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.