Today, I had the great pleasure to ride 40 miles through the Western suburbs of New Orleans on the Montague MX suspended, full size, folding mountain bike .

The urge to ride has been building within me since my spill at Spanish Plaza about 2 weeks ago. I had ridden downtown to photograph the QE2 at dock on the Mississippi River. It was night time and the Plaza's polished marble pavement was wet with condensation. I went to make a turn but the bike wanted to go straight... Luckily, the fall resulted only in a nasty oozing knee. I shot some halfway decent night time photos of the QE2 and her guest queueing up for a steamboat jazz cruise on (see the 3 photos in this post), then proceeded to ride the 15 or so miles home.

The scab I earned from the fall kept me off the bike for a few days. Meanwhile, I got busy on a Hurricane Katrina repair project ripping out lots of 2x4's that had to be thrown out a window. Once the job was done, my lower back was sore for almost a week. Fast forward to today.

The weather was gorgeous: brilliant blue skies, temps in the mid 50's and a 5-10 mph breeze from the East. Frankly, I hadn't intended to ride 40 miles; however, once I hit the road, I just didn't want to stop riding.

Along the ride, I encountered a traffic accident scene, cruised past Destrehan Plantation , did some shopping at the new Dollar General in St. Rose (trail mix and sports drink), took a snack break at Rivertown, watched sheriff's deputies in 8 patrol cars meet & prep for a drug raid, watched the oil tanker Ficus sail round a riverbend on it's way to a terminal upriver and passed about 15 or so other cyclists on the Bill Kellor / Mississippi River Levee trail.

If you'd like to see the route of my ride, I charted it on Dave Ploch's 2wheeltech.com bike route mapping website .

Larry

Labels: bike touring , bike trail , cruises , cruising , Cunard , Destrehan Plantation , folding bicycle , folding bike , Louisiana , Mississippi River , New Orleans , plantation , QE2 , Queen Elizabeth 2