Hotting UP

Monday morning haze thanks to the marsh fire out in the east

It's been nothing but hot and dry around here lately, and the outlook for the rest of this week isn't offering much else. Most of the rides can be described pretty much the same. Things start off briskly with the pre-dawn temperature in the 81-84° range. Then the number of people working the front begins to dwindle along with the water levels in the bottles. Eventually the speed drops and the number of people hanging on for dear life grows. I get home and walk into the 75° air-conditioning and quickly peel off the soaking wet jersey before I get chilled, hanging it on a rod in the hamper so it doesn't grow mold down with the rest of the laundry. The bike's top tube is spotted with sweat, and the glasses are practically opaque. August. Situation Normal.

The week started out with a nice enough Mellow Monday ride that didn't get too much out of hand as sometimes happens. Back at the Museum of Art in City Park I noticed that the little green plastic frog that had been underneath the statue of bacon (actually it's supposed to be brush strokes but I guess my imagination isn't artistic enough for that) had moved and was now atop a lily pad. It's been kind of like Elf on a Shelf - appearing in a different place every few days. Anyway, since Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all just more of the same hot rides I'll skip ahead to Saturday. 

With the unusually, even for New Orleans in August, hot mornings we've been having lately a lot of the regular Giro riders have been doing the SaMoRi that has shifted to a 6:30 am start. Of course the difference between starting a ride at 6:30 compared to 7:00 is entirely academic but nobody ever said cyclists weren't like sheep. So the Saturday Giro turnout was quite small. Then to make matters worse, a few of those who started announced they would be turning back with the SaMoRi group, effectively shortening their ride by ten miles or so. If any of those riders were on the fence about turning back early, their doubts were put to rest after Will and a couple others kept the Hayne Blvd. speed between 28 and 32 mph all the way out to Paris Road. Even with the light tailwind, it was pretty intense. So halfway out on Chef all but I think four of us turned back. In a way is was a relief because the pace slacked off a little bit, especially after the turnaround when that tailwind turned into a headwind. So we're cruising back, mostly just sitting in Will's ample draft when, after turning onto the Interstate Will's rear tire erupts into a volcano of sealant. I was two bikes back and still got pretty well sprayed. We took inventory on the shoulder and put in a tube, which got Will back to the Bayou St. John overpass where it went flat again. Another tube and a boot got him home.

Long Giro

So after the practically unavoidable dehydration event of Saturday you would have thought I'd have been smart enough to decline the invitation for a Long Giro out to Fort Pike on Sunday. Of course I wasn't. 

Knowing it was going to be a hot and possibly miserable 78 miles despite the store stop at the marina, I put a partially filled large water bottle in the freezer the night before. That morning I headed out with one big bottle of ice and water, a small bottle with electrolyte, a couple of gels, and a couple of bucks for a cold Coke. Once again we had a bit of a tailwind on the way out and when we got to Venetian Isles I was surprised how many people decided do the long ride. I think we had nine. Once we crossed Chef Menteur Pass the pace, which had already been pretty fast thanks largely to Brett and Will, picked up so that the average speed for that whole stretch was a bit over 28 mph. The whole time I'm sitting at the back wondering if they're saving anything for the ride back into the gradually increasing west wind. All I knew was that my own survival was going to depend on staying the hell off the front. I think everybody in the group ended up at the top of the Strava "Chef to Rigolets" segment. Indeed, the ride back was considerably slower. Despite the store stop rehydration and cool-down, I the speed on the way back was more in the 23-25 mph range as everyone was starting to get overheated and dehydrated. I finally limped back home from the lakefront at 15 mph and proceeded to down about half a gallon of cold fluids, after which I was still a couple of pounds low on the bathroom scale.

In addition to this being the time of year when rides get hot and brutal, it's also the time of year when equipment starts to fail, and my own equipment has been no exception. I'd been noticing some unusual drag and noise that, as is almost always does, sounded like it was coming from the bottom bracket area, which, as is almost always the case, wasn't. I moved the chain out of the way and the cranks spun as smoothly as ever. So then I swapped rear wheels, which confirmed that the problem was the rear hub that has over 30k miles on it and had recently weathered a few long rides in the rain. I found the cassette body to be kind of wobbly which pointed to the freewheel bearing, which I then found to be orange and rusty and generally a big old mess. I just threw up my hands, stuck an old wheel in there, and order an whole new cassette body which cost about what the entire wheel was actually worth. I badly need to change out all of the shifter cables, which I'll probably do some time this week. The shifters themselves are also about at the end of their lives but the Campi 11-speed system I have on there is like four generations old now and it's questionable whether it's worth replacing at this point.

Meanwhile, we've been without the car for, I think, ten days now thanks to some hit-and-run person who crushed the side-view mirror into the door. The car should have been ready last Friday but they were sent the wrong mirror, so now I'm hoping maybe late Tuesday or Wednesday. Of course, since the street alongside the house is still completely torn up, which is to say it is just dirt, the car would be covered in dust anyway. The roadwork crew put in new curbs last week, built forms for some of the sidewalks but not all of them, and then ghosted us ... again. When will they return to finish the job?  Your guess is as good as mine. It's like they have a weekly Wheel of Fortune wheel that they spin and every now and then the pointer lands on your street, or Bankrupt. The electricity bill last month was almost $500, and every time I hear the a/c unit kick off, which isn't often, I wonder if it has broken.

Back to the Giro

It was a typical late July week - mostly hot and humid and stifling in a way that makes you want to do nothing by sit on the couch and drink cold sugary things that you know you shouldn't be drinking while contemplating all of the things you should be doing but aren't. A week ago Wednesday morning I'd gone out to meet the WeMoRi as usual, getting onto the tail end of the fast-moving string that turned out to be only the front part of the already decimated group. I was still near the back and practically on my limit from the sudden acceleration as we went around the corner onto Wisner where the accordion effect took me immediately from 28 mph down to 17, requiring a full-throttle sprint to close gaps that got me back up to 28 mph but did not actually close the gap. I blew up, throttled back, cut across the park at Harrison and soon jumped right back into the deep end on Marconi at Toussant. By then I was at least warmed up a bit so staying with the group was feasible. 

Friendly Friday was friendly enough, and all I had on my dance card for the weekend were two Giro Rides. The day before I'd seen a report that the Seabrook bridge was open again, albeit one lane only, so that would at least make the route a little less complicated than it had been for the past month. Still, turnout was a little low since some people have started riding the earlier SaMoRi at 6:30 in an effort to avoid some (actually very, very little) of the heat. That didn't really make it much slower, at least on the way out where the average speed was probably close to 27 mph. As has been happening lately, the return trip was considerably slower, I guess because by then the temperature was probably around 90° and the heat index was probably pushing 100°. 

Bad sign

I figured that Sunday would be similar, which indeed it was. The weather forecast for the morning was calling for thunderstorms starting around 10 am. It felt just a bit cooler when we started out, and although I don't think the speed was faster than Saturday's, I was doing a bit more work so it felt like maybe a little more of a workout for me. When we turned onto Hayne Blvd. on the way back the sky to the west was black and I knew that we were about to get wet - really wet. Soon it started raining really hard and for a moment I wondered if we'd end up hiding in the abandoned container underneath the Casino bridge like we had when the same thing happened about a month ago. Indeed, the ride over the Seabrook bridge was in an absolute deluge, but by then everything was completely soaked with water anyway so there was no point in stopping. Coming down the bridge I swung right onto Lakeshore Drive while most others went straight onto Leon C. Simon. Between the traffic, stop lights, and sharp-edged potholes on Leon C., I kind of hate taking that route even if it's a bit shorter. By the time I turned off of Lakeshore Drive the weather had eased up to just a steady light rain. Later that day I picked up a 50 pound bag of concrete to finish fixing a little section between the house and garage that I'd started a couple of weeks early but had not had quite enough concrete to finish. Well, I soon discovered that 50 pounds of concrete doesn't go quite as far as I thought, so I'll have to get one more bag to finally finish it off.

Monday's Mellow Monday ride turned out to be decidedly non-mellow but somehow most everyone stayed together anyway. The heat felt just a little less oppressive, at least. I was mainly focused on doing as little work as possible anyway. 

On Tuesday we had a nice little group that did the levee ride out to Ormond and back at a remarkably steady speed in the 23 mph range that felt like it required a lot more effort on the way back than it had on the way out. Somewhere out there I saw a text message on my Garmin from Candy telling me I might have trouble getting into the basement. The Garmin only shows a limited number of characters on the screen but I surmised that there was a road crew working on the street. I had seen the heavy equipment staged out there when I'd left in the morning. By the time I got home they were punching  holes through the road, breaking up the old asphalt and shaking the hell out of the house.

DESTRUCTICON

I soon decided it might be a good day to work from home just in case there were any surprises. We hadn't had any advance notice that they would be shutting down the street, unless you count the knock on the door that Candy got around 7 am telling her to move the car. At least there was a full-size crew on  hand, so by afternoon they had removed all of the asphalt and top layer of dirt on the block and were starting to lay down the underlayment and cover it with fresh dirt. How long it will be before we have a paved street and don't have to park a block away, of course, is anyone's guess. 

Charley keeping a watchful eye on the road work outside the window

This morning's WeMoRi was remarkably moderate compared to the past few weeks since a few of the usual instigators were absent. That at least encouraged me to put in a couple of brief efforts for a change. The road work crew was already hard at work on the street when I arrived home, so it will be interesting to see how much progress they have made by the time I get back from work. Tomorrow I have to bring the car to the body shop to get the damage to the mirror and door repaired. With my $1k deductible I'll be paying for almost all of the work, of course, and we'll be without a car probably through Monday, although the estimated three days. I'd like to get out to a northshore ride or somewhere that isn't flat one day next weekend, so that could throw a monkey wrench into the works.

A Bit of Recovery

Monday Morning on LSD

I was drifting off the back of the strung-out single paceline of the Saturday northshore ride, thinking to myself, "I think I'm going to need some serious recovery time next week" as we rolled down Lee Road toward 1072. I had been struggling with the pace, which admittedly was quite high, from the start and was pretty sure I knew why. 

A solid month

My last day off the bike had been the first weekend in June when I was officiating the Tour de La, and since then had done a number of fast training rides back-to-back. Everyone says that as you get older you need more recovery time, and although I think that advice sometimes gets blown a little bit out of proportion, it's not entirely untrue. Saturday's "Pine Loop" ride was just shy of 60 miles, but with it starting at the Lee Road playground I knew it would be all rolling hills. I also knew it would be fast. That's just the kind of ride I wanted, even though the little Strava voice in my head kept whispering something about accumulated stress. It didn't take long for the pace to ramp up once we turned onto Lee Road from Tung and Peyton went to the front. Somehow I found myself on his wheel as the speed settled around the 27 mph along the slight uphill drag toward the Firetower. The whole time I could see my heartrate, which had been a little high from the start, creeping upward despite my best efforts to exploit whatever slim draft all 115 pounds of 16-year-old Peyton, decked out in his national championship jersey, was providing. As we approached the long downhill to the Bogue Chitto I figured it might be a good time to pull over and seek some better shelter at the back of the 7 or 8-rider string behind us. My timing couldn't have been worse. With my Check Engine light already flashing red, the paceline hit the downhill just as I was dropping back, streaming past about five mph faster than I was going, and despite ramping it up to 34 mph I never caught any of the draft that I so desperately needed. I backed off to recover a bit, hoping that the group would pause at the intersection in Enon long enough for me to rejoin it. As the road flattened out I saw Peyton dropping back to pick me up and pace me back to the group, which was nice.

Up by Pine we did a nice short loop that I hadn't done in a long time. It wasn't quite as hilly as I remembered it, so I think we probably used to go a little farther before coming back into Pine back in the day. I remember one race that we put on that started around Pine. It was back in the early 70s and must have been in the middle of the summer because it was super hot that day. This was before feed zones and electrolytes and big water bottles, and it was probably supposed to be 80 miles or so, which was typical back then. I say "supposed to be" because what was left of the lead group made a decision to unilaterally shorten the race by one lap. The people at the finish line were a little surprised when we sprinted for the finish when they fully expected us to be doing another lap. Anyway, I digress....

OK, OK, I get it.

So I was still hanging on after we stopped at the store in Pine and headed back toward Enon and was feeling OK but was still not quite firing on all cylinders despite skipping pulls and generally trying to limit my efforts. Not far from 1072 on Lee Road there's a little hill near the church where I came off the back, again. Fortunately MJ turned around and paced me back the last mile or so to where everyone was waiting at 1072. Under the circumstances I was fully expecting to be riding alone by the time I was halfway up the firetower climb, but as it turned out everyone just rode that at a nice steady tempo, so at least we rolled back into the parking lot together. 

I figured the Sunday Giro wouldn't get too crazy. With the Seabrook bridge still out, the ride doesn't get a nice long stretch of road without intersections until we get to Almonaster, and between the heat and the alternate route the group size has been smaller than usual anyway. For me, this ride was an exercise in wheelsucking and energy conservation. I had already decided that my next couple of rides, at least, would be strictly Zone two-ish even if that meant, which I knew it would, dropping off the back at times to enforce the recovery goal. There were only a few people on the ride who were pushing the pace, so in general it was a pretty easy Giro, which worked out perfectly for me.

Checking Strava later that day I realized how long it had been since I'd taken a day off the bike, and then when I looked at what Strava calls my weekly "Relative Effort" the screen was red and included the word "historic." 

So with that confirmation of my own gut feeling I went out to the Mellow Monday ride on my old Cervelo with strict self-instructions to keep the pedal pressure light no matter what. When the speed ramped up on the way back down Lakeshore Drive I slipped off the back and spun in the rest of the way to Canal Blvd. before getting back into the group. It wasn't quite the "active recovery" it should have been, but close enough I guess. Actually, my legs felt fine, so apparently Sunday hadn't inflicted any discernable additional damage. Still, I knew I should take at least one more day easy, so I went out to the Tuesday levee ride with a plan to take only short pulls and to drop off the back somewhere on the way out to soft-pedal for a few miles before turning around and latching back onto the group on its way back. The "group" turned out to be just three of us after the usual suspects turned back at Williams Blvd., but fortunately neither Martin or Charles was pushing the pace much, so I was able to keep my efforts under control, pulling off from the front once my heart rate nudged above 130 bpm and watching it drop back down to around 110 in the draft. 

I guess I'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow morning and then play the WeMoRi by ear.

Mileage Insanity

July 4th Giro meetup

It's officially mid-summer around here and so by now the 82°F, 90% relative humidity pre-dawn morning air is starting to feel positively cool despite the little rivulets of sweat running down your face and dripping onto the top tube. On the plus side, it looks like we are getting into our regular summer weather pattern with gradually increasing clouds during the day culminating in afternoon thunderstorms. That at least cools thing down just a little bit, although sometimes at the expense of even higher humidity. Riders are going through insane amounts of water, often spiked with some sort of electrolyte mix, even on the shorter weekday rides, some of which are starting earlier and earlier in the morning. So ... situation normal.

Tuesday was July 4th, and so of course there was a "holiday Giro." The Seabrook bridge is still out, and although it was originally scheduled to be re-opened a couple days ago, they sent out an announcement saying it would be another two to three weeks because of "unanticipated structural issues." The alternate route we've been taking isn't quite a good and includes a few places where the road is perpetually flooded because the Sewerage & Water Board doesn't seem to feel any great sense of urgency when it comes to fixing long-standing water leaks in out-of-the-way locations. Even so, there was a good enough turnout on Tuesday that included Rachael (aka Red) in town from Texas, and Tim who seems to be getting back into consistent riding. As we rounded the sharp corner at the bottom of the Danziger bridge people started yelling about a flat that turned out to be Barry's. I turned around just before the spot where the road is flooded and could see him at the bottom of the bridge so I rode back over to see if he needed help, which he did. Although he was riding regular tires with tubes, the tire bead was stuck like glue to the rim and no amount of thumb force could dislodge it. It wasn't even possible to get a tire tool in there. After spending an inordinate amount of time, during which the statute of limitations ran out and the rest of the group headed out, I finally got out my little pocket knife and managed to get the screwdriver blade in there. Once I got one little section away from the rim the rest was easy. Of course by then we were ten minutes behind the group so Barry just sat on the front (he was on his Tri bike) with me on his wheel and one or two others behind me and basically towed us all the way down Almonaster and most of the way down Chef until we saw the group on its way back and could get back in. It turned out to be a decent enough workout, actually, since drafting off of a Tri bike isn't quite like drafting off of VJ.

Wednesday's WeMoRi was fairly typical. I'd somehow gotten myself out the door a little earlier than usual and so arrived at Lakeshore Drive a bit ahead of the group. They swept me up around Elysian Fields at 29 mph where I inserted myself into the paceline. It was fast but things were going along fine until there was a split as we crossed Toussant on Marconi after the "backdraft" sprint. The back half of the group hesitated just a bit too long and the front didn't ease up as it often does. There was a brief but intense effort to close the gap that failed, so despite maintaining a decent speed we never got very close. That evening Charles came over so we could pull his bottom bracket that he thought was going bad. It turned out to be fine, and we soon figured out that the horrible noises he'd been hearing were coming from his relatively new rear Zipp hub. Off the bike it seemed OK, but once clamped into the frame there was all sorts of drag on it and you could see that the freehub wasn't staying parallel with the bike as it turned, so the diagnosis was that "the hub is broken." He later took it to someone who took it apart and found that, basically, the bearings had just kind of blown up. That wheel is on its way back to Zipp and in the meantime he bought a new one. They sent him the 11 speed version instead of the 12 speed version but at least by the weekend he had a functional rear wheel again.

Thursday's levee ride was the last for Brandon who was heading back to California until at least next spring.

Saturday heading out on Stafford Road

By Friday I'd decided to skip the Saturday Giro and go across the lake to what I was sure would turn out to be a ruthless beating consisting of about 70 miles with Peyton and Lisa and a bunch of the faster riders. I wasn't disappointed. We started at St. Benedict's church on Smith Road at Stafford, near where the old Priory used to be where lots of our races and rides started back in the 70s. Now there's a little subdivision and church retirement home where there used to be cattle, and the old church that had been a little farther down Smith Road has been replaced by much bigger one with a parking lot at the corner. Anyway, after a little warmup on Stafford we got onto Million Dollar road and Peyton went to the front and towed everyone at 25-30 mph for about ten miles as I hung onto the back still trying to get the engine firing on all cylinders. After turning onto 437 I found myself on Peyton's wheel for a while and with my heart rate starting to head into dangerous territory I decided survival was the better part of valor and dropped back to the safety of the slightly more substantial draft at the back of the dozen or so riders. I could tell it was going to be a fast and aggressive ride, so I figured I'd stay as protected as possible for a while until things settled down a bit, which they eventually did. At one point before we turned onto Wardline Road a little gap opened up that split a few of us off the back for a few miles. Wardline was kind of a minefield of potholes and patches but at least there wasn't a steady stream of gravel trucks, and as bad as the road was, it was better than it had been the last time I'd ridden it when nothing had been repaired and there were random sections of sand and gravel. Anyway, we all regrouped at the store stop at 44 miles. 

Saturday's store stop at 44 miles - getting hot

I don't think the speed had ever dropped much below 25 mph since Million Dollar Road, so everyone seemed happy to take a little break. After that the pace stayed fast the rest of the way in. It was one of those rides that Strava called "Historic Relative Effort." Average speed was 23.7 mph, with a "best 20 minute heart rate" of 156 bpm and a max of 174. Even so, I felt pretty good at the end and thought I'd managed my effort well while still getting a workout similar to what I'd have gotten in an actual race.

Sunday morning double paceline

So feeling pretty good after Saturday's ride I went ahead and decided to make the drive over to around Biloxi for a long 115 mile ride that Alison had put together. This one was definitely not going to be fast, so I figured I should be able to survive it despite the lingering effects of Saturday's effort. For this one we had nine riders on hand for the start. For me it would be kind of an insane version of a recovery ride. I knew I could keep my effort and heart rate low and under control with this group, so the only real concerns would be the distance and the heat. Fortunately, we would be stopping at practically every store along the way so staying hydrated was never much of a problem for me. 

It felt absolutely cool as we started off heading north at 6:00 am, forming up into a double paceline. For most of the ride the pace stayed in the general neighborhood of 20 mph, although one or two riders occasionally pushed it up a couple of mph. At first that didn't cause much of a problem, but I knew that it would eventually. We took a number of rather long breaks at stores where people were getting cold water, cold drinks, food, and at one point a jar of pickles. I bought a couple of Cokes along the way and re-filled bottles but never got close to running out of fluids. I'd had to leave home at 4 am to make the drive, so I was already well into caffeine withdrawal by the time the ride started and wasn't feeling all that great. I wondered if maybe I'd bitten off more than I could chew after that hard ride on Saturday, but after a cold Coke at the second store stop I started feeling a lot better. 

As usually happens, by the time we were over 70 miles in some riders were starting to wilt a bit. The temperature by then was pretty high and although the ride was mostly pretty flat, this section of the ride was a little more hilly that the rest. As a result, there were a few time when the group came apart without the riders at the front knowing it, but each time they'd eventually slow down to regroup. This was not the kind of ride where you wanted to leave anyone out on the course alone. 

With all of the store stops and everything I was feeling better than expected over the last 25 miles or so, but then again I had expected to be feeling pretty bad, so... Joe Paul was spending more and more time on the front as the miles wore on. I guess we were maybe ten or fifteen miles from the end when it started to rain. Other than the wheel spray, the rain was kind of nice, washing away some of the sweat and salt and making it feel a little cooler. Over the last half hour or so the rain kind of came and went and came again, and just after we got back to the cars the sky opened up once more so everyone rushed to throw everything into their cars which kind of limited the usual after-ride chit-chat. Alison, Joe Paul, and I think one other still had to ride another ten miles or so to Alison's house from which they'd started. Just before I left I checked Google maps and it was showing over an hour delay on I-10 where they have just started work to repair a bridge or something. I called home to let Candy know I'd be later than expected, and headed out with a plan to stop for some fast food before deciding what to do about the traffic situation. Shortly after getting onto I-10 the rain got really heavy in a dangerous sort of way, so I stopped at a Wendy's right off the interstate to wait it out and in the meantime had Waze route me to home. Not surprisingly it routed me around the traffic delay by way of Picayune, which really added only about 25 or 30 minutes. That turned out to be better than I'd expected, so I was pack home by, I guess, around 3:30.

This morning my legs were definitely still a little sore, so I made my Mellow Monday ride as mellow as possible. After a 372-mile week following four weeks that were over 280 miles, I think it may be time for an easier week mileage-wise.

Zone 2 Sunday Miles Out of BSL

Front half of the Sunday ride paceline, somewhere in Mississippi.

It was around Friday when my back finally started to feel more or less like whatever normal is nowadays, which basically means I could bend down and put on my socks without holding onto something for support. That was good because it was a busy weekend. One of my nephews and his wife, along with their two kids, were at the house for a little visit which always entails various activities like trips to the zoo. Fortunately I was able to keep up with my usual rides while Candy kind of covered for me. That allowed me to skip the trip to the Aquarium and a few other excursions, which was nice because we were still operating under daily "excessive heat warnings" all weekend.

Looking for the WeMoRi

On Wednesday I went out to meet the WeMoRi. The right side of my lower back was still hurting any time I stood up on the pedals but as long as I could stay seated it wasn't too bad. I merged into the group as usual along Marconi where, also as usual, I went from 18 mph to 28 mph as my physiology struggled to deal with the suddenly increased demand ... rather late as usual of course. I was still way at the back when we went around the right-hand corner onto Wisner, which turned out to be a fatal mistake. The back of the group always seems to slow down way too much on that turn, maybe because the inside of the corner is festooned with entirely unnecessary flex posts. If you're at the back going around that turn you are going to have to sprint immediately after it just to stay in contact. I was still unrecovered from the effort of merging into the group, and when the back of the group slowed to 18 mph for the corner I knew it was going to be bad. It was. The accordion effect had me maxed out right away and I pretty much blew up a little while later, along with a few others. I cut across City Park before the overpass and eventually got back into the group.

Thursday's ride didn't get off to a very good start. As I worked my way around the dangerous tracks at the streetcar barn on my way out to t he levee I suddenly heard the air escaping from my rear tire, accompanied by a loud "whack, whack, whack" of a big nail that was stuck in the tire. I hit be brakes hard to minimize the damage to the frame, which actually set off the Garmin incident detection alarm. I came to a quick stop, turned off the alarm before it started calling for help, and looked down to find a four-inch nail sticking out of the tire. I sent a quick text to Charles to let them know I wouldn't be meeting them for the 6 am start. So I had a nice easy ride up the river, eventually finding the group on its way back about a mile short of the Luling bridge.

Friendly Friday - last ride of June

Friday's Friendly Friday ride was, for a change, a legit recovery ride, which was definitely a good thing for me. The heat and humidity was still pretty intense and I think everybody who has been riding in it for the past two weeks was feeling the need for a little break prior to the weekend. I know I was. My back was finally starting to feel like it was getting better, but it wasn't quite up to considering picking up that sack of concrete mix I need yet. Friday night I installed a new 53t chainring. The old one came with the Campi Record crankset I'd installed 47,000 miles ago. It was pretty badly worn and when turning the cranks while on the workstand you could feel how rough it had become. For good measure, I also installed a new Campi Record 11 chain. The result was a very noticeable improvement in smoothness. Not so much in speed!

I knew Saturday's Giro Ride was going to be on the small side thanks to the heat and the continuing closure of the Seabrook bridge. Still, it seemed pretty fast once we got onto Almonaster and stayed fairly fast all the way out to Venetian Isles. I was still being a little cautious with my back, especially since I was seriously considering doing an early morning 80+ mile ride out of Bay St. Louis on Sunday. That ride was supposed to be a nice Zone-2 affair, which was just what I felt I needed in order to make sure I didn't have any setbacks with regard to my back. Shortly after getting home I was off to the Zoo to meet up with everyone. They had already been there for about an hour and a half, and we were all supposed to go to the "Cool Zoo" from 2-5 pm. Needless to say, it was hot. Also needless to say I was still a little dehydrated and tired. Fortunately I got there right as they were all ready for lunch and then was able to sit in the shade with a cold drink while the rest of the crew rode the little zoo train around to the swamp exhibit and back. After that we were off to the Cool Zoo section where I managed to avoid sticking my head out from under the umbrella at the table. Apparently the water in the "lazy river" was so hot that people were getting out of it early and the staff were considering closing it down for the day. The kids had a blast, though. We finally headed back home a little before 5 pm. By then I'd pretty much decided I'd be able to do the Bay St. Louis ride since the relatives were planning on leaving in the morning anyway.

Sunday's ride was scheduled to start at 5:45 am, so with the hour drive that meant a 4:30 am departure from home. At least we'd be a couple of hours into the ride before it got really hot. I arrived at the little park where the rides start to find Steve M, Charles, Brandon, Alison ( who recently moved back to the area from TX), and Robert B who was on his Trek e-bike. I was looking forward to the ride since it seemed perfectly designed to give me a nice long ride without any fast steep climbing. As usual with these rides I was glad I'd loaded the route onto my Garmin because I still don't know the roads around there very well, and in this case I'd be on some roads I hadn't been on before. The ride went nicely according to plan. Thanks to the early start, the first couple of hours didn't involve too much in the way of heat stress, plus we made a long store stop after only an hour and a half or so. We were at about 66 miles by the time we made our second store stop, and by then it was getting seriously warm and my water supply was getting seriously low. I downed a bottle of powerade or something and refilled both bottles with cold water, so was feeling fine by the time we headed out for the last twenty miles. I'd brought along a packet of Skratch gummies and had started with Skratch electrolyte mix in one of my bottles, so I was in pretty good shape since the pace had been nice and steady the whole time. We finished the 84 miles with an average speed of just over 20 mph, so although it was pretty hot by the end I wasn't feeling too terribly toasted, although the inside of the car was probably around 120°F at that point. Afterward we stopped for lunch at a little place over around Long Beach.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride started out pretty mellow, although the pace definitely picked up on the way back along Lakeshore Drive. It never too too intense, though, so I think I can still call it a recovery ride thanks to staying in the draft almost the entire time. Hopefully the weather will start shifting back to seasonal normal this week. We could definitely use some of those afternoon showers to cool off the rooftops and keep the foliage alive.

Hurty and Hot

Friendly Friday

Wednesday was the summer solstice, and also WeMoRi, which just meant that it was mostly headlight-optional but hydration non-optional. Actually, the morning temperature was a bit cooler than it's been, hovering around 77°F before sunrise. I'd rolled out of bet a little earlier than usual and as a result almost, nearly, came agonizingly close to getting into the group at the base of the Bayou St. John bridge. As it was, I hit Lakeshore Drive just as the group was streaming past, already strung out into a long line. I had to come to a virtual stop at the intersection as they whizzed past on what was probably one of the fastest WeMoRis on record. That meant a full-on sprint from almost a dead stop straight up the bridge, which had an entirely predictable outcome. I blew up without ever getting into the draft. So I eased up and continued on, eventually turning around and jumping into the group as it came back from the Seabrook loop. There was some sort of battle already going on up at the front that kept the speed relentlessly high. That meant that I never really recovered from the initial acceleration I needed to make to get into the group. So a while later we're flying down Wisner at 28-30 mph and I find myself on Matt's wheel. He's on his TT bike, so the draft is in somewhat short supply, even for me, and I'm thinking to myself, "This is not the wheel I'm looking for." We push up the overpass with me glued to his wheel, but as we come over the top he eases up for a moment and I see a gap open in front of him. I'm already on my limit, and when he surges to close the gap on the downhill I just can't hold his wheel any more at 38 mph and I lose the group. Fortunately I wasn't the only one, and pretty soon we have a little grupetto that cruises in the last few miles at a more humane 22-24 mph. The front part of the ride ended up setting a new KOM for the city park look on Strava, but it was at the expense of at least half of those who had started.

A week or two ago I did something to my lower back that continues to be a nuisance, making it hard to stand on the pedals for climbs or sprints. I keep thinking I'll wake up one morning and it will be mostly gone, but no such luck so far. On Thursday we did our usual long levee ride. My back was hurting, my legs felt a little sore, and I was just struggling to hold 22-23 mph when I was on the front. I wasn't feeling too recovered by Friday morning so I was hoping that the Friendly Friday ride would be easy ... which it wasn't. Donald and Mark kind of attacked on Lakeshore Drive and even though there wasn't what you'd call a chase, some of those at the front didn't seem to want to give them too much rope. Eventually they eased up and things came back together but we probably lost a few people in the interim, resulting in some discussion after the ride about keeping the friendly in Friendly Fridays. And yeah, my back was still hurting. That evening my brother came down from Madison MS with two of his son's kids to spend the weekend with us since their parents were out of town until Sunday night and he'd need to drive them back to Pensacola on Monday to rendezvous with their parents and head back home to Thomasville GA. I'd earlier hoped to make the race up in Hernando MS but I guess it was just as well missing it since my back was still giving me problems. 

With the temperatures rising back above seasonal normal, again, I headed out Saturday morning for the Giro. The Seabrook bridge is still closed and it looks like it will be a couple more weeks before it might reopen. As a result, there is kind of an extended commute tacked onto the usual Giro warmup until we get past the Danziger bridge and work our way through the eternally unrepaired water leaks to finally come down onto Almonaster. What used to be a 5-mile warmup is now more like an 8 or 9-mile warmup. Anyway, it got pretty fast on Almonaster as usual but since there was only a limited amount of willing horsepower on the front the pace stayed at a fairly reasonable 26-27 mph most of the way out to Venetian Isles. By then it seemed like the heat and humidity was starting to get to everyone and that kept the speeds on the return trip down a bit. This time we came back via France Road, riding through more unrepaired water leaks but eventually getting back to Lakeshore Drive.

The rest of Saturday was kind of family stuff that included a trip to the little Cool Zoo water park at Audubon Zoo. I was still kind of dehydrated and tired and achy, so my main goal was to stay in the shade as much as possible.

Sunday was another Giro Ride for me. With all of the complications caused by the Seabrook bridge closure, some people have been doing alternate rides and so we had a relatively small group on Sunday. Of course that kept the speeds down a bit. There was a stopped train blocking Michoud so we had to turn back and continue out Almonaster, crossing the "train tracks of death" before getting onto Chef Highway. This time the group just stayed on Chef Highway / Gentilly Blvd. all the way back to City Park. It was warmer and more  humid than it had been on Saturday so despite the more forgiving pace I was still a little wiped out by the time I got home where everyone was waiting for me to go out to City Park with the kids and wander around the little amusement park where the kids had a blast despite the muggy suffocating heat. That evening I broke down and changed handlebar tape, mainly to check the handlebar for the corrosion that always happens with aluminum bars when you spend months soaking them with sweat. Thankfully they were in pretty good shape, and although I really should have taken the opportunity to change out all of the cables, I just cleaned them off and re-wrapped them with fresh black handlebar tape. My 53 tooth chainring is getting pretty worn now. I installed a new crankset in late 2019, so it has around 46,000 miles on it now, most of which has been on the big ring. It will no doubt be a challenge to find a 53t Campi chainring for that specific 2011-2014 crankset since everything has been 12-speed for a few years now and Campi went to a 4-pin spider after 2014, I think. So basically I'm looking for an antique chainring, at least by racing bike standards. I don't think many bikes come with a 53t chainring any more since cassettes now mostly go down to 11 or 10-tooth cogs.

This morning's Mellow Monday ride was actually pretty mellow. I was determined to take it easy to give my back at least some slim chance of recovering, so I spent most of the time on the back. The forecast for the rest of this week can be summed up with two words, "Head Advisory." The "feels like" highs every day are supposed to be in the 113°F range with actual highs around 96°. Welcome to summer in New Orleans. I fully expect my next electricity bill to be upward of $300, especially since the wife likes to sit out on the front porch with the door open and a/c running.

Hot Summer Rides

Front part of the group heading out for the Tali ride

Well, it's late June now and while I expect it to be hot and humid, last week Mother Nature treated us to the added bonus of multiple "heat advisory" days with "feels-like" temperatures sometimes well over 110°F. Every morning now the outdoor thermometer is reading 80-83°F before dawn as I prepare for my morning ride. Fortunately, road riding makes that kind of thing a bit more manageable than, say, running, thanks to the self-generated breeze, ability to carry fluids, and the occasional store stop. Still, I've come home from every ride lately in clothes soaked through in sweat that weigh easily triple what they did when I departed. Rides to and from work have been exercises in managing effort to the bare minimum required to keep moving forward. Even so, with those last couple of miles devoid of shade I'm still pretty sweaty when I arrive which makes walking into the air-conditioned building feel like walking into a freezer while wearing a wet bathing suit. Meanwhile, hurricane season is getting off to an early start with one named storm already heading for the Caribbean and another possibly close behind. Nothing aiming for New Orleans just yet, fortunately.

The regular weekday rides transpired as the regular weekday rides do, although for some unknown reason I was feeling kind of dragged out every time I got on the bike. Perhaps fighting off some little illness, or perhaps just struggling to adapt to the summer heat and humidity. At any rate, I haven't felt particularly energetic at all, a feeling that has apparently not been shared by everyone. 

Wednesday's WeMoRi, at least the part of it that I do, seemed fast enough that I was never tempted to put my face into the wind or even attempt to contest any of the sprints. The average speed was around 26 mph with a few surges into the 30s, which isn't unusual at all. I was still feeling Wednesday by Thursday morning, and it took me a while to get the old engine started on the levee ride. We were about halfway back when Martin's rear tubeless tire erupted into a volcano of sealant and although there was one bike between his wheel and myself I still got a pretty good dose of sealant spray. His tire mostly sealed itself but was still leaking enough that it was almost flat by the time he turned off for home a few miles later. It was the second time in a few days that I'd been sprayed with tire sealant, which I guess might be an indication that I need to be spending more time at the front and less at the back.

Friday

The Friendly Friday ride was reasonably moderate, which is to say it just got fast in the usual places, but for me it still didn't seem to provide quite the amount of recovery that I apparently needed because I was kind of hurting from the get-go for the next morning's Giro Ride. 

The Seabrook bridge is still closed, so the Giro Route has been kind of in flux, which is to say it's pretty much up to whoever happens to be in front. This Saturday we were following Lisa, which took us down Press to Prentis to Congress, which put us conveniently right at the base of the Danziger bridge. From there it was the usual "bridge closed" route down Almonaster to Michoud to Chef. Once on Almonaster the pace stayed in the 28-32 mph range mostly, and when it surged again up to 34 mph a couple of miles before Venetian Isles people started dropping like flies off the back. I was one of those flies. The pace going out was apparently enough, combined with the rising temperature, to keep the speeds a lot lower on the return trip. We took an usual route back, staying on Chef to Elysian Fields, then over to Mirabeau back to Wisner. That involved a lot of traffic lights and stuff so the pace never got fast, and then once we got to Wisner, some went left and some went right. Anyway, I was still hot and tired by the time I got home.

Waiting at the store stop on the Tali ride.

Charles, having just returned from a quick work trip to Norway, announced that he and a couple other southshore riders were going to do the northshore Talisheek ride on Sunday, and at the last minute I decided to do that too. It starts in Mandeville at 7 am and is just 50-ish miles, so even with the 40-minute drive across the lake I'm still back home well before lunchtime. The route is pretty flat, which is kind of a shame since I could use some terrain variety, but it does get fast here and there so it's a good enough workout and considering what the bridge closure is doing to the Giro route right now it seemed like it would be worth the drive.

So with coffee in hand I headed across the lake Sunday morning around 6 am for a nice uneventful cruise-controlled drive across the causeway, arriving a little early along with Steve Martin. By the time we rolled out at 7:00 the group was probably up to 15 or so, and I guess we picked up a few more at Abita Springs. I never feel too comfortable riding on the Tammany Trace with a group, mainly because I can never see the yellow posts in the middle of the bike path before and after every intersection. Once past Abita Springs, though, we're back onto the road and the pace picks up a bit. Like the Giro, with so many riders you don't really need to spend much time in the wind if you don't want to, but unlike the Giro there is usually a longer paceline at the front, or often one that includes everyone, so it's easy to just stay in the paceline and take a short or long pull, depending on how you are feeling, when your turn comes up, which isn't all that often. So for the most part the pace is in the 23-25 mph range and well within zone 2 for me while sitting on wheels.

At one point, around halfway into the ride, the route takes us onto Hwy. 41 for a few miles. There's a wide shoulder there, so the group rides on the shoulder dodging the usual collection of roadside debris, or, as happened near the end of that segment, not dodging it. We were almost to where we turn off of 41 and I was comfortably sitting about third wheel waiting patiently for my next turn at the front, when I heard the unmistakable sound of a crash behind me. Jeff had hit a chunk of broken asphalt about the size of a baseball that I hadn't even noticed. Luckily he didn't break any bones and amazingly nobody else went down. He did almost destroy his right SRAM shifter, and his derailleur hanger was bent a bit, but otherwise it looked like just some road rash on his arm and leg. It did take him a while to figure out how to activate the shifter with a fingernail since most of the plastic lever had broken off.

After the little sprint just before the store stop on Hwy 434 things eased up a little as we headed down to the Tammany Trace for the last stretch back to Mandeville. They still go 20-25 along the trace which is interrupted by a number of cross streets replete with those yellow posts, so I was spending a lot of time trying to look around, or under, the riders ahead of me. I guess if I rode it more often I'd know where the intersections are and could relax a bit more. Anyway, it was a good 53-mile ride that was probably just slightly less hot and humid than the Giro would have been, albeit with a little less intensity, even if my heart rate did eek just past 170 for a nanosecond at the sprint even though I never really sprinted. 

On Monday I went out to the Mellow Monday ride that got kind of blown apart by Donald and Mark. Even though I, and most of the group, let them go it still clearly wasn't as much of a recovery ride as I needed. This morning's levee ride was moderately fast on the way out and from the start I wasn't feeling great. Part of that was no doubt from the dentist visit I'd had on Monday that left me with some residual pain from a healing incision. Eventually it was just Martin, Charles and me, and it seemed like we were riding into a slight headwind the entire time. After Martin pulled off for home Charles had a little puncture and so I got a little spray of sealant for the third time in about a week. On the plus side, it sealed, so we didn't have to stop, but by then I think we were both feeling a little cooked so we rode the rest of the way at conversational pace.

Natchez

Although I'd not ridden a single mile over the Tour de La weekend, I felt like it still took me a few days to get back into the swing of things the following week. It was almost as if I'd been racing all weekend. By Wednesday, through, I'd pretty much decided I'd take a quick road trip up to Natchez on Saturday to ride the Natchez Bicycle Classic, which is a well-supported fun ride largely on the Natchez Trace. I felt like I needed a little change of scenery, and besides I wanted to support the ride which I think is largely organized by Curtis Moroney who was always one of the key organizers of the Natchez Classic back when it was an actual stage race. I'd originally planned to drive up at 4 am on Saturday but then at the last minute I went ahead and reserved a hotel room at the Hampton - the same hotel where we stayed many times back when it was a race. I have always been rather amazed at the amount of sponsorship cycling events seem to be able to raise in Natchez.

Down to just five somewhere on the way back

Just the week before I'd finally gotten the faulty wheel speed sensor fixed on the car, and had filled the windshield washer fluid and changed the headlights, so for the first time in about a month the dashboard was entirely free of warning icons. After an uneventful 3-hour drive listening to 60s music on Sirius XM I arrived just in time to swing by Smoot's to sign in and pick up my packet that surprisingly included a t-shirt, socks, and various other freebies, along with a wrist band that I suppose was to show that you had actually registered. It was already pretty loud inside Smoot's but they had some free food available so I picked up a few burrito things and sat outside to eat.

The front group near the start of the Trace

Saturday morning I was of course up at my usual time of 5:25, which was way early considering that the start was about half a mile from the hotel and wasn't until 8:00. On the plus side, the hotel breakfast opened at 6 am, so I went down to the lobby for my usual hotel breakfast of coffee and raisin bran. All hotels seem to have coffee and raisin bran. Of course they had the other usual things like waffles and scrambled eggs and sausage and pastries, none of which I really needed prior to a 60-something mile ride. So despite my best efforts I was probably one of the first people to arrive at the start along Broadway Street up on the bluff above the river and in the shade of the new-to-me Grand Hotel. Parking in the big parking lot a block away I looked over at the old train station and remembered when Candy and I officiated the first Natchez Classic Stage Race back in the early 80s. The last stage that year was a criterium that went down the bluff and back up. It was brutal. We were doing results on my Osborne computer with a program I'd written in CPM Basic and were set up in the old train station because there was electricity there. There was no generator or finish cameras or timing chips or music or anything back then, so finish placings and times were all done entirely by eye and turning out final stage race results took a good hour after the last race finished, and then there were the inevitable errors that had to be corrected before the final awards could be done. 

Waiting for the start with Brandon

Since I'd arrived so early and the temperature was still fairly cool I went for a short ride up the river along Cemetery Road. That brought back lots of memories of warm-up rides for the criterium and time trial. By the time I got back people were starting to filter in for the ride and I had a quick chat with Curtis and some of the other folks who organize the event. I think turnout was probably in the neighborhood of 125 or so, although it really should be more like 300. This event doesn't keep track of finishers or finish times or anything so you never pin on a number or timing chip or anything.

Shortly before 8 am I lined up near the front with TJ, Brandon W, Frank Moak and a number of other riders I recognized. Behind us it was a sea of Primal Wear jerseys. Frank was riding a vintage Eddy Merckx that he'd recently built up with 1980s stuff - mostly Campi. I was hoping that the pace wouldn't get too crazy but on the other hand wanted to stay with the front group, whatever that turned out to be. 

Frank on his retro Eddy Merckx

There was a neutral start behind a police car until just before we turned onto the Trace, and I was happy to find that the speed didn't go ballistic at that point. Pretty soon the front part of the group formed up into a nice long paceline with the speed fluctuating between 22 and 30 depending on the terrain. The scenery was quite nice along the well-manicured Trace with the road lined with wildflowers. As usual for this kind of ride I was a little worried about being in a paceline with so many "unknown" riders, some of whom were on triathlon bikes. Near Emerald Mound we turned off onto 553 which isn't graded like the Trace but is just nice low rolling hills. I moved a little closer to the front along there, sensing that the pace might get a little more challenging, and wanting to get more into the rotation at the front. I suppose we starting to lose a few people along there. Eventually we came back to the Trace near where the finish sprint had been the first time I did the race. I was having flashbacks of the sprint up the hill just past the loop where Rich Raspet and I sprinted it out. I think that was the last year the race used part of the Trace. 

TJ took a few photos - this is the neutral segment between the river and the Trace.

Anyway, once we were back on the Trace we continued about seven miles to the turn-around at a little parking area. By then the number of people near the front of the group had started to dwindle so it was more like a six or seven person paceline. At one point after the turnaround there is a nice long climb that's close to two miles long but only maybe 3-4% mostly. Frank just motored that whole way at a steady pace and the next time I looked around we were down to just 5 or 6 riders. Not too much later it was just TJ, Frank, Brandon, and me, which is how it stayed. After exiting the trace we were back on unprotected city streets so the last few miles were just conversational. Coming into time I was again getting flashbacks of Natchez Classic road race finishes and all of the many road race and criterium sprints I'd done over the years on Main Street. You never forget that stuff!

Another TJ photo somewhere near the end of the Trace I think.

I showed a ride time of 2:41 for just under 63 miles. By then it was getting pretty warm but the ride had been so nice and steady that I wasn't feeling very tired at all. Coke was one of the event sponsors which meant there were tons of ice cold liquids of all types of Coke brands, which was great because I was definitely a little dehydrated. There was a beer truck too, of course, although that's usually about the last thing I want to drink after a summer ride. Across the street they had a nice lunch setup, so I sat around in the shade chatting and eating for a while before finally rolling down the street to put the bike in the car and head back home. I was probably home by 3 pm even with the inevitable and unexplainable traffic delay on the elevated interstate between Laplace and Kenner. So it was a really nice ride that I though was well worth the drive.

Sunday morning I went out for the regular Sunday Giro Ride. With the Seabrook bridge still closed for repairs we took Franklin to Chef, went over the bridge there, and then took Almonaster to Michoud back to Chef. The pace going out was pretty fast once we came down onto Almonsaster and didn't really let up all the way to Venetian Isles. After that, though, I think the heat was starting to get people and the ride back was considerably slower. It definitely felt like a classic summertime Giro where I arrive back home with empty water bottles and soaking wet clothes. Just like I like it.