An Unpracticed Paceline

When I arrived at our meeting spot up on the levee this morning there were just a couple of people there. Rob and Chad had zipped past without stopping a few moments before, so we waited to see if anyone else would show up and then headed out. It was looking like it would be a pretty typical Friday morning ride. Looks, however, can be deceiving. Soon we came upon a small group containing some relatively new riders, and somewhere farther down the road we caught up with Chad and Rob. By then that nice smooth paceline we had going was already looking a little shaky because the less practiced riders were, well, less practiced. When Chad and Rob got into the group the pace picked up another mph or two, and I could see that a couple of the new guys were feeling the extra effort. Naturally, there was some helpful mentoring going on, and we got to the turnaround intact. That's when things started to go downhill, though. Some of the new guys were a little slow about turning around and getting going again, and a gap opened up. The group in front obviously didn't realize they were leaving anyone behind, which wasn't too surprising since they were going only 22 or so. So I started to pull the second group, or so I thought, as gently as I could up to the front group. Unfortunately, I wasn't gentle enough. I looked back and could see they were still trying, so I told Chad what was going on and we eased up for a while so he could drop back and pace them back. So that was great, and everyone was back together, but next thing I know, Chad's rolling through to the front and pushing the pace again. Some of these guys were starting to struggle, so I was trying to keep the pace from getting too fast. For a while it was kind of comical. Gaps would be opening and guys would be surging to close them, and I was kind of in the middle trying to maintain a steady pace so the surges wouldn't kill off the new guys. I think we mostly finished more or less together, so that was good. I was riding behind one of the new guys who had ridden with us once last week, I think, and was noticing his bike. It was one of those Schwinns that has the number of speeds (I think it was 18) printed on the seat tube. It had the shifters mounted on the handlebar, the rear wheel had a solid axle, yet the seat post clamp had a quick-release, and there were yellow "caution" stickers all over it. However, the guy was doing fine in the paceline, although I could see he was getting pretty tired toward the end, so I think if he sticks with it and puts in the miles he'll probably be killing me by next summer.

Behind Us

Something woke me up at 4 a.m. this morning. No doubt it was the people living in the apartment across Pine Street from the house. I'm convinced the current residents are bartenders, bouncers or musicians, because there is always a lot of action there around 3 or 4 in the morning - car doors closing, people talking, car alarms, those sorts of things. Anyway, although I tried to go back to sleep I wasn't all that successful, but of course when the alarm went off I didn't exactly leap out of bed. It was warmer this morning, but very humid and a bit foggy, which made it difficult to decide on the proper dress code. I ended up having to ride pretty fast out to the levee to meet the group. I needn't have rushed. Today's group seemed particularly lackadaisical for some reason, and we were a few minutes late by the time we finally rolled out. Behind us, the sun was just coming up, momentarily setting fire to the hazy sky. The pictures never do it justice.

With neither Chad nor Rob to crack the whip, the pace stayed in the low 20s for most of the ride. My legs are still not feeling quite right, but the relatively even pace made it easily manageable anyway. At the turnaround almost everyone stopped for a little break, which is kind of unusual too, and then on the way back when someone needed to stop at the little girl's room (the only "facility" along the length of the bike path), I offered to wait. I was surprised that the whole group actually soft-pedaled until we caught back up.

Amazing.

So on Sunday we have a choice of group rides. There's a northshore training ride that I'll be doing, and then Kenny is doing his tour of New Orleans ride again in town. Meanwhile, the LAMBRA race calendar is coming along slowly and I hope we'll be able to have something reasonably stable to post some time late next week. Personally, right now I feel like I need a two-week vacation, alone, somewhere I can't be found.

Sidetracked

The Wednesday morning levee ride was pretty standard fare today, although for some reason Big Richard was gently pushing the pace most of the time. It's all relative, of course, since we were rarely going more than 23 mph. Still, I felt like I'd had a workout when I rolled the bike back into the house. I had to attend a morning training session on the uptown campus today for some new payroll software. It was largely unnecessary, albiet required, so I sat through the demonstration, even when they crashed the software, and then made them nervous by asking if, since the system uses a regular web browser, the user's cache saves copies of unsecured pages containing personnel information. Anyway, for much of the day I got sidetracked with LAMBRA stuff, especially the 2008 race calendar. Things are coming along fairly well, but we probably won't know until next week how the road chamionships will shake out, and Rocky Mount is waiting to see the TxBRA calendar before committing to a date, and once they do it will surely conflict with one of the time trials already on the calendar, so we'll be playing musical dates at some point before things settle down.

The Crack of Dawn

The temperature was back down into the upper 40s this morning, but something else seemed amiss. It was still much too dark when I stepped out the door at 6 am. After many, many years of stepping out that door at 6 am, the normal level of sunlight for each day of the year is firmly imprinted somewhere in my head, and something wasn't quite right today. I looked up at the sky and saw nothing but a monotone blanket of high grey clouds. Ah, well. At least I it wasn't that Groundhog Day Thing!

As I climbed the levee I noticed a little sunlight coming from behind me, and when I looked back I could see a long narrow strip of clear, sunlight-lit sky stretching the entire length of the east horizon. Oh, I thought, that must be the "crack of dawn" I've heard about. I don't think too clearly that time of the morning.

The group was not unexpectedly small today, but the seven or eight of us would be sufficient for the planned long ride out to Ormond and back. As we prepared to clip in, Luke rode up, amid comments like "what, did you stay up all night or something?" Luke hasn't been making the early morning starts too much lately, but he commented that he'd worked out twice yesterday, so perhaps he's on the program again. As for myself, my legs felt just terrible this morning. Part of that must have been due to the chilly weather. The rest I suppose I could attribute to the wine I had the night before at a farewell party for one of the guys, actually the other guy, in our office. Whatever the reason, I felt like I was struggling a bit all morning as we pushed our way through a relentless crosswind with only rare and brief sections of tailwind. Such is riding in the winter, of course, and one had best get accustomed to it early so as to avoid the dreaded "binge training" program. That's where you sleep late and skip training for days and days because it's cold or wet or whatever, and then your guilt gets the better of you and you dive headlong into a week of over-the-top training rides in all kinds of weather, only to find yourself completely wiped out by the next Monday and all too ready to take another few days off. I know one rider in Mobile who exhibits all the symptoms of binge training. Of course, he still beats me on a regular basis, but that's beside the point. Or is it? I dunno. I'm confused, so I'm going to go back to work now. The blog break is over.

Another Year

In many ways, the end of November always marks the end of another year for me. By now I've been coasting through a month or more of training rides, content to enjoy the scenery, such as it is. By early December, I'll be thinking about 2008, working on finalizing the LAMBRA calendar and making decisions about which of my rapidly aging bike parts can't possibly make it through another season without replacement. At work, things will also slow down, and by mid-December people around here will start getting hard to find. Just to add an exclamation point at the end of all that is a recent birthday and the realization that I'll be graduating to yet another age group.

This morning there was a light drizzle falling, providing more than ample excuse to steal an extra hour of sleep. The last few days have been busy. There was, of course, the essential turkey on Thanksgiving, followed over the next couple of days by leftover turkey, pecan pies, wine and family. On Friday we made a little trip down to the Quarter, which was very busy, for a rendezvous at Cafe' du Monde. The place was packed, of course, and the one beignet that I managed to get my hands on amid the feeding frenzy was delicious. We wandered down to the newly renovated flea market, past the gilded statue of Jeanne d' Arc and the not-yet renovated part of the French Market. The weather was still nice, although windy and a bit chilly as the sun started to set. The next morning we dropped The Daughter off at the airport and things got suddenly very quiet. Appropriately, the weather changed right on cue and the clouds moved in.

Sunday was our annual LAMBRA business meeting where we try to set up our initial racing calendar. The weather was pretty miserable, but luckily we had a great meeting room at Tulane's university center. I had spent a lot of time on Saturday putting together a little PowerPoint presentation for the introduction, and of course there were a lot of little details that took up a lot of time as well. By the time I had everything together - awards, handouts, projector, power cords, computer, etc., etc. - it was a lot more than I'd expected. So Sunday morning I snuck out for a short ride since the rain hadn't quite moved in yet, and then headed off around 10:00 to pick up the food I'd ordered the week before from the local Whole Foods. At the last minute I though I should ask Mark to pick up the drinks, plates, etc. so that I wouldn't have to make an extra stop for that. Somehow I had a premonition that things wouldn't go as smoothly as I was hoping. Naturally, they'd lost the order for food and would have to put it together at the last minute. That meant I'd have to come back and pick it up an hour later, at 11:00, for a meeting that was to start at 11:30. Well, anyway, after much driving around we finally got the meeting started on time and spent the next four or five hours going through the calendar, discussing changes to the points series and bylaws, etc. The meeting went pretty well, although it felt kind of rushed. I think maybe we are at a point now where we should have a separate meeting to set up the calendar, and then another one for other LAMBRA stuff. That, or we need to go to a whole day format. It's really great to get most of the area club reps and race promoters in the same room for an afternoon. So the bottom line is that I have a lot of followup to do on the calendar. The big thing, I think, will be the road race championship. The main promoter from last year won't be able to handle it this year, and there may be some issues with getting the course for as long as we have in the past, so I'll be exploring the possibility of splitting the event into two with one date and location for a separate age-graded championship, and another for the regular categorized championships. Anyway, I have a ton of real work to do here at "work," so although I'd like to jump on all of the LAMBRA stuff right away, it will have to take a back seat until tonight, at best.

Turkey Day on the Levee

The cool front that came through in the wee hours this morning brought with it the usual blustery north wind, and when I walked out the door to ride I wondered if we'd have much of a group for Charlie's annual Thanksgiving Day ride up on the levee. I'd been up rather late the night before since my brother's two sons were staying at the house, camping out on inflatable mattresses, and we'd spent some time catching up. Since one of them is a fairly serious runner, they were out the door soon after I this morning, headed for the 100th annual Turkey Day race. (yes, 100th annual!)

So anyway, it was arm-warmers and double jerseys today, and even so, with the 17 mph wind my feet were still cold by the time I got home. The ride had started out at a nice conversational pace, but eventually things got faster and by the time we hit the turnaround it had split. I was thinking that on the way back it would be easier since we'd have a bit less headwind. Well, once again I was wrong. Ordinarily I might have tucked in toward the back and enjoyed the scenery, but with such a strong crosswind my survival instincts kicked in and demanded that I stay near the front where I could still get a little bit of draft. The pace at the front got faster and faster, and after a few miles there were just four of us in the front group with another group close behind and yet another group taking it easy farther back. I ended up riding a good bit harder than I'd planned, but since it seemed a better option than fighting the wind alone I went with it.

I had thought that it would be a crisp and clear sunny winter day today, but it's still grey and overcast with occasional drizzle. I think The Wife rode her bike out to City Park to either run or watch the Turkey Day Race. I hope she decided to run, because if she's standing around in a cold drizzle out there, she will be frozen by the time they all get back.

Yesterday and Today

And so the holidays have begun. Yesterday The Wife and I left work a little early, mainly because the place was already practically empty anyway. She had ridden to work, which is fairly unusual, so that The Daughter could use the car. Her approach to commuting is significantly different from mine, and by the time I got to the top of the Broad St. overpass, she was already at the bottom. Three blocks later I found her at a stoplight, looking back at me as if to say "why are you going so slow?" As soon as we arrived home, we had to get into the car and drive to Whole Foods so she could get stuff for cheesecake or something, and so I could order a sandwich tray for the LAMBRA meeting on Sunday. We arrived home to find The Sister-in-Law there, and then her daughter came over since she is in town from LSU Law School. A few minutes later when the neighbors drove up to their house we were out on the porch, so naturally they came over with their two dogs and a bottle of Beaujolais nouveau, which led to more wine and next thing you know "there was a party going on."

Speaking of yesterday, I note that Tulane is scheduled to discontinue its dial-up internet access in December. Wow! It seems like it was only a few years ago that most people, myself included, used dial-up from home exclusively.

The temperature around here this morning was over 70F before sunrise, and we had nearly twenty riders taking advantage of it up on the levee. Indeed, there were even more pedestrians than usual, including that grim-faced guy who intentionally steps over onto the centerline of the bike path as the group streams by. It's like he has a death wish or something. Maybe next time he tries that I'll break off and go around him on the other side just to shake him up (kids, don't try this at home). The group got off to a fairly brisk start, picking up a few more riders along the way including a brand new guy doing his first group ride. He was fairly stable, but you see his upper body doing a whole lot of bobbing and weaving so toward the end of the ride I chatted with him for a couple of minutes. Then I flew down the bike path onto River Road and was immediately stopped by a long train. I waited impatiently as the cars clacked past, and then, with only four cars left to cross, the train hit the brakes and sat there for another five minutes before slowly moving on. It was OK, though, because there's no hurry to get to work the last day before a holiday at a university.

So David Hyde has been working on the Herring Gas team's website lately, which is a good thing because it hadn't been updated in about three years. It's still a work in progress, but I think it's looking promising. I can't think of many (any) teams that have had the same title sponsor for the last twenty years.

So tomorrow there's a holiday levee ride at 7am from the playground. I'll probably try and make that one. Various family members are driving in from Jackson, Tallahassee and Orlando today and I think one or two may be staying with us, so it should be a busy and highly caloric few days.

Monday Night Flight

Sitting here with the headphones plugged into the 1983 vintage Realistic System Seven Receiver listening to the Monday Night Flight to Midnight on WTIX. I don't think I'll make it all the way to midnight, though.

With a morning meeting up the river in Baton Rouge, I had to skip the levee ride today. Instead, I battled the I-10 traffic both going and coming, and by the time I got back to the office around 2 pm I was already rather grumpy. Waiting in my inbox was an urgent request for some NIH award data that took some time to assemble, and by then it was almost time to make a run out to the airport to pick up The Daughter who will be home for a few days. So before I knew it I was back out on I-10 fending off the NASCAR wannabees and urban cab drivers. It wasn't pretty. I'm looking forward to a nice quiet ride tomorrow. Kenny sent a few photos from Sunday's Tour of New Orleans ride, so I put them up on the website, but still haven't set up a link to them, so for now the only way to see them is to click on this. Yeah, I know it's lame, but time seems to be in short supply for me lately. I have some stuff to prepare for the LAMBRA business meeting too. Not surprisingly, few of the clubs have let me know who their representatives will be or if they have any changes they want to make to the Bylaws or LCCS rules. I'm sure when I send out the agenda and my own suggestions it will at least get them thinking about it. Of course, first priority will be the 2008 race calendar.

Tour of New Orleans

Well Kenny's inaugural "Tour of New Orleans" ride was quite a success this morning, attracting around 25 riders for an interesting circumnavigation of the metro area. Starting off at Audubon Park, we headed up the river on the levee bike path out to Kenner. From there we abruptly left the asphalt for a ride down the grassy levee, continuing north all the way to the lake. The linear park bike path along the lake was in surprisingly good shape (I hadn't been out there in years), and we rode that east until it ended, requiring another bit of dirt riding until we crossed back over the levee and found our way to Lakeshore Drive. That took us out to Hayne Blvd. on the Giro route, but we turned off at Read, which we took to scenic Almonaster Blvd. and Mayor Morial's famous "Technology Corridor" with is primarily a bunch of auto junkyards and dumps along a 4-lane roadway in the middle of the marsh. I think we lost a few people when the pace picked up on Read. Not exactly sure where they ended up, because I didn't notice they were missing until much later. Another off-road excursion got us across the old Industrial Canal bridge and eventually to the French Quarter by way of Franklin Avenue and N. Peters along the river. A few of us ended up stopping at Puccino's on Magazine St. since we'd skipped the stop at Cafe du Monde. It was a fun 50 or 55 mile change of pace, and one we'll probably repeat once in a while. Considering the route we took, it was good that we had only one or two flats, and I really did enjoy sitting outside the coffee shop on Magazine St. telling stories. It's too bad so many of the guys couldn't hang around for that. I mean, it was just kind of anti-social, you know? I'd have some good photos, but my camera is in my jacket pocket, which is still in the custody of the U.S. Postal Service. After my recent experience with UPS I'm just hoping for the best when I try to pick it up tomorrow. Unfortunately I've got a meeting up in Baton Rouge in the morning, so that will have to wait until afternoon.

A Very Good Start

Friday night found me down on Frenchmen Street at good ol' Adolfo's, across the street from DBA. As usual, the food was great, but unfortunately we didn't have to wait for a table. I'd been hoping to spend some time at DBA with a good draft beer, but it was not to be. Somehow the stop at Sucre' on Magazine St. afterward didn't quite make up for the missed live music, but at least I got to sleep relatively early. It was a good thing, because when I was jarred awake at 5 am by the sound of the garbage truck down the street, and the realization that I hadn't put ours out, it wasn't too hard to jump out of bet and roll the monster garbage can to the curb.

The forecast was calling for northshore temperatures in the low 40s, so Friday night I stuffed a whole lot of cold weather riding gear into my bag. I was a little bit worried that the chilly temperature would kill off the turnout for the first of the winter training rides. When I arrived at Starbucks, though, it was already feeling warmer and there were a bunch of people there. We sat at the table outside for a few minutes drinking coffee until everyone showed up. I drove over with Vivian and David the new guy from Ohio, and when we got to Abita Springs we found a whole bunch of riders, some of whom were there for a CCC ride. Still, we had 25 riders when we rolled out for a nice low-key 55 miler with temperatures way, way warmer than any of us expected. With shorts double jerseys and arm-warmers it wasn't half an hour before I was wishing I'd left one of the jerseys in the car. Anyway, the ride was great today. We started out with a lot of double paceline conversation for the first twenty miles or so. There were a few fast stretches, and the group split and regrouped a few times, but really it never quite went ballistic. All-in-all I though it was a very good start for the winter training rides. Maybe we'll have to do a few more on Saturday.

Changes

That extra glass of wine last night put me to bed early. The result, of course, was that half an hour before the alarm I was already up and ready to ride. The sudden change in temperature, down into the 40s, helped control the impulse, though, and so I arrived at the levee only about ten minutes early. It felt chilly, but the sky was clear and the wind wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday. Being a Friday, and a cold one at that, I wasn't expecting much of a turnout. Scott arrived and we waited there for a couple of minutes, looking back down the bike path for signs of life. So it was just the two of us today and we rode fairly easy with a light tailwind, eventually picking up Elliot. Naturally the return trip featured a decent headwind, so we got in a little workout despite our best efforts to avoid it.

In a few hours I will be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the paint store. After much procrastination and avoidance, and probably that extra glass of wine I mentioned, I succumbed to The Wife's decision on paint for the next phase of the eternal kitchen project. Decisive Yellow was the main color choice. I didn't really want yellow. I wanted blue. Apparently I didn't want it badly enough, though, which is true. What this kitchen needs is a $20k overhaul, and since that's not about to happen any time soon, I have a hard time getting very excited about the next layer of wall paint. On the other hand, I guess a little change now and then is a good thing.

Tomorrow will be the first of our annual winter training rides, and I'm looking forward to a good group ride out in the Fall countryside across the lake. It will be a welcome change to the steady diet of Giro and Levee rides I've been having lately. I'm also planning on doing Kenny's ride around the city on Sunday. I hope I remember to bring my beignet* money!
(Note to the Blogger.com folks: Your spell-checker doesn't have "beignet" in it. Must be a fluke oversight.)

Speaking of change, the Tulane Hospital and Clinic has now officially changed its name to Tulane Medical Center (although the URL is still tuhc.com), not to be confused with Tulane University Health Sciences Center, which is the Med. School, School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, and Primate Center, nor with Tulane University Medical Center, which is what we used to call Tulane University Health Sciences Center until all of the Medical Centers started changing their names to Health Sciences Centers for reasons I've never quite understood. Confused? Don't worry. Everyone will still call it Tulane Hospital despite the big ad campaign and the fact that there are now multiple "campuses" of the hospital scattered around the neighboring parishes.

Blown Away

In the early morning hours a little cool front breezed through and left in its wake some truly awesome winds. As I rode out to the levee this morning I wondered if I'd be the only one to show, yet we ended up with six or seven people nonetheless. I think perhaps Rob and maybe Chad were the only ones seriously contemplating doing the full long ride today, and they did the lion's share of the pulling as we headed up the river. The north wind was coming at us mostly from the right on the way out and it was so gusty that riding a straight line was a bit of a challenge. Every once in a while a gust would slam into your front wheel and take you and your bike somewhere you weren't planning on going. Our group split unintentionally on the way out. Rob took his pull, and then I followed, and when I pulled off the only one left was Mignon. Chad must have dropped back to work with the guys who got stuck on the other side of the gap. We eased up and eventually regrouped, turning around early at the parish line. The pace was a little slower on the way back, although at one point a gust of wind blew me right up to the edge of the asphalt. I nearly had to bail out down the levee.

The commute in to work seemed even harder than the morning ride today. With the wind right in my face, a full messenger bag, and my Weejuns pressed hard into the half toe clips of my commuter, it took some real determination to slog my way up over the Broad St. overpass.

So it looks like UPS is declaring our LAMBRA jerseys officially lost and will be reimbursing the Florida company who made them for us. That will have been a $1,700 mistake for them. I think we can get a replacement batch done by the end of December, but it's too bad they won't be there in time for the annual business meeting on the 25th.

Not Quite "Winter" Winter Rides

Well, 'tis the season for the start of winter training rides. Our first weekly northshore winter training ride will be on Saturday and, brrrrrrr, it might be all the way down to the mid-50s when we start. Not that I'm complaining. Last year we had some great rides in November and December and I think everybody is looking forward to some nice long rides in the country. I know I am. Sunday Kenny is getting a Tour of New Orleans ride together that will make a big 55-mile loop from the river to the lake and from Kenner to the "East." Should be fun. Hopefully I can make them both. I decided it was finally time to move the southshore meeting spot for the northshore winter rides from The Morning Call to Starbucks. If I'm going to pay big bucks for a cup of coffee, at least Starbucks gives me an adult-sized cup and besides, I don't use coffee just to add a little flavor to a cup of warm milk. But I digress...

So the morning levee ride was again awash in fog as it was yesterday. We had maybe nine or ten today, which is good under the circumstances, and the only minor irritation was that they had dumped water on the levee crossing road at the riversand place. I'm really getting tired of having river mud splattered all over me and my bike every morning. Just that one 10 foot stretch makes a complete mess of everything. I've got sandy mud all over my shoes, bike, shorts, water bottle, and if we're going fast, glasses and helmet. The other day Ronnie started out with us and when we got there we all slowed down to minimize the splatter. Once across, Max, who was just in front of me, stood up and looked back. "I just want to see if Ronnie is going to walk his bike across," he said. A minute later he commented "Ronnie turned around!"

The saga of the LCCS championship jerseys continues. It is looking more and more like UPS lost them and/or they were stolen off of the front porch of the house to which they were misdelivered. UPS says they were delivered to the right address, which we all know is a lie. Then the tracking page says they were being returned to the sender, but the driver who handles the route told The Wife that he didn't know where they were because when he went to pick them up, they weren't there. Now we're waiting out a one-week "Tracer," but I am starting to doubt they will ever show up. So if you happen across some LAMBRA jerseys on eBay or something, they're hot. I'm at least glad that I decided to get awards for all of the winners, including those who get jerseys, this year.

The good news is that George shipped my jacket and camera back, so I'm hoping they show up as planned in a few days. They're coming via the US Postal Service, so I have reason to worry. The USPS people here in NOLA are still blaming Katrina any time they screw up or just blow off delivering the mail altogether.

Window Seat

I’m sitting here in a window seat on one of those commuter planes. It’s one of those with a single row down one side and a double one down the other, and I’m in the single row. I love it – the window, the isolated seat, the “feel” of the smaller airplane. It will be five hours yet before I’m back in New Orleans, and I’ve already finished reading the copy of Scientific American I brought with me, but all would be fine except for one nagging problem about which I can do nothing more than wait.

The USA Cycling Local Associations Summit finished up this afternoon in at the OTC. It was a friendly and well-organized event, and I’m coming home with lots of hastily scribbled notes. A confusing assortment of “great ideas,” culled from two days of discussions and presentations, are bouncing around inside my head like pinballs. It will probably take weeks for me to sort them out into manageable categories like “things that might work” and “things we can’t possibly accomplish.” The folks running the various Local Associations around the country make up an interesting group. Some are still very actively racing, some are “recovering bike racers,” and some are pretty much retired. All of them, though, share a strong dedication and passion for making U.S. bicycle racing better. Somewhere in all of it, though, I’m sure I’ll find a thing or two that might prove to be of lasting value to our racing community. First, though, I’ll have to catch up on almost two weeks of work piling up on my virtual desktop back at Tulane. Gotta pay the bills first, you know.

So I felt exceptionally stupid when, after having just retrieved my boarding passes from the self-service check-in machine, I realized that I didn’t have my jacket. You see, it was at least 70F in Colorado Springs this afternoon when I walked from the conference room back across the OTC to the Athlete Center where I would pick up my luggage and board the shuttle, conveniently arranged by the USAC’s Lisa Bergren (the USAC LA Coordinator), for the airport. It was so warm, though, that I was carrying my jacket rather than wearing it. Once I arrived, I retrieved my bag from the “luggage room” (which contained at least three bikes), and walked over to a table to transfer some stuff from my carry-on messenger bag, to the larger bag that I would be checking. Somehow I left my jacket hanging on the chair and didn’t even realize it until I was at the airport. At the time I didn’t realize that my camera was in the jacket’s pocket. What to do? I had only one cellphone number that might work. It was George Heagerty’s. George was our Regional Representative until very recently when USAC brought in an additional Rep., Stuart Lamp (yes, the Memphis Motor Werks guy) to whom our state was assigned. Anyway, I knew George had been there when I’d left early to make my flight, so I gave him a call and was really glad to hear him answer with “Hi Randy!” Being the great guy that he is, George ran over to the Athlete Center all the way on the other side of the OTC and found my jacket with the camera still in its pocket, and promised to mail it all to me when he gets back home to Texas. Whew! Still, I feel stupid for having left it, and I’m already missing the photos I took while I was there. For the time being, you’ll just have to imagine a photo at the top of this post. That would probably have been of the impressive sculpture in front of the Visitor Center depicting four athletes holding up a huge globe. I really liked that one.

This morning we got the early edition report on the Board of Trustees decisions regarding various proposals that had been made for rulebook changes. Of particular interest to me was the passage of a new rule regarding tie-breaking in Stage Races. Ties will now be broken by using tenths of a second in the time trial stage, which is how the UCI does it. Of course we’ve never even recorded the TT times to the tenth of a second since, with only one watch being used they would never be considered accurate enough for that, but I guess we’ll be doing it next year. It will certainly be easier to break ties than trying to add up the stage placings, and will eliminate problems caused by the rule that gives pack time (but the last placing) to riders who suffer mishaps or crashes in the last 3k of stage race stages. No change to the Junior gear limits this year, so that’s nice. The only other thing that was interesting was that they officially banned the use of radios for communication in Masters races (they had been allowed before if the race was open to Cat. 1 and 2 riders).

Olympic Training

It was a 4:30 am wake-up this morning for my early flight(s) to Colorado Springs by way of Houston, and the result was that I had a few hours to kill after checking into my dorm room at the Olympic Training Center for the annual Local Associations "Summit." Of course, the first thing we did was head for the cafeteria. One thing you can always count on at any sort of training center is lots of cheap, or in our special case free, food. There are a number of interesting historical displays scattered about with photos of practically every US athlete who ever competed in the Olympics. I'm sure I'll end up spending some money at the gift shop, which, like the rest of the complex, loaded with things promoting the Beijing Olympics. Off to the west are the mountains with just the slightest hint of snow way up around 10,000 feet, while to the east everything just looks flat and brown. The aquatic center looks pretty nice, and next door they are holding the Future Stars gymnastics meet for boys, which is a big deal for those age groups. This evening we have a welcoming dinner, and then tomorrow we go pretty much non-stop from 8 am until 8:30 pm. Silly me, I thought it was supposed to be cold in Colorado in November. Well I'm sure it will get there, but since I've arrived it's been around 65-70F, I guess. That, of course, makes me wish I had my bike, but we all know that if I had gone through the hassle of bringing it, there'd probably be snow on the ground right now.

Touching and Going

The annual NCURA conference wrapped up, at least for me, around 10 am on Wednesday. Although there was actually another session that I'd wanted to attend, I just wasn't comfortable with the mad dash for the airport that it would entail. So I retrieved my luggage from the hotel and rolled down the hill on Connecticut Avenue to the Dupont Circle metro stop, heading for National Airport. It had been a pretty good meeting, and of all the sessions I attended I think only one was a "dud." The annual Tuesday night party was fun as usual, although a very serious medical emergency almost cancelled it soon after it began. One of the attendees passed out, presumably with a major heart-related problem, and subsequently stopped breathing. We got her down onto the floor where CBR was started, and soon someone who I presume was a physician came running in to take over. Then the paramedics showed up and they cleared the room. I really feared that it was too late, but from what I heard, they got her heart going again, although she was apparently still in intensive care the next morning. Anyway, eventually the party started up again and as usual I found myself walking back to my hotel around 1 am or so. The next morning I was feeling pretty dragged out, and by the time I finally boarded the nonstop to NOLA in the early afternoon I was ready for one of those head-bobbing airline seat naps. BTW, the New Orleans airport now has free internet! Whooo hooo! That makes arriving two hours early for your flights a lot easier to handle.

After four days of sitting in hotel meeting chairs and eating meals made for 2,000 people, I was ready for a good long ride. What I wasn't quite ready for was the temperature, which was in the 40s. The Thursday long ride felt like a very long 42 miles, and I spent more than my fair share of the time sitting in near the back enjoying the scenery. I'm really looking forward to the winter rides starting up again, although I'll probably miss the first one if it's this coming weekend.

Today is really just a touch-and-go day, because tomorrow I'll be back at the airport by 5 am to attend the annual USAC Local Associations conference at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. I expect that will be a little more relaxing than D.C., but I'm sure it will be two well-packed days regardless. Hopefully I will come back with a few good ideas for our LAMBRA business meeting on the 25th. The good news is that Gary tracked down the missing LCCS championship jerseys and confirmed that they are on their way back to the sender. Apparently whoever at UPS who picked them up from the neighbor, to whom they were mistakenly delivered, didn't think to make an about-face and deliver them to the correct address, which was directly across the street. I remain completely flabbergasted by that. Anyway, we are hopeful that they will be re-shipped to Gary next week and that he'll get them at the shop in Jackson in time to bring them with him to the meeting. Much work left to do today, so I'll skip commenting on the *writer* who send a letter to the newspaper yesterday complaining about the cyclists who have been "clocked going as fast as 52 mph" by the East Jefferson Levee District Police.

I wish.

In the District

I'm currently up in the District of Columbia, aka Washington DC, a the annual NCURA conference. A few people have asked me how many years I've attended, and somewhat disturbingly, I don't really remember. My best guess is about 18. Today was a full day of meetings and discussion groups about exciting things like earmarking, indirect costs, electronic research administration, etc. We had a nice keynote address by Robert Bazell (NBC's science guy) to start the day around 8 am. At 6 pm I met a small group for dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant, and then headed for the hospitality suite. I just got back from my stint there that ran from 10 pm until midnight. Tomorrow will be more of the same, except that the evening will end with the annual NCURA party, after which I will stumble back to my hotel around 2 am or something. Hey, we call it "networking," so it's all good. All in all I guess I went through five or six glasses of wine, but it was spread out over a pretty long time, so I never felt very wasted. I doubt I can say the same for everyone who was there! The weather here has been pretty nice in that it's been unseasonably warm, but when I walked back to the hotel a little while ago I noticed that the streets were quite wet from a recent rain.

So Nice

Fall is the one time in New Orleans where, every now and then, we get one or two really spectacular days. Today is one of them. Clear blue skies, cool temperatures that don't require more than arm-warmers, and light winds. Riding out to the lakefront in the semi-darkness I had a feeling it would be like this. I was only halfway there when I heard Chad come past me yelling "free ride, free ride!" Since he was going a good 5 mph faster than my leisurely 17 mph, I thought it didn't look like it would be quite so "free" to me. Besides, I was enjoying the ride far too much to be jumping out of the saddle to close a gap so early in the morning. I watched him disappear up the road. I hit Lakeshore Drive right on schedule at 7 am sharp, and next thing I knew, there was Chad again, having just left one of the port-o-lets. As he rode past, again, he commented "there's some leftover vodka in there if you're thirsty..."

So the group today was quite large, but it seemed that almost everyone was looking for a moderate pace rather than the more typical hammerfest. I was staying off the front, myself, although I did end up bridging a gap or two when the pace momentarily surged. I wonder who could have been up front when that happened. Anyway, by all measures it was a civilized ride today with ample time for talk, but still a respectable dose of effort. Back at the parking lot I chatted with Vivian for a while, commenting how nice it felt to finish a Giro ride and not feel too wiped out. Just to put a nice finishing cap on the morning ride, I had a tailwind all the way home.

Family Visit

There are tons of party leftovers stuffed in the 'fridge right now, and I feel rather compelled to consume them as quickly as possible. Luckily I'll be heading out to DC for a few days on Sunday, so I'll only have another day or so to stuff myself. The morning ride was pretty nice with just three of us, but I was certainly glad it will be the last levee ride in the dark for a while. It sounds like the Corps will start tearing up sections of the river levee late next summer, so it may be a long time after that before we have the whole bike path back. They made a special note in their press release to mention that they don't have funding authority to replace the bike path that they will tear up in order to raise those sections of the levee. Actually, that amounts to doing the cyclists a big favor because the bike path issue has definitely gotten everyone's attention. Anyway, I was feeling a lot better this morning on the bike, but am definitely getting into the "easy winter ride" mindset.



So, since today happens to be All Souls Day, I decided to hop on the bike during lunch to visit the relatives in St. Louis #2 cemetery. It's generally a dangerous place to be, and indeed I was the only (live) person there today. I hadn't seen the old family tomb in a good 25 years, so it took me a while to find it. I think the image I had in my mind was of the tomb in St. Louis #3. Anyway, I did eventually find it and was happy to see that it was in pretty good shape. There are many tombs in the old cemeteries that have been vandalized or have started to collapse. My main goal was to snap a couple of photos, and in retrospect I wish I'd stayed longer and taken some more, but being in that particular cemetery, along, next door to the housing project, just doesn't make me want to hang around very long. The amazing thing is to count the number of people who were buried in that same tomb which I assume could accommodate only three coffins at a time. With these old family tombs, when someone would die they would open the tomb, remove the remains of the previous occupant, drop them down into a special little vault in the bottom, and make it ready for the next person. I think I counted about fifteen in this one.

Turning Back Early

Halloween night was pretty good this year. Most of the neighbors came by for our usual Halloween open house, and there was an ample supply of trick-or-treaters all up and down the street. A number of people who had come all the way down Neron Place from Carrollton commented that the mayor was having some sort of thing down at Palmer Park. Imagine that. The mayor has a party and doesn't invite the neighbors! I guess we were just from the wrong side of Carrollton. Anyway, we had a ton of food and drink, thanks to The Wife's pathological need for excess. Had it been me, there would have been wine, beer, coke and chips. Maybe a fruit tray from the grocery store. As it was, we had a big pot of seafood gumbo, a huge salad, a bowl of mixed olives, three kinds of bread, two kinds of sliced sandwich meat, etc., etc. I think Whole Food made a bundle. As usual, I drank far too much vino, hoping somehow that it would relieve the headache I'd been nursing all day. It didn't, but you can't say I didn't give it a chance. It was about 10:30 by the time I finally blew out the candles, and it was around 3 am when I awoke with a headache.


So 6:15 rolls around and I'm up on the levee again, but not feeling too good. My head's still hurting and when I move it suddenly my balance goes momentarily awry. Not really the best situation for a training ride in the dark. This morning we had three guys with really bright lights, so seeing the road wasn't too much of a problem. Matt took the lead at one point and just stayed there forever. Chad was trying to push the pace, but mostly just ended up off the front by himself because I, for one, wasn't in any condition to be playing that game. In fact, I wasn't really in any condition to be riding my bike. Of course, I may be stubborn but I'm not stupid, and when the pace started to pick up I started thinking about turning back early. I obviously had a little bit of a head cold or allergy thing going on, and together with the prior evening's merriment, riding myself into the ground wasn't likely to accomplish anything good today.



I rode as far as The Dip before turning back. The sun still hadn't risen, but the sky was brighter by then and despite the light headwind I was enjoying the easy pace and solitude. When I got home I took a couple of Advil and raided the jam-packed refrigerator before hopping on the bike for the ride to work. As luck would have it, my morning at work was pretty hectic. In the middle of it all I learned that the LAMBRA LCCS Championship jerseys had been delivered by UPS to the wrong address a few days earlier and were now in danger of being shipped back to the manufacturer. After checking the tracking information I knew what had happened. In fact, I'd seen it happen myself. I remembered being on my front porch Monday after work and seeing a UPS man walking down the street with a box that he left in front of the apartment across the street. Well, turns out those were the jerseys. The folks in that apartment moved in just a couple of months ago so they don't know my name or anything and so they had called UPS to have them pick the box up. When I finally tracked down the delivery guy, he said he hadn't actually picked it up because nobody had been home this morning, so I'm hoping this will all get straightened out by the end of the day and they don't end up being shipped back to the manufacturer.



I took a few photos last night, most of which were pretty bad, but a few of the less-bad ones are here. The headache is finally going away and I'm starting to feel more or less normal again. Onward....