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.