Winter Coming

The ride this morning was warm and humid with a steady southeast breeze that kept the pace high on the way out. The other thing keeping the pace high was John T. who apparently placed 20th recently at an Ironman in Australia. Since the group was smallish today we turned around at the dip instead of going all the way to the end of the bike path, but considering the steady headwind all the way back, we still got in a good workout. Today was probably the last day of warm weather we'll see for a little while, because Winter is coming back this afternoon. We're expected to go from a high of 75F today down to a low of 39F tonight, accompanied by the usual WNW winds at 20-30 mph and a 60% chance of rain. Once it's all moved through, though, it should be nicer for the weekend.

Anyway, I know I shouldn't complain. I just checked the weather up in Iowa City where it's 17F right now. The recent USADA action with Genevieve Jeanson is pretty telling, I think. How do you go from a lifetime ban for EPO and a missed test to a retroactive 2-year suspension? Perhaps the lawyers and scientists have poked so may holes in the "infallible" urinary EPO test that some damage control was in order? The official statement was "Both parties acknowledge that they are not changing their respective positions by agreeing [...] but seek to end this matter without further process." Hmmm. An out-of-court settlement to save face? BTW, I think I found what I want for Christmas! (The cyclepassion.com calendar would be nice too.)

Interrupted Routine

Continuing warm weather and a relatively quiet to-do list had me all set for a fairly routine Wednesday when I rolled out to the levee to meet the group. Although we had to detour onto the grassy slope of the levee at one point where the police were blocking the road, presumably investigating a crime scene, the ride was pretty normal. There was this one tall guy wearing running shoes and gym shorts and riding an aluminum GT road bike, though. He turned out to be fairly stable, though, so no real problem there once I decided he wasn't going to do anything too scary.

Then, around noon, I finally got a big reimbursement check that had gotten bounced back a couple of times, so I took the car over to the bank and then to the Starbucks on Prytania to pick up some fresh coffee for the office. In honor of the impending season, I settled on their Christmas Blend. I'd had some last year and it was pretty good, and besides, the package is festive. It's supposed to get cold around here tomorrow night and so I'm expecting my craving for hot strong coffee to return with the front. In the meantime, it's looking like it will be cloudy and maybe a bit rainy this afternoon and tomorrow.

When I got back to my office, there was a big post-it note in the middle of my desk from Rebecca that just said, in big letters, "S.O.S!!" Her computer, it seemed, was quite screwed up. After some investigation, I found an odd file running, and when I killed the process, the strangeness, manifested by random flashes on the screen of an unidentifiable html file, (almost) stopped. Hmmm. Not good. So I ran McAfee on running programs and it found a Trojan, but I don't think the beast was killed. It's more like I stepped on a worker ant but didn't touch the Queen. After a while, it spontaneously re-booted, and a couple of times crashed to a blue screen, aka "the blue screen of death." So we called in the reinforcements, and the tech support guy pulled the hard drive so he could scan it on his computer. Don't know the outcome yet, though. Anyway, I love that kind of detective work, and it was a nice break from the more mundane phone calls that I still have to make because I happily put them on "hold" while I investigated the computer issue. The only problem is that I know just enough to be really dangerous, and I know it. Hopefully it's not a combination of problems, like a Trojan plus some bad memory (yeah, it was a stop error). Anyway, on the plus side I was able to pick the brain of the tech guy and find out the secret POP server address for the new Exchange server. Not sure if I'll use it, but it's nice to know, right?

There's a chance of rain tomorrow morning, but it's not higher than 30% so perhaps we won't get rained out.

Practically Summer

It's practically summer today in New Orleans, and the nice weather attracted a good-sized group this morning for the long Levee Ride. I guess we must have gotten up to fifteen riders once we finally got rolling. With the temperature around 70F and just a light breeze, only a few of us even bothered to pull on the arm-warmers. It sounds like we'll have another couple of days of warm temperatures, although the rain will be moving in ahead of the next cold front that is supposed to drop us down into the upper 30s by Friday. Today, the warm and humid air made for some nice fog along the river, and occasionally the river-cooled air would spill over the levee so that it felt like you were riding past a great big freezer with its door open. The pace got going pretty good, especially on the way out where there was a slight tailwind, and we still had a reasonable percentage of riders left when we hit the turnaround. Jeff and I led the group as we headed back, or so we thought. After a mile or two spinning at maybe 20 mph, we looked back to find the rest of the group maybe a minute back. We decided to just keep going, however, knowing they would eventually catch us, which finally happened a bit after the "dip." The ride back was moderated a bit by the wind, although for the most part we were cruising at 23-24 mph.

The LAMBRA annual meeting is scheduled for this Sunday and although I'm hoping it won't turn into a really long marathon, I'm expecting it will run a couple of hours at least. First, we have to get the initial La/Ms calendar worked out so that there aren't any big date conflicts. Then I'm sure there will be the usual discussion about the LCCS points series, which usually results in changing around some categories or age groups or points schedules. Points series are always problematic like that, since everyone has a different take on them. We'll have a few new clubs next season - at least three - so that should make things interesting. I'll be picking George H from the USAC up from the airport that morning, and it will be great to have him there to give us the latest on the goings-on in Colorado Springs and in the other nearby regional associations.

I guess it's getting to be time for me to renew my USAC licenses, my NOBC membership, order my team kit for '07, etc. Guess I'll wait until after pay-day, though! This can get kind of expensive. Anyway, I still need to get the online membership set up for '07. After wandering around the SportsBase Online website a bit, I think I'll probably stick with Active.com for another year for the memberships. The fee is a little higher, but the website is a lot more attractive, it's really easy for me to clone the prior year's membership setup, and the total number of online memberships isn't so great that we're talking about a big difference in total fees. For the Tour de La, however, it may be between SportsBase and Bikereg, because for that the difference in fees is a significant number of dollars.

In the Small Ring

It was cool and quiet at 4:30 a.m. and the dew dripping from the trees was the only sound I heard when I stepped outside this morning to put the roof rack on the car. The Daughter was due at MSY for 5:30 and I was due at the Morning Call for 7, and I was already feeling tired. When we arrived at the airport it was very busy already with travelers heading back home after the holiday, but otherwise there were no surprises and after as top at Starbucks I pulled into the parking lot at the Morning Call to find a number of people already there. The weather today promised to be nearly perfect, and it definitely delivered. By the time our 13-rider group got underway around 8 a.m. the temperature was around 60F, and winds were light, and the sky was clear. Half an hour later we were already peeling off layers and stuffing them into our bulging pockets. We picked up a few more riders along the way, and I guess at one point there were 16 or so before a few turned back at the end of Tung Rd. to make for a shorter ride. The rest of us continued on at a moderate base training pace, straining mostly successfully to resist the ever-present temptation to put the hammer down on the smooth stretches. Starting this week from Abita Springs, we basically took a long circuitous route to Folsom and back, eventually logging around 70 miles.

I was determined to make today a technique day, so I declared the big ring strictly off-limits for the duration, resulting in more than a few miles of spinning the 53x13 at 120+ RPM. The legs felt surprisingly good considering the previous night's mild excesses at the dinner table and the scant five hours of sleep, and I guess I pushed the pace a little bit on the way back. The weather was so nice I felt like I could ride for another hour or two.

A new Nikon Coolpix S6 has been added to the gadget collection, chosen specifically for its compact size and hopefully decent optics. I still need to pick up an SD card, figure out the rather complex menu and get the WiFi set up, but hopefully it will prove to be convenient enough that I'll actually have it with me for all those "I wish I had a camera" moments.

Winter Olympics

It was warmer this morning, and by 8 a.m. I knew it would be nearly perfect riding weather - temperature nearing 70F, light breeze, sunny skies. That sort of thing can have an effect on the group ride, you know. I was half-way out to the Lakefront when my phone rang. Naturally I was also halfway up the Wisner overpass at the time, but I figured I'd better try and answer it since nobody calls me at that time on a Saturday morning unless it's important. So I pulled over, put a foot down, and got the phone out of its ziplock bag just about when it rolled over to voicemail. It was Cat, a rider in town from TN who had emailed me a few days ago. She was calling from the Starbucks on Veterans Hwy. to make sure we were doing the northshore ride today. It was about 6:55. I told her the northshore ride was Sunday, but that if she was fast, she might be able to catch the Giro. I gave her directions to Elysian Fields Ave. and Lakeshore Drive, figuring she would have a chance of getting ahead of the group by a few miles to buy a little extra time. I didn't really think she'd make it, but when she called back we were still about a mile from there so it all worked out OK.

There was a pretty big group this morning, yet the pace stayed fairly civilized most of the way out. As things settled down along Chef Highway we briefly had a double paceline going that included the whole group - maybe 40-50 riders. I thought maybe there should be a Guiness Book of World Records record for "longest double paceline." It lasted a couple of rotations before somebody revved up the pace at the front and things started to disintegrate. Even so, it never quite got ballistic on the way out to Venetian Isles, thanks in some small part to the fact that a number of guys are currently focused on low-gear winter spinning. I was with 'em there for a while, but finally gave in and went to the big ring when the speeds got up to 26 or so. For some reason, the pace on the way back today was pretty fast with only a couple of very brief slowdowns. A number of riders got split off the back when the pace failed to slow down after the Goodyear Sign Sprint on Chef. Cat came off the back around that time, and Mark D. dropped back to make sure she didn't get lost. At one point as we were barrelling down Hayne Blvd., I looked over at Brandon, who had earlier given me a long leadout coming into the Goodyear Sign sprint, and said "man, they sure haven't been slowing down on the way back today." He shot right back with "Yeah, I think they're training for the Winter Olympics." Made me laugh. So anyway, after sprinting up the two bridges at the end of Hayne, I dropped off the back to look for Cat becasue I knew she had been dropped but I didn't yet know that Mark was staying with her. I was glad she had someone to ride with, because I didn't want to have to mount a search and rescue operation today. It was a good ride today, and people hung around the parking lot for a long time afterwards enjoying the warm sunshine.

I was halfway home when it finally dawned on me that it was my birthday. You should always have a nice ride like that on your birthday.

Thanksgiving Day Routine

The Thanksgiving Day weather could hardly have been better this year, and it was nice to be able to get out and enjoy it with a group ride on the levee. Although we started with only eight or nine, I think we must have picked up quite a few riders along the way. Even Kenny B. and Realdo were in the paceline by the time we got back. The relatively light winds made for a welcome change from the last few days, and the clear skies and bright sunshine warmed things up pretty fast. After riding, though, it was head-first into the usual Thanksgiving Day Routine as we loaded the car up with lemon meringue and pecan pies and headed over to mom's place on the river.

Although we were missing a few of the klan, it was still pretty busy with The Daugher and her roomate, The Brother and four of his family, and one of The Sisters and two of hers. We quickly went through a turkey, crawfish dressing, potato salad, and various pies, and by 3 p.m. we were mostly sitting around waiting until it was time to eat again. Finally, at around 6:00 or so, a few of us went out to see if we could find a coffee shop that was open. This was mainly just an excuse to get out of the house, of course, and I wasn't holding out a whole lot of hope. Still, I did have one card up my sleeve in case our search proved fruitless. First we checked out Rue on Carrollton, then Starbucks and PJs on Maple, then we made the trip down Magazine - PJ's, CC's, another CC's, Starbucks, Puccino's. All closed up. In fact, Magazine Street was a virtual ghost town tonight. So I finally had to head over to Zotz on Oak St. I figured that if anyplace would be open, it would be Zotz, and I was right. Granted, we were the only people in the place without numerous facial body piercings, but the coffee was good and the prices were low. I like this place, except for the smoke. As one website puts it,

"... In the front room the activity is usually a high energy mix of purple-haired, pierced bohemians; way in the back, rooms are quiet enough to allow for the sound of running water from a nearby Zen garden..."

One thing is for sure. This place is NOT a Starbucks. Anyway, my plans for tomorrow don't extend beyond an early morning training ride. I'll just play it by ear after that.

Chilled

We have finally had a couple of days of fairly sustained coolness, and so when I got home yesterday the house had pretty well chilled down. I cranked up the old gas heater in the fireplace, and that warmed things up pretty fast, but I knew it was time to descend into the scary basement and confront the beast, aka the furnace. Since I had, as usual, turned off the pilot light for the summer, I knew that there would probably be some corrosion on the two tiny pinholes in the aluminum gas jet that fires it. Sometimes it isn't too bad and there's enough gas coming through for the pilot light to keep the safety hot enough so that everything works. Well, to make a long story short, this wasn't one of those times. Sooooo, I strapped on my trusty Katrina headlamp (lighting in the basement is by means of a bare bulb hanging from the floor joist) and disassembled the pesky little thing. The only thing that is small enough to clean out the little holes in the jet is a single strand of brake cable, and it takes a bit of finesse, along with a magnifying glass, to do it, but finally I got the holes flossed out and everything reassembled with only one leftover screw! Everything fired up fine after that, so I turned the thermostat up to about 80F and let it run for a while just to burn off the summer's dust and make sure there were no obvious fire hazards.

The relative coziness of the house, however, wasn't much consolation when I stepped outside this morning where there was still a north wind that made the 41 degree air feel more like 30. There must have been a few who skipped this morning's ride as a result, because we ended up with only four or five, at which point Luke was quick to suggest we shorten the usual long ride and turn around at the first "dip." I think Ronnie would have liked to have gone farther, but the rest of us were satisfied enough with Luke's plan today. Because of the wind, it was a struggle to stay above 22 mph most of the morning.

Even colder than the morning training ride was my commute to work. There's a fairly long and unprotected stretch that goes straight north, which this morning was again directly into the wind. My cotton sweater and work clothes did little to stop the wind, and I was glad I had put on my vest over everything before I left. As I walked into the building I must have looked kind of whipped, because the security guard said something like "you must have had a hard bike ride today."

Indeed.

So now it's 3 p.m. and of the four people to whom I sent the draft of the paper that is due in Baton Rouge tomorrow afternoon, only one has come back to me with comments. Hopefully they won't all send me their stuff just before they leave early tomorrow for the holiday, leaving me to turn out the lights and lock the doors.

Sixty

Yesterday evening it finally got cold enough in the house for me to light the old gas heater in the living room. I'll probably have to light the pilot light on the furnace tonight, which, if things go as usual, will mean some minor disassemby and cleaning. Not surprisingly, this morning it was cold and windy, and I didn't have much trouble rationalizing that it would also be a good morning to sleep late, which I happily did. The work-related emails were already flying by 8 a.m., though, and with a deadline looming I'll be chained to the keyboard all day today, maybe with a little break for a plate of Red Beans and Rice. The rest of the week will likely be pretty hectic as well with The Daughter and her friend arriving from Iowa City on Wednesday, and The Brother and his klan also arriving from Orlando for Thanksgiving. By the time we get into December, it will start getting hard to get anything done around here.So I guess I should note, just for posterity, that the old Campi Ergobrain turned over to 60,000 miles during yesterday's ride. There was a brief celebration. I think I hit the 50,000 mark some time last January. This bike computer has basically become a science experiment for me. Will I outlive it, or vice-versa?

Spinnin' n' Grinnin'

Before I forget (and they remove it from the site), check out the letter and comment about VJ and how his Park pedal wrench saved him during Hurricane Katrina. Just to whet your appetite: "After four hours in a empty, dark attic and the realization of no way out and with water still rising I had to swim down and look for tools to break out of the attic. After a few seconds of floating furniture and bobbing appliances in the dark the only things I could find was my flashlight and park pedal wrench."

It was cool and crisp and clear this morning for the first NOBC Northshore winter training ride, but I guess it was the strong North wind that kept the group size down to only nine. That wind, unfortunately, was right in our faces for the first twenty miles or so as we worked our way up over the Watchtower hill and through scenic downtown Enon. It was strong enough to eliminate any attempt at a sprint as we rolled into Enon. Mike Lew was on hand with tales of his recent trip to South America and Interbike. What made me laugh? Mike's talking with some of the U.S. cycling cognoscenti, and a certain Michael F. mentions this guy he rode with down South that everybody called "Olmo Man." Mike chimes in and tells him who Olmo Man is (he raced here for a long time and Mike did a lot of riding with him), and Mr. F. leans over and, in classic style, whispers "It's a small world ... always park the car *behind* the hotel."

So anyway, we finally got some of the tailwind for which we had paid so dearly and had a really nice ride back. Except for one stretch coming back into Enon, the order of the day was strictly "spin and grin." We had a couple of new guys on the ride today, Sam (yellow jersey) and Tim (red). My own legs weren't feeling all that great today - still a little sore from yesterday's Giro, I guess.

Strangely Civilized

I knew the temperature would be a problem this morning - not because it would be too low, but because it was bound to change dramatically during the Giro Ride. I left the house wearing long tights that I new wouldn't be necessary an hour later, along with wind shell gloves, helmet liner, and shoe covers. Most of that ended up in my bulging pockets, of course, but it just wasn't worth freezing my butt off on the way out to the lakefront. I always wish that the Giro ride would move to 8 a.m. during the winter like other group training rides that are held in more civilized cities. Anyway, there were a few people who were planning on doing the "long" Giro ride out to Slidell and back, so I guess that helped keep the speeds down. Indeed, it was a strangely civilized Giro Ride today. By 8:30 the weather was really nice. Maybe it was just too nice to go hard.

So we had a good turnout last night for the club meeting. The sample jerseys and shorts look good and otherwise all I can say is that the men's Small size seems like a normal Small. The "fit kit" will stay at my place for a while so that people who couldn't make the meeting can stop by and check out the sizing and options. Hopefully we can get the design finalized and the order placed within the next few weeks. This process always takes a lot longer than you would think. The Daughter finally called last night after we had left numerous voice and text messages to say that the knee surgery had gone pretty well. As usual they didn't get started until much later than it was scheduled.

I spent all afternoon inhaling toxic paint dust and absorbing even more toxic paint remover solvents. The kitchen continues to inch forward. At this rate we should have it done some time next summer! It will be a week before my nose and lungs recover from today's insult. Then again, maybe the long ride on the Northshore tomorrow will clear things out faster. It'll be pretty chilly, but at least the sun will be shining and, being November and officially "base training" season, the pace should be relatively steady.

Frrrrrriday!

Two mornings in a row in the low 40s and it is starting to feel like winter may be coming! It was only Joe, Scott and me this morning, although we eventually picked up Elliott along the way. I was glad that Scott had to be in court by 9 a.m., because otherwise I would have been doing more sightseeing. Not that we were going very fast - around 21 mph most of the time - but on a cool, pretty morning sometimes the mind wanders, and Scott was at least keeping us honest. We even saw Rob K., who has been MIA for the last couple of weeks. I had heard that his back was giving him some trouble, and also that he had sought out some expert opinions on his position. Rob always seemed to have his bike set up with an extremely low and forward bar position. He had started out much earlier than we did and so we didn't catch him until just before I turned off to go home. As I was peeling off, I noticed that he had indeed changed his setup and was now sporting a short stem of maybe 9 cm, with a bit of a rise to it. That must be quite a change for him. I'll bet that moved his bars something like three inches.

Club meeting at my place this evening to try on samples for the '07 team kit that is about to be ordered. I stopped by the grocery on the way home last night and picked up some coke and a little selection of Abita (the Christmas Ale is out!), and since there was a $10 rebate on six bottles of the ubiquitous and relatively inexpensive Yellow tail wine, which lately has become our house wine, I picked up some of those as well. Which wine goes best with pepperoni pizza? Guess I'd better get home a little early so I can make at least part of the house presentable. We've got the first of the annual Winter Training Ride Series this Sunday. It promises to be great winter ride weather - clear and brisk - and if we can keep everyone in "base training" mode, it should be a lot of fun. Laura is bringing some of the old leftover clothes from the "green kit" that miraculously survived the flood. Her house had, conservatively, eight feet of water in it, and these clothes happened to still be in watertight bags, so they just floated around in the flooded house for a couple of weeks after the hurricane.

Meanwhile, back at the office, things are pretty quiet except for the White Paper I'm working on for a Monday deadline. It will keep me busy this weekend for sure, although I have already warned the group that sending me anything on Friday night will not result in a prompt reply! At any rate, this place is deserted today. We've got one person on vacation in Mexico, another on vacation here, and another who spends most of his time in meetings and just stops in now and then to say hello!

The Daughter is having her knee "scoped" again today. Damn. This is getting to be an annual event. This time, though, the team doctor is doing it as a preventative measure. He basically told her that he thought that if she didn't do it, she would not likely make it through the season without tearing the meniscus again. Since competition starts in January and it will take three to six weeks before she can train on it, and since Thanksgiving holidays are coming up, this was the best time to get it done. Anyway, hopefully it will all go smoothly. I think they may as well just put a permanent zipper in that knee at this point, though.

What a Difference

What a difference a day makes! By yesterday evening the skies were clearing and a cool wind was blowing in from the Northwest. Indeed, I reached for the long tights and kodiak jersey this morning, especially after I looked outside and in the dim light saw the treetops swaying. So it was no surprise to find a small group up on the levee today, and equally predictible that we easily decided not to ride all the way out to the end of the bike path. If we had, we probably would have been ten minutes late, at least. This was one of those mornings when you really appreciate having a group with which to ride. Had I been alone, I'm quite sure I would have packed it in early, but with the group I got in a decent ride of an hour and forty-five minutes. As often happens, once I got going, it didn't feel quite as cold or windy as it had at the start.

It's after 3 pm right now and I just got back from a walk over to the medical school building where I dropped $1.25 on a big Snickers bar. By the time I got out of a meeting today, the cafeterias had closed, so I had few choices. Now all I want to do is take a nap!

There will be a club meeting at my house Friday night, so that will be nice. I'll have to remember to pick up some drinks and stuff from the grocery store this evening. I think we'll look around to see how many show up and then order a few pizzas. Hopefully nobody is expecting luxurious accomodations, because our kitchen is currently just one notch above bare walls and things are a little dusty here and there. We are not noted for our housekeeping skills. We'll have the sample jerseys and other team kit stuff on hand so people can figure out what sizes to order for our upcoming big club clothing order. Amy's working on a new design, so that will be interesting, but I don't know if it's still top secret or not.

A Dark and Stormy Morning

The weather forecasters were right on the money this time. Around 2 or 3 a.m. the first wave of rain and thunder woke me up just in time to see the power go off. Looks like it will be a dark and stormy morning; certainly sufficient to keep me off the bike. It's just as well, I guess. I decided to work at home this morning until all this weather passes and the promised cool front moves in. Maybe I can make some serious progress without the interruptions. So I made a big pot of coffee, turned on the radio, and got some stuff knocked out before 8:30 and will hopefully spend the rest of the day putting the entire state of the university, along with cogent descriptions of research and education capabilities, tech transfer, funding streams, priority programs, etc., into 20 pages. Sounds like fun, eh?

I think I'm going to need more coffee......

Cool Old Stuff

It's almost 1 p.m. and I'm sitting here on my second cup of high-octane coffee procrastinating. I've got to pull a big white paper together in the next few days and most of it is still bouncing around in my head. Meanwhile, people keep sending me various writeups and old documents from which I will need to extract bits and pieces as I fit together this puzzle of interconnected elements - research, teaching, tech transfer, economic development. I find that if I let this sort of thing rumble around in my brain for a day or two, it eventually all starts to self-assemble and then once I start writing it all comes very quickly. That's what I'm hoping anyway. The guy from the Department of Education who called this morning looking for the progress report on the $7.5M award we got and drew down late last month hasn't called me back, so I guess I'll give him a ring before they go home up there in DC or MD or wherever their office actually is.

A couple of long-time friends, Billy and Sally R., moved to the Northshore the other day. Appropriately enough, for a couple whose relationship revolved around cycling for a long time, they bought a place just off of Old Military Road, near Smith Road. Anyone who has been riding for very long knows exactly where that is. Billy has pretty much retired from competitive cycling. He won one of the early master's national championships back when I was a premature master in the 30-35 age group. Anyway, in cleaning out the house prior to the move, he sent his son over with a car full of cool old stuff. A couple of sets of fairly standard 6-speed wheels, a set of 1980's time trial wheels (24-bladed spoke, radial, insanely narrow assos rims, equally insanely narrow tubulars), a collection of maybe 30 tires, all the way from tubulars still in their plastic wrappings to 25mm, 27 inch Performance clinchers, a couple of apparently unused Concor saddles from before they changed the design, and leather dressing for leather saddles. Haven't had a chance to sort through it all, but I'm sure it will be an interesting trip down memory lane. I have a couple of bikes that are in need of wheels and tires, and so this stuff will be put to very good use. The old Pennine will finally get its original 27" wheel back that has been on my commuter for the past ten years, and I'll be able to switch the commuter to 700c wheels which will give me a tad more clearance under the fenders so I can run a more comfy tire.

It was strangely dark this morning when I went out to the levee. The overcast skies made it feel cooler than it was, so I went ahead with two jerseys, arm-warmers and long tights. No point being cold this time of year. There was a nice group of maybe a dozen today, and thanks to a bit of a tailwind the pace eventually got pretty fast on the way out. When we hit the first little dip where a access path drops down the levee to the street and then comes right back up, Matt split off to fly down the downhill. People seem to like to do that. They usually come back up to the path just ahead of the group. I happened to be on the front at the time and just couldn't resist messing with him, though, so I pushed the pace and we beat him to the top. It was funny when he started climbing back up and looked over to see me looking back at him. He stood up, and you could tell he was calculating whether he'd be able to stay ahead of us. Coming back, though, it was paceline all the way. When Howard surged ahead with one other guy on his wheel, the rest of the group hardly even looked up. The forecast for tomorrow morning is looking pretty wet and nasty, so I'm thinking it might be a rest day.

Been exploring MySpace lately. Find me if you can....

Every Now and Then . . .

. . . something comes along that makes you feel really old. Fifteen years!?!?

Sunday Blur

Damn, it felt cold Sunday morning. I'm talking below 50F! Pull out the winter gear! It's amazing how different 50 degrees feels this time of year compared to, say, January. At least I was nice and comfy for the ride out to the Lakefront, and I wore mostly stuff that could be removed and pocketed en route, so it all worked out well. The group was fairly small -- maybe 20 or so -- yesterday, and so we had a fairly easy ride except that it seemed the pack was particularly thick with Cat. 5s who were having all kinds of trouble dealing with the crosswind. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the newer riders don't realize that riding on the downwind edge of the road in a crosswind is not going to make them any friends. Anyway, lessons were taught; lessons were learned; things improved. Otherwise, it was a uneventful training ride that got me back home in plenty of time to contemplate working on the kitchen. Since The Wife, who instigated this whole thing, broke her thumb, not only am I frequently called upon to perform manly duties like opening pickle jars, all work on the kitchen windowframes has ceased. So yesterday I put on my grungiest pair of K-Mart blue jeans and climbed up on the kitchen counter with a gallon of extremely hazardous organic solvents and continued the stripping of paint. This is the first time the wood on these windowframes has seen the light of day since around 1925, and in the interim they had received numerous layers of paint ranging from the old hospital green to dark green to various permutations of beige. By the time I finally gave up for the day there were more than a few pounds of semi-liquified paint on the dropcloth and my shoulders were sore from working over my head so much. Add to that the unavoidable inhalation of low molecular weight organics, various minor chemical burns, and a pervasive regret at having ever allowed this to get started in the first place, and most of Sunday was just a blur.

So I woke up this morning not "with the sundown shining in" but with a mild headache and the knowledge that I wouldn't be riding because of a 7 a.m. appointment at the local Volvo dealer to get the damned side view mirror finally installed. That process took over an hour, which meant a frantic high-speed car ride downtown in order to get The Wife to her 8:30 meeting on time. By then I was so overdosed on waiting room coffee that I would probably fail a USADA random drug test for caffeine and gotten suspended for two years.

Much to do this week at work - deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

Girls on Bikes

The cool front was just coming through this morning when I headed out to the Lakefront for the Saturday Giro Ride, so as usual I had a nice Northwest wind to contend with. The temperatures hadn't really dropped very much, and the full force of the winds was buffered considerably by the houses and trees as I rode through the city, so it wasn't really an issue. In the back of my mind, though, I knew we would have to deal with it during the Giro Ride, which meant that there would be stretches of 31 mph tailwinds contrasted with 19 mph slogs into headwinds.

I hit the lakefront right on time and rode slowly to the East watching the waves in the lake. The winds hadn't yet reached their maximum, and the skies were still overcast, but I was expecting it to clear up quickly. I was wrong. As it turned out the skies stayed cloudy throughout, and didn't clear up until later in the day.

As usual, I met the Giro Ride on its way out on Lakeshore Drive and made a U-turn to join the group. After a while I looked around and was happy to see at least three girls on the ride! Now, before you get all bent out of shape, let me clarify. Here in New Orleans, women are always referred to as girls, regardless of age or social status, unless they're really ugly in which case we elect them to office. I don't know exactly what it is, but the ride is always more interesting when it's not all guys. Maybe it's just me? So anyway, there was one girl from Biloxi who is in the Air Force, and as usual I didn't get her name, but she and Rosanne were in the mix for the whole ride, except I guess the very end after we kind of sprinted up the last bridge. There was also a guy from Houston wearing the required white shoe-covers. I think there must be some kind of law in Houston about having to wear shoe covers, preferably white, on all bicycle rides. Anyway, I think I got his name, but as usual promptly forgot it. He was one of the guys pushing the pace today. The ride itself was fairly fast all the way out to the turnaround at Venetian Isles, thanks in part to some nice tailwind sections. That's when things got kind of broken up.

Just after the turnaround I was up near the front while the rest of the group was still separated and disorganized and was talking with Rusty and Rosanne when we heard a little commotion behind us. It didn't seem serious and so we continued to roll along at an easy pace. I reached down to try and pick up a knife that was in the road, but came up empty handed with a little cut on my finger. Picking up knives while riding can be hazardous, plus, as Rusty quickly pointed out, now my blood is on the murder weapon.

After a while I looked back and there was nobody to be seen. It turned out that a couple of the guys hadn't been paying attention and had collided with each other at a slow rate of speed, which wouldn't have been a problem except that when one of them fell he broke one of his saddle rails or something (never really got the whole story). So it wasn't until we were back on the service road before part of the group caught us. I think there was yet another group behind them, but I never saw it. This whole time the wind was picking up and by the time we were back on Lakeshore Drive, it was pretty significant. I was glad to be able to ease up a bit on Lakeshore Drive, although to be honest we didn't ease up quite as much as usual for some reason. I think the Houston guy didn't know the routine, and nobody wanted to admit that we usually ride back more slowly. Anyway, I had a nice tailwind for the ride back home, passing one of the many out-of-town church groups that was out helping clean up hurricane damaged properties, after which I had to drive up to Baton Rouge to visit The Wife's mother. Geez, that place is depressing. There's one women who makes singing noises all the time. I mean, ALL the time. Nonstop - 24/7. Couldn't stop if she wanted to, I guess. There's another who keeps running into people and objects, apparently intentionally, with her wheelchair, and there's one who sits in a wheelchair and periodically cries. The rest sit around in front of a huge television set and when they're not asleep, appear to be having conversations with each other, except that when you actually listen you realize that they are talking about completely different things. Anyway, the only exciting part of that whole trip was coming back on I-10 where the slowest safe speed is 10 mph over the limit and you can expect to have someone on your bumper most of the time if that's the best you're willing to do. As if they have someplace important to be.

Back to the Routine

So last night was my mother's birthday and we took her out to the AsianCajun Bistro restaurant down on Oak Street. They moved there some time in the months after Katrina. The name is kind of confusing, isn't it? The food was really very good and the prices were really very ridiculous. How about "Chicken Noodle Soup.....$15.95?" C'mon now. The place is in an old house on Oak Street that has been through at least four reincarnations since it was originally converted into a restaurant. My first impression as I walked in the door was "Why are my shoes sticking to the floor?" Then there was the disconnect between the menu pricing and the white butcher paper that served as a tablecloth. Anyway, like I said, the food was very good and very plentiful but rather overpriced.

This morning it was back to the levee and back to the routine for me. It's been quite warm around here the last few days and this morning there was a light and muggy breeze from the South with a high expected to be in the lower 80s. We're all anxiously awaiting the next cool front that is supposed to come through some time on Saturday. The club will be having a jersey-fitting meeting at my place next week - even more pressure to get the kitchen back into functional condition. On my way back from the levee, riding down Oak Street, I had to hop up on the sidewalk because they had the road closed for a movie they are shooting. They were busy removing stop signs and the modern street lights, and on the news this morning they said that parts of St. Charles Avenue would also be shut down for filming. I think it's one of the big names. Tom Cruise, maybe??

If you haven't read Jason Sager's writeup on his recent abuse by USADA, it's worth checking out. These guys really need to get their heads out of their asses and apply some common sense to these situations before they go around suspending obviously clean riders like that, especially when it's clear they don't have their own act together very well themselves. I just wish I could trust USADA to do the right thing. I can't. For those who don't know, Jason is originally from Baton Rouge. I don't think he even eats meat.

Done in the District

I'm actually looking forward to the plane ride back home because I could use the rest. The record-breaking '07 NCURA conference officially wrapped up a little while ago, and since I've got a couple of hours to kipp before I need to head to good ol' DCA, I walked down to the local Starbucks for a cup of coffee and a little down-time. Last night's NCURA party was pretty much as it always is. A big buffet for the first hour, and then the dance floor is cleared and the NCURA band cranks up. At first they always sound pretty rough, but after the second glass of wine they improve tremendously, and by the third glass I'm on the dance floor. Since they finish up at midnight, the survivors retreat to the hospitality suite for a last drink or two. A few of us finally shut down the room around 2 a.m. and I walked back to my hotel in a light rain wondering if I'd be able to get in a ride in the morning.

This time, I awoke with plenty of time for a ride, but mother nature wasn't cooperating. I looked out the window into the scenic parking lot below and could see that it was raining pretty hard and steady, so I went ahead and put Christian's Speedplays back on the bike and pulled the seat back up about four inches where it belonged. Too bad, but at least I got in one ride during my stay, which is one more than I usually get! I met Christian on his way to work to return the bike and made my way to the conference for the last half-day of exciting presentations on Grants.gov.

I'll hop on the Metro after a while for the short trip to DCA, and then, hopefully, make the conference call I have scheduled.

A Full Day

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that I awoke a little later than I had planned this morning. I was not, however, inclined to take a pass on my planned ride. After being stuck in hotels for the better part of two days, I was determined to get in a few miles of sightseeing, so I did a little quick calculation and figured I still had time for an hour's ride without getting me to my meeting too late. I could do without the usual danish and coffee anyway. The hotel is right next to Rock Creek, so I figured I'd drop down there and ride up the bike path for half an hour. I'm always surprised by this bike path because almost as soon as you're on it, you feel like you are way out in the country, despite the fact that it runs right through the District and up into Maryland. Most of the path is fairly narrow and covered with Fall leaves, but with the colorful foliage, babbling creek and overhanging trees, it was really quite relaxing and I wasn't too inclined to go fast on this unfamiliar ribbon of winding asphalt. So I got in a nice, but brief, ride and felt rather satisfied with it as I headed back over to the Hilton conference cave for a full day of sessions ranging from a nonstop two-hour NIH update to a session by one of the COGR guys that challenged me to stay awake. A lot of good information was gathered, a bit of useless information was discarded, and I finally made my way back to my little hotel room in a light drizzle to change into more casual attire for the evening's party with live music by the "Soul Source and the No-Cost Extensions." You have to be involved in research administration to find the humor in that name.

So yesterday the club officials officially decided to back out of a possible deal to set up a separately funded masters team within the NOBC. The idea came up on kind of short notice after a small group of riders was already well on its way to setting up a separate club for the same purpose, and it seemed there might be a possibility that we could incorporate it into the club as a sub-team and leverage the resources of both. I was a little worried about doing it from the outset, but I think it was worth a try. We had a meeting late last week with those involved to see get everyone on the same page, and, at least amoung the group there was fairly good agreement. Then the President sent an email around to the other officers explaining the proposal and it went over like the proverbial lead baloon. We had done something similar quite a few years ago and it kind of tore the club apart, so that history was there. The bottom line, though, which I think we already knew, was that there was just no way to pitch this so that it didn't cause some bad feelings and serious misgivings within the club. I expect that they will move ahead and set up as a separate club and we'll likely lose a couple of riders, but it wasn't worth the likely fallout to the club as a whole. Meanwhile, Amy is working on a new jersey for next season and Keith has secured an additional major sponsorship from Cox Communications.

Well, I've got to go put on my dancing shoes now ......

One Forty-five a.m.

There wasn't any riding for me yesterday, although Christian stopped by yesterday to lend me his Giant TCR, which is probably a nicer bike than my own. I dropped the saddle down a couple of inches, screwed in my Look pedals, and should be good for a nice little ride tomorrow morning on the Rock Creek bike path. I hope it's not too cold.

It's about 1:45 a.m. right now and I just got back from the hospitality suite where I had volunteered to help out tonight. I was very hospitable, of course, and didn't leave until the bitter end. It was pretty nice, particularly after 11 p.m. or so when the rifraff finally went to sleep and the five or six survivors were left in peace. By midnight the hotel bartender had left, but not before leaving some wine and beer on ice for those of us who were still going. There was a lot of discussion about some woman in an apartment directly across from the Hilton Hotel, where the conference is being held, who has apparently been strolling around naked. I'm guessing that she realizes there's a hotel next door.

Anyway, I wish I had more time to ride, but I guess I'll just be able to squeeze in an hour or so around sunrise before I have to get back to the conference. Still, it's a lot better than nothing, and the weather should be pretty reasonable, so I'm looking forward to it.

To the District

You would think I'd be tired of riding the levee, but this morning I decided to sleep just a bit later and skip the Giro Ride. Instead, I headed over to the levee where I knew I'd meet up with Tim and Charlie. We got Kevin up there too eventually, and I rode an easy 35 miles or so, with a couple of breaks while Charlie fixed his flat tires and complained about his lousy tires that happened to be the exact same ones I've been happily riding on for the last five months.

So now it's late at night, or early in the morning, depending on your relationship to Greenwich, and I've just finished packing my bag for an early morning trip to DC for a conference. As usual, I have the nagging feeling that I've forgotten something. This time I stuffed in some riding gear in case I can borrow a bike. Yesterday I downloaded the new Internet Explorer 7. They've rearranged some things as usual, and I suppose I may find a use for the tabbed windows eventually. The feature for detecting and collecting news feeds is pretty cool. Otherwise, I haven't run into anything particularly notable one way or the other.

Since my flight leaves at about 7 a.m., it will be an early morning for sure. I'm tired already.

Just a Taste

The temperature was in the upper 40s this morning, which in my book is "cold." Out came the long tights, shoe-covers, gloves, and even the helmet liner. There's just no point at all being cold on those first winter-ish training rides. Of course there were only three others up on the levee this morning: Bob, John and Joe. Although the plan was to do a nice easy ride, the wind kind of forced us to do a little extra. At least the skies were clear and blue and the scenery was actually worth looking at, so the 24 miles went by easily. I know that today was just a taste of Winter, but as usual it got me thinking about wintery things like new shoe-covers, long rides in the country, cheap training tires, and hot coffee.

The saga of the car mirror continues. In the last episode, we had gone over to Champs Collision because they called to say that the mirror had come in and they could pop everything back in place while we waited. Well, it turned out that they had ordered the wrong mirror, so the guy said that since we wouldn't meet our insurance deductible, we might as well just go on down to the Volvo dealer and have them order the correct replacement mirror. OK, fine and dandy. Should have done that in the first place. So I asked the guy to just give me back the motor assembly and I'd be on my merry way. There was a moment of silence and he said he'd have to find it and would call us back later in the day. Of course, after calling them this morning we learn that they have now managed to lose the entire motor assembly to which the mirror attaches and we're supposed to now go down to the dealer and have them order everything but bill the cost of the replacement motor assembly to Champs. I have a feeling this whole thing is going downhill fast. Repeat after me: "If you want it done right, do it yourself." This whole experience did not go down so well with me after what happened yesterday with the order for the replacement laptop. After waiting over 24 hours for Tulane's "Computer Concierge" to get us specs and pricing on a replacement Thinkpad for which I had sent them the original spec sheet, they finally send me a quote for a similar Thinkpad that is about $1,000 less expensive, not including the $430 service agreement they tacked on, despite the fact that it comes with a 3-year parts and labor warranty. Sound a little fishy to you? So basically I lost a whole day because I was foolish enough to expect someone else to do a competent job at something at which he was supposed to be proficient. After an hour on the phone with the GovConnection sales rep., who was at least marginally familiar with the product, I finally found something that was in stock and had basically the same specs, including the integrated broadband capability that was missing from the earlier quote, and got the blasted thing ordered for delivery today or Monday. The extra memory, which I'll have to install myself in order to save time, actually arrived this morning. Then I get to install all of the software that it needs, re-configure Outlook to talk to our Exchange server, etc., etc. Once again, "If you want it done right, do it yourself."

Heading out to DC on Sunday for a conference. I need to figure out if I'll be able to squeeze in a little ride time in the early morning and if I can I'll see if Christian can lend me something with two wheels for a couple of days so I don't get too fat. One thing about these conferences is that they keep you pretty busy from 8 am until at least 10 at night unless you're willing to miss a few things. I think I can probably get in an hour and a half in the morning, shower and get to the conference by 9:30 or so, and that should work out fine. I kind of wish I was going up on Saturday like I sometimes do, because it would be neat to do the Sunday morning D&D ride from Georgetown.

How Short??

A cool front was just blowing through when I arrived atop the levee this morning. Grey skies and a chilly 20 mph wind gusting out of the Northwest greeted me as I tried unsuccessfully to find some shelter behind the big round metal pump where we meet. Amazingly, most of the regulars arrived on time and the discussion quickly turned from "how far are we riding today" to "how short are we riding today." The compromise turnaround today was the "first dip," a few miles farther out than the usual "short ride" turnaround. There were no dissenters. The long South-Southwest stretch leading between the bridge and the Country Club was easy, but we all knew that once we rounded the bend at the Country Club, the wind would be directly in our faces. We had a 10-rider eschelon on a 5-rider road, leaving those at the back balancing along the downwind edge of the road searching in vain for a bit of draft. There were calls from the back for the lead riders to take shorter pulls so that nobody would be stuck back there long enough to get dropped. Out in Harahan somewhere Howard appeared, riding a Celeste green Bianchi with a 55-tooth chainring and yard-wide upright handlebars. The guy with the tennis shoes was out today too and doing fine. Once we made the turnaround, it got a bit easier and the pace got faster, but in general the whole ride was a battle with the wind.

So the USAC put up their newly revised website yesterday, a little earlier than originally planned, but probably because they had just moved everything to new, faster servers and somebody was smart enough to dump all the old stuff during the transition. It's still a work in progress, and in fact it progressed a bit just last night. When I went to check it out yesterday, I figured I'd see how hard it was to find something that all of the USCF riders should be looking for: the Rulebook. I looked all over the place but couldn't find it. Turned out it was on the "Officials Program" page. Now, if I was a regular USCF rider, that's about the last place I'd look. In fact, it was. So I sent off an email to George H., and then one to the webmaster, and a couple of hours later, he added links to the rulebooks under each of the "Discipline" dropdown menus in the top navigation bar. Nice! Now if everybody would please go read the road racing rules, I won't have to explain how free laps work or which age groups are supposed to have state championships, etc.

The Wife went out for a run the other day and tripped on some branches and fell. Well, yesterday she finally got an appointment with an orthopedist and, no big surprise, she broke a bone in her thumb. A nice clean non-dislocated break, but still very swollen and plenty painful. She'll be in one of those removable splint things that goes all the way up her forearm for a while. Now if she'll just go pick up the pain medicine from the drugstore, it would make my life a bit easier! Dropped about $700 last night to fly The Daughter in for Christmas. Ouch. Oh yeah, be sure to check out the Nov. 6 edition of Sports Illustrated, because my sister's daughter Lizzie Barnes apparently made the "Faces in the Crowd" section. She's currently ranked No. 1 in the nation in goals-against average and also save percentage at 95.3% (soccer).

All Hallows Day Ride

Wasn't feeling too sharp for this morning's All Saints Day ride. Considering the large amounts of wine, finger food and candy consumed Halloween night, I shouldn't have been too surprised, though. Nonetheless, I made it out to the ride just in the nick of time, and after a few miles passed I was feeling much better. Today's ride was a simple, steady and uncomplicated paceline. Even the guy wearing the running shoes with toe clips seemed steady.

So the trick-or-treater turnout on Neron Place last night was pretty strong, and we had most of the folks on the block up on our front porch by the time things on the street began to wind down. The Wife had gone out and bought a lot of food and candy - as usual, more than really needed - and so I spent a few hours shuttling between the spread on the dining room table and the wine on the front porch. The weather was nice and it was great to see all the little neighborhood kids in their costumes climbing the front stairs under the watchful eyes of their parents. Things seemed pretty normal there for a while. A few more Halloween photos are on my Koday EasyShare page.

After everyone had left, I checked my email and found a fresh one from our VP whose house had just been broken into. Naturally they had stolen her laptop, so we're in a big rush to get another one today.