Looking North

I really, really wanted to stay in bed this morning, but with the La./Ms. racing season starting up soon, and the chances of getting any significant weekend training under my belt looking dim, skipping my morning ride today would have left me guilt-ridden the rest of the day anyway. At least it wasn't raining, and there was even a little bit of sky peeking through the clouds. For a change, I wasn't running too late, so naturally I caught a train just before I got to the levee. Then the train stopped. I circled around practicing my track stands (like those ever work in real life!) until finally the road was clear and I could dash across to river road where I had to stop and wait again for a break in the solid line of cars that had been held up by the train. I guess there must have been some others who were delayed by the train farther downriver, because Big Richard and Luke caught up to us within the first few miles.

It was an odd wind today, gusting strongly from the east, and once we made the curve at the country club we had quite a crosswind to deal with. As often happens, the group split in the crosswind. The river is fairly high right now, thanks to all of the rain in the midwest and east, and there's enough water between the levee and the trees that line the riverbank to support a lot of waterfoul. All the way out to the turnaround, I kept looking down at that water and noticing that the wind was blowing strongly enough to make waves in it. It was looking like the return trip would be pretty hard. As it turned out, Matt and I rode the whole way back out ahead of the group. Matt was taking long steady pulls. My pulls were, well, steady at least. It was a good training ride, despite the cold feet and wind, but I still feel kind of sluggish on the bike. It always happens that way this time of year. January and February seem to be the low spots for me as far as training goes. I guess a lot of it has to do with the fact that I just hate riding when it's cold. Go figure.

I think that my favorite part of my morning training ride routine is the easy cool-down ride back from the levee to the house on the quiet side streets. It always reminds me that I am lucky to be living in a real neighborhood with real people. This part of Carrollton is a hodgepodge of houses from the tiny three-room shotguns all lined up in rows to the big raised Victorian homes on the corners, inhabited by a very diverse mix of people. It certainly keeps life interesting, anyway.

So we will be flying up to Iowa City this weekend, and as usual it will probably be about the coldest weather they've had all year. Somehow we always seem to be there for that special event. Somehow I will have to figure out a way to get some serious exercise this time. The track series starts in only ten days. I wonder if I will have the motivation to glue the track tires on this year. We shall see.

Status Quo

I had been kind of looking forward to this morning's ride after having skipped Monday for primarily logistical reasons, and so I was disappointed to find the air cold and damp when I stepped out the door into the darkness. There were water droplets atop the car as well, but the street was dry so I headed out to the levee. The weather report that I got when I arrived indicated some light rain approaching slowly from the west. The one I got from looking up at the sky indicated we'd probably get home without getting wet. Nonetheless, the group today was smallish and sluggish and entirely satisfied with the status quo. I could still feel my legs from Sunday's ride, but that wasn't really holding me back. It was the depressing weather. The sun was nowhere to be seen and everything had that dull, diffuse grey pallor to it. In perfect accompaniment, the chilly and very damp air seemed to cut through my clothes in some places, yet somehow without diminishing that clammy feeling you get sometimes when it's really humid. On days like this, there is simply no good way to dress. If you shoot for an "average" level of warmth, it's no better than the "average" comfort level you'd have if your head were in the oven and your feet in the freezer. So anyway, suffice it to say I wasn't too excited about the conditions today, even though the wind was very light.

For a change, everyone did the long ride today. I knew we'd be late getting back because the pace was rarely over 23 mph and there would be more of a headwind on the return trip. When we eased up approaching the turnaround I noticed John's rear tire looked like it might be going flat. He stopped and checked it and said it didn't look too bad, so I turned around and soft-pedaled back in the direction of home, chatting with Howard. After a while we looked back and figured they must have decided to change the tube, so we just continued on at maybe 17 mph waiting for the group to catch. Ten miles later we looked back and they were nowhere in sight. I guess they must have had some trouble with the tire, or maybe there was yet another flat, because I never saw them again. I was already running a good fifteen minutes later than usual, so after Howard peeled off at Williams I just cruised in the rest of the way at 19 mph. or so, which felt a lot harder than it should have.

Can't say my legs were feeling very good at all today. Already running late and with rain in the forecast, I rushed through my shower and jumped on the commuter, taunted over the last mile by a few occasional droplets of light rain. With three people out of town and one sick, it's deathly quiet in the office this morning. I guess it would be a good day to pick something really dull and boring from my to-do list. Lobbying reports, long-overdue filing, etc. Decisions, decisions, decisions. I wish it was summer.

In the Sun

After yesterday's virtual wash-out, I was looking forward to Sunday's promise of sunshine. After meeting Sam and Jack at The Morning Call, and with my cup of Starbucks coffee in my hand, we headed across the causeway to the northshore. The temperature in N.O. when we left was around 55F. Half-way across the lake you could see where the clouds ended, and beyond that to the north was nothing but clear blue sky. What a welcome sight! Of course the sunshine was courtesy of a fresh cold front, and so the price of the sunshine was dropping temperatures and unrelenting wind. By the time we were ready to ride, around 8:15 I guess, the temps on the northshore were around 44F and because we were planning to ride for over an hour directly into the wind, we were all bundled up as though it was much colder.

We had some action on the Watchtower climb today, with Sam ramping up the speed, along with Jason and Jay, and then toward the end of the climb Jason really kind of put the hammer down and he and I traded distinctly unequal pulls the rest of the way to Tung Road. Jason must have had his Wheaties this morning, because although I was fairly comfortable sitting on his wheel, every time I'd take a pull we would slow down by 2 mph. We waited to regroup at Tung Road, except that Jay and Jack continued on ahead for the last five miles or so to the cars. At the end of Tung Road, I found myself off the front again with Jason, and I think he was determined to catch Jack and Jay, so with a nice little tailwind we were hammering pretty hard for the last stretch. We caught Jack, but Jay made it in just before us. Tomorrow it is supposed to be near freezing in the morning, and since I had to leave my commuter downtown at work last week, I guess I'll probably skip the morning ride so that I can get a ride downtown. I'm guessing my legs will still be kind of sore anyway, so it's probably good.

My haphazard training routine of the last couple of weeks was quite evident today, and I finished with pretty tired legs and was basically wasted for the rest of the day.

Morning Bowl of Blog

It's 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday and I'm writing in the blog. "Yeah-yu-rite." This weather kind of sucks. It was a bit too dark this morning when I got up, so I woke up the computer to check the radar. The weatherperson on the news last night had promised the rain wouldn't get here until late morning at the earliest, but I had my doubts. Surprise! There was a carpet of bright green on the radar everywhere west of here and it was moving this way. The hour-by-hour forecast had 60-80% chance of rain between 6 am and 10 am. Not lookin' too good. It was cool enough that I wasn't too excited about a long ride in the rain, so I considered my options, finally deciding to head out to the levee to try and get in a couple of hours before it got bad. It was dry for the first twelve miles or so, and then the light drizzle started. Not too bad. I continued on and went out to the regular turnaround. It was raining more steadily by then, but still not too bad, and the sky didn't have that really dark threatening look. I figured I'd head back and if I was still reasonably dry I could always turn around again or do some laps around Audubon Park. A couple of miles later, the raindrops got bigger and I started thinking about warm clothes and hot coffee. I met the 7:00 levee group and turned around to ride with them for a little while, but when the rain continued a couple of us turned around again and headed home. Luckily, it never rained hard enough to fill up my shoes, so I guess the Giro ride was probably OK too, but I got in a good couple of hours, so think I made the right call today.

Yesterday was a very long day dealing with our "NSF Day," but I think things went pretty well. I discovered that the new university center has installed some kind of third-party internet access system and that by signing in as a "guest" I could get a basic connection to check my email, view websites, etc. The system wasn't too happy about checking my yahoo mail via my MS Exchange connection, but I guess that's to be expected. Anyway, we had around 200 actually show up, representing every university in the state, plus seven presenters from the National Science Foundation and one from the Board of Regents. The afternoon sessions constituted a 7-Ring Circus, with meetings spread out over three buildings, all of which needed functional LCD projectors and someone who could make them work with the random laptops that the speakers provided. No big problems, though, and everything stayed right on schedule. Naturally most of the outside faculty members who were attending ignored the information on my website telling them that they would have trouble finding a place to park and should park down at our University Square location and take the shuttle. I guess they all got tickets, but I'm sure they'll ignore those too. Anyway, the real result of that was that they all arrived at about the same time, which was half an hour late. My favorite?? It had to be a woman whose name was Love. Yeah, you got it. Dr. Love. She was absolutely certifiable, too, and couldn't understand why we didn't have a pre-printed name badge for her, since she had faxed here registration to D.C. only two or three days after the deadline.

The Daughter (you should check out his photo!) is in Illinois today for a meet tonight. Hope they have live scoring online.

Throwed Roll

There was some action up on the levee today, but not of the type you'd really want. There were more than a few guys ready to go this morning, and although most were regulars, a couple were not. As we headed out in the darkness I noted that one of the guys who doesn't ride with the group often looked particularly nervous. So naturally I ended up riding behind him, and he was riding behind the other guy. We were rolling along fairly well about five miles out when the rider in front of me went to shift and dropped his chain. As he slowed down, I eased up and rolled up alongside, and a gap opened ahead of him. Nothing serious, as we weren't going all that fast -- maybe 20 mph. He fiddled with the shifter as we coasted along and finally got it back up onto the chainring. At just that moment, the rider who was ahead of us dropped his wheel over the right edge of the road. That is never a good thing. Instinctively, he tried to steer back onto the asphalt. That is an even worse thing. I've seen it a hundred times. As soon as the front wheel tries to climb up onto the asphalt, the edge catches it and turns it. Usually, the rider goes down hard and fast. This time, though, he didn't fall -- at least not at first.

What happened was that his bike made an immediate, 20 mph, 90-degree left turn, throwing him hard across the narrow bike path and slamming right into Ronnie. Ronnie went flying, rolling and sliding down the hard concrete levee apron, finally coming to rest near the bottom. He must have hit with some significant speed in order to throw Ronnie like that because Ronnie has a lot of natural inertia, and as we all know, p=mv, f=m*a, and Ronnie's m is a lot larger than mine. If I had video, it would be the most popular thing on youtube today. Well, Ronnie was pretty shaken up, but not so much not to be royally pissed off. I was just thankful that (a) nobody broke anything, and (b) the guy in front of me had dropped his chain and opened a gap. Otherwise, both of us would never have escaped going down too. If you know Ronnie, then you know that this tumble down the levee probably damaged $300 worth of Assos' finest stuff. Well, anyway, both of the downed riders headed home and the rest of us continued on for an abbreviated long ride, albiet with a significantly heightened degree of caution. The second photo, taken with the flash off, a slow shutter speed, and an unsteady hand, shows Ronnie still on the ground with some of the other riders assisting. The first photo was taken with default settings and shows how dark it actually was at the time.

So today was just nonstop manic action all day getting things ready for tomorrow's NSF Day, for which I will have to be on campus around 7 a.m. Despite my best efforts, arrangements are a lot more sketchy than I'd like. Since the Center just opened a couple of weeks ago, they still don't have all the kinks worked out. For example, we will be doing seven concurrent sessions in the afternoon, and for each we need a separate conference room, an LCD projector, and a screen. Well, first off, only five rooms are available. When I did a walk-through this afternoon, they were still assembling furniture in one of the rooms, and in the other they were working on some sort of electrical problem. The did somehow manage to scrounge up five LCD projectors and verify that they all work. I'm not holding my breath, though. The guys from the National Science Foundation will surely arrive with fancy lightweight Macs with nonstandard video outputs and no conversion cables. As it turns out, all of these rooms were supposed to have nice electronic video screens, but after Katrina the construction costs went through the roof and stuff like that got cut out of the budget. Sort of like the little $17 million shortfall that we are now looking at for the Primate Center BSL-3 lab for which the groundbreaking ceremony is also tomorrow and also being organized by our office. Man, today I was really missing the two staff members that we lost because of Katrina.

Blacklisted!

It was wild and windy this morning for the long levee ride. A fairly good-sized group eventually coalesced in the winter morning darkness and by the time we were five miles down the road it was clear that today would be a hard one. Matt, Howard, Rob, and a few others were pushing the pace and the only problem was that we were a 15-person eschelon on a 6-person road. Howard surged up to 27 mph at one point, things got disorganized, and the group split. There were already a number of guys at the back who wanted to (a) go slower; (b) turn around early; or (c) both of the above, so I think most of them were cool with that. By the dip, we were down to six or seven and my vest was in my pocket. In the crosswind the seventh guy was basically in the wind much of the time, but as long as the rotation kept moving, at least it wasn't for too long.

The return trip today was harder, with more of a headwind component, but the pace had more or less settled down to 21-23 mph. We caught a couple of the guys who had turned around early and they filtered into the paceline. For a couple of pulls I was starting to think my legs were dying until finally I could feel the mushiness in my rear tire. It seemed like a fairly slow leak, and we were only a few miles from the playground, so I went and sat on the back and hoped for the best. Well naturally that didn't work out and just before the Country Club the tire started to bottom out and I had to drop off the back for a fix. Luckily, Donald came along shortly thereafter and ended up pulling into the headwind all the way back to the playground. Still, despite the flat, it was a good ride today. Well, that is until I looked in the mirror at home and found a dried road worm stuck to my face. Yeech. There were worms stuck all over the bike too, of course. Must have been while it was still dark, because I never saw them. Since I was already running late, it was a mad dash on the commuter to the office. The temperature had actually dropped a few degrees and since I had to lug the laptop and a bunch of other work stuff with me today, the Broad St. overpass presented an unwelcome obstacle today. Sometimes, I swear the ride to work feels harder than the training ride.

So Tulane's anti-spam software has apparently blacklisted my yahoo email ID because any time I try to send anything from the office using that ID, it bounced back with "554 5.7.1 This message has been blocked because it is from a RBL/ORDBL IP address. Please call the Tulane Help Desk at (504) 862-8888 for further assistance.(connection black ip )" Probably not coincidentally, The Wife's actual Tulane ID seems to be suffering the same fate right now. I'm running scans on my computers as I write, but I doubt they'll find anything. Damned spammers! Anyway, I've gotta run to Baton Rouge for a fun meeting with the Board of Regents folks, and then the rest of the week should be nonstop frenetic work. I'll have to get past the bottom-level tech service drones in order to get the blacklist issue resolved, and I'm not seeing where I'll have much time for that today. Such is life.

Calculated Compromise

The bright yellow and green line on the weather radar was definitely heading my way. It was 6 a.m. and the glow from the laptop screen was hard on my sleepy eyes. Decision time. I did the necessary calculations in my groggy head and my best guess was that it would be raining on the northshore by 10:30 or so. The southshore might get an extra half hour. The Giro ride gets me home by 10:00 easy, so even though the temperature was above 60F, I compromised and went for the Giro. The skies were dark and today there was a strong southeast wind, but I was determined to get in a decent training ride, preferably without getting my feet wet. Besides, the forecast for the next few days is not too encouraging.

The Giro group was really small, and I heard that from the start they had already been talking about turning around early. I knew that wouldn't be necessary, but whatever...

So when we hit Chef Highway, everyone turned back except VJ, Jeff and me. VJ was on his full-out Look TT bike and was quite happy to stay on the front the entire time. I was simulating pulls at the back, pulling out into the wind every 100 pedal strokes or so, just to make sure I was getting my workout. We kept up a pretty decent pace, considering the wind, for the whole ride, and by the time I turned off onto Wisner Blvd. to ride home, my legs were pretty much done. Pushing directly into the wind all the way to the house was a bit of an unwelcome chore and I doubt I ever broke 18 mph the whole time, but anyway I got what I bargained for and arrived home tired but dry. Around 11:00 the rain started, so I didn't feel too guilty about missing the northshore ride. Maybe 130 miles for the weekend.

Next was the live streaming video of The Daughter's gymnastics meet in NC where they were taking on three other teams. The "coverage" was kind of thin, considering there were three events going on at once the whole time, and they never showed The Daughter's beam routine, although they did show her on floor. The Gymhawks made a lot of mistakes today and ended up in 3rd. They should have, could have, been second. Nobody there was going to beat Georgia, though. Being able to recruit ex-Olympians makes for a pretty good team.

The minute the meet ended, we were off to The Mom's house, where I am now, to watch the Saints football game. They are not looking nearly as sharp as their last game, but I guess I'll keep holding out hope for a miracle, which would get them into the Superbowl. Still, they're doing better than they ever have before, so you really can't complain too much.

Taking What I Can Get

Although the weather this morning was far less than ideal, considering that it wasn't raining, snowing, or below freezing, I was happy to take what I could get. I got up a bit earlier than usual for the weekend Giro ride today so that I could ride downtown and pick up Warrington. He is marketing director for The Healing Cycle, which seems to be a non-profit cycling group that works to benefit pallative care at a hospital. He's from Toronto and is in town for a convention. He had emailed a few weeks ago and Robin was able to put a bike together for him to use so he could get the "Giro Experience." Considering the usual weather in most of Canada this time of year, I'm sure our mid-40s air felt positively lovely despite the gloomy grey skies. I had dropped off the bike the evening before so that he could get it set up, so when I arrived at the Riverside Hilton at 6:30 a.m., he was there and ready to go. It was windy as hell today, which was too bad because otherwise the riding would have been much nicer. We arrived at the lakefront a few minutes early, so I was expecting to see the parking lot fairly empty, but I was surprised to find lots of cars already there. I guess the threat of serious rain tomorrow, combined with the lousy weather we've had all week, pushed a few people out of bed today. Despite the rather good-sized group, the pace was pretty slow for quite a long time. A lot of riders were planning on doing the "long Giro" out to Slidell today, and I was even contemplating it myself, depending on how Warrington fared.



About halfway out to the turnaround the pace rather abruptly surged and stayed that way until we hit Chef Highway. When things calmed down, I dropped back down the group to look for Warrington, but word was that he had come off the back. Way back in the distance, though, I could see that Robin had stayed with him, and since we were now on the out-and-back section of the ride, I knew he couldn't get lost anyway, so that was good. The group was still generally reluctant to go hard for any length of time, though, and eventually I found myself off the front with a couple of guys chasing two other guys who had been off the front for a long time. We were only going maybe 80%, and the two riders ahead weren't really trying to keep from getting caught, so after a final surge by Howard we finally made contact shortly before the turnaround.


The return trip was quite civilized except for a brief stretch on Chef where we finally got the full benefit of the tailwind and the pace escalated into the 30s for a while.


Warrington got a little tour of Lakeview on the ride back to my place (to drop off the bike), after which we headed over to the local coffee shop for a little recovery drink and conversation. It sure felt nice to be back on the bike for an extended period, and I guess everyone else must have been feeling the same. The weather for tomorrow is still looking kind of sketchy, and considering the bit Saints championship game in Chicago I really don't know what I'm going to do. If it looks like it will definitely be raining as forecast, I'll have to skip the drive across the lake, but who knows? The weather forecasts have been pretty hit-and-miss lately. I'll have to wait until I wake up in the morning to make a decision. I hate that!

Cold Feet Friday

Well, I just can't seem to get any momentum going, training-wize. It started raining last night and has stayed wet, cold and nasty all day. Although I had to drop some materials off for work by 8:30 this morning, I was still considering an extra-early ride. The combination of wet streets, darkness and cold pretty much put an end to that plan well before dawn. My feet have been freezing all day anyway. So another day off the bike, I guess. Tomorrow is looking like it will be OK in the morning, but all bets are off for Sunday at this point. If things go as planned, I'll pick up a bike from Robin this evening and drop it off for the guy from Ontario who is staying at a downtown hotel. Then in the morning I'll ride by the hotel on the way to the lakefront and accompany him out there and back. Should be interesting. At least I know it won't feel as cold to him as it will to me! Anyway, since it's Friday and I'm at an educational institution, I figured it would be appropriate to take a quiz:

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

Thanks to the New Orleans parochial school system, and, no, everybody in New Orleans is not as dumb as the elected officials you see on TV.

Better Than Rollers

So my personal Recovery to Renewal program inched forward this morning as I reluctantly threw back the covers and dressed for the early morning levee ride. The temperature was warmer and the wind lighter than yesterday, so despite the overcast skies I was expecting a pretty good turnout. I was again disappointed, at least initially. It had been hard enough to get my crusty old body out of the house this morning that I was running a couple of minutes late, and when I arrived atop the levee it was again deserted. I looked up the road thinking that perhaps I would see the flashing tail lights of the group, but they were nowhere to be seen so I just kept rolling. I first came across Donald, coming from the opposite direction, who confirmed that there was, indeed, no group. We rode on, eventually picking up Keith, Howard, Jeff and a couple others. Even so, we turned around at the big dip instead of going all the way out to the end of the bike path. There was a pretty good tailwind most of the way out, so I guess we were all happy to use the anticipated headwind as the morning's excuse for turning around early. The return trip started out pretty easy, and we were rolling along at around 20 mph, mostly into the wind, for a while. Then, for some reason, I found myself out there alone. There was just a small gap behind me, so I kept going at 20-21, fully expecting the group to come by at any moment. The miles went by and still the group was hanging back, so I just resigned myself to riding in solo. No doubt I needed a good long stretch in the wind anyway, and despite the wind, cold and generally gloomy conditions, it was still way better than rollers!

So it seems that Brad and Angelina have bought a little $3.5M cottage in the French Quarter and have temporarily moved to New Orleans. Angelina is apparently interested in "befriending normal moms so she can do things with the kids." I wonder what her idea of "normal" is. Anyway, I guess I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm guessing Country Day for the kids.

Climbing Out

Well, this morning I started climbing out of the deep training hole that I've dug for myself over the last couple of weeks. I wish I could say it as a pleasant experience, but then I'd just be lying. Although the temperature down here was an easily tolerable 41F this morning, it was accompanied by a brutal North wind. I would have expected to see a decent crowd today for the morning levee ride, considering that the weather yesterday was so bad I'm sure nobody rode. When I arrived at the levee, though, there was nobody there. I huddled out of the wind behind the big pipes and waited a few minutes to see if anybody would show. Finally The Donald appeared (wearing shorts), so we headed out, eventually picking up Elliot for a while too. Me? I was wearing shorts, leg-warmers and long tights, and I was quite comfy, thank you. The wind was indeed bad, and I was more than happy to let Donald spend lots of time at the front, which he generally likes anyway, plugging into the gale at a steady 20-21 mph. After he would pull for a few miles, I'd come through and put in 100 pedal strokes or so, then retreat to the back again. I was being careful not to do anything I'd be regretting halfway through tomorrow's long ride. Anyway, although it was damned windy, there really wasn't any good reason not to ride today.

I see that registration for Rouge-Roubaix, the area's annual early-season torture test, has opened. Hopefully they'll get their actual event permit submitted soon so we don't run afoul of the USAC and their new rule about fining promoters who open registration before their permits are approved. Luckily, Shane and I have already given the draft announcement a pretty good look already so we know there aren't any huge issues with it. I wonder if I'll ride it this year.....

Missing It

Another day off the bike, unless I relent this evening and dust off the indoor trainer. I miss my bike! The weather here is dismal, to say the least, and it's not looking too good for tomorrow morning either. I may be desperate enough by tomorrow to air up the tires on the full-fender Pennine, though, if it's not too wet out there. Meanwhile I'm sitting in the office with cold feet looking out through windows that are coated on the inside with condensation. There's not much out there right now except grey skies and rain, though. Just to add to my feelings of guilt, one of my co-workers brought caramel-covered brownies this morning. I almost had to run over to the ER for a shot of insulin!

Charlie D called this morning with news that his wife is pregnant and due in June. Bad timing, Charlie! You should always try to impregnate your women in January, dude.

Winter to Spring to Winter

Yesterday was entirely consumed by the drive from Iowa City back to New Orleans. This time we definitely set a record -- for the longest trip time. We started out around 7:30 a.m. in below-freezing temperatures with ice on the shoulders of the interstate and speeds substantially lower than normal. Then, just to ensure that we'd clinch the record, we took a wrong turn around Moline and spent an extra half hour or so making an unnecessary loop around the quad cities before getting back on track. Once we were headed south, the rain started. I suppose the windshield wipers were running for a good eight or ten hours straight as we worked our way through the weather in Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee. In a way, we were lucky, because we never really had to deal with anything really slippery and also avoided any long-duration downpours. Still, we didn't arrive back home until 11:30 p.m. It wasn't the easiest long drive I've ever done, that's for sure, but anyway we arrived safe and sound after going through ten CDs and two books with a new appreciation for automatic windshield wipers and defoggers. When we got back it was somewhere around 70 degrees!

After sleeping late, I finally rolled out of bed and onto the bike around 8:30 for a brief ride to get my legs reaquainted with the bike. The weather was positively Spring-like. It was well over 70F, with a light breeze. Everybody was out enjoying the Spring weather today, probably because they knew that the wet and cold weather that we had driven through the day before was finally going to get to New Orleans some time during the night. I was happy to run into Young Dan up on the levee so I wouldn't have to ride alone the whole time. Unfortunately, the forecast is looking bleak for the next couple of days and, considering the time of year, I may be forced to break out the dreaded wind trainer down in the basement. After a full week off of the bike, I am feeling really anxious to get back on the road.

Nor Rain, nor Sleet, nor Snow.....

Last night's gymnastics meet went fairly well. Although the GymHawks lost, their score was good and big mistakes were rare, so all-in-all it was a good start to the season for them. Better yet, I discovered that they had an unsecured wireless network running in the arena, so I could occupy myself with my Palm Pilot during warm-ups. As expected, the weather up here was beginning to deteriorate during the meet with a little bit of freezing rain but nothing serious. Went for a long walk up the Iowa River Sunday morning finally turning back when the steady freezing mist and 20 degree temperatures started getting uncomfortable. Along the way I got to see another bald Eagle cruising above the river. As I fully expected, I never did get up the motivation to work out. I'm just going to call this "recovery time" and leave it at that.

We ended up with The Daughter for lunch and then the inescapable trips to the mall and the grocery store, finally landing

back at her place to watch the Saints beat the Eagles in the Superdome. Incredibly, they are now just one game away from the Superbowl. I'm impressed. By the time we left around 10:30 pm, the neighborhood streets resembled a skating rink. From what see on the Weather Channel, there is ice covering everything, and things are not looking all that good for tomorrow or the next day either. So the plan, at least for the time being, is to make for the Interstate tomorrow morning and take the long way home through Moline. It'll add an hour or two to the trip, but at least we'll be on Interstate highways the whole way so unless we get stuck right in the middle of another ice storm, the road (at least the right lane) should be OK. We'll see. I'm just keeping it flexible. If things get too bad, we'll just have to go to Plan B.

Up North

Left New Orleans yesterday around 6 a.m. and drove practically due north all day, and after many CDs and radio shows, arrived in Iowa City around 8:30. Thanks to a strong tailwind, the trip computer was showing 32-33 mpg most of the way. WhooHoo! Probably saved line a dollar and a half or something. This morning it's in the 20s, which is supposed to be the high for the next couple of days. As we were driving up through Missouri the radio weather forecasts were talking a lot about freezing rain and other unfamiliar things like that. The weather is supposed to start going downhill around noon, last I heard. It will at least be interesting. I'll try and get over to the exercise facility across the street at some point, but motivation is always pretty low when it's this cold and there are a lot of other things to do, like sleep. One thing I always look forward to on a road trip is hotel sleep. It's almost always better than home for some reason.

The meet with LSU is this evening at 7 (central) and it's supposed to be available via webcast somewhere via the HawkeyeSports website. This is the "pink meet" to benefit Breast Cancer research, so we'll be wearing our pink Hawkeye T-shirts.

If you're looking for something interesting to read, check out Christian's writeup on a recent visit with Floyd L. In typical fashon, Floyd's "hearing" is now looking like it won't happen until next summer. Gee, I wonder why.

Just One Day

I made it out to the morning training ride today -- barely. By the time I tracked down the necessary items of clothing I was running a good five minutes late and ended up having to chase the group for a mile or so before I caught them. Luckily, they were still in warmup mode. Since I had missed riding Monday and Tuesday, I hadn't gotten my stuff back in order following last Sunday's wet ride. Some stuff was still in the dryer, some was in my bag, some was in the bedroom. You know the drill. Summer is so much simpler! Anyway, I felt rather lousy. Maybe it was because I knew it would be the only day this week I'd be on the bike. We're heading up to Iowa City early tomorrow and won't be back until Sunday. Even though we'll be taking the car, the forecast for Friday and Saturday calls for a high of 33F with "wintery mix" and "freezing drizzle" on Friday and 60% chance of snow on Saturday. Somehow it just doesn't seem worth taking the bike this time.

Just in case you missed the article on that gem of a gentleman and narcissistic leader of the legions of WADA, you might want to check out the article in the New York Times. If not, you can just get the reader's digest version from Velogal, who writes, "I am telling you that Dick Pound is a classic study in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and if I were still a Teaching Assistant, I would use him as a test case. His sense of entitlement, his arrogance, his ruthless power-grabbing, and his retaliation, vengeance and anger are classic. And how impressed he is with his own brilliance and rigid rightness. Dick Pound is never wrong... he wouldn’t even consider that possibility." Got that right.

One Step Forward, Two Back

We had great weather again today, and again today I was not able to ride. After getting in some much-needed saddle time over the weekend, I was beginning to feel like a bike rider again when I awoke Monday morning to more wet streets. I'm wishing I had gone out anyway, but at the time it felt like a day off was in order, and besides, I had a paper that I absolutely had to get finished before noon. So I stayed at home and worked on the laptop, finally finishing up around 11 on our responses to a bunch of questions from a consulting company working with the Board of Regents on a strategic plan to determine how to spend $28M in funding allocated to higher ed in the hurricane affected region. Then I had to tag along on a little walking tour with these folks through parts of the uptown campus in the late afternoon. Wasn't home long before The Wife got a call from Baton Rouge. Her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, fell and possibly broke her hand and hit her head and was not looking good at all. Many phone calls ensued, the last at around 2:30 a.m. informing her that they were finally ready to admit her to hospital to treat the injuries along with the dehydration and UTI that they discovered along the way. Sheesh. So this morning I got up already tired and had to be at an early morning meeting anyway, so all rides were off again. Now The Wife's up in B.R. to sit with her mother overnight and give her brother and sister a little break.

I put the new USCF rule changes up on the LAMBRA website, and now that they've been disseminated, it's interesting that the most controversial one is the new junior gear restriction that requires Juniors to ride their restricted gears in non-junior races too. Good grief, what a pain for everybody. I've never seen a Junior whose knees were hurt by pushing big gears, and given that the limit is a 52x14, most of them aren't likely to be developing any better pedaling technique than they would have otherwise. Developing a smooth spin is an important cycling skill. Practice it. See? You didn't need a gear restriction to learn that, did you?

Costume de Rigeur

It's been a busy and tiring weekend so far. Saturday I went out to the Giro Ride, and although I was intent on staying well within my limits, I still logged over 70 miles, riding back the long way with Tim, Reo, Charlie and Kenny. The weather was quite warm, but the persistent dampness and morning fog made it feel quite a bit colder than it was. As soon as I got back home, The Wife was ready to drive up to Baton Rouge, so off I went for the rest of the day. We arrived back in New Orleans just in town to rush over to a housewarming for one of the doctors who had just about finished repairs on his house that was flooded after Katrina. This is the house from which we helped rescue stuff back in October '05. In this particular subdivision I'd guess about 10% of the people are back in their houses. That's just how long it takes to go through this whole process when you have insurance and other resources available - 16 months. Anyway, it was a nice party.

So this morning I woke up to the sound of wet streets and stumbled down the hallway to check the weather on the computer. I stared at the radar image for a long time before finally deciding to go ahead and try for the northshore ride, so I met Sam at Morning Call and we headed across the causeway in the thick fog at 45 mph. As it turned out, we had made the right decision. Although the streets were wet the whole time and we got a couple of very brief sprinkles of rain, all-in-all it was a pretty good 65 miles. We only had about seven guys today and the pace stayed pretty civilized, so that was nice considering that my legs were a little tired from Saturday. When I got home I took the bike outside, filled a bucket with soapy water and washed the poor thing down pretty well. There was grit and dirt everywhere, and although I rarely wash the bike with water like that, sometimes it's just the only way.

Yesterday was 12th night (or as we called it as children "King Cake Day") and what arrived in the mail but a set of invitations to a Mardi Gras ball. I haven't the faintest idea who would do such a thing as to invite me to a ball unless they were just curious about what I would look like in the required "costume de rigeur," which any good New Orleans boy knows is another way of saying white tie and tails. Looks like we'll be out of town that weekend. Whew! Nice of someone out there to think of me, I guess, but Mardi Gras balls, while a facinating tradition to be sure, have never been too high on my list, although I could certainly enjoy a nice drunken Queen's Supper afterward! I think my dad was king of Olympians once....

Sugar Bowl

Like the weather, I've felt dull and dreary all day today, and I musn't have been the only one because there were only four of us for the morning training ride - five counting Howard who was riding mostly solo today. My legs felt like lead for some reason. Perhaps I'm still feeling the effects of Sunday's ride and the punishment doled out by Scott, or maybe it's just the chilly temps and grey skies. All I want to do is eat and sleep - hibernation instinct. It's supposed to rain tonight, and nobody is making any promises about what it will be like by tomorrow morning, so I'll have to play that one by ear.

The Sugar Bowl is today at 7 p.m. at the Superdome, which is a few blocks from the office. People have already started going home since the threat of game traffic is sufficient to get them off of work early. Hopefully it won't rain until late so that all of the folks who came to town for the game will have a chance to enjoy the Quarter after the game. Since LSU is playing, there should be a lot of cars, a lot of beer sold, and adequate hotel room availability. The Bowl is sponsored this year by Allstate Insurance, so the clever folks at Geico Insurance have hired two airplanes that are circling the 'dome with big Geico banners. That has to be driving the Allstate folks nuts! The Sugar Bowl was always fun for me when I was a kid. Before the Superdome, it was always held at Tulane's on-campus football stadium. Since we lived only a few blocks away, and there were essentially no parking facilities, everyone would park throughout the adjoining neighborhoods. The neighborhood kids, myself included, would sell parking spots in their driveways for the princely sum of $1, or even $2. By the time the game started we'd have filled up our driveway and the driveways of all of the neighbors too. Then we'd take our loot and walk over to the stadium and buy team pennants and souvenirs. Sometimes, when the game got down to the last quarter, the folks at the gates would let us in for free. I'm guessing they don't do that at the Superdome.

Back to Work

After such a long stretch of being able to wake up naturally, it was quite a job to drag myself out of a warm bed in the dark this morning, especially after noting the outside thermometer. I decided not to be a hero today and instead dressed pretty liberally. I knew the 10-20 mph wind would take its toll on body heat, and there was no telling who might show this morning anyway. Indeed, the group was thin today, but at least there was a little easterly component to the wind that made the early going relatively easy. Just as we passed Central Ave., we saw Donald down on River Road waving. He had been delayed by a train - fifteen seconds later and he would have missed us entirely. So we slowed down long enough for him to catch up, and off we went. Chad was up there this morning with his super headlight. Damn that thing's bright. We picked up Eddie for a while, but he turned back early and in fact the whole group turned around at the "dip" today. My legs felt worse than they had on Monday, so I was taking short pulls. Howard joined in on the return trip for a while and kept trying to up the pace by a couple of mph every time he'd come to the front, but with a fairly stiff and cold headwind, nobody else was interested, so he just kept riding off the front and then dropping back to the paceline. Basically, this morning's ride felt like work to me the whole time.

Back at the house I boiled an egg, ironed a shirt, and headed out on the commuter for our first 2007 work day. Ten minutes after I arrived, one of the staff was standing in the doorway saying "my computer says it cannot find a boot device!" Luckily, it turned out to be that she had a screw loose - literally. The screw holding her laptop hard drive in place was missing (thanks to tech support that had rebuilt the computer last week).

Ahhhh. Back at work....

BTW, apparently there was a rather one-sided national news show yesterday about the "police shootings" in New Orleans on the Danziger bridge right after the hurricane. Just for the record, the police officers were not out popping off innocent black folks for fun as the media might have implied. From what I've heard, there was a gang of armed youths on the bridge that was shooting at them. Looks like in the confusion a couple of the victims got caught in the crossfire. The fact they were charged by our DA (who was found guilty of racial discrimination back in '05, yet is still in office) with first-degree murder seems, dare I say it, just plain racist or pandering or whatever you want to call it except competent. As I came over the Broad St. overpass this morning there were about a thousand police cars parked everywhere around the police station as the rank and file were showing their support for the officers who were there to turn themselves in.

A Sunny Start

After a quick dinner down on Magazine St. with a couple of the neighbors, and with no New Year's Eve plans, I hit the sack early last night. Just before midnight I was awakened by the sound of fireworks, some of which sounded like they were in the next room. I was glad for what I didn't hear - gunfire. In years past, it was always easy to pick up the sound of the automatic weapons being fired into the air, but I detected none this year.

There must have been some cold people down in the French Quarter in the wee hours today because when I awoke the thermometer read 39F and the wind was strong enough to hear. Since it's my last day of vacation, I decided to wait for the sun to come up, and headed out for a little recovery spin around 9 a.m. It was pretty quiet out on the levee, and here and there you could see the debris of the prior night's celebrations. The wind was pretty fierce and my legs were a bit stiff, so I just did an hour and a half or so, eventually running into one of the guys who moved to Carbondale a while back and is in town for a few days. He's racing for a team in St. Louis and is hoping to bring a few guys down for Rouge-Roubaix. Will C. emailed a link to the planned 2007 Track series and revised LCCS points scoring system. Looks pretty good to me. I guess I need to get busy making the changes to the bylaws that resulted from the LAMBRA meeting! The '07 season will be off to a fairly early start this year and a couple of events need to start getting their USCF permit applications done within the next couple of weeks. Now that you can do it online, it really just takes a few minutes once you have your event announcement put together, and the date is immediately put on the USCF calendar. I also got an update from Gina V, one of our NOBC alums, who will be racing with Kenda Tire this year. She is squeezing in training and racing while doing a residency up in ATL, and although she'll probably miss some of the NRC events, I'll bet she ends up making more of them than she misses.

I'm glad to see that, finally, the UCI, WADA, and to a lesser extent USADA, are finally getting some significant backlash from their heavy-handed attempts to clean up the sport at any cost. In the last few weeks I've seen editorials in most of the cycling publications pointing out the obvious, at least to those of us in the U.S., lack of checks and balances, trampling of riders' rights to protect their reputations and jobs, conflicts of interest, etc. Just finished reading one on the PEZ Cycling News site. Anyway, I think that the riders are beginning to stand up for themselves so at least there's hope.