worse with waves occasionally crashing over the seawall. I rode eastward over the bridge and across the London Avenue Canal looking for headlights. All I saw were four, and they were coming at me pretty damned fast, so I made a quick u-turn, accelerated up to speed, and latched onto the quartet as it approached the Bayou St. John bridge. Someone surged for the bridge KOM just as Emily, who was at the back, opened up a gap to let me in. I barely caught the draft, but I think she dropped off at that point. Up ahead was Rob, inexplicably on his track bike on such a windy day. Despite the wind and his fixed gear, he was killing us. Brian and Woody were there too, and for the next mile or two all I could do was let them rotate in front of me as I tried to catch my breath. When we turned onto Wisner and picked up a tailwind the speed surged up to 26 or 27 as Rob and Brian pounded the pedals. Woody was clearly suffering, as was I. We came down the overpass at 35 mph, turned onto City Park Avenue, and then the pace eased. Rob pulled off the front and headed home as the rest of us turned back into the headwind onto Marconi. I think we were down to 19 mph for a while. The rest of the WeMoRi was nowhere to be seen. In fact, we didn't see the remnant of the wind-shattered group until we were already past the Bayou St. John bridge and on our way back. Anyway, that was a pretty good workout, and I was glad I had a tailwind on the way home.

So much water

Thursday morning it was even colder and I pulled on the long tights for the first time in probably three weeks. It was somewhere in the 49-50 degree range, but with the wind it felt colder, especially once I got up to the levee. As often happens when it's cold and windy, only Richard and Scott showed up. We rode out to the big dip and turned around there, picking up David from Ormond for a while before he had to turn back. The river has been rising steadily, and will continue to do so for at least the next week. The water is just barely reaching the base of the levee now, but even so the Corps opened up some of the bays at the Spillway this morning to keep things under control.

Straggling

My little group of stragglers in the road race, probably starting the second lap

It was another long road trip last weekend. This time up to Fayetteville for the University of Arkansas collegiate (and some non-collegiate) races. My sore throat seemed to be on the mend and I wasn't yet showing signs of pneumonia, so why not drive 10 hours to race in some nice cold, dry air after what was essentially five days off the bike? As fate would have it, we ended up with only one collegiate rider, Gavin, plus Dustin and me. Gavin was thus assured of redundant and/or contradictory coaching advice plus lots of crit photos. This year's Arkansas Classic used entirely different courses from prior years. The road race, which was the only one I'd be doing, was on a nice rolling 12-mile loop with one short but steep climb and one longer but not so steep climb. It was considerably more forgiving than the course used in prior years, although apparently not quite forgiving enough for me.

Probably 1 lap to go.

The road races didn't start until late morning, after the time trial, with Dustin and I doing the "Open A" aka Cat. 1/2/3 race first, followed by Gavin in the collegiate Cat. C race a few hours later. Although I was feeling a little apprehensive about my pulmonary status, I can't say I was feeling all that bad as we rolled out for the neutral 3 or 4 miles to start the first of four laps of the race loop. By the time we started the temperature was close to 60, the sky was clear, and the wind was blowing at probably 10 mph with little but a few scattered leafless little trees to block the it as it blew across the cow pastures. It was scenic, for sure, but I knew the crosswind section was going to take its toll on the field of around 30 riders. With the very first section of the loop being essentially a direct crosswind, I made sure I was up near the front as soon as we turned onto it. That worked out pretty well for a while, but then Dustin attacked maybe five miles into it and right away there was a split with six riders off the front. Over the next few miles a few more took off on the tailwind section and I think most of them made the bridge. I think there was some team strategy, aka blocking, going on in what was left of the field, so there wasn't any sort of concerted effort to chase. Even so, the gap was growing pretty slowly at first. Then we came around a sandy right-hand corner and were immediately confronted by the big climb of the day, for which I was totally unprepared. It was maybe half a kilometer but also maybe 10%, and naturally I came around the corner still in my big ring near the back of the field. Someone up front attacked the hill. I didn't, and got really bogged down in too big of a gear coming over the top. A few of us stragglers came together and kind of sort of started to chase, but the effort was inconsistent and we never made contact. In retrospect, I probably should have just put my head down and made the bridge by myself. Anyway, we had a nice little group of five or six. One or two were just sitting on the back. I was taking fairly good long pulls, and this big guy was doing the same, and soon the one woman in our group started taking some pulls too, but although the group ahead remained in sight for over a lap, it was clear that we lacked the necessary combined horsepower, or willpower, or both, to actually close the deal. Even so, I felt fine climbing the "big" climb on the succeeding laps, so I guess I just got caught off-guard on that first lap and wasn't willing to dig deeply enough. Anyway, but then I was just focused on getting a good workout and unfortunately my pulls were causing some collateral damage behind me. The big guy was struggling on the climbs even though I thought I was going up them nice and smoothly. At one point I came off the front and dropped back to find only Ali, the woman from Arkansas, left. I said, 'What happened to that big diesel engine we had?" She replied something like, "Well you kept pushing the pace too much. You training for Kona or something?"  Oops.  Anyway, I think we were down three when we caught a rider who'd been shelled from the original break, and then dropped from whatever was left of the disintegrating field. He stayed with us for a while but eventually dropped off. By the end there were just three of us and we spend the last half of the last lap doing more chatting than racing. Turned out all three of us were 40+.

Meanwhile, up at the front, Dustin had spent half a lap solo and then gone back to the break. He ended up in 3rd place. After finishing I just kept on riding and did a nice cool-down lap. I mean, it was such a nice day I wasn't going to waste it, especially after driving 10 hours to get there! I stopped at the start/finish and waited for the Cat. C race to come through for their 4-lap race. Naturally Gavin was already off the front less than two miles into the loop. Later he attacked again and ended up in a 2-rider break that made it all the way to the finish. He finished 2nd, but was very pleased with his result, remarking later that it had been the hardest ride he'd ever done. Anyway, when he came through the start/finish for his second lap he motioned that he needed water, so I filled up one of my bottles and Dustin and I started riding backwards around to course to get to the feed zone that was practically on the opposite side. He got there before us, so I had to wait until the next lap to make the hand-up. Meanwhile, Dustin was so wiped out from his earlier effort that he was starting to get cold and got a ride back to the start/finish while I rode back a bit later. We waited for Gavin's finish then rode back into town as the sun was setting. By then the temperature had really started to drop and I was freezing.

Sunday morning the weather was much different. There were a few scattered showers around and it was cloudy, but at least it wasn't too cold. Gavin's race was one of the earlier ones and once again it was his early attack that created the winning break. There were originally two of them, but the gap was hovering around 9 seconds so a couple more bridged up before they put their heads down and really got to work. Eventually that 4-rider break established a safe lead, though. The finish was probably only 100 meters from the last corner, and Gavin came into it 3rd wheel. Rider in front of him almost overshot the turn, though, and Gavin hesitated and changed his line a bit, losing enough momentum for the rider behind him to slip past, so he ended up 4th. Even so, he had accumulated enough prime points that together with his 4th place time trial, he was 2nd in the Cat. C Omnium competition. It started raining right after his race, so as soon as they did the podium and he collected his medal we jumped into the van and hit the road. That got us home at the entirely satisfactory hour of 9:30 pm, which was way better than the usual 12:30 am! Links to photos and, eventually results, are on the cycling.tulane.edu results page.

Forced Break and Government Affairs

Monday morning I decided to sleep a little later and skip my usual morning ride. After the long drive back from Auburn and some follow-up uploading of photos and such, I hadn't gotten to bed until late. The weather was looking to be fine the rest of the week, so I thought there'd be no harm in skipping another day. Well, that was a bit of a mistake I guess. The sore throat started to make itself obvious around noon on Monday and by evening I knew I was in for a few days, at least, of head cold symptoms. I ventured out Tuesday morning anyway, but played it safe and turned back after only ten miles. Things kind of went downhill during the day yesterday, so I skipped this morning as well since there's really no way to ride the WeMoRi without aspirating whatever virulent slime might be dripping down the back of your throat, or for that matter, the throats of the two riders ahead of you as well. So this morning I'm in a restless contemplative mode and was glad to see the announcement in Tulane News about one of our researchers getting an NIH Outstanding Investigator Award.

With all of the often well-deserved government-bashing that dominates the daily news, not to mention the incessant but questionable din of pseudo-news on Facebook and Twitter, it was particularly nice to see something good happening. NIH is one of the few federal agencies that the current administration didn't mess with very much. It's still led by Francis Collins, a real-live MD-PhD research scientist. Although the President's budget annually proposes a stagnant budget for NIH, Congress, yes, that same body of lawmakers who haven't managed to actually approve an actual Appropriations Bill since they threw their only real bargaining chip, the much-maligned Earmark, out the window, keeps nudging their budget upward bit by bit anyway. Meanwhile, up in Bethesda, there are actual federal employees who actually care about actual biomedical research, and some of those actual federal employees actually do understand how university-based scientific research works. One new thing they came up with recently was the NIH Outstanding Investigator Award. It's kind of a leap of faith for a government entity to do this kind of thing where they intentionally back away from micro-management. It's right in line with the "hire good people, give them what they need, and leave them the hell alone" philosophy that I have always supported. The OIA awards are "intended to allow investigators the opportunity to take greater risks, be more adventurous in their lines of inquiry, or take the time to develop new techniques."  How about that? Here we are with the current administration doing its best to kill off support for graduate education, turn universities into trade schools, and generally make it harder for people to even go to college at all, and down in the trenches of the National Institutes of Health there is still the wisdom to give $6 million to an established researcher with a great track record, and basically say, "Here's a pile of money. We trust you to use it wisely, do great things, and make our country, and maybe even the world, better."  Imaging that.

With that, I'll go back to work where I will no doubt read about more and more federal insanity, and hope this head cold resolves itself before I have to drive up to the University of Arkansas this weekend for another collegiate race.

Up in Auburn

It was great to see such large fields at a collegiate race.

Last weekend was another road trip, this one to the Auburn University Cycling Weekend race up in, of course, Auburn AL. There were just two Tulane riders for this one, since it was outside of Tulane's conference (so no points on the line), but the goal for the weekend wasn't really to score any points. Instead, the goal was for these two guys to accumulate some good experience in larger fields and at the same time tally up some mass-start finishes to count toward future upgrades. Since this event offered both collegiate and non-collegiate races, each of them could race twice each day. Dustin and I could also race our category, or in my case age-group, races. The weather leading up to the race weekend was looking pretty bad for Sunday, but not so bad for Saturday. Since it's so early in the season (for me) I was planning on racing the 35+/45+ road race on Saturday but was not at all committed to racing the criterium on Sunday that I figured would be wet.

A nice climb right after the start.

The drive up to Auburn went really smoothly, even with the constant added stress of worrying about (a) not exceeding the speed limit and (b) not getting run over from behind because of not exceeding the speed limit, and (c) not getting killed while passing people who were going slower than the speed limit by getting into the left lane and not exceeding the speed limit (by much). Anyway, compared to a lot of the drives we make to the South-Central Conference races, this little 6-hour jaunt was a piece of cake. I was fully expecting to drive home through blinding rainstorms in the middle of the night, however.

The event was being run by TopView Sports, a professional events management company, which meant we had to pay an extra $10 for timing chip rental. On the plus side, the races went off on time and most of the results were correct, and I was glad to see Stuart Lamp serving as Chief Referee. Elliott and Gavin both rode well in both their collegiate and category races and I think gained a lot of great experience. Gavin elected to also ride the afternoon Time Trial that consisted of a full lap of the 8-mile course. Knowing how easy it is to screw up time trial results, especially when relying so heavily on timing chips, I took the precaution of timing him myself. When the TT results were posted the next morning, he told me that his posted time was almost 30 seconds slower than what I'd gotten. Sigh....  I went over to the big red officials' trailer motor-home thing and asked them to check it out since I had absolutely no doubt it was wrong. Fortunately, one of the officials had been doing a manual backup and could confirm the error. They had been starting riders about ten feet before the single timing mat so that when they rolled over it the first time their start times would be recorded and then when they rolled over it a second time their finish times would be recorded. Unfortunately, when Gavin picked up his bike to shift it to a different gear while waiting to start, it must have gotten too close to the mat and tripped the sensor and started his clock early.

Safely tucked into the masters pack

The Masters race had a decent sized field of 20 or 25, which was pretty good for an early season low-key road race like that. The course was moderately hilly with a couple of short but significant climbs along the 8-mile course. My race was only 5 laps or 40 miles, which was shorter than I'd have liked, but then again I was rather worried I'd get dropped like a rock if there were a bunch of attacks on the hills. After a nice easy climb up the first hill, just past the start line, there were a few rather hard attacks that strung things out. I was just trying to stay on wheels and wasn't even paying attention to whatever kind of battle might be going on up at the front. I think it was before the start of the second lap that one rider finally got away and the pace settled down a bit. Too few people willing to chase, I guess. As we got close to the final lap things started heating up again with a few tentative attacks here and there. I was surprised that there hadn't been a big attack each time we climbed the 1-km hill on the back side of the course, but on the last lap someone launched near the top, bringing another rider with him. There wasn't a big response from the field. I guess most of them, like me, were suffering from early-season insecurity. I had already started trying to stay closer to the front, and in retrospect could probably have gone with that attack. Whether I'd have been able to stay with them is another question altogether.

Found GW a the criterium

So it was looking like a pack sprint for, I think, 4th place, and as we got into the final few miles I concentrated on maintaining a good position near the front. There was a right-hand turn a little less than a kilometer before the finish, and we had access to the left lane for the final 200 meters. With the wind coming from the right, I positioned myself on the left side of the group, coming around the last turn a bit farther back than I'd have liked. As soon as we cleared the turn someone jumped, which was good for me. As riders started to fade, I found myself on a solid wheel up against the center line approaching the 200 meter mark. I could tell that the rider in front of me was going to jump hard at 200 meters, and when he did, I was on him like white on rice, easily coming around well before the line. I think I was 2nd or 3rd in the pack sprint (never saw overall results, just the 35+ and 45+ placings) and ended up 3rd in the 45+ race. I was happy with how I felt and in fact a little surprised that I felt as competitive as I did. A little while later I was down by the start/finish and heard them calling my name for the podium, which was up on a hill across the road. I grabbed my bike and climbed up the wash-out / path, and when I went to lean the bike on a nearby tree slashed the hell out of my shin on a piece of rebar they were using as a stake to hold up the backdrop. After the obligatory photo I looked down to see blood dripping down my leg onto my sock and went off to find the first-aid kit I'd thoughtfully remembered to bring along.

The women got thoroughly doused during their criterium.

Sunday's weather was better than predicted, which isn't saying much since the prediction was for nothing but rain. As it turned out, the first race, Gavin's, went off entirely without rain, although the street was wet anyway. At one point I heard someone say hello and turned around to find good ol' GW Wenzel who is famous in the cycling community for always wearing his cowboy hat, boots, and Auburn shorts at bike races. I should have expected to see him there since he's a researcher at the Vet school there. The course was a long rectangle with a nice little uphill toward the finish and a back stretch on a brick road alongside the railroad track. There was a 12-inch concrete apron between the bricks and the curb, and every lap it was just a long string of riders lined up on that narrow little strip avoiding the bumpy bricks. The tricky part was coming down a short downhill to a right turn onto the relatively slippery bricks. There were a few crashes there, including Elliott who went down in his category race just after free laps ended. I'm sure he would have had a very high placing if that hadn't happened. Anyway, the guys learned a lot about riding criteriums on wet roads with larger fields. Dustin and I both passed on racing the criterium. It had started to rain during the women's race(s) and we knew the field sizes for the non-collegiate races would be pretty thin (there were 6 for the masters race). Also, it would have kept us in Auburn another couple of hours, so it wasn't really worth it considering the long drive home. Amazingly, there was practically no rain on the drive home. I was shocked. I'd been dreading a long drive in the dark in pouring rain for days, so it was just wonderful to have dry roads and light traffic for the drive home. I think we got back around 9 pm or so, which was really nice compared to the midnight arrival times we usually see for some of the Texas races. More photos are at HERE. 

Aggieland Road Trip

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

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

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

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

Photo by Brooks Bixler

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

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

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

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

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

Red Dirt

There was a big group for the Saturday Giro.

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

Yes, Woody still rides bikes.

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

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

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

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

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

Stream crossing near the finish

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

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

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

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

The Week Before

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

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

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

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

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

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

The South Wind

Coming over Watchtower Hill on the way to Enon on Sunday

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

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

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

Great weather for the Sunday Winter Ride Series #2

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

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

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

Spocalypse of '18

Tuesday morning 

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

(apologies to W.B. Yeats). 

Sunday Giro returning - things split up on the way back

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

Someone left the sprinkler on Saturday night
along the Lafitte Greenway

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

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

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

Just a few of  us on Tuesday morning

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

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

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

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

Warmer, Wetter, Colder

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

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

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

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

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

Winter Rides

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

So naturally it will be February 13 this year.

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

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

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

Chilled Out, Wimped Out

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

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

I apparently went out under-dressed for reality.

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

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

Cold Snap

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

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

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

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