Hot town, summer in the city

A Thursday morning with waterspouts over the lake

It's mid-summer now, and it shows. The pre-dawn rides start at 82°F with the relative humidity in the 90s. Then it gets hot. Surprisingly, though, turnout for the regular rides has been high, especially the Friendly Friday and Saturday Giro rides. Go figure.

There's a lot to catch up on this week, so I'll turn the clock back all the way to the week after the Tour de La., starting with the July 3rd WeMoRi. I was feeling pretty decent for that one. It was one of those where most everybody was still there for the finish. As usual, we came screaming down the Bayou St. John bridge at 30+ mph as people started to set up for the Marconi sprint about a kilometer away. This time of year there are some big groups of high school cross-country runners that meet up along Lakeshore Drive in the mornings. It's not really a problem for us, but this time I guess one of them inadvertently left us a surprise. 

July 3 Skid

I was still toward the back of the paceline when I heard what I thought was someone hitting a coke can. What it actually was, however, was one of those Yeti insulated cups. Charles nailed it and immediately hit the ground a couple of bikes ahead of me. He went more or less to the left as his bike spun off to the right. I hit the brakes hard and barely made it through between the sliding bike and a parked car on the right, clipping some part of his bike with my rear wheel in the process. Fortunately, Charles and his bike were more or less OK. Later that evening I was cleaning my bike and realized I'd taken off a big chunk of my rear tire when I locked up the rear wheel. Good thing I checked. Also, good thing I happened to have a new tire on hand.

That Thursday was July 4th, so of course there was a Holiday Giro that morning. I rolled out the door around 6 am into the relatively mild but predictably humid 80° air with an official "feels like" temperature of 87°, hoping for a reasonably controlled ride. With the "interim" Giro route upon which we seem to have finally arrived at a consensus, my usual 59-60 mile Giro rides are not more like 68-70 miles, with that extra half hour tacked onto the hottest part, of course. The ride out to Venetian Isles was still pretty fast, with an average speed a bit over 25 mph, but by the time we were halfway back every one was pretty wilted and hot.

Big Friendly Friday Group

The next day, the Friendly Friday ride had a pretty big group, relatively speaking, so of course it wasn't quite as easy as it sometimes is. Still, having a bigger group always make the ride better and usually also makes it seem a little easier since all those bodies make for a much sweeter draft zone near the back.

Big Saturday Giro

The on Saturday we had possibly the largest group we've had since the bridge closure. That guaranteed a fast pace, at least on the way out before it became oppressively warm, but the big long paceline also made it feel a little easier. It really reminded me how much better the ride is when you have 20-30 people on hand. The last part of the ride, of course, was super hot, which kept both the pace and hydration levels well below normal. I was thoroughly dehydrated by the time I got home, and subsequently took the hint to order up a fresh bag of Skratch, since I was just about out of the one I had. 

Steve and Charles had planned a ride out of Pass Christian for Sunday, so I made my way over there. We had a nice group of six, and the pace was pretty controlled, so other than, again, the heat, it was a nice 52 miler with a little bit of terrain. It wasn't until I got back home and looked at Strava that I realized Apryl had ridden from a friend's house to the ride, and then ridden back afterward, logging over 100 miles. She's apparently planning on doing the 200-mile LoJoTa ride in early September. Considering how drained I was by the end of my own 52 miles, I was impressed. That ride brought my weekly mileage up to 316, which was probably more than generally considered advisable considering the fact that practically every single morning my Garmin greets me with a Heat Advisory.

Last week wasn't much different, really. We have under this heat dome lately, so winds have been fairly mild and temperatures have been fairly high. Considering the prior week, I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised to find nobody at NOMA for the 6 am Tuesday ride. Just as well, really, since I could clearly use a bit of recovery anyway. I did run into Keith Noonan who turned around and rode with me for a while. As I usually do when I'm solo for this ride, I turned around a little early so I'd get back  home at the usual time. Wednesday's WeMoRi was pretty fast, at least it felt that way to me. In reality, it was probably a pretty normal one. 

Thursday Morning Sunrise

On Thursday we had more of a group at NOMA, which made for a better ride. On the way back from t he casino we could see a line of rain clouds out over the lake that had spawned a number of waterspouts. Then again on Friday we had a surprisingly big group, which again meant an unsurprisingly fast pace. Mid-way through the ride we lost Charles, who I figured had a flat or something. He had come over to the house a couple of days prior to replace handlebar tape, and when I rolled the bike into the basement I could tell that the headset was very badly pitted. It was hard to imagine how he was even riding the bike like that. He had a replacement headset at home, and subsequently brought it over to the LBS in the Quarter, since replacing it would involve disconnecting and bleeding the hydraulic brake lines that run through the handlebars and head tube. He had gotten it back in time for the Friday ride, but soon realized something wasn't right. He wrote that it felt like you'd "just done a bong hit every time you take a tight turn or stand on the pedals."  Back at NOMA I looked at it and you could see the fork moving below the head tube, even though the preload adjustment seemed tight. My diagnosis was simply that something wasn't installed right and it would have to be taken apart to find the actual problem, which turned out to be an upside-down headset bearing. Anyway, it was a really good Friday ride.

What everyone looked
like after Saturday's Giro

The Saturday Giro was, again, a big one with at least 30 riders on hand for another exercise in group dehydration. There was some horsepower at the front, so it got quite fast and stayed that way all the way out to Venetian Isles. Fortunately the winds were light, which, combined with the large group, made it manageable despite some long stretches that stayed in the 27-31 mph range. Not surprisingly, the ride back was a bit slower as the temperature got up into the low 90s and everyone started running out of water. One new feature on the Giro route lately has been a regular encounter with two or three small dogs that have been running out into the group near the end of Hayne Blvd. The group really scattered on Saturday when they ambushed us, but somehow nobody crashed and the dogs didn't get hit. Later in the ride, somewhere on the I-510 segment, Matt and Jaden got into some kind of argument about somebody's riding, I think. Anyway, the pace remained fairly fast, and I got home on Saturday completely drained, just like my water bottles. I wasn't the only one. Later that day I went over to Tulane HQ and picked up the 56 cm Specialized so I could take it home and check it out. Gavin was flying into town on Sunday morning for a conference, and would be borrowing it for the week. I stopped by GNO Cyclery on the way home and picked up a couple of rolls of handlebar tape because what was on there was kind of shredded on both sides from what had to have been a crash. Otherwise, though, the bike was functional. I cleaned it up, cleaned and lubed the filthy chain, cleaned the cassette and chainrings and jockey wheels, adjusted the derailleur, lowered the handlebar, and of course changed the tape. The bike is one of three Specialized bikes that were donated to the club a few years back. It's a basic aluminum Specialized Allez with the low-end Tiagra components, so it's a little on the heavy side, but otherwise pretty nice.

Mellow Monday

Sunday's Giro was a little smaller and although the pace was a bit slower, it felt harder to me. I think that all those long hot rides had finally caught up with me. By the time we turned back onto Hayne Blvd. I was already rationing the water and Skratch that I had left, and all I could think about was the cold Coke in the refrigerator at home. I had originally been considering doing a long ride on the northshore, but was glad I'd decided to instead just do the Giro. Gavin's flight was scheduled to arrive at 10:15 am, and I got home at 10:00 even after taking a shortcut, but fortunately the flight was delayed about fifteen minutes, so the timing actually worked out great. I picked him up and we go the bike adjusted, then went to lunch, and hung around the house long enough to watch the day's Tour de France stage before dropping him and the bike off at the Marriott. This morning's Mellow Monday ride  had a pretty good turnout, and although it got a little fast here and there, it wasn't a particularly hard one, which was good because I was definitely feeling like I was in need of a little recovery.

Meanwhile, back at home, I am dreading the next electric bill, still hoping that one day the city will show up and clean out the clogged catch basin next to the house, and thinking about the inevitability of needing to have a lot of expensive exterior work done to replace rotting wood, install new gutters, and paint. For now, the hurricane situation has been quiet, but it's expected to ramp up again fairly soon, things usually get pretty spicy in August and September, into the early part of October. Keeping fingers crossed. Charley has been moving up in the local Dog rankings, and is currently in 2nd position as measured by number of steps. He shows up also on Candy's Strava page whenever she takes him for a walk and actually remembers to bring her phone and have the app running. Their typical daily walks are in the 5-7 mile range, so that's a lot of dog steps.

Tour de La Weekend

Small field, but no lack of talent

Leading up to this year's Tour de La we had more complications and changes than we've had for at least a decade. Problems with the original road race venue led to a postponement from the beginning of June to the end of June. In the interim we secured a new venue (actually one that we'd used before for a couple of Collegiate races) and decided to run the time trial immediately after the road races from the same location, which greatly simplified things on Saturday. I think the road course at Lee Road was significantly better in many respects than the old one at Stoney Point. The road surface is dramatically better, and traffic around the start/finish is practically non-existent. All we really needed were riders. We didn't get many of those, however. I guess the heat was one factor, and perhaps there is just a general pervasive fear of entering an actual competition nowadays. Regardless, we pushed ahead, knowing that participation would be far below the years when we had over 200 riders. Of course, that knowledge has driven a gradual reduction in the prizelist that was once around $6k and is now down to around $2k, which is also around the total net revenue from entry fees. There's another $3-4k in costs to put on the event, much of which was made up by sponsorship from Bike Law and Palmer, and some other donations from individuals. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it is just as much work and expense to put on a race for 200 riders as it is for 50.

Mike was there! His derailleur
cable slipped in the RR.

One nice surprise came a couple of days before the event when Howard emailed me to say that the speed bumps on the criterium course had been removed for the race. I was pretty impressed that he was able to make that happen. On Friday I downloaded the final pre-registration data, assigned numbers, set up the registration and results workbook, charged batteries, and went down to the basement to stage all of the stuff I'd need to cram into my car. Since we didn't need the big P/A system for the Road Race or Time Trial, I was able to leave that and the generator at home. For power we'd be relying on just a couple of Jackery power banks. Those would just have to run the radio, laptops, camera, and printer, for which they would have more than enough in reserve. As usual I drove over to the Hampton Inn in Mandeville Friday afternoon to shorten the Saturday morning drive, and was able to have dinner with Mignon and Mark that evening, which was a nice stress-reducer. I knew we would be short-handed this year since a couple of our usual people couldn't be there.

LAMBRA Cat. 1-2 Road Champions

Saturday morning I got up a little after 5 am, picked up coffee at Starbucks, and made the 45 minute drive up to the road course. I stopped at the intersection of 1072 and Lee Road, and spent about 30 minutes sweeping rocks and sand from the inside of that turn, and then put  up a few caution signs and a directional sign for the riders. Once at the Oak Grove church I put up some more signage and started unloading the car. Mignon, Boyd, and Ty arrived to help, and a bit later the two officials, Ricky and Cole. Once the riders started arriving we realized that the bib number set that I had for the masters race was missing a lot of numbers. I had assumed it was an untouched sequence, but apparently not. Fortunately we had lots of extra numbers, so although I had to change a bunch of numbers on my results spreadsheet, it wasn't a huge problem. This year we were running the women with the masters, and were weren't even offering a Junior race, so that meant there would be only three groups on the road, and we'd need only three follow cars, which was good because that's all we had anyway. Mary J from S'port was the only woman to show up, so I guess it was good that we had planned on combining the two groups. We go the police officers assigned to the various intersections and were ready to go right on time.

Masters Road Race

The races themselves went smoothly and without any crashes, but the heat definitely took its toll on some of the riders, even though most were doing only 51 miles, with the 1/2/3/4s doing one 17-mile lap more than that. The only issue was a loose dog, or maybe more than one dog, somewhere between the turn onto Lee Road that the spot where Choctaw road split off. One of the riders got bitten on his ankle. I didn't get the whole story, but Ricky filed a Report of Occurrence just in case, and I think one of the police officers went over there to have a talk with the owner. Usually, dogs will keep their distance from a big group, but none of this year's groups was big enough. The road races were also serving as the LAMBRA road championships, so we had a podium on hand to award the USAC medals. That's always a little complicated when you have people from other states in the race.

Masters Criterium Start

So we wrapped  up the road races and time trials by about 2:30 or so and headed back across the lake. Ricky and Cole were staying at my house, so we went out to dinner after I got the results posted, which didn't take very long.

Cat 1/2/3/4 Criterium

Sunday morning I was up early again to load up the car, this time adding the P/A system and generator, to head over to Torres Park in Chalmette, about half an hour's drive from home. I drove a lap around the course and discovered a water leak in the big parking lot. It was running right across the path we planned to use for the race, so we had to make a little change that, I think, was actually better than the original route through that section. Once again, it was hot, but fortunately there are lots of big oak trees, and we had tons of Coke products on  hand, thanks to Carter Lusk who works with the distributor in Mississippi. They were a sponsor of the Natchez Classic and he had offered to help us out for the Tour. He ended up driving down from McComb and dropping off a bunch of stuff at Mignon's place a few days before the race. Ty then loaded up his truck with a couple of ice chests. Even with it as hot as it was, we still didn't go through everything Carter had brought, so we gave away 12 packs of drinks to the winners. Anyway, nobody crashed and nobody was arrested, so the criterium went well despite the small field sizes. We need to remember to send a notice to the two or three houses that are on the back side of the course next year. We could also use about a hundred more traffic cones for the route through the parking lot.

By the time the criterium was over I was getting  pretty hot and tired. Ty, Mignon, and I took our time tearing everything down and loading it back into the car. Then, of course, I had to unload everything. It's all still sitting in the basement, and I haven't had the energy yet to re-organize it all. Also, the weekend took its toll on my back, as usual.

There are a bunch of photos on the NOBC Facebook Group page, and a nice on-bike video from the 1/2/3/4 criterium.

Tour Tour Tour

Last weekend I made the drive up to Hernando, Mississippi for the second annual Tour de Hernando, put on by the Memphis Marx-Bensdorf club. Since the Sunday criterium was also serving as the LAMBRA criterium championship, I was bringing a bag full of medals with me. Of course, I knew that riders from Louisiana and Mississippi would be in rather short supply, since Hernando is a pretty long drive for most of them. On the other hand, it was an opportunity for the north Mississippi riders, who likewise don't often make the road trips down to races around New Orleans, a chance to snag some of the coveted USAC medals. This race offered a lot of different categories and age groups, including the 50+/60+ one I'd be racing in. That sort of thing can be good and bad. On the one hand, it's nice being able to race with people who are, at least presumably, around the same age or skill level as yourself. On the other hand, unless turnout is particularly robust, the field sizes tend to be fairly small, as was the case that weekend. The organizers had Start2Finish on hand, so they were using chip timing and posting results in real time. There was just one sprint finish in the criterium where they could have used an actual linescan type finish camera rather than a regular video, but I guess the judges were able to make the call with the combination of chip times and video. I had driven up to Madison on Friday to visit with my brother and two of his kids who live around there, and also to shorten the drive and eliminate one hotel room night. Since my Saturday road race didn't start until around 11:00 or something, I had plenty of time that morning for the 2+ hour drive from Madison to Hernando.

By the time my road race started it was already getting pretty warm, which isn't usually a huge problem for me. It was only 40-something miles for the old geezers, so I knew that wouldn't be my biggest problem. The course was pretty good and significantly more challenging than I had expected, but I was feeling fine and taking an occasional pull at the front. During one of those times when I was on the front, we came up over a rise and coming down the other side I could see an intersection with a police officer on the left. For some reason I had it in my head the the course was all left turns. So I flew down the hill and came through the turn at about 27 mph. Unfortunately turning the wrong way! I'd been so focused on the turn and the speed and the officer that I guess I didn't seen the directional signage. I quickly realized that everyone else had turned the other way, but by the time I slowed down and made a U-turn the group was already pretty far up the road. We were only 6 miles into the 8 mile lap. Of course I chased, and soon I could see that the small group ahead had split, but I never could get quite close enough to get back into the race. When I came into the start/finish area with one lap to go the officials told me I was the only 60+ rider left, so if I wanted to stop it would be fine, which of course I did. It turned out to be a pretty nice 37 mile workout in the hills with 1,600 feet of elevation and an average heart rate of 150 (probably elevated a bit due to moderate dehydration). 

Oops!!

On Sunday I got to the triangular criterium course early, since I wanted to make sure the medals were available for the first race. My own race was one of the earlier ones, so although it was hot, it wasn't too bad. We started with just 8 riders, of which I was the only 60+ one. From the gun, one guy, Ryan Jones from Huntsville, attacked. I went with him as he accelerated to 30 mph, but quickly realized that nobody else was coming. I probably should have made the effort to stay with him, but instead I backed off to the relative security of the rest of the field. Pretty soon there were just 4 of us. On the last lap, I decided to go to the back so I wouldn't interfere with the 50+ guys who would be sprinting for 2nd place. The finish was maybe 150 meters from the last turn, and was slightly downhill with a moderate tailwind, so despite coming around it last, I still passed one rider and almost another before the finish, topping out a 35 mph. It was fun. There were races all the way until around 2:30 pm, so I spent a lot of time getting more and more dehydrated and overheated. Since I'd won some cash for basically being the only 60+ survivor, I figured I'd give a little of it back by entering the Cat. 1/2/3 race. I told the officials that I would start at the back and do about three laps before pulling out. I knew I was way too dehydrated to be doing another race in the heat. I ended up doing four laps. Over the course of the day I think I consumed four or five soft drinks, plus the Skratch-enhanced water in my bottle. On the 5 hour drive home I stopped at a Love's and got the extra giant sized fountain drink, and later a cup of coffee at a Starbucks. I still didn't have to pee until after I got home at around 8:30 pm, confirming my suspicion that I was more than slightly dehydrated. Anyway, the weekend was way more fun than sitting on the couch after doing another Giro Ride.

The Tour de La:  On Monday I got a text from the St. Bernard Parish police officer in charge of the criterium telling me that there were some new speed bumps on the crit course! Yikes. I ended up skipping my Tuesday morning ride and driving out there to have a look. As it turned out, the four speed bumps between turns 1 and 2 had quite a bit of space between them on all sides, which was at least enough to convince me that our smallish fields would be able to handle them without disaster. Still, I got in touch with Howard who got in touch with the parish president about whether it was possible to remove them. I haven't heard back about that, and from what I saw, I doubt it is feasible, so I'm expecting them to be there for the criterium. Hopefully they won't cause a big problem. At least they aren't in the finish straight or immediately before a corner. I think they are basically there to slow cars down where there is a little off-street parking area for the park. Just goes to show you, if it ain't one thing, it's something else. It took us weeks, plus a postponement, to move the road race to a different course, and I had been thinking how relatively simple and secure the criterium arrangements had been. Oh well. Of course it's Wednesday now and as usual people are waiting to see if other people register, and those people are waiting to see if the ones who are waiting will register, so registrations are low like last year. All we can hope for is a last-minute flurry of registrations. Costs are the same whether there are 300 or 30 riders, and of course the reason races disappear is because of multiple years of low turnouts.

The Other Tour: So since we had to postpone the Tour de La this year, it now starts on the same day as the Tour de France. I went ahead and subscribed to Peacock so I should be able to watch the replays every day rather than try to record the occasional coverage on NBC. I've never really followed all of the Pro riders and teams, but I do like to keep track of those from the U.S., and on that note I was quite disappointed to learn today that Sepp Kuss wouldn't be racing this year. Every year I marvel at how he makes climbing the Alps, or Pyrenees, or whatever, look so smooth and easy. This year, though, it was obvious that he wasn't riding well at the Critérium du Dauphiné, and when he didn't start the final stage I knew he must be sick. Turns out he caught COVID and wasn't recovered enough to do the Tour de France. It's another blow for his team, Visma-Lease a Bike, this year. After dominating the grand tours last year, they have had nothing but bad luck since. Vingegaard had a bad crash in April and nobody seemed sure he would be able to race the Tour until just a few days ago, but under the circumstances you have to wonder if he is sufficiently recovered to make a run for the GC. It should be an interesting race this year.

Meanwhile back at home, I did some work on the washing machine the other day because it was galloping across the basement floor during the spin cycle. That was likely a combination of being overloaded with heavy cotton clothes, worn suspension rods/springs/etc., and/or a worn out and loose hub fitting under the basket. I replaced the four suspension rods the other night, so we'll see how it goes the next time we do a big load. I ran a small load of cycling stuff through it this morning and it seemed fine, but then that's on the Delicate cycle and they weigh  next to nothing, even wet. Danielle sent me a Fi dog tracker a couple of weeks ago, so Charley is busy improving his ranking by taking his daily 5-7 mile walks with Candy. I set up a Strava account for Candy so now it shows the dog walks automatically there too. The sidewalk that they tore up at the beginning of the month has, predictably, been abandoned without being finished, so there's just this big missing square of mud. Typical city incompetence. 

Up the River in Natchez

Thursday's lakefront ride. The group is getting larger.

It was another 300 mile week for me, which wasn't quite as taxing as one might imagine. The weekday rides, aside from being mostly hot and humid, seemed a little faster than usual but not significantly harder, probably due to the extra people who always seem to come out of the woodwork this time of year. When there are more than just a handful of riders in the paceline, I sometimes go miles before finally coming to the front to take a pull. For me, sitting in a paceline behind four or five riders can easily drop my heart rate down to 120 bpm or even lower, even at 27 mph. If it's like that for too long I'll sometimes slide over into the wind a bit, especially if I'm on the back. Otherwise, I'm always aware of larger riders behind me and the fact that they may not be getting much of a draft, and are probably back there cursing me every time I put my hands on the drops.

Anyway, Friendly Friday's ride had a quite a big turnout, as had Thursday's ride, and of course that made it relatively fast. The whole time, however, I was thinking about the next day's Natchez ride that I'd signed up for. Depending on who shows up for Natchez, the front group can get pretty competitive, and so I was trying to be careful not to blow up my legs too much.

Unlike last year, when I had driven up to Natchez on Friday evening, this year I decided to just get up early and drive up on Saturday morning. By "early" I mean 4:00 am. I decided to take the slightly longer, but easier route, staying on I-55 all the way up to US 84, so I'd be on nice 4-lane the whole way. The shortcut via US 98, that I often take, involves a long stretch on a 2-lane highway that can be either nice and smooth or frustrating, depending on how many local farmers you get stuck behind. Anyway, I arrived in Natchez just a bit after 7 am as planned. The organizers were still busy setting up the tents and registration table and all, so it was a little while before I actually picked up my packet. This event doesn't keep track of times or anything, so there aren't any numbers to pin on or stickers to affix or anything. My sense was that turnout was fairly low this year, for reasons I cannot fathom.

Natchez Trace

The weather was as good as it gets for early June. When I'd left New Orleans at 4 am the temperature there was around 80°F. By the time I got to Natchez it was more like 69° with much, much lower humidity, and the sky was clear and blue. There was a light wind that seemed to be coming more or less from the north, but I knew we wouldn't feel much of it since the entire route is lined with trees and dense forest. As usual, I was having lots of flashbacks from all of the Natchez Classic Stage Races I'd done there, starting way back in the mid-80s. Interestingly, this ride attracts a number of riders who you might consider to be semi-retired bike racers who also have long histories of racing there. I had a chance to chat with Curtis a few times before and after the ride about what can be done to increase turnout and eventually incorporate a criterium. I could be wrong, but I think that providing times and publishing the "results" might make it feel more like a challenge and pull in more riders.

So we started out with a neutral section from the river to the Natchez Trace, and fairly quickly fell into a paceline, at least up near the front. The Trace can be kind of deceptive because the road is graded and therefore has long sections that are just 1-3% but look like they're almost flat. You find yourself wondering why it seems harder than it should now and then. Although the pace was what I would consider moderate - figure 22-23 mph on the flat - we were apparently shedding riders pretty quickly. By the time we turned off of the Trace onto 553, which was 12 or 13 miles into the ride, we were already down to seven, including other old-timers like Frank, Heath, and Trey. Last year the pace seemed a bit faster, especially after we made the turnaround. 

This year I think the pace was a little more steady, at least until the last ten miles. We were on the way back, maybe 48 miles into the 62 mile ride, when Frank started to apply a little pressure going up one of the longer uphill stretches. It wasn't enough to put anyone off the back or anything, but I was starting to sense some competition creeping into our nice collegial ride.

Well, my instincts were right, and not long after that one of the guys launched a full-out attack down the left side that required a significant effort to close down. By then the dye had been cast, and what followed was a series of short attacks and chases, during which I think we lost one rider. We were still a few miles from the end of the Trace when another one of those took a while to close. As soon as it was all back together, Frank's race instinct took over and he launched another solo attack at just the right time when everyone was hoping for a bit of recovery. That put him maybe 15 or 20 seconds up the road before a little paceline formed to chase. At that point I was starting to feel the miles on the little climbs so decided to just tailgun and watch the show from the back. I guess we were less than a mile from the end of the Trace when Frank must have eased up a bit and the gap came down quickly, with everyone re-grouping as we exited the Trace. From there it's more of a casual commute through town to get back to the river.

Afterward there was cold Coke (or other Coke products) along with a nice lunch and live music. I sat there for a while, consuming a couple of sandwiches and telling old racing stories of questionable veracity before finally grabbing a cold Coke for the road and wandering back to the parking lot. It was still much cooler than the weather in New Orleans, so hanging around had been quite pleasant. I took the short route home down Highway 61 through Baton Rouge, which was quite smooth and relaxing, until of course I got to the I-10 raceway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. As usual, traffic came to a standstill for a little while over the Spillway where of course there had been a crash. The speed limit there is, I think, 60 mph. The average actual speed, however, is more like 75, and of course people drive like f'ing idiots there because they know the state troopers aren't going to risk their own lives on that elevated stretch by trying to pull anyone over. They just wait for the inevitable 911 call, I guess. It's only a matter of time before they install some sort of automated ticketing system there.

So back at home I had to decide what to do about Sunday. I needed to go out and mark the course for the Tour de La that will be June 29-30, so I decided to do the regular northshore Talisheek ride starting at 7 am from Mandeville. That went nicely and didn't even feel very hot until the last twenty miles or so. In fact, I hadn't even gone through one water bottle when we stopped at the store 42 miles into the 55 mile ride, where I got a can of Coke. 

After that ride I threw the bike back in the car and headed north to the road course that is somewhere around Zona, LA. That was practically an hour's drive from Mandeville, but on the plus side, I arrived at the church right when the last of the congregation was leaving, so I was able to park in the shade of the tree. Then I set the Garmin temporarily to Metric so I could mark the 200 meter mark and the 1 km mark. That done. I marked the start of the Time Trial right at the north end of the parking lot, then paced off 100 paces and marked the finish for the out-and-back 3-mile course. Then I paced back 50 paces and marked my measurement point. From there I started my Garmin again and rode 1.5 miles  up the road to mark the turnaround, then continued around the course marking all of the five turns on the course. There was hardly any traffic as I rode the 17 mile loop that we had used a few years back for a couple of Tulane collegiate races. I got back to the car kind of hot and thirsty, which was no surprise. That put me just over 300 miles for the week.

Hot Summer Rides

Waiting for WeMo

It's looking like the heat and humidity are here to stay for a while now, and even though I usually climb onto the bike before sunrise, by the time I peel off the lycra it's thoroughly soaked. Giro Rides that I was doing a month ago without putting much of dent into a single water bottle, now have me emptying two and wishing for more. Water that it, not heat.

Wednesday's WeMoRi and Thursday's lakefront rides weren't too terrible since the tropical heat dome that defined the next few days hadn't yet quite consolidated itself on top of us. The WeMoRi was fast in places and not so fast in others, leaving me with a little left in the tank for a short sprint at the end. Thursday's ride actually felt pretty nice, although that might have been more because the pace remained smooth and moderate than because of the weather. 

Big Friday Group

By Friday I was ready for a nice easy Friendly Friday ride, but when I arrived to find a particularly large group on hand, I knew it was not to be. Even so, it never got quite out of hand, and with so many wheels in the group it wasn't too hard to titrate the effort level without getting dropped.

By Saturday, though, conditions had become much more humid. As I rode out to Starbucks I wondered how that would affect turnout. As has been the case for the past few weeks, there was going to be a lakefront training race in addition to the regular Giro. Norman was on hand from Mississippi because his son had a swimming meet that day and he was squeezing in a morning ride and then riding out to Metairie for the meet. I was still a little bit on the fence about whether to do the training race or the Giro, but the decision became much easier when I saw people along Lakeshore Drive setting up for the annual Greek Festival run. That meant that the police were going to shut down Lakeshore Drive at some point, so since there was a reasonable turnout for the Giro, I decided to go with that instead. It turned out to have been a good decision because the race only got in two laps, plus they had a small crash coming into the Elysian Fields traffic circle that brought down Devin and one or two others. The Giro itself was pretty typical, with the speed being largely maintained by Norman. One thing I have noticed about the recent Giro Rides, where the group size has been down in the 6-12 rider range rather than the 25-40 rider range we had before the bridge closure, is that the smaller group guarantees that you will be doing more work overall, even at the slightly slower speeds. Afterward, I rode out to the lakefront bike path with Norman so he wouldn't get too lost finding his way to St. Martin's.

Monday's Hopedale Group

On Sunday, I did yet another Giro, this time with a much smaller group. I think we had about six or seven, and although there was just a minimal tailwind here and there on the way out, by the time we were halfway back the wind speed had doubled and, of course, it was a headwind. I got back home feeling completely exhausted and moderately dehydrated. The next day should have been a recovery day, but...

Under the Hopedale store - it's raised about 20 feet to limit the flood damage

Monday was Memorial Day, so there was a planned ride out to Hopedale that morning, starting at 7 from Stallings rec. center on St. Claude, which is around six or seven miles from home. We had, I think, six riders for that one. It's not exactly my favorite route, since it is mostly on a thin strip of dry land between marshes and bayous with no shade and no wind protection. On the plus side, there's a long stretch on the newly paved 40 Arpent Canal bike path, and beyond that practically no traffic at all. The pace this time was mostly moderate smooth paceline, with a long stop at the store at the end of the road. I knew from the start that I needed recovery more than miles that day, but, you know, whatever. Needless to say, it felt like a long day in the saddle, especially once the temperature got up into the 90s. As I rode back home afterward I was rationing the last precious drops of liquid in my two water bottles, finally sucking them dry a mile or so from home. I drank half a quart of orange juice, and had something to eat while I watched the last few kilometers of the Giro d' Italia, before peeling off the soaking wet lycra, again, and jumping into the shower.

So this morning being Tuesday, I headed out for the regular 40-mile lakefront ride harboring some serious doubts about whether I really wanted to be there. My legs still felt a little stiff from the three-day weekend, and I knew what I needed was an easy recovery ride. Then Matt showed up. On his time trial bike. There were only four or five of us, and I ended  up glued to Matt's wheel all the way out Lakeshore Drive until I finally let him go. At that point the rest of us settled down to a long 19-20 mph slog into a significant headwind all the way out to the casino where some asshole on a mountain bike came riding, intentionally, straight at me on the wrong side of the bike path. We really should have stopped and murdered him when we saw him stopped on the side of the road on our way back. Anyway, Matt waited for us at the Casino, so once again I found myself clinging to his scant draft at 25-29 mph all the way back to Causeway, after which I sat up. By then it was just Charles and me for the commute back. On the plus side, Canal Blvd. is fully open again, so we didn't have to negotiate the traffic and all on Harrison between there and Marconi. I guess the school is closed now, though, so it might not have been as bad today as it has been.

Crashes and Complications

Wednesday's WeMoRi was relatively sane, a key indicator of which is always me actually sprinting at the end. I'd put a TPU inner tube in my front tire after flatting on Tuesday, mostly as an experiment, but also because that tire has a couple of slashes in it, one of which I fixed with a sewn-in boot. I figured the TPU tube might handle all of that a little better than the latex tube I'd just patched. We'll see. At any rate, I'm pretty sure that the 30 grams or so I saved hasn't made me any faster.

Downriver end of the levee closure

I went out Thursday morning to meet the 6 am group at NOMA. The weather seemed particularly nice, and the ride was, as it typical, mostly just steady paceline. Then on Friday we had a pretty good sized group on hand for Friendly Friday. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to ride on Saturday because I was scheduled to help with Tulane's Commencement ceremonies at the football stadium, starting at 3:30 and running until a bit after 8:30. With the Saturday morning forecast promising steady heavy rain, squeezing in a ride just wasn't going to be in the cards. Friday evening the weather was still pretty nice, though, so I took the opportunity to hop on the 'cross bike for a few miles on the levee. I also wanted to see how the work was going where they closed the bike path about a month ago. The storms that had come through the night before had knocked down the temporary fence they'd put up there, but there was absolutely no sign that any actual work had begun, at least at that end of the 2-mile segment. I've noticed that a fair number of riders have been making the detour around the work area via River Road. I haven't tried that yet, but I could see doing it on a weekend day when traffic is presumably a little lighter.

Saturday morning, as predicted, was a complete wash-out. I might have been able to squeeze in an hour or so on the bike before reporting for commencement duty, but it just didn't seem worth it. So at 3:30 I walked over to the stadium where they had a big spread of food laid out for the volunteers, not that I was particularly hungry at 3:30 pm on a day when I'd been mostly sitting around. I headed down to Gate B for 4:15, and was quickly re-assigned to Gate C, which turned out to be nice because there was a nice breeze blowing through the Reily Center breezeway there. I spent about two and a half hours there with a few other volunteers, handing out programs and telling people where the bathrooms were, or where to sit without being in the sun. We eventually ran out of programs shortly before the ceremonies began, at which point I went back to the volunteer room and had something to eat and drink before going back out to the Gate B guest services table. When the ceremonies were about to wrap up I went over to Gate A where all of the ADA people would be exiting through the Athletics building to help direct people. That got to be a bit of a chore because everyone was trying to leave at exactly the same time, so people were sneaking through the ADA exit. I finally walked back home around 8:45, happy that it was over and that there hadn't been any protests or demonstrations, unless you count the airplane that flew overhead for a while towing an Israeli flag.

Sunday morning warmup

So with relatively fresh legs I headed out Sunday morning with the idea of doing what I'd done before - starting out with the Giro group, but looping around on Lakeshore Drive to meet the training race group coming up from NOMA. The first lap of the race got quite fast, and most of the group was chasing a small break until the gap finally closed as we went around the traffic circle at Bayou St. John. Then, coming out of the traffic circle things bunched  up and somebody zigged when somebody else zagged that three riders went down near the middle of the group. Fortunately, I was a few riders behind that and was easily able to skirt the pile-up on the right before turning back to make sure everyone was OK. No broken bones or bikes this time, as far as I know. The front few riders had continued on, so the rest of the group rode relatively easy before turning around out past Franklin to regroup. The rest of the race was a little slower. I guess the crash kind of took the psychological wind out of the psychological sails. Afterward, as I was just following wheels expecting the group to ride out along the lake trail to Kenner, I was surprised that they looped around on Canal Blvd. and did another fairly conversational lap of Lakeshore Drive. Just as well - I still got in the usual 60 miles for the day, including a bit of badly needed intensity.

Mellow Monday - Regrouping on Canal

Mellow Monday had a big group which, as it often does, resulted in a somewhat less mellow pace. This morning, Tuesday, everyone headed home after the lap of Lakeshore Drive except Matt and me. I had a 9 am meeting, so I turned back a little early, at the last outfall canal before the Casino. Fortunately I soon met up with Howard and a few others for the ride back into the wind to Bucktown before commuting back home.

Meanwhile, we finally heard back from the Stoney Point church about using the property to stage the Tour de La road race on June 29, and the news was bad. Somehow that date wasn't available either. So now we are waiting to see if we get a response from the other little church on the route, the one on Sunlight road. It's not the best place for a finish, and we'd have to come up with a new TT route, but at least we wouldn't have to re-do maps, distances, start times, etc. If that doesn't work out in the next day or two, I may opt to switch everything to the Tulane course, assuming we can get the OK from yet another church, this time the Oak Grove baptist church on Lee Road. So many complications this year.

Unexpected Developments

The rides last Thursday and Friday were predictable and routine. Of course, I should have known that some sorts of unexpected developments would soon materialize, if for no other reason than to maintain the cosmic balance and re-center the pendulum. Friday's Friendly Friday ride had a nice turnout and collegial atmosphere, just as it should have. I had recently updated the Tour de LA website and set up the BikeReg registration site, and was just holding off on making announcements and such because we still had not received the official OK from the church where we have staged the road race for the past couple of decades. It always takes weeks to get in touch with the church, and then even more time to get a reply, so this wasn't all that unusual, even though things were running a bit behind this year. I knew it was unlikely there would be a problem, but just to be on the safe side I set online registration to open the following Monday. Well, that evening we found out that the church had another event scheduled for that Saturday and we would not be able to use the venue. This was a huge problem because there is only one other possible staging site on the loop, which is a smaller church with limited parking, that is on the narrowest and bumpiest road on the entire course. Also, the time trial that was to follow the road race would have to be re-routed, and needless to say, we had never contacted the other church and had no idea if it would even be available. There is another course that we have used before for the Tulane race that would work pretty well, but with the race scheduled in barely more than two weeks it would be a real fire drill to make that happen. So it looks like we will have to re-schedule for the last weekend in June, which of course means re-doing all of the other arrangements - the criterium course, website, registration site, USAC permit, calendar postings, etc., etc. At the moment we are waiting to see if the original church will even be available on the 29th. If not, then Plan B goes out the window and we move on to Plan C. So basically, SNAFU. In the meantime, the Tour of Hernando, way up on the northern edge of Mississippi, will host the LAMBRA criterium championship. That will all be the week prior to the, hopefully, rescheduled Tour de La.

Friday

So with all those complications in mind, I headed out Saturday morning to meet the Giro group at Starbucks, and then split off and meet the training race group for a little intensity, followed by some Z2 out to The Wall and back. It was a plan. Well, in yet another unexpected development, when we got to Franklin Avenue we found that they had Lakeshore Drive closed for some festival involving beer and fried chicken, which doesn't really narrow it down at all in New Orleans. That meant that the normal training race route would not be possible. So having no idea if the race would or would not happen, or what route it might use even if it did, I decided to stick with the Giro group. That turned out to be a good ride, although of course somewhat lacking the sharp bits of intensity I'd been seeking.

It had been my plan all along to do the Sunday Giro, so I expected that to be basically a repeat of Saturday, and that's exactly how it all started. As I was having my pre-ride coffee at Starbucks an unfamiliar rider showed up and introduced himself. Josh was from the northshore, and I could not figure out if I'd ever ridden with him before or not. He had a nice new Trek with him. Soon the other riders started filtering in, and we headed out with 12 or 14 riders, I guess. As Giro rides have been lately, the pace was relatively moderate compared to the normal pre-bridge-closure Giro rides, which led to a handful of riders taking long steady pulls at the front, no doubt in an effort to substitute duration for intensity.

On the way back a few people went for the Goodyear Sign sprint, but then a couple of them kept the pressure on as they headed for the turn onto I-510. I found myself in-between, so I put my head down and started closing the gap. Behind me, the rest of the group also realized what was going on and they started to re-group to catch up. There was about to be another unexpected development. 

I was just about to turn onto the on-ramp when I heard the unmistakable sound of carbon and aluminum sliding across asphalt somewhere behind. Matt and Chris, who had been ahead of me didn't hear it and kept going. I hit the brakes and turned back to see three riders on the ground - VJ, Josh, and Jason. Fortunately the cars behind them had all come to a stop, because Jason was sitting in the middle of the left lane and the rest were in the right. I think Josh unexpectedly hit a small heat buckle in the asphalt and lost it, with VJ and Jason right behind. We collected the bikes and bodies and moved to the shoulder to assess the damage, and indeed there was damage. Fortunately, no bones were broken (update - VJ later found he had broken a rib), but the same could not be said about the bikes. Jason escaped with some minor road rash and a twisted brake lever, but Josh's practically brand new bike looked like someone had taken a belt sander to the entire right fork blade, and broken the carbon handlebar to boot. He was pretty scraped up, but otherwise OK. My post-crash analysis leads me to believe that VJ probably body-surfed on top of him and his bike as they went down. Although VJ's injuries were amazingly minor for someone who had landed on the road at 28 mph, it was clear that his bike had taken the brunt of the crash. Both fork blades were broken up near the crown, and the crank spider and chainring were bent and smashed up against the downtube. The front wheel also had at least one broken spoke.

So we were going to need to transport two people and their bikes. Josh called someone in town to come out and pick him up. VJ got in touch with Matt, who was still riding back with Chris, so Matt was going to ride back to his house and then come back to pick him up. The rest of the group eventually continued on, it being Mothers' Day and all, which by the way reminded us of another crash in the same place, also on Mothers' Day a couple of years ago. Anyway, I decided to hang around until Josh and VJ were picked up before cruising back  home solo. We were pretty lucky that the injuries were fairly minor, I think.

Tuesday along the lake

Monday night and into Tuesday morning some big thunderstorms came through with lots of rain and wind, but as expected, most of it had moved off to the east well before my usual 5:45 am ride time. I headed out to NOMA on damp streets and through the occasional puddle wondering if anyone was going to show up for the Tuesday ride. Not unexpectedly, only Charles did, so we rode a lap of a fairly deserted Lakeshore Drive, at which time Charles had to head back home for carpool duty, and I continued on to the lake trail. Fortunately, the bike path was essentially dry thanks to the fact that it hadn't really rained in well over a week. If the levee had not been so dry, there would definitely have been a lot of water still running off across the bike path. As usual, I was not very motivated riding alone, but at least I got the miles in, arriving back home a good ten minutes later than usual thanks to the combination of my own slower pace and the fact that, being alone, I was stopping at all of the red lights on the commute back through town.

Quick Getaways

Friendly Friday

The past week has felt decidedly like summer. Granted, the pre-dawn temperatures haven't yet risen into the mid-80s, but they've been consistently in the mid to upper 70s. Naturally, that has been accompanied by essentially saturated relative humidity. While some riders consider such conditions to be somewhat oppressive, I have to admit that I really don't. For some reason I just seem to function a little better when I'm nice and warm, or hot, as the case may be. The other reason I like this time of year, though, isn't so obvious. The warm morning temperatures mean I don't have to fuss with all sorts of wardrobe decisions in the morning. I can grab whatever summer kit happens to be on top of the pile, throw it on, and therefore make a much quicker getaway. In colder weather I often find myself running late for the early morning rides. Right now, though, I find myself showing up unexpectedly early. Of course, you have to take "early" in its weekday morning ride context, which is to say, "more than 60 seconds before rollout time."

Last Wednesday's WeMoRi was one of those where a 2-man break was already well off the front when I met up with it. I have learned to jump onto those when that happens, rather than wait for the rest of the group, because sometimes the rest of the group is in tatters from crosswinds or something. Jumping onto the tail end of a 2-man break is not as easy as it might sound, since for me it usually means going from 18 mph to 27 mph in a time span of about two seconds, which of course results in four or five minutes of being on the verge of blowing up. Fortunately, this day Eddie and Rob were trading pulls smoothly, and by now they know not to expect me to be disturbing that rotation as I smoothly make my transitions from one wheel to the next as they drop back and slot in ahead of me. I could probably teach an advanced class on tailgunning. Anyway, as we approached the turn from City Park Avenue onto Marconi, Rob peeled off for home as he often does, leaving just Eddie and me. Looking back, I could see that the rest of the group was still a long ways off. Eddie probably considered dropping back for a minute, but if he did, he didn't slow down very much. The ultimate result was that I spent the rest of the ride on his wheel. It was practically like motorpacing, and I guess the rest of the group had already given up the chase. It was a totally sufficient workout for me, despite having never taken a pull.

Thursday's ride was pretty normal. Out on the Lake Trail we picked up Kerry, which was nice because there was a pretty good east wind in our faces on the way back and we needed all the help we could get. For the record, we changed the return route to take Fleur de Lis down to Harrison, which eliminates a fair amount of traffic complication. It would be even better if we could turn onto Canal from Harrison, but they are doing road work on that section and it's pretty much of a traffic nightmare, especially since we get there when people are dropping kids off at the nearby schools. Also, for the record, the cats are still hanging out at the rocks on the lakefront just past Bonnabel like they were back around 2015 when we were doing the same route for the same reason.

Time Trial riders awaiting results and awards.

Friday's Friendly Friday ride had a good turnout, the result of which was a faster than normal pace. By then I was already feeling preoccupied with the upcoming Time Trial that we were putting on that Sunday. Later that afternoon I drove out to the LaPlace TT course with Candy and the dog to freshen up the turnaround paint and make sure there weren't any major road surface surprises. My plan was to mark the 5, 10, and 20 km turnarounds and then continue over the Highway 51 bridge for lunch at Middendorf's. The old bridge, however, was closed for repairs. We ultimately decided to go back to Ruddock and then take I-55 to the restaurant, which worked out OK. I knew they had a whole outdoor seating area that could accommodate people with dogs, but when we got there we found that they had it closed. Fortunately, they also have a nice air-conditioned "porch" area where Charley was welcome. I had some nice catfish. Charley had a lot of hand-fed french fries, which is how we keep him occupied when we eat out like that. On Saturday I went out to Starbucks, leaving with the small Giro group at 7, and then turning back on Lakeshore Drive to meet up with the training race group for 4 laps of the traditional course. That was a pretty good workout even though a small group got off the front. Also, there was a surprise appearance of Kenny B who I assume is getting back in shape for another cycling trip to the continent.

Sunday, I was up at 5 am and on the road around 5:30 to head out to LaPlace to set up for the TT. This is probably around the 15th year we have done the time trial on that course, and in that time about half of the road has been nicely re-paved while the other half has deteriorated. It's not that there are potholes or big cracks or anything, it's just that it's lost its smoothness and so just feels slower than it was when the asphalt was new. I'd brought the big PA system as usual so we could have some music, but ran into a couple of problems. First, we discovered that the fuse had blown. I did a quick non-OSHA approved fix involving a bent paper clip and got it working again, though. Then I tried an adapter I had to go from the USB-C plug on my newer laptop to an audio patch cable to the PA system, which did not work. After I got home I discovered that although the laptop has only USB-C plugs, it also has a regular earphone jack that would have worked perfectly if I'd known it existed! This year was about the lowest turnout we've ever had, with just under 40 registered. I had posted the race numerous times to the LAMBRA and NOBC facebook pages, had emailed to the NOBC Google Group, and had even emailed to all of the 2023 USAC license holders in LAMBRA, and naturally the event had been on the LAMBRA and NOBC calendars for a couple of months. Go figure. Anyway, things went quite smoothly, and there was only one error in the initial results due to me mis-reading a hand-written digit from the finish sheet that gave someone a time about four minutes slower than reality, which of course he immediately noticed. Barrett L, who is now 81 or 82, was there on his old Mercian, and we had three young Juniors on hand as well. Fastest time of the day was a 51:43 by Ben Hall. There was a significant headwind on the way back, so that was an impressive time.  

After we broke everything down and stuffed it all into the Volvo, we decided to go over to the Waffle House since we'd finished up a little too early for the restaurant we usually use. I was pretty hungry by then, so it was fine. With Eddie's sponsorship we came out about $300 ahead for the event, so we didn't actually lose money despite the low turnout. Most of the cost is for the police ($600) and insurance.

This morning I rode the usual WeMoRi, or at least that part of it that I normally ride. Rob and JP came past with a gap, so I slipped in behind them, but the group, what was left of it, closed it down eventually. After the Backdraft sprint a few riders split off the front and for some reason nobody left in the group seemed interested in chasing. Eventually, I think it all came pretty much back together, though. When the early sprint sagged as a couple of riders opened a gap about 400 meters from the finish, Eddie came flying past on the left, which I had been fully expecting, but at the time I was on the wrong side of the paceline, so I just followed wheels. It was a good workout anyway.