Drive-Bike-Drive

I hit the gas at 4:30 a.m. to make the long drive up to Monroe, and despite a cup of gas station coffee and a Coke, I was still feeling tired and sleepy when I arrived at the race five hours later. To top things off, my stomach was not particularly happy either. I guess it knew that I needed sleep more than a 60 mile road race, or maybe it had something to do with the gaspacho, calamari, scallops and wine from the night before.

I've raced a couple of versions of this road course in the past, and almost every time I ended up in some sort of break, but that was not to happen today. One complication was that the officials decided at the last minute to run the masters race together with the Cat. 1,2,3 race. For LCCS purposes, that meant that there were basically five races going on at once in the same pack. It was less than ideal, although I did like having a fairly big field for a change. The problem, however, was that the masters didn't want to chase the Cat. 1,2,3 riders, and vice-versa, and since they were scoring the Cat. 3s separately, they didn't have much motivation to respond to attacks by the Cat. 1,2s. Likewise with the masters, since the 45+ riders were being scored separately, they weren't all that motivated to chase down the 35+ guys. Anyway, I found it all too confusing. It's much simpler to just race and not worry too much about everyone else's class and category.

On the first lap there was a lot of action right from the start, and at one point right after I had chased down a little break (which I seemed to be doing all day), two of the Cat. 1,2,3 riders countered. Since the riders on the front at the time were masters, there was essentially no response and they eventually rolled off out of sight. Meanwhile, there were a number of attacks and surges from the masters riders, but nothing was sticking on this hilly course. Charlie was keeping an eye on me and every time I dropped back for a little rest, he would take over at the front. About halfway through the second or third lap (of four) there was an attack on a steep little hill just after a right-hand turn. There had been two or three of the Cat. 1,2,3 riders with a slight gap and the pack had almost closed the gap when we hit the turn. Well, one of the other Cat. 1,2,3 guys attacked the climb and hollered ahead to his teammate to "go!" I tried to go with him. I really did, but I was a little too far back when I saw what was happening and although I closed to within a few bike lengths on the climb, when the two teammates hooked up at the top there was no way I was going to catch. Of course, in the back of my mind I was also thinking that they were not really in the same race as I was. Even so, I have a real problem watching riders ride off the front like that. Just call it "fear of droppage." Anyway, those two were allowed to ride off into the sunset too, so now there were four of the Cat. 1,2,3 riders off the front and it seemed like there were only two more back in the pack who were doing anything. The third lap and most of the fourth lap were not too fast. I was doing a ton of work at the front chasing things down and trying to keep it together so Jaro would have a good shot if it came down to a pack sprint, which was looking more and more likely. Although we had dropped a few riders, most of the group was still back there lounging in the draft.

We had two Dallas riders in the field, one of whom was Jorge Merle who used to race in New Orleans back in the day. It is still a shock to me that he is old enough to race in the 45+ age group. Anyway, his teammate was doing a lot of work at the front. Finally, a few miles before the finish, there was a serious attack on a hill and the pack split for a while. I thought that maybe the six or seven rider group I was in might make a go of it, but I guess it was too close to the finish to expect everyone to work hard enough to stay away. Although it did come back together, a number of riders had been dropped and likely a few more were really feeling their legs. I dropped back next to Jaro and told him to get on either Jorge's or his teammate's wheel. A minute later things got hot but Jaro was stuck over on the left side of the road while Jorge and his teammate were on the right. I was able to get Jorge's wheel pretty easily as his teammate started a long and fast leadout down a little slope leading up to a right-hand turn that was only 200 meters from the finish. I think we blasted through that turn at around 30 mph. with me third. I hesitated for a second in the middle of the turn when I lost sight of the edge of the road, and was never able to make up that little gap. One hundred meters from the line when I stood up to really sprint, I could feel both calves cramping up. I could hear a bike coming past me on the right, but luckily it was Jaro. Neither of us was able to make up any ground on Jorge and his teammate, so we had to settle for 3rd and 4th in the overall masters race.

Overall, it wasn't a really fast race, but it was still pretty good. After the awards I hopped back into the car and headed back to New Orleans. I could have stayed for the TT the next morning, but I really wasn't too interested in doing another time trial. I got home just in time to vote before they closed the polls at 8 p.m.

I need to get some sleep.

Last Minute Decision

Although there was no ride today for me, the day nonetheless started early with meetings pretty much back-to-back from 7:30 a.m. until after 3:00, and then a trip out to the airport followed by a long an traffic-laden drive back downtown. I spent the day with our grants consultant in meetings with various faculty members. Although somethimes tedious, I still find it really interesting and refreshing. By 6:30 I was drinking wine and by 7:30 we were at Iris restaurant with a couple of the neighbors (spicy gaspacho and scallops!). So there was no chance to drive up to Monroe today, but by 9 p.m. I had made the last minute decision to drive up there early in the morning to make the Twin City Challenge road race. Although I feel pretty out of shape and won't likely do too well, it is probably going to be my last race of the season. Damn, it feels like just yesterday I was lining up for a novice race in City Park. I'll have to be on the road around 4:30 a.m. or so in order to make it there in time for the 11:00 start. After the race I'll probably just hop back in the car and drive back rather than hang around for the time trial Sunday morning.

Maybe I'll bring my aero bars along just in case, though.

Bleak Outlook

Although I knew I didn't have time to do the whole "long ride" this morning, I went out to meet the group at 6:15 anyway. The plan was to ride out to the regular short ride turnaround with the group and then ride back solo so I'd be back in time to make a meeting first thing in the morning. For some reason the group was a little reluctant to get going this morning. I started out at a moderate pace but the rest of the group just kept falling behind. Now you have to understand that I was not exactly in time trial mode or anything. I started out at around 20 mph and ended up at maybe 23-24 mph, so the group was just kind of slow to get rolling today. Unfortunately I didn't have the same luxury, so I kept rolling solo. Just as I got to the parish line where we usually turn around on the "short" days, the group, led by VJ, finally passed me. Ah well. I hope they didn't think I was being antisocial. So I was back at home in time to make my morning meeting. That meeting was for the people whose departments, like mine, had volunteered to be part of the pilot group for the university's transition to Microsoft Exchange for email, scheduling, etc. So the meeting was a blast, since almost everyone there was tech-oriented, and I went back to my office kind of fired up about the whole thing. My 1:00 I had made a run out to Circuit City to pick up a new Palm Pilot so that my transition to the new scheduling system would go smoothly. Ha!

After letting the new Palm t/x charge for a couple of hours I set about the process to transfer my contacts and calendar data from my old Palm to the new one. After that, I would have to change things so that the palm pilot would sync with Microsoft Outlook instead of Palm Desktop. Should have been a fairly simple thing to do, right? Well, the first part went fine and I was able to get all of my Palm data moved from my old Palm desktop software into my new Palm Pilot. The handheld would sync with the desktop Palm Desktop software just fine. After that it was all downhill. The new palm pilot would not sync with Microsoft Outlook. Well, actually it would sync for some things, but for all of the important stuff -- calendar, memos, contacts -- it would fail every time. The whole reason I had gotten the new PalmPilot was because it came with the software to sync with Outlook, which I will be using beginning Monday for all of my email and scheduling when my Tulane email gets redirected to the new Exchange server. I wish I could say I was surprised, but frankly I had a feeling I would run into a problem. After an hour of nonproductive experimentation, I finally resorted to calling the Palm tech support line. That resulted in a one-hour phone call, complete reinstallation of all of the Palm software on the machine, etc. and absolutely no success. The Palm folks passed the buck to Outlook. So next I will have to uninstall Outlook and then reinstall it and hope that whatever is broken is fixed. I am not feeling too optimistic about it. On the plus side, the Palm TX is pretty nice. For under $300, it is wifi capable and had no trouble connecting to my home wireless network, so I have high hopes there at least.

I need to work out something tomorrow so I can get myself up to Monroe this weekend. Jason said a few of the guys were planning on going but I just haven't had a chance to see if I can hitch a ride with someone.

Must be Fall

Although the autumnal equinox was a few days ago, I was still awaiting final confirmation until this morning when Richard showed up, early, for the morning levee ride. I suppose it must have been the cool and clear weather that prompted the unusually large turnout this morning. Both John and Scott, victims of the Giro ride crash a couple of weeks ago, were there, along with most of the usual krewe. We were already ten miles down the road before I reached up to unzip the jersey. Once you get accustomed to 80+ with 100% humidity, drier air in the 60s feels positively chilly. At any rate, the ride was uneventful and I was content to cruise along at the prevailing pace and enjoy the awesome weather. It was hard to turn off and head back home when we were done.

We're still trying to get the final OK for the Rocktoberfest course, which we are hoping will be on the UNO East Campus, just across the levee from its usual location. Keith and Robin will be making another push to get the approval today. It's a fairly simple race to put on, being one of the last of the season. We usually use leftover race numbers and pins, and sometimes dig up a bunch of leftover water bottles, T-shirts, or whatever is hanging around from prior events that we or Premier Event Management have put on recently. It's looking like I won't be there this year, however. George Heagerty is having his second annual "local association" meeting in Colorado Springs and I volunteered to go to represent LAMBRA. Feel free to send me your USCF gripes -- at least the ones that the local association (aka LAMBRA) can do something about. I'm not really sure what I'm getting myself into here, but I guess I'll find out soon enough. Hopefully I'll find the energy to make the long drive up to Monroe this weekend for the road race. I wonder who else from around here is going?

Atypical Morning

I should have known that this morning's ride would be atypical. For one, I had watched most of the Saints game last night in a mild state of amazement (perhaps also inebriation) as they tenaciously held at 20-point lead over the Atlanta Falcons in the Superdome. After they jumped to an early lead, I spent the rest of the night waiting for the other shoe to drop -- the one where they fall apart in the second half and get overtaken late in the 4th quarter. It never happened.

It was cool and dark when I left for the levee this morning, and when I arrived there were only a couple of other riders there. I figured that last night's parties and celebrations might have taken a toll on the morning ride. After all, as I was riding down Carrollton I passed a car with the street-side passenger door open and someone still passed out inside. A few riders arrived after I, and each said that as he had passed the Corps of Engineers' building, which has an entrance road that crosses the bike path, there was a woman cyclist lying on the ground unconscious with the police standing around her. The last rider to show up said they were loading her into an ambulance as he went by. The bike path doesn't have right of way at that intersection, and it's fairly busy in the morning with people coming to work, so it can be dangerous. Not too long ago the Corps tried putting traffic pylons across the bike path to slow the riders down, but of course that caused more problems than it solved. Anyway, that last rider also arrived with the announcement that he had two (2) flats! So we spent a few more minutes changing inner tubes before we finally got going. Eventually we picked up a few more riders, but soon we had to stop for yet another flat tire, so we were already running pretty late. Howard was afoot today, pushing the pace as usual, and as the group approached the Luling bridge, Big Richard sat up and motioned for everyone to slow down as Howard and Ronnie hammered off into the distance. I had to laugh when Howard finally pulled off and saw there was nobody behind him except Ronnie. Apparently we are easily amused that early in the morning.

The ride back was another battle with crosswinds, but was going along pretty smoothly until Ronnie's tire exploded underneath one of the grain elevators. Flat #4. By the time I got home I was a good 20 minutes behind schedule, but the weather was so nice I just couldn't complain.

On the Pro cycling scene, I have to agree with Pat McQuaid's assessment of Dick Pound.

"As chief of Wada, his role is to assist sport in the fight against doping but he doesn't help cycling," added McQuaid. "We've given him presentations and he knows that we do more than other sports, yet he continues to try to kill our sport. I can't accept that. "As soon as he's out of that job, the better."

If Pound were a doctor, his approach to curing communicable diseases would be to kill everyone and sort out the infected ones later.

Another Day, Another Giro

Saturday night I was still harboring notions of doing the CCC Fall Century up across the lake, even though the weather forecast was not exactly encouraging. So early on Sunday morning I lit up the laptop to check the radar. It didn't look good. There was a long line of thunderstorms in red, yellow and green, heading our way ahead of a cool front expected late in the day.

So I decided not to roll the dice on that and instead headed out to the Lakefront for the Sunday Giro Ride. The ride proved to be fairly fast, and in order to make up for my lackluster ride of the previous day, I put myself into the small rotation at the front as we hammered down Chef Highway. About a mile before the turnaround, as I was sitting in 3rd position waiting to take another 27 mph pull, Brett, who was at the front, suddenly lit the afterburners and surged up to 31. The rider on his wheel stayed in contact, at least for a while, but I was caught a bit off-guard and ended up out in the wind. It didn't last long for me and I eased up about the time the rider on Brett's wheel blew up, but Brett just kept going. After the turnaround, though, the group was going really slowly, so I went to the front. Even at 20-21 mph, I was pulling away and soon there were just three or four of us. We weren't going particularly hard, but we weren't soft-pedaling either. The group was pretty much out of sight by the time we turned off of Chef Highway and then when we hit Bullard we picked up Robin who had taken a shortcut after getting a phone call and falling off the back. Anyway, I felt a bit better than the day before. The only bad thing was that all the thunderstorms never really materialized until late in the afternoon, and judging by the skies on the southshore I doubt there was much rain at all for the Century ride. It always seems to work out that way when I skip a ride based on the forecast.

This morning was a nice solo ride on the levee in the nice cool air that finally arrived during the night. I actually paused to zip up my jersey on my way out there. Tonight is the first Saints game in the Superdome since the hurricane over a year ago and the fans are in a real frenzy. From what they're saying, it's been fixed up better than it was before the combined destruction caused by the hurricane and the Katricians. They have actually sold out the Dome for this one, and something like 80% of the seats are season tickets. I'm impressed. Yesterday afternoon one of the neighbors dropped by to invite us to a Saints party tonight. I'm not much of a football fan, but I never turn down an invitation to a party where I know there will be ample wine and ale! Most of the businesses downtown, including Tulane, near the Superdome are closing early today so the rush hour traffic can get out of the way before the game traffic shows up. I expect there are already tailgate parties going on at the Dome parking garage - they opened at 6 a.m.

Droppage

The Giro Ride group was smaller than usual this morning, and I was expecting a smooth ride with little fireworks. When I mentioned that to Tim during the warm-up on Lakeshore Drive, he looked over and said "Well, I was kind of thinking about making a few efforts today." I probably should have taken him more seriously. Soon after we hit Hayne Blvd., the pace started to ramp up. I was way at the back and not paying very much attention to what was going on up front. Soon the group started to stretch out into a long single line. I was behind Donald and was wondering why he was leaving a two bike-length gap in front of him. Well, trying to figure Donald out is a losing proposition, but by the time I finally went around I had to put in a 31 mph effort to catch. Moments later I realized that the group I had just caught was itself getting dropped. As I went past I heard Butch say something like "go get 'em, Randy." Another 31 mph effort got me up to a few more riders, but, like before, they were also in the process of being dropped. Another effort like that was not in me today, and although I was with VJ, it was clear he wasn't interested in closing the gap, so I watched the front group ride off into the distance as we headed down Paris Ave. We were officially Droppage. We ended up with a little group for a while, and then Donald came by and basically attacked! Then, most of the way down Hayne, Donald towed the group. Every now and then he would surge three or four mph. Go figure. So anyway, we turned around and got in with the main group. They were going easy for just a little while, but Tim was not writing any hall passes today and kept pushing the pace. Eventually he and a few others went off the front and I found myself with Butch and Jaro doing a very half-hearted chase down Hayne. For reasons unknown, I was feeling like crap the whole ride.

As soon as I got home, The Wife wanted to drive up to Baton Rouge to visit her mother. Suffice it to say that the rest of the day was pretty much of loss. Half an hour of sitting on I-12 at idle speed because of a tractor-trailer that had caught on fire, a long and painful trip to Picadilly Cafeteria, etc., etc.

The question now is whether to go ahead and ride tomorrow's Century ride. A few of the guys are supposed to be doing it. The only real problem is that the weather is not looking good and is guaranteed to be getting worse all day. 40% chance of rain at 7 a.m., 60% by 9 a.m. 70% by noon.

Miles and Miles

Amazingly, it's been over five years since I got the Cervelo and the Campi Ergobrain. I don't know what's more incredible: that the bike is still going, that I am still going, or that the computer is still going. I remember when having a bike computer get up to 10k miles was a big deal. For that matter, I remember when a bike computer was the size of a Blackberry, but with a tiny one-line dislpay. For that matter, I remember when riders were experimenting with using mechanical speedometers for time trials and aero meant putting duct tape over the laces on your shoes. Water under the bridge. Lots of water...

About-Face

Well, our little taste of Fall was nice, but it's over now. Those cooler and drier North winds made a complete about-face yesterday evening leaving the city awash in thick steamy Gulf air. At least the hazy atmosphere isn't stagnant, thanks to a brisk Southerly breeze that makes it all more tolerable. Some time in the early morning hours it must have rained, and when I stepped out the door this morning the skies were still cloudy and the streets quite wet. For a moment I considered staying inside. Fridays are usually my easy day and there's really not much difference between on-the-bike and on-the-couch recovery, but I felt like riding anyway. The levee, of course, was practically deserted this morning, and I rode slowly, avoiding the little puddles on the bike path so my shoes wouldn't get too wet. Three or four miles at 22 mph was the extent of the exercise portion of the ride, the rest of the time I cruised along at 17 and looked at the scenery. The only thing I hate about these solo easy rides is that after a while my head starts going over its to-do list. Currently, that list is really, really long, and if anything paralizes a linear-thinker like me, it's an unprioritized to-do list. With four different items currently competing for the #1 spot, I'll end up with a half-assed job on each and a lump of frustration. I really envy those people who seem to be able to juggle seventeen things all at once, even though the do tend to drive me crazy with their lack of attention to detail. Of course, if one kind of brain worked for everything we wouldn't need each other, would we?

So by the time I got back from riding my rear tire had about 20 psi left in it. Riding on wet streets, and especially on the levee bike path, is almost guaranteed to leave a bunch of tiny sharp things in your tires. I wasn't too surprised.

Life is full of tiny sharp things that let the air out of your tires.

There was a movie premiere at Tulane earlier this week. Check out the little video:
http://www2.tulane.edu/tulane_talk/tt_092206_video.cfm

Changing

Snuck in an extra 20 yesterday evening, arriving back at the house just before dark. The weather has been far too nice to be sitting on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune, and besides, I need to work off some of that lard that collected around my waist during the last few weeks (three lbs are gone, two to go). The bike has started making an occasional clunking noise that is clearly in the drivetrain somewhere, so late last night I dove into the bottom bracket. It was clear that there had been some water down there, since the left side bearing was showing some light rust here and there, but everything felt Campi-smooth nonetheless. I cleaned things up and forced some fresh grease into the damned cartridge bearings and put it all back together to try out this morning. It didn't seem to help, so perhaps it's in the hub or, more likely, cassette carrier. Oh well, at least the bike still goes forward when I push on the pedals!

This time of year it always seems like sunrise is getting noticibly later from day to day, and this morning I stepped out into near-darkness. The stars were still out as I turned on the flashing lights and made my way to the levee. As I rode up the access road I was practically blinded by Brady's helmet-mounted headlight when he turned and looked at me. Man, that thing is really bright, which is what you need if you have to train in the dark, especially on the unlit bike path. Anyway, we had a fairly typical group today except that a couple of the regular hammerheads were missing. Brady is planning on doing the Six-Gap Century this weekend, and Todd and VJ are supposed to be doing it as well, which may have explained their absence. The ride out to the turnaround was unremarkable. Nice brisk pace, but steady and smooth except for Howard's usual surges. After the turnaround, though, it was a little strange. After about a mile of soft-pedaling, I figured it was time we got rolling again, so, as gradually as I could, I lifted the pace to about 20 mph. Soon, the voices behind me grew more faint, and then they were gone altogether. Well, I figured the group would soon come screaming past me anyway, so I just kept rolling along. I may have gotten up to 22 or 23 mph, but certainly nothing more than that, and then finally, just after the 'Dip,' I heard wheels behind me. I looked back and was surprised to see only Jeff and Howard. So the three of us started working together and the pace went up maybe another mph or so, touching 25 now and then, but mostly staying around 24. I looked back but couldn't even see the group any more, although I knew they couldn't be too far behind. Jeff was starting to struggle, so when Howard pulled off around Williams Blvd. to go home we dropped the pace back down to around 23, and by the time we went under the bridge we had slowed down to 22 or so. Still, the group never caught us, not that they were actually chasing, although by then I could at least see them again. Anyway, I needed a good solid ride like that, so I was OK with it, although I hate to be so antisocial.

So things are definitely changing around here. Today there are guys up here on the roof removing the "Katrina Crane" that was installed right after the hurricane in order to get all of the destroyed stuff down and the new stuff and the new roof materials up. I take it as a good sign. I also got an email today for a meeting of the pilot test group for our change to Microsoft Exchange for email, calendaring, etc. I am kind of on the fence about changing my email software from Eudora, which I've been using practically since it was invented, to Outlook, especially since I use my email folders as a filing system and very often search for information in them. If they force me to go to IMAP, I'm going to be very unhappy. Aside from being slow to search and dependent on the status of the server, my experience has been that we have had a lot more problems with the people who use IMAP than with those who just use POP to download their mail. Anyway, "Change is Hard." The IT people seem to be deeply in love with IMAP for some reason, and I guess it is practically the only way for the Blackberry crowd to handle their mail, and I suppose I'm going to have to go there eventually, but I just have this deep-seated distrust of servers in general. That's the same kind of distrust that made the "Personal Computer" so successful in the first place (and practically brought IBM to its knees at one point). At any rate, my old PalmV is not going to cut it, since it doesn't have the native ability to sync with Outlook and I'm not about to mess with the third-party software that is supposed to make it possible, so I'll end up having to get a new PDA like the TX. I'm not really interested in dealing with a Blackberry kind of thing. I'd probably end up trying to read email while driving, which would likely end badly. More changes...

Nice to see some excellent results from U.S. riders at Worlds this week. First and third for the women and second for the men. Cancellara went 31+ mph for 50 km to win by a minute and a half over Zabriskie. Damn! I wonder if they'll be able to do anything in the Road Races.

What's a Research Administrator Do?

This was kind of funny. Be sure to go all the way to the end, though!

So Refreshing!

Temperature: 79° F
Skies: Clear Blue
Listening to: Let 'er Rip, Dixie Chicks
Caffeine Level: Dangerously High

Yesterday's long ride, combined with an easy ride in the evening, finally nudged me back on track, training-wise, and the Oh So Refreshing little cool front that came through yesterday afternoon got my head back on track too. It was actually below 70° this morning when I went out to meet the Wednesday levee ride, and even though the cooler air arrived courtesy of a brisk North wind, it was a fair trade-off. As I rode through the 'hood on the way to the river I was thinking about things that I hadn't thought about in a while. Namely, I was wondering where the hell I put those arm-warmers the last time I wore them. The pace stayed moderate and we spent a lot of time in a double paceline where the conversation included more analysis of the big Giro Ride crash that happened last Sunday. Of course I keep reminding everybody that if they had been at the Road Race in St. Francisville they could have avoided all that. Even though I seem to have acquired a few pounds of vacation fat, I sure would have liked to have been there myself.

As often happens when the humidity plunges, my beat-up old Campi shifters were a little reluctant this morning. I've come to expect that, though. The whole bike is way overdue for a complete tear-down and rebuild. Maybe some time in November, I think. For now, I'm just going to enjoy whatever cooler weather we might get in the mornings. Yeah, yeah, I know it's only September and there are still a lot of sweaty days ahead of us, but a guy can dream, can't he? A few months from now I'll be complaining about the cold.

So yesterday I lined up travel and lodging for the annual NCURA meeting in DC that's coming up in November. As usual I waited too long and the conference hotel was booked as were all of the other big hotels nearby. I got on Orbitz and, throwing caution to the wind, booked a small 1920's hotel that only about three blocks from the big Hilton where the conference is held. I usually don't spend much time in my hotel room at these meetings, and my hotel standards are pretty low anyway. As it turns out, one of the guys over there in the right-hand column has recently fired his retros after well over a year in blissful orbit and made touchdown about two blocks away from the hotel. Small world, eh? Better yet, he's offered to lend me a bike. Whatta guy. The conference is just up the road from Dupont Circle and reasonably close to Georgetown and every time I'm there, despite the cold, I want to ditch half a day of meetings and go for a ride. Anwyay, I was glad to get a reasonable airfare into DCA, because even though it's Tulane's money I cannot deal with waste. The nicest thing about flying into DCA is that I can hop onto the Metro right at the airport, hit the Red line and jump off at Dupont Circle or the next stop out with an easy walk to the hotel. Anyway, not wanting to shirk my Association responsibilities, I immediately volunteered to help out with the Hospitality Suite duties since that's where there is always an open bottle of cheap hotel wine. I'm particularly looking forward to the conference this year because I've missed the last two years.

Under the Limit

Coming through the turn near the finish with a lap to go.

Missed Opp

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, but didn't. Looking out the window into the morning darkness I searched for the puddles in the street to see if it was still raining. It was, although lightly. I contemplated hitting the road anyway, because, frankly, I'm feeling kind of desperate at this point. However, there were complications. The Sister in Law had an early flight out and needed a ride to the airport, so if I went out for a training ride, I would be committed to riding the commuter in to the office. It was looking like I might have to do that in the rain, so I reluctantly decided I'd better opt for the car today and headed for the kitchen to make some coffee. Naturally, by the time we took off for the airport the rain had completely stopped and the sun was coming out. Damn! I really needed that ride, too.

The New Orleans airport is about ten miles West of home, and so our return trip landed us squarely in the middle of rush-hour traffic. What a frustrating experience. How do people do this every day?? Half an hour, at least, of bumper-to-bumper traffic on Airline Highway got us only to Causeway Blvd., but miraculously the congestion eased at that point and once we got into the city proper it was relatively smooth sailing. I should mention that the smooth sailing was under bright sunny skies on dry roads. Damn!

So at work the first letter I open is from AAAS telling me that the postal service is still telling them that my office address "is not yet qualified for periodicals class mailing." WTF??

Take me, take me ...

to the City Beneath the Sea. Rolled back into New Orleans shortly after noon today, and about an hour later we were in Bucktown sitting at a table at Deanie's working on a huge seafood platter. When I walked into the basement back at the house, I knew immediately there was trouble. The smell was unmistakable. There was a dead rat somewhere. Luckily, it was easy to locate this time. So anyway, instead of riding or racing (I missed a road race that was being held today near Baton Rouge), I spent the day driving and eating. I am looking forward to getting back into a more regular training routine, although it is looking like the next couple of months will be a little complicated. The weather forecast for tomorrow morning is not particularly encouraging. Figures.

Must be Crazy

Left Pensacola Beach Friday evening around 7 for the drive to New Orleans, arriving around 10:15. It was actually a pretty nice drive along good 'ol I-10, except for the extensive construction in Slidell that had traffic backed up for a few miles. Switched the cassette over to the wheels that I use for time trials, bolted on the aero bars, and then spent a while cleaning the lovebug guts off the bike -- one of the little hazards of a roof rack in the Fall. Still, it wasn't until around 1 am that I finally got to sleep, and since the alarm was set for 5:30, that didn't allow for much sack time. Saturday I was up with the alarm, although I kind of wandered around aimlessly like a zombie for a while until I really woke up. I made the drive up to Baton Rouge, by way of the Gonzalez Starbucks, and arrived at the Team Time Trial start on River Road in plenty of time. It looked like a pretty good turnout as I worked my way through the riders clogging the road. Our 35+ team, consisting of Charlie, Steve, Jaro and myself, went out on a couple of short warmup runs, and then presented ourselves at the start/finish about four minutes before our start. We got off to a pretty good start and by the time we had gone five miles we had passed two teams. Of course, since the start order was completely random, that didn't mean very much. Even so, we were cruising rather well, I thought.

On the first tailwind section we were up to 30 mph consistently, and even in the headwind stretch we didn't drop below 26 hardly at all. My legs were feeling pretty good, and the first lap seemed too good to be true. It was. We weren't too far into lap 2 when Steve told me he was really having trouble. I had noticed that he had been telling Charlie, who was directly behind him in the rotation, not to surge, which meant he was probably having trouble getting back onto the back after his pulls. It seemed to me that he was slowing down a bit when he would pull, and then dropping back kind of fast, and I think Charlie was trying to get us back up to speed when he would come to the front. We were still going pretty well on the second lap, but definitely not so well that we could afford to ease up. I was surging myself a bit, always feeling like we weren't going quite fast enough. It had to be done, though, and everyone on the team was handling it well. The team felt really smooth and stable, although I did trade a little rubber with Jaro at one point when the pace suddenly slacked off and I found myself overlapping his wheel. Good thing we both know how to ride our bikes. Anyway, by the end of the second of three laps, the strain was starting to show. Lap two had definitely been slower than lap one.

The last lap was both harder and slower. Kind of typical for a Team TT like this. Steve was starting to hurt big-time, but was doing a pretty good job of holding the pace when he would come to the front. Unfortunately, we had to ease up a few times during the last two laps when someone would miss catching the draft at the back, and that cost us a lot of time. As usual, I was probably suffering the least because every time I would pull off, no matter how hard I had just gone, I would have lots of draft and could recover pretty well before my next pull came up. A few miles from the finish, Steve finally threw in the towel, letting us know he was dropping off so that the pace wouldn't be disrupted. After that, it felt much harder to me. Charlie really seemed to ease up when Steve dropped off, and it took us a long time to get rolling again into the headwind, and I was really missing that extra wheel's worth of draft.

We ended up with a respectible time, I think, that was apparently good enough for second place in the master 35+, but I couldn't wait around for the results. As soon as I cooled down, it was back in the car for the return trip to Pensacola. I think I stopped sweating somewhere in Mississippi. You're probably thinking that I must be crazy to drive all the way from Pensacola for a 32 mile TTT and then turn right around and drive back, only to make the return trip to New Orleans the next day. Yeah, you're probably right. Anyway, I haven't seen the results yet, but from what I heard, the Herring guys set a new course record that was something like eight minutes faster than our time. We averaged about 26.7 mph or so according to my computer. I had said before the race that in order to be competitive we needed to be looking at 27 mph. I have a feeling that the "competitive" speed today was probably more like 27.5. Anyway, we might have been able to shave another 30-45 seconds off of our time if all cylinders had been firing and if we hadn't lost time on the turns and when we had to slow down to regroup after a car pulled out in front of us. I don't think we had quite the horsepower to take a minute off of what we did, however, even under ideal conditions. At any rate, it was still better than hanging around on a beach in the sun at that time of year when the "girls gone wild" crew is on vacation.

Definitely need to get some sleep tonight . . .

Deadlines

As I have each morning, I rode less than an hour and a half today up and down the same road and reminding myself that I’m supposed to be on vacation. It was more windy this morning, but I compensated by riding more slowly and doing a little sightseeing down some of the side streets. It was strangely reminiscent of New Orleans. There are some sections with vacant lots where houses used to be, along with homes that have obviously been boarded up for a long time. Alongside are homes that look like new or are in the midst of repair, and everywhere are pickup trucks and construction workers. There was one little street on the “Bay” side, however, that looked a lot like the Pensacola Beach I remember from years ago -- older cinderblock houses surrounded by those small oak trees and sea oats that are the only things that really keep the island together. Anyway, it was an easy ride today. Yesterday I spent much of the day in Shopping Mall Hell, way over by Sandestin. Luckily, the girls got tired of the shopping experience fairly quickly.

Tonight I’ll head back into New Orleans so I can make it over to Baton Rouge for the Saturday morning Team TT. The “TT” stands for “Team Torture.” Hopefully I’ll end up feeling more like an engine than an anchor tomorrow. After the TT I’ll have to zip right back to Pensacola. Should be there by early afternoon.

A couple of hours ago we finally got the funding allocations from the Department of Education for the Hurricane Education Recovery Awards. Tulane was allocated $7.5M, so we are all very happy about that. The only little problem now is that I need to write up the full proposal and submit all of the application materials by 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday. I won’t have the budget numbers and other details until some time on Monday, so it will probably be kind of tight, but what the heck? Won’t be the first time! Should be fun!

Vacation Mode ...

OK, so now I'm starting to get into vacation mode. Pensacola Beach is about as quiet and deserted as I've ever seen it. The beach roads going both East and West are closed a few miles out, still awaiting repair from Hurricane Ivan's damage. I'd be surprised if there are 50 people staying in the four high-rise condominium towers that comprise the complex where we are staying. I got up around sunrise this morning and put in around 25 miles up and down the beach, slowing down occasionally behind various large construction vehicles. Around mid-day we headed over to the NAS to check out the Naval Aviation Museum, arriving just in time to catch a little tour by a retired Naval Reserve guy. On the way in, we passed a whole group of junior ROTC students, reminding me of my days at Jesuit when we were all part of the Marine Corps JROTC, learning map reading, practicing drill in the yard, and disassembling M-16s in the dark. It was kind of fun except for the fact that the U.S. was still heavily involved in Vietnam, which was not exactly a popular place to be at the time.

So anyway, we got a pretty good tour of all of the airplanes, starting with fabric wings and ending with the Blue Angels. They didn't really have any aircraft from the last decade, but then again, it WAS a museum. It was also freezing cold, so The Wife and her sister were more than ready to bail as soon as the tour was over. I could have spend another hour there, easily. Maybe we'll make it over to the Air Force museum in Ft. Walton later this week? The weather here has finally cleared up, but we all just chilled out in the condo all evening. After all, I'm on vacation.

Granted, I did check my email three or five times today, and kind of lucked out on this Dept. of Education Hurricane Recovery grant thing that I was fully expecting to explode today when they were supposed to release their final "allocations" and then give us about a week to submit final proposals. As it turned out, the information leaked out that they were planning on expanding the awards to something like 41 institutions, despite the fact that the congressional intent was that they be limited to insititutions of higher education that had been closed as a result of damage suffered because of the hurricane(s). Anyway, it all blew up today and our congressional delegation was not amused, so it looks like everything will be delayed for a while. Should be interesting...

So I think I will end up driving in to N.O. Friday night so I can make the team time trial on Saturday morning, and then driving right back to Pensacola. Ahhhh, the things I do for the Team! I think I'll try and get in some real miles tomorrow morning anyway, because this whole relaxing vacation thing is kind of stressing me out.

v

Rain Watching

After getting in a nice morning ride on Monday, we loaded up the car and headed East to Pensacola Beach. We're staying in a big condo tower on a strip of barrier island that's probably about as wide as the building is tall. It's a nice view and quite nice, although I'm always just a bit uncomfortable hanging with all of the "beautiful people" at places like this. They don't have an exercise room, they have a "Lifestyle Center," which is code for "everything costs extra." Anyway, being the beginning of the off-season, it is very quiet. Unfortunately it has been raining, sometimes in Biblical proportions, since last night, and it is not looking like I will be able to ride without getting soaked until tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, I'm sitting on the 12th floor without wireless access (good thing I brought an ethernet cable) watching it rain.

I don't know how much longer I can take this kind of lifestyle where everything seems to revolve around which restaurant I'll be eating at next. I'm working on figuring out a way to make it to the team time trial on Saturday morning because although I thought we were coming back on Friday, it now looks like we'll be here for the weekend. I could always take the car and drive in for the TT and then back to Florida. We'll see.

Team Practice

It's 6 a.m. Half-asleep, I'm reluctantly bolting on the aero bars in preparation for a little team time trial practice session. Charlie wanted to get started at 6:45 so that we would be safely ahead of the regular Giro ride, so Jaro, Steve and I meet him at the usual Giro start location near the lakefront, ready for an early start. There's another team TT group already out on the road, so our idea wasn't unique. Jaro is taking his first ride on a new TT bike. The idea this morning is to get in a little experience riding with each other in order to try and smooth out the pace and make sure everyone is on the same page for the race next week. My legs feel awful, and I don't know why.

We did a number of stretches of fairly fast paceline, interspersed with some easy sections to talk about what was working and what wasn't. As usual, the main topic of discussion centered around which unlucky person would have to be on my wheel -- not because I'm fast, but because I'm small. In fact, today I was really hurting and every time Steve would ramp up the pace, I would end up slowing it back down. Meanwhile, Jaro was distinctly uncomfortable on his new TT bike, and we talked a while about what might help in that regard. It's one of those Cervelo full-out TT bikes with the reversible seat post. I suggested that, for the time being, he might want to set the bike up more like his regular road bike.

As we head out to the turnaround at Venetian Isles, there is a dark and menacing sky off to our right. For a while, I think it will miss us, but soon after the turnaround we feel the first drops of rain. For a while the rain is light and I think perhaps we won't get drenched, but a few minutes later, the drops are big enough to sting as they hit our arms and my shoes are filling up with water. The rest of the way back was in and out of rain. By the time I got home, I was still pretty wet, and I'm hoping my shoes are dry by tomorrow because Charlie is picking me up at 5:15 a.m. so we can meet a small group (I don't know who will be there) across the lake for a 7 a.m. start. I sure hope my legs fell better by then.

Tease

I woke up about an hour early today. Likely a result of going to bed before 10 pm last night. I wasn't quite energetic enough to actually get up, though, so I just stared at the clock-radio for half an hour and then got dressed and lubed the chain. It's still light enough at 6:30 that I don't need the light, but there was a hint -- just a tiny hint -- of (dare I say it?) Fall in the air this morning. The humidity has been a notch lower than usual for the last day or two, and that's made the morning ride much more pleasant. I'm trying not to get too excited about it, though, because I know it's just a tease. There will be a lot of hot and sweaty weather yet between now and October.

There was a nice little diverse group up on the levee this morning, including one big guy on a mountain bike. I think he's ridden with us before. The pace was pretty steady as usual, maybe just a tad faster than a typical Friday, but even the mountain bike guy stayed with us the whole way. I was feeling like I wanted to go a little harder this morning, so when I was in the paceline I was intentionally staying out in the wind a little bit. I even switched the computer over to cadence mode and kept it at 95-100 most of the way back just for fun.

Mark was out on his new carbon bike. I think his position is actually a little better on this bike than on his old Klein. I know the ride is more comfortable. Mark's small and the one thing about the carbon frames is that they often don't come with small enough head tubes to allow short riders to get their handlebars low enough. We usually end up resorting to deep-drop bars and short stems, and other tricks in order to make it work.

So, on the work front, I finally tracked down that $13 million contract that we still haven't received from the state Office of Community Services. It's still shuffling its way through the state's bureaucracy and is supposed to be ready for its final review and approval on Monday. Nobody's making any promises about when it will actually get signed, though.

So it looks like I'll be near Pensacola, out on Santa Rosa Island, next week, on a little vacation that The Wife and her sister from Dallas cooked up. It is not the best place to ride, and since we will only be there during the week, there's no chance I could get in on a local group ride in the city.

Cocktails

The day started as usual. I rode out to the levee ride, arriving right on time, but just ahead of a train. When I got to the meeting spot up on the levee "hill" where the water intake is, we were missing a few of the regulars. We figured they had gotten caught by the train a mile or two downriver, so we waited a couple of minutes. Sure enough, they all showed up together -- Luke and Margaret, Elise and Big Richard on his vintage blue Cinelli. We ended up with a nice little group for a typical Wednesday ride. The only thing out of the ordinary was the wind. There was a steady Northwest wind today, quite reminiscent of Fall. Although there was a lot of tailwind today, the outbound leg had a lot more headwind than anything else. On the way back, though, we got a nice circular paceline going for a while, which was nice because the short pulls kept the rotation going, and that kept the guys at the back from suffering too long in the gutter during the crosswind stretches.

The Bike Room at work is starting to get interesting again. Today there was an old Dawes 10-speed, a Schwin Collegiate women's bike with the original steel drop bars and I'm sure the original plastic handlebar tape, and a fascinating bike with some sort of direct-drive transmission that runs through a hollow right chainstay. The first bike I had with dropped bars, which I bought together with my brother, was a Schwinn Collegiate 5-speed. It must have weighed 35 pounds but it sure seemed fast at the time. There was also a standard Ciocc racing bike leaning against the wall where I usually park. Shortly after I got to work I got an "emergency" email and ended up spending most of the day putting together talking points for the VP who is going up to Baton Rouge for a meeting of the LRA. Tulane's Fall Freshman enrollment this year is just under 900 students. In 2004 it was around 1,600. Tuition is about $33,000. You do the math. Of course, we now have a lot fewer faculty and staff to pay too, and overall the drop in enrollment isn't quite so severe. Hopefully we will get a better enrollment next year when Katrina is a little more like history. I was glad to see that Lockheed-Martin got the big NASA contract recently. It will be great for the local economy, and those guys really do it right, so they deserve it.

I was out on the front porch this evening watching the squirrels. The porch is about 7' off the ground so it's essentially right in the middle of the old Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) in front of the house, which makes it a great spot for watching squirrels and birds. The acorns have just gotten big enough for the squirrels to eat -- a sure sigh that Fall is coming. In a few weeks they will be falling light rain all over the place. It must be happy times for the squirrels!

This evening we had a little cocktail party at the President's house for the Mayor and a few of the City Council members. The Tulane President gets to live in a house on Audubon Place (we call it simply #2 because the address is 2 Audubon Place). The house was donated to Tulane long ago and is about a block from Tulane's main administration building on St. Charles Avenue. I love going to parties there, and tonight was no exception. There was lots of wine and top-notch food, and given the theme, it was a very positive atmosphere. The Mayor and three City Council members were there, so they all got a chance to say something. The funniest thing was when, shortly after the Mayor arrived, our CFO collared him to complain about the low water pressure at the University Center, which is currently undergoing renovation. The Mayor pulled out his Blackberry and fired off an email to somebody to get it taken care of. Gee, maybe I should have hit him up about those big potholes on Broadway Street that have been driving me crazy!

Outlook Bleak

Another 14 hour drive down the river got us back in New Orleans around 9:30 pm yesterday. As we skirted St. Louis on I-270 in the early afternoon the local news was warning drivers about the streets closed for the Gateway Cup. Wish I could have stopped! I kept myself amused with the car's little mileage computer. We actually managed an average of 29.4 miles per gallon for the 940 mile trip, which is rather respectible for a big 'ol Volvo wagon and an average speed of over 70 mph. I must admit to doing a bit of drafting along the way. Otherwise, it was just a long drive. Stopped in Brookhaven MS in the evening for a catfish sandwich at Broma's, which was pretty much the highlight of the whole day.

With a 9 a.m. meeting this morning, I decided I'd better skip the long levee ride and so instead I went out for a quick 20 miles solo. As usual after a long drive I felt pretty lousy at the beginning. Then it was off to the showers and then a meeting at Tulane uptown. We are still worried about the financial future of the Medical Center. Tulane is carrying most of the physician salaries right now, but is doing so at a big loss hoping that the clinical practice will improve sooner rather than later. The Herring guys all went up to Atlanta for the 100k Classic last weekend. It looks like there was a big break with 26 riders, followed a minute later by most of the pack. The women had a short 10 km race that must have been interesting. Debbie from Tupelo, AL snuck past all of the big-shot teams to take the pack sprint and 2nd place while Gina's teammate Kelly got 3rd (Gina was 16th). I think a lot of riders are about ready to wrap the 2006 road season up about now.

So this morning they finally announced that we will be moving all of our email to a Microsoft Exchange server over the next few months. I am not a fan of IMAP mail, and although I don't have anything against Outlook, I'd rather not have to change over from Eudora, but it is not looking like I will have much of a choice, practically speaking. We certainly need the calendar and scheduling capabilities. About fifteen minutes after I read that announcement, my boss, who uses IMAP mail with Eudora and a Blackberry, walked into my office and said "my entire in-box is gone!" I wish I could say this was the first time, but it's been a constant problem for the last three years. We signed up to switch over early, figuring that at least we'd get a bit more attention from tech services if we did it early rather than waiting until all of the students try to switch over. Anyway, I am not looking forward to this. Something about leaving my email on the server bothers me, as does the 200 mb mailbox limit.

Tiny Crit

It took me a few minutes of fumbling around in the dark, illuminated only by the blue glow from my cellphone, to find my flashlight. Not wanting to wake The Wife up by turning on the light, I was trying to get my stuff together so I could drive the 30 miles to a small local criterium up here in Iowa. Since registration opened at 7 a.m. and the first race was at 8:00, I figured I'd better head out shortly after 6:00, since I'd probably get lost once or twice. So I get my race bag all packed up and sling it across my shoulder, grab the bike, open the door, and step out into ..... a light rain?? WTF? I had not figured on this at all and stood there staring up at the dark sky trying to see if this was just a passing shower or an all-day affair. Impossible to tell. Anyway, I was up, I didn't have anything better to do, so I got in the car, found my way to I-80, and headed west to the town of Williamsburg. Along the way I was kept amused and confused by the new car's automatic windshield wipers that seemed to have a mind of their own. In fact, they do. They somehow know when it's raining and turn themselves on, and even speed up and slow down depending on how hard its raining. About half an hour later, having failed to get lost, I arrived at the town square a bit early. There was one other guy there who had arrived about the same time. I knew this was a low-key local type of race, so I hung around for a while as other people started to slowly filter in.

The criterium was on a tiny little course around the town square which was just about a quarter of a mile around. We're talking lap times of something like 25 seconds, I guess. The surface was mostly brick. I was glad to see it was fairly new paving type brick, not slippery antique brick. The rain, for the moment at least, had stopped. I signed up for the "A" race, which they decided to run first because one of the riders had to be somewhere later. This was all very ad hoc, but also nice and relaxed and friendly. So I went over to registration (the back of a minivan), signed up for the "A" race, pinned on my number, changed in the car, and rode a few warmup laps. The course was littered with parked cars, a few of which were strategically positioned on the outside of the loop where, if the pace got really hot, they were going to be a bit of a problem. Luckily, I guess, the group was really tiny. I think there were only about a dozen riders in this race. The official announced that there would be four point bonus sprints in addition to points for the finish, none of which mattered to me since I wasn't doing the whole 3-race stage race. We were to do 50 laps, which probably amounted to no more than 12-15 miles. It has been a very long time since I rode a criterium that was not time-based. The course was mostly dry except for a few spots on the corners, which were slightly banked in the wrong direction.

The race was kind of fun -- a little bit like a points race on the track -- and there were a number of attacks and a few little breaks. I wasn't feeling all that hot, but that wasn't surprising considering the long drive the day before, the lack of sleep, and the unfamiliar cool air. I did a small amount of work now and then, but mostly just stayed in the group and followed wheels since I had no idea who the strong guys were. My tires were slipping on this one particular corner where there was a wide paint stripe for a crosswalk, but the pace stayed reasonable so it was never a big problem. Considering the wet road and the fact that I was riding my training wheels with the tires that I got on sale, I probably should have let a few psi out of the tires. I knew they couldn't have more than 120 psi in them, though, so I hadn't bothered. With a few laps to go I moved up toward the front and ended up second wheel for the last few corners, which is exactly where I finished. I was surprised that we didn't get streamed by a last-minute attack because the speed wasn't all that high. I checked my computer on my cool-down lap and I think the average speed was around 26 mph. Anyway, it was fun and although a few drops of rain fell toward the end, we were spared the rain. The next group wasn't so lucky. Since it was still fairly early, I hung around to watch the second race which was run almost entirely in a light rain. Again, the field was small and it broke up early, so there were only one or two minor falls, all on the same corner where I had been feeling my tire slip. The "prizes" for this race consisted of pie and beer, but I had to head back before the festivities so I missed out on that part. There's a road race tomorrow that is supposed to be really good, but I'll be racing South in the Volvo instead. I was glad I went and raced today, though, because otherwise I'm sure I would probably have blown off riding because of the rain (there was a light rain most of the rest of the day).

The rest of the day was, at least for me, shopping torture, as I ferried The Daughter, The Wife, and a friend all over town and finally to the big mall in Coralville. I cannot believe how they can waste so much time wandering aimlessly around a shopping mall. I think I actually fell asleep for a while on one of the benches in the mall while they were inside one of the stores.

Tomorrow we'll be back on the road and I really need to get some sleep tonight!

On the Road

We were on the road to Iowa City by 5:30 a.m. and after a fairly uneventful trip finally rolled into town a bit after 8 p.m. Why does driving make me so tired? I'm going to try and make a criterium tomorrow morning that is part of the Williamsburg Stage Race if I can get up at 6 a.m. This one will be just for the exercise. I even left the racing wheels at home.

Sand Surfing

When the alarm went off this morning I looked over at the clock and thought I'd get in just a few minutes more of sleep before getting up to ride. The next time I looked at the clock it was 6:30. Hmmm. After a mad dash to the levee, I was surprised to find the group still there. I think they were waiting for me. Damn, I'm predictible. Being a Friday, the group was small and the pace was easy. When a 3-rider group of women passed us, Donald and I, who were at the front, matched their pace but hung back two or three bike-lengths. They were only going 19 or 20 mph, but it was convenient not to have to check our speed, and besides, the view was nice. Up ahead we saw Elliot turn around and as usual he was going just a bit faster than we were. A couple of the women caught up to him and latched on. Anyway, the women stopped at Williams Blvd. as they usually do.

I knew it would be a slow day at work because of the upcoming long weekend, so I rode back on the levee all the way to the Corps of Engineers building and ended up riding down Pine Street to the house. After I rode past Lusher school I was looking at all of the parents walking their kids to school under the oak trees and smiling to myself at the Norman Rockwell images when all of a sudden I'm sand-surfing! Apparently the streets folks had torn up a big section of street and then filled it in with nice, soft, invisible river sand. Geez. I hope none of the cute little schoolchildren heard the four-letter word that came out of my mouth when I started to go sideways. Somehow I managed to stay upright until I hit nice solid asphalt again, but it was close.

So tomorrow we'll hit the road at, theoretically, 5 a.m. to make the 14-hour drive up to Iowa City. It's a good thing I like to drive! The new clips for my old Saris roof rack arrived today just in the nick of time, so I put it on the new car. That way I can take both my bike and The Daughter's bike without having to fit them both inside. Yeah, I'm still holding out hope that I'll be able to get in some riding on Sunday. Maybe even a short local criterium. I don't know if I'm quite ready for low temperatures in the 50s, though!