Weekend Winter Rides and Little Crashes

Saturday morning Giro heading out.

Winter training rides tend to be predictable primarily with respect to their unpredictability. On the one hand, the time-honored winter training rides offer opportunities to make new friends, have long conversations about racing past and present, and generally catch up on some of the social interaction that tends to go quickly out the window when everyone's on the rivet, legs burning, and otherwise unable to form complete sentences. On the other hand, winter group rides always bring together a much wider diversity of riders. Some are seasoned bike racers putting in early season Long Slow Distance miles, some are newer riders jumping into their first serious group rides. Others might be long-lost ex-racers trying to get back into shape and rekindle the excitement that got them on the bike in the first place. In fact, winter is probably the best time for new competitive riders,or returning riders making a comeback, to start doing the faster group rides since speeds are often a bit slower, for shorter duration, and the stronger more compulsive riders are a bit more likely to have mercy on those at the back. Sometimes they will even speak to them and offer advice. Conversation turns from powermeter stats and Strava KOMs to topics like which shoe covers are the warmest and where we'll have coffee. So anyway, it's that time of year now. You would think that the group rides would be safer with the somewhat lowered competitive drive and cold weather and bulky clothes and all.

You would be wrong.

Looking at the hourly weather forecast early Saturday morning I was pretty sure we would get the Giro Ride in without much of a problem. The temperature would be in the 50s and it would be cloudy, and we might get a little bit of spotty rain, but the real cold front wasn't going to come through until later in the day, so while Saturday morning was looking fine, Sunday was still a bit up in the air temperature-wise. Over at Starbucks I was a little surprised how many riders were on hand as we rolled out along Lakeshore Drive. As is often the case when the temperature is in the 50s, practically every possible permutation of wardrobe accessories were in play. Some riders, presumable those with young well-lubricated knee joints, were in shorts and arm-warmers. Others, like me, in knickers and arm-warmers and various base layers. The occasional rider was in long tights. None were uncomfortable. As usual, the pace ramped up quickly when we hit Hayne Blvd. I knew there were four or five guys at the front who were looking for a workout, so I was trying to be attentive to any gaps that might open while also avoiding the infamous line of manhole cover cracks on the road. Turning right at the end of Hayne I made an effort to move closer to the front as we came into a bit of a headwind and things got a little strung out. We came over the I-10 overpass and down onto I-510 at only 25 or 26 mph, which was pretty normal, if not slow, for that little downhill. This is where the group has to cross two lanes of interstate traffic that is turning off of I-10 and onto 1-510, so that we can get into the exit lane. It's always a little dangerous here and numerous riders, including myself, will be looking out for cars and calling out if it's clear or not. That day is was clear and there was no need to slow down at all. The problem, however, was that the road there has just recently received a nice new asphalt overlay, but the shoulder hasn't. That leaves a two or three-inch drop-off at the edge of the lane. Well, as riders were crossing the two lanes to the right and then curving back to the left to line up with the lane, a couple of them overshot and caught that edge. I was ahead of that, chasing a group that already had a little gap, and at first all we heard was someone screaming something. We all figured it was just a flat and continued on a bit until we were off of the interstate. That's when we found out that two or three riders had crashed. The front group was already up the road, but the rest of us waited or turned around to assist, riding carefully the wrong way on the shoulder. By the time we got back to the crash site there was already a little group riding back, nobody was on the ground, and a couple of the riders who had crashed were heading our way ready to continue. So it was all good and we pacelined out to Venetian Isles, turning around to meet back up with the front group that was, I'm sure, disappointed to discover that they hadn't actually dropped all of us. There was another little surge on Hayne as we got a few drops of rain.

Sunday, somewhere near Bogalusa

Sunday morning we had an NOBC Northshore Ride scheduled and the weather over there was as cold and overcast as predicted. I think it was right around 40 when we started (my Garmin always seems to show a couple of degrees colder), and there was a pretty significant northwest wind blowing. On the way over I had been thinking that there might be only three or four other riders, considering the weather and the fact that there was a big Saints game that afternoon, so I was quite surprised to find maybe twenty people ready to go at 8:00. As usual, there was a pretty good mix of riders on hand. A few were hoping for a nice easy 63 miles in the country, most were hoping for a moderately challenging workout, maybe a couple were looking for something harder. We had mapped out both an "A" route and a slightly shorter "B" route, and a few people had planned to turn back early anyway, so by the time we were on Choctaw Road the group was down to about a dozen. Dustin had convinced Kaitlyn to ride, although she really didn't have the miles in her legs yet and had just gotten back in town for the Spring semester the day before. She had a pretty hard ride, coming off the back every time the pace heated up. Fortunately, everyone was fine waiting for the two or three riders off the back to regroup at the intersections, and most of the time they were only a minute or so back, so that was fine. I put in a little effort on the back stretch as usual when Dustin kind of attacked one of the little hills and rode off the front. Three of us came together after that and mounted a bit of a chase, although the best we could do was maintain the gap which was probably around 45 seconds or so.

After we regrouped and made the turn near Bogalusa to start heading back, everyone was in a nice long paceline rolling down Hwy 60 when all of a sudden riders are going down right in front of me. Jaro's head was sliding across the ground in front of me as I swerved hard to keep from plowing into it. In fact, my front wheel brushed his helmet, but luckily it wasn't enough to take me down. I think three riders hit the ground on that one. Fortunately the car that had been behind us stopped and waited patiently while we picked everything up off the road. I'm sure they had some good stories to tell at church that day. Although it might have been much worse, everyone involved was back on their bikes quickly, and whatever injuries there might have been must have been fairly minor. The only evidence of a crash could see were some tears in some shorts and Jaro's slightly twisted handlebars. Anyway, by the time we got to South Choctaw Road, maybe twelve or fifteen miles from the end of the ride, it was clear that Kaitlyn was running on fumes and a couple others were getting near the ends of their ropes as well. Between intersections the group would split, then we'd wait to regroup, then we'd repeat. All this time the sky was dark and the temperature wasn't rising at all, so some of us were starting to get pretty cold from the sweat generated earlier in the ride.

Afterwards a few of us stopped at McAllister's for some badly needed food. Even after sitting in the relatively warm eatery and consuming a nice helping of hot mashed potatoes, I was still feeling pretty chilled when I got back into the car for the drive across the Causeway. I cranked the thermostat up to 75 degrees, set the cruise control at 65, and tuned in to "60s on 6" on the satellite radio, gradually getting my core temperature back to almost normal by the time I got home. 

Winter rides.  Gotta love 'em.

Back to It

Sunday northshore ride - 20 degrees warmer by the time we finished

It was "back to work" on Wednesday, but not until after heading out for the 5:45 am WeMoRi. Outside, the streets were wet and it was foggy and chilly, and I wondered how many might actually show up at the lakefront. Although the thought of staying in bed definitely crossed my mind, I went out anyway, reluctant to throw in the towel quite so early in the new year. I was running just a little bit later than usual so when I got to Lakeshore Drive I turned west, expecting to be swept up by the group at any minute, but the minutes passed and passed and still no group. I figured I must have missed them, so rode back to Wisner, cutting across the City Park loop at Filmore and then turning left so that I'd meet the group as it came up Marconi. I rode all the way to I-610 and still no sign of the group, so I turned around and wondered if perhaps nobody had showed up at all. I was already wet so I went back to Lakeshore Drive and somewhere around Bayou St. John finally met up with a trio of riders that, as it turned out, was pretty much the entire WeMoRi that day. Someone's pedal had come off at the start, so they were running way behind schedule, and as I was riding around searching for them I somehow managed to miss them entirely. Thursday morning's situation wasn't much better, and I ended up with a shortened levee ride then as well.

As bad as the weather had been for a solid week and a half, it was finally looking to be improving for the weekend, so we scheduled an NOBC Northshore Ride for Sunday. I rode the Saturday Giro, which was pretty much a typical winter Giro with a few fast sections and a few slower sections. I'd put on a new chain the prior Thursday, and was quite happy to have done so early enough that there was no skipping on the older cassette. I changed it at around 2,800 miles, which seems to be about the limit for me. If I let it go much more than that it's almost guaranteed that I'll be buying a new cassette too.

S. Choctaw Road

So Sunday morning I met up with Randy Holmes who is back in New Orleans. Randy started racing back when he was about 14 years old, around the same time as I, but hadn't really lived in the city for a long time. He was anxious to see how much things had changed on the northshore. Anyway, when we arrived at the Lee Road ballpark there was a nice turnout of maybe fifteen or so on hand. It was pretty chilly, but the sky was clear and we were expecting the temperature to rise by about twenty degrees by the time we finished the planned 63 mile ride. I'd be trying out the route function on my new Garmin 520, and although I pushed a number of wrong buttons, I did get it working nicely, not that I needed it much on a route that I'd mapped out myself.

The weather on Sunday was practically perfect for riding. Temperatures in the 50s and 60s, minimal winds, clear blue sky, and just the right size group. We stopped a number of times to re-group at intersections, which allowed for a couple of fast segments for those who were interested. Noel it getting ready for a trip to Cuba where he's planning on doing some fast group rides and perhaps a race, so he was doing a fair amount of work at the front. I was feeling fairly good and really enjoyed the faster parts of the ride, especially the little climbs. Scott G was on the ride trying to get back in shape, and by the time we were halfway through he was already struggling. When we got to Choctaw Road he took the shorter route to Enon where we re-grouped, but by then his legs were toast. Once we turned onto Tung Road I told Steve I was going to backtrack and pick him up. Steve did the same. By then he was pretty far back and definitely in limp mode, but fortunately only about four miles from the end. Even at 15 mph he'd immediately come off of my wheel on the slightest of inclines. I'd look back and be surprised how far back he would be. But I knew exactly how he felt because I've been right there on more than one occasion. Anyway, it was a really nice ride that day.

The weather on Monday and Tuesday was still pretty nice, although it was quite foggy and fairly windy on the levee Tuesday morning. We just had a few people show up, so we turned around at the Big Dip which I guess was OK under the circumstances. I was definitely still feeling the effects of Sunday's rolling terrain. This morning I went out to meet the WeMoRi, and once again my timing was less than perfect. Riding along Lakeshore Drive in a strong double-digit northeast wind looking for the group I saw a lone rider going pretty fast, but there were no lights behind him. I turned around and followed, but it wasn't until I was on Robert E. Lee until a 4-rider break caught me. I latched onto that because, looking back, I could tell that the rest of the group was way behind. We turned onto Wisner and picked up a pretty good bit of tailwind. I was sitting on the back of the rotation trying to come to terms with the dramatic increase in effort, and was finally starting to come around when we hit the Wisner overpass. Naturally there was a surge there, which wasn't much of a problem, but coming over the top someone at the front really put the hammer down. I was behind Rob who was on his track bike, and about halfway down the overpass a gap started to open. Rob was maxed out in whatever fixed gear he was riding and I'd guess he probably hit something around 200 RPM for a while there, but it wasn't enough as we were going close to 39 mph by the bottom. I finally, and reluctantly, came around him since it didn't look like the pace was going to ease off, and with great effort finally closed the gap, but it didn't last long. Just after I finally got a wheel we went around the corner onto City Park Avenue and there was another surge. I made a very brief effort before blowing up. I knew Rob would be heading straight home from there, so I was on my own most of the way down Marconi until the next group finally caught me. By then the 3-rider break was a good minute plus up the road. Behind us there was yet another little group as well. I guess the crosswind on Lakeshore Drive must have shattered everything on the way out. Anyway, at least I had a nice tailwind all the way home.

Tonight winter will be returning and by morning it's supposed to be 42° F with another cold front coming through on Saturday. Still, we're not expecting anything much below that for the next ten days, and some lows will be in the mid-50s, so I really can't complain. Things don't get uncomfortable on the bike until it gets down into the mid-30s, really.

Rainy Restart

Most of the group at the Spillway. There was a second group a couple of minutes back.

The plan was to do a nice 50-mile ride out to the spillway to kick off the new year. The forecast was looking better than it had been for days, lots of people were interested, the temperature would be in the 60s, and we wouldn't be starting until 8:30 am. What more could you ask, right?

Shiny roads

I woke up a couple of times in the early morning to hear rain outside. Actually, what I mostly heard was the stream of water pouring down from the broken gutter just above my bedroom window, but at any rate, it was not what I'd been led to expect by the National Weather Service, aka weather.com. By 7 am the text messaging started. Looking at the radar, I was sure that the line of rain that was barely moving to the east would be past us by 9:30, so I sent out emails and FB posts pushing the start time back by an hour. Around 8:30 I found out that a number of people hadn't gotten the message before riding down to Z'otz on Oak Street where we were to meet. A little while later it started raining again and the radar started looking worse rather than better. Well, like me a lot of riders were determined to get in a ride on New Year's Day, come hell or high water. I left the house around 9:00 and when I got to Z'otz  few minutes later I was a little surprised to see a half-dozen riders huddled under the sidewalk awning waiting for the ride to start. I stuffed my raincoat into my pocket and went inside to get a cup of coffee, and then sat down in my usual spot outside to wait for whoever else might show up, which was basically Pat by that time. It was still raining and I wouldn't have been surprised if a number of riders had just called it a day at that point and headed home, but as it turned out everyone mounted up and headed out on Oak Street in the rain for what promised to be a rather soggy start to 2019.

We soon picked up Mignon and Mark and a few others up on the levee, and before long the pace started to pick up. Howard went to the front and upped the pace a couple mph, which split the group, and we didn't really all come back together until around the Big Dip, despite some slow-downs to negotiate the leftover piles fireworks that were littering the bike path.

Clean Slate

It was one of those rides where it was sometimes actually raining, sometimes not, but always wet because of the wheel spray. The pace was kind of erratic as there were a few riders determined to get in a workout, a few more determined not to get dropped, and a few others who didn't care one way or the other. In a way it was rather fun. If it had been colder I would have been absolutely miserable, but fortunately I'd over-dressed with the expectation of being wet. Over-dressing when the temperature is in the 60s means wearing an old jersey under your regular one and pulling on the arm-warmers. So I was never really cold except for a few minutes after we stopped to take a documentary photo at the spillway.

So once again I am re-starting with a clean slate. Last year's miles are just a matter of history now and a new year of riding has started. In the rain. With friends. I am taking it as an omen of a good 2019 that despite riding in the rain for three hours, nobody had a flat!

Finishing Off 2018

Audubon Zoo Lights

I woke to the sound of wet tires on wet roads on New Year's Eve. I turned the alarm off without even looking out the window, although I admit that I checked the weather radar ten minutes later. There's always hope, you know. In this case, however, the thought of yet another wet ride on wet roads followed by cleaning the bike for, I think, the fourth day in a row, was just too much. I pulled the covers up over my head and didn't put my feet on the floor until at least 7 am. After a cup of coffee and a somewhat over-ripe banana I checked the radar again. It looked like there might be a window of an hour or two without significant rain. I rolled out from the house a bit after 8:30 on the old rain bike for an easy ride on the levee. Although I got a bit of light rain for the last five miles or so, I logged the final 26 miles of the year, nudging my annual mileage up to 12,391 - just a bit higher than my 2014 total of 12.379. It always amazes me how close my annual totals are. Over the past five years, my average works out to 12,131. Riding along the levee I noticed that the big old dead tree near the country club where the eagles often perch had apparently been blown down during the recent storms. Not to worry, though, as I saw both of the eagles perched on a nearby tree as I went by.

It was very busy in the kitchen

So the holidays went nicely. Danielle and Shannon were here for a week and a half. I got in some nice rides, even though a lot of them were wet and messy, and we're planning on a nice New Year's Day ride on the levee tomorrow out to the Spillway. After that I guess it will be back to the grind, but the past couple of weeks have provided a nice diversion.

We went to the Zoo to see their new Christmas lights display, which was fairly impressive. Then, right on queue, the dishwasher stopped working. Actually, it was working great but would hang with one minute left on the timer, apparently waiting for the water temperature to get up to the proper level, which wasn't happening. All indications are that it is a bad control board. With the impending holidays and no time to wait for a new $250 control board to arrive, we hustled over to Lowes and bought a new one, which of course wasn't cheap. I got to work installing it and, of course, discovered I needed a different fitting for the water supply connection. Naturally it was half an hour before closing time at Lowes, so I had to rush over there to get what I needed, but it all worked out and we were happily washing dishes later that night.

High Point - City Park

Christmas Day was over at my sister's house following a visit with Dad at Poydras Home. Candy had made something like five pies. There's still a lot left a week later. Also cookies. Also chocolate.

Christmas Eve Giro Ride Group

The weekend before Christmas I did three Giro Rides, including the Holiday Giro on Christmas Eve, so that was nice. By Monday's ride, though, it was getting pretty windy and the forecast for the rest of the week wasn't looking all that good. We did manage to get in the WeMoRi before the rains started, though. Thursday was super-windy, and there were only a couple other riders out, so we did a shorter levee ride, turning around at the Big Dip. It still felt like a workout, though. Friday morning was a wash-out, but the rain stopped in the afternoon so I went out for a long solo ride to Ormond and back. Everything was wet and dirty by the time I got back, but otherwise it was good. I wasn't expecting much of a turnout for the Saturday Giro, considering the threat of rain, wet roads, and holidays. By the time we started I'd already decided to turn back at the end of Lakeshore Drive. It was chilly and wet and I knew if I got rained on I'd be really uncomfortable. I didn't regret my decision. Again I had to wash the bike and lube the chain and throw my dirty clothes into the washer.

Dec. 30 Giro - Lots of fog, but not too cold.

That afternoon the weather improved a bit so we went out to City Park so I could explore the Couturie Forest trail which I hadn't seen since we used to do mountain bike races there. There's a big "hill" there that was originally a dump for debris from construction of the nearby I-610. Back when we rode mountain bikes there it was basically a pile of broken concrete and rebar and dirt. This was before mountain bikes had suspension. Also before City Park knew there was a trail back there. Now there's a "lookout" on top of it and nicely laid out trails with occasional signage and lots of newly planted trees. It was nice, although in a more civilized way than it used to be. Anyway, Danielle and I walked the trails while Candy walked a lap around the golf course and Shannon did a long run around the park.

Poydras Home Visit

While we were there we rain into Dustin and a few other riders who were still on the bikes from the Giro Ride. As it turned out, only two riders did the whole Giro that day, and they ended up riding around the city, eating pastries, and fixing flats. Later that afternoon we send Danielle, Shannon, and the two little dogs back off to Olympia and returned to a very quiet house.

It's almost 9:00 pm right now and I can hear fireworks all over the place. The streets are still wet and the temperature is in the 60s. The city is doing three or four separate fireworks displays this year. It remains to be seen whether I'll still be awake to hear the last one at midnight, but after that it will be back to the regular routine I guess, at least for six days until the Phynny Phorty Phellows and Twelfth Night Revelers kick off the Mardi Gras season!

Grey Winter Skies

Some days it's better to turn around and sit down with a cup of coffee to contemplate the meaning of life.

Friday morning started out chilly and windy. I knew that my usual Friday morning Tulane Coffee Ride routine was in serious jeopardy because it was exam week. Also chilly, windy and dark. I went out anyway and almost immediately regretted it. I was a little under-dressed, not so much for the temperature, but definitely for the strong and gusty wind. I continued on anyway, of course, just in case someone might show up. Nobody who gets out of a warm bed and goes out on the bike on such a day deserves to ride alone. Well, except for me I guess. It was no surprise that there was nobody there at the Reily Center for the coffee ride, so I just continued on through campus and into Audubon Park, and from there onto the levee bike path where I felt the full force of the northwest wind. I was pretty miserable and considered turning around immediately, but somehow talked myself into riding slowly out to the Huey P. Long bridge before turning around and making a bee line for the Zotz for coffee. There, I could see the clouds building up as predicted ahead of the next minor cold front. My Strava stats for the day?  An average speed of 12.9 mph, and a max of 19.2.

Saturday morning was considerably colder, and there was still a strong wind out of the west. I went out to Starbucks to meet up with the Giro Ride group, wondering what the turnout would be like. There were other things going on, of course, and the deeply overcast sky and strong wind were not particularly conducive to a big group anyway. Arriving around 6:30 I met up with Trevor, a visiting rider from somewhere in England who was here for a conference and had rented a bike from Bicycle Michael's in order to get in a couple of rides afterward. I was wearing a thermal base layer under a long-sleeve jersey. He was in basically summer kit plus arm-warmers. He said it felt like spring compared to what it was like back home. My quick assessment told me that if the ride got fast he was likely to be in just a bit over his head, but if it was just moderate and steady he'd probably do fine. Eventually other riders started rolling in, and my the time we left there was a smallish group that wasn't too unusual for this time of year. I noted, however, that there was nonetheless sufficient horsepower in attendance to make for a fast ride, especially considering that we'd have a pretty strong tailwind on Hayne Blvd. and Chef Highway. Tailwinds are fun unless you find yourself at the back where the draft doesn't really do you as much good as you think. On the way out on Lakeshore Drive I rolled up alongside Trevor and told him to expect someone to put the hammer down once we came down the overpass onto Hayne, which was exactly what happened. It was the last I saw of Trevor, among others, as I was struggling just to stay somewhere near the front as the pace settled in at around 30 mph. It stayed pretty much that way all the way out to Venetian Isles. Fortunately, Pat stayed with Trevor and I think they got back in with the group for a while on the way back. As fast as the ride had been on the way out, you'd have expected it to be a hard slog into the wind on the way back. It wasn't really, as nobody seemed willing to do too much work into the headwind. By the time I got home I was getting cold because of the lower effort level combined with the sweat generated on the way out. It wasn't until I had some hot soup that I really warmed up.

Post-ride on Sunday at the Lee Road Ballpark

So on Sunday I decided to go across the lake to do a little 50+ mile ride that Mignon had told me was happening. The weather was still chilly - around 50 degrees - but now there was a light mist falling that made it feel ten degrees colder. We had a small group of seven or eight, which was expected. I was hoping it would be a fairly easy ride. Perhaps it was the weather, but I just didn't feel like doing much intensity at all. Fortunately, everyone else was pretty much on the same page. I did a little work for a few miles on Hwy 439 before Sie Jenkins Road but that was about it. When we re-grouped at Sie Jenkins and Hwy 60, Darren took out a Pop-Tart. We rolled kind of slowly waiting for him to catch up and when I looked back just before we turned onto S. Choctaw I could see him coming, maybe a minute or so back. No problem, I thought, since we weren't going very hard at all. Well, that was the last we saw of him until much later. We figured that, for some reason, he must have decided to go straight down to Hwy. 16 and Enon, so we continued on. Well, when we got to Enon, there was Darren walking his bike. He'd flatted and not been able to fix it, so he'd gotten a ride with a passing pick-up truck down to Enon. His timing was perfect. We got his flat fixed and rolled in the remaining six or seven miles to the Ballpark. Afterward, I was surprised that I could feel some soreness in my quads.

Consistent, at least. Easy to see the broken collarbone years.

Anyway, it was a pretty chill weekend of riding for me, which felt about right for this time of year. Strava says I'm at 11,885 miles for the year with a couple of weeks left, so that's about normal. In fact, it's amazing how consistent my annual mileage has been. Although I make no effort to hit any particular target each year, I guess my routine is so set in stone that it just kind of comes out the same every year.

Cold and Wet Weekend Off the Bike

Grayson excited about finishing up his time at Tulane

Things were already looking bad for Saturday when Wes came by on Wednesday to pick up medals for the LAMBRA Cyclocross Championship. Although the championship races themselves were scheduled for Sunday, there was also a full slate of races planned for Saturday. The venue had already been moved at the last minute from Audubon Park to Behrman Park across the river. The latter was sure to be considerably sloppier, but tearing it up with knobby cyclocross tires would cause considerably less of a problem. We talked about the predicted 100% chance of rain and 20-30 mph winds and decided that if it still looked hopeless in the morning, the Saturday races would be cancelled. It did. They were.

I'd gone out Friday morning with the Tulane coffee ride group for the last coffee ride before final exams and Grayson's last coffee ride before graduating. The weather was still pretty nice. The cold front wasn't supposed to come through until Friday night. I wasn't holding out much hope for the Saturday Giro Ride, but it was looking like maybe a 20% chance it might be slipped in before the rain started. When I awoke on Saturday morning the streets were still dry. I looked at the radar for a long time and ultimately came to the unavoidable realization that it would definitely be raining by 7:30 or 8:00, and with the strong winds already blowing I figured that even riding over to Harrison Avenue for coffee would be futile. As it turned out, a few riders did show up. They even got in a few miles before, of course, it started raining. For myself, I figured it had been a good call. The rest of the day was wet and chilly as the cold front moved through.

Finish line all ready to go

By Sunday morning the rain was gone but I was scheduled to officiate the cyclocross races with Michelle. The temperature had dropped down to the low 40s and it was overcast and I knew it would be staying that way for most of the day. I also knew I was going to freeze my ass off sitting under a tent at the park where the ground was going to be just barely above the definition of swampland. I wore my warm cycling baselayer and slightly water-resistant boots. On the plus side, the races didn't start until 10:00 and the course was just 20 minutes away, so I had the luxury of making coffee, cooking a couple of eggs, and loading up the car in daylight.

Sloppy cyclocross on Sunday

I arrived at the course about two hours early to find just Wes and a lot of muck. He'd situated the start/finish on the opposite side of the course from the road since that was basically the only relatively dry ground. That was good, but it meant dragging all of the tents and assorted equipment through the muck. Three trips later, I set up the fence posts for the USAC snowfence, put up the tent and tabled, and camera, and got the computers ready. The night before I'd set up CrossMgr with the details for the five races, so everything was pretty much configured and ready to go. All I'd need to do is copy the registration data into Excel files so that the software could associate the bib numbers with the riders names. We got the first race lined up and ready and that's when I heard Wes telling them that the first lap was going to be a little shorter than the others. That was, I think, to avoid having the group encounter the barriers within the first 500 feet. As it turned out, the first lap was a minute and a half shorter than the rest, which totally messed up the software. CrossMgr uses the lap times to determine what the lap cards should read. It also uses them to predict when the leader(s) will be approaching the finish line on each lap. Well, the short first lap times completely screwed all of that up. We ended up starting the next races on the computer 1:30 earlier than the actual starts in order to compensate, which worked out reasonably well.

Anyway, by the time the second race was starting I was already shivering enough to make hitting the right keys on the computer kind of a hit-of-miss proposition. Fortunately the fields were fairly small, thanks no doubt to the weather, so it all worked out OK and we got the results done very quickly after each race. I didn't get home until around 4:30 or so, and got the results up on the website after grabbing something to eat. Bottom line: no bike riding for me last weekend.

The last couple of mornings have been around 40 degrees and windy. I rode on Monday mostly alone until I ran into Pat on the way back. This morning was a little less windy but felt at least as cold as Monday had. There were just three of us up on the levee, so we shortened the ride, turning around at the little dip. I think the temperatures will be generally warming up from here on out, although a little cold front coming through on Thursday has the forecast for that day showing 100% chance of rain with thunderstorms.

Wild Swings

It was a wet but surprisingly fast Giro Ride on Saturday

Here in New Orleans it's now the time of year for wild swings in the weather, and not surprisingly, ride turnouts. While the relatively recent popularity of computer game bike rides, aka Zwift, has definitely reduced the number of riders willing to show up to ride actual bikes in actual weather, I think that perhaps all that riding indoors also increases the level of, shall we say excitement, when the weather suddenly goes from dreary to spectacular. We certainly had samples of both last weekend.

I woke up Saturday morning to dark wet streets. Based on the forecast I hadn't really expected to be able to ride at all, but looking at the 5:45 am radar I couldn't see any rain in the immediate vicinity, so after a bit of deliberation, and resigning myself to a post-ride bike-cleaning session, I slipped out the door around 6 am into the 100% relative humidity. The streets were still wet from the earlier rain, but not so much to get me wet, at least at the slow speed I was going. Arriving at Starbucks twenty-five minutes later I wasn't too surprised to find no other bikes around. I was already thinking that the full Giro was probably not going to be a possibility since I don't much like being out on Chef Highway with just one or two others anyway. Eventually, as I sat outside sipping my coffee, a few more riders started to arrive, and by the time we rolled out at 7:00 I guess there was at least a dozen.

The Garmin showing its age

There was still no consensus as to whether to cut the ride short, but once we crossed the interstate, the virtual Rubicon of the Giro Ride, there was no turning back. Of course by then I was already fairly wet just from wheel spray, so when it started to really rain a few minutes later on Chef Highway, it didn't really matter much any more. I was glad I'd charged my retina-burning tail light, but even with that I kept thinking about that ride in Florida the week before where an inattentive drive had plowed into a group and killed two. On the other hand, I was feeling pretty good and ended up doing a fair amount of work.

The rain had stopped by the time we turned around for the ride back into an increasing headwind, which itself was delayed by a broken spoke on Bullard. All-in-all though, I really couldn't complain. On a day that I'd initially thought would be a complete rain-out, I'd gotten in a respectable workout and we'd done the full Giro distance. On the minus side, it became clear that my trusty old Garmin was no longer water proof. After I got home I opened up the case and set it in front of a fan for the rest of the day. I may have to start wrapping it in a plastic bag on rain days. It's got something over 80,000 miles on it by now and the rubber sides that hold the buttons in are cracked. I had to put a piece of electrical tape on one side about a  month ago when one of the buttons fell out entirely.

Sunday's weather was practically perfect

The forecast for Sunday was looking much better than Saturday. Rain was unlikely, the temperature would be in the 60s and 70s, and the wind would be essentially calm. We had whipped up a somewhat last-minute NOBC ride on the northshore, and given the nice weather forecast it was looking like we would have a good turnout. I had tried a new mapping website called Plot a Route that I really liked, especially since it allowed you to download a tcx file that included cue sheet data which lets the Garmin tell you how far it is to the next turn. Anyway, I drove over with Pat to the Lee Road Ballpark where we found I guess twenty riders in various stages of preparation for the planned 65 mile route.

We had a great group on Sunday.

Looking around, I could see that there were a few riders who were likely to be pushing the pace despite my request to keep things at a "winter ride" pace for the first 25 miles. Mignon told me she had been sick all week and was still recovering, but wanted to try and make the full ride, so we should be sure to wait for her if she got dropped when the pace got fast. Indeed, the pace got plenty fast once we got off of 1072 and onto Choctaw Road, but everybody was fine with waiting for those who hadn't made the split. The next section, from Hwy. 10 to Sie Jenkins Road, had been designated, at least by me, as the "fast" section, so I was a little surprised when everyone rode smoothly up the first of the three significant climbs there. When we got to the second climb I was on the front and put in a little effort over the top that not surprisingly split one or two off the back. I was feeling pretty good and really enjoyed the effort along this stretch, so much so that it seemed Sie Jenkins Rd. came up way too soon. Despite the fast pace, we hadn't put all that much time on the rest of the group, so after a brief regrouping we continued toward Bogalusa, made the two right turns, and headed back toward S. Choctaw. By then I had the arm-warmers in my pocket and was well into my water supply. The weather was about as good as it gets, so everybody was having a good ride. We continued regrouping the intersections and after a quick stop at Enon headed toward firetower hill that doesn't have a fire tower any more where I was fully expecting to see some action. I think a few of the guys were targeting a Strava segment there. I stuck with the surge about two-thirds of the way up, then dropped off a bit to come over the top about fifteen seconds back. Luckily they soon eased up a bit and I was able to regain contact, after which the pace gradually increased pretty much all the way back to the ballpark. It was one of the nicest northshore rides I've done in a while, so I was really glad I'd gone. The rest of this week is looking to be colder and then wetter, so situation normal for early December. By tomorrow morning the temperature is supposed to be back down to 47, and then Tuesday night a bit lower to 43 before a gradual warm-up again leading to rain on Friday and Saturday ahead of the next cold front. I'm supposed to be officiating cyclocross here in New Orleans on Saturday and Sunday. It's still too early to know for sure but it's looking like Saturday morning is going to be raining and windy and Sunday just cold and windy. Oh boy.

Predicting Turnout

Cruising through campus at 6:15 am on a Friday

You know, I've doing this bike riding thing for a pretty long time - like since the Nixon administration - and I've yet to be able to predict when people will show up for a group ride, or race, and when they won't. Back when I started, I guess it was the summer of '71, I distinctly remember showing up for a group ride at a parking lot on Causeway Blvd. where we were supposed to car-pool over to the northshore. It was cold and rainy. I pulled into a parking spot in the deserted lot and wondered, "where is everybody?" Well, it turns out that most people just won't go bike riding in the cold rain. It was one of many bicycle related learning experiences. What it wasn't, however, was predictable. Since then, there have been lots of other times when the riders showed up anyway, despite bone-chilling cold, 30 mph wind, and/or pelting rain. There have also been times when the weather was great and yet nobody showed up.

Like this morning. It was a pleasant 65 degrees here in New Orleans this morning for the 6:30 am Tulane Coffee Ride. The wind was light, the roads were mostly dry, and there was zero chance of rain. I'd gone out the door a little early since my normal ride time is 5:45 - 6:00, so took the long way around, cruising down Carrollton and St. Charles before turning into campus and riding the deserted walkways over to the Reily Center where I rode around in little circles looking at my watch and wondering why nobody what showing up. Still wondering. So I headed back through campus, across St. Charles, through Audubon Park, to the levee bike path where I did a nice easy recovery ride. It just didn't make sense to go out an deal with morning traffic all alone on a recovery day.

In fact, it was a recovery day that I sort of, kind of, maybe needed after doing a fairly credible effort on the Thursday morning levee ride. In addition to a few of the regulars, we had both Howard and Matt on hand, which kept the pace pretty respectable, at least on the way out. Since I missed riding on Monday because of an early meeting, I'd been feeling kind of mileage-deprived all week, and the fact that we'd shortened Tuesday's ride due to it being cold and windy and having only a few people show up, wasn't helping. Speaking of weather, it's supposed to rain buckets tonight, and maybe through Saturday morning, so the best I can hope for there is a Giro Ride on wet streets. The worst is a Giro Ride that doesn't happen because it's still raining. It should be better by afternoon, although the wind will be blowing at 10-15 mph. There's a cyclocross race up in Ridgeland Saturday and Sunday. Given that I know what the course looks like, and it'll definitely be wet on Saturday, I think I'll be staying close to home on Saturday. Not sure about Sunday. The weather is looking to be pretty great by then around here with temperatures in the 60s and 70s, light winds, and low rain chances.

Kenneth posted some video of the WeMoRi. If you've never ridden it, here's a sampling:

Wednesday night water main work. Here we go again.....

Meanwhile back at the homestead, we had another water main leak out in front of the house Wednesday morning. I saw the water when I went out for the WeMoRi at 5:45 am. By the time I got back around 7:30 it was already looking much worse. I called the Sewerage and Water Board, and also reported it online, since I knew it was going to escalate. This leak was right on the other side of the manhole cover from the big water main break they had repaired last January.  Just two day earlier they had finally replaced the asphalt from that leak. Yes, it took ten months for them to fix the street. The day before I had contacted them about removing the four big orange traffic barrels that have been sitting in front of the house since last January. They're still there. Fortunately, they showed up on Wednesday and by the time I got home the street was closed off and there was a ten foot high pile of mud next to a ten foot deep hole with a couple of men inside. The leak was repaired and by 9 or 10 pm they were packing the mud back into the hole. So now we have a big muddy mess, again, that I guess will take another 9 or 10 months to get fixed. This time there are no traffic barrels or anything, so it's a nice little surprise for people coming down Pine Street at night, I guess.

The Long November Weekend

Finishing up the Saturday Giro, heading into lake fog.

It wasn't until Thursday night that I knew we'd be doing a "holiday Giro" Thanksgiving morning. It's the kind of thing that everybody assumes will happen but nobody wants to commit to. So I was pleasantly surprised to see fairly solid turnout under the circumstances. Most people have some kind of family commitment on Thanksgiving, so the 7 am Holiday Giro works out pretty well. As is typical for that sort of thing, there were just a few people working the front that day, with most riders content to just tick off the miles back in the draft at a more comfortable effort level, all the while fooling themselves into thinking they were burning off calories that they hadn't yet actually consumed. In my own case, I was expected at my sister's house for a family Thanksgiving lunch, which for me was a turkey leg and at least one too many glasses of wine.

On Friday the only ride that was planned was apparently a secret, so I waited until the sun actually came over the horizon before heading out for forty-odd solo miles on the levee. There was this nice little tailwind behind me all the way out that made for a really pleasant ride until, of course, I turned around. It actually wasn't all that bad except in comparison to how nice it had been in the opposite direction. Later that day I got busy on some things around the house, one of which was taking a look at one of the two expensive pendant lights in the kitchen. It had stopped working a while back, and then suddenly started working again, and then stopped again. It wouldn't be the first time I'd wrestled with it, and knowing how much of a pain in the butt it was going to be, I'd been putting it off for a long time. The thing was clearly designed by designers who didn't give a rat's ass about how reliable or repairable or easy to install it might be, just as long as it looked pretty. I have to admit, it does look pretty, but like all things that are pretty, it came with a price. The entire thing hangs on a super-thin coaxial power cord that is secured at both ends by tiny little set screws, with other tiny little set screws to make the electrical connection to the super-hot halogen light bulb. After getting it down from the ceiling I made a connector for it so I could test it on the kitchen counter, and after some experimentation determined that there was a short somewhere in the cable or the electrical connections at either end of the cable. A complete dissection revealed the likely problem, which was that the heat from the bulb had basically melted some of the inner wire insulation and caused a short. I could hear the transformer clicking on and off to protect itself. Fortunately I had a spare length of cable. Unfortunately, replacing it would require the skills and patience normally reserved for brain surgery. I left it spread all over the kitchen counter so I could think about what would be needed.

On Saturday morning I did another Giro Ride, which turned out to be pretty hard, especially after a few guys at the front basically attacked the turn off of Hayne Blvd. and opened a big gap that the few of us willing to work were never able to close. Anyway, I kind of rushed back home afterward because there was a noon surprise party for my sister and I had to make a run out to the airport immediately before that to pick up my brother and his wife who had been visiting their kids in Texas and were stopping over in New Orleans for the party before returning home to Orlando. It all worked out pretty well, and although the early morning weather had been kind of wet and gloomy, by noon the sun was out and it was quite nice for the little event in Audubon Park.

Sunday morning I was up around 3:30 am to get them to the airport for a 5 am flight, and a little later to get me out to my third Giro Ride of the week. I'd been hoping for a northshore ride on Sunday, but the weather forecast was not encouraging and I couldn't get anyone to commit. I probably would have done a long northshore ride, even if there had been some rain, if I'd been comfortable I'd have some company. Riding by myself on country roads in the rain, however, was not going to happen.

Working again ... for now.

As it turned out, the Sunday Giro got a good soaking with rain on Chef Highway ahead of the next cold front. It's supposed to be in the low 40s tonight, so it will be long tights and base layers again for the Tuesday morning ride. After getting home, cleaning the bike, throwing the clothes in the washer, and taking a shower, I got back to work on that pesky pendant light. After much tedious work I finally got it all back together and working. I'm not entirely sure that Underwriters Laboratories would approve of the whole thing, but I'm pretty sure that it will be OK for a little while at least. I ordered a couple of LED lights for it in order to reduce the heat that the halogen bulbs generate, although I'm not really sure how hot the LEDs actually get. I'm assuming they run significantly cooler. We'll see.

Later that day I heard about a crash in Florida where a "distracted" woman had plowed into a whole group of riders, killing one of them and sending six or seven to the hospital. This is getting to be a regular occurrence. People need to put the phones down and watch where they are going. I can't imagine any valid excuse for mowing down a whole group of riders in broad daylight on a flat road at 8:30 am on a Sunday morning. None. I'm not buying the "sun in my eyes" shit. Had to have been going fifty miles per hour, judging by the damage to the car.

Also, Sunday was my birthday. Sad to say I am now Medicare eligible, which I somehow find to be extremely disturbing.

In other updates: The hole in the street in front of the house now has concrete in it, but still lacks the top layer of asphalt. Meanwhile, the road is barely passable and as a result the garbage men apparently decided to just skip picking up my garbage Saturday morning. I got the estimate on repairing the Tulane Cycling TV ($263) which I guess isn't too bad. As I suspected, it needs a new power supply board. Hope I can get that reimbursed. Last week at the annual LAMBRA meeting I got volunteered to be LAMBRA treasurer. Townsend will be President, Dustin will be VP, and Rolando will be Secretary. Ricky will continue as the Commissioner of Officials, Robert will continue as the results uploader, and Boedi will continue as upgrade coordinator, so that all sounds pretty encouraging to me. I guess I'll register for Medicare tonight, even though I am also signed up for my regular insurance through work. I need to talk with someone in personnel about all of that, I guess. I'm not sure what I'll be doing next weekend. There's cyclocross up in Ridgeland Saturday and Sunday on a course that is probably best suited to actual cyclocross bikes, and then I'm supposed to be officiating the following weekend for the LAMBRA cyclocross championship in New Orleans. That will close out the LAMBRA calendar for 2018.

Full Winter Kit

All Chiefs, no Indians. Hopefully the street will soon be back like it was last January.

As expected, the temperature this morning was around 40°F. Fortunately I'd already dug through my bike clothes drawer and extracted the long tights and a long-sleeve jersey so I wouldn't be trying to find them in the dark among a drawer full of mostly black clothes. This would be the first day this Fall that I'd need a more or less full winter kit, which is something that means one thing if you're in Minnesota and quite another if you're in New Orleans. While the morning temperature might be described as comfortable by folks farther north, the sudden plunge we've experienced here over the past week made it feel particularly frigid. It was mostly in my head, of course, but even so, I went ahead and over-dressed. It's really no use going out and getting chilled on the first cold ride of the year. All that does is make you all that much less likely to step out the door the next morning.

Anyway, it still wasn't cold enough to need the shoe-covers or winter jacket or double-gloves, or even the wind vest. I did slip the toe-covers over my shoes, mostly because the streets were still a little wet from yesterday's unending rain. I got out the house a few minutes early, so rode into the north wind pretty slowly, arriving at Lakeshore Drive a bit after 6 am. The WeMoRi group usually gets back to Marconi around 6:10 or so, so I rode over the Bayou St. John bridge and a bit farther east before turning around and heading back toward Marconi. Despite my slow speed, when I turned onto Marconi I couldn't see any sign of the group. The eastern end of Lakeshore Drive had been closed the day before because the strong north wind from the cold front had pushed a lot of lake water onto the street. I wondered if it was still closed. When I got down to Robt. E. Lee with still no sign of the group, or for that matter any other bike rider at all, I thought that perhaps they had turned around early on Lakeshore Drive because of a road closure and I'd missed them, so I headed down Marconi in the opposite direction of the ride, figuring I'd see them approaching at some point. I got all the way down to City Park Avenue without seeing anyone, so I turned around, somewhat surprised that apparently nobody had showed up for the ride that morning. I went back to Lakeshore Drive, made the loop around the fountain, and finally saw three other riders. As it turned out, that was all there had been of the WeMoRi and I'd just missed them because they were going more slowly than usual. The weather really wasn't all that bad. I was quite comfortable the whole time.

Low expected: 38°

In fact, I was probably more comfortable than all those guys dripping sweat all over themselves riding trainers and pretending to ride their bikes on pretend courses with other pretend riders on Zwift.

When I got home I was shocked to find the Sewerage & Water Board finally getting to work on that patch of mud they left in the road in front of my house when they fixed the water line leak last January. For this section of road that I would estimate at 15 feet square they had four trucks, two bulldozers, and six people.

So Cold

The week isn't looking too great for riding. Must be November.

There is nothing that will chill you to the bone like spending the day officiating a cyclocross race, except perhaps sitting on a bench high up in a football stadium on a cold, windy evening. As it turned out, I got to do both last Saturday. I also didn't get to ride my bike.

Saturday morning I pulled on my winter long-sleeve base layer, then a fleece pullover on top of that, and laced up my waterproof cyclocross officiating boots. I guess the temperature was, maybe, forty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, but there was north wind blowing at about twenty miles per hour, and I knew that sitting at a table in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere down in Chalmette was going to get cold. I was not mistaken. There were times when it was hard to hit the right keys on the computer because my hand was so cold. Meanwhile, bike racers clad in summer skinsuits rode around us at the Swamp Otter Classic race down by the 40 Arpent Canal, which may lead you to ask, "WTF is an Arpent?" For that matter, you might also ask, "How on earth did you get trapped into being down in St. Bernard Parish, where a couple of my distant ancestors battled the British, two weekends in a row? Well, first things first...

Wikipedia says that "An arpent (French pronunciation: ​[aʁpɑ̃]) is a unit of length and a unit of area. It is a pre-metric French unit based on the Roman actus. It is used in Quebec, some areas of the United States that were part of French Louisiana, and in Mauritius and the Seychelles." So, apparently this little canal in the middle of nowhere must be old, French, and at some point around 7,680 feet long. Anyway, nowadays there a quite nice "wetlands observatory" there which, since it has bathrooms and as previously indicated is in the middle of nowhere, makes it a prime location for a cyclocross race.

Fortunately, the race went quite nicely and the ground wasn't very muddy or wet where we were, and the sun was out most of the time, so by cyclocross standards it was an exceptional day. Michelle and I officiated the racing that lasted until around 2:30, consumed a bag of leftover Halloween candy, and then I rushed back home, grabbed the ticket that Candy had left on the dining room table for me, and walked over to the Tulane football stadium where the Homecoming game was in it's first quarter. The game itself was fairly entertaining, as football goes, but after being chilled to the bone out at the 40 Arpent Canal, and then sitting motionless in the upper reaches of the stadium, I was just getting colder and colder as the game clock ticked down. By the end of the game, which came down to the last 10 seconds that weren't actually played thanks to that 10-second runoff rule, I was so cold I was shivering. It was definitely a long day by the time I got back home around 7 pm and sat down to post the cyclocross race results, and complete the post-event report. I hit the sack early because I was scheduled to officiate Sunday's cyclocross race up in Petal, MS, which is basically Hattiesburg, and thankfully only a couple of hours' drive away. I was glad that the race didn't start until 10 am because it was supposed to be around 39 degrees that morning. As it turned out, I never got uncomfortably cold on Sunday, probably thanks to the fact that the wind had died down considerably from the previous day. Even so, it was another long day of not riding. I left home around 6:30 am and got home around 6:30 pm.

This morning (Monday) the forecast looked bad, the streets were wet, but the radar looked OK, so I went out on the rain bike for a quick 20 miles on the levee before driving the car to work since I know it's going to be raining this evening. The rest of the week isn't looking too good and I think I'll probably be riding one of the WattBikes tomorrow. In fact, as I'm writing this, I got the following:

"Severe storms possible in NOLA this afternoon. A tornado watch is in effect until 7pm. Stay weather aware and review storm preparedness: ready.nola.gov/tornado"

And then, while at work on Monday, in the middle of a tornado watch and severe rainstorm, I got a call from Candy about this. By the time I walked over there I was completely soaked from the waist down since umbrellas don't work so well with horizontal rain. You know those fancy new granite curbs they installed downtown on Canal Street? They're razor-sharp, and yes, that's one of the tires I bought about a year ago when Danielle blew out two of them in a big pothole during a raging thunderstorm.

Alt-Giro to the End of the World

Quick and bad photo of the front group posing in front of the End of the Road sign -
trying to avoid pointing the camera directly into the rising sun.

I'd never done the "Tour da Parish" ride before. Now in its 3rd (I think) year, this is a charity type ride organized by St. Bernard Parish, and Howard Luna who is a council member there when he isn't surging off the front of the Giro Ride. St. Bernard parish comprises essentially the last strips of mostly dry land southeast of New Orleans that's not immediately adjacent to the Mississippi. As you might expect, the paucity of dry ground results in a similar paucity of paved roads, which in turn results in a ride featuring dead-ends and U-turns, one of which, down by Delacroix, has a big sign that reads appropriately, "End of the World." For the most part, these are not roads I'd go out of my way to ride, since they are mostly narrow 2-lane roads about six inches higher than the two bodies of water between which they are squeezed. On the other hand, if you want to see lots of shrimp boats and fishermen and duck hunters, it's like paradise.

With The Daughter in town for the week, I had wiggled my way out of officiating the weekend cyclocross races over in Baton Rouge, but hadn't conceded my local weekend morning rides. I knew that there probably wouldn't be a quorum for the Saturday Giro, since most of those guys were definitely going to be doing the Tour da Parish ride, effectively making it into the week's alt-Giro Ride. Besides, the Tulane riders were in need of another vehicle to get their riders down to "da parish."

So Saturday morning I picked up coffee, and then met up with the TUCA crew in front of "old" Bruff, and headed down to St. Bernard, arriving in plenty of time to register, pick up a number that wasn't even recorded, and head over to the road for the official start. I was careful to start near the front. I've done a few of these things before and, looking at the Giro horsepower in attendance, I knew it was going to get fast sooner or later. We were probably less than ten miles into the ride when I noticed the big guy in front of me who looked a little wobbly. I thought to myself, "that guy isn't going to be long for the front group," and starting looking for a way to move ahead of him where it seemed more safe. Just then I saw him ride straight into a big sharp pothole. Once the planet stopped shaking, I thought, "that's got to be a pinch-flat." Sure enough, a minute later he looked down at his rear tire as the last molecules of air were escaping. Then, naturally, he did what every uninitiated rider does under those circumstances. He hit the brakes in the middle of the bunch and came to a stop as about thirty riders swerved around him in various degrees of disbelief and/or surprise.

Lots of shrimp boats and crab traps down here.

Stationed mostly toward the back of the front group as it was slowly whittled down to 25 or 30 Giro riders, I found myself constantly needing to close gaps. Whoever was in front was basically attacking after every turn, so back where I was there would be a frantic 30 mph chase each and every time. At the Shell Beach U-turn, where the road changed from asphalt to rocks, the front of the group was attacking in the other direction before I even got to turn around. That resulted in a long solo chase for me. Apparently a couple of guys had ridden off the front, so the rest of the group was in chase mode, and I was trying to chase them all by my lonesome. Luckily, a couple of miles later they had to make a couple of turns and cross an old bridge, which allowed me to close the last little bit. By then I guess we were reasonably close to home. When we turned onto the 4-lane highway with only a few miles left, someone at the front put the hammer down, again chasing a couple of guys who had ridden off the front, and the whole group got strung out single-file going about 28 mph. A little while later someone a few riders ahead blew up and opened a gap, and the rider behind him didn't go around, and I knew we were in trouble. I rode up alongside and said, "Come on!" and ramped it up to 30 or so to start closing the gap. I took a long pull and then pulled over, only to find nobody there, so I ended up in no-mans-land. The group ahead was still going full-gas, so after another minute or two I knew I wasn't going to be able to close the widening gap and eased up to regroup with whatever was left of the back half of the original group. Fortunately, we were only a few miles from the end by then.

So it was actually a surprisingly fun ride despite all of the out-and-back segments, and I even got in a bit of intensity. That afternoon I spent a couple of hours taking down and cutting up a little dead tree that had fallen behind the garage, which of course means my back and arms will be sore for days.