Late Monday Night

Less than an hour before midnight and I'm still sitting here in front of the computer. On the radio is a steady stream of oldies and behind me my grandfather's 60 year old Hunter Zephair oscillates quietly blowing waves of warm summer air that rustle the disheveled papers on my desk. The relentless sounds of cars and trucks on the busy street below filter easily through the old window in front of me. The cat is sound asleep atop a portfolio on the desk behind me. A few minutes ago I finished updating the LCCS rankings and uploaded fresh pages to the webserver. All night I've been hoping to get an email I need from one of the faculty so I can finish up a big grant proposal that I need to get out before I leave for Denver on Wednesday. It hasn't arrived, of course.

The day started out with an easy spin up on the levee. I was a pleasantly surprised that my legs didn't feel sore after last weekend's extra mileage. This Monday's ride was just Joe, Gabe and me, joined later by Donald. We spent most of the ride riding side-by-side at an easy pace. The shoulder or collarbone (I can hardly tell them apart any more) seemed particularly achy and I wondered if it was because of the tree-trimming or the out-of-saddle climbing from the weekend. Perhaps, though, it is simply now sensitive to the impending rain. Indeed, we rode under the threat of rain today, and I was lucky to have missed it on my commute to work, especially since I had to make an extra stop at the uptown campus research office to sign off on a form. It eventually rained quite hard, but by then I was safely in the office sipping coffee and watching the rain fall on the rooftop. Speaking of which, it is looking like our office will be moving uptown to "University Square" which used to be a shopping center called "Uptown Square." Tulane bought part of it a number of years ago and it currently houses a primary care clinic and miscellaneous offices. On the plus side, it's across the street from the levee and bike path, and it's only a couple of miles from home. On the down side, it's kind of isolated and I'll miss having a cafeteria handy. I doubt this move will happen before October, though. We had great plans for this site before Katrina, but now they're all on indefinite hold.

So tomorrow will no doubt turn into a fire drill by afternoon as I try to wrap up a few projects that aren't really ready to be wrapped up. I'll get as much done as I can, but whatever happens I'll still be skipping town early Wednesday for a trip I really have little interest in making. Well, that's not quite true. I like the driving part. It's the wedding at the other end that I don't have much interest in, and the fact that I'll probably be off the bike for four or five days just makes it worse.

White Chairs and Group Rides

So this weekend it was time to dive back into the deep end, do the group rides, and put in some quality miles. After two weeks of gradual buildup, I knew I'd survive. I just wasn't too sure if I'd be able to walk normally on Monday.

Saturday started out overcast, and I checked the radar before heading out, just in case. As I rode out to the lakefront I realized how long it had been since I'd ridden out that way. The new serpentine bike path along Wisner, complete with intersections that seem designed to reduce the cycling population via natural selection, is almost finished now. I met the Giro on Lakeshore Drive and by the time we dropped down onto Hayne Blvd. from the overpass, the group was fairly large. I was glad that the pace stayed pretty civilized for much of the way out, but once we cleared the stoplights out on Chef Highway the speed ramped up quickly. I had been doing a reasonable amount of work, but now the speed was holding at 29-31 mph and I decided I'd better seek some shelter. Sitting in near the back I remember wondering who was up there powering this thing. As we neared the sprint at the Venetian Isles turnaround a final surge at the front fizzled and as those riders dropped back a whole new line rolled past on the left. A hole opened up as it went by, so I slid into it and ended up making a pretty good effort by the end. After turning around I could see most of the group already heading back, having turned a bit earlier than I. It was starting to look like the traditional regrouping and recovery wasn't going to happen, so I stepped up the pace as a little group came together. Soon we had maybe ten or twelve riders, but the gap was still growing. A few of us started taking faster pulls, but cooperation was lacking. Eventually everyone got onto the same page and we had a nice circular paceline going, but by then the rest of the group was a minute or so up the road. No problem, though, as we took the shortcut down Bullard Avenue, rejoining the group as they turned off of the service road. At this point everyone eased up and the last eight or nine miles were pretty easy. As we were rolling down Hayne Mike W comes blasting past us, saying something that none of us could understand. It turned out he was feeling miffed because the group hadn't waited at the turnaround, I guess. A few miles later on Lakeshore Drive we see him standing in the road with his bike leaning against the barricade yelling something at all of the riders as they went past. Rather odd behavior for a senior citizen, I thought, as we turned down Wisner to check out the City Park criterium course.

Saturday night was a nice informal party for the new Psychiatry/Neurology residents at the department Chair's house. The only downside was that a lot of work that I should have done last night got postponed once again. Such is life..... Still, much of the conversation (there were a number of people from out of town) revolved around the hurricane, now nearly three years in the past. The house where the party was held, nestled up against the infamous 17th street canal, had gotten about five feet of water.

So after Saturday's 60+ miles I was feeling a little drained, but by evening I was already looking forward to doing a nice training ride in the country. By 5:30 am I was already en route to the town of Enon. Along the way I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Starbucks on 190 opens at 6 am instead of 6:30, so I was able to pick up a cup of caffeinated beverage for the reminder of the drive. Then, coming over the watchtower hill, I was shocked to find the road under repair. In fact, the road had been completely torn up and hauled away, leaving just a red dirt road. I was really excited at this development, since I've been waiting about 25 years for them to repave that stretch!

We had eleven for the training ride and it was great. I was trying to be conservative since I hadn't done any long miles in quite a while. I was fully expecting to get dropped, but luckily the group was in tempo mode. I felt pretty good for the first 40 miles of the 60+ ride, but after that I was definitely starting to feel a little sluggish on the climbs, so for the last fifteen miles or so I just took short pulls and tried to stay protected. It worked out nicely and I survived. I wonder how my legs will feel tomorrow.

Recovery Riding

I was glad it was Friday. Yesterday's afternoon rain had kept the temperatures down just a bit, and although the water in Lake Pontchartrain is now at a toasty 84F, the morning air felt comfortable -- at least for the first half hour or so. The small Friday group assembled atop the levee rolled right on time, and I was looking forward to an easy recovery ride, mainly because I felt like I needed -- you guessed it -- recovery. The pace did indeed stay fairly easy, although for much of the way back it nudged up to 22 or 23. Even that felt a little hard to my tired legs, leading me to take shorter pulls and generally shift into conservation mode. I spend much of the ride chatting alongside Donald except when the increased pace would force me to seek a little shelter. I am hoping to get in a couple of longer rides over the weekend, and I'd rather not start out with legs of lead.

I expect I'll go do the Giro Ride on Saturday, which will be eight weeks since the collarbone snapped in half. Maybe I'll try and make the northshore ride on Sunday if things work out. Although my current fitness level is clearly below normal for this time of year, I guess it could be worse. I don't think I've done a ride of over 45 miles in two months, but hey, no point waiting at this point.

Next week will be bad, riding-wise. We'll be making a long drive to Denver (well, actually Englewood) for a wedding and although I'll certainly throw the bike in the station wagon there are no guarantees as to when, where, or for how long I'll be able to ride it. Hopefully I'll find a way to work in a few rides.

Fast and Hot

I was again up late last night, a result perhaps of the late afternoon coffee I made when it started raining. Cold weather and rain always make me want a cup of coffee. Funny how the mind works, or more specifically the neurobiology of the brain, dopamine, etc., etc. So anyway, the bottom line is that I didn't get anything productive done but still had a damned hard time rolling out of bed in time to make the 6:15 ride. With my legs feeling rather heavy, we rolled out on time, and after picking up Tim and a few others, some of whom were on TT bikes, the pace just started going up and up and up. We spent a lot of time above 26 mph all the way out to the turnaround, and by then sweat was starting to drip from my helmet. I guess it was already around 80F by then, and the only word to describe the humidity is "thick." There was a brief reprieve as we started back, but then Tim started getting impatient and rolled through and before I knew it the pace was just about as fast as it had been on the way out. By the time we were halfway back I was taking short pulls and struggling a bit to hold the speed, especially since the number of riders in the rotation kept getting smaller and smaller. Finally in the last few miles before the playground I thought I'd better drop back for some extended recovery time. So clearly I'm not quite ready for prime time yet. No surprise there.....

The Plan

For the last seven weeks I've been trying to balance that urgent need to get back to racing shape with the immutable pace of healing and the inadvisability of putting myself into situations that might result in an inopportune crash. The Plan, at least after the first couple of weeks, has been to ratchet up on a weekly schedule. I've been riding regularly for a couple of weeks now, but a lot of it has been kind of tentative. So I decided that this should be the week to get back to a more "normal" training routine. Maybe this weekend I'll even venture out to the Giro Ride.

It is really starting to feel like summer here in New Orleans. The morning temperatures are creeping up to around 80F, the humidity is high all the time, and the winds are mostly gentle except in the afternoon thunderstorms. Sometimes I wish for those thunderstorms to develop just because they tend to cool things off a bit. So this morning I didn't hold back too much on the long levee ride, and as I expected I felt like I was running a little low in the power department. I was taking pulls at the prevailing pace, which today was in the 25-26 mph range, but I definitely couldn't maintain the effort as long as I'd like. No big surprises there, I guess. Brooks was out riding his TT bike because his regular road bike is taking a FedEx trip to Boulder where he's going for a few days later in the week.

I've still got a lot of followup to do from the Tour de La. There are some photos I want to get up onto the website right away. The post-event reports have to be done and submitted, the results have to be uploaded to the USAC database, the LCCS scoring has to get done, and eventually all of the club race equipment cluttering up my basement needs to be reorganized and made ready for the next event. I've got a couple of big deadlines at work right now, though, so some of it may have to be on "hold" for a little while. Such is life.....

Recap and Loose Ends

Let me just say up front that I should be working right now. You know, at the job that pays, not the other ones. The fact is, however, that I'm feeling kind of snowed and felt a need to come up for a little air. The Tour de La is, for almost all of us, a labor of love. Why else would otherwise sane people who have their own lives, some quite challenging enough on their own, spend a whole weekend standing in the sun and the rain on the side of a road, or lugging drink coolers and hay bales around, or doing all of the other stuff that goes into even a small race nowadays, without even approaching breaking even on expenses?



Saturday

Saturday was the time trial and road race, and I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. We ended up with a few more riders than last year, and considering the price of gas and time of year, I thought that was pretty good. In particular, I was impressed with the size of the women's field. We all were. In fact, we increased their prizelist from $350 to $600 the day before the race. The time trials went really smoothly this year, although we had three riders miss their starts. It was the first year we'd actually printed up and posted a complete start list with time- of- day start times and had a big race clock perfectly synchronized to the race time. After the TT ended I sat in the truck and put in all of the start times while the crew tore down the start line and the officials came back from the finish. Then the other referee and I sat down and plugged in all of the finish times. So we headed out to the road race with final TT results already in hand, which was nice. Sometimes I'm still working on them while we're driving.


The parking area for the road race was crowded with cars and racers when we arrived an hour before start time. The atmosphere was great as riders mingled under the big oak trees pumping up tires, filling waterbottles and generally going about their pre-race rituals. By the time we got the first group started I could already see a dark cloud heading our way. The question wasn't if it was going to rain, but how much and how long. Less than an hour later we learned the answer was "very much and very long." We were huddled under one of those tent things at the finish line as the deluge began. Soon the ditch, in which we were essentially standing, started filling with water and carrying off shoes, cans, bottles, etc. We ran out and rescued the big race clock (it has not yet recovered from the soaking). The women came through at the end of their first lap in a driving rain and with the thunder growing nearer and nearer I started to think we might have to stop the race. Of course, that's not as easy as it sounds when you have 170+ riders out on a 15 mile circuit in five different groups. They would all still have to ride back to the start/finish. Finally, after what seemed like a solid hour, the rain slacked off just in time for the first finishes. So here we were soaking wet with the official trying to operate a laptop connected to the finish camera powered by a hundred feet of extension cord, much of which was under water. Somehow we got good video of all of the pack finishes.


The Cat. 5 race had a big crash, and although there were competing stories about what happened, it sounded like one team was blocking at the front and a rider got frustrated because every time he'd try and come through they would shut the door on him. Knowing that we had some serious centerline monitoring going on thanks to the motorefs, his frustration finally got the best of him. If you believe one side of the story, he came up alongside one of the riders at the front and basically body blocked him, causing a crash. His own story was somewhat different, of course. The moto official was occupied at the back at the time and didn't see any of what actually happened. The guy decided not to race the next day. That was probably a wise decision. One of our riders came walking across the finish line with his chain in one hand and his bike in the other. It had broken on the last hill before the finish! The Cat. 1/2/3 race finish came just as a funeral hit the intersection immediately downstream. Once again our radios proved invaluable and the police were able to hold them for a few minutes until the sprint finished. It was a sprint for 2nd place, though. The winner had spent at least 60 miles solo off the front with one of the teams chasing hard the whole way.


It took a long time to sort out the road race results, but fortunately our chief judge was able to get almost everything from the video and by about 10:30 I was ready to upload the first day's results to the website. My shoes and pants were still soaking wet.



Sunday

Sunday morning and the sky looked much better. We were using a slightly different criterium course in downtown Covington, and the start/finish area, located at the new trailhead of a bike path, was excellent. Unfortunately the streets were still the same bumpy ones we've been using for years. They tell us it's all scheduled for asphalt overlay. I'll believe that when I see it. At some point I looked up to see Glenn Gulotta! I had to take a photo as evidence, of course. Anyway, the criterium went pretty well as I shuttled between doing results in a nice air-conditioned room and scoring/judging at the finish line. There were very few crashes, but one of them was a teammate. I didn't even know about it until the race was over, but he had been off the back and heard the lead moto coming up from behind. Not wanting to get in the way as he was being lapped, he took a couple of turns really wide, got into some bad asphalt, and had the option of hitting a pole or running into the curb. He chose the latter and ended up with a concussion, road rash from his cheek to his toes, and a ride to the hospital. Fortunately, nothing was broken. After the races ended I heard that a flying piece of gravel had taken out the plate glass window in front of one of the parish offices. Just another reason why they should fix those streets, eh? We had our traditional awards ceremony with Keith standing on the bar handing out the awards and everyone crowded into Buster's Place eating fried shrimp po-boys. Later I had my traditional Abita Turbodog and oyster po-boy.



Then it was finally time to head back across the lake to NOLA in Mark's fully-loaded truck. One problem, though. It wouldn't start. He tried and tried, but eventually it wouldn't even turn over. It's happened before when it was hot, so we walked over to the coffee shop where I spent some time setting up the web pages for the results. An hour later we tried again and it started up like nothing had ever happened. Go figure.



Monday

So this morning I had a nice easy spin on the levee. As I was riding out there I noticed that our streetcars are finally back on Carrollton Avenue! Yeah! That only took two years and nine months. Then, as we were riding back I spotted the big new Navy ship they've been building at the local shipyard heading out down the river with lots of people on deck. It looked pretty impressive.

Tour de La - Wet and Wild

Another Tour de Louisiane is in the books now. We had an epic thunder-storm in the middle of the road race, but otherwise things went fairly smoothly from our end. The racing looked pretty good and offered up a few surprises. A long and successful solo breakaway in the Cat. 1,2,3 race, some controversy about a crash in the Cat. 4 race, awesome performances by our Cat. 5 riders, etc. I'll see if I can collect my thoughts tomorrow. I'm a bit too tired to think right now.

On the Drops

I was in bed early last night. I guess the renewed training routine, together with the other stresses of summer in the city, must have been catching up to me. I still felt a little sluggish this morning when I stepped out into the humidity at 6 am. As I slowly climbed up the path to the levee I glanced at the sun over my right shoulder. It was a big dull orange disk, filtered by the thick summer haze. I could already tell that today would be a hot one.

Brooks was already up there, sitting down and leaning against the big siphon pipe. Right on cue the other riders started showing up and we soon headed out with a pretty large group for the long Thursday ride. Brooks and I rode herd at the front for the first few miles, and then I dropped to the back as the pace started to ramp up. We had a light tailwind today, and that seemed to keep the speed up pretty high. At some point a few riders went off the front and the gap opened really quickly. Somebody tried unsucessfully to make the bridge, but the pack simply responded by gradually bumping up its pace. We ended up with a good smooth paceline comprising about half of the riders, with the other half staying our of the rotation. Today I spent most of the time in the front half. The group off the front had 40 seconds or so, but I think we were holding that in check over the last ten miles.

After the turnaround we could feel the headwind and the group went really easy for a long time, but of course you knew that couldn't last forever. By the time we were halfway back we were back into race mode. That's when I finally made the transition and got on the drops. I had been avoiding that position for a couple of reasons, one of which was mainly psychological, but I guess today was the day to fold over a little more and get back down where I belong. Granted, I can still feel a little pain, especially when I go to change hand position from the drops to the top of the bar. So I ended up riding quite a while on the drops as we took turns pulling. The pace stayed pretty fast the rest of the way back and I was definitely feeling tired when we finally eased up at the playground.

Today is kind of hectic. Lots of stuff I have to get done today at work, along with a lot of emails and phone calls about the Tour de La (I'm the contact phone number). Pre-registration is running a bit behind last year. The combination of a big NRC criterium in Austin and the ever-increasing price of gas may be part of the reason. On the plus side, it will keep the field sizes down to manageable sizes, which is always nice on the narrow winding road race course. We've got a whole slew of motos lined up for the Road Race, and along with this year's addition of a second back number, there will be some centerline penalties dished out for sure to anyone who really gets stupid about it. I hate to do it, but last year was out of control in a rather dangerous way. BTW, if you happen to read the nice article in the NY Times ("Faster, Higher, Stronger") check out the mistake near the end where the author gives this obviously wrong quote, presumably from Christian Vandevelde; "When negotiating curves, he said, position your feet so that the pedal on the inside of the curve is down, with the outside pedal up (which keeps your weight balanced). " Yikes!

Crunch Time

It never fails. Just as the Tour de La approaches, all sorts of other things start to go critical, mostly at work. Many years ago I would start skipping training rides during the two weeks prior to the Tour, sometimes just to get the rest, and other times because there just wasn't enough time. For the last six or seven years, though, I've steadfastly refused to give up my riding time. After all, I won't get in a single pedal stroke this weekend while I'm officiating the TDL. It never seems to really matter, but at least it keeps me from regretting all the work that goes into the race a little bit less.

So anyway, it's been busy on all fronts. The NOBC team has been working hard to pull the event together. There are a million things that have to be done - getting portable toilets delivered, charging radio batteries, producing the Race Bible, arranging for follow vehicles, police, moto refs, etc. The list is endless. Personally, I carve out just a small piece for myself, as do most of the rest of our experienced race organizing crew. I hesitate to call any of us promoters. If we were, we'd probably either give up on the event altogether or figure out a way to make money on it. As it is, the costs have been rising alarmingly from year to year while the number of riders has stayed more or less constant. Aside from the $4,000 prizelist, I guess there are another $6,000 in costs, mostly for police, officials, hotel rooms, and those sorts of things.

So I woke up this morning feeling really tired. I had done the long levee ride on Tuesday and have ridden every day for the last ten days or so, plus commuting to and from work. Speaking of commuting, I've been strapping my messenger bag to the rear rack on the commuter and I guess that's starting to take its toll on the antique rear wheel. Yesterday, on the way home, I broke a spoke. Of course, since it's a good old-fashioned 36-spoke wheel, I was able to get home without a problem. Later that evening Dustin came over so I could make some badly needed adjustments to his bike. I trued up the wheels a little more (they're still rather far from perfect), gave him a couple of water bottle cages and bottles, blocked out his rear derailleur so he'd be legal for the Junior race, raised his saddle a little bit more, etc. After that I spend a couple of late-night hours updating the LCCS points series and posting all of that to the LAMBRA website. Basically, I got maybe 5 hours of sleep before I was back on the bike this morning.

Today's ride seemed a little odd. We ended up with a pretty long paceline and the pace was fairly brisk, but the strange thing was the wind. It felt a lot like a winter wind, other than the fact that it was in the 80s. That meant that much of the ride was into a crosswind, and on the bike path that means four people with a draft and ten more lined up along the edge of the road without a draft. On the way back Elise and I tried to organize a second eschelon, but apparently that is just totally beyond the comprehension capacity of most of the riders. They would rather ride without a draft on the edge of the road and complain about the leaders not being far enough over to the other side. Oh well. We tried. As we cooled down after the playground Gabe asked me if I had some aero bars he could borrow, so he followed me home and I gave him a set to use this weekend. After that I had to replace the broken spoke in my commuter bike's wheel and true it up. Luckily the broken spoke was on the non-freewheel side, because I don't think I have a remover for that single-speed freewheel. Anyway, I finally made it to work. Whoo hooo.

Cars, Bikes and Water

*** WARNING. THIS ONE'S LONG. ***

FRIDAY

The last few days have been kind of eventful. I'll start with Friday. The Daughter is up in Iowa City where the Iowa River was starting to flood parts of the city. She's hobbling around on crutches, working at the UI hospital, which happens to be on the other side of the river from her house. Her car, which isn't running reliably, was at the Jeep dealer, which would have been fine except that the Jeep dealer happens to be located on Riverside Drive, an as you might guess, that's right alongside the river. So after some debate, we decided maybe it would be prudent to move the car just in case the flooding was worse than expected. So, as the city is closing down bridges as the floodwaters rise, she somehow talked the dealer into sending a van to pick up her roommate so she could rescue the car. Anyway, she and the car finally made it back home, and by the next day the U. Iowa art complex, university center, and probably the basement of the library were swimming pools. Since she's "essential personnel" she'll be at work tomorrow, assuming she has a way to get there.

SATURDAY

So anyway, Friday afternoon I decided to join Mark, Ed, Jorge, Laura, Brian, Steve and a few others on Saturday morning for a couple of laps around the Tour de Louisiane road race course. A new junior rider, Dustin, was also coming along. So we loaded ourselves into Ed's van after meeting at Starbucks and headed for the northshore to pick up Steve and meet the rest of the group out at "cucumber corner." Along the way I learned that Dustin had just started riding and if he made two laps of the 15+ mile loop it would be a personal best. Fortunately, I was not harboring any intentions of doing a hard ride, so I figured I'd keep track of him since he'd surely come off the back once the pace ramped up.


So we start out on the ride and Dustin is immediately having trouble keeping up even though the speed is under 20 mph. I told Mark to go ahead and that I'd stay with Dustin. His legs look pretty strong and he runs track in high school, so I'm surprised he's having so much trouble, especially on the hills. Granted, he's riding a fairly heavy entry-level bike and I can see that the saddle is set way, way too low, but even with the hills I'm thinking something's wrong. So anyway, I ride alongside him for most of the loop dispensing sage wisdom and enjoying the scenery when we finally turn onto the last stretch of the first lap. Dropping behind him on a downhill, I notice his rear wheel is way out of true. He's also told me that he can't shift into the two largest cogs. So near the end of the lap I spot a convenient place where we can stop (in the shade). I go to check the wheel and discover it is hitting *solid* on *both* brake blocks. Working the pedals with my hand, I can't push hard enough to get the wheel all the way around! The front wheel is also rubbing a brake block. Sheesh! I'm amazed he's made it this far. So we limp the last mile to the corner and wait for the group to come around on it's second lap to borrow a multi-tool. After doing the best I can to true the wheel with an emergency spoke wrench, and readjusting the derailleur, I raised the seat at least an inch and a half. It's still a bit low, I think. Anyway, his next lap looked a lot easier! The rest of the group bailed out after three laps, and so we followed them in to the cars with two laps under our belts.


Then, on the way home as we're nearing Covington on Highway 21 Ed, who's driving, suddenly yells something like "holy s&!t!" A few cars ahead a shiny little convertible VW beetle is somersaulting across the road. We hit the brakes along with everyone else and rush down the road to see if everyone's OK. Amazingly a rather attractive girl opens the door of the VW, which had luckily landed upright, and steps out. She's dazed and frightened but otherwise fine. The passenger side of the car is crushed, another car is on the shoulder with its rear wheel ripped off, and there's a pile of crushed glass and CDs in the middle of the highway. Whew! One lucky girl.


SUNDAY

Saturday afternoon I'd gotten an email from Gabe, who is a student at Union College and is doing a summer internship in NOLA with Tulane's SAFER (Student Advocacy for Equitable Recovery) program. He's a Cat. 5 who's done some collegiate racing and is looking for somebody to give him the scoop on training routes in town. We agree to meet on the levee bike path at 7 am on Sunday.


When I woke up Sunday morning I thought I heard the rumble of distant thunder. I fired up the laptop to check the radar and although there were some big thunderstorms just to the east of the city, they looked like they were moving in the right direction and everything to the west looked OK. So I met Gabe and we headed up the river on the bike path. Half an hour later my phone rings. At first I thought it was Dustin who was also going to meet us. I'd figured he wouldn't be there because it was raining in Chalmette when we started. It turned out to be The Wife asking if we needed to be picked up because it was raining at the house. We looked up the road and the weather looked good, so we decided to keep going and hope that the rain would pass by the time we got back. Out near Ormond we saw a few of the Bicycle World guys on their way back and then we met up with Dave who lives out there. When we turned around and saw the menacing black sky over the city Dave suggested that we head over to his house and get a ride back. We decided to ride back anyway, and so Dave came with us for the first ten miles or so before turning back home. The whole time, as we changed direction with the bends in the river, we're reassessing our chances of getting wet. We were actually thinking we'd make it home dry until we came around the curve at the Country Club. The drizzle turned quickly into big stinging raindrops. The wind picked up. Then the lightning started. This was not good. We were maybe a quarter mile from the bridge when the lightning started striking dangerously closely so we bailed out onto one of the local roads in a heavily industrial area. The street was already starting to flood. We found a building with a big overhang over the front door and ran for cover. Well, we ended up stranded there for quite a while as one of the more severe thunder and lightning storms just pounded the area. The rain was coming down in Biblical proportion, and I knew there would be some serious street flooding. We were starting to get really cold and so I called The Wife to request emergency extraction. A little while later I called her back and found out that she had to abort the mission because the streets were flooding and she couldn't get though.


So we waited it out for another fifteen or twenty minutes until the lightning moved a bit further into the distance and mounted back up. By now I was shivering badly enough that I had to hold the bars near the stem to keep the front wheel from wobbling! After riding through a number of flooded streets we finally arrived at the house. The rain soon ended, so I put Gabe's bike into the car to drive him home. Fifteen minutes later we were back at the house because the streets we needed to use were still flooded and in a couple of spots there were residents blocking the road to keep people from driving their cars down them and making waves that would flood the houses. We tried again about half an hour later and although the water was fairly deep around Audubon Park, we made it through OK. It took me a good hour to get my body temperature back to normal after that little adventure!

The Long Way

For the last few days I've finally gotten back to riding the bike to work. This seemingly simple thing has presented a challenge or two, the most significant of which involves the messenger bag. With collarbone and ribs still a bit on the tender side, throwing my fully loaded Timbuk2 over my shoulder doesn't seem like a good idea. Luckily, I have a classic old aluminum Pletcher rear rack on my commuter. With the help of an old toe strap and a bungee cord, I am able to mount the bag on the rack pannier-style. The only problem with that is that heel clearance is a little tight and I have to be careful to arrange it so nothing hits the spokes. It's been working fairly well, considering.


With gas prices out of sight and rising even The Wife has decided it's time to leave the car at home a few days a week, and so yesterday evening we rode home together. Rather than take the short route via the Broad Street overpass, we decided to take the long way. That turned out to be a rather pleasant ride, largely along St. Charles Avenue. The long way is still only about six and a half miles, compared with my usual 3.5 mile route. I've noticed it's a lot cooler riding in the summer with the bag strapped to the rack rather than on my back.



The long levee ride was looking to be a small group at first this morning. We rolled out kind of easy and since I was on the front I picked it up to about 20 mph as we approached the playground. A little while later Diego, Chad and a couple of the Bicycle World guys came streaming past. Figuring that the rest of the group was probably right behind, I latched on as the pace went up to around 27 mph. I'm still quite reluctant to look behind while I'm riding, so it was a few miles before I did. The rest of the group was nowhere to be found. Well, these guys were riding like they were in a breakaway, and although I wanted to be in the rotation I thought I'd better not let them lick my plate clean and then leave me for dead, so I sat on the back. Since I haven't been "really" training for the last five weeks I knew the pace was going to take its toll on me eventually any way. Chad dropped off early and soon the pace started to ease a bit. I guess by the end we were down to 24-25 mph, so I took a few pulls. With such a small group I felt safer than I do in the middle of a long paceline where I can't see much of the road ahead. Anyway, at the turnaround I looped back right away while the others hung around and waited for the rest of the group. As a result I had a nice easy few miles until the group finally caught back up to me somewhere before the Dip. I was kind of surprised at how good my legs felt, but I have a feeling that they may be a little sore tomorrow morning. Nonetheless, it was probably the best workout I've done in a long time.



Early this week a cyclist was killed on River Road near Baton Rouge when he was hit from behind by an inattentive driver (with a suspended license) who was apparently fiddling with his radio and not looking where he was going. This happened on the course that we often use for time trials up there. The road is dead flat and curves gently with the river. The rider was from New Orleans and while I recognized the last name, Goodier, I was hoping it wasn't a family I knew. Well, yesterday I learned that it was the brother of one of The Daughter's classmates from the Academy of the Sacred Heart. The rider was training for triathlons, but was also a recent M.D. doing a residency in Baton Rouge, probably at Our Lady of the Lake hospital to which he was airlifted and later pronounced dead. After a double fatality on the same road during a training race a few years back caution signs went up along the route warning motorists that it was a cyclist training route.

On the Orbea

After getting the repaired Orbea back to the house thanks to Kenny and Frank and Chip (thanks guys!), I took another look at the wheels and decided that I could probably true the wheel up after all. So the other day I stopped by Sears to find the necessary 3/16" open-ended wrench for the Cane Creek hub-mounted spoke nipples. Naturally they didn't sell the single wrench in that size so I had to buy a little set of Munchkin wrenches. After getting home from work yesterday I put the front wheel on the stand and the first thing I noticed was a bent spoke. Aha!! I had found the culprit that caused my over-the-bars experience. This was clear evidence that my front wheel had tangled with someone's rear derailleur, specifically the rider who had been on my left, while trying to avoid squashing the little dog, just as I remembered it. So anyway, the wheels didn't look too terrible, and after half an hour or so I had both wheels back within acceptable levels of trueness (is that a word?), which for training wheels means they both made it through the brakes without rubbing. Then I had to readjust the derailleur hanger and get the derailleur adjusted. That replaceable aluminum derailleur hanger is alarmingly flexible! It's no wonder it was a little out of line after that crash. I still have a spare new one on hand, but since the head of the tiny little bolt holding it on is damaged I'll probably have to drill it out if I need to replace it. Anyway, everything seemed to be working fine and I was excited to be able to get back on the "light" bike.

So this morning I went out on the Orbea for the first time in five weeks to meet the morning levee ride. It was a medium sized group today and the pace was pretty smooth with Big Richard on his mountain bike, his wife, Elise, Donald, and a few of the other regulars, later to be joined by Viv. I stayed in the rotation for a while, but eventually felt like I was pushing my luck and retreated to the back where I had better visibility, more reaction time, and a clear exit door. It was a good ride and I felt like I got a decent workout, although the collarbone and shoulder in general were a little achy by the time I got home. I guess that's to be expected. I have begun to realize that this shoulder will now serve a double purpose. I could tell it was going to rain today from the way it felt!

When I got to work I had an email from The Daughter telling me that her Jeep Liberty had killed on her a few times yesterday and seems to have a big transmission problem. She's been having speedometer and other electrical problems lately, so it might be that the computer is the culprit. We'll find out the bad news once she gets it towed to the dealer tomorrow. Not looking forward to that one at all.....

Riding Like a Turtle

I went out early Monday morning for a nice solo ride on the levee. I had every intention of keeping it down to a nice steady spin, but every time I spotted another rider up the road my legs just automatically picked up the pace. I had to keep telling myself to take it easy. So when I came across a turtle crossing the road (to get to the other side, I suppose), I stopped to turn him around and place him back on the river side of the road so he wouldn't get run over. I think someone had just told me that one of the guys had hit a turtle on the bike path recently, and Donald told me there had been a big King snake up there the other day. Anyway, it was a nice ride with a few little fast stretches.

Monday afternoon was another visit to the orthopedist. The collarbone is healing, a callus is forming, and he gave me the OK to ride as long as I promised not to fall. I didn't tell him I'd already been riding for a week. He manipulated the break in various directions and seemed satisfied that things were progressing as expected. We'll take another x-ray in a month, but which time there should be some actual bone, and see where it stands. Some relatively minor surgery to smooth out the fracture area might be in the cards at some point, but that would have to wait until it was more bone to work with. The alignment is, well, let's just say I've seen a lot worse! I should have taken a pic of the x-ray. Meanwhile, up in Iowa The Daughter's doctor cleared her for swimming, so she was happy about that. She's already been back in the weight room and will probably be working half-days soon.

So Tuesday morning I made it out to meet the long ride group. I spent some time hanging off the back, and a little time in the paceline when it seemed safe, and then when we got out to the parish line I dropped off. I was feeling pretty good, but I didn't want to find out how bad my conditioning was halfway back from the turnaround, so I figured I'd ride easy and catch the on the flip side. So I rode easily out to the dip, turned around, and rode back really slowly, looking over my shoulder for the group. Finally I saw riders coming up from behind, so I sped up and latched on, only to discover that it was an earlier group, so I dropped off of that one again. Eventually, my group showed up toward the end of the ride and I finished up the ride with them, except that when we got to the playground John and Brady eased up and I stayed with Dave. It was good to get in a couple hours of saddle time, even if some of it was at turtle speed. Anyway, I enjoyed being back in the paceline, although I think it will be a couple weeks more before I feel like I can relax and ride as close to the wheel in front of me as I'm used to.

Where's my Bike?

Saturday morning I was up early, ready for the drive up to Natchez, MS for the LAMBRA Road Championships. I was going up to help out a little bit with the officiating, but mostly just to be there, even though I wasn't riding. Oh, and I also had to bring the medals for the winners. I put a few things into the car before heading off to pick up Ed N., but the car seemed particularly empty. It's not often that I take a road trip without the bike, and to be going to a race without the bike was just downright odd. We arrived well before the first races started, and it was already getting pretty hot. For purely historical reasons, this race starts kind of late on Saturday with the juniors, followed by the Cat. 5s, and finally the Masters at 2 p.m. It's a bit of cruel and unusual punishment to make the old guys start at the hottest part of the day. Maybe we should rethink that for next year. Anyway, the Cat. 5 race had a smallish but typical turnout, and the club had Ed, Daniel and Dave entered. Ed's been riding well lately and I was thinking that he had a good chance for a win, so I was a little surprised when they came by with three or four laps to go and a solo rider from Baton Rouge was way off the front. I watched as the group made the steep little climb past the finish line and up onto the dam. I could sense that Ed was feeling frustrated. Well, with a couple of laps to go another break went off from the pack that included Ed, Ali, and a few others, and then apparently Ed took off from that break in pursuit of the leader. With one lap to go I happened to be at the top of the climb up to the dam and saw the leader come by. Then, just 20 seconds later, I saw Ed storming up the climb in hot pursuit. I had no doubt whatsoever that he would make the catch within the next mile. I later learned that he'd been chasing alone for about five miles. Well, to make a long story short, he caught, they worked together for the rest of the lap, and Ed won the sprint easily to take the Cat. 5 championship.

The next race was the combined Master 30+, 35+, 45+ race. This was a decent-sized field with a good amount of horsepower in it, so I was quite surprised to see a 4-man break go clear early in the first lap. That break included Dan Bennett (in town from NM), Russ Walker, Woody Boudreaux, and Jason Miller. A strong quartet, to be sure, but back in the pack were a lot of strong riders. I guess since three of the bigger teams were represented, there weren't many riders left to chase. Anyway, over the ensuing laps, Jason's seatpost came loose, dropping all the way down to the top tube and he had to stop for a fix. That put him back in the main pack that by now was a couple of minutes down. Shortly thereafter Russ just plain rode away from the other two riders and went on to win solo by a huge margin. Behind him, Dan and Woody stayed together with Dan taking the sprint.

We didn't leave until everything was over, so it turned into a pretty long day. By the time I got home I was looking forward to a long ride on Sunday.

I ended up doing 40+ miles on Sunday up on the levee, spending much of the return trip with John who was recovering from a sinus infection and had been off the bike for most of the week. That worked out fine, since I'm not really ready for prime time. I was still being really careful when I'd pass other riders or walkers, especially if there was a dog involved! I think I will go ahead and count that ride as actual training. Of course, I'm now starting over in "base training" mode, and hope to be spending a decent number of miles in the saddle over the next couple of weeks, albeit at a fairly slow and deliberate pace. Once the collarbone and shoulder joint stop aching I may even think about spending some time in the gym to try and build up a few muscles above the waist.

Return to the Levee

After another 940 mile drive on Wednesday, I wasn't too sure I'd make it out the door Thursday morning, but the weather was nice and after sitting in a car for the better part of fourteen hours it seemed worth the effort. So with a grunt and a moan I rolled out of bed, climbed on the bike, and with my right hand gripping the bar near the stem rode rather gingerly through the quiet neighborhood out to the levee. The 6:15 group was pretty large. Even that 40 year old guy, Kenny, was there. I figured it was safe riding alongside him as we started out. After a few miles the pace started to ramp up, so I politely excused myself and drifted to the back of the paceline. Actually I drifted a couple of bike lengths behind the back of the paceline. No point taking any chances. For the most part, the collarbone and ribs weren't a problem, although I am strongly favoring my right hand over my left as you'd expect, and there are lots of places where my left arm does not want to go. I'm also being extremely careful to leave myself a lot of room to maneuver should anything sudden happen up ahead. Anyway, somewhere out past the country club I looked down and saw that the speed was approaching 30 mph, so I decided it might be a good time to back off and ride solo. At the 10 mile point I turned around and had a nice relaxing ride back home, occasionally sitting up with both hands off the bars to give my very confused and inadequate shoulder muscles a rest. For the rest of the work day I strapped the brace back on.

Friday morning was kind of a repeat of Thursday. I met the group, rode with it out to the pumping station at 10 miles, and then turned around and rode back. It was a bit more of a workout than yesterday, but still a very long way from a 'normal' morning workout. Baby steps.....

Riding on Eggshells

After yesterday's successful test ride, I thought I'd try for a longer ride in the morning. Seemed like a good plan. So I got up bright and early so I'd miss the rush hour traffic, but when I looked out the window I knew I was in trouble. The sky looked overcast and the wind was blowing, so I fired up the laptop to check the radar. Good thing I did, because a big line of heavy thunderstorms was about half an hour away. Oh well, it was a nice try. I got back into bed and drifted back off to sleep as the rain started coming down.

I don't think the sun ever came out today, but we did walk down to the local DMV to get a temporary handicapped parking tag for The Daughter's car. The difference between this Iowa City DMV and any DMV within fifty miles of New Orleans was impressive. All of the employees were pleasant and helpful, they had a huge LCD monitor showing the weather in one window and the "now serving" numbers in the other. We waited maybe five minutes and promptly received two handicapped hangtags without being charged a fee.

Finally, around 4 pm, I got a chance to go out for a ride. Riding like this is kind of a new experience altogether. It's like riding on eggshells. I'm glad that there are some little hills, because that's the only way I can get some exercise without going too fast. By "too fast" I mean more than 15 mph, which is about the speed at which I start to feel the little bumps in the road. The other thing is that my slow and cautious riding makes me feel self-conscious, especially since I'm wearing my usual club kit. Maybe I'd feel more comfortable and less conspicuous in baggy shorts and a t-shirt? Anyway, I rode ten or fifteen miles, which took an hour, but compared to riding the trainer, it was fantastic. Tomorrow morning we'll be driving back down to NOLA all day, and after that it'll be back to normal, such as it is. Frank fixed the Orbea and dropped it off at Kenny's house last weekend. Thanks Frank! I wonder if it's worth trying to fix those Cane Creek wheels that apparently got rolled over in the crash...

Test Ride

It was cool and dry this morning when I set up the mag trainer outside the back door. I reluctantly climbed on, pushed the start/stop button on my watch, and started to spin. Ten minutes later I was already dripping sweat. Twenty minutes later I said to myself "screw this, it's time to get back on the road." So I went back inside, dug out my helmet, and rather gingerly rolled down the driveway. The cool air felt great, the collarbone was fine, and the ribs were OK as long as I didn't breathe too heavily. So I decided it was time for a little test ride. Luckily there was some kind of a bike path nearby, so at least I wouldn't have to deal with a lot of traffic. I don't know if it was strictly necessary, but I figured I should ride with an abundance of caution, so I kept most of my weight on my right hand, especially on the bumps, and got in a nice 45 minutes or so before I found my way back to the house. By the time I got back I could feel a little bit of tenderness in the big lump that is now part of my left collarbone, and there was some stiffness in my arm from being stretched and used after such a long period of relative inactivity, but otherwise it was fine. So basically the test ride went well and I think I'll be able to get back on the road, providing I'm careful not to take any chances. I'm sure that falling off the bike would be a very bad idea right now.

Later in the morning we stopped in at the local coffee shop for a while, and got a few things done, but mostly just hung around the house trying to keep The Daughter comfortable. She's got a pretty impressive scar this time. They cut along an older scar from a previous surgery, but lengthened it by another couple of inches. She seems to be doing pretty well, under the circumstances. Right now I'm back on the couch watching Catwoman after a very full dinner at the Olive Garden.