Big Ride Weekend

Saturday's weather was nice -- really nice -- especially for the last weekend in May. Since we had a little post-Giro Ride Tour de La planning meeting on the schedule, I took the easy way out and drove the car out to the Lakefront, mainly so I'd have somewhere to stash the bike while we were eating breakfast, but also so I'd be able to wear normal shoes and a regular shirt. The Giro group was quite big; definitely the largest it's been all year. I'd guess there were around 50 riders, and that was before we caught up with the triathlete group as we crossed the Industrial Canal bridge. Once we made it past that group the speed started to increase and pretty soon we were strung out in a big long 30 mph line. It didn't change much all the way out to the Venetian Isles turnaround. As we got closer to the turnaround sprint some of the riders who had been hammering up at the front started to drop back and I found myself up near the front. Even so, I was still hopelessly too far back to really contest the sprint, but I made an effort anyway, just for the training. Just when the lead riders passed whatever sign they took for the finish line (these training ride sprints are a little ambiguous sometimes) I heard a loud "psssssssst." I glanced down to confirm that it wasn't me, and when I looked back up I could see Woody already riding on the rim. Most of the group except the handful who had actually sprinted usually turn around a little early, so I doubt they ever knew about Woody's flat. So eight of us stopped and waited for Woody, then, not 200 yards later, his tire went flat again. It turned out that the plastic base tape had gotten kinked, probably by the tire lever when he removed the tire, and the exposed edge sliced the new tube. We finally got that fixed, but were way too far back to catch the main group even if we'd taken the Bullard Rd. shortcut, but it turned out OK anyway. We got a fast and super-smooth 8-man rotation going and had a good workout all the way back.

Back at home I refueled, showered, and retired to the living room couch for a while, only to be rudely awakened by the mail dropping through the slot. Just to twist the knife, today's delivery included a special invitation from Criminal District Court. All I can say is that if they select me for a trial, somebody's probably going to jail......

On the calendar for Sunday was a ride on the Tour de La road race course up north of Folsom. The sky was clear and even at 6:15 am when I headed over to pick up Sam you could tell that the heat and humidity was making a comeback. Once again, I was surprised by the turnout. There were at least 25 riders when we rolled out just after 8 am. The road course features a lot of low rolling hills and nice narrow tree-covered country roads, so we didn't really feel the effects of the blazing sun until around 10:00. The first three laps were done at nearly race speed, complete with a few attacks and blatant centerline violations thrown in. Keith was out on his brand spankin' new Giant with SRAM Red and spiffy new white shoes.

The last few miles of the third lap were essentially like the last few miles of a race with one rider off the front, a couple of solo attempts to bridge, and finally a small group trying unsuccessfully to pull the rider back before the finish. I spent much of that lap at the back, for some reason. I guess my legs were feeling a little tired today for some reason. The last three miles are probably some of the hardest on this particular loop, but at least I finally got my butt up to the front and did a little work.

After that lap we all turned around and met up at the local fire station, behind which Jason had earlier stashed an ice chest full of cold Gatorade. Most of us did one more lap, this time a bit slower, before finally rolling back to the cars with around 70 miles on the odometers. After running out of spray-on sunscreen yesterday, and having used instead some sort of thick white stuff instead, I made a special trip to pick up a fresh bottle of the good spf 30 stuff after the ride today.

Long Lines

I left work a bit early yesterday, but it wasn't so that I'd have time to ride out to the lakefront for the weekly Wednesday Worlds training race. Instead, I had to meet with an A/C contractor to get an estimate on a new system for the house. I've been putting this off for at least six or seven years. Anyway, by the time I had the estimates in hand and the nice man got back into his truck and drove away it was just past 5:30. I knew I'd never make the start of the training race, but since jumping into these is perfectly acceptable, provided one adheres to the unwritten rule of going to the back and waiting a lap or so before doing anything that might affect the outcome, I rushed out the door, heading north. It's already feeling a lot like summer around here, and by the time I got out there I was pretty well warmed up. I guess I missed about a lap and a half. The race was fast and aggressive, and the group spent a lot of its time strung out in a long line at 28-30 mph. I did what I could without getting dropped, making more than one bridge across to threatening breaks. Kenny was hovering about in the group on his TT bike, occasionally launching off the front to do some planned 3-minute intervals. On the last lap a break went clear, but somehow the group closed it in time for the finish, I think. Anyway, it was a great 40 minute workout. Afterward, I rode all the way west on Lakeshore Drive with a few other riders, finally turning down Canal Blvd. to head home and completely forgetting that the whole blasted right lane is blocked off for construction. I was a bit tired and really irritated with myself for forgetting that, and ended up having to weave in and out of traffic pylons and barricades to keep from getting run over in the narrow left lane that was still open.

This morning's long levee ride was particularly well-attended for some reason. As is usually the case when I add the Wednesday evening training race to my usual routine, I was feeling a little tired from the start. I should probably shorten my Tuesday or Thursday rides in order to accommodate the Wednesday Worlds, because I'm not getting quite enough recovery from these three hard days in a row. So anyway, there were at least 25 riders this morning, and on the way out Tim, Rob and Woody were pushing the pace, so the group was strung out into this long line all the way out to The Dip. Once I dropped back, the pace was so fast and the line so long that I decided to just stay where I was rather than try to sprint up closer to the front in order to take a few pulls. Things settled down a bit after The Dip, though, so I was able to take a few pulls now and then anyway. Most of the riders in the group made it all the way out to the turnaround today. The wind was really light, which makes it much easier to stay in the draft even when it surges.

Well, and exciting NSF webcast on the ARI and MRI programs is just starting so I'm gone.....

Wings and Wildlife

Tuesday's ride was only half-hard, which is to say that we had a relatively easy ride back from Ormond. I was both disappointed and surprised to find the remnants of the weekend still lingering about in my legs. Granted, there had been a number of intense efforts and sprints, but the distances were moderate and the duration of the hard efforts limited. Such is the price one pays for the wisdom of age, I suppose. The Daughter and her friend left today to head back up to Iowa City after a brief visit. Yesterday evening her friend, who is training for a 50-mile run, got dropped off out at Ormond and ran the 20 miles back to Audubon Park. The Wife rode with her the whole way to keep her company, while The Daughter drove the car back to Audubon Park where I met her. Then we rode upriver on the bike path, eventually meeting up with them about ten miles out. By then it was almost dark and we were riding in a cloud of gnats and flying termites. The streetlights on the road below were swarming with bugs, mostly termites, I think, since it's that time of year. On the bike, they were getting stuck in my hair, going down the front of my jersey, and into my eyes, mouth and nose. It was like that most of the way back, riding in the dark at 8 mph and being pelted by a virtual rainstorm of insect life. It was like something right out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

So this morning the legs were feeling better and I was up early to meet the Wednesday ride. It's been interesting riding along the levee lately because the water level has gotten pretty high. In most places the batture is entirely underwater, which has attracted all sorts of wildlife to that thin strip between the levee and the willow trees. Birds, reptiles, jumping fish, rabbits and native New Orleanians with fishing poles in one hand and beer in the other abound. The ride itself was good. Scott has started riding with the group again, his left hand still in a brace following the surgery he needed to reattach a nerve that was severed in his crash a couple of weeks ago. When he rode up to the group this morning Donald asked him if he'd taken up boxing. (I guess you had to be there.....) Anyway, everyone was taking nice long pulls today since the group was small and the wind was light. It was a good day to look at the wildlife. In fact, as we were on the cool-down segment of the ride after the playground, I heard Big Richard behind me asking if I had my camera.

He'd spotted some kind of water snake swimming alongside the levee. I turned around and tried to get a photo, but the snake spotted us and started heading for the trees. Hopefully I'll make it out to the lakefront this evening for the training race. I just got back from Whole Food where I ran into Jenn while buying a sandwich. Then, before I rode back to the office, I couldn't resist stopping over at PJ's on Magazine for a Granita. Now I just feel stuffed.....

Nice Long Weekend

Saturday night I left the alarm clock set for 4:45 a.m. Once again I picked up Rich and Mignon and we made the drive up to St. Francisville for the final stage of the West Feliciana Classic stage race. The Sunday races were run on the same course as Saturday's races, but in the opposite direction and, at least for the master's race, with an additional lap of the 20-mile loop. The sky was a bit overcast for the start and the temperature was relatively cool for much of the day's races. The 58 mile Master 35+ race started out quite calmly. The Midsouth team had five riders in the 14-rider field, three of whom had the top three slots on GC. Keith and I figured we were in for a hard ride. The MSM guys, and apparently most of the rest of the field, were focused on the hot spot near the end of the first lap, and as a result the pace was pretty slack until we started to get close to it. I was only a few seconds out of 3rd place on GC, and since it seemed unlikely that I could get a breakaway together that didn't include half of the MSM team, I figured my only hope was to nab hot spot and finish bonuses.

As we got close to the hot spot (I was not at all sure exactly where it was), Keith positioned himself at the front of the group and, with me glued to his wheel, towed the whole bunch for miles. The hot spot was at the top of one of the more significant little climbs on the loop and unfortunately I waited a moment too long to go. A few of the MSM guys flew past on the left and opened a big gap. I got past one of them on the climb, but the other two were a bit too far away and since only the top two spots counted for bonuses, I missed out on that.

The second lap started out with VJ towing the whole group for what must have been seven or eight miles. Everyone, including myself, seemed quite content to sit in the draft. As we got halfway around the loop there were a few good attacks. When we hit the hot spot hill on that lap there was a strong attack and I somehow found myself stuck behind a few riders who were stuck in molasses. In order to avoid crossing the centerline, I had to wait for what seemed like forever before I could get around them, and then had to make a super hard uphill effort to make the bridge up to the break of five or so. That break started working together right away, and I really thought we had a good chance of staying away, but a mile or two later we were chased down. After that I think most people resigned themselves to a sprint finish.

My legs were feeling OK and I definitely wanted a good placing in the finish. I hadn't really done the math, but I didn't really think there was much of a chance that I could move up in the GC based on a top three finish. Nonetheless, it was a bike race and there was a finish line and although it was a bit more of a drag race type finish than I like, I was definitely going to give it a shot. The MSM guys did a stellar job over the last six or seven miles. There was one attack after another, forcing Keith and me and a few others to do a lot of work and discouraging other attacks while their top two guys stayed in the relative comfort of the draft. I have to admit, there's something I like about the challenge of being outnumbered like that, but in this case it turned out to be pretty effective. Once again, Keith came to the front to give me some protection and help over those final few miles, at one point towing the whole group for quite a long time.

As usual, the sprint started a bit early (for me). With 200 meters to go I was sitting comfortably on Jay's wheel. He was definitely moving forward on the left, passing riders who were starting to fade, and for a moment I thought I had a good shot. Then he suddenly stopped accelerating, catching me by surprise. I hesitated for moment, trying to decide which way to go and losing a bit of my momentum. I ended up coming in 4th, once again one place short of a bonus, not that it would have mattered much.

In the other races, Mignon finished an impressive 4th in the women's road race and 3rd on GC, while Stephen Mire came in 2nd in his road race. Unfortunately, Stephen's TT had been pretty far down on the lis, otherwise he would have easily been in the top five. In the Cat. 1/2/3 race, Matt Davis and Frank Moak got away on the hot spot hill (aka Red Bug Hill) and finished about two minutes up on the pack. When the pack sprint came by I was happy to see Brandon right there in the mix, taking 2nd in the pack sprint. In the Cat. 5 race Rich Stolz finished mid-pack with a respectible 15 th on GC in his first ever stage race.

It was a fun event, even though I was a little disappointed with my TT time and my utter failure to get any of the sprint bonuses on Sunday. I wish I could have gotten some photos, but we were mostly all on the road at the same time and I wasn't quick enough to catch the finishes of the Women or Cat. 4s.

West Feliciana

I woke up shortly before the 4:40 am alarm this morning, five minutes before the coffee maker was set to start and twenty before I had to pick up Rich. As I waited for my coffee I fired up the laptop to check the radar. It didn't look too bad, so I decided the bike would go on the roof for the two-hour drive up to St. Francisville. We were also picking up Mignon, making for three people, four bikes, and a whole lot of wheels, so although I could have packed everything into the wagon, putting a couple of bikes on the roof definitely keeps things from getting too crowded.

The 5-mile Time Trial course turned out to be a fair bit harder than I'd expected. Since I hadn't seen or ridden most of it, I started out pretty conservatively, planning on ramping up the speed after the first couple of miles. All was going according to plan until I hit an unexpected long and steep climb just after the three-mile point. That's where I made the mistake of staying a too-high gear and trying to slog it out to the top. I ended up bogging down badly, dropping my speed to 21 mph. The effort left me unable to really get rolling again for another half mile. So my time of 11:36 was rather disappointing, leaving me tied for 6th place. I was surprised my placing hadn't been worse since the fastest time of the day was Matt Davis' 10:07.

The next stage was a short road race, substituting for the originally scheduled criterium that was cancelled for course-related reasons. There was a hot spot somewhere around 12 miles into this race, but nobody was quite sure exactly where it was. For two or three miles, Midsouth guys were all up at the front keeping the pace up in anticipation of the hot spot. I was trying to stay up there too so I'd have a shot at it. Out of the corner of my eye I caught something painted on the road, and when I looked up ahead I could make out someone standing on the side of the road at the top of the next hill. I figured that must be the hot spot and went for it. A number of people didn't, since there was not actual sign or flag or anything. I got the 2nd place bonus. The rest of the road race wasn't too exciting. There were a few good attacks, but they were chased down pretty quickly. Although I would have liked to have gotten into a small break, I was feeling pretty outnumbered by the Midsouth guys and I doubt they would have let a break go unless it had a majority of red and white jerseys in it. So I figured I'd just have to try for a top-3 placing in the finish. The sprint seemed pretty fast. I think the road there was slightly downhill, and I found myself in the 12 pretty quickly. Somehow I managed third in this one, so altogether I guess I got back 10 seconds of my mediocre time trial.

The GC currently shows me in 4th, although there are a couple of guys who for some reason didn't get pack time. I suppose it's possible that they dropped off the back in the last couple of miles, but I kind of doubt it. Anyway, tomorrow will be a repeat of today: up at 4:40, drive to St. Francisville, start racing around 8 am.

High Water, High Season

Tuesday morning was remarkably cool. It was also remarkably windy. I had skipped my ride on Monday in order to get the Rocky Mount Stage Race results posted (yes, I'm a little compulsive about that...), and with the nice cool weather I was looking forward to the long Tuesday morning training ride. We started out with a pretty good tailwind and before long Chad was up there pushing the pace. Hard. The pace seemed unsustainable, at least for me, and I let him roll off the front a few bike lengths. From behind I heard someone say, "Good, let him hang out there for a while." The paceline was already starting to come apart a bit when Tim showed up. He was coming toward us and had to make a U-turn after we passed and then catch up to us from behind. The guys at the front didn't ease up one bit, and if it hadn't been Tim I would have held out no hope whatsoever that he'd catch. Of course, it was Tim, so he did catch up to us even though we were probably pusing 29 mph at the time. Not too long afterward, with Chad once again off the front, Woody attacked to bridge up to him. A moment later, Tim went flying past too and the next time we saw Tim and Woody they were riding back from The Dip where they'd turned around.

The rest of the way out was relatively steady, but still quite fast, and I was dreading the ride back which I expected to be headwind all the way. It was. There were times when we were riding paceline and struggling to hold 19 mph.

As the survivor group clawed its way back down the river into the ENE wind, I started to notice how high the river had gotten. It's been rising at a somewhat alarming rate lately. Down by the Huey P. Long bridge, where they had gone to great effort to build up a roadway and work area on the batture as they construct the supports for the expanded roadbed, the water looked to be three or four feet deep. A lone plastic port-o-let was still floating around down there this morning. I wonder if they will have to suspend work entirely or if there are things they can be doing up on the structure until the water recedes. Anyway, looking out at the river it's amazing how strong the current looks right now. Usually it looks like the "lazy Mississippi," but right now there are some areas that look like the Colorado, only much deeper. Anyway, as we're riding in the last couple of miles and I'm wondering why I'm feeling so gassed, I look down and notice my rear tire is going flat. Sheesh. So I stopped an snapped a couple of pictures of the river, and then nursed the soft tire down Oak Street to Zotz. Since the temperature was still pleasant, I figured I get a cup of coffee and take my time fixing the flat. Oak Street, by the way, is coming along nicely and it looks like the front few blocks should be ready to open back up soon.

Wednesday morning was much the same as Tuesday, only shorter. Tailwind on the way out, headwind on the way back. The pace once again got a little out of hand on the way out, and the ride back was once again pretty hard. I was feeling kind of flat the whole time, for some reason. Meanwhile, there has been lots of LAMBRA work to do lately. After getting last weekend's results posted on Monday, I spent nearly two hours, between last night and today, putting together the results data to upload to the USAC database. I put some new photos on the LAMBRA home page (I wonder if anyone ever looks at that?), made some calendar updates, revised the upcoming events, etc. We have a lot of fairly big races coming up. Next up is this weekend in St. Francisville where they're offering a $3,700 prizelist for the Cat. 1/2/3s at the West Feliciana Classic stage race. Then in June there are two full weekends of racing, including the Tour de Louisiane. We've been working on the final preparations for that one and I still have to put together the revised race bible, but at least the website is pretty much done and all of the appropriate logistical arrangements are proceeding nicely. I think the new criterium course on the Lakefront will be fun. Unfortunately, I'll be officiating rather than riding for that one.

The weather is still pretty nice today, so I'm planning on riding out to the lakefront for the Wednesday training race. I have a feeling the wind is going to make this one harder than usual.....

Rocky Mount Race Report

A big black snake about seven feet long slithered across the road in front of me as I warmed up for the road race stage of the Rocky Mount Stage Race on Saturday. The guy next to me looked over and remarked, "Does that mean bad luck?" I was already feeling the effects of sleep deprivation, and it took me a minute to process the reference to the "black cat crossing your path" superstition. Circumstances being what there were, Sam and I had hit the road at 12:45 am to make the 6-hour drive up to Shreveport in time for Sam's Cat. 1/2/3 race. My own Master-45+ race wasn't scheduled to start until around 11 am, so once the first wave to started, I got in an hour's nap in the car after spraying myself liberally with insect repellent. The Cat. 1/2/3 and Cat. 4 races had pretty good-sized fields.

Since this event has separate races for 35+, 45+ and 55+ masters, the field sizes tend to be fairly small, and for my 45+ race we had only 19 on the line for the road race. I like this particular road race course. It has a couple of significant climbs on it, not the least of which is a long 1 km uphill to the finish line. This year the race seemed fairly defensive for some reason. Most of the attacks were chased down pretty quickly. There was a hot spot bonus at the top of one of the climbs shortly after the start of the second of three laps, and since I figured I'd lose a bunch of time in the afternoon Time Trial as usual, I definitely wanted to take a shot at it. Well, I guess sleep deprivation must agree with my legs, because I won the hot spot with its ten second bonus. The second lap was relatively active and at one point I got into a little break that I thought might have a chance, but once again it was chased down. I'm sure if there had been a larger field, there would have been a good counter-attack after that one, but I guess there just wasn't enough reserve horsepower in the group this year. Sometimes after a little break would get caught, the pace would slow down to an embarrassingly slow speed. As we came to the final four miles I started to focus on keeping a good position near the front but out of the wind. At the start of the hill, with nearly a kilometer to go, someone jumped. That's what usually happens, and it really presents a bit of a dilemma because although it will typically break up the group, it's way too early for most people, including me, to start the sprint on this course. I was lucky to be able to stick on a wheel within the front five all the way to the top of the climb. At that point there are another 200 meters to the line and it's really hard to make yourself stand up and sprint. Luckily, I was comfortably on the wheel of Dona Grant who was picking off the riders ahead of us one by one. When he finally stood up to sprint, I went too but the finish line was coming up pretty fast. Right at the line I threw the bike across the line, just pipping Dona, who didn't realize I was even there, by a tire's width. Lucky win! Sam and I retired to our hotel room for a few hours to bolt on aero bars. For some reason I wasn't feeling sleepy, although I had essentially been awake for maybe 30 hours. Go figure. In the 35+ race, Jason got into a nice break but there was someone in there who wasn't willing to work, so the attacks started and when Jason countered one of them he got away, eventually finishing over four minutes up on 2nd place.

The afternoon time trial started at a boat launch in Shreveport where the swollen river had flooded the launch itself and some of the nearby facilities. There was a brutal wind blowing and the sky was cloudy ahead of an approaching cold front, and I was expecting the worst. I had borrowed a pair of aero wheels from Steve for this TT, but nonetheless I was expecting the first two miles into the wind to be bad enough to limit my speed to the low 20s. As it turned out, the headwind wasn't as bad as I'd expected (and the tailwind wasn't as good). I was still programmed for a cautious upwind leg, though, and was holding a bit in reserve as a result. It was probably a mistake. After the turnaround I was back up into the 27-29 mph range for most of the way, finally dumping it down a cog or two for the last half mile where I gutted it out at 30-31. After cooling down I concluded that I probably should have pushed it a bit harder on the way out, and thought I might have done a bit better if I'd ridden the whole thing one cog higher.

Ricky sent me the results after 10:30 pm that night, but by then my need for sleep had caught up with me. I woke up around 3:30 am, checked my email, and spent half an hour posting the interim results to the LAMBRA website. I was surprised to find that I'd posted the 4th fastest time in my race, so I was still hanging onto 1 place on GC by a slim 2 second margin. Jut to put my TT into perspective, though, I should note that my time of 10:54 wasn't even in the same time zone as the winner of the Cat. 1/2/3 race, Matt Davis (that's he in the photo from the crit. in front of one of the new LAMBRA banners), who posted a 9:24. I wouldn't even have made the top 20 in that race.

So Sunday morning we awoke to a cold rain. Not exactly ideal criterium weather. I looked at the radar and could see that there was some hope, but it all depended on when the cold front actually moved through. We arrived at the L-shaped criterium course in a light rain and just sat there in the car for a long time. The rain got heavier and I felt sorry for the women who were racing in the midst of it. By the time I got my bike put together my feet were wet and I was freezing cold. I searched my bag, but I didn't even have a pair of arm-warmers in there, so I put on two jerseys, slipped an old Tyvec race number between them to protect my chest, and as soon as the women's race finished I went out onto the course to try and warm up. At the start line it was obvious that a lot of our field had bailed out because of the rain and cold. I stood there waiting for the start, looking down at my blue knees, trying to control the shivering. The rain had finally stopped, but the road was soaking wet, so the first half of the race was cold and wet with constant wheel spray throwing water and grit into my face.

My only viable strategy for this race was to stay off the front, conserve my energy, and go 100% for the hot spot and finish bonuses. As usually happens when I'm cold, my legs felt like lead. The race itself was mostly pretty tame, thanks I'm sure to the sketchy wet U-turns and small field. I barely got the 2nd place hot spot bonus, and at the finish was lucky to get 3rd. It's strange how the day before, sprinting felt great, but on Sunday it felt terrible. I think it has something to do with my being cold, though. Somehow, once all the numbers were added up I ended up keeping my 1st place on GC and taking home enough to cover my entry fee and a stop at Wendy's on the way home. Sam, riding his first road race and stage race in years, survived the road race quite well, finishing with the main pack but well behind the leaders. The Cat. 1/2/3 criterium was pretty hard, and since he was only able to hang in near the back he was having a pretty hard time. With two U-turns on this course, it was like doing non-stop sprint intervals. He finally got popped off the back and called it a day. By then the front had come through and the weather was beautiful with a clear blue sky, strong wind, and dry road. I posted some photos on the NOBC site, and there are some other photos on Ryan's blog (Ryan rolled a tire near the end of the crit and it took a few stitches to put him back together. That's he signing some paperwork for the paramedic), and Alan put a bunch up on his KodakGallery site. All-in-all, it was a fun race even though the field was a bit thinner than last year.

Buzy Work

It's been a busy work week, and by the time I add in a training ride (or two), some Tour de Louisiane stuff, some Giro d' Italia, and a couple of glasses of wine, blogging has been getting short shrift. On the plus side, we've gotten pretty much accomplished over the past four days. Most of the course approvals for the Tour, which had been slow to acquire because we moved two of the stages, are finally in place. The event permit has been submitted, the event announcement is up on the home page, and online registration is ready to go live next week. There are still some new maps to make, and of course the Race Bible to update, but things are progressing. The Criterium will be on the Lakefront in New Orleans this year, which should be interesting. The old course in Covington was great, and we'll definitely return there one day, but for now the road surface has gotten so incredibly bad, and the police cost so high, we decided to seek something different. Last year we ended up breaking two plate-glass storefront windows and one car window with flying rocks thrown up by bike tires on those "paved" streets. This year it will be an L-shaped course with a couple of wide U-turns and two trips up and over the levee each lap. I think it will be a fun course.

So anyway, it was a busy week all-around. Got the car computer re-programmed so that it knows what position the passenger side window is in. It was very confused after the door got replaced a couple of weeks ago. LSU pulled a slick move with the hospital issue this week, but that's a long story that has a long way yet to go. The weather has been hot and humid all week with no real end in sight. The Tuesday levee ride turned out to be pretty fast. Chad and Rob rolled off the front really early before most of the group was ready. Next thing I know, I'm off the front with Woody. The gap up to the lead two guys was maybe 45 seconds so at first, so we weren't really in chase mode, but at some point Woody got the idea that we should chase them down and the pace picked up appreciably. I was taking shorter pulls than Woody but eventually we made contact.

Wednesday morning I probably should have gone even easier than I did, because by 5 pm I was rushing out the door and heading home so I could ride out to the lakefront for the Wednesday Worlds. We had another good sized group of around 20. I was feeling pretty good, considering, so I was kind of disappointed when the group split in the crosswind and I got stuck in the wrong half. Our group cobbled together a very disorganized chase, and with that in mind I was surprised that we didn't lose all that much more time to the lead group. After the training race I rode down to the other end of Lakeshore Drive to do a lap or two of the Tour de La criterium course so I could check out the roads and corners. It was pretty nice. Mostly really smooth asphalt with some fast turns. The only bumpy section is the part where the race goes around Shelter #1 through the parking lot. There are a lot of those reflectors glued to the concrete around there. Most of them can be avoided easily enough, and perhaps a few of the more badly placed ones might inexplicably disappear early one morning.

By Thursday morning I was feeling a little tired, but not nearly as much as last week. The ride this morning was a bit more steady than Tuesday. I did a lot of work on the way out, and then kind of took it easy on the way back. Riding to work later that morning I stopped to take a photo of the Easter Lions in front of a house on Lowerline.

The Wife heads off to San Francisco early tomorrow morning, and then on Saturday morning, around 12:30 am, Sam and I will be making the 6-hour drive up to Shreveport for the annual Rocky Mount Stage Race. It will be a long day, no doubt, with the road races in the morning and the TT that evening, but the only alternative was to leave NOLA at 7 pm, which wouldn't put us into S'port until nearly 1 am, so I figured we may as well save the hotel cost and go up on Saturday morning. Hopefully we'll be able to get in a little nap between the two stages. The road race course is reasonably challenging, with a long uphill finish that usually splits up whatever is left of the group. The bad news for me is that they've lengthened the Time Trial this year, which basically means I can lose even more time on GC than usual!

Splat!

The ride out to the lakefront was quite quiet this morning. Since it's Mother's Day, I guess a lot of people were at home cooking up eggs with smiley faces and heart-shaped toast. I didn't really know what to expect of this Giro Ride, but I figured the turnout would be pretty light. Since I'd left home a bit early, I hit Lakeshore Drive around ten minutes early, just as a small group containing Diego was heading out. I went ahead and rode down to the parking lot and got in with a small group that left right at 7 am as usual. I figured the earlier group would turn around or wait for us. Apparently I was wrong, because the next time we saw those guys they were well on their way back from the turnaround at Venetian Isles and we still had a mile to go. Our little paceline of maybe ten or fifteen was rolling along at a moderate pace - not particularly easy, but certainly a couple of notches below Saturday's mark. It was quite warm, with a pretty good breeze blowing warm Gulf air over the city, but at least there was hardly any traffic.

As we made our way down Chef Highway the pace picked up a bit and the number of riders in the rotation at the front started to drop a bit. I was having my own problems with the new handlebars I'd put on last night. I guess I was fooled by the unfamiliar curve and had gotten the brake levers way too low and the angle of the bar in general was way off. Practically from the start my fingers were going numb and I was just basically uncomfortable.

Anyway, as we got close to the turnaround we saw the premature departure group coming the other way, but we'd been doing our own thing so long already we didn't bother to turn around. Besides, the pace was ramping up nicely for a last little surge. When we were a few hundred meters from the usual sprint point, Keith Andrews attacked down the left side to put in a little sprint. Nobody else really went with him, which turned out to have been quite fortunate.

A few pedal strokes into this sprint, Keith's bike suddenly went all squirrely and then -- Splat! -- he hit the ground hard. Either his chain suddenly skipped or he pulled out of a pedal (probably both and in that order). His foot went straight to the ground, his bars went sideways and the rest was just up to pure Newtonian physics. His front wheel ended up in the bushes, one of his carbon fork blades shattered, his right knee went hard into the asphalt, and he whacked his head hard enough to crack his helmet in a number of places. I was very relived when he sat up immediately because it definitely could have been worse.

I think all of us had ridden out to the ride, but we'd noticed that Robin was in the earlier group so we gave him a call to request emergency extraction. By then he was somewhere around Hayne Blvd., so Mark and I stayed with Keith and waited maybe 40 minutes for Robin to get to his car and then make the drive all the way out to the far end of the Giro route. It was kind of a long ride home into the wind for Mark and me after that.

Keith later told me he'd gotten five stitches in his knee, but I guess everything else checked out OK. Man, just goes to show you, you never know.....

A Big Giro

"Meeting at Starbucks on Harrison Ave at 6:30 am." The text message reminded me that a new Giro tradition seems to be developing. I had never yet managed to get out the door early enough to make this pre-Giro meeting. Perhaps it was time. I had just put a shiny new cassette onto the Orbea's wheel, so it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to head out a little early Saturday morning anyway, just in case a little fine-tuning might be needed.

The morning was warm and humid. I cracked open the basement door and looked up at the pre-dawn sky. Although there was a brisk south wind blowing, the sky was clear. I fished the sunscreen out of my bag and sprayed my arms and legs and dabbed a bit on my nose. It was going to be a hot one. Somewhere over in Italy riders were lining up for the first stage of the real Giro. I arrived at Starbucks just as Woody was walking in the door and he graciously bought a cup of Estima for me. Half a cup of dark roast on an empty stomach is like crack for me, and I'm sure I was a little more animated than usual as we rode out to the lakefront to meet the Giro Ride.

It was a big Giro Ride group today. There weren't really any races nearby, the weather was good, and there are stage races looming on the local calendar, so pretty much everybody was there. It was going to be a fast one.

Sure enough, once we hit Hayne Blvd. the speed quickly shot up to 27 mph or so, occasionally surging up to 32, and pretty much stayed that way all the way out to the turnaround at Venetian Isles. How appropriate to be riding The Giro in Venetian Isles just as the Real Giro was holding its first stage in Venice. There was a pretty significant crosswind on Hayne Blvd., and later on Chef Highway, and with the big group and high speeds there were riders escheloned all the way across both lanes. Thankfully there was hardly any traffic. I'm never really comfortable riding in the left lane, so I got a lot of exercise while jumping from wheel to wheel over on the right. The sprint at Venetian Isles seemed a bit more hotly contested than usual today. When I saw Tim coming by on the left, I latched onto that train, and ended up in the 12 trying to hold his wheel and wishing for an 11. Yeah, I think we had a little tailwind at that point.

So the ride back started out kind of easy but as usual we were going all-out by the time we were halfway back to the service road turn. Also as usual a little break got off the front that the main group didn't catch before the Goodyear Sign sprint. It didn't ease up much after that, though, and we raced down the service road until everybody started yelling about something as we turned left to cross under the interstate. I though somebody had crashed and never really got a good explanation as to what had happened, but anyway we all turned around but by the time we got back there the group was rolling again.

When we got back to the parking lot Mignon rolled up to us with a broken rear derailleur cable, lamenting the fact that she'd have to ride home in the 12. We were able to get her into the 14 or 15 using the limit screw so she headed off to Jefferson with Mark as I turned into the wind for a rather long ride home myself. Later in the afternoon I made the rounds of a few of the local bike shops in order to drop off some of the LAMBRA "Race Your Bike" brochures. That was fun. I always liked hanging out at bike shops, although nowadays the prices of the good stuff are a little depressing. I just finished installing new handlebars on the Orbea. This will be a bit of an experiment. I'm trying out the new 3T Ergonova bars. This is a pretty dramatic departure from my typical conservative approach to equipment. We'll see how it goes. They're supposed to be good for smaller riders. Of course, we're talking about the aluminum ones here, not the expensive and much lighter carbon-fiber ones. While I was at it, I pulled out the seatpost because I've been getting lots of "creaking" noises lately and the last time it turned out to be grit that had gotten down in there from all those rides in the rain. Sure enough, I could feel a lot of grit on the post and inside the seat tube, so I cleaned it all up, smeared on some grease, and stuck it back in there. I hope that cures it, because the next most likely suspect is the headset and I hate messing with headsets.

From Ride to Ride

After Tuesday's long and fast ride, I was half hoping for an easy one on Wednesday morning. It was not to be, however. Although it wasn't by any means a hammer session, yesterday morning's levee ride was definitely hard enough to get my attention. It was a good training ride, but in the back of my mind I was really thinking about the Wednesday evening training race on the lakefront.

So I'm sitting at work and it's 4:45 and it's just one thing after another. Why does that always seem to happen? Some days things quiet down by 4 pm and if I snuck out a little early nobody would notice. Indeed, sometimes there would be nobody to notice. Somehow, though, I was able to slip out just after 5 pm and by 5:35 I was on my way out to the lakefront. Once again I had a nice little bit of assistance from a brisk South wind. I got to Lakeshore Drive a few minutes before 6 p.m., and when a group of 15 or so came by I got in. Strangely, they were going too slow to be doing a training race. It turned out they were taking an easy warmup lap so that they could pick up a few people who were wandering around on the course.

The six-lap training race was once again a lot of fun. I think we had around 18 riders - maybe 20 or so at the start - and the speeds were fast but manageable. It was still quite windy and after doing some work on the first lap I dropped back and decided to wait until the last two laps before putting my nose into the wind again. Of course, I still had to do some work closing gaps and that sort of thing, bit I was certainly not doing nearly as much as the guys who were consistently at the front. On the second to last lap Woody and Eddie (?) got off together and established a pretty significant gap before the rest of the group started to respond. Somehow the group pulled them back just after the start of the last lap. I spent some time in the wind on the last lap, taking a couple of long pulls in order to keep things from getting bogged down. At one point Mike W and Eddie D bumped pretty hard, but luckily everyone stayed upright. After a little discussion between the two, Eddie jumped pretty hard but it didn't stick for long. I ended up taking a fairly long pull near the end, so when the sprint started I was already too gassed to do much about it. We had a visiting rider from Ft. Worth in the group. He was riding a 'cross bike since he was in town working around one of the oil companies on the Westbank and wanted to do some riding on the unpaved levee. Anyway, he looked pretty strong.

So it was kind of hard to get up early for the Thursday morning ride today. When I awoke it felt like I had just gotten off the bike a few minutes before. It turned out to be a pretty atypical ride today. A couple of guys rolled off the front early. Donald was apparently trying to keep the pace down, so gaps kept opening up. Eventually a few of us went off the front together. It was definitely much smoother that way. As we were approaching the turnaround, we saw the front group, augmented by the Destrehan guys, already coming the other way. Usually everyone waits to regroup at the turnaround, but not today. I guess most of us all got back together after a while, but at any rate we spent a really long time riding easy. In fact, most of the ride back was pretty slow. I wasn't complaining. After three long rides in just over 24 hours, I felt like I could use a little rest.

Didn't Crash

I was a bit surprised when I arrived at the levee this morning. There was hardly any wind at all, but there was definitely some fog along the river. The sky was overcast, so I'd stuck my sunglasses into the holes of my helmet for the ride out there, but after looking down the bike path I knew they would probably stay there for the duration. After hearing Woody's report on the Sunny King criterium (he'd actually raced two of them and gotten 5th in the Cat. 2 race), the pace started to pick up. When Woody and Chad rolled past the group, I was a little bewildered that nobody went with them. I had just taken a pull and was kind of boxed in, so I just watched as they rolled down the road. After a while our speed finally started to increase and we were rolling along at 25-26 mph. First Chad dropped off and then Woody sat up, so we were all back together four or five miles later. The pace stayed fairly fast all the way out to Destrehan, though.

On the way back, things were a little more subdued. There was a nice smooth paceline at first, but then as riders started getting tired it got a bit more messy. Still, we were moving along at a respectable pace. As we got closer to the Country Club we started picking up a lot of pedestrians and other people on the bike path so that there was a constant stream of "rider up" and "runner right." We were just about all the way around the Country Club bend when suddenly I see to of the guys go down in front of us. I was a few riders back, so all I saw was Scott sliding on the edge of the bike path and Tom grass-surfing down the levee. As we coasted to a stop so we could turn around and assist, Chad, who had been behind me, said that he had nearly plowed right into me. Whew! At least this time I didn't crash! What had happened was that there had been a runner on the right side and just as Scott, who I think must have been on the front, moved over to the left, Tom, who never saw the runner, started to pass him and they bumped handlebars pretty hard. Tom seemed none the worse for wear, having landed mostly on the grass. Scott, however, had landed quite a bit harder, and on the asphalt. By the time I got back to him the runner had already given him a towel to wrap around his hand which had some deep cuts. Luckily, Jeff was parked at the playground, just a couple of miles down the road, so we sent him off to get his truck so Scott could get a ride to the ER.

On the way to work I stopped by the bank so I could activate my new Debit Card and for some reason the card reader in the drive-through ATM didn't want to read it. Perhaps it was just really slow, but since I had a deposit I needed to make I decided to go ahead and interface with an actual human. As I walked into the bank I realized that it was the first time I'd set foot in there since they rebuilt it after Katrina. Anyway, after waiting in line for a little while I got everything straightened out with the carbon-based life form and finally made my way to work about an hour late.

Grey Day

Monday morning it was grey and quiet up on the levee. There was a threat of rain for most of the morning, in fact. I was just looking for an easy recovery ride, and with that in mind I put in just an hour, stopping a couple of times to play with the camera. I didn't bother to set the exposure manually, so the camera set itself to flash mode and between that and its inability to focus quickly enough, I got a few blurry photos. By the time I left home for work the sky was looking even worse. I rode down Lowerline Street debating with myself whether I should stop and pick up some fresh coffee. It looked like it might rain at any moment, so the ten minute detour to Starbucks might be the difference between wet shoes and dry ones. I ultimately decided I needed coffee more than dry clothes. Sure enough, as I pulled out of the coffee shop a light rain started to fall. I put on my rain jacket and made it to the office without getting too soggy.

Back in Time

Instead of riding Saturday morning, I instead lugged a bunch of heavy marine batteries around so we could get The Boat started. The guy who was buying the boat showed up with six of those suckers and after I helped haul them down to the dock and up onto the boat, he proceeded to disconnect and remove six of the old ones. As he handed me the last one he remarked, "You know, I have no idea how to reconnect these, do you?" Good grief. When you've got something like nine batteries, with two banks wired in series and another for the generator, it would be wise to remove and replace them one at a time, dontcha think? Someone else showed up a bit later and after a few tries finally managed to get everything hooked up again so that the engines would start. We went out for a brief test ride and they made plans to finalize the whole deal late next week. Since there was no way to get the a/c in the house repaired until next week either, we headed back to NOLA in the early afternoon, which meant I would be back in time to make the training ride planned for Sunday morning out on the Tour de La road race course.

Sam and I headed out at 6:15 in order to make the 8:00 ride start way up north of Folsom. There was a strong southeast wind blowing and the sky was overcast, but I was thankful for the chance to get in a good training ride since I hadn't had a chance to ride at all on Saturday. That 16 mile loop is a deceptively hard one, and I had no idea how many laps the group was planning on doing. There was a nice group of about fifteen for this ride, and the first lap started out at a moderate pace. Then, when we came to the last turn on the loop the group got split when half of us stopped in order to keep from being run over by an approaching car. Once we got rolling again we could see a couple of stragglers, so we waited for them. By then the front group, which apparently didn't wait for us, was disappearing into the distance. Fortunately, I knew a little shortcut, and when we emerged from it back onto the course, the front group was right there. Perfect timing! The pace was faster for this lap, and didn't ease up much for the next one either. By the end of the third lap the group was down to seven or so and we stopped on the side of the road where Jason had stashed an ice chest full of cold drinks. We rode one more lap at a somewhat slower speed before heading back to the cars. I felt pretty good except that my back, right arm, and right hip were all sore from Saturday's unplanned battery weightlifting session.

Luckily, we missed the big thunderstorms that rolled through the northshore area about an hour after we left. We didn't get a whole lot of rain down in New Orleans, though. The forecast for tomorrow has some rain in it, but at least the probability of rain in the morning is relatively low.

In Fort Walton

Had to drive my dad over to Ft. Walton this morning (I'd originally planned on doing that in the evening, after work), so I loaded the Cervelo into the wagon and we hit the road around 9am. Things went smoothly enough until we hit Pensacola Beach, at which point everything stopped. I guess a local police officer must have been killed in the line of duty, because we sat there for a solid half hour as - I am not kidding - at least 200 police cars with lights flashing came down the highway. There were police cars from at least four counties away, along with the state police and various fire departments. I have never seen so many police cars in my life. Anyway, we arrived at the house to find that the A/C was broken.

So I took off for a quick 25 miles up to Niceville and back (after fixing the tire that somehow went flat while sitting in the car), mostly riding on the shoulder of a 4-lane highway in dangerous traffic with about 60 psi in the front tire, and when I returned the repairman was there. As I'd already guessed, the blower motor was toast. The only problem was that (a) it was a Lennox blower that had to be special-ordered, and (b) it was rigged into a too-small space in such a way that in order to get it out the system had to be drained of refrigerant because a pipe was in the way. Naturally the repair guy said he could fix everything right away, but after he had taken everything apart he then discovered that he wouldn't be able to get the correct replacement parts for at least three days.

So the bottom line is that we're getting estimates on replacing the whole blasted thing since it's pretty much on its last leg anyway. The reason we came is to sell "The Boat." So naturally when we got here, "The Boat" wouldn't start. Hopefully the batteries will hold enough of a charge by tomorrow morning to start the engines. In the meantime, I'm at the local Starbucks - the same one I hung out at after the last hurricane evacuation - downloading a form from the bank fraud department to I can get reimbursed for the stuff some criminal bought with my stolen debit card information, one item of which apparently was delivered to my house today. If someone is going to go to the trouble of stealing my debit card information and placing orders in my name to be delivered to my house, the least they could to would be to order some fancy electronics or at least porn videos instead of nutritional supplements from smartscience laboratories of dubious value. Go figure. Hopefully I'll be able to get in a long ride tomorrow if the boat transaction goes OK. I have a feeling I'll need it. It will likely be a rather warm night without air-conditioning, so I'm in no great hurry to abandon this cushy seat at Starbucks. It's around 9 pm and the place is starting to fill up with the local teen crowd. Friday night at Starbucks. Havin' fun now, oh yeah.....