Weekend in the Boondocks

I ran out the door early Saturday morning and got in a nice solo training ride while the gettin' was good. I had been volunteered to help with some interior contruction type work at the country home of one of The Wife's co-workers. This place is way, way out in the middle of nowhere, the nearest town being Mount Hermon, LA. I had been told that they needed to install some molding in the little guest house out back. The little guest house was built by someone who was apparently unfamiliar with the concept of a right angle. Fortunately, being from New Orleans, I'm not too uncomfortable dealing with fix-up jobs involving houses that are less than square, and I am entirely capable of compromise when it comes to this sort of thing. As it turned out, the molding was the easy part. Before that, I had to frame up two entirely non-standard closet doors using certain methods that ran afoul of some basic principles of pysics, including gravity. Then I had to install a bunch of panelling over pre-existing sheetrock on walls where the studs were obviously placed at random intervals. The owners thought it all looked wonderful when we were done. I was far less impressed and made them promise they would never divulge the name of the person who had done the work.

I had brought the bike with me, but Saturday night was a big storm, complete with a four-hour power outage and tornado warnings, and when I woke up just before dawn the road was still wet, the wind was gusting, and there was a light rain falling. Since that was my only window for a ride today, I was screwed. Naturally the weather improved tremendously while I was improvising new construction techniques and mumbling things like "nobody will notice this once it's all painted." Maybe I'll try and get out the door extra early tomorrow and log a few bonus miles. I could use them.

Haven't heard from GiVo today. She said she would stop driving around Birmingham AL before finishing the last leg Saturday morning to Athens for the Twilight. I see that one of her teammates finished 4th in the Pro, 1,2, Women's race, but I don't know if GiVo started or not.

Joe Martin is coming up. $80 entry fee? I'd have to come in 4th to break even. Sure would be fun though.

The Feds . . .

U.S. Post Office celebrates reopening of its main branch
04:18 PM CDT on Friday, April 28, 2006
WWLTV.com
The U.S. Postal Office’s main branch held a celebration Friday morning marking its reopening.
The post office said mail was being routed through Baton Rouge, which had added at least a day to delivery time. A representative for the post office said not only will mail service be quicker, but magazines will be delivered as well. The U.S Post Office said there were still problems getting mail to people that had moved. They also added that catalog deliveries would not resume until June 1.

Rather Bored

It's been relatively quiet at the office today, due in no small part to the fact that I'm the only one here, and although I've a bunch of items on my to-do list I'm feeling rather bored fumbling through our cumbersome online accounting reports and cranking out some tedious reports that nobody will ever pay any attention to whatsoever. This morning's ride was easy, as planned. I started solo a little bit early after I ran into Realdo. He turned around eventually but I picked up Charlie, and then on the way back we waited for the four or five guys who had started at the regular time to catch us.

So I think I'm going to build up a pair of training wheels. Standard fare, of course. 32-spoke, Open Pro, with a Campi rear hub and an old Campi Record front. By "old" I mean around 1980 or so. Isn't it interesting that the "old style" loose-bearing Campi hubs are still smooth after 20 years while the fancy-schmancy sealed-bearing ultralight cartridge hubs seem to self-destruct much sooner? I may go ahead and get a third cheaper rim and also rebuild the damaged wheel from my run-in with the truck, but that one will probably go on the commuter so that I can put the wheel I've been commuting on for the past few years back on the old Pennine where it belongs. It's been quite a few years since I built a wheel, but then building a regular 32-hole 3-cross wheel on a solid rim like the Open Pro is not exactly rocket-science and sometimes it seems practically therapeutic. Since people always say I need therapy, I guess that's good!

The "new" LAMBRA website is finally being properly referenced in the domain nameservers, so I added a couple of our sponsor advertisements during lunch. I think there is one or maybe a couple more sponsors, but I don't have their stuff yet.

Got a TM from Gina V about half an hour ago. She said she had still not gotten to Little Rock, AK. Long drive for someone who just escaped from a hospital bed. It's about ten hours from Little Rock to Athens. That would put her in there around 1 or 2 a.m., but hey, it's Athens Twilight and her race probably doesn't start until around 7 p.m.

What would you do?

Cool

A little bit of a cool front finally came through following yesterday's rainstorms, dropping this morning's temperature all the way down into the lower 60s! Now, yes, I know some people don't consider that to be "cool" by any stretch, but everything's relative. A few weeks from now I'll be waking to temperatures already around 80F and the 60s will be both a climatologic and cultural distant memory. The only fly in the ointment this morning was the brisk Northwest wind. Brisk enough, I guess, to dissuade more than a couple of the usual crowd from showing up. Since my regular "training" front wheel currently looks like a Pringles potato chip, I decided to put some rubber on the cool Speedcific / Nimble Spider front wheel that I'm buying from Kevin, so I mounted up a nice Michelin Pro that Ronnie had given me. It had a huge gash all the way through the casing right in the middle of the tread, but I had sewn in a boot a while ago, so it was time to try it out. No problems! Once I get my regular front wheel rebuilt, I'll have to put some proper rubber on the thing.

By the time we made it all the way out to the Ormond plantation turnaround there were only four of us left to battle the remaining 21 miles of crosswind. On the plus side, nobody had to ride in the gutter! We took the first few miles of the return trip pretty easy, but then Donald looked at his watch and asked Tim if he thought he could tow us back in at about 30 mph because he was running late for work. That was right about when Tim had to head home, of course. Donald and I picked up the pace a bit, but of course never threatened the 30 mph mark. It was a good ride anyway, and as an added benefit, I didn't get hit by any trucks today!

So it looks like Gina V won't be able to stop over in New Orleans on her way to the Athens Twilight. I got a TM from her yesterday telling me she was lying in a hospital bed. Apparently she had some sort of gastritis and had gotten pretty sick so they admitted her to run some tests and things that mostly didn't provide a solid answer. Anyway, she called last night to say that they had released her, so she was planning on hitting the road this morning for the long haul straight from AZ to Athens. Between crashes and illness, this year's racing season hasn't been kind to her so far.

I think I'll probably be the only one in the office tomorrow. Everyone else will either be out of town or at the first day of the Jazz Fest.

I Got Trucked!

It's been kind of a rough start to the day today. First I get hit by a car, then I get rained on.

When I peeked out the window this morning the sky was darker than usual but the streets were dry. Considering that it had rained last night, I was glad to see the streets weren't slick, so I headed out as usual. I guess I should have taken a few minutes to check the weather radar, but hey, I need to ride! So I rode out to the levee down Willow Street, past Leonidas where the five people were shot the other night, and arrived at the usual meeting spot right on time. Naturally nobody was there since they were all probably clever enough to have flipped on the Weather Channel. The skies looked ominous and there were faint flashes of lightning way off in the distance, but I though I might be able to squeeze in 20 miles before the rain started. A few miles out I saw Realdo on his way in, so I turned around. He said it was already starting to rain down the road. I decided the prudent thing to do at this point was to call it a day and head for the showers, so when we got to the parish line I split off down the levee to River Road at Oak Street. Just after the railroad tracks there's a really sketchy intersection where people coming upriver on River Road have to stop and make a left turn in order to cross the tracks and pick up River Road on the other side. They're always in a hurry and I'm used to seeing them run the stop sign there, so I 'm always careful. Well, this morning as I coming across the tracks a woman in a little car rolls through the stop sign and cuts the corner right in front of me, so I'm all the way over to the right and already pissed off when the big pickup truck behind her does the same thing. He's cut the corner so much that he's entirely in my lane but heading in the other direction and I have no place left to go so I bounce up against his front fender and I'm pounding fruitlessly on his door as I go down, still clipped in. Luckily I was probably going less than 10 mph at the time, but I was shocked that he was not stopping. I could hear him accelerating as I hit the ground and thought for a moment he was going to run, but he pulled over on the other side of the road finally, after rolling over my front wheel. So the front wheel looks like a taco chip, but otherwise I was pretty much undamaged. Some very light road rash on my leg and that's about it. The guy was very apologetic and gave me his contact info, so I guess we'll see if he will ever actually pay for the wheel. He offered that he knows Billy at GNO Cyclery, and seemed like a decent enough guy, so I called The Wife for extraction just as the rain started to get heavy. I wonder if you can get 36-hole rims any more! This was my old front wheel with a high-flange Campagnolo Nuevo Tipo hub from the 70s.

Having cut my morning ride short, and considering the rain, I took a quick shower so that I could get a ride to work with The Wife this morning. Right about the time we walked out the door the skies opened up into a torrential downpour - enough for some minor street flooding here and there. By the time I got into the car I was already soaking wet from trying to juggle an umbrella, my messenger bag, a cup of coffee and a Silca pump. "Why the pump?" you might ask. Well one of the folks at work is planning to go to the Jazz Fest this weekend and as anyone who has done it before knows, trying to drive to Jazz Fest is pure torture, so lots of people dust off their old bikes and ride there since it's in the middle of town. The Jazz Fest is probably the biggest event in town aside from Mardi Gras and attracts a lot of visitors and locals alike. Check out who will be there.

Summerrrrrrry

For once I didn't wake up late and actually arrived at the start of the Thursday levee ride a few minutes early. The air was thick, warm and humid, and with a high expected today in the upper 80s, it's definitely starting to feel like summer around here. I had planned to do a fairly hard workout this morning, but was seduced by the back of the pack where Donald was short-circuiting the rotation. Early on, I was back there when the pace ramped up into the upper 20s, and I just never got motivated enough to make the effort to get out into the wind and move up ahead of Donald in order to get back into the rotation. It pretty much stayed very fast all the way out, so it wasn't like I was soft-pedaling or anything. I don't think they missed me anyway. The ride back featured a lot more headwind, so I did a lot of work at the front, finally arriving back home feeling like I had gotten my money's worth.

I posted the results from the Mississippi Gran Prix stage race yesterday and so far there haven't been any serious complaints. I'll probably work out the LCCS rankings tomorrow. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be three weeks before the next good race, the Rocky Mount omnium up around Shreveport. This race is put together with a lot of help from Russ Walker. He's the guy with "Big Daddy" printed on the back of his shorts who kicked our butts last weekend, winning the RR and Crit and finishing only a couple of seconds out of first in the TT. His e-mail ID starts with "udropped." The Tour de Louisiane is scheduled for July 1 this year and I think the only really "iffy" thing that's still not nailed down is the parking for the Road Race since we're using a new course this year. Wherever we can get enough parking will probably be where the start/finish is, so it's kind of important. Keith went out there to scout things out last week.

The LAMBRA website should be moving from one server to another in the next day or so. It should be completely transparent to everyone except me. Once the DNS changes take effect I'll need to work on the home page a bit to add the advertisements that will be helping to pay for the web hosting costs.

Anyway, I should get back to work now. Lots to paperwork do right now. Lobbying reports are due, need to revise my position description, we're supposed to do a complete new physical inventory, etc., etc. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Oh yeah, I think Gina V is supposed to swing through the Crescent City on Thursday en route to Charlotte or Atlanta or something. I think she'll be spending the night at the house, so hopefully she'll have time to go out for a ride in the morning to catch me up with all of the women's NRC race series scuttlebut.

Day 2 in Brookhaven

Unlike last year, it was already warm when we arrived at the community college where the criterium was being held. The biggest difference for me, though, wasn't the temperature; it was the fact that, being in 10th place on GC, I didn't feel much pressure at all. My legs felt surprisingly good, so I figured I would just go for a good stage placing today and not worry much about GC at all. I got a fast start, clipping in quickly and making the first turn near the front. Russ W pushed the pace for the first couple of laps for some reason, but after that it settled down into a fairly typical masters criterium. Compared with last year, when I was trying to defend a top-three spot on GC, it felt relatively easy. Perhaps it was, or perhaps it was just that I spent less time at the front. There was a hot spot at the mid-way point of the 55-minute criterium, and although I wasn't interested in picking up the few seconds that were up for grabs, I made sure I stayed near the front. I was expecting an attack. What happened wasn't really an attack, but a big and dangerous gap did open that required a concerted effort to close. The whole race was nearly lost at that point when a small group got away for most of a lap, but it was pulled back by the time we got to the hill near the finish. I thought that overall the race was less aggressive than I had expected, and so I arrived at the 4-laps-to-go mark with surprisingly fresh legs. The last few laps got faster, of couse, and every time the pace slowed a bit riders would swarm up from behind, each trying to move into a better position. Half-way through the last lap I was not in a very great spot, but then on the second-to-last turn there was some room on the inside and I swung through, emerging on the fifth or sixth wheel, just behind Jay S. Coming into the finish of this course there is a nice little climb that tops out about 150 meters before the finish. For all practical purposes the sprint starts at the bottom of the climb. Half-way up, Jay started to fade a little and I immediately heard wheels coming up on my left, against the fence. I saw a spot of daylight and got onto one of the wheels moving forward. I think it might have been Russ W. or maybe the person on his wheel. Keith was right behind me, as I was to learn later. Anyway, it was a fun last lap and I managed to get across in 4th place with Keith right on my wheel. Definitely a better-than-expected result for me. When the dust cleared, I was still in 10th place on GC, thanks to my mediocre time trial, but the good news was that I was starting to feel that old excitement that keeps me racing year after year. Charlie D. finished with the pack and kept his 9th place on GC. Not sure where Keith ended up on the overall, though. In fact, I'm not exactly sure who won the master's, so I guess I'll wait until I see the full results.

The Cat. 1,2,3 race was pretty interesting and somewhat controversial. Early in the race a break went off the front. It later split into two groups, with what was left of the pack chasing about 30 seconds back. Before the break split a couple of guys made a long and difficult bridge up to the break. That was pretty impressive because these guys were going fast. As the 75-minute race wore on, the front break dwindled to only three riders while the second group held its own. The pack pretty much gave up eventually and the lead break lapped them. Then, just to make sure the officials were as confused as possible, the second group caught the pack, lapping them on their last lap, so that they ended up essentially sprinting into the back of the pack. Along the way one rider in the lapped pack dropped back in order to help one of his teammates in one of the breaks. I think he or they got penalized for that. It was a pretty good race to watch. I'm sure I'll get the full results tomorrow for posting to the website(s). The winner on GC: Mike Olheiser , winner of this year's Rouge-Roubaix, from the Memphis Motor Werks team. The Herring Gas guys worked hard and almost pulled off the win, but not quite this time. Brooks was tired by happy to have finished with the pack today.

The Cat. 4 race went pretty well for Jason, though I don't remember exactly where he placed. Likewise, we had a couple of guys in the Cat. 5 race who finished near the top.

Although I had driven up to the race alone, I drove back with the car packed to the gills. Both Brooks B. and George H. needed rides back to New Orleans, so we put two bikes on the roof, and loaded up the old Volvo with a bike case and bike, stationary trainer, about ten wheels, six or seven bags, pumps, etc., somehow salvaging enough space to put squeeze in three people too. For some reason I just love travelling like this.

MS Gran Prix, Day 1

Running low on battery here and forgot the charger at home, so this will be brief. The Road Race had a lot of horsepower in it today, but many were riding defensively since they knew the afternoon Time Trial would completely reshuffle the results. There were a number of strong attacks, but nothing was sustained long enough and there were always enough people back in the pack to chase them down, so at the end it came down to a big pack sprint. The last few miles have a few climbs and the finish 500m is mostly uphill, so things broke up a bit. About a kilo before the finish there was a crash in front of me that required a lot of body english to avoid. Somebody crossed wheels with Jay S and went down right in front of me, but luckily I was able to get around him on the left. Shortly after that I Jaro came blasting up the right side, partly in the gravel, as the sprint started to wind up. He ended up 3rd! There were a lot of fresh legs that showed up for the sprint. I ended up 6th, I think, so pack time and no bonus, however the climb created enough of a split that most of the back part of the pack didn't get the same time as the top dozen or so. The evening TT didn't go well for me at all, not that I was too surprised. I did a 9:14 for the 4 miler, but my 30-second man caught me. I can't say that I put 100% into it, really, but even if I had I probably would have picked up only a couple of places. The top time of the day was in the Cat. 1,2,3 race and was an 8:02 by Bain Foote, so basically there were a few people who took over a minute out of me in 4 miles. I think I was around 12th or so in the TT. On GC, I'm at 10th going in to the circuit race tomorrow. Tomorrow's circuit race should be pretty interesting because there are a few people in the 2nd through 5th place spots that are really close. That means that the hot spot at the mid-way point will be hotly contested, as will the finish of course. I really don't have much of a game plan other than to maybe support Charlie who is in 9th if he is looking good. I'm not too interested in trying to defend 10th place, so maybe I'll just lay it all on the line and see if I can make something happen. We'll just have to wait and see how the legs are in the morning.

Nonstop

I walked out the basement door into the humid morning air and rode off past the bags of garbage that were supposed to be picked up on Wednesday but still line the streets. Bad enough that nearly seven months after Katrina we're still on a once-a-week garbage pickup schedule, but since the Corps of Engineers handed duties over to the city's contractors a month or so ago they haven't managed to do even that. Two houses down from mine the water leak that started shortly after the hurricane has evolved into a small stream now, gurgling up from around the water meter and feeding a large puddle that extends half a block to the storm drain. The water leak that was fixed in front of my house a month ago still awaits asphalt and in the meantime creates a cloud of dust every time a car goes by. We have an election tomorrow (hope everyone who's racing remembered to vote absentee) that should be pretty interesting. For the first time since the 70s I think there are more white candidates than black, which seems to be very upsetting to some people. There will be a lawsuit if the "wrong" person wins. Anyway, there will certainly be a run-off anyway so it won't be settled for a while yet. In the last week, they've all pretty much resorted to calling each other liars as usual. I had five political messages on the answering machine when I got home, and at least three more called while I was eating dinner.

I was surprised to find so many people on the Friday training ride today. I guess we had about a dozen guys today, and for the most part everyone was happy to cruise along at around 21 mph. It was pretty much just the ride I was looking for. There was a lot going on at work and so I was going nonstop all day. Just when I had the day all planned out, I get an email that Senator Landrieu's staff wants some photos of Tulane Hospital that show the effects of the hurricane for a supplemental appropriations bill we're trying to get approved, so I spent quite a bit of time tracking down someone who could give me something on short notice. Finally, the COO tried to email me a 25 mb PowerPoint presentation that was just a bunch of rather low-resolution photos. Her mail server, however, kept choking on the file size, so I ended up walking over there in a pouring rainstorm with my thumbdrive. After all that, I looked at the pictures and they were pretty bad. On my morning ride I found that my rear brake wasn't releasing very well. I knew what the problem was. Last summer the plastic covering the cable housing had broken and sweat was getting in there and making a mess. So I had to run over to The Bicycle Connection to pick up a new housing and a big bottle of HammerGel orange (yum!). I thought it would be quicker to go to Todd's shop out in Metairie since it's just off of the interstate. Traffic was really heavy, though, and it took forever. Anyway, at least I have a fully functional rear brake now. While I was at the shop I mentioned that I wanted to get a new pair of official Look cleats with the teflon inserts. The ones I'm using now on my new shoes are some off-brand that don't have that solid feeling that the Look ones do when I clip in. They also float a lot more freely which I find rather uncomfortable. Anyway, Todd had a pair lying around on the workbench and handed them to me, but when I got home I discovered that the rectangular metal washers holding my off-brand ones on were too long for the new cleats and I didn't want to take the old ones off of my old shoes, so I guess I'll deal with that later.

I'll be hitting the road in the Volvo around 5:30 tomorrow morning for the 2-hour drive up to the Mississippi Gran Prix stage race. It looks like the weather will be good, so it should be fun even though I'll probably get my lunch eaten. I think we will have a reasonable number of riders from the club for this one, so that will be nice. Wish me luck. I'll need it.

Better. Not Great, but Better

As promised, I stayed off the bike yesterday and slept late. As NOT promised, I had gone out Monday afternoon for an easy "sightseeing" ride around Audubon Park - something I had not done in a long time. On Spring and Summer evenings, the park's 1.8 mile loop, which includes a bike lane, is usually crowded with people running, walking, rollerblading, riding, walking dogs, etc. It's a nice place for an easy ride and a very dangerous place for training. Luckily I was doing the former and not the latter. Right away I ran into Rob K who was out doing the same thing, so we rode together, chatting and dodging stray children and dogs, until dusk. It was really quite relaxing. I need to do this more often.

So this morning I went out to meet the levee ride, arriving at just the last moment. My legs were feeling better today, although I feel I'm a far cry from that rare feeling of being really "in shape." I guess we must have had a light tailwind on the way out today because it stayed pretty fast but didn't feel all that hard, although there were a couple of times when I had to close some unexpected gaps at unexpected speeds. For the most part, though, it was fairly steady. Right after the turnaround, while we were still going pretty slowly, Brady joined in, having missed the group by just a minute or so. He said he could see us up the road and was making up ground at first, but when we really started to roll we pulled away. Been there, done that! I was thinking that the ride back would be easier, but in fact it proved to be harder. At least that's how it felt to me. For one thing, there was a light headwind, and for another, the number of people pulling was smaller. Every time someone at the front would surge the pace up by a couple mph, another person would drop out of the rotation and start sitting on in the back, so the rotation kept dwindling until finally the pace slacked off a bit when we got closer to the end. Then, of course, it picked up again as if it was the finish of a race because Rob just couldn't let Howard go!

So I still need to register for the Mississippi Gran Prix this weekend and am a little disappointed that my plea to the email list for a ride drew no responses. I guess I'll have to resort to the telephone. Damn, I hate the telephone! At least Charlie has reserved a few rooms for the team already and the club's reimbursing entry fees for this one. Anyway, I guess I'm in for a good beating this weekend, especially in the 4 mile time trial for which I am woefully unprepared, as usual. A few of the guys are going up Friday afternoon because there's a Crit for the Cat. 1,2,3 field only that night that is part of the stage race. I'd rather make the 2-hour drive up there Saturday morning, though, so I'll have Friday night to get my act together.

Draggin' Arse

I'm guessing I should have gone easier on Monday because today I felt like I was dragging an anchor on the morning training ride. Then again, maybe it's just all of that Easter candy that I can't seem to walk past without sampling.

There was a pretty big group up on the levee today, and despite the fog, which was surprisingly thick in some spots, the pace was fairly fast. Early on I recognized that I was not firing on all cylinders, so I dropped to the back of the long line to sit in the draft of VJ who was on his TT bike trying to stay out of trouble. It wasn't entirely relaxing because the combination of a long string of riders and the fog made for a choppy pace, but it was OK.

On the way out after one of the many "rider up" calls from up front I saw Howard come past the group from the opposite direction, preparing to make a U-turn so he could join the group. The pace at the time was maybe 25 mph, and when he did VJ and Tim eased up a bit to help him latch on. As I coasted past VJ, I looked up to see the gap between the back of the group and me growing at an alarming rate. Somebody had just put the hammer down and just as Howard was making his turn, the group accelerated to around 30 mph. Geez! Alarm bells started going off in my head. So I try to accelerate gradually to close the gap and look down at the computer to see 28 mph on the screen. Then I look up to see that I'm still losing ground. Behind me, Tim, VJ and Howard are just getting organized. There's no way I'm going to make this bridge on my own, so I ease up a bit to wait for help. Just as I do, the trio comes blasting past me about 5 mph faster and I miss the draft. I had to get out of the saddle, sprint, and then bury myself for a while at 31 mph before I finally caught. Well, after that it was a cinch I wasn't going to be showing myself at the front! For the rest of the ride the pace would occasionally surge up into the 30s, usually when Howard would hit the front. I was staying near the back putting in quite enough effort just dealing with the erratic pace back there. So anyway, I'm thinking tomorrow should be an easy day for me because something is definitely not right.

One More Time -- With Pain

Riding out to meet the Sunday Giro ride this morning I was figuring it would be a nice moderate Easter Sunday pace.

Not even close.

The group was significantly smaller than usual, but it didn't seem to matter much. The pace was fast both coming and going, and unlike yesterday, there was significant droppage. At one point we're flying down Chef Highway at 28-30 mph with maybe a dozen guys rotating at the front and the rest sitting on. I finally decide to drop back and take a break and look over to see Warren S. I haven't seen him on a group ride in a long time. Apparently he just finished doing Ironman Arizona. He's rolling along in the paceline without showing much discomfort, which wouldn't ordinarily be such a big deal except that he's had a couple of heart attacks so far and I think probably coronary bypass surgery. His cardiologist, Steve R., was also in the pack today. Sweet, eh? So after the turnaround I'm thinking "it's got to slow down now."

Wrong again.

By the time I sprint up the Seabrook Bridge near the end of the ride, my legs are toast. I'm hoping that old saying about "if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger" will prove to be correct! All I can say is that as far as I could tell, pretty much everyone was wasted by the time we finished. I rode home with Brett R. at like 16 mph and had to stand to get over the overpasses without falling over.

Right after I got home we had to drive up to Baton Rouge to visit the mother in law. I pretty much felt like a Presbyterian in a Synagogue the whole time. They wanted to take her out to the Zoo. Let's just say it was a long day. At least there's one silver lining. Thanks to Katrina, I don't have to stay up late tonight to do my taxes because we have all been granted an automatic extension! I wasn't going to take it, but I'm way too tired for math right now, even if TurboTax is looking over my shoulder.

So I'll leave you with a little video of Tim R from Saturday's Giro ride that I took with my el cheapo camera.

The Saturday Giro

There was a big group on Lakeshore Drive for this morning's Giro Ride, and once we got over the bridge and onto Hayne Boulevard, the pace picked up quickly. Somewhere on the way out I think someone flatted toward the back, but with a group this size and the adrenelin flowing freely the guys at the front, who were motoring along at around 30 mph at the time, didn't even hesitate. In fact, I doubt they even heard about. The Chef Highway stretch was fast and, as usual, turned into a nice paceline for a while until the number of people in the rotation started to dwindle. There was a very long drag race leading up to the turnaround that got us up to around 36 mph. There were a few little attacks leading up to it that I figured wouldn't make it, but eventually I went with one of them, only to hear the sound of fast moving wheels coming up on my right. Yeah, I got streamed. John R. came by and told me to get on his wheel and we made up a little ground, but it was really too late by then.

Although the pace slowed down for a while after the turnaround, it picked up again and stayed pretty fast all the way back. After sprinting up the last bridge, I was pretty wasted, but it was a good training ride for sure. One thing that was kind of surprising was how many people survived in the pack to the end. Often the size of the group drops a lot as the ride goes on, but today it seemed like we ended up with almost as many people as we started with. Probably around 40 riders - maybe a few more than that. So today I brought the little camera along. Not too many pictures came out, but anyway the first one up there is just as the group is rolling out on Lakeshore Drive. The second one is on the way back riding down Hayne Blvd. with the Lake Pontchartrain levee on the right.

In the afternoon today I replaced a few of the plants around the house that died after the hurricane. We had gone to Banting's Nursery yesterday, coming home with over $200 of plants, most of which we planted in front of The Mom's apartment house since we had promised her that we would take care of it. (The flooding was about four feet there and so pretty much all of the decorative plants and all of the magnolia trees were killed.) Today while I was planting Camelias under the Oak tree out front, The Wife and her sister took off for a bike ride. The Sister in Law probably rides 25 miles a year, most of which were today. Naturally, The Wife took her all the way out to City Park where she promptly crashed on a sandy turn. Neither had brought cell phones, so they had to ride back. When they arrived, she said the thought she must have dislocated her elbow. I suspected she had broken the end of it, but I guess she was trying to stay optimistic about it so I didn't push it. Instead, we headed over to the ER at Lakeside Hospital. The ER waiting room was really quite nice and there were only a couple of people there, so she was in and out in maybe an hour and a half. The verdict on the elbow: broken. Needs to find an orthopedist now.

Storm Damage

Apparently The Daughter didn't think we would want to know last night when it all happened.

The usual Friday morning training ride was much longer and faster today because many businesses and most all schools, are closed today for Good Friday. The group was rolling pretty fast most of the way today, and when we got to the usual turnaround, most of the guys decided to continue on another five miles or so to "the dip." When I finally got home I fired up the computer to check my email and the first thing that came up was the "Daily Iowan" with a headline about tornados having wiped out a lot of Iowa City. I called The Daughter, but of course didn't get an answer. Finally, she called back. Last night around 8:30 or so, just as she was walking into the Rec Center to work out, the tornado warning sirens went off. Everyone in the Rec Center was herded into the locker rooms where they were to stay for the next couple of hours as at least one tornado ripped through Iowa City. She was pissed off that they wouldn't let them work out while they were there. Luckily, nobody in area around the university was badly injured, which was really quite amazing considering the damage. A number of frat and sorority houses were heavily damaged and the big old church that we have occasionally attended had most of the roof ripped off and one wall collapsed. There were about 80 people in the church at the time, but they had all taken shelter in the basement when the sirens went off. Flashbacks from The Wizard of Oz. The Daughter's house was spared any damage, luckily, but it was damned close! There are some amazing photos of the storm damage in the local newspaper website. Hurricanes, tornados, floods - it's been an interesting year. The Daughter's coach sent out the following email this morning:

Hello Everyone,
Just wanted to update all of you in case any of you saw the damage we sustained last night. Last night, Iowa City was hit by three consecutive tornadoes somewhere between the hours of 8:20pm and 10:00pm. The first in many years that have even come close to Iowa City. Fortunately for us, all of the girls are fine (thank God for cell phones!) and it seems other than being a little frightened, we are all ok. The campus has sustained quite a bit of damage across the river. Iowa has cancelled class today in order to clean up the debris that is blocking the roads. It seems that at least one of the three tornadoes was an F3 and we feel very lucky that none of us were in harm's way. All of the girls were extremely responsible and stayed in
basements, bathtubs, under tables wherever they could and checked in with me to make sure we had all been accounted for. It was a crazy ordeal to say the least but we wanted you to know that the sun is shining again and we are all fine! It will be a while before the campus returns to normal but never fear, the Field house is still standing strong!!!! Please call if you have questions or concerns. Have a great day!

Larissa

Meanwhile, way down here in the crescent city, the weather is great. We could use a little rain, but otherwise the morning temperatures have been in the low 60s with highs around 80. I'll probably do the Giro ride tomorrow, and today I have a lot of errands on my to-do list. Maybe I'll actually do one or two of them.

Running Loose

It's still a struggle for me to get up in the dark and push myself out the door to meet the 6:15 am training ride, but I know that in a few weeks there will be more light at 6:00 and consequently I'll be at least slightly more awake, so I just have to hang on for a little while longer. Today, though, I had an early morning meeting on the calendar and knew I wouldn't be able to do the whole ride, so I made sure I was on time. After all, I am trying to get back in shape all in one week. Today, it showed. I started out feeling a little sluggish and by the time I got back home I was just plain tired. It turned out to be a good workout, though. Even though I had to bail out early, at the dip, Brady and Donald both turned around there too, so the ride back was definitely within the "training effect" range - probably much better than if I had ridden back alone. Brady and I are planning to meet over lunch next week to talk about what we might do about a weekday evening training race series. In fact, yesterday I sent the lambra-racing list a note with a link to the Tuesday Night Worlds in St. Louis, thanks to Dan at Bike Drool. It sure would be great is someone around here would promote something like that.

Today on my commute to work I had an unexpected "incident." This is the kind of thing that probably doesn't happen in most places, but around downtown New Orleans it isn't quite as surprising as you might think. So here I am, having just come down the Broad Street Overpass, enjoying the momentum and soft-pedaling the couple of blocks to the stop light at Tulane Avenue. Out of the corner of my eye I see someone sitting on the bench at the bus stop, which is just part of the normal inner-city scenery across the street from the Parish Prison and Criminal Courts Building, both of which are still not back in business since the hurricane. As I approach, the enormous woman spots me and suddenly jumps up off of the bench and starts screaming something at me. She sounds really angry, as if I had just snatched a Big Mac and order of Fries out of her chubby little hands. She's standing in the middle of the lane and is screaming something like "Get off dat bike. Gimme dat bike sos I can ride it." Apparently she has mistaken me for a Liberal Democrat. I ease over to the left to make a little more room between me and this unrestrained mental case, and as I go by she lunges her 350 pound self toward me. If I'd been close enough, I'm sure she would have taken me down. As I passed I got this mental picture of her huge ass perched on my little bike. Yeeech! Anyway, just so you know, since Charity Hospital has been closed down, there are a lot of un-medicated mental cases like her running loose around here, especially since Houston figured out what was happening to their crime and school achievement statistics and started pushing them out. Just as an update, all of the hospitals in the area that are open, including Tulane's, are really struggling. Pretty much all of the patients they are seeing in the emergency rooms have no way to pay, so they are ending up filling their beds with indigent patients. It's kind of hard to break even in the hospital business if you're doing it all for free. In fact Tulane hospital, which is actually owned by HCA and is a for-profit hospital, has apparently just decided to close down DePaul hospital, which is where they have been doing all of their psychiatric work. I hear that the hospital is losing around $4M a month right now, and the situation is similar at most of the other hospitals. Things are still pretty tough around here. On a brighter note, the level of activity downtown seems to be increasing steadily.

Long Levee Day

Last night around 10 p.m. I decided it was time to change out those old worn out chainrings, chain, cassette and jockey wheels for the new stuff. Everything went on without a problem, and after tightening up the headset, again, I was looking forward to trying it out in the morning.

I jumped out of bed this morning knowing I was going to be late for the long levee ride. I seem to be having a problem dealing with the early morning darkness since we made the switch to daylight savings time. Basically, I went from being asleep to time-trialing in the span of maybe ten minutes, sprinting up the levee and onto the bike path to begin the chase. Luckily, the group was still in warm-up mode and I had them in sight after only a mile or two. I was able to tuck into the draft soon after the playground for a little recovery before things got faster -- which they did, of course. Soon after the dip the group got much smaller for some reason and I figured that a lot of people must have turned around early. I think the real culprit was a flat that those of us nearer the front didn't know about, though, because after we turned around we ran into most of the group coming the other way. The return trip was relatively civilized until the last six or seven miles when the pace ramped up and the group split a couple of times. I ended up having to make a solo bridge up to a small break, after which I never saw most of the pack again.

I was glad last night to receive an Excel file from last weekend's race promoter that looked real good. I made it into an html file and uploaded the results to the website, sending out an email about it shortly after 9 p.m. Within the hour the emails started coming in about errors. Most were relatively minor. A number of people had the wrong club listed because I had used a lookup table linked to the USCF database and so whenever there was an incorrect USCF number (there always are a few typos) it matched up to the wrong club. There was also one or two incorrect or missing placings, one of which I didn't get until tonight, but anyway I should have it all corrected some time tomorrow so that I can start working on the LCCS rankings.

The weather has been pretty nice with morning temperatures in the low-mid 60s, and even during the day it's felt pretty nice. I even went out after work and put in another hour on the levee.

So it was a good day on the bike.

Anticipation

When I finally arrived back home yesterday night there was a box waiting for me. I had ordered a bunch of 9-speed drivetrain parts and, amazingly, they had arrived. On time and under budget. So although I didn't stay up all night rebuilding the bike, I'm already anticipating the smooth feel of fresh chainrings against a fresh chain, cassette and jockey wheels. The balky shifter and cobbled together rear wheel will have to be next, but after shelling out probably $1,200 for the last trip to Iowa it may have to wait a little bit. (Since a balance beam routine is limited to 90 seconds, that works out to about $800 per minute. ) I should probably also be thinking about replacing handlebars and stem, especially after watching Hincapie bite the dust at Paris-Roubaix yesterday. BTW, if, like me, you didn't see it on TV, there's a nice video clip on eurosport.com that shows the crash, the railroad crossing incident, and the finish.

I've already gotten a couple of warnings about the results problems at last weekend's Tour le Fleur, so I'm anticipating that I'll have trouble getting the LCCS points updated for that one. So far, no results have been sent out. Apparently most of the final results were still not done hours after the last race ended and so most people went home without knowing their final omnium placings. My guess is that we won't have all of the necessary 12 places for the Cat. 1,2 and Cat. 3 riders since they all rode together. Likewise the Master 35+ and 45+. Last year at this race I think we never got adequate results for the Cat. 4 or Cat. 5 race and so never awarded any LCCS points for it at all. Luckily (I guess) we don't use the omnium placings, just the individual race placings. Anyway, it will be interesting and there will be some unhappy campers now that the importance of LCCS points seems to be right on par with food and shelter.

Despite an early meeting at work this morning I did get myself out on the bike for about an hour,most of it alone until Dan and ultimately Richard H showed up. I felt like I hadn't been on a bike in a week, which isn't all that far from the truth. Man, when you start taking the weekends away from a weekend athlete, it really sucks. I was surprised by how cool it was, too. I am definitely ready to put the arm-warmers away for the summer at this point. Looks like George Hincapie has nothing to anticipate right now except surgery to fix his broken shoulder. Sunday was certainly a day in hell for Discovery!

So today there is a whole crew of people outside my window at the office putting on a new roof surface. I think one or two of them speak English as a native language. The office smells like melted tar and there's lots of noise. Every now and then it sounds like someone drops a ton of bricks on the roof over my head.

Homeward

I'm sitting in the Cedar Rapids airport waiting for my flight back to New Orleans. What an interesting weekend. Paris-Roubaix did not fail to deliver its usual drama. A surprise victory, Hincapie on the ground with a broken steerer and perhaps collarbone, Boonen crossing in 5th but getting 2nd because riders ahead slipped through a train crossing. On the home front, Realdo won the Tour le Fleur criterium yesterday, but I don't know any of the details. Last night's northwestern NCAA regionals was great to watch, but our three girls from University of Iowa, including The Daughter, didn't make it onto the podium. The competition was definitely up a notch from last year. At other Regionals this weekend there were lots of other upsets. Not a single team from California qualified for Nationals - both Stanford and UCLA, each of which has multiple Olympians on the team, missed the mark. Out of maybe a dozen teams that qualify for Nationals, five of them are from the SEC (yes, LSU qualified). It will be a very interesting Nationals meet this year.

The weather here in Iowa is marvelous today. I wish I was on my bike, but it won't happen today. Another weekend off the bike. What's that so far this year? Four? I sure do need a few solid weeks in a row at this point.

Aimless in Ames

The fat lady was on the only exercise bike, pedals barely turning, intently reading a book and sipping water. It was 6:30 am and aside from the fat lady there were a few other people in the hotel "fitness center." Like me, each was wearing a college T-shirt. It was practically a college gymnastics parents' convention. A couple of minutes after I arrived, the fat lady thankfully put away her book, lifted herself from the exercise bike, strapped on her water bottle holder and split. The bike was mine. Both of the rubber toe straps were lying on the floor. I suppose her fat feet wouldn't fit into them. So, once I put them back onto the pedals I was able to get in 45 minutes without anyone glaring at me for bike time. Better than nothing, I guess.

The meet isn't until 6 pm tonight, but checkout time is noon. It's still in the 30s outside. What to do? Drove over to the Hi-Vee grocery store with The Daughter. I got a scone and coffee at the Starbucks, she got yogurt and fruit. At least the fog has lifted and the skies today are clear. The meet tonight will probably not end until 10 pm, then we'll have to make the 2-hour drive back to Iowa City for another night in a hotel room before catching a flight out Sunday morning.

Yesterday we spent two or three hours at the gym watching practice sessons. Last night we went to a really good Italian restaurant on Main Street that, interestingly, had a few items on the menu with the word "Cajun" in them. An Italian restaurant in Ames, Iowa with something like "Cajun pasta." Go figure. Anyway I had something called a "crock pizza" which was quite good. The Guiness Stout was pretty good too.

Wish I had my bike.

Change of Scenery

Up at 4:15 a.m. this morning for an early flight to Memphis and a quick walk to another terminal for another plane to Minneapolis. We had enough time in Minneapolis for an early lunch before getting on the much smaller airplane for the last hop to Cedar Rapids where The Wife got a free double upgrade on the rental car so that I'm not stuck driving some huge Mercury that was obviously designed for the average NFL linebacker. Yecch!

So at least we arrived in Iowa City early enough for a visit to the hotel exercise room. It just amazes me the money and technology that must go into building these ridiculous exercise "bikes." The thing is designed so that 100% of your body weight rests directly on the very joints you are using, namely your hips. After half an hour, dripping sweat, my hips hurt enough that I have to hold myself up above the seat with my arms. What a pain in the ass. Literally. So I got in 45 minutes of moderate exercise and major sweating. At least the hotel has free high speed internet, so while The Wife and The Daughter are out roaming around the local shopping mall buying something that they didn't know they needed until today. I'm just glad I'm not dragging along behind them bored out of my mind.

Alone Again . . . Naturally.

After being off the bike Monday and not riding Tuesday morning, I made sure to get out of the office and hustle back to the house yesterday after work so I could ride out to the lakefront for the first Tuesday training race. As usual, I hit Lakeshore Drive a couple of minutes late, so I continued on expecting to eventually see the group coming the other way. I didn't. I was alone. The weather was perfect. There was little traffic except around the Elysian Fields traffic circle where the Corps of Engineers debris collection people were checking in at the end of the day, parking their pickup trucks anywhere they felt like it. I kept thinking that there must be someone else out there I could ride with. There wasn't. So I got in a couple of hours on the bike, which was good. I don't get it, though. Do the local riders think that the weekend Giro ride is really going to get them in shape for racing? Maybe it's just that the only reason they ever enter races is to justify their training, and it's actually the training they like. Anyway, if I could find the time and energy to actually promote a Tuesday night race series, I would, but as it is I'm challenged just to get myself out there by 6 p.m. Damn, we need a race promoter around here. It would be so easy.

I headed out to the morning levee ride today a bit late. As usual I'm having trouble adjusting to the darker mornings since we switched to DST last week. Luckily, just as I was coming up the ramp to the bike path, Realdo was cruising by in the same direction. I rode alongside him for a while and soon we could see the group about a minute up the road. As the pace picked up, I slipped back onto his wheel and he gradually ramped it up to 25 - 27 mph until we caught. He had to turn around and head home right after we closed, though. The ride was good, though. Nice pace, especially once Tim rolled off the front about 20 seconds and we started to chase.

Guess I won't be able to ride tomorrow - 6:20 a.m. flight to Cedar Rapids by way of Memphis and Minneapolis, then a rental car to Iowa City for the night and a two-hour drive to Ames the next morning. All I can do is hope for a working hotel exercise bike.

Damn I hate those things.

Sunday Monday Tuesday

Yeah, I've been pretty tied up lately, so here's the Reader's Digest recap:

Sunday
Sunday began with fun and ended with work. After Saturday's local training race, I was excited to be heading across the lake for my first ride in the country in quite a while. It was already comfortably warm when I met up with Charlie and Kevin at the Morning Call at the relatively civilized hour of 8 a.m. DST. Once on the causeway we noticed there was no traffic coming the other way. As it turned out, the third car this month and the second in a week had plunged over the side and into the lake. This time the driver was rescued. It has been suggested that this is indicative post-Katrina stress and that people are having trouble keeping their minds on what they're doing.

There was a group of six waiting for us on the other side for a planned 60-mile training ride. I was up for a moderately hard ride and was trying to ignore the fact that the plastic POS that serves as a poor excuse for a locknut on my rear wheel had broken once again and was being held in place, more or less, by a couple of rubber bands cut from an old inner tube. We headed out around 9 with a nice little tailwind to ride what has become our "standard" weekend route. Although I could definitely feel Saturday's training race still in my legs, I felt pretty good and was particularly enjoying the little climbs along the route. It was a bit frustrating that we had a few mechanical and other issues that broke up the ride more than I would have liked, but such is the nature of group rides.

I had only a few hours after returning home before I had to get dressed up and head downtown to the Marriott for the start of a 2-day Katrina Forum organized by the Board of Regents. I wrote this on Monday morning while sitting in the 3rd row of a presentation on the social aspects of disasters, pretending that I was taking copious notes. Actually, I'm pissed that I couldn't ride this morning and will also have to miss tomorrow's group ride. Text Message late last night from Gina V: "racing sux. lost fitness from crash. next weekend is sea otter. gonna get killed." Yeah, I feel the pain. . .

Tuesday
So here I am again. Even with DST in effect, I still got home too late for a ride yesterday, and again this morning I had to get downtown by 8 am. I'm holding out some slim hope of making it out to the lakefront this evening if I can escape from this place early enough. Of course I'm now a couple of days behind at work and with a trip to Iowa coming up on Thursday it is not looking to be a good week of training . . . again. I guess I'll be riding one of those broken and badly fitting hotel excercise room bikes this weekend while everyone else is racing.

The meeting I'm in is unfocused and boring and I think it's just providing a justification for certain people to do what they were going to do anyway which is to spread around the money intended for the hurricane-impacted universities. Right now I'm listening to a guy from Woods Hole talk about ecosystem stuff. He's presenting a recycled ld presentation and has obviously not taken the time to relate it to either Louisiana or the effects of Katrina. I can almost hear the people behind me snoring.

Training Race

This morning's informal training race (is there such a thing as a formal training race?) went pretty well. We had a nice-sized turnout on Lakeshore Drive for the 29-mile, 10-lap race, and it was quite fast and animated. From the start it seemed like there was a lot of nervousness in the bunch and the attacks came often. I was rather surprised, actually, as I would have expected most riders to be a little defensive until they were able to get a better handle on their early season fitness. As it turned out, there must have been six attacks within the first two laps, with Tim and Realdo separating themselves from the pack before the third lap started. I can't say that they were going super-fast, though, and in fact I think we still had a chance to catch them were it not for an odd crash. Brett and Brooks had opened a gap on the rest of the pack but were slowly getting reeled back in when Brooks touched wheels with Brett and went down. As we went by, he was sitting up in the middle of the right lane looking somewhat surprised and confused. A lap or so later he was back in the pack.

Anyway, that was pretty much the end of any concerted effort to catch the lead duo, but the rest of the race was still fairly fast (average speed was 25 mph) and fun. We should do this again.