Half the Way

Half the way there.....

This afternoon I hopped on the old commuting bike, which like me hasn't seen a whole lot of action in the past twelve months, braved the Broad Street Overpass, coasted down onto Poydras, and worked my way over to the Tulane JBJ building to get my initial SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Candy had received hers via Ochsner yesterday. She got Moderna's and I got Pfizer's. I think these new mRNA vaccines are pretty cool, actually. Anyway, I'm hoping I don't have much of a reaction tomorrow because I have a 77-mile ride in the country on my dance card. I feel pretty lucky to have been able to get started on the vaccine this early, and a month or so from now I will hopefully feel a lot less apprehensive about, well, almost everything. Hopefully things will start to level off some time around the June - August timeframe. All we can do is wait.

Into the wind

The weather this week has not been great for riding, mostly because of the wind but also because of the cold. Tuesday's levee ride, for example, because a little harder than planned when, shortly after we started on the way back, the temperature abruptly dropped by seven or eight degrees and the wind picked up dramatically. By the next morning the temperature was in the low 40s. I went out to the WeMoRi, which was fast, but wasn't going super-hard like it does in the summer. After turning onto City Park Avenue we were surprised by a line of little traffic cones along the right edge of the traffic lane that the people in back didn't see until it was almost too late. I was over on the left, but just to my right I heard Geoff scream as he clipped one of them, sending him into the, fortunately unoccupied, parking lane. Somehow he stayed upright. Then, as we were heading down Lakeshore Drive and I was dreaming about contesting the final sprint, I felt my rear tire going soft. By the time I rolled to a stop I was on the rim. I'm pretty sure I would have won the sprint except for that. At least I got it fixed in time to meet the cool-down group. Good thing I had just ordered a box of 100 tube patches. 

On Thursday it was cold with an 11-12 mph north wind and, not too surprisingly, there was nobody else at the meeting spot when I arrived at 6 am., so I headed out alone. As it turned out, Pat was on his way, but had been running late and missed me by just a couple of minutes. I rode out to the big dip and back, which seemed to take forever, but at least the wind kept my mind off of the cold.

Today was supposed to be the first Tulane coffee ride of the semester. Unfortunately, it being Rush season and all, some of the fraternities and sororities had apparently done a lot of partying the week before which led to the number of positive COVID tests going from a fairly expected 66/week to 270 this week, with 96 positives reported yesterday. So the school pretty much shut everything down, suspended a bunch of fraternities and sororities, and that meant no group rides. So this morning I just went out to the levee and did yet another solo ride. Although it was still in the 40s, the temperature trend was positive, and tomorrow is looking to be pretty nice.

Warm Winter Weekend

How a group should look out on the road.

The weather in January down here in New Orleans can make some dramatic swings, and last weekend it swung itself way over to the warm side. I wasn't complaining, even though a sudden bout of warmer southern air always brings with it a bit of unwelcome fog and mist. As I started the drive across Lake Pontchartrain Saturday morning with the windshield wipers periodically sweeping across the wide greyscale view of sky and water, I wondered if I might be the only one to show up for the 3rd northshore ride of our Winter Ride Series. Would the relatively warm upper 50s temperature serve as sufficient offset to the damp streets and overcast sky?  I needn't have worried. By the time I was approaching the north shore of the lake the streets were dry and the mist all but gone. I knew a few people had already said they'd be going, so I felt confident we'd have at least six or seven. That turned out to be a rather dramatic underestimate. As I turned onto the gravel entrance road of the Lee Road recreation area, aka the Lee Road ballpark, I was shocked to see how many cars were already there. More than a couple of southshore riders had correctly guessed that the conditions north of the lake would be better than those south.

Tulane riders at the store stop in Pine

By the 8:30 am start there were at least 25 riders anxiously awaiting the roll-out for our planned 66-mile ride up to Pine and State Line. Looking around I commented to someone, "This ride could get out of hand." It kinda did. Out on the narrow shoulderless country roads even a double line of riders is a little risky, and although it may look to the riders themselves like a nice neat double paceline, to the cars and trucks behind, and me, it looks more like a herd of riders spread all across the right lane. Although traffic was reasonably light, those of us stationed near the back felt the need to make some rather stern recommendations to some of those farther up in the group when they'd start bunching up, riding in the oncoming traffic lane, and generally surging on the downhills and then crawling up the uphills. Actually, it was best when a few riders at the front would put the hammer down and string the group out into a very long single line. Anyway, much of the ride felt like a Cat. 5 race simulation, at least from the back where I spent most of my time, worried about keeping track of anyone who might come off the back far from home. On the plus side, we lost very few riders during the ride. There were a number of Tulane Cycling riders, all of whom rode quite well. For me, aside from the somewhat inconsistent pace, the ride felt great, and I felt like I got just enough intensity sprinkled into an otherwise upper Zone 2 ride. I'm sure it would have felt otherwise had I spent any significant time at the front. I think maybe we need to have a class on "how to not get killed riding on country roads" soon. You know that about every third car that passes the group is being driven by someone related to the Sheriff, who will most definitely get an earfull about those bikers clogging up the road. In this case, some of it would definitely be justified.

Sunday Giro actually stopped for a red light. Amazing!

So on Sunday I ventured out to the regular Sunday Giro Ride. It was warm enough for just shorts and jersey, but considering the rather thick fog I decided at the last minute to add knee-warmers and a base layer under my jersey. I did not regret that decision. This Giro, as often happens this time of year, was relatively sedate. A steady east wind kept the speed down on the way out, affording ample draft for everyone else, which kept pretty much everyone with the group. I was pleased to find that Saturday's ride in what we call hills around here didn't do any discernable damage, although I was feeling content to glide along near the back as I had the prior day. 

After making the turn from Lake Forest onto Bullard on the way back, Phil flatted. He was near the back of the group with me at the time, so most of the group continued merrily on its way while three of four of us stopped to help. You hate to leave someone alone to fix a flat since, sometimes, there are complications - a bad inflator, a bad tube, a stem too short for the rim, a slice needing a boot - you never know. Phil had an odd puncture near the stem, and on the side of the tube, suggesting maybe that the tube had been pinched by the bead when it was installed (he was on a practically brand new BMC bike). Anyway, we got it fixed and had a nice smooth ride back in.

Wind turbine blades ready to go, I assume

This morning the temperature was in the mid-60s and despite some fog along the river I went out in just shorts and jersey for the first time in a long time for an easy recovery spin, not that I really had anything from which to recover. The bike path was fairly quiet, and I stopped to take a couple of photos with my phone of some huge wind turbine blades on a barge and a bald eagle. Looks like the warm weather will continue for a few more days, but will be accompanied by rain. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings are not looking good.

The Group Rides

The local group rides are something of a cycling tradition, I think, and if you look, you can find them in almost all  major cities. They tend to evolve, often starting out as two or three friends meeting up at a certain place on certain days at certain times, usually for a nice moderately paced ride. Over time more riders start to show up, and inevitably as the group grows, the ride gets faster. Traditional sprint points emerge, fast segments and easy segments are established, and the ride begins to get a reputation of sorts, depending on who the regular riders are, what kind of training they are seeking, and the vague unwritten consensus that loosely governs the ride over which nobody dares claim ownership. The local weekday, and often weekend, in-town rides tend to be early in the morning or late in the evening to accommodate work schedules and minimize traffic concerns, and for many riders they constitute the bulk of their training miles. Some rides, particularly the regular weekend ones, become essentially race simulations, while others remain as moderate endurance-level rides. Riders often complain about one thing or another on these rides. It's too fast, it's too slow, it's too dangerous. For some rides, if you flat or get dropped there's no guarantee that the group, or anyone for that matter, will stay with you. For others, everyone will wait in order to keep the group intact. Usually.  Here in New Orleans there are a number of regular rides, some long-standing, some newer. None of these are officially organized or controlled by the club or, for that matter, anyone in particular.

Giro Ride about to head out from Starbucks

Giro

The oldest regular group ride, by far, is the Giro Ride. This ride started out back around the mid-80s when Glenn Gulotta had a bike shop called "West End Glenn's" out by the Orleans Marina. He had a number of Junior riders who were interested in racing, so on Saturdays he would lead them on a little training ride that he dubbed The Giro because it made a circuit more or less around and through City Park out to Orleans on Moss Road, and eventually back to the shop. Of course, people heard about it and started to join in. It got faster. As the group got larger, the route, of necessity, started to change. The start moved to the west end of Lakeshore Drive. For some years the route went out Lakeshore Drive, down Hayne Blvd. to Paris Road, continuing on Paris road (prior to I-510 being completed) to Almonaster. Sometimes an out-and-back over the "Green Monster" bridge over the ship channel was included, but mostly the group turned right onto Almonaster, racing to a sprint near the end before turning around and coming back via mostly the same route. The direct connection with Paris Road was eliminated when I-510 was completed, so since then the group crosses over two lanes of interstate to get to the exit lane and the service road that was once Paris Road. Eventually, the road surface on Almonaster started to deteriorate in places. Around the same time, Highway 90 / Chef Menteur was re-paved, so the route changed to go out Chef Menteur to Venetian Isles. It's remained mostly like that since, but when the city shut off the I-510 service roads because they were tired of having to pick up the trash - including truckloads of old furniture or used car tires, and other junk - the return route shifted to include Lake Forest and Bullard. The Giro is usually easy until Hayne Blvd. at which point it abruptly gets fast - sometimes very fast. Riders who flat or get dropped are often on their own, although it's not unusual for a small group to stop with a rider who flatted. The Giro now goes every Saturday and Sunday at 7:00 from the Starbucks on Harrison Avenue, a start location that emerged when a number of the regular riders started meeting there early for coffee. The full ride from Starbucks and back is just over 50 miles. Like all big group rides, it takes a while to learn the ride and know where it usually gets fast and where it usually eases up. For many riders, it takes a few tries before they make it all the way without getting dropped. On the plus side, much of it is out-and-back, so there's the option to turn around early on Chef Menteur and get pack in when the group is on its way back. Occasionally, when the stars align just right, a subset of the Giro Ride group will extend the ride beyond Venetian Isles and ride out to Fort Pike and over the Rigolets bridge, sometimes continuing to Slidell via Old Spanish Trail. 

SaMoRi and Semi-Tough

Some years ago riders who wanted a slightly less competitive ride using the same route as the Giro started what is now known as the SaMoRi (Saturday Morning Ride) that starts at 6:45 (sometimes 6:15 or 6:30 depending on the time of year) from the west end of Lakeshore Drive (roughly 7400 Lakeshore Dr.). The Semi-tough club started a regular Saturday ride that starts from Hey! Coffee, just off the Lafitte Greenway, usually at 7:30 am. It isn't officially organized by the Semi-Tough club any more, but details are usually posted to the Semi-tough Facebook group. That ride's routes can vary a bit. It's usually around 50 miles, so similar to the Giro and SaMoRi, but it's a different route and the pace generally remains fairly moderate, so it makes a good alternative for those looking for a somewhat easier and more social ride. 

WeMoRi group on Wisner from across Bayou St. John

A newer ride that has become very popular with the weekend warrior crowd is the WeMoRi (Wednesday Morning Ride). This early-morning (5:45 am) ride started out as a regular group out by the lakefront looking for a quick training ride early enough to avoid traffic and have time to get to work afterward. They start from the parking lot where Robért Fresh Market is on R.E. Lee Alan Toussaint near the lakefront.  It rather quickly grew into a pretty fast ride incorporating all of Lakeshore Drive, and a loop around City Park, with a number of designated sprint points good for bragging rights, nicknames for the regular riders, and a weekly emailed race report. I usually make just the second half of this ride, but it is often the weekday ride that nets me the highest, albeit brief, intensity levels. The group doesn't wait for anyone, ever, and will ride though stoplights if it looks clear. It takes a while to learn this ride well enough to keep from being dropped, and since it's mostly done in the dark you'll need lights. Also, riding in a group in the dark takes a little getting used to for most people. The full ride is somewhere in the 25 mile range.

Levee ride starting back from Ormond

Morning Levee

Note (Spring 2024): The Corps of Engineers began a levee raise project in April on a section of the levee bike path starting at the Orleans/Jefferson parish line and going two miles upriver. As a result, the 6 am levee ride has shifted to Lakeshore Drive and the Lake Trail, starting at 6 am from NOMA in City Park. The levee work will take over a year to complete. It is possible to get past the closure by taking River Road. The other regular weekday ride that I do is the 6 am levee ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This is a smaller group, anywhere from three to twelve riders, that meets on the levee bike path near Dakin Street, just upriver from the Orleans/Jefferson parish line. Although it does occasionally get fast, the more typical ride is a steady paceline rolling along in the 21-24 mph range depending on wind and who shows up. Unless the group is particularly small and the weather particularly unpleasant, this ride goes upriver about 18 miles to Ormond and back, so for most who ride there from home it's at least 40-45 miles. This group will always wait for riders who flat, and generally tries to stay together with each rider taking pulls at whatever pace and for however long as desired.

Tuesday Loops

There is a popular Tuesday evening ride that happens mostly only during DST. Tuesday Loops starts at 6 pm from the New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park. This one is a combination of easy and fast. The group rolls out through the park to Marconi and down Marconi to Lakeshore Drive where it immediately gets fast. They continue over the Bayou St. John bridge, around the traffic circle, back across the bridge to an immediate and sharp left across traffic to get onto Beauregard and then onto Wisner where it remains fast to a sprint over the Wisner overpass. they then roll back into City Park where riders re-group in front of the museum. That "loop" is then repeated a couple more times. 

Mellow Monday & Friendly Friday
There are a couple of other regular rides that I sometimes do. One is the Friendly Friday ride. This one starts at the Museum of Art in City Park at 6:00 am and as the name implies started as a small group recovery type ride out to Lakeshore Drive and around City Park. Nowadays it can get fairly fast on Lakeshore Drive and then toward the end on Wisner Blvd., with a sprint to the top of the overpass there. There's also a Mellow Monday ride that is essentially identical to Friendly Friday. Both of these rides typically have 10-15 riders.

Thirsty Thursday
Also, on Thursdays, there seems to now be a fairly regular "Thirsty Thursday" group that does essentially the WeMoRi route starting at 5:45 am from in front of Landry's on Lakeshore Drive. This one is similar to the WeMoRi, but with a smaller group, fewer attacks, and more steady-type hero pulls. 

Northshore Rides

Over on the Northshore there are also a few regular weekday and weekend rides that start from the Mandeville Tammany Trace Trailhead, St. Benedict's on Smith Road, Abita Springs Trailhead, or the Abita Beer Brewery. However, in January and February the NOBC does a series of northshore weekend rides (Saturdays this year) from either Abita Springs or the Lee Road park. Those are in the 65-75 mile range and usually have groups of a dozen or so at the start, with a few turning back early to make shorter rides. These rides always try to stay together on the way out, and usually include a store stop, depending on what's on the route. They can get fast in some places, but the group will generally wait at major intersections for a minute or two for riders who were dropped. These are intended as early season base miles, with some fairly brief segments of higher intensity. Thanks to the rolling terrain, they can seem harder than some of the in-town group rides on flatter terrain.

How to keep abreast of the local rides?  There is an NOBC Google Group and Facebook Group, a Semi-tough Facebook Group, a Northshore Cycling Facebook Group, a NOMAMBO Group for MTB, and probably a few others I missed.

BEST PRACTICES FOR GROUP RIDES (stolen from USAC)

Be on time and prepared

Do your best to be ready to roll out at the planned start time, with the food, fluids, tools, and extra layers you might need for the day. Be sure you have your own tube and inflation device, preferably a pump in case you run out of CO2. Group rides are a collaborative and supportive environment, so people will help you out with a tube or a gel or a couple of dollars if you forget, but it’s better to give than to need. No one is perfect and people might be late or forget something occasionally, but do your best to be self-sufficient and on time.

Introduce yourself

Introductions work both ways. If you’re a regular at the group ride and someone new pulls up, introduce yourself and welcome them to the group. If you are the new person pulling up to start area, break the ice and introduce yourself. Communication is key to making people feel welcome and to making sure everyone understands the route, the expected pace and/or technical difficulty of the ride.

Point out turns and road hazards

Once you are out on the road or trail, make sure the riders behind you know about upcoming turns, potholes, glass, or road debris. You can use hand signals – point to the hole or hazard – or audible cues, just make sure the information keeps moving to the riders further behind you. Flat tires and crashes disrupt the ride for everyone and avoiding them is a team effort.

Act in the group’s best interest

When you ride in a group you have to think and act like a group. If you are at or near the front when the group approaches a traffic light or a turn, consider whether the whole group can safely get through the intersection before you commit to stopping or going. You don’t want to put riders in the middle or back of the group in an unsafe situation.

Adjust your time at the front, not the pace of the group

Group rides can move faster or go longer than you will on your own because riders share the work of setting pace at the front. Maintaining a steady pace is the key to a cohesive and smooth group ride. If you are feeling super strong, spend more time on the front rather than increasing the pace of the group. If your fitness level means you can only hold the group’s pace for a short time, take a shorter pull at the front and rotate off while you still have enough energy to get back in the draft at the back of the group.

Stay off the brakes

Obviously, you can and should use your brakes whenever necessary, but when you are in a group you want to minimize abrupt changes in speed. Grabbing a handful of brakes in the middle of a pace line or pack has a ripple effect for the riders behind you. To adjust your speed and the distance to the rider ahead of you less abruptly, move a little bit in and out of the draft so the change in wind resistance helps you maintain your position with little or no braking.

Shift up as you stand up

Shifting into a harder gear as you stand up to pedal out of the saddle is another behavior riders around you will greatly appreciate. If you stand up without shifting into a harder gear, your bike will likely “kick back”. To the person close behind you, your rear wheel suddenly slows or appears to kick back toward their front wheel. This can lead to crashes due to overlapping wheels, or at least an annoying and unsettling experience for the people behind you. By shifting into a harder gear as you rise out of the saddle and put your bodyweight over the pedal, you can maintain your forward momentum and avoid the kick back.

Don’t half wheel your partner

“Half wheeling” is a scenario where two cyclists intend to ride side-by-side but one rider accelerates to keep his or her front wheel just ahead of their partner’s. The partner then speeds up to draw even, but the first rider pulls ahead again, and again, as the speed gradually ratchets up. Half wheeling is a bad habit, annoys or even angers people in the group, and messes up the spacing for the riders behind you.

Wind, Weather, and Winter Misery

It's winter now, and you know what that means. Yes. Rapidly accumulating bike laundry. I filled the washer on Friday with lycra and by Sunday afternoon I was almost ready to do it all over again. Layers are great, but man, that stuff piles up. I don't know about you, but most of my favorite base layers and long-sleeve jerseys get worn at least twice between washes, even if they smell a bit, which they do.

So it was kind of a difficult riding week. I took Monday off, which was my first off day in about a month. Mother Nature subsequently punished me for the rest of the week. Tuesday's levee ride was OK, I guess, but somehow felt harder than it should have. Later that day I rode over to Tulane for another COVID test that was thankfully negative. I'm volunteering at the Arrival Center, aka the Hyatt, on Monday and Tuesday afternoons to help with the returning students who are all getting tested before being able to move into their dorm rooms. Meanwhile, Candy got her name on a list to get a COVID vaccine on Monday since she's 70 but has not heard back from them. No big surprise there, I guess. She also tested negative a couple of days ago.

The rest of the week kind of went downhill weather-wise. I rode out to the WeMoRi on Wednesday hoping to get in a little intensity, but hit one of the big holes on Marconi and pinch-flatted. It was kind of my own fault. I knew my tires were low, but was in a rush and didn't bother to pump them up. Luckily the rim didn't suffer any damage. Then Thursday morning arrived right after a cold front had moved through. The streets were still a bit wet, and when I arrived at the levee I was alone. I did a shorter than normal ride battling a 10 mph wind the whole way. Friday was another solo ride, this time with the temperature in the 40s and a 13 mph wind. Since I'd turned around kind of early I decided to ride to the Audubon Park end of the bike path on the way home, where of course I had a flat.

Saturday was the start of our Northshore Winter Ride Series. I had actually considered cancelling it because the forecast was calling for a starting temperature in the low 30s and I was afraid nobody would show up, but by Friday a few people seemed committed. We started with about a dozen riders for the planned 70 mile ride, and although the temperature was around 34° at least the sun was out and the wind was down to a more manageable 7 mph or so, but I was still pretty cold riding into that north wind for the first hour or so. Eventually we lost a few riders and the temperature warmed up, so it turned out to be a pretty nice ride. As we were coming back from Enon and riding across the long Bogue Chitto bridge we suddenly encountered a spilled load of recycling stuff (cans, plastic, etc.) strewn all across the road. With a truck approaching from behind, most of us just rode right through it, with the unsurprising result that Charles found a piece of broken beer bottle an flatted. Anyway, despite the cold and the wind, Saturday's ride was kind of the highlight of the week for me.

This morning it was still in the low 40s. I normally ride out the the start, which is the Starbucks on Harrison Avenue, for 6:30 to have a cup of coffee beforehand, but since COVID they don't have any seating inside the store. With a starting temperature of 40° and an overcast sky, plus a significant wind, I decided to skip my coffee and get there later so I wouldn't be sitting around outside freezing as long. The weather was dismal enough that there were only a handful of riders there. I guess we had about a dozen. I was maybe a bit under-dressed, my legs were a little sore, and basically I was miserable from the start. I hung onto the back of the little paceline for most of the ride and got back home tired, cold and exhausted. 

It was one of those days.

The sewer line replacement on my street is progressing, which is to say that the entire block is basically a dirt road with a big hole in the middle right now, and I'm guessing it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. 

This weekend we took down the Christmas decorations and put up the Mardi Gras decorations. It won't be much of a Mardi Gras this year, of course. Parades have all been cancelled and I doubt we will see much impact from the vaccines by then. Tomorrow morning is looking like cold rain right now - 44°, raining, with a 13-15 mph wind. Morning temperatures ranging from 41 to 50 for the rest of the week, so basically it's just going to be cold by my standards.

Goodbye Twenty Twenty

Heading back from the Spillway on New Year's Eve

It was the best of years, it was the worst of years, it was the year of science, it was the year of foolishness, it was the time of belief, it was the time of incredulity, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. (With apologies to Charles Dickens)

It was Wednesday, the 30th of December, and I was just waiting to see if anyone would post something somewhere about a New Year's Eve ride. The weather was changing, but there was a window of warm temperatures and clear skies in the morning before the "severe weather" was supposed to move in. Finally, Mignon sent an email or text or something suggesting a ride to the Spillway to start at the relatively civilized time of 7:30 a.m. It sounded good to me. A nice smooth 50 miles on the levee with a small group to ease the return headwind stretch.

I think we had about a dozen riders when we started this morning at 7:30. The bike path was still fairly wet from the overnight rain, but there was no threat of more rain until the afternoon. I started out on the front of the group alongside Julia, trying to keep the speed down to a nice Zone 2 level, which allowed for lots of conversation in the double "paceline" behind. At one point I remarked that the problem today would probably not be the wind, but the flats. I wish I hadn't said that because clearly I jinxed the whole ride at that point. Sure enough, we someone flatted within minutes. We stopped to fix that, and then a few miles later Scott flatted again. We stopped again. Then a few miles later Charles flatted. Most of us stopped again. Then a few miles after that Charles flatted again. Julia and Mignon and Boyd and a few others had continued at that point, and as we were fixing that one I texted Julia, thinking she would be with whatever was left of the group. She texted back that she was already at the Spillway. We weren't even to Ormond. So we finally got going again after a few people turned back early, and caught up to Boyd and a few others around when we say Julia on her way back. We then saw Mignon and Erich and a couple others who had already been to the Spillway but turned around to ride there again (we were only few miles from it at that point). By then the road had dried up and we fortunately didn't have any more flats, which was good because we were running low on tubes and CO2 cartridges. 

Although I'm not obsessive about my annual mileage, I'd been watching it on Strava for the past couple of weeks, rather surprised to see it already over 11,000 miles. Considering the month and a half, or more, of down-time back in March and April due to my crash at Red Bluff, I'd long ago set what I though was an optimistic goal of 10,000 miles for 2020. Considering my more typical annual mileage of 12,000+ miles, it seemed reasonable. I ended up with 11,406 miles, and even managed to log the 500 kilometers of the Strava Festive 500 a couple of days early. So mileage-wise at least, 2020 was OK. Lower than normal, but not by as much as I'd expected. Looking around, I think it safe to say that a lot of riders logged more than their usual miles this year, thanks no doubt to "working from home" plus the fact that riding was one of the few things that was generally allowed throughout the whole continuing COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, Road Racing took a big hit in 2020. While my racing schedule isn't normally very crowded thanks to officiating duties and such, 2020 was probably the first time since around 1972 that I haven't ridden a single criterium, and indeed the only official race I did in 2020 was the Auburn collegiate race that included some non-collegiate categories. Of course, in retrospect, I now wish I'd ridden the Sunday criterium there even though it was wet and cold. 

At least we did manage to pull off the Time Trial Championship and the Tour de Louisiane Road Race this year. They were the only official road events other than cyclocross that happened in LAMBRA for 2020. 

Not good

So the COVID-19 positive test rates have been rising since Thanksgiving, and I fully expect them to continue to rise over the next couple of weeks as the effect of ill-advised holiday parties plays out. Tulane students are supposed to be coming back in nine or ten days which is definitely going to be bad timing. Vaccine availability is still being restricted to medical staff, nursing homes, etc., and regardless I doubt we will see any population based effect of the vaccines for a few months yet. 

So I'm sitting at home once again on New Year's Eve, listening to fireworks off in the distance, contemplating what I've missed the most this year. The first thing that comes to mind are the road trips to bike races, even the solo ones. I haven't been stopping for coffee at Zotz after my morning rides, and haven't eaten out more than a handful of times since March. Really, the one thing I've stuck with, once the broken bones healed in late April, have been the group rides - 6 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:45 am on Wednesdays, and the 7 am Giro Rides, with a few northshore rides thrown in for good measure. Even so, I have avoided a lot of the normal post-ride socializing, which I have missed quite a bit. I missed our annual Halloween party, and the Christmas parties, and the family get-togethers. I've seen my co-workers in person exactly once or twice since early February. On the plus side, I did some re-wiring down in the basement, changed all of the washers in all of the leaky faucets, and attended to a number of little details that would normally be at the bottom of the to-do list.

Hopefully we will soon be able to see the light at the end of the COVID tunnel. Whether that means things will return to whatever was normal, however, remains to be seen. 

‘Twas the Ride Before Christmas

Twas the ride before Christmas, and all through the pack,
not a rider was talking, not even in back!

The leaders were surging; "we'll drop them," they laughed;
but the pack just tucked lower; and hung in their draft.

The bunch was all quiet, and gasping for air,
their buddies were dropping, thou' they gave not a care.

And my teammate and I, now pushing the pace higher,
were just getting ready, to launch a new flyer.

When somewhere in back, there arose such a clatter,
I thought I should look, to see what was the matter.

Under my arm, I glanced with a frown,
almost expecting, to see riders go down.

The glare of the sunlight, on the asphalt below,
gave to the paceline, a luminous glow.

When, what to my watering, eyes should appear,
but a guy on an S-Works, with elec-tronic gear.

With a powerhouse rider, tucked low on the bike,
I knew in a moment, we were in for a fight.

He pushed on the pedals, and lept on ahead;
"I’m taking this Hot Spot," then he did what he said.

Now Daniel, now Jaden, now Woody, and Ray!
On Howard, on Brian, on Matt and VJ!

Up the left came the paceline, and out went the call,
Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!

As dry leaves that 'fore, the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

So up to the break, 'way the coursers they flew,
with a whole string of riders, and Ice Cream Man too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard a light thump,
The delicate shifting, of one soon to jump.

As I reached out to shift, and was turning around,
Right down the middle, Rob came with a bound.

He was dressed in a skinsuit, from his head to his toe,
And he opened a gap, that made us look slow.

He spun up the gear, too big for the track,
And he looked like a madman, as he glared at the pack.

His eyes how they dared us, to take up the chase.
and the riders up-shifted, to match his cruel pace!

He veered to the left, to get a clean line,
and the pack got strung-out, for the twentieth time;

The riders were closing, the gap he had done,
but many were dropping, off one after one.

The pack came together, now elbow-to-belly,
it shook and it wiggled, like a bowl full of jelly.

The riders were having, some jolly old fun,
And I laughed when I saw it, now the race had begun.

With wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
a Dream Team bike rider, was the next one to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his deed,
And pulled us all up, to a dizzying speed.

Then he turned with a jerk, his hand on his ass,
And giving a nod, he dared us to pass.

He sprang to his feet, to his team gave a sign,
And away they all flew, to the final sprint line.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he quickened his pace,
"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD RACE."

18 Days

Dwight's photo of the WeMoRi going around the traffic circle on Lakeshore Drive.

I will be glad put 2020 in the rear-view mirror 18 days from now, although with things as they are, and will be, there won't be much of a celebration. What a bizarre year it's been.  A serious crash, a pandemic, stay-at-home, cancelled races, cancelled events, postponed races, working from home, a hurricane, another hurricane, a tropical storm, Candy's retirement, road construction, etc., etc.  I only wish I could say that things will be better soon, but actually I think they won't be significantly better until maybe late June. I hope my pessimistic outlook is unwarranted, of course.

An early model once the vaccines were approved

At least there has been one thing that has more or less persisted without major interruption. I've never looked forward to the group rides as much as I have this year, at least once my bones mended and I could sit on the bike again. I've missed, or intentionally skipped, a lot of the pre- and post-ride socializing, and reluctantly decided to skip the annual WeMoRi Christmas party and Mike's party at Gray Cat Cycleworx, but I've been consistently riding with the small 6 am levee ride group on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the WeMoRi group on Wednesdays, and the Giro Rides or Northshore rides on the weekends. I don't know of more than a few cyclists in my extended circle who have tested positive for COVID-19, so I have to think that riding a bike outside in a group isn't a great way to get it. I've avoided restaurants and skipped my usual post-ride coffee stops at Zotz, and generally tried to limit my exposures to other people as much as feasible. So far, so good, I guess. Back in March when I crashed I had $100 in cash in my wallet. I still have $20 of that.

Heading into the rising sun after the turnaround at Ormond.

So it was a pretty decent week of riding. The 6 am rides are getting darker and darker, and we had a few pretty chilly mornings, but otherwise things have been pretty routine. Yesterday, Saturday, it was raining in the morning so I decided to wait until after lunch when the streets would be more dry. It turned out to have been a good call. I left home around 1:00 and rode out to the Spillway, mostly solo. 

The river is running low.

On the way out I stopped to help a rider with a flat. I saw him sitting on the side of the bike path with his bike upside-down, the rear wheel off, and his phone a this ear. He was calling his wife to come pick him up because he couldn't get the flat tire off of the rim. So I stopped and got the tire off pretty easily, put his spare tube in, re-mounted the tire, and discovered that his spare tube had a short stem that didn't make it through the Zipp 404s he was riding. Luckily, I had a long-stem tube with me. He gave me the short-stem tube, which I ended up using later in the ride when I flatted. I was trying out the new Campagnolo Scirocco wheelset I'd just gotten on sale. My regular training wheels barely qualify as round any more, and I'm getting afraid I'm about to wear through the braking surfaces, and the bearings are pretty worn, so I got these fairly aero but fairly heavy wheels. I really only notice the extra weight when I pick up the bike, and it's nice to be able to put on the brakes without the bike lurching from one rim dent to the other.

Where we are now

Today started out at 60 degrees with a bit of wind, so we had a pretty nice Giro Ride. I'm pretty sure my solo levee ride was more of a workout for me, although of course that's because I spent most of the Giro Ride in the draft. It's looking like I'll end the year with somewhere around 11,000 miles, so considering the little six-week lull I had last March and April, that's good. 

So the new AT&T fiber has been working out pretty well. My laptop's ethernet adaptor can handle only 100 Mpbs, so I got an H/P USB gigabit ethernet adapter that works surprisingly well. I'm getting 8-900 Mbps when wired, so basically more than an order of magnitude faster than I had originally. The AT&T TV has been working fine as well. Danielle just sent us an ARLO video doorbell, so I re-configured my old range extender so it could handle the new dual-band signals, and that should be able to reach the front screen door easily despite all of the plaster & lath covered with sheetrock walls. I'm going to need to do some re-wiring in order to put it where it needs to be, so I got a roll of bell wire this afternoon and some white wood filler to plug up the hole from the old doorbell. It will be interesting to see if it all works with the ancient doorbell buzzer in the kitchen that has to be at least 60 years old. The transformer is down in the basement connected rather haphazardly (emphasis on "hazard") to some old knob-and-tube wiring, but at least it's easily accessible.

Wired ethernet at my laptop
via HP USB Gigabit adapter.

Looks like another cold front coming through tonight, but nothing colder than the upper 40s in the forecast through Christmas, which I guess will be kind of a non-event this year despite Candy's having bought presents for every kid in the neighborhood. She's been playing old christmas music non-stop for a couple of weeks already, and evenings are mostly Hallmark movies until she goes to bed and I can watch a couple of episodes of Star Trek or something on Netflix..

Winter Speed

Winter, such as it is in New Orleans, is here, I guess. That doesn't mean what it does in Minnesota, or course, where morning temperatures next week will be between 17° and a relatively balmy 30°F, but you know it's all relative. The bottom line is that my creaky old knees probably won't see the light of day for at least the next couple of weeks. I usually want my knees covered if it's in the 50s or below, and although wearing knicks or knee-warmers or full long tights cuts into your winter speed a tiny bit, it's definitely worth it, IMHO. I think I was in knickers for most of my rides last week, and even broke out the full long tights one day. 

So it should come as no surprise that when I was getting ready to head across the lake for another of the Queen Bee's invitational winter rides, where the starting temperature at 8:30 a.m. was going to be right at 40°, I threw a pretty wide range of stuff into my bag. I knew there would be sun, and that the temperature would ultimately be approaching 60°, so that really complicated the wardrobe decision. One thing I knew for sure. It wasn't going to be slow, or to be more accurate, it wasn't going to be easy. Between the terrain and the north wind, those 75 miles were going to exact a significant toll energy-wise. So rather than go for the bulkier but better-insulated stuff, I went with the thin and wind-resistant stuff. I could have been an add for Gore. I wore some nice comfy knickers with a long-sleeved Gore base layer that had wind-resistant front panels. Over that was a pair of arm-warmers that could be stuffed into a pocket later. Then there was a summer jersey, mainly for its pockets, and on top my thin Tulane vest that I planned to take off at the first opportunity once I got warmed up. I was also trying out a pair of Gore-Tex socks that Danielle had sent me for my birthday, and a pair of thin Gore-Tex gloves. So, no bulk, but lots of wind protection. It worked out pretty well.

The ride itself was good a brisk, although without any super-hard attacks or anything. I guess we had about about a dozen riders on hand as we headed out. Like other rides I've done with Lisa, there was no gradual warm-up. We got onto the Tammany Trace at Abita Springs and were immediately up above 20 mph, which is basically where the speed stayed for most of the ride. I'd say our typical speed was 23-24 mph. I'd put my carbon race wheels on the night before, since I figured they could use the exercise, having spent almost all summer hanging unused in the basement. I have to admit, they definitely make things easier when the speeds ramp up, especially if I'm out in the wind. Anyway, it was a really great ride. I felt like I got a good workout without getting totally wasted. I guess Strava agreed, tagging the ride as "Massive Relative Effort." Clearly, Strava doesn't know how much time I spent sucking wheels, but regardless, I have to agree that, relatively speaking, it was harder than my usual wheelsucking ride.

Speaking of wheels, I ordered a pair of Campi Scirocco C17 Clinchers that were on sale. I got my current training wheels so long ago I don't remember, but it must have been at least fifteen years ago. I bought them from someone in the club who had gotten them built up as climbing wheels, and they are indeed about the light pair of aluminum clinchers I've ever seen. I kept them as my backup race wheels, and used them for a number of races and also once or twice for Six Gap. Following the demise of my Mavic wheels in a crash a few years ago, they got promoted to everyday use. Now, the bearings are getting a little loose, I've replaced four or five broken aluminum spoke nipples, and I'm starting to wonder how long it will be before I wear through the brake track. The Scirocco wheels were something like $250, and will be significantly heavier and maybe a tiny bit more aerodynamic, but hopefully they will be good solid training wheels.

Well, that's better.

So this week we finally upgraded (at home) to AT&T fiber, along with AT&T TV. I kept the telephone land line, mainly because the alarm system uses it, but downgraded the service so it was a little cheaper. Installation took three or four hours, but I think went pretty well. I had already run an ethernet cable from the back of the house where the modem is to the front where the living room TV is, and although I could never get the Amazon stick to work with it, it works fine with the AT&T TV box. With my old Uverse service I was getting something like 5 Mbps over wireless. Now I get more like 40 Mbps and close to 100 via ethernet. The AT&T TV service has been fine and seems to include all of the stuff we had with Cox before, so not bad. We have a little range extender that doesn't seem to be working correctly with the new modem, but I haven't bothered to investigate that yet. 

Today we started putting up some Christmas decorations, but with the intermittent light rain I decided against going out and fooling with all of the questionable extension cords and lights and stuff. That will have to wait until a drier day. We bought a new microwave oven the other day after Candy incinerated some mac & cheese in the old one. It's display panel had pretty much stopped working, so you couldn't see the times or anything, so it was time. Besides, I couldn't get the burned food smell out of it anyway. 

Meanwhile, the city started tearing up two blocks of street to apparently replace the water, sewer, and drain lines that run underneath it. The notice they left at the house said it would be completed by the end of January, which I don't believe for a moment. By "completed" I assume they mean the pipes will be replaced and they'll dump a bunch of riversand and rocks on top of everything and leave it like that for a year or so until they get around to actually paving it. In the meantime, I'm treated to the sound of bulldozers and dump trucks all day going back and forth to the piles of sand and rocks they deposited on the corner. 

Group Rides and Rain Days and Trust

There was a huge group for the special Thanksgiving Giro Ride

This morning's Sunday Giro Ride was, I assume, rained out. I'm looking out the window now, around 8:30 a.m., and the weather's looking better, which is to say it's not actually raining right now. There's a cold front on the way, and the 66° temperature and light southeast wind we have now will turn into 49° with a 14 mph northwest wind by tomorrow morning. We haven't had to fire up the heater at home yet, but it's looking like next week will be the actual start of winter weather around here. Anyway, if the streets dry up a bit I may try to slip out for a short ride later today as minor compensation for the missed group ride.

Up on top of the Casino overpass waiting for Jeff to fix a flat down at the bottom. Fred flatted shortly after we started up again, but he slipped quietly off the back and told us to go ahead.

Yesterday's Giro also carried the threat of rain, and much of the ride was on wet streets, with predictable results. The turnout was low, the pace was slower than normal, and there were flats. Wet streets have been the order of the day since Thursday, along with some early morning fog and mist, and people have been getting flats left and right. I went out alone on Friday morning for some easy miles on the bike path, but didn't make it back home without having to stop to fix a flat rear tire. It was a tiny, but super-sharp, shard of glass deeply embedded in the too-soft rubber of the Continental 5000 that I had to pry out with my little pocket knife. I think Continental's newer 5000 tire went just one step too far past the beloved 4000 in search of lightness and grip. I think the combination of softer rubber and thinner sidewalls combined to make what had been a great training and racing tire a bit too unreliable for routine training. I'd been using the 4000s for years, having found them to be, by far, the most puncture-resistant training tire I'd ever used. Although I've stuck with the less durable but somewhat lighter and faster and stickier Michelins for my race wheels, the 4000S was my go-to tire for training. Now, though, I see people searching around for a replacement for the 4000 after suffering sidewall cuts and punctures with the 5000s. I might be joining them. Just the other day I stitched a boot into my rear 5000 because of a cut that had compromised some of the casing threads and was threatening to enlarge enough to blow out. Sometimes what looks like progress isn't.

Wet streets have been the order of the day for lately

Last Thursday, which was Thanksgiving, there was a huge turnout for the special "holiday Giro." The ride itself wasn't super-fast, although of course it had its moments, so it was really a lot of fun. Afterward I went home to a 14-pound turkey and two pies, which may have been a little much for just the two of us.

Anyway, it looks like I'll be digging down to the bottom of the drawer next week to find the cold-weather riding gear that hasn't seen the light of day since last February. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. continues to surge. Here in New Orleans our positive test ratio has been somewhat artificially suppressed by the 2,500+ surveillance tests that Tulane had been doing daily. But the students went home last week and yesterday's 2-day test count from Tulane was down to only 133 with 5.3% of those being positive. Of course, the only people being tested the past few days have probably been the ones who are actually sick, so no surprise there, but by next week when the effect of Tulane's reduced testing hits the official LDH reports I fully expect to see a significant jump in the New Orleans percentage of positive tests since there will be far fewer healthy people being tested in the denominator. I'm guessing the rate will rise 1.5 to 2% easy. Hopefully still not as high as other areas of the state, but it will probably make the news.

All of this, of course, has me again thinking about the wisdom of doing group rides. For me, there is absolutely no doubt that the group rides are the only things that get me, however briefly, up to the levels of intensity that might keep me at some reasonable fitness level. It also may be the only thing keeping me sane. But as local positivity levels rise, and people start spending more time inside with others because of the weather and holiday gatherings, the risk will definitely go up. Fortunately I've not heard of any sort of outbreak or cluster associated with group rides. I guess there are some some ways to rationalize it all, of course. For one, few people who are feeling ill are going to venture out to the Giro Ride or WeMoRi, and even if they did, they would probably not last long. For another, with all of the turbulence and moving around in a fast group ride, the duration and dose associated with any exposure would be expected to be very, very low. Unless, of course, you ride right into the cloud of aerosol from some idiot who feels compelled to blow snot out of his or her nose in the middle of the group. Amazingly, that still happens, especially to the smaller riders like me who tend to be invisible when riders glance quickly behind themselves. 

Really, all I can do it trust the riders around me. Trust has always been a big component of group rides. You need to trust the riders up ahead not to do anything stupid, to call out the big road hazards, to ride a straight line, and now, not to blow snot in your face. I could always reduce my exposure by staying at the front, of course, but that's not really a viable, or particularly attractive, option for me most of the time. Besides, I do really think that the best way to get COVID isn't from riding in a group, but from sitting across a table from someone talking loudly at a restaurant or in a bar. I think I've been to an indoor restaurant maybe twice since March, and at outdoor tables only a handful of times. If we can get the new vaccines distributed quickly and widely, and if people are actually willing to take vaccines that didn't even exist six months ago and have been rushed into production at an unprecedented speed, and if they indeed don't cause any unanticipated side-effects, there may be some hope for normal racing to resume by, maybe, next August. It all still leaves race promoters unsure about what to plan for the 2021 season. I don't guess we'll have a clue until maybe March or so when we see how initial distribution of the RNA vaccines is going and where the other vaccines are in the cycle. I have to say, I think the RNA vaccines are really cool, and I'd be surprised if any serious side-effects show up, but still there's no denying that we're all going to be test subjects next year one way or the other. Even those who refuse to be vaccinated will be test subjects since there's no way to tell if a vaccine is working if there's no significant amount of people getting sick.

Almost Ten

Heading back into the sun on the Thursday levee ride.

It was a pretty routine week on the bike. Not so much off of it. After a nice easy recovery ride on Monday, I managed to oversleep enough on Tuesday to miss the 6 am levee ride by three or four minutes. Just as well, I guess, as I must have been a little tired. The ride turned around at The Dip, so I met them on the return, logging a few fewer miles than planned. The rest of the weekday rides, however, were as usual. On Monday I did spot a bald eagle, the first one I've seen in a while. They always seem to start showing up with the cooler weather.

At some point during the WeMoRi, Nisha joined the group after taking a short-cut with a couple others. I looked over at her and thought, "I need to tell her to use a bigger gear."  Well, later in the day she posted that she hadn't realized she'd been doing the group rides in her small chainring! Problem solved. Later that day I went over to Ochsner and got the influenza vaccine.

Post-Giro cool-down on Lakeshore Drive - Rich and Jaden

So rather than do a group ride over in Mississippi I decided to just to the Saturday and Sunday Giro Rides. Candy's replacement laptop had come in during the week and I wanted to at least get her email set up. It was all a little confusing. The laptop came with a "mail" program that is essentially Outlook. It also came with Office pre-loaded. I set up the free mail program, but I'm not really sure what to do about Outlook. There's the 365 subscription version, and a stand-alone version, and maybe she can download the Tulane Exchange version since she has "legacy" status. Who knows? 

Spent a lot of time on Carl's safe
and steady wheel on Sunday.

The mornings lately have all been carbon copies with temperatures in the 58-60 degree range, some wind, clear blue sky. Not too shabby, really. The Giro Rides this weekend were surprisingly fun, at least for me. I have no idea why. Granted, I was keeping my nose mostly out of the wind as usual, but for some reason I really wasn't struggling when things got fast, or gaps needed to be closed. Funny how that works when you get older. You just never know when you'll have a good day and when you'll have a bad day - or weekend.

Classes at Tulane end on Tuesday, so we did somehow make it all the way through the fall semester without having to send all the students back home. They'll take exams online after Thanksgiving and then won't be back until January when we will do the whole Welcome Center thing again. The COVID-19 surge we had has subsided considerably with only 0.5% positive test over the past couple of days, which included 3,844 tests.  Thus far the City has reported a total of 401,209 tests, of which Tulane's comprise over 142,815, so Tulane has conducted over 35% of all of the tests in Orleans Parish. Impressive. 

So back in March and April when I was hobbling around on crutches and unable to sit on a bike for more than fifteen minutes I was thinking it would probably be the first year in a long time that I wouldn't log at least 10,000 miles. I figured I lost around 2,000 miles during recovery from the crash. Yet, as of today I'm showing 9,886 miles, so I will easily make 10,000 by the end of next week, and the question is whether I'll make it to 11,000. My first full year using Strava was 2013. Since then, my lowest annual mileage was 11,725 back in 2015 when I missed a number of early season weekends travelling to collegiate races. I'll be pretty happy if I'm anywhere close to 11k this year, considering.

Weekday Frustrations, Warm Weekend Rides

Really no excuse for this

There's been such a long list of things to get done that I haven't really known where to start. One thing I thought I'd be able to check off the list last week was setting up Candy's new laptop. It arrived as scheduled on Wednesday - in a torn-open, wet, box, compliments of UPS. I slid the computer out of the box and was pleased to see that it looked undamaged, at least externally, and was in a nice heavy plastic sleeve. Well, looks can be deceiving. I powered it up and was greeted by an unstable screen image that would disintegrate into random lines and colors and such with every touch. I assume there was something wrong with the cable going through the hinge to the screen. At any rate, I immediately shut it off and called Lenovo. After explaining the situation to two people I was told to wait for a phone call within 24 hours. 28 hours later I called back and finally got a nice woman with a heavy Indian accent who, after about half an hour on the phone, moved things one step farther. I was told I'd then receive an email within 24-48 hours about returning the defective laptop and getting a replacement. Still waiting for that email Sunday night. So, following that debacle, I figured I may as well bite the bullet and call AT&T to upgrade to fiber since the sent me a letter at the end of October that they were retiring my current network equipment in January and I have to upgrade (or leave) by then. I'd been planning on making the upgrade anyway, but also wanted to find out about AT&T TV as a replacement for our current Cox Cable, on the assumption that I could save a little bit that way. Well, that process resulted in an hour-long phone call with a nice woman who was presumably Chinese by her heavy accent. It would have take a lot less time if I hadn't needed to have her repeat practically everything at least once. So I ended up with the Internet 1000 plan ( 940Mbps) which should be a major improvement over what I've had for the past few years. I also signed up for the basic TV plan for Candy since I doubt she would ever adapt to jumping around from Netflix to Amazon to Hulu to Disney etc., etc. Anyway, the whole thing should be about what I'm paying now, and considerably less for the first year. The downside is that they scheduled installation for December 3 or something. 

Did I mention the car crash? Happened early in the week. I hear this loud crash outside the window, jump up to have a look, and see a Cadillac SUV sliding down S. Claiborne on its side. Guessing it was going more the 35 mph when it clipped another car. Amazingly, everyone seemed OK. I called 911 immediately but only had time to give them the location before a police car pulled up behind the wreck. Coincidence? They broke the sunroof and one of the neighbors pulled a skinny woman driver without shoes out. I suspect there's more to that whole story.

So last week was mostly warm and occasionally damp but nothing that resulted in any shortened rides. By the weekend the weather was looking really nice and when Lisa lined up a little group for a 65 mile northshore ride on Saturday, I jumped at the opportunity. We rolled out from the Lee Road ballpark right a 8 am with eight riders, and immediately Lisa went to the front and kind of hit the gas, setting the tone for the rest of the ride. In other words, it was a pretty fast ride. We rode up to State Line by way of Pine. I was feeling pretty good but my limited miles in the hills of late certainly took a toll toward the end of the ride. The average speed of around 22 mph doesn't seem so fast, but Strava called it a "massive relative effort" and my 174 max BPM heartrate told a slightly different story. Anyway, I really enjoyed the ride. 

There wasn't enough room for the "ulation" part.

Afterward I kind of rushed home because a couple of the neighbors were staging a little retirement party at the house for Candy Saturday evening. They had lured her out of the house to go to the neighborhood park with the next-door neighbors' toddler while the others came over and put up some decorations and heated up enough food for a small army. It was all quite nice and I ate and drank far too much.

Thursday on the levee

So this morning I went out to the Giro Ride planning on staying in the economy section at the back of the pack. I was still feeling some effects from Saturday's ride, and together with the previous night's festivities I figured a hard ride would be a bad idea. Unfortunately, today was apparently "bring your TT bike to the Giro" day, and looking around as we rolled out I knew it was going to be trouble for my plan. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the group split and I ended up with the second group of about a dozen riders, among which there were about three who knew what a paceline was, or which way the wind was blowing. Anyway, it did at least allow me to keep the effort level down a bit, which was good. On the way back, when someone at the front of the group basically attacked the turn onto Hayne Blvd., I just let that go and rode in with a few others. Not surprisingly, two of them had been on the Saturday ride.