Midweek in New Orleans

Another warm morning and a good turnout for the New Orleans levee ride. I counted about 20 riders at some point, which is a lot for a pre-work weekday training ride. I was feeling better today, perhaps more recovered than yesterday. Maybe it was that quart of Summer Gazpacho I made for dinner. V8 juice, garlic, tomatoes, garlic, onion, celery, cucumber, garlic, bell pepper, olive oil, vinegar, garlic, and an hour in the 'fridge. I always eat too much of that. Anyway, the pace was good - not too fast and not too slow - and so most of the group stayed together the whole way. Of course, we had to have the usual flat tire, but that's pretty normal too.

I talked with Realdo for a while. He was riding his older Look bike because his new bike is being shipped up to the Tour of Ohio stage race along with the other Herring team bikes. Too bad they will miss the Tour de La this year, but their absence might present some good opportunities for other teams in the area, and I'm sure their masters riders will carry the banner well anyway.

Preparations for the 36th annual Tour de La are ramping up and I really need to finish up the race bible in the next day or two. The town of Covington is busy patching a couple of holes on the crit course, no doubt turning them into nice little bumps instead. Keith is hustling for race volunteers as usual and Laura is sweating out the ever-escalating costs for police and stuff. I need to pick up the LAMBRA race kit from Bicycle World, since it came back from the road championships with Adam. We'll be having a group training ride on the TDL road course this Saturday, after which some of us will go around and clean up some of the loose gravel and stuff so the course will be in good shape for the following weekend. The Race to Recovery Criterium Championships look to be about ready to go at this point, and the Meridian-Cuba Challenge omnium should have its event permit and announcement in the next few days as well. I still need to get the road championship results from Shane so I can update the LCCS points and upload results to the USAC database. I also just found out that the new LCCS championship jerseys that I've been waiting on for the 2006 winners have are still in the "final proof" stage, so no telling when those will finally arrive. I think I may send those people last year's model if I have the right sizes and maybe follow up with the new ones when the finally arrive. I think I'm still missing mailing addresses for some of last year's winners, though.

On the home front, the work on the kitchen has been at a virtual standstill for the last month or two, and I've been basically 'on call' for my dad since his stroke, making trips over there every couple of days. He's scheduled for another little surgery June 21st, so I'm hoping that goes well and doesn't interfere with my officiating duties for the TDL the next weekend.