Weather Worries

It is getting to be that time of year when the weather complicates everything, and most of the images on Strava go from pacelines and sunrises to animated landscapes with questionable Watts/kg numbers. After a fairly routine week of moderate weather that saw a surprisingly large turnout for Friendly Friday, the forecasters left little good news in their upcoming weekend prognostications. A cold front started crawling through Saturday morning with the rain perfectly timed for the start of the Giro Ride, which for all practical purposes did not happen. I waited until around 8:30 when the rain had mostly stopped and headed out to the levee on wet streets, riding the old Orbea for a change. It was overcast and windy and supposed to become even more windy, but I thought I could get in a ride out to the Spillway and back before the colder air moved in. So I dressed a little on the heavy side with knee and arm-warmers and thick base layer, sticking a PayDay bar and my chest protector in my pocket just in case. The wind was already mostly out of the north, so much of the 50+ miles would be crosswind. On the other hand, I was not feeling any need to push myself. November and December have always been more about volume than intensity, at least for me. I was just a couple of miles from the Spillway when the sky got a little darker and the wind a little stronger, and by the time I'd started back a heavy wet mist was starting to fall. I stopped for a moment and stuck the wind barrier inside my jersey, silently congratulating myself for having brought it along. Every now and then a bend in the river would grant me a brief reprieve from the steadily increasing crosswind and my speed would go from 17 to 22 mph even with the meager effort level I was willing to supply. I got home quite wet, despite never having been really rained upon, and quite chilled, despite the low-60s temperature. Still, I was happy to have gotten in some quiet miles on such a dreary day. I was about half-way back when I came up on a cycle tourist towing a trailer at about 8 mph. I stopped and chatted with him for a little while and found that he was on his way from somewhere in Arizona to Key West Florida, having already taken a few side-trips along the way. He soon turned off of the bike path to find the Jefferson Parish Library near Clearview Parkway. I didn't get to ask him why he would be going there.

So by Sunday morning the temperature was in the low 40s and there was a north wind blowing at around 12 mph with gusts well into the 20s, but not real chance of rain. I dug out the long tights and long-sleeve jersey and wool socks and headed to the Starbucks to see what kind of turnout, if any, there would be for the Giro. Although the temperature was entirely manageable, the gusty wind was another matter altogether. We had maybe a dozen riders on hand at the start, but it was tough going along Hayne where just two or three were willing to put their faces into the wind. We were struggling to maintain 17-18 mph, and the advertised north wind seemed actually to be much more out of the east. Near the end of Hayne the front of the group made an executive decision and we all made a U-turn. That immediately precipitated a return trip during which the speed stayed around 31 mph until we got to the overpass. After that we did a fairly easy lap around City Park where it wasn't quite so windy. I ended up riding all the way down Esplanade with Charles and Dan before returning for another lap around the park before heading home to a nice bowl of hot soup.

This morning the temperature was still in the low 40s and the wind was still strong. I got to City Park for the Mellow Monday ride about a minute and a half late. As I turned into the park from Wisner I could see the tail lights of the group just disappearing off toward the Children's museum. Fortunately they weren't going too fast yet and I caught up to them just after turning onto Marconi. Even so, the combined effects of wind, cold, and layered clothing really take a toll on one's speed. As it had been on Sunday, the speed heading east into the wind stayed pretty low, but I knew that as soon as we went around the Armory loop and started back to the west it would pick up dramatically, which of course it did, and the 16 mph quickly ramped up to 27-30 mph. It's looking like morning temperatures will stay in the mid-upper 40s all week with highs in the upper 50s. I'm thinking about the cyclocross races in Ridgeland this coming weekend and wondering if I am really up to making the trip since the morning temperatures Saturday and Sunday will be just below freezing and the highs barely out of the 40s. I'll have to think about that.

November Summer

The Sunday Giro - Lakeshore Drive warmup

It was 5:25 Saturday morning and I was standing in front of the dresser drawer stuffed with cycling clothes, looking for something to wear for the Giro Ride. Earlier, the forecast had been calling for a front with a lot of rain to move through in the morning, but looking at the radar it now looked like it wouldn't come through until closer to noon. The annual Tour da Parish ride that had been scheduled for that day had already been postponed until Sunday because of the forecast. Then Candy walked in from feeding the dog and said, "It's raining outside." Indeed, the street was a bit wet, but the rain was barely a light sprinkle. I thought about it for a minute and, on the assumption that it was just going to get more wet and that nobody would show up for the Giro, threw the clothes back into the drawer and myself back into the bed. Naturally, it didn't rain any more until late afternoon and I could have ridden, even if it had been alone.

Friendly Friday Fog

Anyway, it was clear that Sunday's weather would be fine, and since the Tour da Parish ride had been pushed back until 1:00 pm, I figured I could ride the Giro, chill out at home for a couple of hours, and then head down to St. Bernard for the ride. I would be picking up Josiah, one of the Tulane riders, at 11:15. As expected, the Giro was a little thin attendance-wise, considering that many of those riders were planning on doing the afternoon ride, but there was still a group of 25 or so on hand. The "front" that had come through Saturday evening hadn't brought much in the way of cooler temperatures so everyone was in summer kit for the first day back on Daylight Saving Time. It was nice to have a little light for the ride out to Starbucks after weeks and weeks in the dark. The ride itself was mostly nice and steady - just a bit slower than usual. I got back home with the usual 59 miles a little hungry and thirsty but quite far from tired. That was good because I was expecting the afternoon ride to be fairly fast.

The Tulane riders - their new team kits came in the following day!

We got to the Tour da Parish an hour before the start, as planned. For me, this 50-mile ride would be similar to a regular Giro Ride, just on a different course. For Josiah it would be one of his longest rides ever. Turnout looked pretty good as we wrapped the color-coded wrist bands around our handlebars and pinned on the oddly large numbers that, really, served little purpose since the ride was not timed and there would be no "results" posted. A few minutes before the start I lined in near the front of the group with a subset of Giro riders and four or five of the Tulane riders. To accommodate my split loyalties that day I was wearing my NOBC/Apolline shorts with my Tulane jersey.

capture from TJ's video

These kinds of rides always seem pretty chaotic and sketchy for the first few miles until the speed and course eventually sort the group out generally by fitness level. As expected, there was a surge after we went around the road closure via a short section of crushed rock, but was wasn't expected was the riders who managed to get into the draft of the lead police motorcycle at 29-32 mph. There was a feeble attempt to chase that down, but pretty quickly the rider came back to the group anyway. I was trying to stay closer to the front than the back, and for me it was a little stressful for the next ten or fifteen miles because of the unfamiliar riders. Mary Beth was there on her Specialized E-bike, and there was one other rider there on what looked like the same E-bike. I rode alongside Mary Beth for a while as she remarked, not entirely without good reason, things like, "This is dumb. All of you guys are dumb!" Nevertheless, she was having no trouble staying with the group as we rolled down the narrow strips of asphalt alongside little bayous packed with fishing boats. I would later learn that at one point when there was a brief surge up into the 30s she had accidentally switched the E-bike to "off" instead of "turbo" and lost contact with the dwindling front group. For me, though, it was mostly just a moderate effort, cruising along in the ample draft among the front ten or fifteen riders. If there was a paceline at the front it must have been limited to just a handful of riders because I found myself at the front only a few times.

Allene of Bike Easy

As expected, the speed started to ramp up a bit on the last 6-mile stretch, which is about when I saw Dustin accelerate down the left side to the front. We still had to navigate that little crushed rock bit around the barricades about a mile and a half from the end, and I had no intention whatsoever of risking life or limb there. Naturally, though, I think Dustin attacked there, taking a short-cut through the turn in the grass and surging back up to 28 mph or so. I think he then looked back, saw nobody chasing, and put the hammer down for the last bit. I came through fairly close to the front but got held up a bit by riders ahead of me, so when I got back onto the asphalt there was a pretty significant gap ahead of me to a little group. As I debated the wisdom of putting in the major effort it would take to get up to them in a ride with no places or prizes or results, the E-bike rider came past me on the left. Knowing that he would be easily able to ramp up to 28 mph, the limit of the bike's assist, I figured, "what the hell" and latched onto his wheel. So a minute later we were back in the group just in time to watch a few of them sprint for the "finish" that was marked only by a few police officers standing in the road. All-in-all it was a fun ride with lots of food and drink at the end. All of the Tulane riders survived unscathed, as did I.

Somewhere near the end I had noticed that Charles had disappeared from the front group. After the finish I turned around and rode back in the opposite direction for a mile or so, finally finding him. "I flatted" he said as I passed. Charles and Dan had ridden out to the ride from the French Quarter. I waited around for quite a while until Josiah finished. Just as he wandered off to change clothes and have a drink or something my phone rang. It was Charles. Dan had flatted on their way home and they had had some problems fixing the flat, leaving them without any more CO2, so I gathered up Josiah and we headed off on a little search and rescue mission. Christian, as it turned out, had left a bit before us and seen Charles and Dan at a gas station, so by the time we arrived Dan had decided to just get Christian to give him a ride home. That left Charles to ride back alone in the last bit of sunlight, so instead we loaded his bike into the car to give him a lift back as well since the ride back can be a little sketchy even under the best of circumstances. All was going well until we caught a train in the Bywater and were stopped for the better part of 45 minutes as the sun set. Eventually enough cars drove over the neutral ground to find another way that we were able to turn right and make our way over to Claiborne where there is an overpass over the tracks. So it turned into a long day, but I was happy to have gotten in around 110 enjoyable miles without really doing much damage. 

Tuesday morning on the levee

This morning, Tuesday, we had a visiting rider from Vermont for the morning levee ride. It was still summer-like weather. For some reason my phone hadn't charged overnight so I had left it at home. We started with a pretty good-sized group, ending up with I guess six after some riders turned back early. The way back was into a moderate headwind but we were rolling along at a nice pace anyway. When Martin turned off around River Ridge I looked back and realized that Jared, the visiting rider, was suddenly missing. Then I remembered thinking that his rear tire had looked a little low and figured he must have flatted, which turned out to have been the case. So Charles and I turned back to find him and we were later joined by Martin for a little while. Jared and I then stopped at Zotz on Oak Street for coffee. I hadn't been there since COVID started, so it had been almost two years. By the time I got home Candy was about to go out and search for me since I was a good 45 minutes later than usual and had picked the wrong day not to have my phone which would normally have been showing her my location via Garmin. 

Knobby Ridgeland Weekend

A little cyclocross race up in Ridgeland the weekend before Halloween was looking like perhaps a chance to get the 'Cross bike dirty and work on improving sadly lacking skills. The fly in that ointment, however, was a consistent forecast calling for rain, first on Sunday and then on Saturday, that had me teetering on the fence. I was thinking I'd go up for just one of the two days, ride the masters race, and head back, but then my brother called. He moved recently to Madison and had been planning on retrieving some of my mother's old furniture that has been languishing in my basement for the past 12 or so years to use for one of his daughters, also in Madison, but he'd been super busy repainting the interiors of two houses and basically starting a remodeling of one, so when he heard I was planning on driving up it presented an opportunity. So I went ahead and registered for both days, and on Friday afternoon picked up a rental minivan that could easily accommodate the furniture and my bike. Pre-registration for the race was extremely low, no doubt due to some degree to the forecast. Even so, you'd think there would have been more local riders signed up. I'd ridden the Friendly Friday ride that morning. Earlier in the week I'd gone out to meet the Tulane Wednesday evening ride on the 'cross bike, mainly to make sure everything was working since I'd barely spent any time on it at all and had changed the saddle and made a slight adjustment to the saddle height too.

TUCA riders at Williams Blvd. levee turnaround

The forecast for Saturday was still looking like rain, but at least the temperature would be mostly in the low 60s, and what's a cyclocross race without a little rain and mud anyway. Actually, neither my skill level or motivational level was really consistent with a successful wet CX race, but, you know, what the hell. Indeed, I had no intention of being competitive, and was focusing only on breaking in the "new" bike and not crashing - too much. I drove up Saturday evening and we unloaded the furniture, leaving me with a spectacularly voluminous space for my little bike. The house was only five minutes from the course, and with a 9 am start time I had the rare luxury of heading out the door in actual daylight. My morning training rides have mostly been finishing right around sunrise lately. The weather radar was looking surprisingly encouraging with most of the rain well off to the west and moving eastward at only a snail's pace. It was entirely possible there would be no rain until the afternoon. 

The course for this race was just under a mile around, located at the local BMX park. It was almost all grass, still just a bit damp from the morning dew. I had around 35-40 psi in my 32mm tires, which turned out to be about twice what I needed for this course, but my roadie fears of pinch-flatting were very difficult to fully dispel, even on this relatively gentle terrain that was devoid of roots and sharp edges. I rode a really slow couple of laps to check out the course and found a few rather sketchy (to me) off-camber turns, a couple of very short but steep uphills (no problem), and of course a couple of artificial barriers apparently designed, as they all are, to discriminate against short people. As planned, I started the race pretty much at the back of the very small field that included all of the masters age groups plus some of the juniors. I rode the first couple of laps quite gingerly, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to get used to the SRAM shifters and mountain bike pedals. It wasn't that they weren't working fine, of course, just that I was having difficulty convincing my brain that has been conditioned to Campi shifters for two or three decades to shift (pun intended) to SRAM shifting. As a result there were a number of times when I was going for a lower gear but actually shifted into a higher one. The other issue was that my roadie instincts had me using the front brake way too much, which at one point resulted in me sliding out on an off-camber turn and falling, dropping the chain, hitting my head, and doing something to the CMC joint on my right hand, which still hurts. Fortunately I was way off the back of the real race, and frankly wasn't in all that big of a hurry. I did notice that the front of my shoe was hitting the front tire if I wasn't careful about that going around sharp turns at like 2 mph. It didn't cause any problems, fortunately. As expected, I was lapped at some point which provided the added bonus of having to do one fewer lap! It was a good learning experience and I came away mostly unscathed, earning the dubious honor of winning the 60+ age group by virtue of being the only rider in it. I found that I was really enjoying the flatter more technical parts of the course, and also the sharp uphill sections, but still  had virtually no confidence on the downhills and off-camber grassy turns.  All of the races went off without rain that day, and I hung around for almost all of them. Later that evening the rain finally arrived, but it was looking like it would be all gone by Sunday morning.

The other old guy.

Sunday's races were essentially the same as Saturday's but in the opposite direction. The grass was still fairly damp when my 9 am race got started, but fortunately the prior day's races had at least bedded in a bit of a path on the course that didn't seem quite as slick as it had on Saturday. Considering the fact that there was no place on the entire course where I might reasonably expect to pinch-flat, I dropped my tire pressures down to around 20-25 psi for this one, which turned out to be about right. One other precaution I took was to back off the front brake cable a few clicks to keep my road instincts from locking up the front wheel. I was one of the few riders with actual Cross-legal tire widths, and in fact a lot of people were riding mountain bikes. I started out at the back again so as not to interfere with the two or three riders who were actually good at this. Doing the course in the opposite direction didn't seem all that much different except for that one off-camber turn where I'd fallen the previous day. There was also a steep drop down to a sharp left turn that was a little concerning, at least to me. For that drop I was basically dragging my rear wheel until just before the bottom when I'd finally let go of the brake. I could probably have taken it a lot faster if properly motivated. For that off-camber turn, I was crawling around it, often with my rear wheel sliding a bit here and there, but I felt like I was handling it a lot better than I had on Saturday, probably because I was trying hard not to touch the front brake. Anyway, I ended up finishing second in the 60+, which was also second-to-last in the 60+. I hung around for an hour or so afterward until a brief bit of rain started to fall, which I took to be my cue to load up and head back to New Orleans. So I actually enjoyed riding this course and maybe learned a little bit in the process despite the blazing average speed of like 9 mph over the 40-minute races. Even so, pushing a bike through grass and mud did keep my heart rate up pretty high the whole time.

Monday was Halloween, and as usual my street was fully engaged. I didn't get to rush home from work until about 4:30 or so, and of course the younger kids start showing up around 5:30, so there wasn't a whole lot of time left to make final preparations like lighting candles and setting up fog machines and strobe lights (both of which were underwhelming). 

It always amazes me how many people show up between 6 and 7:30 every year. Then around 8:00 everybody suddenly disappears. Candy had made a huge pot of gumbo, even though we just had a few people coming over to eat. At one point I had to chase the dog down the sidewalk when he snuck out the porch door as I was sliding candy down the "candy chute" to the trick-or-treaters. We had decided to keep the COVID candy chute this year since it would keep the little kids from having to climb up and down the steps, which always worries me a bit. Otherwise, things went fine and the dog was reasonably well-behaved considering all of the action going on around him. Although we gave out a ton of candy, I'm pretty sure there's enough left over for another entire Halloween, which should come as no surprise if you know Candy (the person not the junk food).

Undecided Weather - Tour de Jeff

An early 7:30 am start for the Tour de Jefferson

This is always a complicated time of year around here as Winter seems generally undecided about venturing this far south and spends the better part of two months coming and going. Complicating the whole situation are the extra-dark mornings around the end of Daylight Saving Time, and the fact that the wild swings of morning temperatures never really allow one to fully adjust - physiologically or mentally, mostly mentally. 

This week's cold front dropped temperatures down into the low 50's I guess on Tuesday morning, which wasn't nearly as much of a factor as the unrelenting north wind that battered those of us doing the full distance up on the unprotected levee. Although we'd started out with a pretty big group of eight or nine, the narrow bike path provides decent crosswind protection for only four, and as often happens when you try to cram nine riders at a table for four, those at the back in need of a good draft were left to fend for themselves. At one point early in the ride I dropped back after taking a pull and realized I was getting essentially NO draft back there. Eventually we were down a more manageable group of five to complete the full Tuesday distance.

Wednesday was no better wind-wise, and in fact the wind had already blown the diminutive WeMoRi group apart well before I arrived at LSD and Marconi. Looking to the east for the cluster of headlights yielded nothing but darkness and by 6:12 or so I decided they must have skipped Lakeshore Drive because of the wind or something, so I turned around and headed back down Marconi thinking I might find the group coming the other way. A few minutes later I found Geoff and a couple others so I turned around with them. Apparently the rest of the group was just running very late but doing the full route, so I'd missed them by just a few minutes. So we had a relatively easy ride around City Park and I got back home just a few miles shorter than normal.

Thursday morning the wind had finally died down, although it was still around 50°F at the start which allowed for a pretty normal Thursday levee ride. Friday's Friendly Friday ride had quite a big group for some reason. The temperature was warmer and the wind was light, which made for a nice ride with a few faster sections in the usual places. By Saturday I guess people were starting to think about Sunday's Tour de Jefferson, which always seems to be dominated by the Giro Ride group and practically serves as the annual Alt-Giro Championship, although technically it's not a race, which it totally is for the front group. Anyway, Saturday's Giro was going along nicely until we got onto Chef Highway, stopped at a light, and then the front of the group got onto the bumper of a truck that was accelerating at just the right speed. Those at the back, including me, weren't getting much of a draft and as the speed got up to 32 mph I, and a number of others, dropped off and eventually came together to form a nice paceline, ultimately about a minute and a half behind the front group. Then on the way back we got diverted at the Elysian Fields circle because of some footrace or something and switched over to Leon C and Toussant. Anyway it was a relatively short and non-intense Giro for me.

So Saturday I headed out early for the Tour de Jefferson in order to get a good parking spot (turned out I could have left half an hour later and been fine on that account. It was a little chilly for the 7:30 am start but would warm up quickly once the sun started to rise. As usual, most of the Giro Ride group was in attendance, and looking around at the start I was glad I'd decided to put the race wheels on the bike. I wasn't planning on riding it like a race, but I also didn't want to get dropped when the inevitable gaps opened up after the multiple U-turns on the rather strange course. Over the course of the 50-mile route I don't there there was ever more than four miles between turns. Like last year my main concerns were the traffic cones separating the left from right lanes for much of the route. Every now and then we'd come to one of them that was farther into the right lane than the others which resulted in a number of close calls and at least a couple of people hitting them. Like most non-race races like this the first ten or fifteen miles were, for me, very stressful thanks to the combination of overly enthusiastic riders trying to crowd the front and the ever-present traffic cones and frequent turns. There were also a number of attacks and breakaways resulting is long fast surges. 

Eventually, well almost immediately, one rider (Ben Hall) got clear and things kind of settled down as the still-large group sorted itself out into the front ten or so who were actually willing to put themselves into the wind and the rest of us who weren't. There were a number of attacks and some small groups that dangled off the front for various periods of time, but I think everything was pulled back except for Ben. Rob was up there in one of those groups but something must have happened because we saw him standing by the finish when we went past it at one point. I was glad that I'd created a route from my prior year's Strava data and loaded it onto my computer. I think I did the whole ride with the map screen visible, which I don't normally do. At one point I saw that we were approaching a U-turn and took the opportunity to move way up close to the front. Even so, I had to put in a pretty good effort to close gaps afterward, and I think a few people were dropped after that one. Finally we got back onto the 4-lane road leading to the finish and again people started trying to crowd the front in anticipation of the sprint. Meanwhile others were launching futile attacks way too early down the shoulder or on the other side of the traffic cones. The only casualty was Mary Beth who dropped a wheel into one of those lengthwise seams in a grade-level bridge and went down somewhere behind me (I didn't realize she'd crashed until afterward). She was a bit scraped up but otherwise fine. We finished the 49.9 miles with a typical average speed of 24.4 mph, having spent a fair amount of time in the 26 mph range. Ben Hall finished probably five minutes ahead of the front group, essentially solo I think. After the finish I found Tulane riders Jess and Josiah who had done one of the shorter rides. I hung around for a little while eating Jambalaya and veggies and stuff, but was back home before noon.

Next weekend there are cyclocross races up around Jackson so I need to negotiate with Candy about that, given that we usually have some pre-Halloween preparations to make for Halloween night, which will be Monday this year. I'd like to try out the "new" cyclocross bike on an actual cyclocross course, but have no intention of trying to be competitive in the process. I think the officiating will be covered with Ricky and Rolan and maybe one other official, although I suspect they may all be planning on riding one of the races too, so I might be of some assistance at some point. The masters races are at 9 am both Saturday and Sunday, so it's really just a question of whether I can do both days or just one, and if the latter, which day. 

She situation at the corner a week ago - still unchanged.

Meanwhile back at home the roadwork people had been working regularly on Pine Street for a while, but in typical fashion seem to have abandoned the job once again for some undetermined amount of time, leaving us with a dusty dirt road (still arguably smoother than Pine Street ever was when it was paved). The western part of Neron Place is still a complete closed-off disaster area and although I have always been endowed with an extraordinary level of patience, after two years of this mismanaged incompetent BS it is wearing dangerously thin.

Swamp

Tuesday heading back down the river

It was another low-volume week for me, mainly because of some self-inflicted weekend officiating. Other than that, though, it wasn't too bad. As all of my rides have been lately, Tuesday morning's ride started out in the dark, and although there was a slight hint of Fall in the pre-dawn air, it was still feeling mostly like summer around here. After the ride I had an ad-hoc visit to the dentist again so he could have a look and see if there was anything amiss with that pulled tooth because it was still hurting more than it should have. The consensus was that the clot that normally protects the nerve had gotten dislodged. He changed me from Penicillin to Clindamycin to be on the safe side but it wasn't really until the end of the week that I was able to make it through the day without Ibuprofin.

Slimed

The WeMoRi is now entirely in the dark, start to finish, so as we do our cool-down on Lakeshore Drive we see the sun coming up over the horizon. It seemed like a particularly fast one last Wednesday. Somewhere toward the end I suddenly noticed what felt like raindrops, but looking up at the dark sky it didn't look like it was cloudy. As it turned out, the rider in front of me had punctured his tubeless tire and sealant was spraying out of the hole for a little while until it sealed. I ended up with spots of blue sealant everywhere, but mostly on my helmet. Fortunately, the leak sealed and he didn't even realize he'd punctured until afterward. Of course the back of his bike was splattered with sealant, though.

Thursday morning there was some slight threat of rain which kept the regular group from showing up. We started out with just two and by Williams Blvd. it was just me. The levee trail was a bit damp past there but I never got rained on. In fact, it had been over a month since there had been a drop of rain at my house (we finally got a little rain shower this weekend).

So this weekend was the Swamp Otter Classic over in Chalmette. It's kind of half cyclocross and half gravel with the course running along the levee and floodwall of the 40 Arpent Canal. I was scheduled to officiate, solo, both Saturday and Sunday. For reasons I cannot fathom turnout was very, very low this year. I think that while the larger bike racing areas are bouncing back fairly well from the COVID disruption, the smaller ones like LAMBRA are having a really hard time getting people back into the racing scene. At any rate, I think we had maybe 20 people altogether for each day. Considering how much work goes into setting up even a simple cyclocross course like this one, and then putting on the event, it is getting hard for the clubs and race directors to justify putting on races. Classic self-fulfilling prophecy stuff. Because of the low turnout a lot of the races and categories were combined, so the start was pushed back by an hour or so and it went from I think five separate races to three (and then only two on Sunday).

Anyway, the riders who did race had a pretty good time, I think, and of course the combination of the relatively long lap length and the small fields made officiating pretty easy. For Saturday's race I loaded the generator into the car, along with the tent, chair, table, camera, computer, clock, etc., etc., but planned on using my Jackery 300 power station to see how it would handle running the camera, laptop, and clock. The latter two have their own batteries, so I was pretty confident it would make it through the four hours, but wanted to have the generator on hand just in case. I'm sure that if I had to also run a P/A system it would have been a problem, but I'll save that for another day. As it turned out, I still had about 70% at the end of the day, so it handled everything easily. I should probably spring for the solar panels as well, but they are kind of expensive. As a result, I left the generator home for Sunday's race. For such a small race, neither the camera or clock were really essential anyway, and Townsend was transferring my hand-written results into the results workbook way over at the registration table anyway (where they did have a P/A system and generator). Later that evening I ran into all sorts of trouble uploading results and completing the post-event report on the USAC site. Parts of the system think the event was a single day while other parts know it was two days. They are still running both their Legacy and New systems and the two are increasingly out of sync as they are finally, after four years, nearing the end of the transition.

For this event I brought my new-to-me cyclocross bike, mainly so I could get around because the finish line and registration table aren't close to each other and the bathroom is even farther away. Although I didn't bring any cycling clothes or shoes or anything I did ride around a bit on the bike just for fun. Along the way I noticed that one of the jockey wheels was cracked all the way through, so I ended up ordering a new set and while I was at it a pair of 40mm gravel tires in case I get a chance to do some of that. The tires on the bike right now are "cross-legal" 32s. 40 is probably overkill for me but they were on sale.

The weather forecast is saying that Winter will be arriving down here tomorrow with a low in the upper 40s, although that's probably what they'll see on the northshore and it will be ten degrees warmer down here on the south side of the lake. Of course this means we'll have a strong north wind to deal with for a few days, and I guess I'll have to dig out the knee-warmers and arm-warmers and gloves and stuff for a couple of days, after which it will be summer again. 

Extraction

Wednesday morning cool-down on the lakefront

The week started out well, but I knew it wouldn't last. On Tuesday we had a good-sized group for the morning levee ride, which is to say that there were still more than two of us left to do the full distance. Although last week's wind had died down, it wasn't entirely gone, and even though it was largely out of the north, its easterly vector was hard to ignore on the return trip. I wasn't sure but I thought that might be my last longish ride for a couple of days because I had a dreaded dentist appointment scheduled for Wednesday morning. Fortunately, I'd have time to do the WeMoRi and still get there before 9 am.

Heading back from Ormond Tuesday morning

So I headed out on Wednesday in the relatively comfortable 70°F darkness, arriving at Lakeshore drive in just enough time to catch the group that showed up a good two minutes earlier than usual. As it turned out, things has started out uncharacteristically fast that day, and indeed I would find they would stay that way. In the blink of an eye I went from 15 mph to 28 mph as my lackadaisical physiology attempted to get on terms with my legs, a process that seems to take longer and longer with each passing year. Eventually, though, all systems achieved equilibrium as I tucked myself into the draft back in the cheap seats. I knew I shouldn't stay there, but the pace was fast and I wasn't feeling too motivated, which is always a bad combination. We came back around to Lakeshore Drive where the pace was hovering in the 27-28 mph range, which seemed more than adequate for my purposes that day, even at the back. As we approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle I found myself on Judd's wheel, way, way at the back of the strung-out paceline. As we started around the circle I noticed a gap slowly opening ahead of him and knew I should go around ... but didn't. By the time we'd completed the 180 I knew I was in trouble. I finally went around and made a feeble effort to close, but at the speed the group was going it was clearly impossible, so I backed it off and cruised in the last couple of miles as the group rode off in the distance. It wasn't until we we were on the cool-down and heading the opposite direction that the sun finally came up. The sky was a bright red, which seemed appropriate considering what was to come later that morning.

The visit to the dentist was predictably unenjoyable, as it involved removing a large but cracked tooth using various implements that might be generally considered more suitable for automotive repair jobs. Fortunately I'd been given enough Novocain, or whatever they use nowadays, that the whole left side of my face would be numb until mid-afternoon. It was an easy decision to work from home that day. When the anesthetic finally wore off I took a couple of Tylenol and had a smoothie. So now I'm on Penicillin for a week and then another appointment in two weeks to see how the bone graft is doing. Wednesday night was uncomfortable, and although I skipped riding I went ahead and went to work. That actually went fine. I had another smoothie for lunch and later that evening made a salad for dinner. Surprisingly things were still pretty painful last night so I skipped another day of riding. I'll probably go ahead and do the Giro tomorrow. Hopefully it will all feel a little better by then. 

I've still not ridden the cyclocross bike more than around the block, so hopefully I will be able to take it out for a proper shakedown this weekend. The Swamp Otter races are the following weekend, although I think I will probably be too tied up officiating them to race. Perhaps I will try to make one or two of the Spooky Cross races in Jackson the 29th and 30th, although there could be complications with Halloween preparations since that's on the following Monday. Frankly, one day of cyclocross would likely be more than enough for me.

Windy Week

Riders arriving at the rest stop just upriver from the Spillway with around 125 miles
already in their legs.

Fall weather, and I use the term "Fall" in its broadest sense here in New Orleans, is always a bit of a compromise. As the occasional cool fronts move through they tend to keep the hurricanes, such as Ian that did a lot of damage on the west coast of Florida, at bay. Also, they bring in some nice dry air so that the locals can briefly experience the sensation of sweat actually evaporating. But of course there's the downside. For one thing, I don't think we've had any significant rain around here in a month. I've actually had to water the expensive new plants in front of the house that I recently put in to replace the ones that the Roadwork crew destroyed and the big 35+ year old Camelia that just mysteriously died. As a cyclist, though, the things you notice most about the arrival of Fall are the morning rides in the dark and the relentless wind. It seems like we've had wind out of the northeast to northwest for over a week straight.

After a cool but very windy Tuesday morning ride where most people turned back early, or didn't show up at all, I went out to meet the WeMoRi on Wednesday into a strong north wind. I knew from experience that the group would be smaller than usual, but I was a little surprised to find just two headlights coming down Lakeshore Drive when I got there. I got in with them and wondered if they had been the only ones to show up. Neither was pushing the pace, and we cruised down Wisner at an easy 23 mph, looping around the park and onto Marconi where we stopped for the traffic light at Harrison. At that point a few more riders caught up. As it turned out, the small group of ten or so that had started got shattered into bits and pieces in the crosswind on Lakeshore Drive. I guess the wind on the lakefront was blowing around 10 mph and as I'd ridden from the bridge to Marconi earlier I had felt the spray from the waves crashing against the seawall. When we came around to Lakeshore Drive again it was an easy decision to bail out onto Wisner rather than continue to Elysian Fields as usual. I did another lap around City Park and went back to Lakeshore Drive to take a photo or two, which ended up being a short video of the water coming over the seawall and flooding much of the road between Marconi and Canal Blvd. So it was kind of an aborted WeMoRi this week. Thursday's shortened levee ride was just slightly less windy, and the northeast wind made for a long slog back with just Charles and me. Friendly Friday was, like may Friday rides are for me, an exercise in expending the minimal amount of energy to avoid being dropped. For some reason there's always somebody who wants to go fast on Friday. I was already planning some significant extra mileage for the weekend, so a hard Friday ride was not something I wanted.

Jess is a new Tulane rider

This was the weekend for Sunday's NOMA to NOMA ride which is now an annual event in which riders do a long 150+ mile loop around Lake Pontchartrain starting at 6 am on Sunday. A good number of the usual Giro riders were signed up for that, so that made the Saturday and Sunday Giro Rides a little easier than usual. Even so, there was still that mostly northerly breeze. My plan for Sunday was pretty simple. As I'd done the prior year I planned to ride the Giro, stop briefly at home to pick up water and carbs, and then ride up the river to the Spillway to watch the first groups of NOMA to NOMA riders come through. Last year I'd left home around 10:30, arrived at the spillway around 11:45, and watched the first riders come through around noon. This year I was scheduled to meet a couple of the Tulane riders up on the levee at 10:15. I figured we'd be going a little slower than I would have on my own, but felt pretty confident that we'd be at the Spillway before the first riders came through. As it turned out only Jess was there at 10:15. The other rider has been late and missed us by probably just a minute or two. There was moderate NNE wind when we started, so the ride felt fairly easy at a nice gentle 18-19 mph. We picked up Steve for a while but he turned off at Ormond to go home.

We were around NORCO, still a mile or two from the Spillway, when the lead group of three, containing Brett, came flying past. I looked at my watch and realized that they were probably over half an hour ahead of last year. As planned we arrived at the Spillway right at 11:45, by which time a few more riders had come through. We went ahead and crossed the spillway as a small group that included Charles, who finished 7th, came through. Then we stopped for a while at the rest area / feed zone at Montz Park just on the upriver side of the Spillway. While we were there another group came through, and I thought we might be able to tag along behind part of that as the got rolling again but the pace was a little too fast for Jess, so we backed off to an easier speed of 17-18 mph. Then my computer battery died at around 93 miles. On the way back a number of other riders passed us, and just before I exited onto Oak Street a small group of two, including Bo, came past. I caught up to them on Oak Street and rode with them for a bit until I turned off at S. Claiborne to head back home. I'd started Strava on my phone when my Garmin died, so a little arithmetic told me I'd logged around 115 miles for the day, most of which was at a pretty easy pace. Still, it was more than adequate to dismiss any feelings I might have been harboring about feeling left out of the 150-mile ride - or race. 

I learned there had been a big crash somewhere on Highway 22, but fortunately no serious injuries except to carbon-fiber. The leaders finished in around 6:45 for the 148+ miles, if Strava is to be believed, which was considerably faster than last year. Official results should be available today, maybe. One rider I was a little worried about was Allene from Bike Easy whose preparation for this type of thing had been minimal to say the least. I was happy to find that a friend had followed her on Hwy. 22 and that she had indeed finished in somewhere around 14 and a half hours. That must have felt like a much harder effort to her than finishing in 6:37 had felt to the leaders!

Meanwhile in other news, I finally broke down and bought a Blue Norcross cyclocross bike. Granted, it's ten years old and has rim brakes, but I think it'll be more than adequate for my purposes and of course it was pretty cheap. I haven't really ridden it yet, but perhaps I will go for a spin one evening this week. With some many of the roads in Carrollton torn up there should be plenty of readily available "gravel."

Lost Week

Back at the Giro after being sick during the week.

It started on Monday with a scratchy throat and by Tuesday morning it was clear I had a cold, aka upper respiratory virus, possibly COVID. I'd been expecting another fairly high-mileage week. Lots of people were trying to cram for NOMA2NOMA, just like you'd cram for an exam, and this would be the last week you could do some longer rides before needing to shift to recovery mode ahead of the event, which is this coming Sunday. It was also the week of Six Gap. None of the Tulane riders seemed interested in going this year, and only Pat seemed committed to going. At any rate, by Tuesday any hope of doing Six Gap was clearly out the window. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at home sucking on zinc lozenges and trying to get at least some work done on the computer. By late Wednesday the throat was much improved, although I now had some minor chest congestion to deal with. Otherwise, though, I was feeling good enough to go out for a ride Thursday morning. Rather than try to meet the regular 6 am group, which would probably not have been advisable, I instead waited another half hour and went out alone for a short 20 mile ride to test the water. The water seemed OK, so on Friday I joined up with the early Friendly Friday ride, which thankfully wasn't too fast. I was still being careful and staying in the draft to minimize how much snot I was aspirating into my lungs. After that ride I went straight to the levee to see if I could catch the Tulane group, but apparently I turned around too early and missed them.

Jaden and his daughter #aerotuck

Saturday was the regular Giro Ride which unsurprisingly wasn't too terribly fast since some of the usual horsepower was planning on doing a bunch of extra miles, or in some cases were riding elsewhere. My brother and niece came in on Friday, so I wasn't very interested in doing any extra miles, which was probably a good thing, considering. Sunday was the Bike Easy "Bicycle Second Line" ride. I had lent the group some of the big NOBC coolers and had sent them some cash so the NOBC would be one of the sponsors. Candy, Jay, and Elise were planning on doing the 10-mile ride through town that started at 11:00. My plan was to ride the Giro and then go straight to the registration area on the Lafitte Greenway to help out, and then to do the ride. It was a plan. None of the aforementioned people had ridden any significant amount in at least a year, but the ride is basically done inside of a police rolling enclosure at well under 10 mph. Speed wouldn't be the problem, but the heat might be.

The ride started promptly at 11:00 with our little group more or less at the end. I ran into Jaden who was riding with his daughter in a seat between the handlebar and saddle, and Will who had his kid in a trailer. Candy was riding the 1970's Peugeot mixte, Jay was on my old Trek mountain bike, and Elise was on Candy's beach cruiser. Things were going fine, but Candy's grocery pannier kept coming unclipped from the rear rack. She ended up with it over her shoulder like a messenger bag. Fortunately it has a shoulder strap. Elise seemed to be doing fine until all of a sudden she and Jay kind of disappeared. I didn't know if they had just been going really slowly or had some sort of problem, but at any rate I couldn't see them when I looked back. By then we were only half a mile from the end of the ride. Just after turning off of Canal Street I got a text from Jay saying that they had stopped because Elise was not feeling well. I turned around and rushed back to find them and ultimately decided to ride back home and pick up the car. Meanwhile Candy got the message and turned back to meet them too. So it was kind of a shame that we missed the after-ride party at Second Line Brewing, but it was nice to get back to air-conditioning anyway. 

So with the two missed days and the one short day I ended up with a 204-mile week which I guess wasn't too bad under the circumstances. Of course about half of those miles didn't really qualify as training, but I guess they were still better than sitting on the couch eating potato chips. It's Tuesday now and I still have some lingering chest congestion that I guess will take a while to fully go away. Meanwhile, I am expecting delivery of an old used cyclocross bike some time this evening. It's just a simple Blue Norcross with rim brakes and all, but at least it can handle wide tires and give me the option of doing an occasional gravel ride or cyclocross race. We'll see.

Things have been kind of interesting at work lately as Tulane is making some big plans in the downtown area and things are finally winding down on the COVID front. I am still doing daily COVID reports but the day to day changes have been unremarkable and the numbers generally quite low. The LDH person keeps forgetting to publish the downloadable data that I need and in fact I am still waiting to see today's numbers. At this point I'm pretty sure nobody would even notice if I skipped an update. If the trend continues as it has I'm thinking we will discontinue that some time next month since it's not really very useful any more now that so few people are being tested and most of those who are being tested are probably doing so because they are sick.

September Miles

Mellow Monday on the lakefront

It was another somewhat high-mileage week for me. With good weather and little to no rain there were no excuses, and then on Saturday some of us went over to Pass Christian for a nice 75 mile ride.

Thursday on the levee

The Mellow Monday ride that started the week turned out to be quite a fast one. Fortunately it is also quite short. I'd logged nearly 300 miles the week before, so Monday should really have been a rest day, which it definitely wasn't. Oh well. That's one of the things about group rides. You never really know what you're going to get, although there is always the (rarely taken) option of dropping quietly off the back ... or so I'm told. It is getting darker and darker in the mornings now. I just bought a new headlight since my old one's battery doesn't last as long as I'd like any more. 

The rest of the week was the usual routine with the long levee rides on Tuesday and Thursday, WeMo on Wednesday, and Friendly Friday on, well, you figure it out. 

That brings us to Saturday. Charles and Steve Martin had planned a 75 mile ride out of Pass Christian which is just an hour's drive away, so I figured I'd join them. The cooler temperatures of earlier in the week were nearly gone, though, so I knew it wasn't going to feel like a Fall ride or anything. We ended up with a nice group of seven - Steve J, Steve M, Charles, Pat, Dan, Norman Z, and me. The pace was pretty good throughout, although from the start I knew I was going to be dragging a bit. It's like that sometimes. There's no real reason you can find for it but from the first pedal stroke you kind of know it's not going to be your day. Anyway, I was fine with the pace but was being a little cautious about pulling too long or too hard. 

The Sunday Giro heading out

It was all kind of complicated by my screw-up with the route. Steve had sent out a link to the route which I had dutifully downloaded. I normally do that on my laptop at home and just plug the Garmin into the computer and transfer the file directly. This time I was at work so rather than wait until later I added it to my routes on Garmin Connect. When you "star" a route on Garmin Connect your Garmin device downloads it the next time it connects. Well it turned out that I also had an older 70-mile route from Pass Christian on Garmin Connect and of course I starred the wrong one so I started out with the wrong, but close, course loaded. Just to complicate matters further, right after starting the ride I realized I hadn't started my HRM and for some reason it didn't want to pair with the Garmin by the time I noticed, so a few miles into the ride I restarted the ride so it would pair. After a couple of intersections where my Garmin told me to go one way and the group went the other I realized I must have been riding the wrong route. So for the next thirty miles or so my Garmin was constantly telling me to make U-turns or turn onto side roads trying to get me back on (the wrong) course. 

I probably could have ended the wrong route and started the right one while riding but also probably would have crashed into the rider in front of me or ridden off the road in the process, so I waited until we stopped at the store and just ended the ride, saved it, selected the correct route, and basically started all over again. At least I wouldn't turn the wrong way at the intersections. Anyway, it was a good ride even if I had to do some arithmetic to figure out how far I'd ridden that day. Most of us went over to The Deck for lunch after the ride, which was quite nice. 

On Sunday I went out for the Sunday Giro Ride which was fairly tame, as Giro Rides go. Then I spent a few hours trimming hedges and clearing the badly overgrown corner by the house. I think I went through a couple of gallons of various liquids during that process, and of course did a number on my back. 75 miles on the bike was a piece of cake compared to the same length of time doing yard work.

Here we go

So although we have been exceptionally lucky so far this hurricane season, it is looking like our luck is finally running out. There's current a disturbance out there heading straight for the Caribbean and the early projections have it intensifying and ultimately turning north into the Gulf. It's still way too early to say anything for sure, but they are already giving it a 50% chance of development so it will likely be a tropical storm within a day or two. We are just a couple of weeks past the peak of hurricane season, so it certainly merits close monitoring. They will probably have better model consensus in a couple of days and it will likely be in the Caribbean by then. I just spent a couple thousand dollars having the oak trees trimmed back from the house, and we now have a bigger generator and a fair amount of gasoline on hand, so that's good. However the roof of the garage is held down mainly by gravity at this point, so that's not so good. 

Northwest

Back on the 26th we headed off to the airport for an early afternoon flight to the Pacific Northwest, aka Washington. 

I had packed up the old Orbea in my brand-new Airport Ninja bag the day before. This particular travel bag requires removal of the fork and saddle, and of course front brake and rear derailleur, but it makes for a small enough package that you can carry it on your back like a backpack and it doesn't get treated as over-sized. I had added the usual pipe insulation to the main tubes and seatstays, but that was mainly to minimize scratches because the bag itself has more than enough built-in padding. We'd already dropped off the dog at the vet for a long and expensive boarding stay, and were planning on parking in the airport long-term lot (also expensive) for the 10-day vacation that would be the first real vacation we'd taken in about three years. So naturally when we arrived we found the long-term garage to be full. Fortunately there is a new US Park place right down the street, so we parked there, which was marginally cheaper, and were immediately picked up by their shuttle for the short hop over to the airport.

We had arrived at the airport so far ahead of our flight time that the tiny Alaska Airlines counter was still shut down, so we had to wait a while for them to open it up. At MSY, Alaska is way down at the very end of the ticket counters and their electronic kiosks (which were no working at the time) are likewise in an odd little spot as if they were an afterthought. In contrast, at SeaTac there's about a quarter mile of Alaska Airlines counters. Anyway, I had paid the $20 for the checked bag (my bike) and then the agent offered to check one more bag for free, so that was nice. The flight was long but routine except that Candy got the full TSA pat-down thanks to her hip replacement hardware. Danielle met us at the airport for the drive from Seattle to Olympia which as usual featured a fair amount of bumper-to-bumper traffic. 

With the morning temperatures in the 50s, I didn't rush putting the bike back together the next day and finally headed out for a ride around 10:00 when the temperature was around 60°. I had loaded a number of routes onto my Garmin, and decided to start out with a 40-mile one that I had more-or-less done a few years before, heading south largely on the Chehalis Western Trail (a rails-to-trails bike path) and then through Tenino and back up through Olympia. I was in vacation mode, of course, and looking more at the map than my speed, which was the case for most of my rides up there.

The next day, the 28th, I ended up doing a somewhat longer ride, first north, then south, adding an extra loop on Military road after I got a text saying the others had gone to the grocery. I pulled up to the house just as they were unloading groceries, so it was perfect timing. I did a shorter ride on Monday the 29th because we were planning to do some paddle-boarding later in the day. The paddle-boarding adventure was harder than you'd think, but not because of the actual paddle-boarding part. The tide was out and parking was a fair distance from the water, so there was a rather long portage before we could actually get the boards in the water. We were on our way back when I pulled my paddle out of the water only to find that the paddle part had slipped out of the handle part. It immediately sank, of course, and so I ended up getting towed back in. I guess that at some point I may have grabbed the paddle right where the little spring-loaded button is that allows you to separate the sections and maybe twisted it or otherwise moved the button out place. Fortunately we were almost back by then. Tuesday's ride was basically a repeat of the southern loop, but in the afternoon we all went for a ride on the Trail to pick blackberries. I was amazed that there were tons of blackberries at the end of August! Here in La the blackberries are usually long gone by the end of July.

On Wednesday I did a fun ride mostly not on the Trail and over to the west, closer to Capitol State Forest. The route I mostly used was named something like "Wednesday Team Ride." The route had a lot more terrain than the southern loop, so that was nice. I got slightly turned around early in the ride when my Garmin told me I was off course when I wasn't but I eventually got that figured out. Then, toward the end of the ride I made a detour to meet the others for lunch in town, which was great, after which I rode back to the house. Most of the roads around Olympia have bike lanes (and roundabouts - love 'em or hate 'em), which is always nice when you are in unfamiliar territory. The next day was a long drive down to the Portland Zoo, which was OK but not particularly impressive. 

On Friday and Saturday I did rides in the morning and long walks/hikes in the afternoon. Saturday's 6.6 mile hike was mostly on the Mima Falls trail in the Capitol State Forest, and since I hadn't brought shoes for that I ended up buying a pair of hiking shoes at the local REI. I was glad I had, too, because there sure are a lot of rocks on Washington trails! It was a nice easy hike through the forest with occasional horseback riders and mountain bikers.

So on Sunday we headed back to SeaTac for the trip home which was slightly complicated by the fact that the daughter's Volvo tailgate that she had just gotten repaired to the tune of about a thousand dollars stopped working again. Luckily the Airport Ninja was small enough to easily go in though the side door! When we walked into the airport it looked like the day before Christmas or something because the place was packed. It took us about an hour to get through the security line that snaked all through the place. The flight home was crowded but otherwise fine, at least until we got close to Louisiana where the pilot had to navigate around some pretty spectacular storm clouds. During the flights out and back I read Mark Cavendish's book "Tour de Force" which was an interesting look into his remarkable and unpredictable 2021 season, along with a stage-by-stage account of the Tour de France. Cavendish can perhaps rub some people the wrong way, but I have always kind of identified with him as someone who just doesn't seem to have the right physiology for those long heroic climbs, while somehow always being able to put in a good sprint effort at the end - if I can just make it to the 200-meter flag without having to put my nose into the wind too much!

All in all it was a great trip and I was happy to have ignored a lot of email and fit in a bit over 290 miles on the bike, which more than justified the hassle of bringing it along. Even so, it I were to add up all of the various expenses that went into those ten days I'd probably have an anxiety attack.

This week it was back to the regular routine, thankfully not until Tuesday since Monday was Labor Day. Of course, Monday was also a Holiday Giro Ride, so despite getting to bed a little late I was able to make it to Starbucks where I found Brandon B, aka "Half-Carat" who is in the midst of some chemotherapy and for whom a number of the local riders had recently shaved their heads in support.