Massive Relative Effort

It's all relative, of course. Last weekend I tagged along with three Tulane riders to the Sunny King Criterium and Choccolocco Road Race up around Anniston AL. The collegiate races also served as the SECCC Conference Championships, so I was glad that the team was represented, even if only in the Collegiate Cat. 4 races. Coach P was also racing in the regular Cat 2/3 races. Sunny King has a long history in this area, so I was glad to finally make my way there, even if I was fully expecting to be rapidly shelled out of the back of the 50+ and 40+ races myself. The Saturday criterium is a pretty big deal, especially for the Pro Men and Women, and is part of the USA Crit series, so although the collegiate Cat. 4 and my own 50+ criteriums would be over well before lunchtime, we were definitely going to hang around for the evening Pro races that didn't start until after 4 pm.

Josiah, Liam, and Ben picked me up in the Biology 12-passenger van right on time at 2:00 pm for the roughly 6 hour drive up to Oxford or Anniston or wherever the hotel actually was. Unfortunately, Ben was just coming off of a round of antibiotics and related off-bike time so would be taking photos rather than racing. This was rather disappointing because I felt like both Liam and he had definite podium possibilities. 

Saturday morning we made a quick stop at the same Starbucks where we'd left Chris and his broken collarbone back in 2022 on the way back from the Georgia Tech race, while Julia, Dustin, and I did a little ride up Cheaha mountain. It was a short drive to the crit course in old downtown Anniston near the abandoned railroad track that is now the Chief Ladiga bike path. We were practically the first to arrive, so we slipped past the traffic cones and parked about twenty feet from the course half a block from the start/finish. It was still pretty chilly when we arrived but as soon as the sun cleared the horizon it warmed up really quickly.

The Collegiate Cat. 4/5 race was one of the first, so after a solid warmup on the bike trail, Liam and Josiah lined up for the start. The course was a 1 km rectangle with wide turns and generally good pavement, so it was going to be fast and not particularly technical. The long finish straight was slightly uphill so the corresponding back side was slightly downhill. I'd been a little concerned about turn #3 following the downhill, but as it turned out, coming into it at 30 mph wasn't much of a problem.

There were about 30 riders on the line for the Cat. 4/5 race. Liam and Josiah started in the front row, which was good. My sense was that the pace in general wasn't super fast, which I'd expect for this category. Liam was spending a whole lot of time in the wind at the front for most of this race, and was definitely not having any trouble doing so, although it probably cost him a little bit by the end. Josiah, who was coming off of being sick a couple of weeks ago and was still not in top form, was staying safely in the middle of the group. He would eventually come off the back with about ten other riders toward the end of the 30-minute race. Liam unfortunately drifted a little too far back in the last laps, but still finished a respectable 12th. 

The Master 50+ race had a pretty stacked field of 38 riders that included at least a couple of current/past national champions. Knowing full well what was likely going to happen, I lined up at the back where I wouldn't get in the way too much when I inevitably blew up. As usually happens when the start is fast and the air is cold and/or dry, it wasn't more than a couple of laps before I was in some minor respiratory distress and slid off the back where I could maintain a more age-appropriate pace. Before the end of the 50-minute race I'd be lapped at least three times. Each time I'd get into the group near the back and do a couple of fast laps before dropping off again. It being the first criterium I'd done in two years, and the first on the new bike, it was not that bad of a strategy, actually, and it wasn't like I was exactly soft-pedaling anyway. Strava proclaimed the ride "Tough Relative Effort," which seemed about right given my 154 bpm average HR. So it was a solid workout for me despite the lackluster performance. The Cervelo felt good through the fast corners, even if a little bit twitchy the rare times when I had to touch the brakes. Having spent practically the entire time on the drops, my neck was very angry with me afterward, however. Pirmin's Cat. 2/3 race looked quite fast, but he was always in a good position near, but not on, the front of the large group. In the final few laps I guess things started to get sketch, and he dropped back as a matter of self-preservation. USAC still had him listed as Cat. 5 since he'd just gotten a USAC license and never requested an upgrade based on his results from Germany. I sent USAC his almost full results list and Trish said she'd approve an upgrade to Cat. 3, so he submitted that request, but the system, using a methodology apparently not susceptible to analysis (likely AI) would only approve an upgrade to Cat. 4, so I sent Trish an email about that this morning. Anyway, he ended up rolling through with the field in 23rd position out of 54 starters.

Later, as I was sitting in the rapidly diminishing shade near the finish line, someone who probably recognized me walked by and handed me two tickets to the VIP hospitality area across from the finish, so Liam and I went over there and enjoyed the free food and drinks for a while as the Pro Women were racing. In that race there was a bad crash in the last corner and I think one of the women was Medivac'd out in the helicopter that was on site.

On Sunday we again arrived at the nearby road course just off of the Choccolocco forest early, which gave Liam and Josiah a chance to pre-ride the 12-mile circuit. The course was, at least by my New Orleans standards, quite hilly with a few little climbs hitting 9 or 10%. None of them were longer than maybe half a kilometer at best, but I knew the faster groups would get split up eventually. 

The three-lap collegiate Cat 4/5 race started around 8 am and it looked like the pace was generally pretty conservative with the group mostly remaining intact for at least the first couple of laps. Somewhere on the last lap Josiah came off the back with a few others but Liam was staying easily with the main field. There was a short climb about 300 meters from the finish, and unfortunately a rider tried to shoot a non-existent gap on the right, slipping off the edge of the road and crashing. Naturally, Liam was behind that which took him out of contention for the finish, although he did manage to salvage 12th out of around 30 despite having to practically stop when the sprint started. I was at the finish getting ready for my own race to start and when I heard there had been a crash in the feed zone, and Josiah was still missing, I rode over there to see if he was the one who had crashed. He wasn't, and in fact showed up right about when I was riding back, finishing 19th.

My road race was a 40+ age group, so I wasn't expecting to be with the group for long. I wasn't. When we made the first turn right after the start the pace ramped up over 30 mph, briefly 36 mph, and by the time we were three miles in and hit the first significant little steep climb I was audibly gasping for breath. When the rider in front of me opened a gap, I didn't even try to come around. The two of us were together off-and-on for about three of the four laps, although the other rider would often drop off of my wheel on climbs (not that I was climbing very fast) and then reappear on the flatter sections. I was just focused on the workout, which Strava ultimately tagged as "Massive Relative Effort," which in reality only reinforces how low the effort levels of my regular rides have been. I was about halfway around the last of the four laps when the Cat. 1-3 women's group caught me. I moved over so they could go through, but was surprised how slowly they were going. For the rest of the lap I just rode far enough behind to be out of the draft, occasionally having to coast so I didn't roll all the way up to their wheels. I actually spent a lot of time basically riding alongside the motoref. Finally, when they saw the 2 km to go marker, one of the women attacked. It was short-lived, however, and I was again right behind them a minute later. So anyway, I was practically DFL for this road race, but on the plus side it was clearly a solid and apparently badly needed workout for me. I don't know why I am having so much trouble with the first efforts in races like this. I've always had some trouble with fast starts, but the older I get the worse it seems to be. By the time I finished everyone was anxious to hit the road for home, so I jumped in the van still in my kit and changed in the car as we drove to the nearest Chipotle for lunch.

For the entire 6 hour drive home we were streaming the replay of Paris-Roubaix on Josiah's tablet. Otherwise it was an uneventful drive except for when we spotted Tulane Water Polo team alongside us, also on their way back from a competition. On the way there we had found the Tulane Frisbee team on its way to some event. Of course in both instances there was an exchange of sign language and clues to figure out what team they, and we, were on.

It's Tuesday morning and after my usual 38 mile Tuesday ride I think I can still feel a little bit of Sunday's road race still in my legs. Situation normal.

Wind and Rain

There was a good group on hand for last Saturday's Giro, bolstered halfway through by a few of the usual suspects u-turning off from the SaMoRi to join in. This has become a pretty regular occurrence lately where riders start with the 6:30 group and then join the Giro somewhere on Chef Highway, adding a few miles and perhaps a little more intensity to their rides. The ride itself was moderate, as Giro Rides go, with long stretches of paceline in the 25-26 mph range, so no problems for anyone I think. The temperature was comfortably in the low 70s and there was a light tailwind on the return, but things were already looking unpromising for Sunday. Indeed, when I awoke early Sunday morning I could hear a light rain falling outside and so I just pulled the covers over my head and waited for daylight. The hourly forecast at that point was offering a little bit of hope for the afternoon, but as forecasts often due, it lied. For all practical purposes, it rained all day. Things were not much better on Monday morning either, so like Sunday, there was no morning ride. The cool front had moved in, dropping the temperature by ten degrees or so, and bringing with it a stiff north wind. On the plus side, the rain ended early and the humidity dropped quickly, so by 1:30 pm I was ready to head over to the levee for a ride.

I always find solo rides on the levee motivationally difficult, which is to say I tend to want to cruise along looking at the scenery and scanning the treetops for eagles. Unfortunately, 12 mph north wind made it hard to take it very easy, even though much of it was crosswind. Out at the western edge of Jefferson Parish where the bike path has been closed for the past year, I noted that no discernable work had been done since my last visit a couple of weeks earlier. As predicted, getting the bike path re-opened is going to be months behind schedule. As a reminder, the closure began in April of 2024 and the official announcement said, "This two-mile construction zone is expected to remain closed through at least mid-2025." If you're counting, mid-2025 came and went ten months ago. Meanwhile, the leaking fire hydrant at my house celebrated its one-year anniversary recently. Still leaking of course, but I digress. My Monday afternoon ride felt harder than it should have, thanks to the wind, but at least I didn't flat, which is always a danger if the bike path is damp.

So on Tuesday the rain chances went one way and the wind went the other, and so most of the westbound ride was at 27-28 mph, which was great, but the return trip was at more like 14-15 mph, which was not great, and seemed to take forever. At least we picked up a few riders when we got to Jefferson Parish, so that was nice. It was also rather chilly - like 53° - when I left home. I'm holding out some hope that the chilly few days we had this week will turn out to have been the last until Fall.

It was a little warmer for Wednesday's WeMoRi, and for some reason the early morning wind wasn't too much of a factor, so it turned out to be a fairly typical ride with some fast segments, gaps to close, and a bit of intensity despite my best efforts to avoid same. I was already thinking about this coming weekend's planned trip up to Anniston for Sunny King where my primary goal will be to remain upright and not get pulled before the halfway point of the criterium. Criteriums around here having been in such short supply for me in recent years that I'm afraid I'll be pretty rusty at that.

This morning it was again quite windy, mostly from the east, so we again had some fast westbound stretches. After Lakeshore Drive it was just me and Jeff, and he was planning on turning off at Bonnebell. Fortunately we came up on Keith who was waiting for us at Bucktown, so at least I wasn't left to my own devices. Then, just as we got to the turnaround at Williams, Matt showed up, so we had three for the return trip, at least until Keith unexpectedly dropped off the back. It was a good 10 mph headwind all the way back, so just maintaining 17 mph was difficult, and I guess doing so behind me, which is where Keith was, made it even worse.

The Tulane kit store finally got opened this week. It had been delayed for months while Dylan was negotiating some sponsorship arrangements, and of course at this rate it's unlikely orders will be received before the end of the semester. A credit for one jersey was included in this year's dues, which made the total cost at least seem less shocking. The prices for cycling clothing have really just gone through the roof over the past couple of years, and although $109 for a jersey seems expensive to me, it's really kind of a bargain nowadays for custom a race-cut jersey. They got a fit kit from Cutaway, who is the vendor, and so I went over and tried on a Small jersey which seemed to be sized fairly normally. I'll assume the bibshorts are likewise normal size-wise. Voler stopped doing triathlon stuff, so that's why we ended up with Cutaway, which I'd never heard of before.

Not Quite Summer Yet

Friday

It's been so nice to get up in the morning with the temperature hovering around 72° lately. No tenuous wardrobe decisions, no freezing north wind, summer kit, warm toes. Granted, at some point next week it'll briefly drop back down to the mid-50s, but I'm probably the only person who thinks that's cold. Last Wednesday's WeMoRi was good, even if it didn't quite go as planned for me. I got to Lakeshore Drive at my usual time, but apparently the group had gotten up to speed unusually early that morning. As I was heading east, I saw them coming my way, and could have made the u-turn and gotten into the group if there hadn't been a car coming at the same time, but my instinct for self-preservation along with a quick risk-benefit calculation screamed "Nope," so I continued to Beauregard and onto Wisner where I went in circles for a couple of minutes until they showed up. On the way home, just before we got to the Wisner overpass, my rear tire blew out. I must have rolled over something big and sharp because we all heard it as it made a couple of revolutions of the wheel before being ejected along with all of the air. I put a new tube and booted the slash for the easy ride back home where, fortunately, I happened to have a new tire just waiting for such an event.

On Thursday, after the usual out and back on Lakeshore Drive, those of us left for the ride out to Williams Blvd. met up with the Metairie morning group with Glenn and Russell and a number of others. We had a little tailwind on the way out, so with a group of maybe eight or so it was nice.

Friday 

This morning's Friendly Friday ride had a big turnout. Our meeting spot is essentially where the Crescent City Classic finishes in City Park. The finish line was already set up and some things were already barricaded off in preparation for tomorrow morning's event, but it wasn't an issue for us at 6 am. The ride turned out to be a pretty fast one by Friendly Friday standards, so that was fun. Somebody must have pinch-flatted on the big bump that we are forced to ride over just past the Elysian Fields traffic circle now that they have blocked off the right lane to make it a bike lane that we can't safely use. I was hanging onto Lisa's wheel as she pulled the whole group most of the way out to Franklin Avenue, so I didn't even know we'd lost anyone until we were on the way back. It looked like four or five people had stopped between the levee and Franklin for that flat. I don't know if any of them got back with us. 

Afterward, I rode down to the river with Charles to meet up with the Tulane coffee ride group that had a very healthy turnout now that the weather is so much better. Coffee at Tartine and then it was back to the house. I need to bite the bullet and register for Sunny King and the road race, even though it feels a bit like paying an entry fee to my own execution. Should be a fun trip anyway, though.

Meanwhile, Shannon finished the Arizona Monster 300 endurance run in the wee hours of the morning with a time of 6d13h45m. As usual they had live tracking via Spot and trackleaders.com, so I'd been following everything since last Friday. At one point a day or so ago her Spot tracker apparently died, so she was MIA, at least for me, for half of a day until the organizers got that fixed. I can't even imagine walking or running that far with much of it being on remote trails in the middle of nowhere, in the dark. 

Yesterday I was also following the Artemis II moon mission that seems to be going quite well so far. It seems like most of the flight is essentially automated and the astronauts are there for testing and backup purposes. Hopefully everything will go smoothly. I remember watching the TV coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing and recording the audio from the TV onto my little reel-to-reel tape recorder. At some point I re-recorded that onto a cassette tape that is still around here somewhere. The coverage of that was quite different from what we have now, of course, and the audio was pretty rough by comparison.

Good Mornings

Tuesday morning coming back from Williams Blvd.

Considering how much I complain about bad weather, it seems only fair to acknowledge how nice this week's mornings have been. With pre-dawn temperatures in the 60s and relatively trivial winds, it's been like what I imagine riding in other places must be in the middle of summer. The lack of rain, which on the one hand is good for riding but on the other hand not so good for the plants, looks like it will continue through the weekend, after which the forecast is currently calling for a six or seven rainy days. So as they say, "make hay while the sun shines." Hay in this case being mileage.

The nice weather has, predictably, brought more riders to the early morning weekday rides, which has made them perhaps a little faster, but at the same time perhaps a little easier. The difference between having one rider in front of you and having ten riders in front of you is not to be underestimated. This morning as we were waiting for the 6 am start in front of the museum of art, Woody glanced over and commented something like, "Wow, Randy finally caved in and got a new bike with disc brakes," to which I had to reply, "Well, it's got over 6,000 miles on it already." It was probably the first time Woody has seen the bike well enough to realize it wasn't the Bianchi since October since we're always in the dark and he often needs to split off from the morning rides a little early for work.

Always fun trying to draft behind a TT bike

Tuesday's ride was missing Maurizio whose regular airline commute from Houston has probably been disrupted by the ongoing congressional standoff about Homeland Security/TSA/ICE appropriations. After the usual Lakeshore Drive segment we were left with just a few for the out-and-back on the lake trail. Jeff was on his new-to-him time trial bike, so I spent a fair amount of time behind him as he was going a little faster than our usual zone 2 pace. It still felt like a good workout.

The WeMoRi seemed to have a pretty big turnout, although reports were that a number of people were shelled along Lakeshore Drive before I merged into the group on Marconi. It was, I think, a fairly fast one with Jaden taking a few flyers off the front that were answered by the group rather unenthusiastically. Josiah and Dylan got themselves well positioned along the stretch between the bridge and the finish at Marconi, taking advantage of an early surge that ended with Dylan crossing the imaginary line first. I'd been interested in contesting the sprint that morning but got myself boxed in toward the end at a bad time.

Just the front part of the group on Thursday

On Thursday we had an unusually big group for the lake trail segment when we met up with a number of riders from the regular group that rides out of Metairie - Keith, Brad, Glenn, Russell, et. al. (Some of these guys are going to have to start using Strava if they expect me to remember their names). That kept the pace up a little bit, since there were at least ten people in the rotation, plus a little bit of tailwind going out.

A little ground fog on Friday

This morning's Friendly Friday group had a pretty big turnout, although it didn't really speed up a whole lot until after the Armory loop, and even then it was mostly in the 25-26 mph range, so nothing too taxing when in the draft. I guess I'll be doing the Giro tomorrow. It's looking to be a little cooler - like low 60s, with a pretty significant northeast wind, so it will be a workout for sure.

Here we go again

Meanwhile, I finally got the Time Trial championship event permit and registration set up for May 31, but of course haven't made any of the other arrangements quite yet. The new USAC site was absolutely no less confusing than the old one was, and I still don't know if I'll be able to get the rider data from them so I can use our usual registration and results spreadsheet and lookups, and I need to check the BikeReg site to make sure I have the license restrictions set up correctly. I decided to reduce the entry fee for unlicensed Cat. 5/Novice riders by $15 so that when they have to buy their 1-day licenses the total comes out to $30, with is the entry fee for almost everyone else. I decided not to try to do the same for Masters since those should be able to afford licenses or the "experienced one-day" license fee. It's all so much easier when everyone has a racing license and BikeReg can automatically enforce category, age, and gender restrictions, and all I have to do is plug in license numbers and have the spreadsheet populate all of the rider information from the USAC database, which I may or may not have this year. I'm still thinking about putting on a 2-person time trial later in the summer, and then of course we'll have to make a decision on the Tour de La for late summer/fall.

Faster

Saturday Giro heading over the Bayou St. John bridge

It is starting to look like Spring. The Oak trees are pumping out pollen like there's no tomorrow, air-conditioners are sucking up electricity like crazy, and riders are coming out of the woodwork, or more accurately smart trainers. This morning I dumped a huge load of winter cycling clothing in the wash with the hope that at least some of the heavier things won't see the light of day, or in my case the light of the moon, until Fall. Wishful thinking, I'm sure, but there's always hope.

Saturday morning saw a good-sized group for the Giro, which resulted in a pretty fast ride out to Venetian Isles where, just for the record, the Chef bridge is still closed for an undetermined amount of time. That makes three closed bridges along a federal highway (Hwy 90) between New Orleans and Bay St. Louis. Anyway, the Giro provided a good workout last Saturday, and it was a pleasure to be riding in summer kit. We're still a month or so away from "dripping with sweat" season, which means that I'm still not using more than one water bottle, and I get home without sweat covering the inside of my glasses.

On Sunday there was a Mississippi ride leaving at 8 am from the West Harrison Ballpark. I didn't really know who was going to show up for that one, but was pleasantly surprised to see about a dozen on hand for the planned 67-mile ride. Aside from some of the usual suspects, we had Lisa, Todd H, and Kenny B along, and if there were any doubts that it would be an easy ride, they evaporated 30 seconds after we rolled out of the parking lot already trying to close a 30-second gap to Lisa who was not looking back. Actually it wasn't anything like race pace, but I'd say it was at least one notch faster than our usual rides over there. There was a touch of fog for the first hour that felt a little chilly for me, wearing summer kit, but as expected that soon burned off to reveal a partly cloudy sky that was about as good as it gets for riding. Since we had started off at a faster than normal pace, I was expecting a few casualties toward the end of the ride. I was not disappointed in that regard. Lisa positioned herself on the front for quite a long time, with me clinging to her wheel at a steady 23-24 mph, mostly into a light headwind. I had already started to dramatically limit the duration my pulls, if only to keep from letting the pace drop too much when my turns came up. After the ride I was thinking it had been a really good workout for me, and later saw that Strava was apparently in agreement, tagging the ride as "tough relative effort," whatever that means. For me, at least, it meant I could feel my quads for the next 24 hours as I methodically went through the refrigerator all afternoon.

This morning I was determined to make my Mellow Monday ride as easy as I could. Naturally it got a little fast here and there as usual, but I was contributing to that as little as possible.

For the past few weeks, no doubt because of the warmer weather and spring cyclist optimism, I've been getting inquiries about the Time Trial and Tour de La since nothing has been officially announced yet. It's looking like May 31 will be our best bet for the Time Trial, so unless I hear of some unexpected complication, I will submit the USAC event permit for that, probably tonight, despite the fact that we haven't checked with the police or swamp tours folks yet - situation normal. As for the Tour, we're going to have to think about what we can do to get some decent participation, and at this point I think we are realistically looking at a late summer or fall date. 

Spent a little time cleaning up the little Junior racing bike we'd bought for Danielle about 35 years ago. All the bearing grease is dried up and the chain was a mess of frozen links. I cleaned the chain and lubed it so it's kind of functional, but didn't dive into the bottom bracket or headset bearings. The old 24" tubulars are of course unusable, but remarkably still hold air. It's probably more just interesting wall art at this point, and perhaps a bit of a collector's item.

Is It Spring Yet?

Aftermath of the cold front on Lakeshore Drive, Tuesday morning

Upon our return from Georgia the weather here in New Orleans got even colder. Monday morning featured a 30 mph wind and a temperature in the 40s that kept virtually everyone, myself included, off the bike. My 1:00 pm it had warmed up to around 51° and the wind had died down to a mere 20 mph, so I somewhat reluctantly ventured out to the levee for a short and gusty ride. Just keeping the front wheel on the ground was a sufficient workout. I was spinning into the wind at 12-14 mph trying to stay in recovery mode territory, completing only 22 miles before calling it a day. 

At the plants think it's spring

Tuesday it was even colder, in the low 40s, and there was still a 10 mph wind blowing. I arrived at the museum of art promptly at 6 am to find the place deserted. Out on Lakeshore Drive, they had the eastern end closed off (of course I rode it anyway) because of all of the sand that had been washed onto the road from the prior day's north winds. I was of course going pretty slowly and so ended up with a bit over 30 miles. I think I saw only one other rider the entire time. I'm either dedicated or stupid, but either way I'm definitely on one end of the bell curve.

Coffee Shop
Shenanigans

By Wednesday morning the wind had finally died down, but it was still pretty cold for the WeMoRi. I headed out a bit overdressed for the 42° temperature, but at least I was comfy for the commute to the lakefront. There was a surprisingly decently sized group when I blended in along Marconi. The pace wasn't too insane, so I was able to do a little work here and there, and felt like it was a good workout. 

A few of the Tulane riders were on hand, so we stopped at French Truck on the Lafitte Greenway for coffee, which was nice except that it made the ride back home feel absolutely freezing. Charles had finally gotten his new Bianchi put together, but had to bail when it started making some kind of horrible noise that, like all horrible bike noises do, sounded like it was coming from the bottom bracket but actually wasn't. Turned out to be a bent rear wheel axle thing.

Friday morning coffee ride after Friendly Friday

Thursday was still chilly but just a touch warmer, and we had a pretty good group on hand, of which three continued out to Williams Blvd. Nothing fell off of Charles' bike that was now sporting his backup wheelset, so all was good.

Friendly Friday had around twenty riders on hand this morning, in no small part due to the 56° temperature, I suppose. Things remained relatively sedate until the Bayou St. John bridge, but even then it never got super fast or anything. By mid-day the temperature was up into the mid-70s, and the 10-day forecast isn't showing any morning temperatures lower than 59°, so perhaps most of the winter kit can begin its annual migration to the bottom of the drawer. I guess tomorrow will be a Giro Ride, and then on Sunday there's a ride over in Mississippi that I may try to make. 

On the home front I've almost got all of the retirement stuff lined up - TRSL and TIAA rollovers and RMDs and all - so that's good, I guess. I still need to get my income tax materials to Reggie/Connor. Maybe I can start actually thinking about dates for the TT championship, maybe team TT event, and possibly the Tour de La, all of which is going to be a few months later than usual this year for sure. At least I got the LAMBRA championship jerseys for the past two years into production at Voler, although that was not without its problems. For some unknown reason, a number of people did not receive the email from Voler that included the ordering link with the store credit. When I sent out a reminder, at least three or four people responded that they had never gotten the Voler email. I had Voler re-send to them and a couple others who had not completed their orders, but even then they did not get the emails. Maybe they had blocked Voler as spam or something? I eventually got the links from Voler and sent them myself to the people who had contacted me, and they received those as normal. Go figure.

I think we'll have a few people going to Sunny King in Anniston AL in three weeks since it's also the Southeast Conference championships. I'll probably register for the 50+ races in which I will surely be shelled quite early. I may try to do the Cheaha gran fondo in mid-May this year if the start align. We'll see.

Up at Northbeast

Last weekend I tagged along with four of the Tulane riders for a trip to north Georgia. It was our second trip to the Northbeast Cycling Classic, put on by the Piedmont cycling team, coached by Jamie Carney who would also be riding the 55+ masters race in which I would be racing 65+ (he finished 3rd, essentially half an hour ahead of me). I have to admit I was less than enthusiastic about doing this race because, after a nice long stretch of unseasonably warm weather, the forecast was looking a lot colder than my physiology likes. Of course, it's barely March, so I really shouldn't be complaining about upper 40s temperatures, but anyway, I am. Also, I am no fan of gravel riding, and neither is my neck. Still, I figured it would be a good workout and a nice change from another Giro Ride.

The group had managed to commandeer the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology department's 12-passenger van, so we were able to get all five people and bikes into it for the long drive to Cornelia, GA. They picked me up around 11:00 or maybe a little later (people had classes to attend), so we didn't arrive until 9 or 10, which was fine. The drive was uneventful, which was also nice. All four, Dylan, Josiah, Ben, and Liam would be riding the Collegiate Cat. 4/5 races. USAC recently changed from the A,B,C style collegiate categories to numeric ones like regular licenses have. They haven't revised the upgrade policy or anything, so it's all kind of a mystery to me, but it looks like the bottom line is that most collegiate races will have two races, a 1/2/3 race and a 4/5 race. This is actually a little better for the newer riders, I think.

So Saturday morning it was, of course, cold and dark when we arrived rather early at the school parking lot for the race. It was the same place we'd been last year, but the course itself was quite different. The start of the 6 mile circuit was a bit down the road from where we were parked, and it featured a fast downhill, an interminably (for me) long gravel climb, and then a very steep 0.6 mile climb to the finish. I probably would have loved it twenty years ago, in the summer. 

Some old guys

My race started at 10:00, after the Cat. 4/5 race and was mostly 55+ riders plus five or six 65+ riders. At the start I pulled off my knee-warmers and handed them to Ben. I was still shiverring a bit from the cold, but knew I'd warm up quickly. Fortunately, nobody attacked from the gun. The first half of the circuit was mostly just low rolling hills, almost flat, ending with a long and winding downhill. It would be the first fast downhill on the new bike for me, and combined with my still-shaky arms it felt a little sketchy once we got up over 40 mph, so I was staying near the back of the group. When we got to a straight section the speed got up to 47 mph, at which point a rider in front of my suddenly got a speed wobble. I dragged the brakes and moved over in case he lost it, but somehow he recovered, although it opened up a big gap. After the downhill there was a right turn, and then a mile later the gravel. I about made contact again by the time we hit the gravel, but by then I was pretty gassed, and as usual for such conditions was having what you might call exercise induced asthma, which always seems to happen when it's cold and dry and I am at my limit. So anyway, most of the group rode away from me a that point as I trudged through the gravel climb that had grades up to about 9%. Once back on the asphalt, there was a bit of downhill that petered out a kilometer before the end of the lap. The final climb was pretty steep, with a little bit above 10%. I definitely gave the Di2 derailleurs and the 30-tooth cog a workout. Most of the rest of the race was essentially a moderate time trial for me. I caught and passed a few people, finishing 4th out of the 5 65+ riders, for whatever that's worth. It was nonetheless a pretty intense and badly needed workout for me.

TTT Start

For two of the Tulane riders, Ben and Liam, this would be their first actual road race. Dylan was still coming back from a bout with Giardia, and Josiah was not really in shape yet. Ben and Liam were doing great and staying with the lead group, which was quite impressive. Unfortunately someone ahead of Liam kind of lost it in the gravel on one of the laps and clipped Liam's front wheel causing him to crash. Fortunately they were going pretty slow at the time, but unfortunately he went down on the drive side and bent the derailleur hanger. He limped to the start/finish where I was standing and had to DNF since the shifting was all screwed up. At least he hadn't shifted into the spokes and ripped the derailleur off the bike. We were able to bend it back into shape in time for the after noon team time trial. Ben finished 11th out of 35, about a minute off the lead but still in good company, which was pretty great. Dylan and Josiah finished 21 and 22, also pretty respectible on such a hard course.

For the afternoon time trial they decided to do the team TT. For the "B" group the finish time would be taken on the 2nd rider, so the plan was for Josiah to burn himself out first, followed by Dylan doing a suicide pull, after which Ben and Liam would finish it off. It went more or less to plan, although I think they were disappointed not to have made the top three (they were 5th). None of them had ever done a team TT before, so it was actually a pretty good result. We had a great dinner at a place called Kabobalicious in Clarksville where the owner gave us some of his special hot sauce once he found out we were from New Orleans.

Sunday morning it was slightly warmer for the 8:00 am Cat. 4/5 criterium that had 40 riders on the line. The course was a silky smooth asphalt rectangle with mostly wide turns around a huge high school. It was only about half a mile around, so I was expecting a lot of riders to get lapped. The TU guys lined up right in front, which was good because one rider attacked hard from the gun and ended up lapping the field. 

Josiah and Dylan hung in as long as they could, Ben was looking reasonably comfortable in the front group, especially considering it was his first ever criterium, and Liam, who was coming down with a cold, was holding his own near the back of the front group. When they got down to about five laps to go Ben managed to move up into about 5th wheel, which was looking perfect, and I was fully expecting him to finish in the top five. As they came around the final corner, however, a rider dive-bombed the turn on the inside and made contact with Ben's front wheel. It was a miracle that he didn't go down, but of course that took him totally out of contention for the sprint since it was maybe 150 meters from the corner to the finish line. He finished 13th out of 40, so still an excellent result, with Liam finishing just behind him at 16th. I think Josiah was pulled along with about half the field, placing 22nd with Dylan 25th. Although I wish we'd had more riders make the trip, it was still a great start to the road season for everyone.

With bad weather predicted for that night, it was good that we didn't have anyone in the 1/2/3 race so we could leave early enough that they could take showers before checkout time. We got back to New Orleans around sunset, and well before the cold front that eventually came through around 2 am. The dog was pretty nervous about the lightning and thunder, so we were up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night.  This morning the temperature was around 40° and there was a 30 mph north wind with much higher gusts. Although the streets had almost dried up by 6 am, I don't think anyone rode. Around noon the sun came out, and with the temperature up to around 50, I went ahead and ventured out, quite over-dressed as it turned out, for a short ride on the levee. The wind was still around 20 mph, so it was mostly a battle with the handlebar since there was a crosswind for much of that route. Despite having ridden Saturday's race mostly at my own pace, I could still feel it in my legs Monday morning. The next two mornings are going to be quite cold, so I don't really know how that's going to go attendance-wise, but at least the wind will have died down a bit. I will be so happy when it gets warm again and I can breathe normally.