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