Comin' at Me from all Directions

When I went out for a nice quiet Monday morning training ride, I thought it would be a typical Monday -- sort of a warmup for the rest of the work week. The 24 miles on the levee were done at a sub-20 mph pace amid esoteric discussions about university faculty, tenure, graduate student programs, and those sorts of things. The first hint that things might go awry came a few blocks before I got to work. Just ahead of me a bicycle commuter crossed, followed closely by a big SUV that was angrily blowing its horn. It didn't look good, so I turned and rode in their direction just in case something bad was about to happen, but the car slowed and turned, probably leaving behind a few expletives for the cyclist, who didn't seem too concerned about it. So I turned around and continued on my merry way. I wasn't at the office long before I got an email with the final version of some congressional testimony that we'd been working on (about medical resident programs in New Orleans). Now, that was all great, but the problem was that I was informed that they needed 150 copies, in color, in Washington DC, by 3pm. -- Eastern time. That little task was fairly easy to accomplish via FedEx Kinkos, although the cost was over $1,000 which, in my humble opinion, is ridiculous. Well, anyway, I got that all set up and arranged for it to be picked up in DC and delivered to the appropriate committee, and next thing I know there's the news about Mayo. Maybe I'm just dense, but why exactly would you want to risk your entire career just so you can come in something like 60th in the time trial? I guess it was around that time that I heard the FBI was raiding Senator Ted Stevens' house in Alaska. Meanwhile, back on the farm, our city tax assessors decided this was just the right time to make up for maybe forty years of underassessments by raising property assessments an average of 68%, all in the same year. As if people needed some more reasons to move out of Orleans parish. Shouldn't we be rewarding people for NOT leaving town? Shouldn't we be providing incentives to move here rather than disincentives? Go figure. Of course we won't know what the actual taxes will be until later in the year, probably after it's too late to contest the assessment.

Couch Time

The legs were still tired from Saturday's Giro when I left for the lakefront this morning. I was kind of expecting a nice civilized ride today, but that's not exactly what I got. This morning the Levee Board police had the gates on Lakeshore Drive, where the construction is going on, closed and locked. Naturally, everyone just went around them on the grass and sidewalk since absoultely nothing was going on and the new aspahalt has already been laid down. I had to laugh when I saw some of the Giro riders come up to the gate and then have this big discussion about how to get around it. Once we got down onto Hayne Blvd., the pace suddenly surged. From my vantage point midway down the long line of riders, it never seemed to ease up very much. All the way out to the turnaround the pace stayed up around 29-30 mph, slacking off to only 27 during the rare lull. I craned my neck around to the left to see who was on the front, but all I could see was a line of TT handlebars, interrupted occasionally by a regular road bar. At that point I figured the front was not the place for me today. I heard that Brett pulled the whole last mile or two before the turnaround at 29 mph. I did some efforts today, but by no means was I much of a factor at the front, although I certainly felt like I got a good workout anyway. By the time I got home I was quite well toasted and ended up spending most of the day napping on the couch. I guess I must have needed some down time.

So the Discovery boys hung in there all the way to Paris. I'm impressed. I mean, it's one thing to have Lance Armstrong and a nice simple game plan, but this year was different. Better yet that it was won by a rider only 24 years old, that the gap was measured in seconds, and that once again a U.S. rider stood on the podium in Paris. I can't say I expected any of that back when this year's Tour started. I can only hope that Johan can find a good sponsor for the team before he loses any of them.

Best Laid Schemes...

“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.” The Giro Ride today was a hard one, at least for me. When VJ flatted before we even got off of Lakeshore Drive, most of the group continued rolling while a dozen or so of us waited. So right off the bat we were chasing most of the way down Hayne Blvd. until we finally caught up with the rest of the group. Once everyone was together, we got back into standard Giro mode, which meant a fast paceline and finishing sprint out to the turnaround at Venetian Isles. As the sprint started well ahead of me and far too early, I found myself on Tim's wheel, so I hung on as he smoothly accelerated, passing most of the riders ahead as they burned out one by one. After we turned around, we could see that a lot of riders had turned around early and were now rather far ahead of us already. Tim said something about the reward for a good sprint being the need to chase down those who had turned around early.

Soon enough, though, we found ourselves rolling gradually off the front, the rest of the group content to extend their recovery time. Tim looked over his shoulder at me and said "let's see how long a leash they'll give us." I'll admit, I had mixed feelings here, but as he started to accelerate I stayed with him. We ended up with a small group taking short, fast pulls with Tim cracking the whip and the rest of us too stubborn to give in. I was already starting to skip pulls even before we got off of Chef highway. It was about that time that Tim said "let's not sprint and just keep rolling." Jay didn't hear that one and sprinted, which mainly served increase the pace another notch. Soon we were hammering again. Then, somewhere on the service road, one of the guys on a triathlon bike showed up. He passed us, we passed him, he passed us, I sucked his wheel, and we passed him one last time. About that time we caught up with Todd who stayed with us all the way down Hayne, finally putting in a huge surge just before the bridge that gapped a few of us off. Somehow we got back to Tim's wheel and I stuck on it like glue until we crested the Seabrook bridge, which is the unofficial finish line for the Giro. By then I was pretty well tapped out.

So I hung around the parking lot for a while, expecting to have a pretty free day before going to a 7 pm party, but when I arrived home I was informed that apparently I had been previously informed that we were driving up to Baton Rouge again to help install a dishwasher, move furniture, etc., etc. Well, I thought, that shouldn't take all that long, so my scheme was to get that job done and be back in town in plenty of time for the party. Well, actually, I was again proven wrong. It took a few hours to pull out a vintage 1970's style dishwasher, which had clearly been installed without the benefit of either common sense or an electrician, or, for that matter, a competent home handyman. Then we installed a newer dishwasher that we had removed from another kitchen that had also lacked the input of an electrician (and plumber). So I had a lot of fun cannibalizing parts from one in order to make the other work, which we finally did, although the electrical inspector would probably have a heart attack if he saw it, even though we certainly left the wiring in better shape than we'd found it. After that we had to load up a bunch of furniture and deliver it to one of the relatives outside of Baton Rouge who lives in a mobile home complete with broken down cars and rusting childrens' bikes outside on the grass. After all of that drama I didn't get back home until almost 9 pm.

Anyway, I was glad to see that Contador stuck it out and kept the yellow jersey, and of course Levi's time trial was just a thing of beauty. If nothing surprising happens tomorrow it will have been a truly amazing Tour for the Discovery boys whose original plans certainly didn't include a yellow jersey in Paris, much less two guys on the podium, the team win, the white jersey and three stage wins. Of course, there were a couple of other teams and riders whose plans went rather awry as well this year.

Quiet Friday

It has been a busy week all-around, but things seem to be settling down today. Looking out the window here on the 25th floor I can see the thick dark clouds moving in from the south as promised, and in a minute I think I'll probably break down and make some coffee. The office is quiet. Marcia is finally moving back into her not-quite-finished house in New Orleans East today and tomorrow, other staff are out of town, and most of the fires on my desk are down to a slow smoulder. We've had a 10-year old niece from Baton Rouge visiting with us the last few days, and so she and The Wife left this morning for breakfast at Cafe' du Monde and a trip to the Aquarium. We also have one of the other sister in law's cats, who has been hiding in various inaccessible locations throughout the house since Thursday while our own cat prances about like she owns the place. Cats can be so anti-social.

Yesterday's long levee ride got pretty fast as usual. When we met at the start I was surprised how dark it was. I guess the days are starting to get noticeably longer already. There was a good sized group yesterday and things were going along pretty well as we headed up the river in a long fast paceline. Despite the pace, my mind was nice and mellow until suddenly my entire life flashed before my eyes as I grabbed a whole handful of brakes. There's this one spot where the bike path goes up over a big pipe and to accommodate that there is this narrow little 50-foot bridge with aluminum walls on the sides. Just as I came over the crest, Donald's wheel in front of me was suddenly going backwards. I'm not too sure what happened ahead of him but my bike was halfway up alongside his in a heartbeat and with the railing on one side and his wheel on the other I had nowhere to go and locked up the rear wheel for a moment. Luckily everyone behind was cool, but anyway it was a close one. Realdo made one last brief appearance at the group ride yesterday, and by now I guess he's somewhere in transit to France. He should be in Paris in time for the finish of the Tour. I guess the big news today at the Tour de France is that nobody got kicked out. It was a pretty dramatic finish today - a good day for the French fans for sure.

This morning we had a typical Friday ride with four or five guys at a steady **** woah!! we just got buzzed by a low-flying FA-18 Hornet!! I love when that happens **** So, as I was saying, we had a typical ride at a steady 18-20 mph. On my ride to work today I passed by that row of old shotgun houses that I mentioned some time back as being under re-construction. I mentioned at the time how it looked like they were playing it pretty loose with the zoning ordinances. Well, for the past few days I'd noticed that the jobsite was quiet, so today I looked more closely and saw the "Stop Work" notices taped to the wall. Looks like they were playing it a little too loose and got caught by the city inspector. I would have to guess that you've got to be really trying in order to get caught for something like that right now in New Orleans. Of course, since they have already completely torn down practically every shred of the original structures, the damage has already been done.

A Little Tired ... of it all

A few of us got together last night for a few beers and dinner with Realdo before he departs for Eurasia on Friday. The Rogue Chocolate Stout at the Bulldog was good as usual, and we followed it up with a trip farther uptown on Magazine Street for some good Mexican fare at Taqueria Corona, where we walked in at precisely closing time, after which the owner locked the front door and took care of us all in fine style. Despite the two pints of stout, I was still hungry enough to clean my plate. I ordered "numero uno y medio" from the menu, partially because I thought it was a clever name and partially because of the aforementioned two pints of stout. Anyway, it was a nice evening, I took a few photos, and I hated to say au revoir to Reo. Who knows? Perhaps we'll run into each other again. You never know. I mean, I just got an email from Randall Holmes the other day. He started racing around when I did, only he was a few years younger. I have vivid memories of him with his long legs on his oversized Pugeot PX-10 riding the old Novice Races in City Park where he would always, always finish. He's the one in the photo in the NOBC Archives. Time flies, eh? I think it's about time he got back on the bike, don't you?

The morning training ride was an easy one with only six or seven guys riding in the double line that facilitates conversation. I think we got the last sliver of cool morning air because now the wind has shifted more to the south, the clouds are building up, and rain is predicted for the foreseeable future.

The news about the Tour de France and Vino and now Moreni and both their entire teams is really starting to get me down and, frankly, I'm getting a little tired of it all. Although I certainly have no inside information, there's the strong and undeniable scent of high-level cycling politics being played out among the various organizations like ASO, UCI, WADA, etc., and although it's always a good thing when the drug cheaters are caught and the cases are proven, I can't help but feel that the pro cyclists are, for the most part, Pawns on this particular chessboard and that the chessboard in question happens to be going up in flames at the moment with Le Equipe working the bellows from the peanut gallery. Maybe I'm just too trusting and inclined to grant "benefit of the doubt." Lord knows, I've suffered for that fault before...

Sustaining the Enthusiasm

The Dog Days of Summer represent a difficult time for bike racing in the deep South. After a crowded Spring calendar, the hot months of July and August often see a dropoff in race participation all across the Gulf Coast. It becomes more and more difficult to sustain enthusiasm for those hard training rides when the temperatures start reaching consistently in to the 90s and the races are farther and farther apart. On the other hand, for those riders who persevere, it can present some opportunities. Sometimes, the riders who were hot in the early spring are starting to feel rather burned-out by July and just aren't able to muster the energy to race as aggressively as they did earlier in the season. The Tour de France always helps maintain the interest level this time of year, although the consistent allegations of doping, including today's announcement that Vino tested positive for blood doping (is this to be believed?) aren't doing cycling any favors. In many ways, we have two racing seasons instead of one, and as the weather begins to moderate around the end of August there's usually room on the calendar for a few more good races before things really begin to wind down around the end of October.

So in my continuing effort to sustain the enthusiasm, I headed off to the morning levee ride today. It was strangely dark at 6 am, and with a bit of a north breeze still hanging on from the weekend there was just the faintest reminder of Fall. But the darkness was due mainly to a thick summer haze, and that reminder of Fall didn't last very long. At any rate, I rode out to the levee with my sunglasses way down on the tip of my nose, looking over the tops because of the darkness. Realdo was up there for what will likely be his last group ride before heading off to Paris on Friday and then, a couple of weeks later to his new home on Mauritus. His move will certainly be a loss to the local racing community. At least our average level of class will drop a couple of notches to be sure. The ride seemed to turn into a race today, at least on the way out, and I eventually decided to drop back and take a rest while three or four animals continued to pound out a 27-29 mph pace at the front. My legs are still feeling a little bit of Sunday, so I was glad that the group was content to soft-pedal along for a few miles of recovery after the turnaround. Eventually, though, it sped up again and at one point I found myself on Todd's wheel. He sat on the front pulling at a steady 27 mph for at least three miles today. When he finally pulled off, I came through for about twenty pedal strokes before looking for shelter.

So there's an article in the current issue of USA Cycling News about LAMBRA as the "Local Association of the Month." Really, we're still a long way behind a whole lot of other LAs, but anyway it's still nice to have everyone's efforts recognized.

Meanwhile, back on the continent, Vino, who was already hoplessly out of contention for the Tour de France win, tests positive for blood doping? I will just borrow a quote from David Millar that expresses it all rather succintly: "Jesus Christ - there you go, that's my quote. What timing, huh? This is just fucking great." So you can pretty much forget about the press covering any other aspect of this year's Tour.

A Ride in the Park

It was a rare treat to have the Louisiana – Mississippi USAC Criterium Championships at home in New Orleans this year. The venue at City Park was scenic, spectator friendly, and challenging. My initial thoughts that the course would be too easy and non-technical went out the window pretty soon after the start of the Masters race. With two turns each lap that usually required brakes, it turned out to be a much harder course than I had anticipated, as evidenced by the fact that none of the races finished with big pack sprints. It was certainly no walk in the park!

So the combined Master 35+/45+ race started out pretty fast. Two or three times within the first half of the race there were small breaks off the front that contained both NBO and Midsouth riders. With two teams unwilling to chase, I found myself doing quite a bit more work at the front than I’d hoped. At one point a 3-man break that included NBO riders Mike Corcoran, Woody Boudreaux and Jay Scheib opened a huge gap. I took a pull at the front but wasn’t getting a whole lot of help, so I sat up and looked around for Realdo and other Herring guys. It was starting to look like a perfect setup for Reo to attack out of the pack and make the bridge and I didn’t want that train to leave the station without me. Sure enough, just after the U-turn Realdo launched at a blistering pace. Knowing that the race would be over if he made contact (highly likely since he was going at Warp speed), I put the pedal to the metal in hot pursuit. I was going absolutely flat out for over half a lap, hanging maybe four bike lengths behind and unable to close until finally he eased up as he got close to the break. I was absolutely on the rivet the whole time and just a hair’s width from blowing up entirely.

Once we made contact, the break started working fairly smoothly and although I wasn’t looking behind me much I knew we must be opening the gap. Finally, Realdo attacked again and the response by the rest of the break was less than enthusiastic. I figured it wasn’t my job to chase Reo down, and besides, I was kind of happy to have him out there. So with a lap to go, Reo had the win in the bag and it was going to come down to a sprint for the rest of the break. Somehow I got myself into the 2nd spot behind Jay who had started a long acceleration on the back side of the circuit. When we came around the last left-hand turn I thought I was in a good position, just to his right, near the curb, with the wind coming from the left. Instead of swinging out and starting the sprint like I'd expected, though, Jay stayed to the right and eased up coming around the turn and I found myself with a tough decision to make. I could launch immediately down the right edge, squeezing between Jay and the curb, or try to back out and go around on the left where I knew the rest of the sprint, and draft, would be. I chose the former. Mike came past me easily and then, right at the line, Woody totally surprised me and threw his bike just to my left. They had to go to the video to figure that one out, and it turned out that I had just nipped him for 3rd overall (1st 45+). The course was seriously fun, and I was happy with the results, but as I was cooling down I noticed that something didn’t feel right. I had felt it toward the end of the race too, especially when I had inexplicably skipped a pedal on the last lap, and when I finally stopped to investigate I found that I had maybe 25 psi left in my rear tire. Later inspection revealed a rusty metal staple sticking out of the sidewall, so I was pretty lucky to have made it to the finish. Now I had an hour or so to recover before the Cat. 1,2,3 race.

I was hoping to employ my usual “2nd race of the day” strategy for the Cat. 1,2,3 race. That usually involves acting as pack fodder, trying to avoid being dropped, and hoping to have something left at the end to pick up whatever leftovers the day’s break might provide. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. This race started out absolutely ballistic – significantly faster than the Masters race. Kenny did his traditional go-from-the-gun attack for the first lap or so, but the pace didn’t slow appreciably after that. There were little groups splitting off the front. Reo and Tim bridged up to one of them and eventually things up the road merged and a break of maybe six riders started to solidify. The gap was growing and the chasing was starting to falter. The race was riding away from us. I looked around and wondered if Frank Moak would try to get up there with his two teammates.

A couple of laps later Frank powered away after the U-turn and it was like déjà vu for me. This time, at least, I got his draft quickly, and along with Wylie Bagley from GCCA we ended up with a pretty significant gap. Wylie and I were working hard to chase, but of course Frank wasn’t going to work with us since he already had two teammates in that break, either of whom could win. Perhaps I shouldn’t have worked so hard to chase, knowing that Frank was just waiting for us to get him close enough to try for a solo bridge, but I knew that if we somehow could close that 15 second gap the rest of the pack would never catch. So I rolled the dice and for what seemed like an eternity we chased, gradually chipping away at the gap. We were getting pretty close when Frank attacked (more than once), but he wasn’t going to pull either of us up to his teammates and couldn’t quite get himself clear, so after responding to a few of those attacks our chase started to crumble. All this time the remnant of the pack, now split and substantially reduced in number, was hovering maybe twenty seconds behind us. Now that gap started to shrink rapidly. Kenny, Brooks and a few riders bridged up to us, and eventually we ended up with a group of I guess six or seven as the break rolled off out of sight.

With only six laps to go I rounded a corner and heard the dreaded “pssssssst” of a flat. Getting the last free lap of the day and a wheel from Jason who was manning the pit, I got back in with 4 laps to go. With the break now down to four riders, it was going to be a sprint for 5th place and my legs were none too good. As the last lap began I moved up near the front. I figured Kenny would be doing leadout duty for Frank, so I tried to insert myself between the two but eventually gave in. I still managed to eek out a reasonable sprint under the circumstances, though, and I ended up 8th overall, so I was pretty happy with that.

In other races, we had a pretty good NOBC group in the Cat. 5 race which looked to be fairly conservative. Mike Rivault took 5th which was the best of the six riders we had in the race. The Cat. 4 race got pretty shattered after a couple of messy crashes. Brady Skaggs had attacked right after the race, opening quite a gap, but was reeled in. Later, I saw him way off the back of the main group(s) and figured he might have gotten tangled up in one of those crashes, but after the race when I was warming up for the Cat. 1,2,3 race I rode a lap with him and learned that the bottom half of his right handlebar had snapped off, so he had ridden the rest of the race with part of his handlebar held on with nothing but unravelling handlebar tape. He still finished 9th. It was nice to see Laura and Vivian racing in the women’s race, and Viv ended up in the medals behind the break of Taylor Alexander and Rosanne Simons.

Friday Afternoon

It's been a long week and I'm about ready to call it a wrap. As usual, it has finally gotten very quiet around here in the last hour or so and I'm wishing I was sitting somewhere pleasant, a glass of merlot in my hand, a dozen cold raw oysters on the table, and music in the background. Alas, I have only a bird's eye view of the Mississippi under grey skies and the cup on my desk contains just the dried-up remnants of yesterday's coffee. Last weekend seems already like ancient history, but at least there's a race on Sunday here in town to look forward to, or fear, as the case may be.

I had a visit last night from Joey D' who's in town through the weekend. When he arrived at the house I was just inserting the cassette body back into my rear hub after a quick re-greasing that was necessitated by the trip the bike took earlier this week atop the car in a rainstorm. Black gunk oozing out of your "sealed" rear hub can't be a good thing. Anyway, I was glad that I got it all back together again without any of the little pawls or springs ending up on the floor as usually happens, even though the cones are already hoplessly pitted from prior abuse. He met the levee ride group this morning for our usual Friday ride that involved more conversation than heavy breathing. My legs were feeling awful. Perhaps I wasn't quite recovered from yesterday's ride, or maybe I was just feeling my age. I've been having trouble all week with what I assume to be sciatica. That nerve that runs around my right butt has been literally a pain in the ass lately, and if I sit for any length of time, especially with my wallet in my right rear pocket, I can feel the inside of my right calf starting to twitch. So anyway, I've been sitting in some strange positions all week at work hoping it will resolve, but so far I haven't seen much improvement.

Tonight the sister-in-law and her daughter, who is the same age as mine, will be over for a little birthday dinner. Since nothing is prepared, I assume that means a trip to the grocery store at the worst possible time, and then me standing outside alone grilling an overpriced slab of meat.

Riding On the Safe Side

There was quite a crowd for this morning's ride, and it included a number of folks who are not what I'd call "regulars." In all, I think we had at least 20 in the group, and considering the wide range of skills, it got to be just a little bit jittery in the paceline now and then. The group was kind of slow getting started today, and I ended up riding off the front for a few miles despite a very conservative pace, but eventually I heard the voices coming up from behind and dropped back down the line.

This was a pretty civilized group ride with nobody really pushing the pace and lots of riders taking pulls. I had been noticing this one rider in particular whose abrupt moves in the paceline were kind of scary, at least to me. On the way back I actually ended up spending much of my time off to the left, out of the draft, riding on the "safe side" of the bike path where, if something bad happened up front, I'd have full access to the nice soft grass on that side of the levee rather than the harsh concrete on the other. Fortunately I didn't need it, but anyway it was comforting to have the option, and besides I was able to get a little better workout without being on the front and messing up the group's consensus pace.

I watched the end of today's stage of the TDF via video stream from one of the links on the cyclingfans.com site, and even though the winning break didn't have any of the big GC contenders in it, it was still pretty interesting to watch. I think you could probably use the last 10k as a training film for new riders on what to do, or not to do, in a small group coming up to the finish of a long road race. The interesting thing was that the win went to the oldest, most experienced rider today, not the strongest one. As they say, "Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill." Well, maybe not always, but anyway....

The key moment, I think, was when Vasseur noticed that everyone ahead of him was overlapping wheels to one side, but there was room for him to attack on the other. Only the rider in the lead had any chance to catch his wheel since the sprint started so late, and that guy was the last one to see him as he flew past. A quick decision and a classic move.

Back in Line

Late last night, for reasons that still escape me, I indulged in some sort of feeding frenzy. Tempted by a 'fridge full of leftovers from the weekend, and despite a late lunch of pizza, I decimated the supplies, inhaling ice cream sandwiches, italian ice, leftover salad, soft drinks, pretzels, watermelon, and wine as I sat on the couch watching some movie that I'd already seen a thousand times. I seem to go through these kinds of "hungry phases" every now and then. Deep-down I suppose it was really all just a futile attempt to delay the inevitable return to routine that awaited me this morning.

I was at least happy to find that it wasn't raining when I awoke, but since the weather around here has been extremely unstable lately, I checked the radar before I left. There were big storms already out to the west and heading my way, but it looked like the morning ride would be in the clear, so I headed out to the levee to meet the group and insert myself back in line.

The first part of the ride got pretty fast, with Eddie, Matt and Rob pushing the pace quite a bit. I knew Eddie would probably have to turn back early, which he did, and then for some reason Matt disappeared as well, so the pace settled down to a more sustainable 26-27 mph. The legs felt pretty good, thanks to all the "recovery time" they've enjoyed lately, although I'm sure they will be paying the price by tomorrow. It was a good ride, anyway, and I even arrived back home a few minutes earlier than usual. Not quite enough minutes, as it turned out. The sky was already turning dark and grey as I rolled the bike into the basement, so I didn't waste too much time getting ready for work. Unfortunately I needed to iron a shirt, and somewhere around the left sleeve I heard the rain start. This was a good southern-style summer deluge of monster raindrops that instantly sent torrents of runoff down the streets into the storm drains. I sighed, packed my messenger bag, and walked down the dark hallway to the study to fire up the laptop where I spent the next hour waiting for the rain to stop. On the plus side, the ride to work was cool and breezy and other than the water still dripping from the oak trees I stayed pretty dry.

So one of the Juniors from Jackson, MS, Ben Gabardi, won two stars and stripes jerseys (Junior 13-14 Time Trial and Criterium) plus a silver medal in today's road race. His MMW teammate Mike Olheiser is also on a roll in the elite events, placing 2nd today in the road race. Ben, who recently won the LAMBRA Cat. 4 and Junior road race championships and is now a Cat. 3, moved to Tennessee about a year or so ago and has been riding for Memphis Motor Werks (ACCM), so he's listed in all of the results as being from Tennessee. As it turns out, I hear he moved back to Mississippi a couple of months ago, so I think we can claim a little bit of credit for his wins! One thing I'd like to investigate with LAMBRA for the 2008 season is whether we might have enough revenue to budget for a little grant program for riders who want to go to Nationals -- maybe enough to at least cover the entry fees. Something to think about, anyway. I've always felt we should have more participation at Nationals.

Unconnected Weekend

Almost three days without significant internet access. Let me tell you, it was tough. The condo that we were sharing with one of my sisters had no internet access. Can you believe that? It felt like 1995, except that I wasn't willing to actually break down and use dial-up. I mean, I have standards, you know. I searched the yellow pages in vain for someplace nearby that might have free internet access, but never came up with any good possibilities. Some time Sunday evening, having brought my laptop over to The Dad's place to show some photos from the 80th birthday bash, I discovered that if I put the computer on the dresser against the far north wall of the house I could pick up an unsecured wireless router from one of the neighbors. I hastily checked my email and was rewarded with the Federal Register Notice I'd been waiting for from the Department of Education. It was like finally getting a fix after three days of cold turkey.

So anyway, I spent the weekend with family over in Ft. Walton, managing only a single 45-mile ride early Sunday morning, but hey, you're only 80 once, right? After a nice Saturday evening party, which the older generation wrapped up around 9 pm, I got in a decent night's sleep and slipped out around 6 am for a little ride. It was surprisingly cool with a bit of a northwest breeze, and I had time for a bit more than two hours. From Fort Walton I headed east on Highway 98 toward Destin, cruising along the side shoulder with little traffic. I just had to stop on the Destin bridge over East Pass to take a photo and remember the many times I've crested that bridge over the years. It's always sad to see all of the high-rise condos crammed along the beach there, because in my memory there's still just the Silver Beach cottages, and the round Holiday Inn, and nothing but sand dunes to the east until Grayton Beach. Things have changed, and I rode through Destin and past the airport and the new city hall, paralleling the "new" highway 98 past rows and rows of cute little upscale strip malls and designer traffic circles until I finally headed north across the long mid-bay bridge. Almost my entire ride across the bay and through Niceville and Shalimar was on marked bike lanes or wide smooth shoulders. By the time I got back I was starting to feel normal again, but it didn't last long. We were scheduled for brunch at the little Ft. Walton Yacht Club, where I had a shockingly fantastic vegetable omelet.

Since the beach was littered with dead fish and sea snails this weekend, the girls decided a trip to the discount shopping mall was in order. Of course, I had to dig my heels in on that one, so I hung around the condo for a few hours eating junk and watching TV while they happily wandered around looking for stuff they wanted but didn't need. Such is life. The good news is that I got to see Sunday's stage of the Tour de France.

Today was the long drive back to New Orleans, the second half of which was through a steady rain that made for a somewhat difficult drive. The Daughter is en route back to Iowa City and I'm trying to get in a few more hours of down time before returning to work, and the bike, tomorrow. I hear that it rained buckets all day yesterday and that the Track races in Baton Rouge got washed out as well. Coming up this weekend is the Race to Recovery Criterium in City Park. I guess three days of eating, drinking, and sitting on couches probably wasn't the best training for that.....

Complications

I had a nice easy Friday ride this morning, largely alongside David from UNO who is working on getting back in shape after a post-Katrina hiatus. Despite our comfortable pace of 16-20 mph, none of the other guys threatened to come to the front, so I think everyone was of the same mind today. It was good, too, that it took my mind off of all of the little complications that have sprung up for this weekend.

Tomorrow morning, very early, I'm heading off to Ft. Walton Beach, FL for my father's 80th, along with The Daughter and her friend who will be flying in to N.O. tonight around 11 pm. My brother and two sisters, and most of their families, will be in Ft. Walton as well for the Bastille Day bash. The plan, up until yesterday, was simple, since The Daughter needed to be back in Iowa on Monday:

• 5-hour drive on Saturday
• Eat, drink and be merry
• Eat, drink some more
• 5-hour drive on Sunday

"Best laid plans" and all that... Well, yesterday it turns out that The Daughter can stay until Monday, so the flight plans got changed. The new flight plan was a couple hundred dollars less, since she's now staying over a weekend, but the $100 last-minute change fee took a pretty big bite out of that. OK, so now I really need to bring my bike with me and can probably get in a nice ride Sunday morning before the rest of the clan awakes. Then, last night, we get a call from Baton Rouge and find out that my mother in law took a fall at the nursing home (despite having a full-time sitter who had stepped out of the room for just a moment...) and has broken her hip. So she's in the hospital awaiting surgery that was originally going to be this morning but has now been pushed back to "whenever I get around to it." The Wife may be making a trip up to B.R. this evening, but will need to be back in time to pick up The Daughter, or at least in time for us to depart for FL around 5 or 6 am tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm expecting a request for information preliminary to a request for proposals from the Department of Education to be announced in the Federal Register on Monday (it was supposed to be today but for some reason didn't appear), when I was originally supposed to be back in the office, but will now probably be on the road from Florida, although The Wife hasn't actually clued me in yet as to when The Daughter's new flight out of N.O. will be.

Too bad I'll have to miss the track races this weekend, though. They look like they will be fun and besides, I have a bag of about 90 USAC championship medals to give to Will up there so he can distribute them to the dozen or so riders who won them. Yeah, maybe we should use an omnium format for some of those track championships next year, eh?

Backadapack

I long ago gave up trying to figure out why some rides are smooth and silky and others are sheer chaos. It's almost as hard to predict as the turnout at the next race, and in either case, normal methods of analysis seem to be quite useless. Today the long ride out to the turnaround at Destrehan seemed unusually smooth, and considering that I spent much of that ride way at the back of the pack where it tends to be particularly nervous, I was impressed. Early in the ride I dropped all the way to the back in order to take a few photos of the long string of riders making the curve at the Country Club. We were already going fairly fast, so it's no simple trick to pull the camera out of the pocket, sit up and take it out of its case with both hands, find the teeny tiny little 'on' button, and snap a few photos. That's the easy part. The hard part is the all-out solo chase to get back into the paceline. By the time I was safely back in the draft I needed a little recovery time, and then, since the pace stayed fast and steady, and since none of the guys doing the pulling were dropping all the way back to the back of the pack, I was pretty much stuck there for a while. So instead of trying to punch my way back into the rotation at the front, I decided it might be a good day to do a few sprints. Doing these little "catch-up" sprints off the back of the pack is kind of fun. For one thing, you get to start the sprint at a fairly decent speed, and then there's also the threat that you might drop back just a little too far, or the pace will suddenly surge in the pack, and you won't be able to catch. Anyway, I would soft-pedal for maybe fifteen or twenty seconds, which seems like an eternity when you are watching the group ride away from you, and then do an all-out sprint to catch back up. It's usually a very short effort for me, mainly because I'm afraid to drop back too far before starting, but it'd kind of fun anyway.

The ride back today was different, though. At some point VJ rolled off the front on his TT bike and nobody responded. Since I was already in sprint mode, I went around, stood up and launched up to 30 mph or so, and finally closed the gap. VJ just continued to plug away at 27-29 mph as I hung onto his wheel for dear life. I guess he stayed up there, pulling at close to 28 mph, for four or five miles. I could hear the group behind me, so I knew they had also closed the gap, albeit somewhat less painfully. Every now and then VJ would suddenly stop pedaling for a moment. It reminded me of the movie "Hunt for Red October" and the "Crazy Ivan" maneuver. So anyway, I sat there on VJs wheel for what seemed like a very long time, just hoping he'd pull off so I could take a short pull and then go seek shelter at the back. Eventually, of course, a little rotation got going again at the front, at least until a truck tried to beat us to the levee crossing and a bunch of us decided to slow down rather than play "chicken."

Yesterday the Dept. of Education gave $400 Million in no/low interest loans to four historically black universities, three in New Orleans and one in Mississippi. Yes, I said Four Hundred Million Dollars. Yes, just the HBCUs. The president of the one that got the most also chairs the Louisiana Recovery Authority. And nobody complains. No interest for three years, and 1% after that. I can pretty much guarantee that the loans will ultimately be turned into grants that they won't have to pay back. The news said that it was to help repair hurricane damage. What bullshit. Xavier alone received something like $180 million. A year ago they reported to the Department of Education that their total hurricane related expenses, including lost revenue, were $112.1M, of which they had already recovered $63.8M, and they got another $5.8M through that process. I mean it's great that they get all this cash to improve the universities, but it's pretty damned unfair to the other universities in my book. Then, on top of that we've got Hustler sleezball Larry Flynt taking shots at our sleezball Senator Vitter who, by the way, was elected after his predecessor resigned because of practically the same thing. Damn.

Northern Exposure - updated

I headed out to the levee this morning, but a mile from the house I hit the brakes. A little break from the group ride seemed in order, so I thought I'd get a little Northern Exposure instead. So I hung a right at Carrollton and set course for the venerable old lakefront. It's only about seven miles from my house to the lake, and only a mile in the other direction to the river. Both the traffic and the weather were already on the rise as I made my way northward to the edge of the crescent, sprinting across intersections and enjoying the light tailwind. Lakeshore Drive was quiet, as it usually is on weekday mornings, except for the road repair work that has, finally, started. There was a couple in matching jerseys riding in the opposite direction, and a few people out walking or jogging, but for the most part I had all four lanes to myself. The lake always looks its best on a clear morning. I stopped for a second at one of the drainage canal bridges to snap a photo showing the seawall, built by the WPA, that stretches over five miles. Behind it you can still see the unrepaired erosion caused by Katrina.

I got home a bit earlier than usual this morning, just in time to give The Wife a drive to Jury Duty down near the criminal court building at Tulane and Broad. That building is really quite interesting, despite its unfortunate location next to Parish Prison and surrounded mostly by businesses specializing in Bail Bonds. The cement relief work was one of local artist Angela Gregory's first public works. In fact, she was quite involved with the WPA Art Project. She lived on Pine Street, just off St. Charles, and I remember visiting her studio a few times back around 1975. There's now an Angela Gregory Gallery at Tulane (she was a Newcomb alumna). She also did the bronze work, including the bust of Aesculapius, at Tulane Medical School, among many, many other public works.

I received an email a little while ago from one of our NOBC alumnae, Jennifer Weaver, who moved away around 2001. She's now back on the bike, living in Tucson, and working for a local TV station where she just did a story on cycling: http://kuat.org/misenplace.cfm?ID=699. Nice job! It's a fact that once cycling gets in your blood you'll always come back. In fact, I got an email the other day from Sally (Bindursky) Finklea where she mentioned that she and Tom recently bought new road bikes and started riding again.

Soaked in Sweat

A warm and damp south wind kept the temperatures up overnight, and as I rode out to the levee around sunrise I could see the big cumulus clouds already beginning to form. The group today turned out to be pretty big and as is typical this time of year, the Tuesday ride was fast. Too fast. Once we got rolling we were up to 28, 29, 30 mph with a little tailwind bolstering the the speed. There was no way this was going to be sustainable, and pretty soon there was just a handful of riders pulling at the front. Eight miles in and things were starting to deteriorate up there. A couple of guys would take hard pulls, gaps would open, and when the last one would pull off, nobody could come around. Finally, the pace backed off a notch, people started to recover, and things came back to something more closely resembling reality.

So basically, it was a typical Tuesday ride. I was trying to avoid eating all my cookies before the turnaround and was therefore dividing my time between the front and the back of the group, although the back sometimes seemed like just as much work because of the relatively unstable pace. By the time I descended back to ground level for my ride home I was completely and totally soaked in sweat, looking through the top of my Oakleys because the rest of the lenses were covered with sweaty splatters. I have to admit, though, that there's something I like about riding in these conditions. Something familiar. It must be the same way a dog feels about a grungy saliva-covered tennis ball. I'll still take the relative freedom of hot weather over the clothing encased cold.

The neighbor is having his house painted and had his Morgan roadster with the Hawaii plates out on the front lawn yesterday evening. I just had to go take a picture of it, even though it's one of those modern Morgans and not one of the "real" ones that had the leather straps to hold down the bonnet and puddle of oil underneath. Anyway, it kind of makes me miss my TR-6 days back in the 70s. Today's Tour de France stage ended in spectacular fashion with a truly noble performance by someone who is looking like a real champion in the most classic sense of the word. I'll leave it at that just in case you want to see what happens for yourself on TV. Since I don't have the expensive version of cable that I'd need to see much of the Tour, I follow it with a combination of live reports, live audio, and live video from CyclingNews, VeloNews, Eurosport and some random Serbian TV station. Naturally the audio feed crapped out at about the 2k to go mark and the video feed disappeared somewhat earlier, but hey, I can read.

Recreational Training

I had a feeling that this morning's ride attendance would be sparse. The weather has been relentlessly hot and the weekend's training rides were fairly fast, so I wasn't too surprised to find only Joe up on the levee today. He was sitting down fixing a flat as I rode up, and as he finished up Margaret arrived, mentioning she'd be turning around a bit early. The bike path was otherwise very quiet, other than the usual dog-walkers, runners and walkers. So we headed off up the river at a recreational training pace of maybe 17 mph which allows for easy conversation. Unlike the early miles of the weekend Giro Ride, though, I knew there would be nobody pushing the pace, no breakaways, no chases; not even much in the way of heavy breathing. Riding with people who aren't really training for their next race, or even thinking about training for their next race, is a little different, but makes for a nice recovery ride since the pace was entirely under my control the whole time. After Margaret turned back, I rode out to the turnaround at the front with Joe shadowing me in silence as I slowly increased the pace up to a blazing 19 mph. Maybe I even hit 20 there for a moment. When Joe doesn't have his hearing aid in, he's perfectly happy to spin along in my draft, seemingly forever. Eventually we came upon John R who turned around to ride with us back toward uptown. He's been kind of hard to find on his bike lately, mainly because he's got kids who are heavily involved with the local softball leagues. That means, of course, that he's heavily involved as well. He told me that he watched six softball games last weekend. Apparently they are limited to 70 minutes each, although that's still a long time to be out in the summer sun.

I was glad to see a few familiar names in the Masters Nationals Criterium results today. I pretty much always wish I was there, because they are fun to attend if you have the time and can handle the travel. It's also fascinating to see some of the same people who were racing way back in the 70s and 80s still up at the top of the results listings. I mean, Kent Bostick, aka the "Bostasaurus" is still kicking butt, just now in the 50-54 age group, and isn't that the same Tom Officer who, as a virtual unknown, won the Tour de Louisiane once back in the 70's? In the 55-59s, there was Tom Doughty who raced the Tour once or twice, and David LeDuc who I think won one of the masters age groups way back when I did masters nationals for the first time in 1984. And how about Bobby Phillips in the 60-64 age group? He actually raced in the very first Tour de Louisiane and is mentioned in the article on the NOBC website written about that race. Even Thurlow Rogers, who was riding nationals as a Junior in 1978, is still racing. Damn. Sure makes me feel old. I'm just glad I don't recognize any names from the 70+ age group yet!

Subdued Sunday

Maybe it was just me, or perhaps the uncommon summer breeze, but it felt just a touch cooler today as I rode easily out to the lakefront for another Giro Ride. The group was predictably a little smaller than yesterday, but by the time we got going on Hayne it was strung out in a long, long line anyway. I would have taken a picture, but my camera dug its heels in with the message "battery exhausted" or something. The old legs were feeling fairly good today, so I guess that day off, followed by yesterday's conservative ride, worked out OK.

There's that one part of the Giro where we actually get onto the interstate highway for about a mile, and it's often a problem. Today was a good example. As we approached the merge where we need to cut across two lanes to the right everyone in the back half of the pack was yelling, loudly, "car, car!!" Nonetheless, the deadheads at the front insisted on cutting across in front of the hapless driver, who had to hit the brakes and ended up in the middle of the bunch. Well, of course that split the group, and naturally the stupid ones didn't wait for the rest to regroup, so the smart ones had to chase for a while to close the gap. Situation normal.

Right after we hit Chef Highway, a group rolled off the front and eventually opened a pretty big gap. The rest of the pack got organized into a nice double paceline and after a little while we were closing on the escapees. Then, when we got reasonably close, a few people got impatient and tried to make it across. Well, that had the usual two results. (1) the paceline completely disintegrated, and (2) they didn't close the gap. So then Jaro, Noel, and a few others, including me, started working together. The group didn't come with us, of course, but we were definitely making up ground. Noel took one long, hard pull that got us pretty close, and then I took another, so some of us finally latched onto the front group. That last pull I took really cost me a lot, though, and I had to take it almost to the limit. So anyway, there was a little sprint at the end, but it was mostly just Jaro.

After the fast ride out to the turnaround, the group was content to keep it slow most of the way back down Hayne. I guess it speeded up for the Goodyear Sign sprint, but really, there weren't too many contenders today. Did I mention that there were a lot of TT bikes today? I guess they all watched the Tour de France prologue on TV yesterday. So on the way back down Hayne, the group seemed like it was done for the day, and so a small group ended up off the front. A couple of Tri bikes, Jaro and me. Jaro eventually dropped off, only to be replaced by Brett, so the pace stayed pretty fast all the way down Hayne and over the two bridges. As we rolled back down Lakeshore Drive, I swear it felt cooler than usual.

So it's a rather quiet and subdued Sunday in the neighborhood today. Maybe it's just too hot for people to leave their air conditioners. I just took a little walk down Neron Place and it seemed unusually tranquil. There was someone out watering the garden, and a Tulane student who must have just arrived, moving into a new apartment. His car was absolutely packed with stuff pressed up against the windows and a big bag of stuff was lashed to the roof. Those 6-month leases that end in December start in July, you know. People from elsewhere often lament the lack of "seasons" around here, but in fact if you live around a university you have lots of seasons. Every Fall and Spring there's "new student move-in season" and then around the holidays they all disappear and you have the "lots of parking season," followed by my personal favorite "furniture season" when they move out of their apartments in the Spring and leave all sorts of furniture out on the curb. Makes life interesting, anyway.

7/7/7

If there's anything to this "lucky 7" thing, today should certainly be the day. Sometimes, though, it pays to take matters into your own hands. With that in mind, I finally threw out my trusty rear tire last night. I could see the cords in two places, so I guess I got my money's worth out of it. I had an older Michelin Pro Race that had been a race tire in its previous life, so now it's doing its duty on my rear wheel. It won't last long, I'm sure, since that nice grippy rubber will definitely wear down faster than the high-mileage Vredstein that preceeded it.

So after taking Friday completely off the bike since my legs have felt like crap all week, I headed out the door at 6:30 this morning for another Giro Ride session. Half a block later I found a nice, shiny quarter sitting in the road -- Heads up -- and remembered that today was 7/7/07. I guess I got my quarter's worth of good luck for the day, and yes, I did stop and put it in my pocket. Riding out to the lakefront I was happy to find that my legs were feeling considerably more refreshed. Nonetheless I was still feeling tentative and my plan was to avoid any really big efforts. I found the Giro Ride on the Lakefront as usual and as has been the case this summer it got pretty fast once we hit Hayne. Part of that was because Tim and Kenny were up the road in matching jerseys and, well, you've just got to chase when such a thing happens, don't you? Realdo was back in the main group and when someone asked him why he wasn't "up there" he laughed and promptly replied "I don't work today, I have to guys up the road." Anyway, things got pretty fast by the end of Hayne and we caught Tim and Kenny, but the pace didn't slow down all that much. Then, when we got to Chef Highway we picked up a nice little tailwind and the speeds ramped up quickly. I was sitting toward the back and out of the rotation, and there were times when we'd be going 30 mph with guys at the back riding side-by-side talking to each other. After a while, though, the accordian effect stated to take over and there would be these frantic surges to close gaps. We were up to 35 mph there for a while during one of them.

Anyway, it was situation normal for a summer Giro Ride today, and indeed there must have been something to that 7/7/7 thing because, for once, we didn't have to stop for any flats. Afterward I met Jay at City Park to go over some alternate criterium course routes, but I think as it ended up he will stick with the slightly modified original version. The alternate that he was considering would have put the start/finish on Roosevelt Mall, which would be great because it is completely shaded by a canopy of oak trees. The problem, however, is that there would have been one section of the course where riders would be going both directions on the same road immediately after turns, and although the possibility of there being two groups that could meet up at that spot were slim, it just didn't seem like it was worth the risk to me. The only bad thing about the original route is that there won't be shade around the start/finish since the city cut down the old damaged oaks and replaced them with little baby oaks and crepe myrtles. Bring your party tents!

NOLA Skyline

Took a few photos of last night's fireworks display from the roof of The Mom's condo. It was a bit of a challenge with a pocket camera and a subject that was about ten miles away, especially after a few glasses of wine. The fireworks display is on the river at the French Quarter, so from my vantage point the tall buildings of the CBD were in the way.

This morning I needed to get to the office early so I could finish up a document that we wanted to send around for comment by 10 am. Since I've decided I need a couple of easy days anyway, I didn't mind turning around early today. The group was a little smaller than usual, but by the time I made my U-turn out at the St. Charles parish line, the pace was already pretty high. My legs still aren't feeling very good, so I think I'll make tomorrow an easy ride for sure. Today we got the rush event permit just about submitted for the NBO/Bicycle World track series, and so I put the event announcement up on the website(s) and sent an email out to the list. This one will be very simple. One open-category group, six mass-start races per night, omnium format. I might have to break down and glue some fresh tires on the old track bike. Unfortunately I'll be out of town for the first one.

This evening when I got home from work there was a nice little UPS package on the front porch. It was the set of replacement ceiling fan blades I'd ordered last week from the Hunter folks. The fan on the porch is actually an old indoor-style fan and after Katrina the blades started to come apart. I guess the fan's around 20-25 years old, so I was happy to find that the Hunter people actually had the replacement blades in stock. Unfortunately they don't have the outdoor style for that fan model, but I guess if these last 20 years like the last ones did, I can't complain too much about that. Anyway, I got them installed pretty quickly and it's nice to have a fully functional ceiling fan out there again. We actually spend a fair amount of time out on the porch. Houses like mine were designed in the 20s and were really the first homes to do away with shutters in favor of the newly invented screens. Most of them were built with screened-in front and back porches, although over the years many have lost their screens and some have had their porches converted into additional indoor rooms. With their porches, casement windows and wide overhanging eaves, these "California Bungalow" style houses were well suited for the New Orleans climate. The idea was that you would have screened porches at each end, usually with a hallway running the length of the house, and a big attic fan in the ceiling of the hallway. Open the windows and front and rear doors, flip on the fan, and the house would stay fairly comfortable without air conditioning. This was very high-tech stuff back in the day. I keep meaning to fix that attic fan!

Holiday Complications

It's July 4th here in los Estados Unidos, and that means two things: (1) I have the day off of work (unless you count the four emails I've gotten so far that I'll have to deal with later tonight), and (2) there was a Holiday Giro Ride. The "regular" Giro Rides happen every Saturday and Sunday year-round, but whenever there's a national holiday and most folks have a day off from work, there is usually a "Holiday" Giro. So last night I decided that would be a good way to start off the day rather than another ride on the levee. The only little complication was that after doing two rather hard Giro rides over the weekend and then a pretty hard training ride on the levee yesterday, I'd be kind of pushing my luck. Fortunately, I told myself, Holiday Giro rides are usually pretty tame.

Well, I wasn't three pedal strokes down the road this morning before I knew I was in trouble. My legs felt like lead -- stiff and painful lead. Hmmm. So, hoping for the best, I made my way out to the lakefront and met up with a very disorganized group, and immediately knew they must have encountered some kind of complication already. I learned that VJ had a flat right after they'd started so they were waiting for him and a small group that had stayed behind. So when the group got to the traffic circle at the fountain, half went around the circle and half kept going straight. We circled the fountain once, saw no sign of the VJ group, and then I guess some of the guys started to panic that they might never catch the group that had continued, so next thing I know they're hammering away about fifteen seconds ahead of me and I'm in full time trial mode trying, with depressingly little success, to close the gap. Finally they caught the lead group and then everyone made a couple of loops of the Elysian Fields traffic circle. As it turned out, VJ had gone back to his car for more air, so by now we could see the VJ group, but VJ wasn't actually in it. That was about the time when I told Tim "I have some bad news for you." His rear tire was going flat and he had already told me that he was going to have to cut his ride short in order to get back home for something. So shortly after that he and Realdo turned back.

Well, eventually it all came back together and by the time we were on Hayne Blvd. my hopes of a civilized holiday ride were out the window. I guess some of it was attributable to my tired legs and general frame of mind, but I was struggling from the get-go today. All the way out to the turnaround I was sitting at the back behind one of the local triathletes wondering why I was feeling like a sack of lard.

After the turnaround, we soft-pedaled some more waiting for another flat to get fixed. Then it was an all-out sprint back down Chef. When the front of the pack surged and a gap opened up a couple of bike lengths ahead of me, I figured they couldn't possibly keep going that speed for long and it would close. Wrong again. I came around the two people in front of me and made an effort to close the gap, but eventually I blew up and waited for the other two and one of the triathletes towed two of us all the way back down Chef until the main group eased up and we made contact again. A little while later there was another flat. Same guy. Most of the group kept going but a few of us stuck around. Got that fixed, rode another couple of miles, and it goes flat again. This time I personally checked the tube and found the hole on the rim side near the valve hole. I smoothed out the sharp edge of the hole, we put in another tube with only maybe 70 psi, and that got us home. So anyway, the whole ride was kind of disorganized and complicated today with four flats (five if you count Tim's) and lots of splits in the group.

I just felt completely wasted the entire ride, and it wasn't due to lack of food or lack of water. Some days are just like that, I guess. Probably should have done an easy ride on the levee instead.

Situation Normal

Overcast skies served to moderate the heat just a bit this morning for the long levee ride. With nearly 20 riders and only a light breeze, I had a feeling it would be a fast one. It wasn't long before we were strung out into a long thin line blasting down the bike path at speeds in excess of 28 mph. I dropped back for a while to languish in the draft, waiting to see how many of the guys pushing the pace were going to turn around at the dip. We did in fact lose a few, but you would hardly have known it. Somewhere within the last mile or so there was yet another surge. As my speedometer ticked up past 30 mph I let a little gap open in front of me, assuming it would slow right away and I'd be able to roll back into the draft. Instead, I think it increased even farther, so with my pain-o-meter already in the red and myself just outside of the draft range, I struggled for a while to hold what I had. When I looked back, I there was nobody on my wheel, so eventually I sat up and soft-pedaled in the last bit.

The ride back, at least from my perspective, felt like the first laps of a Cat. 5 criterium. The pace would surge, then slacken. Gaps would open, gaps would close, and you would be either pedaling all-out or hitting the brakes. At one point the pace surged again up past 30 mph and I craned my neck to see who might be responsible. When I saw Howard dropping off the front I just couldn't resist getting out of the saddle and having a little go of it. I don't know what happened to Howard after that -- we were fairly close to his house -- but we ended up with a slightly smaller group. Anyway, it was a pretty good training ride today and my legs were tired by the time I got home.

Things have been really busy at the office the last few days and I've been working on collecting a lot of constantly changing data for some testimony our Senior VP is giving next week to the House VA committee regarding the need for getting the Veterans Administration hospital and services back up to speed in New Orleans. It's been difficult data to collect and trying to do any meaningful analysis of it is like nailing jelly to the wall, but fortunately I have a lot of jelly nailing experience, so it's basically Situation Normal. Of course, having a national holiday tomorrow isn't helping things very much, especially since a number of key people around here have used the opportunity to take vacations. Here's a little tidbit, though. Did you know that in FFY'06 76% of all NIH awards in Louisiana were made to institutions in the New Orleans area? That's the year after Katrina. Not too shoddy, eh? Actually, 40% of all the NIH awards in Louisiana went to Tulane, which is about the same as went to the three major LSU biomedical research institutions -- combined.

Tempus Fugit

Sunday's Giro Ride seemed nearly like a repeat of yesterday. It was fast and hot, and the main difference was that by the time I got back home I was a bit more wasted than I'd been the day before. On the plus side, the air stayed in my tires today. After the turnaround I saw Reo roll off the front with a purpose, followed not too closely by a few others, so eventually I rode past the recovering group and made my way up to him. We ended up with a group of six trading fast pulls all the way down Chef Highway. The group must not have been interested in chasing today. By the end of Chef, I was already starting to skip pulls now and then. I suppose my diet of hamburger and wine from a party the night before was catching up with me. By the time Reo and I pulled off of Lakeshore Drive to head back I was feeling like I was on the verge of bonking altogether.


I had been wondering the last few days if the old concrete marker in front of the original New Orleans Bicycle Club building was still there, and had decided I'd stop by the corner of Baronne and General Taylor streets to check it out. So Realdo and I made our way over there, a couple of blocks off of St. Charles Avenue. The first thing I saw was some relatively new sidewalk concrete on the corner. I figured it was gone, but after looking around a bit we found it right up against the building partially covered by grass that had grown up through the cracks. I took a few photos of it, but since it was in the glaring sunlight they didn't come out too well. About 25 years ago The Wife and I had done a few rubbings of it when it was in better shape, one of which still hangs in my living room. I think we gave the others away. The original NOBC was incorporated in 1885, a year before Tulane University opened its doors on St. Charles Avenue. It wasn't too many years afterward that the club went belly-up. Eventually the building became a warehouse for Martin Wine Cellar, which was located across the street until Katrina. Then, some time around 1968 or so the name was resurrected when the new New Orleans Bicycle Club was formed. I guess I joined the club in 1971 or 72. Seems like yesterday, but then as they say, tempus fugit!

Spent all afternoon stripping paint and painting, inhaling heavy doses of dangerous solvents. Gee, that was fun...


So I hear that the district championship criterium course is being changed a bit in order to incorporate a couple of sharp corners that will add a little bit more of a technical element to the race and will also avoid a particularly worrisome centerline crack in the road.