100% Chance

Last night's weather forecast was showing a 100% chance of rain for today. I thought it rather odd that they wouldn't have allowed themselves a little wiggle room on that. Fortunately, the hour-by-hour detail looked fine for the early morning training ride, so my sore legs and I rode out to the levee as usual. It was a dark and humid morning that featured a strong southeast breeze. As has happened repeatedly lately a gap opened right away, thanks mainly to the reluctance of some riders to risk their lives in the dark. While it's relatively easy to see what's going on when you're near the front, if you happen to be seven or eight riders back in the paceline you can't see much except the butt of the rider in front of you, so hauling ass down a narrow bike path that features the occasional unlit oncoming cyclist or walker gets pretty old pretty fast. So we watched the blinking lights of the usual suspects ride off down the road. The rest of the group was still going plenty fast enough, however. At one point John swung a bit to the left and nearly nailed one of those aforementioned walkers. As usual the number of people in the rotation started to drop the closer we got to the turnaround. The ride back was both slower and harder thanks to the wind. No surprise there.

So I got back home and checked the radar, assuming I'd have to rush in order to get to work dry. Surprisingly, it was all clear. I had a bunch of awards I had to put in the mail from the 2-person time trial, so instead of going straight to work I loaded up the commuter and headed off to the post office. I had 14 identical plaques, each in identical padded mailers. At the post office, after waiting in line for fifteen minutes in what seemed like some sort of slow-motion time warp I finally got to the counter. Apparently the only way they could handle this situation was to weigh each and every one, one at a time, type in the zip codes, one at a time, and print out a postage sticker, one at a time. This took another fifteen minutes, after which I was handed a receipt that was literally over two feet long. The variation in weight among all of those identical items was nearly a full ounce, so the postage varied from $2.53 to $2.70. If you've ever wondered why you never seem to get those prizes that the promoter promised to mail to you, now you know the reason.

The rest of the day I was waiting for the severe thunderstorms we'd been promised, but they never materialized. I think there was one very light spot of drizzle, but otherwise it was just cloudy and humid. It looks like we may finally be getting a little shower tonight, but it looks like tomorrow morning should be fine.

The Rest of the Weekend

Sunday morning in Tuscaloosa was pretty cold, and I was glad that all of our races were in the "second wave" at noon. Even so, it was still plenty cold by my standards when we arrived at the road race start. I debated with myself about what to wear, and ultimately decided against knee warmers. The Masters race was kind of a series of bad decisions on my part. The course had two significant hills, of which the hardest was just after the feed zone. I had spoken before the race with Brooks who had already been shelled out of the Pro/1/2 race and his advice was, "when you see the feed zone sign, shift to the small ring." So we hit the climb, which wasn't all that bad, and I go up and over back in the middle of the pack. This was a mistake, of course. Up ahead a small group of maybe four riders opened a gap just past the top of the hill. It didn't look dangerous until I realized, too late, that there were teammates at the front of the pack blocking. By the time anybody could get past the break had already opened up a good thirty seconds. All I could say was, "crap!" They remained in sight for a long time, but the chasing was intermittent and mostly ineffective. I was already starting to get irritated, mostly with myself, I guess. I just hate to see a break get away like that. Well, except when I'm in it anyway. So the next lap we go up the same hill and another gap opens. This time I found my way to the front and basically closed it myself. Next time up the hill and I'm apparently on another planet sitting near the back when -- you guessed it -- another small group of maybe three goes clear. I look over at the guy next to me and mumble, "they're going to let another one roll away!" One guy tries to make the bridge, gets within five seconds of the break, and cracks.

So now I'm basically just pissed at myself and apparently decide that appropriate punishment is to go to the front and try to get some help to chase down that second group. Well, I did a lot of work along with a handful of other riders. At one point I get off the front with a couple of other guys, but one of them has a teammate in the break and, being a considerate masters type rider, is nice enough to inform us that he won't be taking any pulls. Anyway, that eventually fizzled. I found myself off the front alone a couple of times just because nobody else would stay with me when I'd take a pull.

I guess were were near the feed zone prior to the last lap when someone standing on the side of the road told us that the break (the second one, not the first one) was "almost a minute up." So at that point I basically threw in the towel and drifted to the back for some R&R. I wasn't sure how many were up the road, but I thought it must be more than the eight prize places. (It turned out we'd be sprinting for the last prize place -- I think we passed someone who had been dropped from one of the two breaks. Anyway, after a fairly uneventful last lap my legs were feeling OK but I was actually starting to get cold.

Finally, a couple of miles before the finish, the pace started to pick up and I couldn't resist getting in on the action even though I didn't think there were any prizes left. Half a kilometer from the finish line we were going flat out and here's where I made a bad decision. I was way over on the right side of the road overlapping the wheel in front of me when the sprint started. I heard Jaro say something behind me and immediately stood up to pass the guy in front of us. Just as I did, he moved over to the right and I nearly went cyclocrossing in the gravel. I had to back off and hit the brake for a moment and spent the rest of the sprint boxed in against the edge of the road. Jaro somehow extricated himself in time from all of that drama and launched his sprint, beating everyone else by at least a bike length. So I ended up 12th overall (5th in the pack sprint), which was respectable but rather frustrating under the circumstances. Definitely lost a couple of places there.

The rest of the New Orleans contingent had a pretty hard day too. Ed N. was sick as a dog on Sunday and didn't start, and Jaro was the only one of the Midsouth guys who finished with the pack in the Masters race. In the Cat. 4 race, which had a pretty big field of nearly 60, Ali had the best finish at 14th and Stephen Mire was 29th. Steve J was surprised that he'd finished as far back as 46th. In the morning's Pro/1/2 race, the Herring guys got Scott into 7th and Bain into 20th, which I though was pretty good considering the quality of the field. The courses were good and challenging for this race and they had a company from TN handling the timing and results, so all that went pretty smoothly. Definitely a race that was worth the trip.

Rolan grabbed my camera and shot some video of the Cat. 4 and Masters finishes.

• Finish video of the Cat. 4 Tuscaloosa Road Race
• Finish video of the Masters Road Race
• Results
  

Up in Tuscaloosa

With the Tour de Tuscaloosa criteriums not starting until afternoon, we had the relative luxury of a 10:30 am departure for the 4.5 hour drive up Interstate 59. The drive went smoothly, although with three bikes on the roof and strong gusty winds the whole way, I was already thinking it would be a hard race. The nice thing was that the weather, aside from the wind, was really nice. As the masters race start time of 4:30 approached I found myself riding up and down a short stretch of road trying unsuccessfully to get warmed up. Finally the prior race finished and they opened the course for us. Half a lap later, everybody stopped at the start line, but as soon as the Ref said we had time to do a lap I took off. It was a longish course with a fast downhill, nice sweeping turn, a crosswind stretch, and then a steep little uphill.

So the race started fairly fast but very jittery. Everyone was crowding the front and when we hit the crosswind stretch they were all crammed up against the downwind edge of the road hitting the brakes and screaming at each other. I quickly figured out that it was better stay to the right, even if it meant being in the wind for a little while. This race seemed to be mostly about the hill, and not too much seemed to happen elsewhere. I started off feeling pretty bad, probably due to an inadequate warmup. After the first ten minutes I was starting to feel a lot better. Nobody ever got off the front for very long today, and with three laps to go I started trying to get a good position for the finish. I was looking pretty good until halfway through the last lap when some of the riders up ahead of me inexplicably eased up and we started to get swarmed by riders from behind. That happened a couple of times on the last lap, but somehow I came around the last corner in the front ten and sitting on Jaro's wheel. Unfortunately the finish line was just one block from the last turn, so the best I could do was 7th.

The Cat. 4s were up next and so I rushed over to the start line to get some pictures. I found all three of them way too far back in the start group. As soon as they started I headed for the far end of the course where the hill was, however, when the group came around I was surprised to see so may riders off the back. Also, I couldn't find the NOBC riders. Well, there had been a crash on the first lap just before the climb and all three of them had gone down. Steve and Rolan got free laps, but Steve M. didn't. Then Rolan came off right away. Anyway, only Steve finished with the front group.

The Cat. 1/2 race wasn't until 8 pm, so we headed out to get something to eat. I called Tim after the race and he said he spent the whole time fighting a stiff link in his chain. Frank crashed, Woody was feeling bad and dropped out. Basically, things didn't go well for the Herring guys, so they're hoping for better luck tomorrow at the road race.

Fooled Again

The unstable weather around here lately has rendered the local forecasters little more useful than a look out the window. That look seemed encouraging yesterday evening when I got home, so I thought I 'd try and get in an hour or so on the bike before dark. Knowing that I was taking a bit of a gamble, I rode the Cervelo so that I wouldn't risk getting my regular shoes wet. I've been fooled by the weather before. It's one thing to make a mess of your bike, but soaking your riding shoes is a whole different story. There's nothing quite as uncomfortable as putting on a wet pair of shoes in the morning. (Well, actually I still remember the days of putting on a still-damp Speedo, but I digress.) The sky wasn't looking too bad when I headed out for a quick spin on the levee, but the wind was blowing pretty hard, so I knew things could, and probably would, change rather quickly. Just as I was approaching Williams Blvd. I spotted Mark G. coming the other way, so I made a quick u-turn so I'd have a little company. A little while later we picked up Kenny. Meanwhile, the sky to the southeast was looking darker and darker by the minute. I was still holding out a little hope of making it home dry when Kenny flatted. As we waited for the tube change I could see rain on the horizon. We hadn't been back on the bikes long before a light intermittent rain started, and although I got rather well dampened, I made it home before the cold water started seeping through my socks.

Well, all last night the rain came down in biblical proportions. There was some flooding and road closures, and I didn't get much sleep after the big thunder and lightning show started around 2 am. I was only half-awake when a huge clap of thunder opened my eyes just in time to see all the lights go out. The power didn't come back on until around 6 am, by which time the worst of the storms had passed. The roads, of course, were still soaking wet, and I contemplated going out for a ride anyway, but ultimately decided to skip it. More storms are predicted for tonight, so I'll just have to play it by ear and see if I get a chance to slip out for another little spin this evening. All-in-all it's been a pretty lousy week for me training-wise, thanks mainly to my reluctance to ride in the rain. I could definitely use some miles.....

Rain Games

The forecast wasn't looking too good last night, so the first thing I did when I awoke today was check the radar. Surprisingly, it looked completely clear, so off I went to the levee to meet the Wednesday group. The first thing I noticed was that it was *really* windy. The other thing was that the turnout was smaller than usual. It seems that the weather forecast has a pretty strong influence on how people let their alarm clocks. We had a pretty decent ride, under the circumstances. Woody was there, and toward the end he kind of put the hammer down and the group dwindled down to just a few of us.

So the front stalled out and the rain got pushed back until, so they said, the afternoon. It was around 1:30 when I emerged from my office and noticed that it was raining. "Oh well," I thought, "no evening ride at the Lakefront today." Well, it turned out that the rain was just playing games with me. It was after 5:30 when I looked out the window again, only to discover that the roads were essentially dry and the sky didn't look all that threatening. Damn. I guess the moral of the story is to look out the window now and then instead of trusting the weatherman so much. Anyway, I guess tomorrow morning's ride is pretty much up in the air right now.

In the last couple of days I've discovered a couple of problems with the USAC Results and Rankings system. The other day when I tried to upload the 2-Person Time Trial results something on their end was broken and the system just hung with a blank screen where the confirmation notification should have been. I reported it to Andrea and they got that fixed the next day and uploaded my results for me. So then I thought I'd check the new Rankings and see what they looked like. The first thing I discovered was that my "my USA Cycling" page was showing only my 2009 track results. The Rouge-Roubaix and 2-Person TT results weren't showing up. So I called Andrea and told her about it. She went to my page, saw that the results were missing, and said something to the effect of "That's weird." Since my track results were showing up, and since I'd raced that race as a Cat. 2 rather than as a Master, I thought that maybe the problem was that when I upload Masters race results I always put "master" in the "category" column (as I was instructed to do many years ago with the old system). So as an experiment I deleted the Rouge-Roubaix results from the USAC website, changed my results spreadsheet so that it showed "Cat 1/2/3/4/5" instead of "master" and uploaded that version. Sure enough, those results showed up immediately on my My USA Cycling page. So I did the same for the TCC time trial and criterium results, and then tried to do it for the 2-Person TT results, only to find that it wouldn't give me permission, presumably because Andrea had uploaded those results rather than me. Hopefully I'll get that straightened out tomorrow. I still have to update the LCCS rankings for the 2-Person TT. Maybe tomorrow. It's late and I just finished addressing the mailers for the awards plaques that I have to send to the Master 45+, Junior, and Cat. 5 riders because they weren't ready for the race last Sunday.

So I signed up for the Tour de Tuscaloosa. Hopefully most of the rain will be gone by the time the criteriums start on Saturday afternoon. I booked a couple of rooms at the Ramada. Looks like we'll have about six riders up there so far, but there's always room for more!

Another Tuesday

The Tuesday ride seems to be getting disturbingly predictable lately. I force myself out of bed in the dark, arriving at the levee a few moments before the ride rolls out. A couple of miles later it's still dark but someone attacks anyway. Today the instigator was Tim. I'd just taken a pull and was in the process of dropping back for some recovery. Woody was near the front and went with it right away, followed a moment later by Rob. The rest of the group, probably fifteen or so, didn't react very quickly, but the speed gradually started to increase. Soon there were just five or six taking pulls at the front. I figured Tim and Woody would be turning around at the Dip. The group kept the break in its sights, but there wasn't much of an effort to actually close the gap.

Once Tim and Woody turned back, the group quickly caught Rob. We still had a bit of a tailwind, though, so the speed remained pretty high. I was already thinking about the ride back into the wind, though.

Fortunately, the return trip was a bit more civilized. The only problem was when we had a strong crosswind. I spent a fair amount of time walking the tightrope on the left edge of the asphalt. It was actually easier when we had more of a direct headwind because at least you could get a draft without being among the front four riders.

Robin stopped by this afternoon with the awards for the non-cash classes from last weekend. He was supposed to make the awards for us, but there were some technical problems with the equipment and they weren't ready in time for the race. Now I'll need to mail them out. I only hope that most of the addresses on the entry forms are legible.

A Long Morning

Five o'clock came way too early this morning, so I really was glad I'd gotten all of the race equipment together the night before. Even the bike was ready to go, which just meant that I'd bolted on the aero bars, but the race wheels on, and removed the water bottle cages (a purely psychological gesture, of course). The car was pretty well packed with traffic cones, 6-Gallon coolers full of water, flags, the race clock, computer, caution signs, etc. I was lucky I didn't forget to bring the bike.

So I arrived at the race site well before sunrise, where I put up the big finish line flag and the race clock using the car headlights in order to see what I was doing. Soon people began to filter in and by 7 am we were ready to start registration. I set up the computer in the back of the Volvo and started entering rider info so we could print out the start list. We had a lot of race-day entries, along with a few late arrivals, so the actual start time got pushed back by 15 minutes. Once the first 2-person team got started, I ran back to the car, pulled the bike down from the roof, and went out to get a couple of miles of warmup before it was time for Jorge and me to start. I told Jorge to take it easy on me for the first couple of miles so I could get warmed up.

We started out on the 40km course at a good controlled pace, thanks to Jorge, and within a mile or so I was feeling OK. The wind was nothing like I'd expected, and much of the outbound leg seemed to be slightly into the wind. I was pushing kind of a big gear, under the circumstances - probably one cog higher than Jorge. I think Jorge and I were pretty well matched. We were taking pulls of maybe 45-60 seconds, and our speed was ranging from 26-28 all the way out to the turnaround. The return trip seemed to have a few miles with a slight tailwind, but I never really felt anything resembling a super tailwind. Shortly before the turnaround I'd started getting a stitch in my side and so I spent most of the return trip nursing it to keep it from getting too bad. Although we had a few stretches of 27-29 mph, there were also some long sections where we were down in the 24-25 mph range. Jorge was riding really consistently, while I, on the other hand, felt like I was all over the place. I was definitely struggling in the last 5 km and had to take a few short pulls, but for the most part I thought we rode a pretty good time trial, finishing up with a 56:28. It turned out to have been the 5th fastest time for the day, although some of the credit for that goes to the fact that the Herring guys were over at the Fayetteville SR (where things don't seem to have gone so well for them).

After our race I jumped back into the back of the station wagon and started working on the results. We got everything posted shortly after the last of the meager Cat. 1/2s finished. The race itself went pretty well, I thought. The fastest time of the day was a 53:28, which seems pretty incredible considering the windy conditions.

Preparations

The Club is putting on the 5th annual NOBC 2-Person Time Trial on Sunday, and so of course there have been a lot of loose ends in need of tying this week. The race is actually a continuation of a 2-man time trial that Jon Anderson put on for a few years up in St. Francisville, going back to 2000. It's a fun early-season race - fairly low-key and not too heavy of a lift. I must say, though, that the lifting seems to be getting heavier and heavier every year. On Friday I spent quite a while working on an every-evolving results workbook in Excel. Not only will it look up all of the rider information in the USAC database based on a rider's license number, it will also plug in the TT start times, flowing through from one spreadsheet to the next, so that one needs to enter only the start time of the first rider. It's not as easy to do, at least with some acceptable level of elegance, as one might think. Of course, it also works out the placings automatically as finish times are entered. As usual, the race will serve as the beta test site.

Since I didn't know if the course markings from last year were still there (the road was underwater for a while last year for Hurricane Gustav), I decided to skip the Saturday Giro and instead ride the course with a can of spray paint in my pocket. Luckily a few of the club riders offered to accompany me. The night before I set my computer to show kilometers instead of miles, but didn't bother to double-check the wheel circumference setting. Pat showed up with his Garmin, so that would make for a good second opinion on the distance. When I arrived, I was relieved to find that the old markings were still readily visible, so I freshened up the offset start and finish markings. We zeroed our computers and headed off for a nice 40k ride. At the end my computer hit 40 km maybe 100 yards before the finish line, but Pat's GPS was right on the money, showing 24.85 miles. During my drive back home I picked up the phone to touch base with Robin who was supposed to be bringing all of the set up stuff like shelters, tables, generator, etc., and who was also the one making arrangements with the police (we use four of them on this course). Shortly after he answered, he asked me if the police were taken care of. Oh shit! He was supposed to have done that but was thinking that either he'd already done it or someone else was doing it. Bottom line: the police knew nothing about our plans. Robin said, "I'll call them right now." So I sweated it out for a couple of hours waiting to hear back from him. Luckily, he somehow managed to get it all lined up. Whew!

After I got home I had a lot of preparations to take care of. Batteries for the race clock and radios needed charging, water jugs needed filling, release forms needed printing (naturally the final few of those sucked the very last drops of black ink out of my printer) . I dug through the two big bins of race stuff that hadn't been touched since they'd come back from Rocktoberfest last October -- stopwatches, bullhorns, clipboards, paper tablets, extension cords, printer, paper, pens, safety pins, tape, radios, etc., etc. Then I went through the big stack of "caution bike race" signs and picked out a bunch of those along with a dozen or so traffic cones and some Gatorade concentrate. The I filled a few of the big coolers with water, probably straining my back in the process. Hope I can get all that stuff into the car tomorrow morning ... at 6 am ... in the dark. Robin called a few minutes ago to say he'd ordered 20 pizzas to be delivered to the finish line at 10:00.

Did I mention that I was racing this one too? I guess I won't be getting much of a warmup, since I'll be doing registration too. Jorge M. and I will go off as the first team of the Master 45+ group, which should get us back to the finish line before most other riders. That way I will be able to get started on the results right away, or at least as soon as my vision clears. The forecast looks like it will be nice, except for a double-digit wind.

Midweek Training Rides

Wednesday's weather was pretty nice. I ended up riding both morning and evening and likely would have gone even longer but for sundown and my growling stomach. In the morning I met the usual Wednesday group, which was suspiciously small. I'm not certain, but I suspect that the low turnout may have been a direct result of the thrashing that most of us endured on Tuesday. Along the way we met up with Jorge Merle who is in town for a few days from Dallas. Looking back at an old photo from around 1982, I can see that not much has change. He hasn't gotten any shorter; I haven't gotten any taller; and I still spend a lot of time hanging onto his wheel. The Wednesday group was mostly the usual smooth paceline ride, but toward the end, Jorge started taking faster and faster pulls. Finally, as we neared the Playground, I rode up alongside him to tell him that we always ease up there and roll in the rest of the way in cool-down mode. That evening I ran out of the office at 5 pm so that I could ride out to the lakefront for a little training ride at 6:00. I think we're going to start up a regular 6 pm lakefront ride on Wednesdays and see where they go. I've always felt I benefited from one or two days where I do two training rides, so I'm pretty much committed to the Wednesday evening ride. Hopefully we'll attract a decent sized group for these. I think we had about five yesterday. It would help if the OLD would get its act together and (1) finish repairing the bridge that they've been "working on" for the past year, and (2) stop shutting off the entire east end of Lakeshore Drive so it can be used as a levee mud storage site. There were a lot of triathletes swimming in the lake yesterday in preparation for the half ironman coming up in a couple of weeks, and of course there were a few riding on Lakeshore Drive too. Anyway, starting just after 6:00, we did two and a half of the long loops, cutting the last one short so that I could get home before dark. By the time I was back home I was more hungry than tired, despite the shrimp sandwich I'd had for lunch.

Thursday morning was cool and dark, and my legs were feeling the effects of the accumulated mileage from the prior two days. The group up on the levee resembled that of Tuesday, and in fact, so did the ride. Right away the pace at the front ramped up dramatically and someone a couple of riders ahead let the gap open. By the time I could get around, the gap was growing at an alarming rate, but I thought I'd try and close it gradually and see if I could get some help. Just as I'm starting to die, Tim goes flying past to make the bridge. I eased up and part of the pack caught up, then next thing I know Erich attacks out of the group to bridge. I honestly didn't think he could make it, but he did. The gap was probably 30 seconds at that point, although I have to say that it was growing more because of a lack of chasing in the group than an abundance of speed in the break. Tim and Woody, and I think Erich too?, turned back at The Dip, so I was thinking that we'd catch the other two or three who had been in the front group, but I think most of them made it to the turnaround ahead of us.

Pretty much everybody regrouped at the turnaround out by Ormond, and the ride back was a little bit more congenial. The paceline was getting a little bit inconsistent by the time we were halfway back, probably because people were getting pretty tired by then. It wasn't until we were near the end that Jorge started taking faster pulls and I had to dip into the cookie jar a couple of times to stay with him.

Christmas Lights

It was a little cooler and more windy this morning, but I'm starting to get the feeling that the days of shoe covers and winter jerseys are rapidly coming to an end around here. As I crossed River Road and started up the levee I looked ahead and noticed a lot more flashing red lights than usual. When I got up to the group I could see why. Jeff was wearing a safety vest festooned with flashing red LEDs. If he'd had a few green ones in there he would have looked like a christmas tree! Actually, there was a big group up there today. I'd say around twenty when we started. Considering who was in attendance, and factoring in the crosswind, I knew it would be a pretty hard one.

We weren't much past the Playground when suddenly the pace shot up. It was nothing less than an attack. Before I knew what was happening there was a huge gap and six or seven riders were already rolling off the front. I finally started to chase, but immediately found myself alone, in no-man's-land. I was going almost flat-out but wasn't gaining on them. Suddenly Robin showed up and we worked together for a while, but the front group must have been going somewhere in the 28-30 mph range and was slowly slipping away. Eventually we eased up and a few more riders caught up. Donald came to the front and did a few of his characteristic long pulls, but the best we could do was limit the damage. At the Dip, Woody, and Tim turned around, leaving Rob, VJ, and Brady (maybe one or two others). At that point our group began closing the gap, absorbing a couple of dropped riders along the way.

So I was thinking that after the turnaround we would all regroup and have a more steady paceline for the ride home. Well, not quite. I guess the crosswind and earlier pace were taking their toll because within a couple of miles the group split again, so it was basically a rather loose team time trial all the way back with Rob, Brady, VJ, Steve, Rolan etc. I think a bunch more eventually caught us when we started to ease up after Steve and Rolan turned around. VJ was causing havoc today. Maybe he was doing intervals or something? Anyway, I was pretty gassed by the time I got home today. I'm hoping we can get some people out to the Lakefront tomorrow for an evening edition of Wednesday Worlds. We'll see.

More of the Same

With an early morning meeting on the calendar, I knew Sunday night that my Monday morning ride would have to be an hour of riding in the dark. What surprised me, though, was the wet street. I checked the radar and it looked OK, so I hit the road at 6 am. The streets were soaked from a recent rainstorm, so once again I took the old Pennine out for a spin. Not surprisingly, the levee was pretty much deserted this morning. Even if I'd been able to ride at the usual time, I would have been on my own anyway.

So I got home nice and early with plenty of time to make some coffee and ride over to Gibson Hall for a meeting. As I left, there was a light drizzle falling, but I went ahead and rode the one mile over to the office without bothering to get the rain jacket out of my bag. Soon after I arrived, and for most of the rest of the day, it rained -- sometimes heavily, sometimes lightly. Luckily, by the time I was ready to head home the rain had just stopped, so once again I dodged the raindrops.

At least it looks like the rain is over for a while, although I'll bet we have some fog to deal with tomorrow.

Rain Bike Day

The first TM came just before 6am. "are u riding? radar looks bad." A few minutes later a consensus was reached, "Ditto, Woody and Tim said the same. looks like rain all day.....oh well, back to sleep." Back to sleep? Well, I was already awake, so I shuffled down to the basement, pulled the trusty old Pennine (my rain bike) down, and finally got around to swapping out the handlebars and replacing the old Campi brake levers with some beautiful replacements that I'd gotten from Billy Richards some time ago. These are pristine mid-80's Campagnolo Record brake levers with well-preserved gum-rubber hoods. Sweet. I unwound the ancient blue cloth Tressostar handlebar tape, sanded off the accumulated aluminum oxide, and wrestled off the old levers. Then I installed a relatively recent Cinelli Giro d' Italia handlebar (sadly it was grooved, which of course was superfluous on this friction-shifted bike) and slid on those practically new brake levers. I finished it off with some nice black Deda handlebar tape. I'd been meaning to do this little job for at least a year, so it was nice to finally get it done. Needless to say, after that I was going to ride -- rain or no rain.

So after a cup of coffee and a couple slices of toast I waited until around 10:30 to hit the road. By then there was just the lightest of drizzle, and the radar was looking a bit better. As it turned out, I couldn't have timed it better. I was almost all the way to the Destrehan bridge when I saw Steve and Pat coming toward me, so I turned around and rode with them most of the way back until they turned around at the Playground. When I had first left home I was expecting to be returning cold and wet. Thanks to my fenders and meteorological good fortune, I actually got back home quite warm and dry, with a nice 40+ miles of training under my belt.

The rest of the day was mostly light rain interspersed with heavier rain, and the streets are still wet as I write this, so I figure I was pretty lucky today. A few minutes ago I fired off a draft of a Dept. of Education disaster grant application for approval, so hopefully I can get that officially submitted some time tomorrow evening or Tuesday at the latest. Earlier today I had to add a morning meeting to my calendar that will definitely keep me from making the regular training ride. Perhaps I'll be able to get in a few miles in the dark earlier on Monday, though. We'll see how that goes.

Fast Giro Season

So dark this morning. Leaving the house at 6:30 with both lights flashing I looked up at the grey sky and wondered if I'd still be dry when I returned. I made my way north toward the lake, pushed along by a nice little tailwind, heading for the Saturday Giro Ride. At City Park I was glad to see nice fresh asphalt that I hoped extended all the way to the lake. A silky smooth road and a tailwind - it was like gliding on ice. Halfway there and Brett came up from behind, feigning a surprise attack. I looked over at him, smiled, and said, "Virgin asphalt!"

It was clear today that we are getting into Fast Giro Season. Although the winter Giro rides can have their brutally fast sections, they also have their easy sections. As spring approaches, though, the fast sections seem to merge together and the easy sections get a lot shorter and a lot less easy. So it was today. Out on Hayne Blvd. we slowed down to maybe 27 mph as we passed a big group of triathletes, and that was probably about as slow as it got until the turnaround out at Venitian Isles. On the way back there's a sprint for the Goodyear sign, and I overheard the Midsouth guys planning their leadout. So when they went by, I latched on right away. Just as I did, I saw Diego desperately looking for a way to get on, so I let him in ahead of me. I guess I wasn't really committed to the sprint because the next time it surged, after one of the leadout guys dropped off, I let it go.

Now normally there is a nice slowdown after that sprint, but today a group just kept going. I quickly found myself in the second group, chasing with Mark and a few others all the way to Bullard. I thought they would ease up at that point, but next thing I knew they were pulling away again. We finally caught them just before turning onto Hayne Blvd. The pace finally eased up a bit and most of the group came back together. In fact, I was kind of surprised how many survivors we had as we cooled down along Lakeshore Drive. These guys must be getting in shape or something. It was a good workout today.

So I got home well before the rain which, at 5:30 pm, is still falling. Hope I can ride tomorrow.

Crazy Fast

The weather was again fantastic on Wednesday morning as I stepped out the basement door into the dark. The moon was bright and the sky clear, so I knew I'd be comfortable in my single jersey. Since I was feeling guilty about missing Tuesday's ride, I left a little early so I could put in a few extra miles before meeting the group. I had time for a nice little warmup, riding down to the playground before turning back to meet the group. It was still quite dark, but up ahead I could clearly make out the figure of "Crazy Guy." This is a lunatic who regularly walks on the levee bike path and for some reason just absolutely hates cyclists. I suspect his hatred is not actually limited to cyclists, but that's another story better recounted in a chapter entitled "Abnormal Psychology." Whenever Crazy Guy hears somebody coming up from behind (we always say "on your left" or something), or for that matter, ahead, he intentionally moves over and walks directly on the center line, often poking his elbow out as we come by. It's not what you expect, of course, and sometimes results in close calls for riders unfamiliar with his little private war game. So anyway, just as I come up to him I see and hear Chad Jay coming toward him and they both stop and start arguing. Apparently when Jay had come up on him he'd issued the usual "on your left" at which point Crazy Guy had done his usual sachet to the left. To make matters worse, Crazy Guy said something to the effect of "F*&k You" as Jay passed. Anyway, Jay soon realized that no good would come from trying to have a rational conversation with this idiot, and met the rest of us for the morning ride where I brought him up to speed on Crazy Guy history and tried unsuccessfully to get a photo of Crazy Guy in action (it was still too dark). The rest of the ride was relatively uneventful other than the occasional patches of thick fog. It was such a nice day, though, that after work I went back out for a little spin just to enjoy the scenery.

Thursday arrived just a bit cooler and more than just a bit more windy, and I was surprised by the number of people up on the levee for the 6:15 ride. The sky was overcast, so it was even more dark than usual as we rolled out. I could see there were a couple of guys pushing the pace from the start, and soon we were going way, way too fast for the conditions. I mean, it was hard enough to see the edge of the road, much less the pedestrians. I very quickly put a couple of extra feet between me and the rider in front of me, just to be on the safe side. Man, we really need to keep the speed down until there's a little light. This morning was kind of scary, especially when the speed really ramped up.

Between the speed, the crosswind, and the darkness, the group started to fracture pretty early today. At one point, about halfway out, I guess, there was yet another surge, and rather than walk the tightrope along the edge of the asphalt I thought I'd drop back a bit and maybe see if we could get a second paceline going. When I did, I was surprised to find that, other than Tom, the rest of the group had already dropped off the pace. So I just put my head down and sprinted back up to the front group. It was so dark today that I didn't turn off my headlight until we were almost to the turnaround out at Ormond. The return trip was not a whole lot better, and between Rob, VJ and Woody the pace stayed high enough, long enough, that by the time we were getting back into Jefferson the paceline was getting pretty fragile. At first, everyone was taking pulls at a fairly even pace. Then the pace started to fluctuate depending on who was on the front. A little later people started skipping pulls, opening gaps in the paceline. Then, to twist the knife, Rob and Woody threw in a few little attacks. By the time we got back to the Playground, I was only too happy to dump it back into the small chainring and back off for the ride home.

Unplanned Recovery

Ahh, the "morning after." Monday morning I got out of bed with a muffled grunt. The quads were a little reluctant and the back has certainly felt better. It's been worse, though, so I did eventually make it out to the relatively abandoned levee bike path. Needless to say, a nice easy active recovery ride was in order, so I put in a bit over an hour of easy spinning and called it a day, hoping to be more or less ready to go by Tuesday. The Wife had a late morning flight out to Tucson on Tuesday for a conference, so it was looking like I'd be able to do the long levee ride and still have enough time to drive her to the airport. That was the plan until about 2:30 am when the phone rang. It was Orbitz informing her that her flight had been cancelled and she'd been automatically re-booked on a much later flight. Well, the "much later" part was a problem, so after about an hour of internet and telephone work she was able to get a spot on an earlier flight. Unfortunately, that pretty much knocked out my morning training ride. I was holding out some hope of getting in a ride after work, but as it turned out I didn't get out of the office until nearly 6:30, so I just logged it as an unplanned recovery day.

I got the nearly full results of Rouge-Roubaix at around 5:30, so by 6 am I had them up on the LAMBRA website. I was rather surprised to find that I ended up 22nd in the A race - better than last year. I was first in the 45+ and Keith was 2nd in the 35+ (not counting the masters who rode their categories rather than their age groups), so that's not too bad. Jorge and Dave made the top 20 in the Cat. 4 race too. There was some controversy about one of the Metro VW riders who apparently ignored the 3-mile neutral zone at the start and stayed off the front for a long time, causing some other teams to chase. It's always something.....

The race certainly got a lot of media attention this year. There was even an article in the New York Times. Go figure. So I think I may try and sneak in a few extra miles tomorrow morning before the regular ride starts. The weather around here is still pretty warm and dry, and I hate to see that go to waste!

Rough Stuff at the Rouge

At 4 am the alarm went off and the first thing I thought was "it's really 3 am." As if 4 am wasn't bad enough, we'd switched to DST that morning, losing one badly needed hour of sleep. Fortunately I had spent some time the day before getting my act together for the eleventh running of Rouge-Roubaix. I had even primed the coffee maker with some decaf, set to click on at 4:15. I was picking up Mark and Vivian along the way, and didn't want to be late since parking is always a bit of an issue at this race (it starts at a hotel parking lot). Things went remarkably smoothly and the Volvo with three bikes on its roof hit the interstate right on schedule, tucked safely in the draft behind Lawrence and Mignon. We arrived just in time to snag what were probably the last couple of parking spots in the front lot, so that was good. It was warm and humid this year - shorts and a jersey weather. This was a good omen for sure.

There were lots of NOBC riders here for this race, so we rounded up most of them for a quick group photo about ten minutes before the A race started. The bulk of our riders would be doing the "B" race (Cat. 4 and Women), so it was just Keith and me in the A race. The Metro VW team was there in force, so I knew things would get rough at some point. My usual plan for this race is to stay safe and save everything for the second gravel section at around 65 miles. Usually, the first gravel section is fast, but I've always been able to come out of that one with the main pack.

Twenty-five Miles: Well, until yesterday, that is. Gravel road #1 was really loose and dusty this year, and with the front guys pushing the pace at around 25-27 mph it felt much harder than usual. Luckily I had been able to get a good position near the front going into the gravel. We were probably less than half-way through that gravel section (it's the longest one at maybe six miles or so) when a gap opened up one or two riders ahead of me. I made the crucial mistake of not going around and closing it while I could. It was one of those gaps that doesn't look too dangerous at first but then just gradually starts to widen and before you know it, it's too big to bridge. So I found myself sitting behind this one guy who was rolling pretty well and picking good lines through the sketchy gravel, but going just a bit slower than the riders ahead of us. I guess there were about thirty ahead of us. So I took a pull at one point, dropped back behind him again and discovered there was nobody else with us. Damn! When we finally got back to the asphalt I looked back and saw a few riders chasing, so we rather quickly established a group of five riders that included Diego. Way up the road, about a minute up, we could see another group of about a dozen. The lead group was gone, gone, gone. Now the real work was about to start.

Usually I count on this long stretch between the first and second gravel sections to recover in the draft of a nice big group. This time, though, we were in full-on team time trial mode for about twenty miles until, with a final surge, we finally closed in on the other group. We were only five miles away from the second gravel section and I was quite worried that the effort of the chase might have taken too much out of me for the upcoming climb. At this point I think our group constituted the second group. There were three (or four?) Herring riders in this group and they were still focused on the lead group that was apparently still visible occasionally way up the road. The lead group must have had twenty to twenty-five riders I guess. (Haven't seen the results yet.)

Sixty-five Miles: We hit the second gravel section with its long steep climb and as usual things shattered. I was absolutely thrilled to make it over the top of this one without blowing up, and for the rest of this section I was riding with a few other riders. At one point I got kind of forced out of line on a sketchy downhill and got into the really deep loose stuff near the edge of the road. I came about as close as you can come to going down without actually doing it. In fact, the guy who was in the following car, which at the time was right behind us, found me at the finish line to comment on how he was sure I was going down and couldn't believe I'd managed to save it. When we got off of this section the group I was with was down to maybe seven riders and right away it got organized into a nice smooth paceline where everybody was pulling. My legs were feeling reasonably good. The last gravel road, with it's impossibly steep climb, was coming up fast.

Eighty Miles: Although the first gravel section had been really loose and sandy, the last one was excellent this year. Much of the road was kind of hard-packed dirt with random patches of gravel and sand, so at least there were places where you could get some traction. As always, this was the hardest effort of the race for me, and there were a few times where I was right at my limit in the 39x25, but somehow I made it over the top and fell in with a few other riders. When we had hit that first climb, Woody made one last effort, said something to Frank, and lurched to a stop. After having chased down the early break and working at the front protecting his remaining teammates, he was done for the day. We exited this section with, I think, four riders, one of whom didn't last too long, so for the last fifteen miles there were just three of us - Frank Moak, me, and another rider (who was looking relatively strong). Once again, it was team time trial mode for me and we quickly got a nice even rotation going, passing a couple of stragglers from the lead groups along the way. It was clear, though, that we were all starting to fade. Our speed, which had started out around 23 mph, was steadily dropping, and with ten miles to go we were struggling to hold 20-21 mph on average, and the climbs were really starting to hurt. Somewhere around 90 miles in I started skipping a pull here and there to try and recover. I didn't care at all how I placed among this group, I just wanted to avoid at all costs having to ride the last stretch solo.

One Hundred Miles: When my computer showed 100 miles I was starting to get some cramping on the inside of my legs. I was sitting on Frank's wheel and as we went up a little climb he looked over and apologized. I told him I was starting to cramp up myself and was just trying to hang on to the finish. As he slowed, I rolled slowly past him. The other guy who was with us was already a few bike lengths ahead of us, apparently focused on catching a lone rider who was hovering half a minute up the road. I thought I might be able to gradually pull us back up there. Well, I think Frank kind of sat up at that point, because the next thing I knew I was alone and I was definitely not catching either of the two guys ahead of us. There were only a few miles left to go, so I figured I'd just try and maintain a steady pace. When you're that tired it's almost as hard to slow down as it is to speed up. You just get kind of locked into this one speed. So I finally finished somewhere in the 4:42 neighborhood, I think, which I guess was respectable.

I waited with Keith, who finished not long afterward (he crashed on the second gravel road) at the finish line hoping to see Ed and Brady and Steve and the rest of our Cat. 4s finish. There was a little sprint for the lead Cat. 4 group, but none of them were there. What really impressed me was to see Casey Gale from Metro VW finish third in this group. She can't weigh more than 110 and looks like she's barely old enough to drink. The future of U.S. women's road racing is looking pretty good. Anyway, as it turned out, Ed and Brady had made an early break and I guess were going pretty good until Ed broke his chain on the second gravel section. Not much you can do about that except to climb into the follow car. I'm not sure what the finish order was for our guys in the Cat. 4 and Womens races were. I know Ed K. had to drop out after an asthma attack (the pollen and dust were pretty bad), and of course Ed. N. couldn't finish.

So we're all back at the finish line trading stories about who crashed (a lot of people) and who flatted (even more people), and eating pastalaya and drinking beer and I'm still looking for Vivian who hasn't shown up yet. After a while I spot the officials, who had just arrived back at the hotel parking lot, a mile or so from the finish line, where the awards were being done. I walk over and ask about Vivian and just get this blank look, when I hear someone talking loudly and look up. It's Vivian rolling into the parking lot asking "where is the finish line?" Well, it appears that the officials decided to shut down the finish line at like 7 hours after the first group had started, so when Viv came through a short time later there was no finish line, no officials, no clock, etc. She was left wondering if she'd missed a turn or something. Anyway, the official looked up and wrote her name down on the results sheet, so at least she didn't get DNF'd. As it turned out, Viv had flatted in the first few miles of the race and had ridden most of it alone. On the way home she asked me to remind her next year that she never wants to ride this race again. Yeah, right.....

Addendum: Full results

Here We Go Again

Friday morning's ride turned out to be a nice easy spin with Donald and Woody. I had been expecting to meet Christophe for the usual Friday ride with whoever showed up, but it didn't quite turn out that way. 6:40 am came and went and there was no sign of Christophe, so, thinking that perhaps he'd been delayed or gotten the meeting place wrong, we all headed down toward Audubon Park to look for him. Since Woody was riding Rouge-Roubaix on Sunday, he was planning an easy spin like me, so this worked out well. We never found Christophe, but still had a nice ride around the Park and then back down the levee. The weather was practically perfect. Later that morning I checked my email and found Christophe's message saying his bike (FedEx) had been delayed and wouldn't arrive until later that day.

So after a quiet day at work I met Christophe and friends down at Cooter's for a little while and made arrangements to meet this morning to ride out to the Giro.

Saturday's weather was picture-perfect. I rolled out at 6:30 am in shorts and a jersey and we headed off for the lakefront with a nice little tailwind. The plan was to meet the Giro, ride about halfway out, and then turn around and ride back at an easier pace. The Giro was just a little subdued today since so may of the regulars were planning on doing the Rouge, but we still got in a few miles of good intensity before turning off with Mark and Russell. When we got back to the parking lot the weather was so great that we stopped for a little coffee break before riding home. I guess we ended with around 45 miles or so.

Tomorrow I'll be up at 4:00 am, assuming I remember to set my clock ahead tonight, rushing around to load up the LAMBRA race clock and radios and stuff, along with my own bike and wheels, and pick up a few teammates. I'm hoping we will be on the road by 5 am, but I think we have a little flexibility there with a two-hour drive and 8 am start time. The weather for tomorrow is looking good -- really good. It might be just a bit chilly for the first hour, but basically it will be a nice spring day. Every time I meet someone else who's riding the Rouge, he asks, "So, are you ready for Rouge-Roubaix?" My answer, of course, is, "Of course not." There are just too many variables about this race to make predictions. Aside from the obvious ones, like my general level of racing fitness or lack thereof, there's the unknown consistency of the gravel and dirt, the heat, the fact that I probably won't have a feed, the distance, how my tires and bike will hold up, etc. I'll ride this one conservatively as usual, focused more on not getting dropped too early than on being a factor in the race.

Another racing season begins. Here we go again.....

Long Spring Pacelines

This morning you'd never have guessed that just a few days ago we were bundled up in multiple layers of fleece-lined lycra battling icy northern winds. Today I could have gone out in just shorts and a jersey, although I did pull on the arm and leg-warmers in consideration of my old rusty joints. Besides, the shock alone might have been enough to induce tendonitis. The ride started out with the temperature comfortably in the 50s under a clear blue sky and with a moderate breeze. For all practical purposes, it was a Spring day. The grass suddenly looked greener, the Azaleas are all in full bloom, squashed Japanese Plums litter the edges of the neighborhood roads, and the Oak trees are almost fully loaded.

It must have been this nice weather that lured so many riders up to the levee for the long Thursday ride. I guess we had about twenty on hand this morning, a few of whom again reported seeing a Coyote down on the batture a few miles away. I was happy to find my legs finally returning to near normal, although the neck and back soreness looks like it will linger another day or so. Even so, I was intent on keeping my own effort level out of the red zone on this ride. With the race coming up this Sunday, I wasn't the only one holding back today, either. As we started out I could see that Rob was having none of this "save your legs for Sunday" stuff. He hung well off the front of the group for a long time, occasionally visiting the paceline momentarily, but quickly losing his patience and rolling off the front again. There was a nice bit of tailwind on the way out, so we were still rolling along in the 27 mph range. After a few surges and gaps and chases Rob and Brady eventually took off and the rest of the long Spring paceline settled down into a nice fast rotation. Well, most of it anyway. With the relatively warm air and sunshine, this was a great day to be on the bike -- one of those days when you just don't want to go home.

Out by the Ormond Plantation, however, the asphalt ends and we turn around and however reluctantly, we go back home. Now, one thing that had made the ride out to the turnaround so great was that nice little tailwind. Naturally, that meant a lot of headwind and crosswind for the return trip, and with so many people in the group I knew that real estate would be in short supply for those near the back. Sure enough, once we hit a long stretch of crosswind the last ten riders were precariously lined up along the edge of the road, none of them getting much of a draft. When Mark G. got a little too close and bailed out onto the grass, I thought, "we really need to get a second paceline going." As you know, that elusive second paceline is one of the rarest things one will ever encounter in the U.S. Riders seem to prefer risking life and limb clinging to the last three inches of asphalt where they're still not getting a draft. So I thought, "what the hell, let's give this a shot." Once Mark was back on board I said, "Let's get a second paceline going," and Big Richard looked over and nodded approval. Within seconds it happened. It actually happened. We had a beautiful second paceline of maybe seven riders where everyone was getting a draft in the crosswind. I almost couldn't believe it. So we hung there, a couple bike lengths behind the front group, rotating like clockwork and making sure not to get so close that their riders would start dropping back into our group. We rode almost all of the last half of the ride back that way. My legs were very happy!

So it looks like we have a respectable number of NOBC riders signed up for the Rouge-Roubaix this weekend. The weather is looking like it will be warm and so far there isn't much threat of rain, so I expect the turnout will be really good. Fellow blogger Christophe is coming down to NOLA from NY tonight for the Rouge and is planning on making the Friday morning ride with us. We'll probably do some of the Saturday Giro Ride as well, but I'm planning on cutting it short because the last thing I need is to start the Rouge with sore legs. I've had about enough of that already this week and considering my current status I know damned well that I'll be running on fumes by mile 80 anyway. I was sorry to read the other day that Jill had to abandon the Iditarod Invitational after falling into a snow-covered trench, getting soaked with water, and then going another seven hours in temperatues that dipped to 25 below and eventually froze her boot to her leg resulting in some frostbite. Did I hear somebidy complaining about that 38F headwind last weekend??

Meanwhile, the New Orleans triathlete community is in full-on Ironman New Orleans mode lately. They've already been organizing groups for open water swims in the lake, which of course is still pretty damned cold even in a wetsuit. For a lot of these folks it will be their first experiences with wetsuit swims, but lucky for them some of the GNOTRI coaches are holding swim clinics in addition to the big group training rides they've been doing on the weekends.

Unrecovered

I guess I'm either having a particularly hard time recovering from last weekend's rides (which I didn't think were exceptionally difficult in the first place), or there's something else going on. Anyway, my neck and upper back are still sore and I just generally feel lousy. I sure hope things are more or less back to normal before it's time for me to torture myself this Sunday at Rouge-Roubaix. Perhaps I should have gotten more sleep last night. Problem was, I had to rebuild the the BikeReg registration website for our upcoming 2-Person Time Trial. Apparently BikeReg had a major hardware (and planning?) failure shortly after I had set up the original site. Anyway, I guess I ended up fooling with websites until almost midnight (again).

The Velo-News Race and Ride Guide that arrived in my mailbox the other day had a nice little writeup on the Rouge-Roubaix. Nice!

At least it was somewhat warmer this morning. It was still chilly by my standards, but there's a big difference between upper 30s and upper 40s, especially when it starts getting warmer as soon as the sun comes up. The wind was still a long way from calm, but much improved compared with the last few days. Our morning training ride group numbered about ten, I guess, and everyone seemed happy to roll along at a nice moderate pace which made for an enjoyable, if unremarkable, ride.

Work was difficult today, mainly because I seemed to be having a lot of trouble concentrating. Hell, I had a lot of trouble just staying awake half the time. So anyway, I'm hoping I'm not coming down with the head cold that seems to be going around lately.

Beaten with a Stick

My legs were still sore Monday morning, and just in case that wasn't enough to keep me inside, the temperature was in the 30s, the wind was still strong, and the back of my neck was so sore that it hurt to turn my head. Basically, I felt like I'd been beaten with a stick from head to toe. A recovery day was clearly in order. I guess the neck and back soreness might have come from one of those (two) hard efforts I'd made on the velodrome, but I really don't know. Even today I feel like I pulled muscles, such as they are, all the way from the base of my skull to my lower back on one side.

This morning I was quite disappointed to find my legs still unrecovered and my neck and back somewhat worse. The temperature was somewhere in the 40s and the wind was still blowing. I really needed a break, but decided to go out for the long levee ride anyway. There was a good group up there when we started, but pretty soon the relentless crosswind, combined with some hard pulls by Rob (who was turning around early) and Woody, started cracking the paceline. It wasn't much longer before a small group split off the front. The whole time I was thinking, "I shouldn't be going this hard." Shortly before The Dip, I was dropping back after a pull and swung a little too far over while latching onto the last rider. I balanced on the edge of the asphalt for a moment and then bailed out onto the levee grass. Then I had to slow down in order to get back up onto the bike path, opening a huge gap. I made a big effort and finally closed the gap. I don't' think any of the other guys knew what had happened to me. After a couple of the guys in our group turned back at The Dip, the pace dropped down a notch and got smoother, so by the turnaround we weren't very far ahead of the second group.

The ride back was mostly right into a headwind. Man, I've had about enough of headwinds these last few days. By the time I got home I was feeling really tired.

Meanwhile, Matt C., who had crashed and broken his collarbone last weekend, emailed me after his appointment with the Tulane orthopedist who had handled Jenn's and my collarbones. Although the EJ Hospital orthopedist had just looked at the x-ray from the ER and sent him on his way, Dr. Savoie had some real x-rays done that revealed four breaks in the collarbone with one piece that was liable to float around almost anywhere, like maybe into a lung. So Matt's scheduled for surgery on Friday for some new Titanium hardware. On the upside, the screwed together collarbone will mean he might be able to do the upcoming Ironman New Orleans after all, although obviously not at his usual level of intensity.

All About the Wind

This weekend's cycling was, in very large proportion, all about the wind. Saturday morning found me flying north along the freshly paved Marconi Drive, a stiff and warm tailwind at my back. I was looking for a hard workout, and judging by the wind I knew I'd get one. Arriving at the parking lot on Lakeshore Drive in record time, I learned that Mark G. had forgotten his jersey and so everyone was waiting for him and VJ, who had offered to lend him one, to get back. So we headed out a bit late for what I knew would be a battle with the wind. As we all know, although cyclists tend to resemble sheep in a headwind, in a tailwind they tend more toward the Superhero spectrum of alter-egos. Since most of our outgoing trip was going to benefit from the southwest wind, you can just imagine the pace that was being set up at the front. For the whole stretch down Chef Highway our speed rarely dropped below 30 mph except for the one short section where the road turns to the south. I spent most of that stretch in the rotation up at the front lapping up that aforementioned hard workout. But all good things come to an end, and that holds doubly true for tailwinds. To make matters a little worse, many of those in the group were doing the long ride to Fort Pike, leaving us with just a skeleton crew for the return battle into the wind. When I finally go back to Lakeshore Drive I was pretty well toasted. Mission accomplished.

Now, the reason I'd turned around at Venetian Isles instead of doing the longer ride was that I was planning to drive up to the Velodrome in Baton Rouge to bring the medals for the LAMBRA Track Championships. I hadn't wanted to skip the Giro, since I felt I needed the miles, so I'd already missed the morning session, but since the evening session wasn't scheduled to start until 3 pm I figured I'd throw the track bike in the car and practice my left turns while I was there. The only problem was that a big cold front, which had caused the strong winds earlier in the day, was moving through around mid-day. When I left New Orleans the temperature was nearly 75F. When I arrived in Baton Rouge, a bit more than an hour away, it was down to something like 58 and the wind had shifted around to the north and grown even stronger. As the small contingent of trackies assembled for the afternoon session (there were probably only a dozen riders) everyone was pulling on the arm and leg-warmers. I was glad that just before leaving, I'd grabbed my arm-warmers and a jacket. I was not glad, however, that I'd failed to actually put the arm-warmers into my bag! I dug through my bag and came up with two jerseys and an old pair of knee-warmers, so that kind of saved the day. As for the racing, well I rode a 3-person scratch race in which I came in either second or second-to-last, depending on your point of view, along with a Kilo that was more of a promenade, and the first leg of an Olympic Sprint. It was nice to be back on the track after an absence of something like four years.

So by Sunday morning the temperature was in the mid-30s and the wind was just howling out of the north. I would later find out that Lakeshore Drive had been closed because of the water washing up over the seawall. I myself, however, was headed for the northshore ride. I knew this one would be pretty brutal, and considering the cold and wind was pleasantly surprised that we ended up with nine riders. You can probably guess who those zealots were. We huddled around and inside the cars hiding from the wind and trying to decide what to wear. I opened my bag, looked inside, thought for a moment and said, "I'm wearing everything."

So the first twenty miles of the ride were, for the most part, straight into the wind. Ed N. and Jason were feeling none of the pain that I was and kept the pace fast enough that within a few miles the temperature ceased to be a problem. That just left the wind and the pace.

Way out on the back side of the course there's a longish hill that always begs for a sprint to the top. By then my legs were burning with every hard effort, and when the surge came mid-way up, I decided to back off. When things finally flattened out I could see that there were two small groups ahead of me and two people behind me. I made something of an effort to close the gap up to the next group, but once they started working together I never really had a chance, so I rode that seven miles or so alone, pretty much on the rivet, but thankfully with something of a tailwind. They were a good minute plus ahead of me by the next intersection, and the two behind me had been dropped really early along that stretch, so I decided to wait for Mark and Mignon. So I waited, and waited. I finally called Jason who I knew was waiting with the rest of the group about a mile down the road and told them to go ahead. I'd wait for the others and we'd take the shorter route to Enon and regroup. So I started riding the course backwards but was beginning to wonder why I hadn't seen the others yet. They might have had a flat, or one of them might have really bonked, or they might have taken a shorter route back. A couple of miles later I was about to turn around when my cellphone beeped with a text message that had just been delivered because I'd apparently been in a dead zone back at the intersection. It said that they had taken an earlier shortcut. Better late than never! So that left me with a nice eight or nine mile solo ride on already dead legs, but at least the sun was out, so I enjoyed the solitude and nice road and pushed myself along in the crosswind at speeds in the 14-19 mph range thinking, "this is great preparation for those last ten miles of Rouge Roubaix next week."

We did all regroup at Enon as planned, except for Mignon and Mark who had already passed through there earlier (Mignon later backtracked to meet us on Tung Road). At one spot on Tung Road, where there's a steep little hill that I have officially named "Redneck Hill," stands a little house that is always flying a Confederate flag and and Army flag. Just in case there should be any doubt as to the type of people living there, they have conveniently erected a nice little spray-painted sign, complete with visual aids. Afterward we climbed the fence at the school and went across the street to eat at a new little Mexican restaurant. That was pretty good, actually. I think we were the only ones there who weren't speaking Spanish.