On the Tarmac

Sunday morning's 4 a.m. alarm was decidedly unwelcome, as was the queasy feeling I'd had in my stomach since around noon the day before. Something I ate? So I figured my best bet was to stick with the PowerBar diet until it all felt better. Charlie showed up right on time at 4:30 and we hit the road East for the Breakers Criterium, about two and a half hours away at an old Navy air station. All that's there now, as far as I can tell, are the nicely paved runways. Imagine a triangular criterium course with each side a bit more than 0.3 miles, on the equivalent of a 4-lane highway, without a tree within a quarter mile. I figured I'd really hate this course.


We arrived in plenty of time. On the menu for the masters were a 35-49 age group and a 50+ age group, which meant that I'd have to both admit my racing age and enter as 50+. As was the case for all of the events, the field size was small. Maybe 20 for the combined masters race. In addition to myself, NOBC had only Charlie and Jaro on hand. The race was surprisingly good. There were lots of attacks and a few breaks. Knowing that Jaro was back there resting his legs for the sprint meant that my job for the day would be to chase down the breaks, a couple of which involved long pulls at 28-30 mph. Charlie would often follow up with attacks, forcing the others to chase. In the end everything was back together. Toward the end of the race there was a crash when one of the riders put his front quick-release into Jay S's rear wheel. Somehow Jay stayed up despite losing half the high-priced spokes on one side of his rear wheel (the other guy wasn't so lucky). Jay was back in the race a couple of laps later, though. Eddie C., who I had been expecting to go for a solo break toward the end, was dealing with a soft front tire in the final laps and couldn't sprint. (During the cool-down lap his tire blew out completely). One of the other top riders from Florida who often rides the Tour de La, flatted toward the end too, after the "no more free laps" point.


Coming into the last turn things ramped up pretty good and I found myself maybe 6th wheel with Jaro one or two ahead of me. For some reason the leading riders were coming into the last turn really wide and Jaro took the opportunity to dive through the inside of the turn with me on his wheel. Even though it was a long way yet to the finish, he didn't hesitate and charged for the line. I dropped all the way down to the 12 as he accelerated up to 36 mph., listening carefully for the sound of someone coming up from behind. He hesitated for a second, looking back at me, and I yelled "go Jaro." ...and he went. I didn't want to start pulling around him because it just would have given an advantage to whoever might have been on my wheel, so I hung back just a bit and we finished 1,2. (Since I was 50+, I guess it was 1,1).



After the Masters race we had almost three hours before the Cat. 1,2,3 race, during which time it poured down rain - mostly for the Cat. 4 race. A couple of Red Bull chicks came by with free Red Bull drinks, so I got Jaro to take a picture so we can submit it to pezcyclingnews.com's "distractions" page. I like that Red Bull stuff, and it seemed to agree with my gradually improving stomach. Although the rain stopped for the start of the 1,2,3 race, the road was very wet and gritty and we had an off-and-on light rain throughout. On hand for this one was Scott K, who had just won the Alabama state road race the day before, and teammate Kenny B. The pace started out pretty fast as Scott made a few exploratory trips off the front. Finally the group started to split after one of the turns and I saw Jaro jump out of the bunch to make a last-minute bridge. That 5-rider group stayed off the rest of the race. I started to try and bridge shortly after Jaro went, but a couple of riders started chasing and Charlie yelled at me to let them go since Jaro was in there. So after that, things really shut down in the pack for a while. Eventually the break was so far out there that there were a few attacks but nothing was allowed to stick. With maybe six or seven laps left the break lapped the field and everyone was back together for a while. There was the usual confusion (including the officials) about this, but since they weren't pulling lapped riders there shouldn't have been any. Still, there are always some people who think that lapped riders can't work with the others in a crit, which is definitely not the case. In the interest of rider education, here's the 411 on that:

3D3. The following are alternative methods for handling lapped riders in criteriums (i.e. riders who have been caught by the lead rider(s) in the race). The method chosen by the organizer with the Chief Referee must be clearly explained to the riders prior to the start of the race.
(a) A rider who falls so far behind as to be considered out of contention may be removed from the race by the Chief Referee.
(b) Alternatively, lapped riders may be permitted to remain in the race and all will finish on the same lap as the leaders. At the finish, these riders will be placed according to the number of the laps they are down and then their position in the finish.
3D4. Riders on different laps may work with each other except that no rider may drop back to assist a rider who has broken away from the field [disqualification for accepting such assistance].

(There's also the Field Finish Option, but implementing that in a short criterium is so problemmatic that I have never seen it done.)

Anyway, I think it was Scott who attacked and I really had to dig to stay with them. The result was that the break separated itself from the pack, except for me. Ahhh. I felt like I was in a race again for the last few laps there, although I was reluctant to do anything to affect their finish, so I just sat impatiently on the back. In the end, Jaro jumped just past the last turn from practically the last spot and passed everyone, but then Scott got in a final kick and nipped him at the line. So Jaro ended up 2nd which made for a real good day for him!! So surprisingly, I loved this course. You could fly through the turns, even in the rain, people could attack and come past 15 feet to one side or the other of the pack, etc. It was definitely different!

The combination of the rain and the dirt and other gunk on the runways made us all look like we had just finished a muddy 'cross race by the time we were done. I was picking sand out of my ears and hair all the way home.

Flat Day

It was a humid, windless morning for the Giro Ride today, and there were lots of people on hand to partake. Some sort of coincidence of late and early starts brought the regular Giro group, the doctor's ride, and the triathlete ride together somewhere on Hayne Blvd., shortly after some poor soul near the back flatted. When it happened, a couple of guys sprinted up to the front of the group to tell them someone had flatted, at which point they eased up - for about 30 seconds. The next flat was Donald's, occuring on the service road after the turn at Six Flags. About half of those left, including me, waited around but a pretty big group kept going. So we ended up turning around when we met the first group on its way back. There was yet another flat on the way back. I was glad that I hadn't planned on making it a hard day.

So Charlie's picking me up at 4:30 a.m. so we can drive over to Mobile for the 8 a.m. master's race, and then hopefully the Cat. 1,2,3 race later in the day. I should probably get some sleep!

Stormy

Although it was sunny most of the day today, there's a big afternoon thunderstorm rolling though right now putting on a big lightning show outside my window. It's heavy enough that I wouldn't be too surprised if we lost power at any moment. It kind of suits my mood today, though, and in fact there has always been something about these sudden strong afternoon thunderstorms that I've liked.

I went out this morning expecting a slow and leisurely recovery ride, but instead we had a half-dozen guys and the pace stayed a bit faster than that. It was good, actually, except for the nagging clunking noise that has been coming from my bike lately. Yesterday I used a different rear wheel and didn't hear it. That would tend to eliminate the bottom bracket as the source, so last night I took the rear (Campi) hub apart and re-greased it. Indeed, the left side bearings didn't look too good, as if they were a little rusty or something, and they were just a tad loose. After battling with the damned cassette pawls I finally got everything back together and ready for this morning's ride. Well, the hub might have needed re-greasing, but that wasn't the problem because the clunk was back. The wheel is tight in the dropout and the cassette is tight on the carrier, so it's probably in the cassette carrier somewhere. I guess I'll have a look at that tonight. I think that's a cartdrige bearing, though, so I will probably just be able to make sure everything is snug. I really miss those nice old cup and cone hubsets that never caused trouble and lasted forever.

Well this Landis affair is quite a show. I've seen and read more mis-information and speculation than I can shake a stick at. And then of course good 'ol Dick couldn't resist the opportunity to render premature judgement as usual, blaming the UCI and cycling in general. I would just absolutely love it if it turned out that the test itself is inaccurate, but of course it probably isn't. Not that I have anything against drug testing, you understand. It's just that I think Dick is a self-absorbed, glory-seeking jerk. I think that it's at least partially because, being a lawyer, he has little use for actual hard scientific facts, preferring to make his judgements on the basis of rather squishy protocols, all the while proclaiming them to be 100% infallable. Well, that and the fact that he obviously hates the U.S. in general and U.S. athletes in particular, not to mention the IOC and the UCI. Anyway, it looks like it will be quite a while before the whole thing is resolved. Once they re-test the samples and confirm the result, which I'm sure will happen, Landis will be forced to appeal to the CAS, which could take months, in order to present his case and offer an explanation as to why his T/E ratio was over the limit. In the meantime, he and his team are screwed and the French newspapers can have a field day. In the end, whatever happens, we'll probably never get the real details.

Mennonite Blues

Damn but it seemed dark this morning when I rode out to the levee to meet the group. I guess the days are already getting shorter now, which makes you think about buying school supplies or something. I guess I wasn't the only one feeling the effects of the slightly later sunrise, since there were only a couple of guys up on the levee when I arrived, and it was quite a while before the full contingent was assembled. Today's ride started out smoothly enough, but the barely perceptible yet unrelenting acceleration drove the pace up into the upper 20s well before we reached St. John parish. There must have been a lot of people who turned around at the "dip" today, although I didn't realize it until the turnaround. That was because I was sitting on big VJ's wheel for the last five miles wondering how he could just cruise like that at 27 mph all day. Of course, he was on his TT bike, so I felt no inclination to try and pull - not that he ever eased up so I could. Pulling out of his slipstream probably would have been like sticking my head out the window of the City of New Orleans SuperLiner somewhere around southern Illinois anyway. It was like sitting on the wheel of a motorcycle. After the turnaround I was surprised how few were left and how scattered they were. We all finally got reassembled, though, and rode the return trip at a somewhat slower pace.

So on the home front, the insurance company is sending the last check for the roof and the roofer has ordered the shingles, which means that in a couple of weeks I might be on the schedule. Right now I'm the only one in the office, and its been this way all day. I know one of them is out dealing with repairs and contractors for her flooded house. The rest?? I'll assume they're working hard somewhere on weighty matters that demand personal meetings. I'm about to dive back into this contract issue so I can get everything worked out and ready for signatures some time on Friday so they might actually get signed on Monday when the president gets back in town.

So after reading about Landis' failed drug test, now I've got the Mennonite Blues, and I'll bet his momma does too! I'll refrain from making any assumptions about guilt or innocence, though, because I trust WADA about as far as I can throw the aptly named Dick Pound, and I especially distrust indirect methods like the epitestosterone/ testosterone ratio test they apparently used in this case. Could the off-the-charts efforts of Landis' 16th and 17th TDF stages have skewed his ratio a bit? Probably. Given all the water he was drinking during the stage would the lab have had to artificially adjust the specific gravity of his urine before testing? Probably. Would Prednisone given to help a painful hip affect the testosterone test? Possibly. Would Dick Pound squeal with glee if he could nail a U.S. rider after winning the TDF? Definitely. OTOH, after the disasterous 16th stage, if you were to resort to an illegal drug to help recovery, what would it be? Probably HGH and testosterone. For me, though, the recovery regimen is usually more like a hamburger, 20 minutes of rubbing my sore legs, and a beer. Probably explains why I never got the call from Phonak... That reminds me. Thanks for the beer after the race Saturday, Kenny!

Ho Hum

Well, it didn't rain today, but otherwise it was kind of a boring ho-hum kind of day. The morning training ride was a typical Wednesday affair of moderate pace and no surprises. It was actually a pretty good ride, although my head was elsewhere most of the time.

Spent some time jumping through various administrative hoops for the state office of community services. Things like state "locator codes" and contract forms and organizational charts.

The Corps of Engineers released (under some duress) their "inundation maps" for the city that show how deep flooding would get in the event of a storm surge that required closing of the new "interim" flood gates. You see, closing off the drainage canals with flood gates will stop the storm surge from coming in from Lake Pontchartrain and flooding the city, but it also stops the pumping stations from being able to pump rainwater out. So they have to build special pumps to get the water over the floodgates, and of course those won't all be operatonal for another year or so. In the meantime, if we have to close the floodgates and we also get some serious rainfall at the same time (i.e. 6-9 inches of rain in 6 hours), the maps show how deep the water will get. Luckily, I would be high and dry, theoretically. If we make it though this hurricane season, things should be better by '07. Theoretically.

Back to the Levee

Well, it was back to the levee again this morning for the Tuesday long ride, but not until I had checked the weather radar to see where the next thunderstorm was heading. It seems Mother Nature is trying to make up for the severe lack of rain we had all fall, winter and spring, and so now this semitropical swamp we live in is beginning to feel kind of rain-foresty and tropical. The streets barely have time to dry before the next downpour arrives, and I'm thinking I need to check the water level in those buckets up in my attic that have been catching the drips from the leaks in the roof. The forecast for the forseeable future is pretty much the same, too. With all the rain, the roofers must be getting behind, and indeed I haven't heard from mine in a week and still don't have a tentative date scheduled, so I'll have to give him a call today and see what's up.

So anyway, as I'm riding down Willow Street this morning toward the levee I can see a train crossing the road up ahead. It held me up for a few minutes and then when I got up onto the levee bike path there were only a couple of people there. Hmmmm, that's odd. We rolled out anyway, a minute or two late, and eventually the rest of the usual crew, some of whom had been delayed by the train farther downriver, turned up. By the time we were out to the country club, the group was at full strength, the pace had gotten completely out of hand and I was seeking shelter nearer the back. I'm not sure what was going on up there, but with the combination of Todd, VJ, Rob, Eddie, and a few other fast guys, the pace was staying just under 30 mph. My legs are still feeling a little reluctant after last weekend's abuse, so I was trying not to get too involved up at the front, especially after the start of today's "Rob and Donald Show." All I know is that there were a few words exchanged owing to somebody not riding the way sombody else wanted him to, and then the pace started to get kind of erratic as a little "I can pull harder than you" thing developed up at the front. Whatever. I got home tired and whipped up an enormous smoothie with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, but I still feel like I need some sleep or something.

The Team Time Trial just got postponed due to "scheduling conflicts" after having been on the calendar since January, so I don't know what that's about, but I'll bet it ends up conflicting with the trip to Florida we're planning in September. We're hoping to get some of the guys over to a crit in Mobile, AL this weekend. At least I got the results of last Saturday's criteriums up on the websites last night and just need to update the LCCS rankings some time this week.

I was supposed to ride over to City Hall this morning at 10:30 for some sort of bicycle press conference involving the Regional Planning Commission, but when I checked the radar I was pretty sure I'd end up standing on the City Hall steps in the rain. Sure enough, it did rain a bit around 11:00, although it was fairly light. Ah well, another civic duty shirked.

Crit Vids

Did I mention that Kenny was riding the Cat. 1,2,3 crit with a video camera strapped to his handlebars? Near the end of the video you can see when Frank M. drops back and me waving people past me because I was a lap down and didn't want to interfere with the sprint.

Cirt, Crit, Crit

The Louisiana/Mississippi (aka LAMBRA) district criterium championships was Saturday and so I was up at 4:30 a.m., just as The Daughter and her friend were getting home from a night in the French Quarter, to load up the Volvo, pick up Charlie and head up to Denham Springs. Around 10 the night before I had picked up the club's big tent thing so we'd have some shade, 'cause I knew we'd need it.

We arrived in time to see Courtney cleanly dispatch the other women to win her race solo, after which our 45 minute Masters 35+ race got underway before 8 a.m. There was a fair amount of action from the start, with Matt of NBO going from the gun. Realdo launched the next big attack, but the pack reacted pretty quickly and shortly after he was caught Eddie C. launched. Eddie is fully capable of a long solo, so I went into the red to catch, as did Ed C. Next thing I knew, we had a gap, so we went with it. Although the pack allowed us a small gap, we spent a number of laps just hovering at around 15-20 seconds, even though we were working well together. My teammates were doing a good job of chasing down the attacks, though, so eventually we started to pull away. The one thing I didn't realize was that at some point Realdo had gotten away and was trying to bridge up to us. I remember thinking that he might do that. There was one point on the course where we made two turns in rapid succession, so I could look over to my right and see where the pack was. Well, I was able to see the pack, but apparently not Realdo. Damn! I really need a coach and a radio, because I am incredibly bad at keeping track of what's going on behind me in a race. Anyway, I'm sure I could have slowed the break down enough for Realdo to catch and so now I feel bad that I didn't realize he was there. If we could have picked him up, I'll bet he would have won. Anyway, the three of us, being the courteous masters riders that we are, kept working together until the final lap. About half-way through the final lap I found myself on the front and eased up a bit hoping someone would come through. Everyone hesitated, though, and the speed suddenly dropped a lot. Eddie siezed the opportunity and attacked and by the time Ed and I stopped looking at each other he had a huge gap. I finally took off in pursuit, but although I was going 30 mph coming into the last turn, I wasn't making up much ground. I thought that surely he would fade in the finish stretch, but he put on another burst of speed and finished bike lengths ahead. I didn't hear Ed behind me as I approached the finish line and started to ease up just as I caught him coming by out of the corner of my eye. I threw the bike at the last second and somehow managed to get my wheel across the line ahead of his, but it took the video to know for sure. Realdo finished between us and the pack, and Jaro won the pack sprint, so if I had just done my job a little better, it would have been pretty good.

After lounging around in the shade for a few hours, during which Jaro won the Cat. 3 race, it was finially time for the 40-minute Masters 45+ race. This was a fairly small field as usual and when David Hyde attacked shortly after the start, 4-man break quickly formed. A few laps later as we were coming through the sharp, off-camber downhill turn I was sitting behind David and heard a commotion behind me. Apparently the rider behind me had a tire blow out, basically taking himself and the rider behind him out. I think they both got going again, but neither ever reconnected with us. I was taking this race as more of a hard training ride, and David must have had the same idea because even though we were in no real danger of being caught, we kept up a good fast pace throughout. In the end David led us through the last couple of turns, jumping early and accelerating down the long finish straight. I came around at the last moment. By now it was hot and sunny and I was dripping sweat like everyone else.

The 75-minute Cat. 1,2,3 race was scheduled to start 15 minutes later, but I wasn't planning on doing two back-to-back criteriums on a day like this and was on the side of the road near the start talking to Jay and Jaro when I got called out by Shane, the official. Then Will, the promoter (who was also racing the Cat. 1,2,3 race) came over and said "the third race is free!" So I figured, what the hell, and filled up a single water bottle, rolled to the line and off we went. I spent about five laps dealing with a stich in my side, but since there were only about 16 people in the race things weren't too brutal. Once I got warmed up again, I was able to move nearer to the front and take over from Realdo a couple of times when I saw him on the front, but of course there was no way I was going to be of any real help to anyone at this point. I was figuring I'd be lucky to hang in for half of the race. In fact, it was shortly after the half-way point when a strong break went off the front and when I had to dig deep to stay with the chase I started to feel the legs starting to cramp up. Eventually I had to let them go, but with so few riders in the race I knew they wouldn't be pulling anyone, so I rode easy for a few laps. That helped a lot, and when I saw the group coming up behind me to lap me I got rolling again and latched onto the back where I would stay for the duration. By this time the pace had settled down a lot and a few people had dropped out, so when I rolled across the line after the sprint I actually ended up in 8th place. It took me a good half hour after that to get my body temperature back down to near normal after something like two and a half hours of criteriums in one day and my quads were definitely toast, but hey, at least I got my miles in!

Some good pics: http://sescheib.smugmug.com/gallery/1694887/3/83336823

The Daughter headed out for Iowa City this morning, so I decided I'd skip the training ride and let the legs recover a little longer. Maybe I'll do an easy ride this afternoon if the rain holds off.

Slug - ish

Well, yesterday afternoon I headed across town for another dentist appointment, this time to have the temporary cap removed and the "real" one glued in place. It would have been better if the dentist hadn't pulled the cap off of the adjoining tooth in the process of wrenching the temporary one out, but at least I can down chew food on both sides of my mouth again. As fate would have it, though, shortly after I had gotten the cap firmly installed my stomach became kind of unhappy and stayed that way. It's still feeling kind of odd. Not much to do about it though.

So we had a nice smooth morning ride on the levee today, rolling along at 20-21 mph most of the time, at least until we picked up a couple more riders toward the end who must not have known it was Friday. Today's Tour de France stage was fairly uneventful, with all of the leaders interested mainly in saving their legs for tomorrow's time trial. It should be quite a battle. After all of the hard mountain stages that were just completed, I would have to hesitate to make any firm predictions based on the earlier TT results. It will likely all be decided by less than a minute one way or the other, making it one of the closest GC races in a long time. Somebody here at work taped yesterday's stage for me, so I'm planning on watching that tonight. I got a bunch of new blank CDs the other day here at work so I could make some backups and for some reason they keep crapping out on me half-way through recording. If I just record a little bit at a time, they seem to work fine, but when I select 250 mb or so, they keep failing. I eventually got all the critical stuff safely tucked away, but it took twice as long as it should have.

We've got the La/Ms district championship criteriums tomorrow up in Denham Springs, which is just an hour or so from here. I am definitely not "up" for this one. The Master 35+ race is early in the morning, so at least it won't be too hot for that one. Then, after noon, there's the 45+ race followed immediately by the Cat. 1,2,3 race. Which one to do? I did both a couple of years ago and let me tell you - by the third criterium there's not much "snap" left in your dehydrated legs, that's f'sure.

Early

An early morning meeting that was finally scheduled around 8 p.m. last night saw me out on the road early today as I tried to squeeze in a few miles before buttoning down the collar and cinching up the tie for another exciting day at the office. It was a nice change to be out on the road alone in the dim pre-dawn light, and although I missed out on the long Thursday ride, I did get in 26 good quality miles despite the steady drip, drip, drip of sweat coming from the front of my helmet for the last ten miles or so. When I got to the office I had just enough time to check up on the Tour de France before my meeting, and you can imagine my surprise when I found Landis to be over six minutes ahead of the peleton approaching the final climb of the day. You can also imagine how I rushed the meeting so I could get back to the computer in time for the finish. I picked it up again just as Floyd was coming over the climb, still putting time on the pack. It was awesome, even without live video. Could we have another U.S. rider win the Tour? Definitely a possibility.

Totally Extraordinary

... and that's all I have to say 'bout that.
http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/tour-de-france/2006/

Way too busy

I was awake this morning earlier than I needed to be. It wasn't early enough to go back to sleep, of course, since that would have practically guaranteed I'd be late for the morning ride, so I eventually got up anyway and did fun stuff like cram some more stuff in the garbage can outside for our (still) once a week garbage pickup. There was a pretty big group for the levee ride today, and although it never got really fast, I'm afraid I did push the pace up a little bit when I was on the front. Howard was off the front after the turnaround, so he rode all the way in about 45 seconds ahead of us. Then he sent this email out to the list (fishing for a response, of course!):

Now that i've gained 15 seconds on the DONALD intoday's stage of the Tour de Levee, it reminded me of a story Mike Lew told of a RR win he had at Hodges Garden. Apparently Mike came in solo with enough time on the group to dismount, bath, dress, grab something to drink and watch the second place rider cross the line. So I came up with the following incomplete list of things we can do in 15 seconds.I've been told that my pulls last only 15 seconds, and that's on a good day.

Ronnie Schmit can have an orgaism.
Kevin can go from off the front to off the back in the Giro.
Donald can show off all of his 13 personalities.
Carey can recite every curse word known to man.
Larry can do 1500 vertical push ups.
Pou can knock out 5 guys
Kenny B. can convince you that we should all aspire to ride for Herring Gas.
Charlie D....well Charlie can't do anything in 15 seconds but he has a size 15 shoe.
Juice....would be 15 seconds ahead of me (is that 25%)
Reyo can spin the cranks about a million times.
VJ can figure out how to lose another lb off the bike
Matt can create 5 stick dog paintings and make $10koff them.
Bert V. can pick up every woman he sees
Rob can get 5 tickets fixed and get you out of jail (just once)
Max can grow back a full coat of hair on his legs
Robin....we won't go there.
Todd...if I say something about Todd, he'll make me ride a hilly ride and I'll end up riding 30 miles backby myself.Again...
I'm sure that this is an incomplete list sofeel free to add. And to Donald. I may be riding next to you tomorrow, but I'm actually 15 seconds ahead of you.

It's been crazy busy at work the last few days and I've been feeling rather pressed for time. I've also been feeling pain in my jaw from that temporary cap that I'm supposed to have replaced with the real one tomorrow. Another expensive tooth for my growing collection. I just hope it doesn't hurt every time I drink something cold, or hot. The Daughter has a friend coming in today who may drive back with her to Iowa City, so I probably won't have to go. I just wish I had known about it before buying that round-trip ticket!

So I checked my Sewerage and Water bill online today since I had noticed that they had finally read the water meter for the first time since the hurricane nearly eleven months ago. $114. Haven't even gotten it in the mail yet. Can't wait to see the gas bill once they finally catch up on that. I'll have to negotiate on that one for sure. They can't get their act together for nearly a year, and then they want to dump a huge bill on you and expect you to cough up the cash in like twenty days.

Fat Bastard

An easy ride on Monday with The Daughter refreshed my legs a bit, and a good thing it was too. This morning's long levee ride was plenty fast - and hot. I'm sure I don't really need to be commenting about the heat any more. I mean, it's mid-summer now in New Orleans and it goes without saying that it's hot. At least we've been getting a few of our typical afternoon rainstorms lately, which usually cools things down just a notch, even though the increased humidity does kind of take the thrill out of the marginally lower temps. One thing yesterday afternoon's rainstorm did was bring down a huge oak tree branch a few houses down the road. So naturally in order to clear the street they dragged it over to my house where it will probably stay. In a weak moment today I responded to an email from one of the catalog places that was offering free shipping and discounts. The Wife needs new tires, after all. While I was there I also ordered a new pair of handlebars, since mine are about 50% aluminum oxide right now, and also (gulp!) a new saddle. This is a radical thing. Really. I've been riding the venerable old Concor saddles for probably 20 years. This time, though, I decided to roll the dice on a somewhat more modern saddle with a hole in the middle. Should be interesting ...

This morning I got to work a bit late because I couldn't tear myself away from the Eurosport streaming audio of the Tour de France. I knew I'd somehow end up missing out on the climb up L'Alpe D'Huez, and that just wouldn't do. To see guys these suffering like that, it's just incomprehensible to guess what it would be like for the average local US pack fodder rider like myself. I mean, just how many minutes behind would I be if I started with these guys at the base of L'Alpe D'Huez?

Rushed home yesterday after work in order to get out to my dad's place for a little family get-together for his birthday where I drank copious amounts of Fat Bastard merlot which I found to be merely adequate - a bit on the fruity side for my taste.

Atypical Day

Although I probably should have made the drive across the lake to do a ride up around Enon, the early start convinced me to just go ahead and do the Sunday Giro ride. I was feeling kind of tired from Saturday's ride anyway. On the way out to the lakefront I met up with Ben and we arrived early enough to stop and chat at the parking lot before people finally got rolling. I was surprised how fast it got today on the way out to the Eden Isles turnaround, but the ride back turned out to be much slower, especially after we turned around to see about one of the guys who crashed going around the turn from the service road onto Bullard. Turned out his front tire had about gone flat and when he made the turn he lost it. No major damage done, though. All-in-all it seemed like kind of an atypical Giro ride. Anyway, by the time we got back onto Lakeshore drive I was feeling kind of bonkish. Don't know why. I had eaten a powerbar along the way and had enough water. Rode back home down Wisner and Carrollton with big Richard and John a bit faster than I would have liked. The rest of the day I was more thirsty than usual, although I did spend a few hours out in the sun battling with the hedge trimmer, which I was asking to cut things it was never really designed to handle. Eventually I sliced through the electrical cord, got a bit of a shock, and decided it was time to call it a day just before a big thunder storm, complete with lightning and hail, moved in.

I think The Daughter is planning on doing the morning levee ride tomorrow. Hope it doesn't get too fast!

In the early afternoon I got a call that one of my step-sisters, who I don't know very well, had been murdered in a double murder / suicide. Long sad story there of which I know only bits and pieces. Suffice it to say there was a long history of drugs and bad choices.

Dripping Wet

There was a big crowd this morning for the Giro Ride. After a short delay on Lakeshore Drive because of a flat, things picked up pretty quickly. I thought the ride was quite fast today, which suited me just fine. After the turnaround it usually slows up for a while, but with a light tailwind we were soon rolling back down Chef Highway at a fast clip that only increased as we neared the Goodyear Sign Sprint. I was still pretty far back when things ramped up for the sprint and before I knew it there was a small group off the front. As I came by Jason I motioned for him to get on my wheel and then proceeded to do my best imitation of a leadout train. I knew we had started too late, though, when I looked down to see that I was going 36 mph and we still weren't going to catch them in time. I pulled off and Jason made a run for it, passing some of the guys who had blown up but not quite making it to the front. Anyway, Tim and Realdo were kind of making sure the pace never slacked off too much today, and on the way back down Hayne Blvd. Realdo took a really, really long pull with me just hanging onto his wheel for dear life. A couple of people came around but they didn't last long. We were really flying when we hit the Casino bridge and just before the top I checked my computer and it was showing 29 mph. That's when Jason jumped. The whole time I was just dripping sweat and as we rolled in on Lakeshore Drive I was thinking that it's about time to break out the large size water bottles. Well, maybe at least one of them. Any time I put a large one in my seat tube cage my legs hit it and it drives me crazy. I got a ride home with Jason because he had discovered a leftover "bike race ahead" warning sign from the Tour de La out on the TT course and had picked it up so he could return it.

When I got home I found The Daughter and The Wife getting ready to go for a ride, so I scarfed down some food and went out with them for a ride on the levee. We didn't get too far before The Wife's front tire exploded with the tube blowing right through a dry-rotted patch in the center of the tread. I think those Continental tires are a good five or six years old, easy. Old enough for the sidewall rubber to have become brittle and nasty and the casing to stick to the rim. Luckily I had a boot in my kit, so I fixed her up and sent her home while The Daughter and I continued on. We rode about 20 miles and got rained on at least three times. By the time we were halfway back I could feel the water sloshing around between my toes and the salty sweat getting washed out of my helmet and down my face. I was totally soaked and dripping wet by the time I got home, but on the plus side, it wasn't hot!

I saw a little while ago that Mike O from MMW won the Masters 30-34 Nationals road race. Mike was 2nd in the Tour de La (Cat., 1,2,3) a couple of weeks ago. He even got his photo in the USA Cycling article. Looks like the race was in the pouring rain because he's dripping wet. Sounds like he won with style, too. Over in France, though, I don't know what the hell's going on at the Tour de France. I mean, I can see letting some guys who are way down on GC roll down the road and all, but 29 minutes and the jersey? That was just unnecessary.

Fête Nationale

Happy Bastille Day! One thing I always miss about Bastille Day is the little Bastille Day Criterium we used to have around the statue of Jeanne d'Arc, The Maid of Orleans. The annual race was held downtown near the old Rivergate which was torn down to build the architecturally devoid Harrah's Casino. In the process, they also moved Joan's statue, which was a gift from France, down into the French Quarter. The race was part of the Bastille Day celebration, hosted by the local France-Louisiana organization. It was always rather loosely organized, but for all its faults, it was quite unique. The course was probably about 600 meters around and included two U-turns. There was nowhere on the course where you could really get up to speed, since you were always either entering or exiting a turn. From the last U-turn to the finish was probably less than 100 meters. If even the smallest gap opened in front of you, which of course happened regularly due to crashes, it was nearly impossible to close it. If you made it to the finish anywhere near the front, you automatically earned a doctoral degree in bike-handling. Anyway, it was a fun little race that I still miss.

Yesterday was a very full day that started with a fast Thursday levee ride and ended with half a bottle of Merlot out on the front porch with The Wife and her sister and a couple of the neighbors who came over to try and talk us into adopting a couple of stray dogs that they had rescued from the levee. Someone must have abandoned them there in the area that has become an unofficial "dog park" figuring that someone there would take care of them. Looks like they have been house trained as far as we can tell. They are going to get both of them all brought up to code at the Vet., but need to unload them since they are already pretty well stocked dog-wise (one of them does a lot of dog-sitting and in fact took care of a whole menagerie immediately after Katrina since she worked at some kind of dog place before the hurricane). These look to be young dogs. One maybe a year or year and a half old, and the other younger but obviously related. Maybe part Dauchsund? Anyway, they want them to be able to stay together and live inside and if anybody can adopt these guys PLEASE let me know before The Wife adopts them!! As an added bonus, I'm pretty sure one of them can fly, given a favorable wind and a good push.

So today's ride was the usual easy Friday ride, but for some reason we picked up a whole lot of riders along the way. Dan and I were talking at the front most of the way out and when we turned around we were shocked to see a good dozen riders who had latched onto the group. Realdo rode with us most of the way. He's starting to do some serious training in preparation for the Tour of French Guyana (Tour Cycliste de la GuyaneTour Cycliste de la Guyane) which I think is in August 20-28.

So the local TV station has a special notice on their website: "Actor Brad Pitt will be at Gallier Hall to address environmental solutions to the city's housing problem." Huh? We should be taking advice from Brad Pitt now?? He's an expert on urban housing in his spare time? I mean, the guy doesn't even go by his own name.

In the Bank

This morning the stomach was marginally better, although the throat is still hurting when I swallow, but there wasn't anything about a training ride that was likely to make either worse, so I was out the door as usual for the levee ride. It's been interesting to see how the morning levee rides have evolved, with each day taking on its own characteristics. Sandwiched between the two "long" days, and usually coming the day after the hardest day, the Wednesday ride is probably the most variable, speed-wise. Regardless of the speed, though, the one thing that characterizes the Wednesday ride is that it is almost always smooth paceline. This morning was no exception. The speeds stayed in the 23-24 mph range for most of the ride, and when there's a smooth paceline going that's a pretty comfortable pace at an average effort level not too different from a 21 mph solo ride, I'd say. I felt better today as I am slipping back into the groove, and if this stomach thing would just quit altogether, all would be copasetic.

I was glad to finally track down the details on a criterium in the Mobile, AL area. For some reason it is always hard to find the info on this particular race. This year the only way to find the flyer was to click on the "register by mail" link. Who knew? I've never been able to make this race, although it's been going on for a few years now at the Naval Air Station there. Maybe this year? The promoter send me an email today that said, "hope some of you guys can make it...tell Jason Miller that Bart wants a piece of his ass." Haaa! There is a really good battle going on in the Cat. 4 LCCS series, except that they've all given up on first place since the guy in the lead is probably going to resist upgrading until he has it in the bag, which shouldn't be too hard since he's won almost everything this year. Naturally I forwarded it to the whole NOBC list!!

So this morning I had an email from the Controller's office that they had received an electronic transfer of funds from the Board of Regents today in the amount of $14,067,377, so it's good to know that's in the bank. I'm expecting a check for $1.2M today, and once that arrives we can break out the champagne. Actually, this $15M is a drop in the bucket that probably won't merit much mention outside of the folks in the CFO's office. Now I'm working on a $13M proposal for the Health Sciences clinical faculty, to be funded through the state's Office of Community Services from the federal Community Services Block Grant.

Need to Debug

Well I guess I've got some little bug. Since yesterday I've had a dull headache on the right side, accompanied by some throat irritation on the same side and relentless gastric reflux issues. I was not a real happy camper for this morning's long levee ride, although I was happy that the cloudy skies kept the temperature down a bit. We had a pretty big group up there today and the pace was mostly quite fast, especially on the way out. I showed my face at the front only a few times, chosing instead to spend a my time at the back where I might live to fight another day. Not that being at the tail end of a fast ride is much of a picnic, but trading 27 mph pulls at the front was just not going to be working for me today. So I put in the usual 44 miles or so (you'd think I would have committed the actual distance to memory by now), each of which was uncomfortable, and hit the medicine cabinet for Flonase, Sudafed, and Advil. I wish I could say it was helping, but it sure doesn't feel that way.

The Daughter and a friend drove back to the house last night around 10:30 because she had forgotten her wallet. Before I went to bed she took my Shell credit card too. When I was riding to work this morning I was thinking how ironic it was that I was commuting to work by bicycle while at the same time paying car insurance on two cars and providing ad libitum gasoline for The Daughter. Ah well. I'll get even when I'm in the nursing home.

There was a nice email in my box late last night. It said, "Good news! Wendy called to say that our check from the supplemental funding is being cut by the state tomorrow and should be available for pick-up tomorrow afternoon. The checks are in the amount of $14,067,377 (Main) and approximately, $1,256,000 (TUHSC). " Ever see a check for $14 million? I'm thinking about driving up to Baton Rouge to pick it up just so I can see it! I won't even get into how crazy it is that the state is handling this transaction with a paper check rather than a bank transfer...

Master's Nationals start today, I think. Not too many folks from around here will be competing this year, but there will be a few. I always wish I was there. I always wish I was in good enough shape to really BE THERE too. Results should show up at https://www.sportsbaseonline.com/Series.aspx?id=105.

Out and Back

Sunday was a long day on the road but not on the bike. Somewhere around 950 miles covered, mostly due south from IC to NO. The Daughter's condition was much improved, and although she will be taking antibiotics for a few more days, she is already at work coaching at a gym in Ponchatoula where she will be for the week.

We headed out from IC rather late, around 7:30 a.m., taking the shorter route that doesn't put us on an Interstate highway until St. Louis. I found The Daughter's Jeep Liberty to be fairly comfortable but just a little bit twitchy on the road. She was travelling pretty lightly this time, which surprised me, taking only a small bag and her Cannondale R-400. We pulled in to New Orleans a bit before 10:30, which was pretty good considering the fact that we made a few stops, including dinner at one of the ubiquitous Cracker Barrel places, and didn't push the speed limit very much. The hardest part of the drive was looking at the totals ring up on the gas pumps along the way.

Somewhere around Arkansas, I got a call from Ben S. who was unhappy at having been DQ'ed at the track the night before for coming out of the sprinter's lane at the end of a match sprint. He said that the other rider had already sat up, and if that's the case, the DQ was definitely wrong. If the other rider was still close, then it was justified. You can check out rule 2F8(c) if you're interested.

This was the second weekend in a row that I was forced to be completely off the bike, and by Sunday I was really feeling down about it. It's a fact of life for regular people like me that things come up every year that tend to unravel whatever it is that you call your training program, but that doesn't really make it any easier. So once I finally got home I figured I'd go out a little early this morning and get my legs re-aquainted with the bike. I wasn't home more than half an hour before that plan went down in flames. When I checked my email there was one from a co-worker with a subject line that read "morning pick-up." The gist was that there was a public hearing and meeting this morning up in Baton Rouge concerning a $13 million funding allocation for the health sciences center (via the special social services block grant for the Louisiana Recovery Authority, for those who might be interested) and our senior VP wanted us to drive up there with her in case it got ugly. "Morning" meant 7:15 a.m. It all went well, ultimately, albiet with the usual outcome that I have a bunch of "drop everything else" work to do that I didn't have yesterday. So it looks like I will have to jump right into the deep end for tomorrow morning's levee ride, sleepy legs an all.

Airport Lurker

Sitting here at DFW, B12 on my second cup of coffee with lots of time but little motivation. The fancy Samsung TV pedistal in front of me offers video but the sound is thankfully off allowing me to hear the live audio from Eurosport.com as they cover the end of the TDF time trial. A few surprises there, and I think we will seem more of those in the upcoming stages. Julich crashed in the TT?! I wonder just how hard these guys must be pushing themselves when experienced pros riding the best bikes on the best tires with the best wheels start going down all by themselves in time trials. 1:01:43 for 52 km? Yeah, that's fast. Couldn't hang onto the wheel sitting in the draft for 5 miles fast. Average speed of over 31 mph.

The flight from New Orleans to Dallas was easy and uneventful, which is usually a good thing when it comes to flying. Dallas to Cedar Rapids will be on a smaller plane, as usual. I like the smaller ones better for some reason. Must go back to my childhood when my dad would take us over to the old Lakefront airport to fly little old Cessnas and other underpowered flying club planes. We'd fly to little airstrips along the Gulf Coast, find something to eat, then fly back. The destination was unimportant, and a flyby of the Chandelier Islands was required. I think the Chandeliers, remnants of the Mississippi River delta before it last changed course, are almost washed away now, along with lots of pelicans.

Today I got up a few minutes early so I could ride out to Metairie and check the club Post Office box. There was a check from Active.com for Tour de La registration fees, and there are probably a couple more en route. It was a real nice change to ride through the city and parts of "Old Metairie" in the early morning before traffic picked up. I eventually made my way back to the levee just in time to catch the little Friday group at Jefferson Playground on its way out. Realdo was heading the other way when I got there but I didn't have a chance to talk with him. Nice steady ride today - typical Friday. It was overcast again and we had a very light drizzle out toward Kenner, but otherwise the ride was unremarkable.

Yesterday evening we met with the roofer to pick out the color and all, but I still need to get the cash from the insurance company in order to move.

The Daughter is still quite ill. The doctor today told her she has tonsilitis (like you need an M.D. to tell) and changed her antibiotic to some sort of penicillin but damn, they need to find out what's going on here. Sending her home and telling her that they would "mail her the results of the blood work on Monday" just does not cut it when you're running a 102 degree fever. If she's still that sick by Sunday she definitely should not be making a 14 hour drive. So we're calling in the troops and her doctor may be getting a call from one of the doctors down here.

Just Soaked

The overcast skies this morning fooled me into sleeping a few extra minutes, and as a result I had to hustle in order to meet the group. I guess I wasn't the only one lagging behind today, though. It seemed like everyone was running a few minutes behind schedule.

Today's long levee ride felt hard, although the speeds never really got much higher than 25-26 mph. Maybe it was just me? One thing for sure; it was plenty humid. It rained much of yesterday and into the night last night so there's a lot of moisture in the air now. When it's like this we have to keep the a/c running a bit during the day so that mold doesn't start growing on the surfaces in the house. Anyway, by the time I got home I was just completely soaked with sweat. Completely. Like I had been thrown into a pool of sweat and someone had held my head under. Halfway through the ride my glasses ended up in my pocket because it was getting too hard to see out of them.

We were talking the other day about how much training time people put in. Of course, if most of your training time is spent riding with a group, a lot of it is less effective than it would be if you were riding along. OTOH, if riding alone gets boring and tiresome enough that you start cutting it short or skipping it altogether, that's not good either. So the trick is to find the right balance for you. Personally, riding with the group really helps get me out the door in the morning, so it's worth it. Anyway, I figure that in a typical week uninterrupted by bad weather or a weekend race, I probably ride 15 hours or so. Last night I was talking with Gina who just started her residency at Emory hospital in Atlanta and she said she had ridden 20 hours last week. How does she do that? I'm sure that, if properly done, you can be very competitive with 10 hours a week, especially if you race in a class or category where most of your races are three hours or less.

The Daughter is still under the weather, and my guess is that she has Mono but the rapid test the did the other day didn't show it.

"It's not the heat . . .

. . . it's the humidity. It was a sauna this morning in New Orleans. Even now, at 2:15 p.m., it's 89F with 60% relative humidity, which bumps the heat index up to 97F. It was a fairly typical Wednesday morning ride out on the levee today - moderate pace, mostly 20-24 mph, with the humidity so high that every time the pace slacked off a bit my glasses would start to fog up and drops of sweat would drip down onto the inside of the lens. Somehow my body likes this kind of stuff, though, and my legs felt good. I even got a few drops of rain on the way to work and it's raining here and there in the city right now. The grass, starved for water for months, is now growing at a phenomenal rate and everything suddenly looks very green thanks to the steady and consistent rainfall we've been seeing the last few days. The drought is most definitely over.

Steve M posted links to some excellent Time Trial from last weekend's Tour de La. The ones from the Road Race are particularly nice, especially considering that he took them all from the wheel truck behind the Cat. 1,2,3 race. Nice roads, eh? There's also a great sequence of the Cat. 1,2,3 Criterium sprint in there at the end.

The Daughter is still sick and I think she may have atypical Mumps. After a visit to the ER last week where they essentially brushed her off without even blood work she finally saw a doctor this morning where her extremely elevated wbc level got their attention resulting in an injection of Cipro and a script for more with instructions to come back on Friday. Apparently they did a monospot and it was negative, but then those are not all that accurate anyway as I recall so I wouldn't be ruling out mono since she has a sore throat, fever and swollen "glands." Not sure if we're talking salivary or lymph, though. Anyway I'm keeping in close touch and will be up there on Saturday at any rate.

Raining and Wrapping Up

We did an easy ride this morning up on the levee with Wes and me spending most of the time discussing last weekend's Tour de La. On the way back, we saw George Pou flash by on his TT bike. I had heard he was in town for the holidays. Thanks to the recent turn in the weather and the overcast skies, it wasn't very hot for a change. As usual, though, I can feel the effects of a full weekend off the bike. To make matters worse, I'll be off the bike all next weekend too when I fly up to Iowa City and then drive back down the river to New Orleans with The Daughter. When I got home and checked my email, I was reminded how nice it is to have an event like the Tour end just before a holiday. There were only a few work-related emails, and even though we are not off today, I knew it would be quiet since many people would be taking a day of vacation to make a 4-day weekend. Just as I was about to ride to work, it started pouring down rain. I took the laptop out of the messenger bag and put it back on my desk to wait until the rain stopped. It didn't. As I had a dentist appointment at 11:30 way across town, I finally called The Wife and got her to bring me the car. It's about 4:00 now and the anesthetic has about worn off and now there is just a dull ache where the temporary crown is glued to what's left of one of my molars.

I talked with the rider who had the head injury at the Tour and he's doing fine. Although he doesn't remember much of anything about the crash or the trip to the hospital, they released him that evening and he's back home in Houston nursing some facial road rash. I can relate. Some years back I crossed wheels in the Lakefront training race and landed hard on my head. It was pretty much the same scenario. Broken helmet, loss of consciousness, memory gap, and various scrapes from face-surfing on the asphalt. The trouble with landing on your head is that once you're unconscious you just slide along on whatever body part happens to be on the ground until friction brings you to a stop. Normally you would move and roll and spread out the damage a bit more. Anyway, I'm glad to hear he's recovering.

So I guess tonight I'll get a start on the Chief Ref report, post-event payment report, USCF results and rankings upload, Report of occurrence, Annual and One-day License forms, LCCS rankings, etc. It'll take a few days, easy. We had some complimentary feedback from the Tour today. One of the Texas guys wrote on the TxBRA forum,

"Tour de LA proves that you don't need a lot of glitz to put on a great race. A few simple things like hundreds of bottles for a neutral feed zone in the road race. Loads of watermelon at the finish for the racers. Those folks know how to put on a great little race. The roads in the new road race course were some of the best I've ridden on. The crit course on a soaking wet road was eventful, but those guys were out there with a leaf blower trying to dry the corner with the paint. Well worth the trip from the metroplex."

That was nice. The watermelon was a surprise. I presume that Robin came up with that. About mid-way through the road race after we'd been standing on the side of the highway for a couple of hours, he walked over with a couple of cups of cold vanilla ice cream for Shane and me. Man, that tasted good. After he sets up the road race course, checking corners, putting up signs, patching asphalt, and doing whatever else is needed, Robin sets up the start/finish area with water, sports drinks, gel packs, cookies, etc., and then makes a trip or two around the loop to help keep the corner marshals alive with cold drinks and food. Then he and Brian and whoever else is still there get together to tear everything down, pick up all the trash, and make a last trip around the course to remove the signage. He basically works his ass off from Friday through the end of the criterium while I have the much easier task of officiating and working out the results.

Another Tour in the Books

Half an hour before the Women and Juniors were to start, it was pouring down rain. Sitting on the porch of the hardware store across from the finish line, I had just gotten the computer and printer set up and discovered that I could pick up the wireless connection from the corner coffee shop. A quick look at weather.com told us the rain would pass, and although it did, the streets stayed wet for most of the first race. We had decided to run both the women and juniors concurrently, starting the women 30 seconds behind, so that each group could race without complication. Man, was that a mistake! Within the first few laps there were riders scattered all over the course and it was nearly impossible for Shane and me to keep track of it all. Somehow we figured it all out but it took a lot longer than we would have liked. Anyway, the streets eventually dried up and we had some really good racing on the course in downtown Covington. Despite our nonexistent event promotion campaign, there were quite a few spectators around the course. We did have to send a couple of people to the hospital during the Cat. 4 race when there were two separate crashes, practically on the same lap, on opposite sides of the course. One rider hit a big bump way over on the extreme left-hand edge of the road and landed on his head, knocking him unconscious for a few seconds. There were a couple of shoulder or collarbone injuries in the same race. In the Cat. 1,2,3 race a break of abotu 6 riders got away but was eventually pulled back, resulting in a big pack sprint. Realdo came around the last corner in good position but got passed by the GC leader just before the finish. It would have been awesome if he had won both the road race and the criterium.

After the race we had our usual awards ceremony at Acme Oyster House, which is on the course, and I had my traditional Abita TurboDog and shrimp po-boy. By the time everyone was inside for the awards, it was pouring rain outside. Good thing we weren't running late because a downpour for the finish of the Cat. 1,2,3 race would not have been pretty!

Anyway, I'm glad we have put another Tour in the books. It will take me a few days to wrap up all the paperwork and LCCS scoring, of course. The club should be really proud of itself. We had a great turnout of club members helping with the race, and that really makes all the difference. After I got home I put the results up on the website and headed over to my mother's house where the electricity promptly went out for about three hours.

At the Tour

No, not that Tour. The Tour de Louisiane. Things went fairly well today at the TDL from an organizational perspective, and I think most of the riders really liked the new road course. We had around 190 riders, which is a very good turnout for our race. For some reason the Cat. 5 field didn't fill up as usual, and yet we had an unusually large number of Women and Juniors. Go figure. The TT in Abita Springs held no big surprises today, and as usual I did the starting while Brian did the holding. We did all of the results sitting in the little gazebo in Abita Springs, and I printed the results out in the car on the way to the Road Race. Luckily there were some clouds that came through during the road race so it wasn't as hot as it might have been, although the wind kicked up pretty strongly. My place-picking was definitely lacking today, and it was only Shane's excellent work with the finish line camera that saved the day. Realdo won the Cat. 1,2,3 finish which ultimately came down to a field sprint. There had been a good break during the race, but the Memphis guys had only one rider in a 6-man break and decided it was too risky so they chased it down. The masters race didn't look to be as animated, and it too finished in a field sprint. The Cat. 4s and Cat 5s dropped a lot of riders and were scattered all over the course while many of the women and juniors stayed together until the finish. It was great that we had a lot of the club members show up to help with the race this year. It really made a difference. As usual, Robin handled the course setup, had water, soft drinks, and even watermelon available for the riders, along with unlimited neutral water handups, free energy gel packs, etc., etc.

After the races we headed over to Keith's house in Covington to work on the results and eat pizza and were able to post them at the hotel a bit after 9 p.m., which is not too bad. Tomorrow we'll do the criteriums in Covington (backwards!). Should be interesting. I'm a little tired, but still have a bit to do tonight before I hit the sack.