Carried Away

When we started out on this morning's levee ride, I wasn't really planning on making a race out of it. I must admit, though, that in retrospect I probably had a little bit of pent-up energy from having skipped the usual Tuesday morning hammerfest. When Dan and I led the group out, we didn't dawdle along at the usual 12 mph pace for the first couple of miles. Instead, we were rolling along at a comfortable 20 mph or so. As we continued, our pace inched up bit by bit, and so did the gap between the rest of the group and us. I don't think I ever looked back, so I'm not real sure how much of a gap ultimately developed, but of course you can always tell from the sound, or lack thereof, when there's nobody behind you. About half-way out we started to get a little carried away with what had become a nice smooth tailwind-assisted 2-man time trial. The pace was now up to around 25 mph, and by the time we had Williams Blvd. in site things were really getting out of hand as we had gotten the pace up to 27 or so. That's about when we started to back off a bit. Just like one of those flat Tour de France stages where the break works all day and then finally gets chased down by the peleton in the last 500 meters, we heard the rest of the group pull up behind us just before we hit the turnaround. I've got to admit, though, it was fun! Clearly I haven't been getting enough racing in. Speaking of which, I got an email from Gina V., who had been complaining about the recent disruptions to her racing season the last time I talked to her. Apparently, and not surprisingly to me, she had just gotten back from racing in Raleigh, Baltimore and Somerville where her team had gotten some good results. Somerville is one race I'd like to ride just once. It's probably one of the oldest races in the country. When I first started racing, this is one of the big races people always talked about. As usual, Gina got herself photographed. (She's the one on the right in the Cheerwine jersey). She said she's on her way to AZ for graduation right now and then will be back in Atlanta to close on her new condo about the time she starts her residency.

At work today we had some folks from Discover Magazine up on the roof (aka my office) taking photos of the city. I never did find out exactly what for.

Less Than Expected

After three days of reasonable intensity, it was time for an easier day today, so I let the usual Tuesday morning 6:15 a.m. time slip-slide away and rolled out from the house around 6:30. The soreness in my legs from yesterday was a lot less than I had expected, so I guess that's a good sign, but I kept it under 20 mph anyway because, basically, I just felt like I needed to. It wasn't too long after I had gotten going that I looked down and noticed an extra shadow on the asphalt. Dan was running late and had caught me, so we rode together, just a bit faster, out toward Williams Blvd. where we saw Big Richard heading toward us. Now I knew Richard had no doubt started with the group, so something must be up because he doesn't usually turn back early. He said that there was a pretty big group this morning for the Tuesday long ride. Well, it turned out that a couple of the bolts holding his Time cleat to his Sidi shoes had sheared off or something. Now he had ''infinite float" pedals -- at least until that last bolt, the one in front, broke. We picked up the pace another mph and got a little rotation going and he made it all the way back to the pumping station before the final bolt gave way and his cleat clanked down onto the asphalt. Better than expected, I'd say. He still had a few miles left to go and I'll bet by the time he got home his back was sore from all that uneven pedaling.

So when I got home there was no sign of the streets department with those ten shovelfulls of asphalt that they need to finish off the patch on my corner. I wonder how long that will take. The garbage that I put out last Tuesday night is still there, probably because the garbage truck can't squeeze past the construction area that is still all roped off . I'll have to put out another couple of bags tonight. I sure hope they pick it up this time. It's got to be getting pretty rank in that garbage can that has been sitting out in the hot sun for the past week.

Man, I checked out the results from the Soto stage race this morning and looking at the results of yesterday's stage, I can only assume that it was one hell of a death march and that pain was the order of the day. I mean, Bain finished 12th on the stage, but he was 1:21 down, and Tim was 21st at 2:27. Judging from the times, the whole pack just dribbled in almost one at a time. The course profile shows a long, long climb right at the end.

Derailleur Practice at Red Bluff

There was a small but capable contingent for this morning's assault on Red Bluff. Joining Jack and me were Jay, Rick, Kyle, Jason and Jaro for two laps of the infamous 30+ mile circuit in the middle of nowhere. Starting out without a warmup, we hit the first long climb about a mile from the start and although the pace was civilized, it was far from easy. Rick spent most of the day OTB, having been sick recently, and a couple others were yo-yoing off the back on the climbs. We waited at each intersection to regroup -- at least on the first lap. For much of that lap I was thinking that we were going a bit too fast considering the distance we were planning and the fact that the course offers little in the way of recovery. After we finished the first loop, we stopped back at the cars to refill water bottles and eat and whatever else these guys do. I just drank some water and rode around in circles until they were ready to roll again. This time we did the same route, only in the reverse direction. It because quickly apparent that the first lap had done some damage. My legs, already a bit sore from the weekend Giro rides, were holding their own, but every time the pace would pick up on the climbs, of which there were many, things would start to come apart. I think I visited every gear on the bike on this lap, from the barely adequate 39x23 to the 53x12. My derailleur had not seen this much action in a long time, and I got in a lot of practice with my shifting technique that involves pushing the well-worn old lever a certain way so that it won't lock up. Took me a year to figure that one out. Anyway, there was a lot of suffering going on during the last lap and although I never did quite peg my pain meter, the needle was well into the red on more than one occasion. I particularly remember one place on the back side of the course where we came screaming down this hill to a little bridge or something and then within maybe 100 yards I was out of the saddle in the 39x23 going 11 mph trying not to hit any of the other guys precariously weaving their unsteady paths up the climb. You almost couldn't shift fast enough for that one!

By the time we turned onto the last long stretch that included the White Bluff and Red Bluff climbs, the speeds had dropped considerably. For a while Jaro and I were out in front. Then Jaro disappeared and Kyle showed up. Jay and Kyle had been chasing for a while -- I think they had inadvertantly gotted gapped off after the turn. Eventually it was just me, Jay and Kyle, and as we neared the Red Bluff climb we lost Kyle again. By the end, it was hot, hot, hot. That dry Mississippi kind of hot. Probably somewhere in the lower 90s, with salt caked on your face and that dull dehydrated look in your eyes. Now that's what bike racing is all about! I was glad I had gone, though. This kind of ride is just so far removed from the Giro. Even though we had stopped mid-way, and had spent a lot of time soft-pedaling and waiting for guys who had been dropped to catch up, I think everyone was pretty well cooked by the time we finished. The forecast is for more of the same - lows in the upper 70s and highs in the 90s with nothing but hope for rain. We haven't seen any rain in the city in a very long time now. That's bad because when the ground around here starts to dry out like that things start to shift around and settle unevenly, resulting in cracked walls and broken underground pipes. And people wonder why our roads are so bad! Try building a road on top of gumbo.

Long Hot Weekend

Saturday's Giro Ride was a little odd. I had gotten up a little early and arrived at Lakeshore Drive with plenty enough time to ride all the way down to where the group starts across from the (still very closed) Acme Oyster House. Along the way I passed a huge group of triathletes getting ready for a group training ride after swimming in the lake. There were a lot of riders around, but when I got to the parking lot there was only a handful still there. One of the guys had a tire that was about to blow out, so another rider offered a spare he had. Unfortunately when he inflated it, the tube blew out (probably the tire wasn't seated properly, so they had to change the tube again. In the meantime George P. arrived, in town from Houston for the holidays, and so we waited for him to get his act together. By the time we got started, most of the group had given up and they were already way down the road. I was figuring we'd just meet the main group after the turnaround, but as luck would have it, somebody in that group flatted on the service road, so we were able to catch up. The ride turned out to be pretty hard. Three or four times George came by, said "come on Frenchman," and next thing I knew we were off the front and going 30 mph. By the time I got home I was pretty tired and not too thrilled when the wife wanted to drive up to Baton Rouge to visit her mother. Such is life. The nursing home is a very wierd place. You have to know the code in order to get in or out and most of the people living there are suffering from some form of Alzheimer's or senile dementia. One woman would periodically get up and go to the window, saying "I can't see my car." Then she would say she couldn't find her keys. One of the men there also had a thing about his car keys. They all pretty much live in their own little worlds.

So Sunday I stepped out the door around sunrise to 80 degree temperatures and 100% humidity. Surprisingly the group was really big today and included Gary and Traci R. who used to live here but moved to West Virginia a few years ago. Quite a change in both weather and terrain for them! The ride was pretty good. Perhaps a bit slower than yesterday, but still a good ride. Although my legs were a bit stiff at the start, they eventually loosened up and were feeling pretty good. On the way back down Chef Highway I decided to move up toward the front and maybe go for the "Goodyear Sign" sprint. I ended up riding on the shoulder through a lot of rocks and stuff at about 30 mph, and just as the sprint started I felt something mushy. My front tire was almost flat so I had to pull out and stop. A few people stopped with me, so after I got it changed we had a nice steady ride back, although a couple of us did go kind of hard over the bridges.

Talked to Tim a bit this evening. He's up in Tennessee at the Soto stage race. He said that the Pro,1,2 road race today got nullified because of some dangerous thunderstorms that came through in the middle of it. Bain had a good TT and is currently in 9th on GC, and Frank had a good placing in the Crit. The last stage is tomorrow.

Tomorrow? Tired legs and Red Bluff!

Friday Sightseeing Ride

Neron Place I thought I'd liven up the usual Friday recovery ride by bringing along my "riding" camera. The images aren't so great, but then if I drop it while I'm riding I might not bother to stop to pick it up. Here's the view a couple of blocks from home heading down Neron Place toward Carrollton. You can still see where the hurricane tore up the oak trees. You can also see a "For Sale" sign. We have lots of those around here lately. The asking prices for houses that didn't flood are pretty high.

Short Street I turn left and head down Short St., more or less heading south. There are a lot of stop signs along Short, but of course at this time of the morning traffic is pretty light. The best thing about Short St. is that the asphalt is smooth, unlike many of the other streets around here. There are a couple of huge unpaved areas where they came in and fixed water leaks but never got around to fixing the stree that they tore up to get to them.

The Streetcar Barn on Willow St. I turn right off of Short and onto Willow St. which will take me to the parish line and the on-ramp to the bike path. Just off of Carrollton I pass the streetcar barn where all of the city's "real" streetcars live.

River Levee I meet the levee after crossing the railroad tracks. You can see the on-ramp leading to the levee bike path. We meet up on the levee at the top of the on-ramp. There's a little "hill" on the levee there where the water intake pipes cross. It might be the highest spot in the city!

The Huey P. Here's the nice morning view just as the ride starts looking out over the Mississippi with the Huey P. Long bridge in the background. Practically no wind today at all.

Small Friday Group Here's part of the Friday morning group. It's small as usual and the pace stays around 20 mph. I think we might have touched 22 at one point, but not for very long!

Look who showed up! When we were near the Country Club, who showed up but this guy! Ben S. is back in town and starting classes at LSU nursing school. He said he has no excuses for not making the training rides because his schedule works pretty well with that.

Science!

I just got an actual paper copy of Science! That's the first periodical I've gotten in the mail since Katrina and it came in its very own white envelope via first class mail! As another sign of "recovery" we have three - count 'em - fully functional elevators working in the building. They've been completely rebuilt and are so smooth and fast! It's almost like living in a normal city. I just got back from a little ride down Canal St. to get a new battery for the bike computer. All is well. I have digits again!

"Greyscreen" - Insufficient Data

I awoke a few minutes late this morning and made a mad dash for the levee to meet the group. The first thing I noticed was that my ErgoBrain's screen was blank - nothing but a lifeless grey rectangle. Last Sunday it turned over 54,000 miles. Hmmmm. I know that the battery was starting to get weak, so hopefully that's the problem. It was strange to be doing the training ride without a functional computer, though. You really don't realize how dependent you are on them until they are suddenly gone. I mean, the ride felt fast today, and maybe it was, or maybe it wasn't. Maybe I was surging when I hit the front of the paceline? I kept looking at the computer to check my speed and gearing but it was like trying to get useful information from Level 1 Tech Support. So anyway, this morning was kind of a throwback to the old pre-computer days. The ride itself was a typical Thursday ride. Fast but not ballistic with a number of people sitting on in back. After the turnaround I rolled off the front accidentally and decided to just keep rolling until I got caught. Eventually I heard some wheels coming up from behind but it turned out it was only VJ on his TT bike. We did a few rotations with VJ taking long pulls and me taking 50 strokes or so and then Howard showed up, so the three of us traded pace until we were around Williams Blvd., when Howard pulled off to head home and we slowed down a bit. We picked up Dan a little while later when he made a u-turn to join us, and then finally the rest of the group caught up somewhere around the country club. It was a pretty good ride, although it's certainly starting to feel like summer. I had sweat dripping from my helmet most of the way back.

Back at the house there are machines and people from the streets department all over the place trying to patch up the hole that they left about a month ago when they fixed the water leak there. Yesterday when we got home from work we found a truckload of rocks where we usually park, and I spent an hour or so shovelling a lot of them off of the grass and into the street. I've been watering the grass out there between the sidewalk and street for weeks trying to get it to come back after all of the mistreatment from the hurricane and the drought that followed and the piles of debris. It was making great progress and then the streets department comes along and dumps a load of rocks on top of it. There are a few things for which I have a much greater level of respect than I did before Katrina. One of them is green grass. One of the others is working elevators. Anyway, after sitting around in the shade doing nothing for 45 minutes or so (yes, our local personnel are back), the guys finally started working about the time I left the house. Hopefully they will do more good than harm and I'll come home to find a nice smooth fresh asphalt patch covering the corner and no trace of leftover rocks or dirt or freshly broken concrete. I'm not too hopeful.

A Day Off

After sitting out on the front porch talking and drinking far too much Austrailian wine, I had already decided to skip today's morning ride before I hit the sack. Aside from the effects of the evening, I had been feeling a lingering tiredness Monday and Tuesday, and combined with some weighty deadlines hanging over my head at the office, I felt I needed a little break somewhere. So I slept an extra hour or so this morning, had two eggs and coffee for breakfast, and arrived at work a bit earlier than usual. With the rising temperatures, early sunrise and clear skies, we paid a heavy price for our office's rooftop view today. The air conditioning always loses the battle when the sun bakes the long wall of single-pane glass along the southeast side of the office and temperatures were probably around 80F until early afternoon. It is about that time of year when I will have to start packing in all my work clothes instead of just my shirt. Even at my slow and easy commuting pace, I still arrive warm and sweaty this time of year. By lunch time I was surprisingly hungry and rather than go out and seek real food I instead visited the little ready-made sandwich place downstairs. On the plus side, there are three elevators working now, so I didn't have to stop on fifteen floors along the way. On the minus side, the $5.25 cold, pre-made, sandwich was soggy and tasteless and within half an hour my stomach was hurting.

After a long delay the Baton Rouge Velodrome's track program is finally ready to go with one of the local guys organizing Wednesday training sessions beginning tonight. I'm going to need to get a couple of fresh tubulars for the track bike if I expect to be hitting the oval this year. Last year I ended up officiating a few times but was never able to actually race.

We are already getting some Cat. 5 online registrations for the Tour de Louisiane (there's a 50-rider field limit for Cat. 5). The only thing that really concerns me right now about the Tour is that hotel rooms on the Northshore are still in somewhat short supply and quite expensive compared with last year. I mean, $109 a night at the Super-8 is kind of steep. Perhaps they will come down a bit over the next month, though.

Cyberclog

OK, this is my second try at posting to the blog. There's some computer on our network that is probably infected with a virus or something and it has been clogging up my pipe for days. I'm hoping the data systems people will find it before I hurl myself off the roof. The Board of Regens was supposed to have emailed me some documents last night that I never got, so they re-sent them this morning. I have still not seen them and no, they didn't get taken out by my junk mail filter. I finally had to resort to the damned fax machine. That's pretty crude. So anyway, it's been very frustrating and it isn't like I don't have a lot to do right now.

The morning training ride today was pretty fast and I wasn't feeling quite up to it for some reason. As soon as the pace got fast, most of the group started sitting on at the back so there were only a few riders actually in the rotation. A couple of times I pulled off from the front and Kevin H got out of the saddle and attacked. What was with that? Donald was playing policeman, letting gaps open in front of him, but eventually closing them down too. The ride back got pretty fast too, but by then I had decided that since I obviously wasn't firing on all cylinders I should hang out on the back for a while to recharge the batteries. I think my legs were still a little tired from the weekend - the odometer on the Cervelo turned over 54,000 miles on Sunday. I wonder how many miles the legs have on them? After missing the races up in S'port last weekend, I was thinking that I would make the trip up to Monroe for the criterium this weekend, but then I got an email from the organizers up there saying that they were cancelling it. Damn. The next closest race is a 4-day stage race in Tennessee with a $110 entry fee for masters and, well, that's just not going to happen.

So as I was leaving for work this morning on the commuter I was surprised to find a motorcycle wedged under a car not half a block from the house. Usually I hear those sorts of accidents, not to mention the sirens from the police cars and ambulances, but I didn't hear anything. The scene was pretty quiet - no ambulance and just a single police car and a couple of people. Maybe it happened in the early morning hours and they were still investigating, or maybe the rider was able to bail out reasonably safely and they were just waiting for tow trucks. Anyway, I've never seen anyone wedge a motorcycle underneath a car like that before.

Hot Summer Weekend

Things are changing. In the spring the Giro ride can be pretty fast, but as all bike racers know, "fast" comes in many flavors. Earlier in the year we'd be flying down Chef Highway at 30 mph in a smooth paceline, but now as the racing has begun in earnest the stronger riders have become less docile and a stretch of paceline riding just becomes an opportunity to wear down the other guys before launching another attack. Indeed, the Saturday Giro ride is becoming more and more like a race. I was a willing participant yesterday, happy for some hard riding to soothe my guilt for not going up to Shreveport for the Rocky Mount races. After a fast tailwind-assisted start down Hayne Blvd., the pace ramped up even more when we hit Chef Highway. The group was rolling at 30-33 mph with a group of maybe a dozen rotating on the front. As we got to within a few miles of the Venetian Isles sprint the group was beginning to fray around the edges as riders started to tire and gaps started to open as the ones pulling off the front started looking for more shelter. I looked over at Realdo and said "I think they're getting tired now." That's about when the attacks started. When I saw Reo make the bridge up to the last one, I knew it was over. Matter of fact, I think one of the guys actually said "it's over." The chase group recovered a bit, though, and we actually got really close at one point. When I hit the front I upped the pace about one mph to get us within striking distance, but when I went to pull off I discovered I was alone. Bad sign. Things had pretty much crumbled, and indeed, it was over. The return trip, although slightly more civilized, was nonetheless fast and we were already back on Lakeshore Drive just before 9 a.m.

The rest of the day I spent spray-painting the porch furniture and the ceiling fan. I love fast-drying spray paint. Immediate gratification!

So Sunday I got a few guys to meet me to go out to the Tour de La road course so I could ride a couple of laps and have a good look at the start/finish, parking area, turns, etc. We had six guys and rode the first lap pretty easy. The course is great. Other than a few cracks on the street-level bridges on Highway 10, the surface is universally silky smooth, there are lots of little hills, curves and turns, and even a bit of shade here and there. We'll have to mark the route very carefully because a couple of the turns come up on you rather suddenly after turns or hills, but in general it will be fast, challenging and fun. We rode the second lap faster, and I kept thinking how much I would like to race this one. Unfortunately, I left my camera and powerbars at home, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Yesterday's election was pretty close, but the incumbent, Ray Nagin, won the mayoral race. I hope it doesn't have too bad of an effect on our national reputation. Not too many of the incumbents survived this election. One of the newly elected city council members is certifiably nuts. That should make the city council meetings pretty entertaining.

Right now I hear the blender. The Wife is making piña coladas.

¡Mañana!

Snowball Season

It was warmer and more humid this morning, and by afternoon the temperature must have been approaching 90 F. Summer is back. We had a pretty typical Friday ride today. A smallish group taking long steady pulls at moderate pace. The ride out was mostly headwind and soon after we turned around we met Realdo and Charlie coming the other way. They both turned around to ride with us, but one of them stopped to deal with something on his bike. I waited for them and let the group ride off down the levee. Then must have been rolling with the tailwind because we never caught them, not that we were trying. I had a meeting this morning at UNO that I found out about Thursday afternoon. I assumed it would take an hour or so, but when I arrived I saw that I would be stuck there until 2:30. I hate when that happens. The rest of the day was pretty much of a waste and I headed home around 5:30, throwing the bike into the car for a ride home with The Wife. We took a walk down to Williams' Plum Street Snowballs where I got a nice cold pink lemonade snowball. I always get mine in the original cardboard "pail" - the kind that Chinese restaurants like to use for take-out. It's a tradition at this particular place that used to be called Williams' when I was a kid. Very little has changed here in the last 40 years. You still stand in line, holding the ancient screen door open while you wait your turn to order. First you tell them which size you want (large cup, small pail, etc.), then you sidestep to the left where you tell another person what flavor you want. Just be sure not to call these things sno-cones, OK? It is looking like the temps will do nothing but rise for the next week at least and there is no rain in the forecast at all. I guess I'll be doing the Giro ride tomorrow and then hopefully I can get a few people together for a few laps of the new Tour de La course on the Northshore on Sunday.

Pinched!

Spent most of last night assembling a kitchen worktable thing. The instructions said, "tools needed: phillips head screwdriver." Reality: Three different sizes of phillips head screwdrivers, hammer, extra wood glue, allen wrench, drill, sandpaper, lots of wine. The instructions were incomprehensible at best and flat-out wrong at worst, but I finally got the blasted thing put together. Of course this will no doubt escalate into a total remodeling of the kitchen.

The Thursday morning ride was pretty nice today. It was probably the last of the unseasonably cool days we'll get for a while and I was feeling pretty good. Well, maybe I was a little miffed that I won't be racing this weekend and was trying to take it out on my legs. Anyway, the pace was pretty good most of the way and really picked up on the way back. We hit the "dip" pretty fast and I was on, I think, Donald's wheel as we blasted down the ramp and along the street-level section of bike path that is always littered with rocks. I hit one of those suckers really hard and immediately heard the air escaping from the pinch-flat in my rear tube. I was on the rim before I made it up the other side. At least I knew what had happened and since I didn't have to check the tire for embedded glass the change went fast and we were rolling again in a few minutes. I probably only got 60 psi into the tire and could feel the difference, but it was plenty enough to get me home.

Spent a lot of time yesterday working on the Tour de Louisiane. The USCF permit got submitted, the website got updated, I set up the online registration, put up a map of the new road race course, etc. Still much to do and I will probably not send out the official announcement to the lists until next week. Don't want to take any of the luster away from the Rocky Mount Omnium going on this weekend in S'port. I think I'll try and see if I can get some of the folks who are not going to Rocky Mount to do a few laps on the Tour de La road course this weekend so I can check out the intersections, start/finish, etc.

Locally, it seems like a lot of new repair work has started up all over town in the last couple of weeks. Speaking of which, I need to get something going on the roof!

On Fire

It must be getting to be summer because almost everyone was out early this morning for the Wednesday training ride. For the most part it was a bit slower than I wanted, but I went with it anyway and behaved myself, more or less. I was feeling pretty good today and was glad when the pace picked up toward the end of the ride and I could finally get my heartrate up into training effect territory. As I write I'm watching a couple of helicopters circling back and forth between the river and a huge fire that broke out at the Orange Street Warf this morning. The fire started about 9:30 a.m. It' s now after 11:00 and they are still dumping water from helicopters and the sky is still full of smoke. I mean, this fire was huge. I assume that they are concentrating on keeping it from spreading because actually putting it out looks like it would be practically impossible despite the helicopters dumping swimming pool sized bags of water every minute or so. We had a pretty good view from the roof here, so I took a few photos, but the cheap little fixed-focus camera I have here they don't really tell the story very well. It is fortunate that the wind is blowing more or less away from the city and toward the river, although I think that the adjacent warf and building downriver is the one owned by Tulane and the planned site for the RiverSphere center. Right now most of the black smoke has been replaced with white smoke which usually means that the fire is finally coming under control.

Yesterday I went out after work with The Wife to buy this rolling kitchen island thing at Linens and Things, and after fighting rush hour traffic, loading the thing (assembly required) into the wagon, hauling it home, and getting it inside, I discovered that the butcher-block top section was broken into three pieces, so we get to repeat the process today.

Overlapping

It was even cooler this morning than yesterday. I was actually in double jersey mode. Granted, I go there at higher temps than most. When I awoke I had to check the outside temperature twice. Yes, it really was 62F. Nice. The wind was light and the sky was clear and it just doesn't get much better than that. There was a substantial group for the morning long ride on the levee and although it took me about ten miles to wake up and get myself back into the rotation, after that I was in no mood for a slow ride. With a light tailwind most of the way back, we had a really good training ride today. It was one of those days where the harder you pushed the better you felt.

I had been expecting to do the Rocky Mount races up in Shreveport, about 6 hours away, but for some reason completely spaced out on the fact that we have an election this Saturday and it's already too late to vote early. Ordinarily, I'd readily blow off an election in order to make a race weekend, but I just really need to vote in this one. So anyway, I kind of blew it, planning-wise.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time trying to work out how to put five groups on the 16.1 mile Tour de La road race course without overlapping. It's going to be pretty tight. If we go with two waves, our police cost goes up a lot and both the finish and the results get pushed back another couple of hours at least. The Cat. 5 road race may have to be only two laps in order to make sure the Cat. 1,2,3 field doesn't lap them. I think the women and juniors can make the two laps to their finish with a few minutes to spare unless they go really slowly or the Cat. 1,2,3s have a really fast first lap. If any two groups are going to overlap, I'd prefer that they be the experienced Cat. 1,2,3s and the smaller and slower Women and Juniors. Anyway, it's kind of holding me up a bit because the race distances are going to be influenced by the overlapping issue. With only 5 minute start intervals, it can get pretty close if the groups don't behave as expected.

The Daughter called from the Miami airport this morning, and I guess I won't hear from her until she's back from the Bahamas next week. I don't know what happens if you try to make a cellphone call from there, but it's got to be expensive.

Stupid Bike Tricks

I guess a cool front came through last night because this morning was relatively cool (low 70s) and quite windy. After a busy weekend there were just three of us today trading long pulls against the steady crosswind. We stayed firmly in recovery speed territory, though, mostly around 20 mph. I think maybe I need a little recovery time anyway, as I am still feeling a little tired even though the weather is fantastic today.

So I'm on my way to work this morning on the commuter, and just as I start up the Broad Street Overpass I see this clown coming down the overpass on the sidewalk on my side of the street. He's a grown man riding a child's bike. He's dragging one foot on the ground because the bike apparently lacks functional brakes. He must have had some good shoe leather and extraordinary balance because he was only going maybe 15 mph. As I go by, I am able to make out what he is holding with his right arm (he's only got one hand on the handlebars). It's a full-size car battery. The sidewalk he's on ends abruptly at street level where he'll have to drop down off of a curb and will then be spit out into the middle of two lanes of oncoming traffic. I didn't look back to see what happened, but I didn't hear a "thud" or the squealing of brakes. It always amazes me that people like that survive to adulthood. I use the term "adulthood" loosely, in this case. The other thing that has always amazed me in New Orleans is the number of people I see riding bikes without brakes, usually against traffic. It must be a "cultural" thing like walking in the street instead of on the sidewalk. Go figure.

Today's The Wife's birthday. Birthday present suggestions will be happily accepted until 5:00 p.m. today!! We'll probably end up getting something for the house as usual. The Daughter called early this morning while on the road to Wisconsin to pick up a teammate whose mother will drive them to the Chicago airport for their trip to the Bahamas. This three-hour drive, each way, is apparently to avoid having to park the car at the airport for a week. Hmmmm. Oh, BTW, I was spot on with my guess as to the "surprise" at Tulane's graduation ceremonies last weekend. Ellen D. walks out in a bathrobe saying she had heard everyone would be wearing robes.

Back to the Giro

With nothing much going on around here, it was back to the Giro this weekend. With the sun coming up earlier and earlier, I was out the door and on my way to the lakefront a bit before 6:30. I was figuring I'd just take my time and enjoy the ride, but as I approached Canal St. I saw Tim and Realdo go by, so I caught up and rode with them, arriving at Lakeshore Drive early enough to ride a few extra miles before the group showed up. Saturday's ride was pretty fast. Once we hit Hayne Blvd., the speed hardly ever dropped below 27 mph, and when we were on Chef Highway we were cruising along at over 30 for miles. Yeah, there was a little bit of a tailwind. The return trip stayed pretty fast too, and even though we all stopped when someone flatted on the service road, we were back on Lakeshore Drive around 9:10 or so. I was a bit tired, but felt pretty good.

Sunday's Giro ride was quite different. I guess the combination of it's being Mother's day and the leftover sore legs from Saturday must have been the reason for the relatively low turnout. There was an "early" group that left around 6:45 and I think they picked up a few unsuspecting riders who thought it was the regular Giro ride. We probably had around 20 or so, but nobody seemed very interested in making it a hard ride today.

Well, gotta go rebuild The Mom's grill before dinner tonight . . .

Hot Dog and Beer(s)

It was a typical Friday morning ride on the levee today expcept that I was up a little early for some reason. I met up with Realdo and rode with him, and eventually Tim, down to the playground where I turned back to meet the group. The weather down here is still pretty nice, mainly because the humidity has been relatively low. The high today was probably in the mid-80s, but it felt pretty nice anyway. One reason it felt nice may have been that I was out in it by 1 p.m. with a beer in one hand, a hot dog in the other, and my feet up on the roof of the Green Wave dugout watching the Tulane - Southern Mississippi baseball game. We had a kind of "staff retreat" this morning and afterward headed over to Zephyr Field for some "team bonding." Tulane's baseball stadium is still undergoing renovations. When I arrived, I realized that I had brought my Iowa Hawkeye's baseball cap. Ordinarily that wouldn't be too much of a problem, but Southern Miss is the university that Iowa tried to sue because their team colors and logo are so similar to Iowa's. Not wanting to be mistaken for one of the opposition, naturally I had to buy a new Tulane cap.

Tulane's commencement ceremony is tomorrow and it's going to be huge. Both Clinton and Bush will be giving the commencement address and the arena behind the superdome will be practically full. I heard today that there will be a special "surprise" at the ceremony that is top-secret. I'm just guessing, but I'm thinking there's a good chance that the surprise will be an appearance by Ellen Degeneres since she just happens to be in town and just happened to have dinner last night with Clinton and Bush. There's a huge amount of media interest in this commencement ceremony, too. On a slightly related note, the son of one of the people in my office is supposed to be followed around by the Washington Post this weekend for the graduation party or prom or something of a girl he knows from one of the local high schools that was flooded during the hurricane. When they found out that he was a Tulane student they went crazy. Meanwhile, The Daughter finished her exams yesterday and called to give us the run-down on her current plans for the summer. First, she's off to Nassau in the Bahamas for almost a week with some friends, then she'll be back in Iowa, coaching a few days a week at a gym in Cedar Rapids. Then in July she'll drive down to N.O. and spend a week or two coaching at a gym in Baton Rouge, filling in for her old coach there. Then it's back to Iowa where she is hoping to be able to do a little volunteer work (aka "internship") in psychology or psychiatry. Sounds like fun!

Fall Reminder

"Still, New Orleans survives, and these days it serves its oysters Rockefeller and its bananas Foster, its beignets and its gumbo, with smiling, heartfelt thanks for your visit. " (NY Times, R.W. Apple Jr.)
Thanks for the heads-up on this one, Joey!

Here's a photo I took today from the roof showing Tulane Med school in the lower-left. The large building on the right is Charity Hospital - completely closed since Katrina. Hidden behind Charity is the VA hospital - still closed. Half of the Med School building and all of the research building have been pretty much fully functional for a few months now. The tall buildings in the background are office buildings along Poydras, across from the Superdome where you can see the ongoing roof work. Click the photo to see a few more photos showing Canal St., the French Quarter, and a view toward the northeast showing the housing development, I-10, and Lake Pontchartrain. There's still a fair amount of blue plastic out there on the roofs.

The predicted cool front came through last night as we were sitting out on the little front porch of "Iris," a tiny little restaurant just off of Carrollton Avenue on Jeannette along the still-unused streetcar tracks leading to the car barn. We arrived a bit after 7 p.m., and the three of us went through two bottles of wine by the time we were done around 9:30 or so. Iris is a "post-Katrina" restaurant. Everything in New Orleans is defined as either "pre-Katrina" or "post-Katrina" nowadays. The cold Gazpacho with calamari was excellent, fragrant and tasty with a drizzle of olive oil floating on top exactly as I like it. Although it's tiny and crowded, this place gets two thumbs-up from me.

I awoke this morning, a little groggy from the prior evening's repast, to find much cooler and drier weather than we've had lately. That was the up-side. The down-side was that the wind was blowing out of the northwest like a hurricane. I hit the levee meeting spot right on time and the place was deserted, so I rolled slowly upriver toward the playground contemplating my options. Rob wizzed past from the other direction with the wind at this back, then Donald and Ronnie showed up and turned around to join me. Eventually we accumulated about a half-dozen. Todd was on his TT bike and spent the whole time hovering just off the tail end of the paceline where he could regulate his effort without interfering with the pace. It was a hard ride with gusty crosswinds blowing us around much of the time. We turned around early today, at the dip. On a day like this it would have easily taken us an extra ten minutes to ride the whole distance. Even the trip back from the turnaround seemed largely into the wind except for that one stretch from Williams down to the country club where the river runs more southerly. It was there that Ronnie got on the front and pulled for a mile or two at 34-35 mph steady. That ended abruptly, though when we made the bend at the country club and dropped down to 21 mph with the wind in our faces. Riding to work on the commuter I could still feel the morning's ride in my legs.

Today's team time trial at the Giro was hotly contested and super fast. CSC won by just one second with an average speed of 56.8 kph. In yankee language that works out to something like 35 mph. - Average. On my best day I probably couldn't hang onto the tail end of that tiger for more than two minutes.

Midweek Musing

Well, the commuter and I did manage to make it home yesterday evening thanks to someone in The Wife's office who had a patch kit and pump. It had been a long time since I had ridden the bike home with The Wife. She has never really gotten the hang of inner-city commuting, though. For me, the ride is an exercise in moderation. The goal is to go just fast enough to feel the breeze, yet slow enough to stay comfortable in dress clothes. For her, it is an exercise in, well . . . exercise. The Wife, riding her antique Trek mountain bike with road slicks, practically attacked the Broad St. overpass (relatively speaking, of course). By the time I reached the two block long flat section on top, she was already disappearing down the other side. She finally realized that I was tooling along at my usual commuting pace half a mile later and waited for me under an oak tree. When we got home she went out for a run. I went to the refrigerator and ate some ice cream.

Today it is hot and hazy and surprisingly windy in New Orleans. There's supposed to be a little cool front that will come through late tonight, which means we might get a low temperature somewhere in the upper 60s. This morning's ride was fairly easy with long tailwind stretches on the way out, but some harder crosswinds coming back. Nothing too exciting, though.

After a number of phone calls, I finally got my digital signature to work. I had to buy one in order to submit our lobbying report to Congress this year and although I thought I had retrieved the certificate correctly, as it turned out there was one more step that I had missed. It's a pretty screwy system that needs a certain version of Adobe Acrobat that has to be running inside of Internet Explorer with a certain version of the report form. Basically, it's a pain in the ass designed to reduce the work in Washington D.C. while transferring more of the work and expense to the people who the people in D.C. have forced to fill out the forms. That would be me.

The Daughter is in the midst of Finals Week up in Iowa. The thought of finals still sends a chill through me. Toward the end of next week, though, she's flying to Nassau with a few friends for a little R&R. After that, I don't know what she's got up her sleeve.

Another One?

It was hazy, overcast and warm this morning, so naturally I was running late to meet the long Tuesday levee ride. Riding as fast as I dared I headed down Carrollton and Willow, past the streetcar barn and over the tracks, past the two 4-way stops and through the gap in the old parish levee at the end of Willow, across the railroad tracks and finally up the levee path on-ramp. As I hit the base I could see John flying along the path above me. We had both missed the start by maybe a minute or two. When I came around the Ochnser bend I could see a flashing headlight ahead telling me that the group hadn't entirely coalesced yet. We caught before the playground and found a particularly sluggish group. I rolled along for a while at under 20 mph with a couple of the guys and when we finally looked back the group was still well behind us. We slowed down even more and finally it all came together. Even so, we were missing a few of the regulars this morning and that kept the pace meter in the "civilized" range despite a nice little tailwind. The civilization began to decay about half-way back, though, as the persistent head/crosswind began to take its toll. A mile or two from the Huey P. we were down to just a handful when Donald must have heard a voice saying "attack!" So he takes off like he's Robbie McEwen and the rest of kind of look at each other as if to say "WTF?" So we gradually reel him back and then he attacks again. I'm about to go when someone behind me (aka "the voice of reason") says "let him go." So we all ease up for a little while and he rolls off into the distance. Eventually big Richard comes around and gently lifts the pace again so that we're no longer losing ground. About 400 meters before the bridge, for reasons I cannot exlpain, my legs said "let's give this a shot." I can see Donald glancing behind him every so often, so I wait for him to do it again and as soon as he looks forward again I take off. I'm going about 30 and closing fast when he looks behind again and sees me coming. He leaps out of the saddle again and attacks. I might have held on for a little while longer, but it made me laugh so much I had to ease up! Anyway, that was fun.

So last night I stole the 27" tire off of my Pennine and put it on the front wheel of my commuter to replace the blown-out tire from yesterday's aborted attempt to get to work, so I was good to go today and had a nice tailwind to ease the climb up the Broad Street overpass. Then, around 12:30, I decided I'd better go find something to eat because my breakfast of watermelon and coffee wasn't cutting it. I unlocked the bike from in front of the building and rode down to a little lunch place on Poydras where they have a good deal on the vegetable plate, and on the way back, half a block before I get back to the office, the rear tire goes flat. Now, this is not the tire that blew out yesterday. This is another one. How is it that flat tires always seem to come in clusters? As luck would have it, The Wife had also ridden her bike in to work today, and I don't have a spare tube or pump with me. There's not much that's open down here in the CBD, but the Walgreen's drug store a couple of block away is. Drug stores usually have at least patch kits and cheap bicycle pumps, right? Well, not this one.

Looks like the commuter may be spending the night downtown. At least the RTA busses are still free until June 30!

Smooth and Steady Start; Commutus Interruptus

It was an exceptionally smooth and steady start to the week up on the levee this morning. I had only Joe for company, and after a few miles he dropped back and settled into my draft as he often does. The weekend's rides were still in my legs, though, and so the plan for me was a low-gear, low-intensity ride. With the flags hanging limply in the still air and a thick haze filtering the sunlight, the weather made it easy. I rolled along, spinning a 39x15, all the way out at a steady speed that probably never varied more than half an mph from 18.5. A quarter mile from the turnaround a little bump betrayed a softening rear tire, so at the turnaround I stopped to change the tube. The return trip was just a mirror image with 1 mph tacked onto it to keep me on schedule. Even the woman in the big SUV who started to coast through the stop sign without even looking in my direction couldn't spoil such a peaceful morning spin. It would take something else entirely.

Although I had an 11:00 meeting uptown, I decided to go ahead and ride downtown to work first and then take The Wife's car back uptown to the meeting. I was running a bit late, but there was plenty of time and this way I could sort through the morning email and prepare for the meeting at the office. It was a plan. The tires on the commuter were a little low, so I topped them up with my trusty old blue Silca floor pump and hit the road more or less on schedule. Half a mile later my leisurely commute was rudely interrupted when the front tire exploded. It was obviously a case of casing failure. I turned around and limped back home on the rim. Now, if I had built up that second new front wheel like I had planned, this wouldn't have happened, but I handn't, so when I got back to the house I checked the tire and found the tear in the casing near the bead. Not really fixable - on to Plan B. The front wheel on the commuter is an old 27 inch one, so although I'm well stocked with used 700C tires, there's not another 27-incher to be had. Readily at hand, however, was an old 700C front with rusty spokes that I had rescued from someone's Katrina debris pile a couple of months ago. It was holding air, but it had a big dry-rotted "hybrid" tire on it that wouldn't fit inside the fenders on my commuter, which was actually designed for 26" wheels. So I decided to swap out the tire with one of the narrower 700C tires I had lying about. However, I would need a narrower tube to go with it, and since I had already flatted earlier that morning, I had to patch one. So I did all that and went to mount the new tube and tire and realized that the rim was drilled for Shraeder valves rather than Presta. Did I have any Shraeder tubes that would fit? Nope. I briefly considered rigging something up, but now it was getting seriously late and my meditative calmness from the morning ride had already become a distant memory. I tossed wheel number two aside and moved on to Plan C. Plan C, of course, was to use my nice newly built training wheel with its nearly booted and repaired Michelin Pro Race tire off of my Cervelo for the day. Yeah, it hurt, but whatchagonnado? I finally arrived at work just in time to turn right around and get a ride back uptown for my meeting.

Just for the record, here's the latest on the University. Total estimated revenue losses including operating losses ($100M), property damages ($155M), research asset losses, library and art losses, and hazard mitigation: $390 Million. Total received to date from FEMA: $0. Total received to date from federal government appropriations: $0. Time we have been working on recovering something through FEMA and the federal legislature: Eight months. Anxiety level: High.

10 p.m. Sunday

No racing for me this weekend, but a couple of good training rides made it OK, even if one of them was wet. Saturday the weather was great and I went out to the Giro ride ready for a hard training ride. The thing about the Giro ride, and probably most local group training rides, it that a smart rider can make it into whatever he wants. You can sit in and take it relatively easy, or you can stay on the front and hammer yourself to death. You can also make it into anything in-between. So Saturday I spent some significant time in the front group and also put in a decent effort for most of the sprints. Afterward I rode back uptown with Tim, Charlie, Mark and Realdo and ended up riding a few miles down the levee before finally heading home with close too 80 miles on the odo. My legs were hurting the rest of the day, and I was seriously wondering if doing the Northshore training ride on Sunday morning was a smart idea. I wish we had more races nearby like in the "old days." On the "plus" side, we finally got the OK from the local church to use their parking area for the Tour de Louisiane road race this year. I'll try and get everything updated over the next few days.

Smart or not, Sunday morning found me at The Morning Call to meet up with Charlie for a ride across the Lake. The weather was kind of sketchy and combined with the fact that it was the final day of Jazz Fest, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find that we had only a small group. It wasn't long after we started before the rain started. It was almost all just a light drizzle, though. Not quite enough to make you cold, but definitely enough wheel spray to make it uncomfortable. I was determined not to let the pace stagnate, though, and so we got in a pretty good training ride despite the wet streets and my close call rounding one of the wet, gravelly turns. Strangely, Rick was consistently dropping off the pace on the climbs, only to catch back up and sometimes pass the group on the flats. I guess he must have been on a different page of the training manual that the rest of us today. I was amazed all weekend at how nice my newly-build wheels felt. I guess I had gotten used to the old ones and didn't notice the roughness of the rear hub or the slightly out-of-true wheels. I mean, the new wheels just feel so . . . smooth! I was surprised that although my legs felt stiff and a little bit sore, they still felt pretty good on the bike today. If my stomach hadn't been hurting all morning, it would have been a really nice ride.

Looks like Fats Domino wasn't quite up to performing as advertised at the Jazz Fest today. I think Lionel Ritchie filled in though. I hope the Jazz Fest was a big success this year. I think probably it was. The weather has certainly been pretty good, and that's usually a big factor.

I heard from Gina on Saturday and found out that she is buying a condo somewhere in Atlanta. She told me where, but I didn't recognize the area so naturally my brain immediately dumped the data.

My niece, the one who is at Annapolis, was in town tonight for dinner, but is heading out tomorrow and by Wednesday will be in Hawaii to go on a "cruise" on a Navy destroyer. Interestingly, she's looking for a decent bike. She's really on a budget, but if you know of anything that might fit someone who is around 5'10" let me know.

Frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriday!

You know it must be summer now because even the Friday levee ride is attracting six or seven riders lately. Even more telling is the fact that the pace is getting faster. This morning was no exception. I headed out, new rear wheel and all, a little early, riding down Short Street. Short parallels Carrollton Avenue, but is a whole lot smoother, and although there's a stop sign at almost every corner, it's still a nicer route early in the morning. Of course, lately there are a bunch of huge holes and sandy areas where some of the many water leaks have been repaired. Over on Carrollton, there is still no sign of the return of "our" streetcars. You see, after Katrina they took "our" authentic streetcars, which are really supposed to run only on the St. Charles/Carrollton tracks, downtown to replace the imitation ones that were flooded. I don't know when we'll get our streetcars back, but the downtown folks had better not be thinking of keeping them or all hell is going to break loose!

This morning's ride started at a nice comfortable 19 mph, but slowly and steadily escalated, and by the time we were half-way back we were rolling at 24-25 mph. It was pretty steady, though, so no problems really except that we lost a few people toward then end. I think they basically just sat up to ride in at a slower pace, though. When I got home I gave the rear wheel a spin and it looked nice and true, so I'm good to go on that score. I'll probably build up the front tonight so I can save that nice SpeedCific wheel for more important things. Guess I'm going to need to buy a couple of nice tires for those wheels, though.

The wife took the day off to go to the Jazz Fest today, but I just had too much stuff going on at work and besides, my statute of limitations for standing around listening to music is substantially shorter than hers.

For a change, I have no real plans for this weekend, so maybe I can get a couple of new wheels built, get started on fixing the garage roof, plant that new Ligustrum to replace the one that died, ride a Giro or two, get the Tour de Louisiane website updated, send in the event permit (Courtney just emailed that we got the parking at the church approved!!), set up the online registration, make the new course maps, work out the new road race distances and starting times, etc. I guess, technically, those might be called "plans."

Long Ride, Long Day

Strangely, I slept poorly last night. I'm sure the fact that we got a new coffee maker at work that needed extensive testing with Starbuck's best couldn't have been responsible, but anyway I woke up feeling tired. This being Thursday, the long levee ride was on tap, and once the group got going and I noticed there were four or five guys on TT bikes, I figured it would be trouble. We had just started going well when Tim, on his TT bike, rolled off the front taking a couple of guys with him. A gap opened quickly, and after hesitating for a second I went to the front and tried to close. I was going 28 mph and still losing ground when I realized what was going on. Tim was doing some long intervals and there was no way on earth I was going to catch until he eased up. Eventually, of course, he did, repeating the exercise once or twice again. By the time we were halfway back I was already hurting. Apparently I require sleep. It has always amazed me how my legs can feel great one day and then lousy a couple of days later, and vice-versa. I guess the lesson is that no matter how bad you feel warming up for a race, there's always a chance you'll feel like Superman by the time you get to the finish line.

Work today mostly involved collecting a long list of new things to do on short notice while actually accomplishing little. Appropriately enough, a big thunderstorm rolled through in the afternoon, so I went downstairs to the disappointing pre-made sandwich place and bought a Hubig's pie. You don't want to know what they make those things our of, but apparently they have just discovered the web. It is looking like enrollment at Tulane and all of the other New Orleans universities will be significantly down this Fall, which means more financial trouble for sure. The Senate passed a big emergency supplemental appropriations bill today that included a lot of hurricane relief stuff. The health care amendments, however, were not included. Apparently the new railroad tracks in Mississippi and the subsidies for sugar cane farmers in Hawaii were more important than health care in New Orleans. Guess which states two of the most powerful people on Appropriations come from. At least my one success for the day was straightening out a problem with my mortgage company where they claimed some computer glitch was the reason that my payment had not been applied to my mortgage. Yeah, right. One little sign of progress is that the roof people have started to disassemble the huge crane that they built outside our office window and have been using to haul stuff up and down from the street to the roof and back since the hurricane. Now if they could just fix one or two of the blasted elevators so I don't feel like I have to make an elevator reservation in order to get lunch, that would be nice!

Things improved by the time I got home, though. There, waiting on the front porch for me, was a box containing the rims and spokes I had ordered, and in the mailbox was a revised estimate from Allstate Insurance that finally looks like something I can work with. So I got to work and had a new rear wheel built up before the evening news. I'll try it out tomorrow morning and then true it up again. I've gotta say, those Mavic Open Pro anodized rims are really nice. These will be pretty bullet-proof wheels. Campi hubs, Open Pro rims, double-butted DT spokes, and brass nips. The rear built up pretty well, thanks mostly to the fact that I didn't worry too much if it wasn't absolutely, perfectly true. Now I just need to build up two new front wheels and I'll be all stocked up wheel-wise. While I was working down in the basement, I missed a call from Gina V who bought a house somewhere in Atlanta today. Damn, she works fast! I'll have to give her a call in the morning and get the scoop. Her vmail didn't sound too optimistic about her racing season, however.

Final Load

Yesterday morning I woke up early, ready to ride. It seems that finally my circadian rhythm and the Earth's rotation are coming into alignment. It always happens that way this time of year. I'll be fine until around mid-January, then I sink into some kind of slump until late March, and finally begin to feel some energy coming back some time in April. So I rode a bit harder than usual on Tuesday and relished every second of it. If I hadn't gone over my father's house last night and consumed large quantities of wine, all would have been well. Fifteen minutes after getting home I was out for the count. That is, until I woke up quite thirsty around midnight. But all was well by morning when I rode out to meet the levee ride group, so I guess my liver function is still adequate. It was a nice typical Wednesday ride with about a dozen riders and a steady pace of 22-25 the whole way out and back. Courney E was there telling us about the big snake that surprised her (and her little dog too) in the backyard of her new house in Mandeville. Her husband came out and dispatched the creature, much to the chagrin of Donald who had been known to stop and pick up snakes and turtles during training rides, bringing them back home in his jersey pockets.

After the morning ride, as I approached my house I saw a welcome sight. The debris pick-up crew was on our block! This was really exciting. Three of the neighbors were out front watching. Our block was down to just one remaining pile of Katrina debris, which was in front of my next-door neighbor's house. This should be the final load of debris on our block. It's been eight months now since Katrina, for those who are counting. Now if we can just get the Sewerage & Water Board out there to fix the water leak two houses down that has grown alarmingly over the past few weeks, we would be home free! What started as a soggy area near the water meter immediately after Katrina has now grown into a miniature marshland complete with a gurgling spring and babbling brook flowing down the block to the storm drain. It's been so long that we are concerned about the roots of the large Oak tree that it's under.

So it looks like I'm going to be putting together Tulane's proposal to the Board of Regents for our $15.3M portion of the Department of Education Katrina Relief for Higher Education fund. Should be interesting. The 37-pages of documents attached to the request for proposals seems to have been designed to make it as difficult as possible, quite inappropriately incorporating 34 CFR 74-99 into the whole thing as if it were a regular grant. Ah well, that's why I get the big bucks, eh? Meanwhile, the First Lady was in town today making some awards from a Foundation to some local schools to help rebuild their libraries.

Catch-up

By Sunday night another weekend of insufficient riding was starting to mess with my head. Race announcements are everywhere this time of year, and even if many of them are out of reach for one reason or another, I still need to feel like I could hold my own if circumstances somehow found me on the starting line. I'm not exactly getting that feeling, though, and when I start missing the intensity of the weekend group rides, I know it's getting serious and I feel the need, if only psychological, to "catch up." So I headed out the door a little bit early this morning to put in an extra 10 solo before meeting up with whoever might show on a Monday morning after the first JazzFest weekend where Bruce Springsteen apparently brought everyone to tears with "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?" I should have been there for that. Anyway, the weather this morning was practically perfect - temperature in the mid-60s, almost no wind, clear blue skies. I did my 10 miles of solo work and then met up with a couple more guys along the way, arriving back home feeling a little bit more satisfied. Just after I met Joe F. this morning we came across Sally D. on the side of the bike path just beginning to fix a flat. Sally and her husband Billy did a fair amount of racing back in the 80s and were still doing a lot of riding into the 90s until Billy crashed rather heavily one morning and did some major damage to his elbow. I don't think he's been on the bike in the last three or four years. Anyway, she has taken to riding Billy's bike lately. While helping to fix her flat I noticed that the rear tire, tube and Mr. Tuffy were all practically melted together into one crumbling mess. It had apparently been a very long time since that tube had been changed! She said that Billy had just been through two back surgeries, spending about six weeks in the hospital, and was now back home recovering.

On my commute in to work this morning I noticed that the traffic is essentially back to the pre-Katrina norm, at least along my communting route. The cars are screaming past me on the Broad St. overpass at 50 mph despite the 35 mph speed limit, as per usual. A couple of months ago my ride to work was a whole lot more peaceful. The workers on the roof at work are about finished with the side of the roof that I see out my window and for the first time since the hurricane it is beginning to look almost normal. It's interesting that many of the guys working on this job seem to be from Eastern Europe, maybe even Russia. Of course at work we are still focusing a lot of our energy on securing federal and state supplemental funding to help offset our losses, and at home I now have a "supplemental" insurance adjuster who will probably get me a few more dollars so that I can put a proper roof on the place. I was glad to see that between my patch job and the three buckets in the attic catching leaks that the strong storm Saturday night didn't cause any more noticible ceiling damage.

Got a TM from GeVo last night saying that she didn't ride Athens, and was feeling just a little bit better. Probably a wise decision, actually.