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.