Riding and Results

Tuesday's ride was kind of a hard one. I guess there was a little crosswind today, and after a while the pace started getting faster and faster. Halfway out, the paceline started to come apart, and after a big surge the gaps started to open. Next thing I knew, I was in a little group off the front with Tim and Woody and a couple of others. Riding behind Tim is about as good as it gets -- smooth, steady, and lots of draft. The only potential problem is that he may be going so fast you can't hang on. After the turnaround, it was just Tim and me for much of the way back, with Tim taking long, long pulls and me taking short, short ones. Even so, I got a pretty good workout and arrived back home tired, hungry, and dripping with sweat.

The real news, though, is that two LAMBRA riders won their national championship road races up in Louisville. First, Debbie Milne in the 40-44 age group, and then on Monday Mat Davis. in the 30-34 group. Both wins were well-deserved, too. Naturally, I had to also check the results from the 55-59 age group, which would be mine. The top five were very familiar names: Wayne Stetina, who I raced with back at nationals in 1980 (he won, I got pulled), David LeDuc, who I've raced with at more than one other Masters Nationals, Tom Doughty, who won the Tour de Louisiane one year back in the 80s, and of course Kent Bostick, the original cycling dinosaur. Probably twenty national championships among that group, not to mention at least a couple of Olympics. Anyway, it's exciting to have such great results from riders in our own little Local Association. I'll try and compile all of the LAMBRA results once Masters Nationals ends next week. Mark Graffagnini raced today, but is listed as a DNF, so I don't know what happened there. I'm hoping it wasn't a crash.

Good Rides, Ending Badly

It was another race-free weekend for me, a chance to do some group rides, put some miles in the legs, and flirt with severe dehydration. Saturday morning, with a little time to spare, I rode slowly out to the lakefront for the regular Giro Ride. A few of the stronger local guys were at the stage race in Memphis, or on their way to Masters Nationals, so I was expecting the ride to be a little easier than usual. There were a lot of bikes out at the lakefront. Besides the 40 or so people doing the Giro Ride, there were also the smaller Bovine Paceline group and the GNO Tri groups, both of which leave a few minutes earlier. As usual, the pace remained conversational all the way down Lakeshore Drive and over the Seabrook bridge and Casino overpass, but once we got down onto Hayne Blvd. things picked up considerably. It quickly became clear that it would not be an easy day. In the group was a mysterious rider in an unfamiliar dark jersey. Kenny asked, "Do you know who that guys is?" He was obviously an experienced rider who was riding well. It was a long time before I had the chance to talk to him and learn that he was visiting from Toronto. Anyway, the ride out to the turnaround at Venetian Isles was quite fast. The only thing that hinted at the missing horsepower was the fact that the pace would occasionally slacken for a minute or two before ramping back up. As we came into the last kilometer before the turnaround sprint the speed surged up to 35 mph or so. I can only assume that Howard was on the front at that point. It was way too early, and soon riders were dropping out of the rapidly disintegrating paceline and those of us who had been at the back ended up at the front simply by default. After that, I think the heat started to get to everyone and the pace on the return trip was somewhat less intense. Regardless, it was a good ride. As we cooled down (I use the term loosely) Jay said they were going to do a long ride on the northshore on Sunday, so I added that to my plans.

Sunday morning I was alone heading across the lake to meet the group for the 7:30 a.m. start. As I pulled into a parking spot at the Lee Road school, John Eagan parked alongside and quickly discovered he'd left all of his riding stuff (shoes, shorts, etc.) at home. A couple of hours later we would run into him as we were heading back. The ride started out with I guess ten or twelve riders, and although it was already getting pretty hot by 8 am, the pace was brisk and steady. Somewhere on the back side of the Enon loop we lost a few riders, but since they all knew the route we didn't wait around for them. They were so far back that we couldn't even see them, so we figured maybe somebody had a flat or something. Anyway, that reduced our number to around seven. The pace was really about perfect for me today, and other than the intensifying heat, I was feeling fairly good.

I was running strictly on sugar today. Saturday night I'd been at the welcome party for the new Psychiatry Residents and Fellows where, in addition to a few glasses of Zin and a TurboDog, I'd also sampled a couple of Plum Street Snowballs that had been enhanced with a little Bacardi Rum. This was not great preparation for a long ride in the heat. Breakfast on Sunday had been a leftover cupcake and a 20 oz. bottle of Coke, and for the ride I had a couple of gels and lots of water.

We were only about ten miles from the end of our ride when the crash happened. The last of the traditional sprints on this route is at the parish line on Lee Road. I was toward the back of the paceline and wasn't planning on sprinting. In fact, I wasn't sure anybody was until the pace surged. So I just followed wheels to keep from getting gapped off, but otherwise wasn't paying much attention. Suddenly I heard the unmistakable sounds of crashing bikes as the rider's wheel in front of me locked up and started sliding. Narrowly escaping the carnage, I went right, across the roadside gravel, into the grass, and down into the grass-filled ditch at around 28 mph. I immediately switched into mountain bike mode with my butt hanging off the back of the seat, just hoping there wasn't a big hole or chunk of wood hiding in the tall grass. It was a close one. I finally slowed down enough to turn around and what I saw didn't look good. Jaro was still sitting in the middle of the road holding his left shoulder. There was a twenty-foot long scrape mark on the asphalt. Somehow, nobody else went down, although Jay had ridden right over Jaro's fallen bike. The bike took a bit of a hit. Although the frame was spared, the derailleur hanger was dramatically bent and the derailleur itself was lodged in the spokes. Both wheels were out of true, the bars were twisted almost 90 degrees, and the brake levers were both twisted to the side. Jaro was already saying he thought his collarbone was broken. Anyway, Jay headed down the road to get his car while the rest of us found a shady spot and hung out with Jaro until he arrived to take him to the ER. The rest of the ride was just plain HOT, but at least it was short. It's been about four hours now and I still can't get in touch with Jaro, so he may still be at the hospital. So other than the crash, it was a great ride. I arrived home a couple of quarts low, judging by the bathroom scale, so I guess some rehydration is in order.....

Raindrops and Haze

Fooled again! I left work on Wednesday with plans to ride out to the lakefront for the 6 pm training race. As I rode north on Pine Street I could see the huge black clouds up ahead, and as I neared the house I felt a few cool downdrafts coming from the thunderstorm. The radar looked bad, and by 5:30 the raindrops were already falling, so I cancelled the training race plan and plopped down on the couch, a bit irritated but at least thankful that we were finally getting a little rain. It looked to be impossible that the lakefront would escape the downpour, and at any rate, I would have had to ride through the rain and lightning in order to get out there anyway. Well, as I found out later, it never rained on Lakeshore Drive and the six or seven who showed up had a nice little workout.

Thursday's long levee ride turned out to be a pretty hard one, at least on the way out. The first ten miles or so felt more like a race than a weekday training ride, but it eventually settled down. Then, on the way back, someone flatted at The Dip, and although he told the group to keep going, we had already slowed down and it took a long time before the pace picked up again. This morning's ride was a nice typical Friday ride with six or seven people and a steady speed in the 20-22 mph range. Thanks to some more rain yesterday, the humidity level was pretty high, making for a hazy sky and balmy air. You know, normal weather.

The next week will be very busy for some folks. There's the big Memphis omnium up in Tennessee this weekend to which a number of the local guys are going. Then, Masters Nationals start in Louisville on Sunday and run until the following Friday. LAMBRA will have at least ten riders up there in the various age groups, so hopefully a few of them will get some good results. This year LAMBRA is giving $150 travel grants to our riders who go to Nationals. I think we started a trend, because TxBRA just announced a similar program. Their program, of course, is restricted to Juniors and U-23 riders and there's a limit on the number of awards they can do. There are way too many riders in Texas for them to be able to do it the way we did. It'll probably cost LAMBRA around $2,000, maybe just a bit more. Money well spent, I think. Hopefully these riders will come back and share their experiences and encourage others to upgrade and compete in more regional and national races. Immediately after Masters Nationals, there's an Omnium up in Oxford, MS with a criterium on the Ole Miss campus. I think a couple of the guys are planning on driving straight from their criteriums at Masters Nats over to Oxford. Me? Well, considering the big expense for the air-conditioning system at the house, and the fact that I needed to be at the Oxford races, I think I'll have to pass on Memphis and Louisville.

Feels Like

I was up a bit too late last night, thanks to some non-standard size Brazilian wine bottle that wouldn't fit conveniently into the refrigerator. So naturally I had to stay up until I finished it. I spent some of that time sewing a boot into a practically new Michelin Pro Race tire that had gotten slashed during a race earlier this year. Yesterday's rear tire was looking pretty tired after I pulled the big finishing nail out of it and then proceeded to ride home on the flat, so I thought it might be a good time to see if I can salvage a few miles out of that Michelin. Anyway, my late night activities certainly seemed to make my 5:45 am wake-up call a little harder to take than usual. Actually, there was an earlier 5:15 alarm from my wristwatch that I keep forgetting to reset.

There was a pretty good breeze blowing up on the levee this morning. We started out riding straight into it, but the group was feeling pretty lazy today and it was a long time before the double paceline devolved into a single one, and even longer before that disintegrated into just a handful rotating at the front. As the ride went on I started feeling a little better, especially after we turned around and had the benefit of a nice tailwind. Otherwise, it was a pretty normal Wednesday ride.

The hot and dry weather continues. Last night the weatherman seemed genuinely excited that there might be a slight chance of rain today. With the temperature hovering around 100F right now, it's not looking too promising, but who knows? I think I'll make it out to the lakefront after work for the training race, if I don't melt.

Flats and Fahrenheit

Almost midnight and the temperature outside is still 85º Fahrenheit with 76% relative humidity. Luckily I'm sitting here enjoying the new air-conditioning and trying not to think about what the next electric bill will look like. I had a 2 pm meeting this afternoon at Gibson Hall and the short ride over to St. Charles Avenue was less than wonderful. I think the high today at Audubon Park was over 100 degrees. It felt just like riding with a hair dryer pointed right at your face the whole time. The meeting, by the way, was animated by the arrival of a press release from the Governor's office saying that they were putting land acquisition for the new hospital on hold until LSU and Tulane work out a plan for running the thing. Basically, the Governor is letting LSU know he's getting tired of the game-playing. He can't afford to have this new hospital project fall apart on his watch if he has any intention of running for a higher office as everyone suspects. However, I digress.....

The long Tuesday ride was today and I am still not feeling quite right. As we headed out, the pace started to ramp up as usual, but I think a lot of the guys just weren't up for the usual hammerfest today. The heat will do that. I had to close a few gaps and I guess we were still going pretty hard when we hit The Dip. I was next to Kenny when I suddenly heard this loud "clank, clank, clank" sound. I thought he'd picked up a nail or something that was hitting the chainstay, but as it turned out he'd broken a spoke in one of those funky Campi wheels with the clusters of three spokes. He waved the group on while a few of us stopped to help while he unscrewed the broken spoke from the nipple.

Then, on the way back, things started getting fast again and I found myself off the front with Tim and Kenny. I took a pull and dropped back, only to find that Kenny was gone. With the light tailwind Tim was pulling at something like 29 mph. I'd come though now and then, but the best I could sustain was more like 26-27. I looked back and couldn't see the group at all. We were around River Ridge when I heard my phone ringing. I thought that perhaps there had been a crash or something, but it was just Kenny telling me that they'd had a flat and were way behind us. Well, since we were already near where Tim pulls off to go home, I sat up and waited. Eventually Kenny and Sam came up from behind around Ochsner and when I turned off to head home Kenny came along for the ride. Then, as we were riding down Short Street, I picked up a big nail in my rear tire. I was hot and tired and there were only seven or eight blocks to go, so I pulled the nail out and just rode on the flat the rest of the way home. I guess I could have really rushed to make the Time Trial out on the lakefront after work, but my commute home felt like a ride through a blast-furnace and I just couldn't get too excited about riding out to the lake to do a 10k time trial.

High Pressure

The weather here in New Orleans has been nothing but hot and dry for over a week now, thanks to a big high pressure system that parked itself right on top of us. It's the kind of weather I expect to find in Dallas, not New Orleans, except that here the humidity keeps the temperature from dropping much overnight. So with no races this weekend, I was up kind of early Saturday morning before the Giro Ride. There's been a few riders who have started meeting at the Starbucks on Harrison Avenue at 6:30 am for a little jolt of caffeine prior to the Saturday Giro Rides, so today, since I was actually up early enough to get there on time, I did. It was already hot, so I went for the Frappuchino. After that, it was kind of hard to leave the comfy chair and ride out into the sun to the lakefront. The Saturday Giro Ride was a bit different today. First, there was some confusion about which group was the 'official' group. We were nearly to the end of Lakeshore Drive by the time we were sure everyone was together. After hitting Hayne Blvd., the pace ramped up as usual and soon we were stung out in a three block long string going 28-30 mph. The line snaked over to the right at one point and I found myself up against the curb in the loose stuff. Eddie was right behind me and I immediately heard his tire puncture. Problem was, the guys pushing the pace were too far ahead to hear us, so it probably took half a mile before somebody made it up there to tell them to back off. At that point we slowed down and soft-pedaled, looking behind every now and then for Eddie and the guys who had stopped behind him. When we got to Paris Road and they still weren't in sight, we decided they must have taken the shortcut, so we got back on the gas. A while later we're just getting going on Chef Highway when a little motorcycle with two people on it pulls alongside and starts motorpacing the guys in front. I never did find out who they were, but somebody knew them.

Anyway, we ended up in this long, long string flying down Chef with Matt glued to the motor and the rest of us kind of hanging on for dear life at 30 mph. Every now and then the motor would surge (rumor has it that Matt was prompting them) and a few more guys would lose contact. I was one of them. When you're going 30 mph and a gap opens and the wind hits you like that you have about ten seconds to close it or you're done. I made a short effort and wasn't gaining ground, so I eased over a bit and motioned for the rider behind me to come around.

To make a long story short, it was a mostly fast Giro Ride. I sprinted up both overpasses at the end, and arrived back home with 65 miles, empty water bottles, and completely toasted. Then I spent all afternoon in Baton Rouge, mostly sweating in the sun, before returning to NOLA by way Barnes and Noble, and then in the evening spent some time drinking wine with the neighbor who had her gall bladder removed a couple of days ago. (To clarify, I was drinking the wine. She wasn't.)

So Sunday morning there was an impromptu group training ride on the northshore that I wanted to make. I woke up feeling pretty tired. Maybe it was the Giro; maybe the wine; maybe the heat; maybe all of the above. At 6 am Sam texted me that he was bailing out, so I drove over alone. We had only six at the start, and really only five for most of the ride, since Keith had to turn back early. Although we'd started at 7:30, it was already getting pretty hot by 8:30, and I was really suffering. It was one of those days when it feels like your bike is made of lead and your legs are blocks of wood. From what I could tell, Steve was feeling even worse, while Jay and Jorge seemed fine while Isaiah clearly wanted to be going faster. As if Steve's day wasn't already going badly enough, he flatted on the way out. I think, though, that most of us were more than happy to stop and take a little break while he fixed it. Later, on the back side of the course where it gets kind of hilly, things got a bit competitive. I attacked up one of the bigger climbs and soon afterward Jay and Isaiah attacked another. I hung with them about halfway up and blew, so I waited for Jorge so we could work together to limit the damage. Steve was already way off the back. Anyway, it was a really, really hot 65 or 70 miles and I'm frankly a little puzzled why I felt so lousy, but sometimes you just have a bad day and there's nothing you can do about it.

Complications and Abbreviations

So the a/c guys showed up right on time Wednesday morning, half an hour after I returned from my training ride. They got to work tearing out the old a/c and furnace and setting up the new ones, and by mid-afternoon they were telling me they were almost done. Awesome. I might be able to make the Wednesday Worlds training race on the Lakefront after all.

Well, not quite.

First there was some big argument and I could hear the guy in charge reaming out one of the younger guys for something. Then it got quiet for a while. Then I started to smell burning electronics. Bad sign. They had failed to check the voltage of the circuit and had hooked up the new 110v blower to the old 220v circuit. More cursing coming from the basement. I look out the window and one of the guys is pacing up and down out on the street, talking on his cellphone and waving his arms. It was already getting too late to make the training race. After a while another truck pulls up and they remove the blower from that one to replace the one they smoked. It was around 7 pm by the time they got the a/c working and called it a day, promising to come back this morning to hook up the furnace. Before they left I pointed out that they had the condensate line draining into a nonfunctional pipe, which wouldn't do at all.

Well, this morning's installation efforts didn't go so well either. After shorting something out and blowing a fuse, they couldn't get the furnace to come on at all. They were stumped and had to call for reinforcements that were supposed to come by later in the day. They didn't, of course. Good thing I won't need heat until November.

So in the midst of all of these complications I went out this morning to meet the long Thursday ride, knowing I'd have an abbreviated ride so that I could meet the installers on time. The ride started out fairly fast and then just got faster. There were attacks. There were counter-attacks. But I knew Tim and Woody would probably be turning back early. As it turned out they turned back earlier than I, so I had a nice solo 15 mile ride back home. It was too bad I had to turn around early today because I was feeling pretty good. By the time I got back I was soaked with sweat, which is pretty much how it will be for the next three months or so. After the a/c guys gave up and punted, around 1 pm, I figured I may as well take the car to the office in case the guy who knew how to make the heater work happened to call. Of course, he never did, and when I got back into the car to drive home the car's thermometer was registering 115 F. Of course, the air temperature was really more like 95. Anyway, hopefully we can get this whole a/c-heating thing resolved tomorrow. At least I have a neat new programmable thermostat to play with in the meantime!

Summertime in the City

There is only the faintest hint of coolness now at 6 am when I step outside for my morning training ride, and what there is of it doesn't last very long. The air this morning was thick and humid with only a barely perceptible breeze. The current 10-day forecast offers little more than heat and sunshine with low temperatures near 80F and highs in the mid-90s. The chance of rain doesn't rise above 20% until the 25th. Up on the levee, the Mississippi has receded back down to near normal, leaving behind rotting vegetation, tons of debris, and stagnant ponds all along the batture. The smell of hot and festering plants and aquatic life wafts heavily over the levee from the river along the bike path, but in a week or two the new grasses and plants will have taken over the flooded areas and there will be just the piles of wood and thousands of plastic bottles that drifted downstream from our northern neighbors. It's summertime in the city and people, including me, are already starting to move more slowly.

The long Tuesday ride started out with mostly the usual group plus Dan Bennett who has been in town since The Tour. I rode for a while at the front alongside Dan, and somewhere around the bridge he asked, "so when does the pace get fast?" I responded, "about when we get off the front." I drifted back down the line of riders and sure enough the pace started to rise. Most of the riders were taking pulls but the pace kept escalating and by the time we were out around River Ridge people were already getting tired and opening gaps. When I pulled off the front after taking a pull, I saw a couple of bikes coming the other way, so I slowed down and dropped all the way back near the end of the paceline. Next thing I knew there was a big gap with Rob, Dan and Woody up the road. The front of the group didn't seem all that interested, but as I moved back up toward the front one of the guys on a TT bike put his head down and started trying to close it. I held onto his wheel until he motioned for me to come through. He had gotten us within striking distance, so I dropped down another cog and made a big effort, taking me up to around 30 mph before finally catching the draft. Soon afterward I heard Chad come up behind me. That was it, though. Woody pulled off to return home, but the pace stayed pretty fast all the way out to the turnaround. The ride back was a bit more civilized, at least at first. Then, as we started getting close to the country club it seemed that Rob and Dan started attacking each other. Well, the rest of the group didn't last long after that, and soon the duo was rolling up the road by themselves. Our group was holding about 25 mph much of the way, but Dan and Rob had at least a minute on us by the time we got back to the playground. I got home dripping sweat and with empty water bottles. Summer indeed.

Tomorrow the A/C guys are supposed to be coming to the house to install a whole new system, and empty out my checking account, so I guess I'll be working from home and hoping they can get it working without any big surprises. All I know is that it isn't cheap, I'll be eating a lot of rice for the next few months, and those entry fees are really going to sting.

The Tour

Well, another Tour de Louisiane is in the books and after three days off the bike, I was happy to be riding again this morning. This year's race went surprisingly well, especially considering the fact that two of the three races were on new venues. When online registration ended at midnight on Thursday I was both surprised and concerned that the number of pre-registrations had already exceeded the final total field size of last year. In recent years the race has attracted 160-175 riders, but this year we ended up with, I think, 203. The Cat. 4 field, in particular, was large, and with nearly 60 riders on the narrow winding roads of the road race course I was a bit concerned even though we had five moto-refs and follow cars on hand. As it turned out, though, the riders were well-behaved and there was only one crash in the Cat. 4s and no significant injuries. In the Cat. 5 race there was a little problem in the last turn that caused one of the guys to have to make a hard chase back to the field just before the finish, and around that time Dustin's derailleur hanger broke off leaving him stranded just a few kilometers before the finish. Amazingly the LBS had a spare on hand, so he was good to go by the time trial. The switch to a morning road race was welcomed by the riders and officials alike, making for a much more comfortable time out at Stoney Point. As usual, Robin and Brian worked hard over a couple of days getting the courses in shape, sweeping corners, putting up signage, and setting up the water, Gatorade, neutral feeds, pop-up shelters, etc., etc.

The road races looked quite competitive for most of the groups. Shortly after the last of the five groups departed the start line we got word that "there was a head-on collision involving a car!" It seemed like it took us forever to find out that it involved two cars and no bike riders. Whew! Apparently some yahoo in a hurry to get wherever those people go on Sunday mornings got impatient behind one of the groups and decided to pass on a blind uphill curve despite the double yellow centerline. The oncoming car saw him coming and went for the shoulder (and brakes) but they hit at a slower speed anyway. We officially DQ'ed the car.

I think we still had a couple of races out on the course when the Chief Referee's laptop slipped off of the table and the Firewire connector to the finish line camera broke. Considering that we had two big sprint finishes coming, this was nothing short of a potential disaster (well, we do have a backup camera that uses tape, but results would have taken a lot longer to do). Somehow Shane managed to get it all working again, more or less, with a USB cable before the big Cat. 4 and Cat. 5 finishes. We were able to get the RR results posted at the TT location over an hour before start time, which was good. The only problem was that nobody knew where they were posted because we didn't really know where we would be able to set up until we got there.

The TT was about as nice as you could ever imagine. Silky smooth fresh asphalt, dead flat, light tailwind, and minimal traffic. However, it was really hot for those of us doing the officiating - almost two hours of standing in the sun saying "five, four, three, two, one, go!" every 30 seconds. Then we drove back across the lake to New Orleans and I spent a few more hours finishing up the TT and GC results and posting the interim results to the NOBC website. I finally got to bed around midnight.

I was the first to arrive at the lakefront on Sunday morning to set up the criterium. For a while I just stood there trying to figure out where to put the finish line, pylons, officials, etc. Finally the rest of the crew arrived and Robin wisely suggested moving the finish closer to the shelter, which worked out fine (I had been a little worried about putting it too close to the downstream turn). The Masters race, which was the third race of the day, was going along nicely when, with just a few laps remaining, we got word there had been a crash down at the far end of the L-shaped course and an ambulance had been called. It was local racer VJ who had crashed and as it turned out he'd broken his femur (he's probably in surgery as I write this). His rear tubular was rolled off of the rim but otherwise the bike looked pretty good. In fact, he had very little road rash at all. From what he said, things got a little sketchy in the fast u-turn and he got forced off of his line by another rider. There was a bit of a bump in the road coming out of that turn and my guess would be that when he hit it he either skipped a pedal or it just lifted his rear wheel off the ground and when it all came back down the tire rolled and he hit the asphalt hip-first, still clipped in and with both hands no the bars. He seemed to be in good spirits that evening in the hospital, but that may just have been the painkillers talking.

The rest of the races went off pretty much on time, but as the morning wore on the wind started to shift and the Cat. 4s and Cat. 1,2,3s had to contend with a strong crosswind coming from the lake. The result was that both races blew apart really, really early, and the result of that was a ton of lapped riders and complete confusion among the officials. About two-thirds of the way through the Cat. 4 race I finally finished up the results of the prior Masters race and asked the Chief Ref if he was having any trouble keeping track of the lapped riders. He just shook his head and said he didn't have a clue at that point as was just writing down all the numbers he could for each lap and would have to sort it out later. It took him the better part of an hour, during which time the Cat. 1,2,3 race was going on, to make the official finish list, and even so, there were a number of riders who fell through the cracks or who didn't get scored for the correct number of times they were lapped. All of the riders at the top of GC were fine, but results for those down around the middle and end of the GC list were pretty sketchy. Basically, it was chaos. I've already made a few corrections this morning. I had thought that the Cat. 1,2,3 race would be different since those guys are a lot stronger and more experienced, but within the first few laps I knew we were going to have problems. By the time we were halfway through I had riders (who were lapped) begging us to pull lapped riders. By then there were already some lapped riders who had re-integrated into the groups that had lapped them, and besides, we didn't have the results spreadsheet set up to properly calculate finish times for pulled riders, so we left them in. As usual, this resulted in confusion among the riders about whether lapped riders were allowed to get in with the groups that lapped them and whether they were allowed to work with those groups when they did. It's always a bit of a grey area since you have to know if a rider dropped back intentionally to assist a rider who has broken away. In this case it was pretty clear that the dropped riders were dropped because they couldn't hang on to the group in the crosswind. Here's the rule: "3D4. Riders on different laps may work with each other except that no rider may drop back to assist a rider who has broken away from the field [disqualification for accepting such assistance]." Kind of open to interpretation. The revised Track Points Race rules deal with differently nowadays, stating, "Riders who lose contact with the field, and are then caught by the leaders, may not lead [disqualification]. Riders attempting to gain a lap may not accept assistance from riders who have lost contact with the back of the field. Riders attempting to gain a lap may work together, but no sacrifice of a rider's position to the advantage of another rider shall be allowed." Anyway, I think if we have similar conditions next time, riders will know beforehand that lapped riders will be pulled.

Again, for the top riders the final results were fine, but there were a few who were missed by the finish line camera or assigned the wrong number of "laps down." Very unusual for a Cat. 1,2,3 race, but anyway I will be adding the ability to calculate times for pulled riders to our results spreadsheet.

All-in-all the races were great and the new venues were excellent and I think most riders had a great weekend of racing. Now I just have to update the LCCS rankings for both the Tour de La and the prior weekend's Racing Rapides omnium and then reformat the results of each class for each stage of each race to upload to the USAC Results and Rankings database. Then maybe things can get back to normal for a little while. Yeah, right......

Thursday Already? Yikes.

So it's been a busy week so far, and it's not going to get any less busy at least through the weekend. Tuesday was "Tulane Day at the Legislature" where we schedule some key meetings in Baton Rouge and, for the day, take over the "Rotunda" of the Capitol Building with displays of various Tulane projects, centers, etc. The Rotunda stuff provides some good exposure since it's in-between the House and Senate chambers where the sessions start in the early afternoon. For me it's really a mildly interesting but rather boring day of pacing around the Rotunda secretly hoping that there will be some big disaster that will relieve the boredom and provide a reason for being there. As it was, things went pretty smoothly and I was back home in New Orleans by 5 pm. I didn't get to ride on Tuesday, but I was probably due for a day off the bike anyway since my legs were still feeling a little bit of the damage done at the races in Alexandria.

I had been assuming that I'd feel all fresh and energetic for the Wednesday morning ride, but instead I just felt kind of tired and worn out. I think a little bit of that is probably just the extra stress of the upcoming Tour de Louisiane. As usual I've been fielding a lot of emails and phone calls about the race, finishing up the Race Bible, and going through the pre-event checklist that is now pretty much committed to memory. As always, there will be a few things that are just left up to chance, and a few more that fall through the cracks, but in general I think most of the bases are covered. Mark is trying to find a sound system we can use for the criterium since the one we planned to use won't be available. I hope we find one because I think Erich (hamming it up for the camera in the photo), who agreed to be our announcer, should be pretty entertaining. There are 113 pre-registered for the TDL as I write this, so I think participation will be about normal since there's usually a little flurry of registrations in the evening before pre-registration closes, which is tonight. Just under half of the pre-registrations are from outside La./Ms., with a big contingent from Texas. It looks like the Cat. 4s will be the bigest field this year.

In the meantime I've been collecting names of LAMBRA riders who are planning on going to Nationals. We want to provide some sort of monetary assistance for those riders, so I need to get a good count in order to divide up whatever size pie I get from the Treasurer. So far I've heard from 16 riders who are planning on competing in one or more National Championship races. Awesome!

Anyway Wednesday's morning ride was brisk but smooth, although I arrived back home feeling kind of drained. So at lunch I rode over to Whole Foods to get a sandwich since I was planning on doing the Wednesday Worlds out at the Lakefront after work, and doing that on an empty stomach doesn't seem to work very well. By 5:30 I was on the road to Lakeshore Drive and man, it was hot! Summer has definitely arrived in full force around here. The race itself was pretty small since a number of the regular riders are probably in taper mode for the weekend's Tour de La. I was still feeling pretty tired, and after closing a bunch of gaps in the first few laps I finally got popped off the back when there was another surge after the fountain traffic circle. I backed off and rode with Mignon for a little while and then jumped back in when they were on the way back from the Elysian Fields traffic circle. By then things were already looking kind of rough, with gaps opening all over the place, and on the last lap one of the guys (Matt?) rode off the front and everything kind of blew apart. I ended up chasing Mike W. for the last half lap but never caught. Afterward, I rode down to West End with Brady and Rolan to check out the Tour de La criterium course and decide where to put the start/finish.

Apparently Robin showed up there a little later and removed the lumps of concrete that I was worried about in the entrance to the Shelter loop. Now I just have to set up the results spreadsheet, charge up a lot of batteries for the radios and clock and cameras, take inventory of race equipment, and make a run to pick up whatever is needed. That's usually a collection of stopwatch and tape recorder batteries, paper tablets, etc. Then tomorrow I'll download the pre-registration data, print out the release forms, and get everything sorted out for Friday night registration. On the plus side, there isn't much rain in the forecast, so the big factor will likely be the heat. I think there will be more than one rider who is happy we moved the road race to the morning time slot.

My legs still felt dead for the Thursday morning long ride. Perhaps I'm still acclimitizing to the heat, or perhaps I got a bit dehydrated yesterday. Anyway, on the way back from Destrehan, VJ went to the front on his TT bike complete with Zip 808s and just towed the whole string of riders all the way back down the river. I think Erich took a couple of pulls, but otherwise it was all VJ. I was way at the back and nobody ever dropped back the whole time.

Racing Rapides

I rushed home from work on Friday, loaded up the car, picked up Brandon, and headed for Alexandria for the weekend's Racing Rapides Omnium. Saturday morning was a short but intense 3-mile Time Trial on an interesting course that included a couple of little climbs. As usual, I was having a little motivational trouble for this event. I probably held back a bit too much in the first half of the TT and my subpar average speed of around 26 mph was good for only 8th place in the 45+ race. The Road Races started a couple of hours later and after a little nap in the car I was feeling a bit better. The combined 35+/45+ race started out really fast with a steady stream of attacks and counter-attacks. The course itself had only a couple of significant hills, so the breaks were having a hard time getting any traction. When yet another solo attack went off the front, I guess most of the riders didn't worry too much about it. When a second rider bridged up to it, though, I started to get a little concerned. Then, when the pack just completely failed to respond as they started working together, I thought, "why are they letting them go?" The break started opening the gap at an alarming speed and still the pack seemed reluctant to do anything about it. One of the guys in that break had just won the Time Trial. Eventually, after the break was maybe half a minute up the road, a few of us tried to get a chase organized. We probably needed five or six guys to commit to some paceline work in order to reel this one back, but we never got it. We'd get three guys to take pulls and then the chase would crumble. The break was soon out of sight.

Around that time we started to catch the Cat. 1/2/3 pack that had started five minutes before us. As we passed the one pothole on the course we saw Mark G. and another rider standing on the side of the road getting wheel changes. A little while later we passed Brandon, who had suffered the same fate. With the break out of sight the pace settled down a bit for the last lap and riders started thinking about the upcoming sprint for 3rd place. Of course, since we had both the 35+ and 45+ races, and the break had contained one rider from each, we were essentially all racing for 2nd place in one or the other race. With a few miles to go, things started getting crowded up near the front. All those riders who had been sitting on the back all day were fighting for position on the narrow roads and it took a lot of work and concentration just to stay up near the front. I was holding my own in this battle and as we passed the 1 km to go sign I was pretty well positioned. Then we rounded a curve with maybe 300 meters to the line and up ahead there was a logging truck going about 10 mph in the right lane. We were probably going around 30. There was, of course, a bit of confusion and shuffling as the pack, now pretty much in full sprint mode, squeezed into the left lane and sprinted around the truck. Just as we cleared it I saw daylight to the right and shot through finishing 2nd or 3rd, which turned out to be 2nd in the 45+ race. Brandon and I walked over to the finish line in time to see Stephen M. win the Cat. 4 Road Race.

Sunday featured a criterium in downtown Alexandria. I'd ridden this long and technical criterium a couple of years earlier. The combined 35+/45 plus race took off like it had been shot from a cannon and I quickly decided on a defensive strategy for this one, as if I had a choice. We probably dropped a whole bunch of riders in those first few laps. Woody B. was on hand for this race and he was active at the front the whole time while I was more or less inactive a bit farther back. This was a 40 minute criterium and I remember looking down at my computer the first time there was a little lull in the pace. It read 22 minutes, and that was about the first time the pace had dropped down to a relatively leisurely 25 mph. Despite the fast initial pace, as the laps counted down toward the sprint a lot of riders started to crowd the front trying to get good positions for the inevitable sprint. With two tight turns in close succession before the last drag race to the finish line, it would be important to be one of the first riders through. Before the third-to-last turn on the last lap there was a big surge and we flew into the turn with probably five riders abreast. I got bumped and reshuffled a bit but everyone stayed upright. Jaro attacked the second-to-last turn, opening a gap and sailing through the last two turns before lighting the afterburners and taking the long sprint easily. I was right on Jorge M's wheel through the last turn, but he cut the apex so close that I went through it on the sidewalk. I guess I hesitated a bit when that happened and it opened a little gap that I could never close. I think I finished maybe 7th or so, but it turned out to have been 2nd in the 45+, so I ended up moving up to 2nd in the overall.

The next race was the Cat. 4 criterium, in which Stephen won the big pack sprint, also nailing the overall for the weekend.

I decided to go ahead and enter the upcoming Cat. 1,2,3 race since I was going to be there anyway. As I expected, this race started out really fast too and within a few laps I was pretty much just hanging on near the back in the Accordion section along with a few other riders. Every time there was an attack, which seemed to be coming at the rate of about two per lap, I'd have to make a really big effort just to stay in contact. A crash on the back side put a little split in the pack and a few of us had to really drop the hammer to get back onto the tail end of the group. Then, maybe 45 minutes into the 60-minute race, another surge opened a big gap. Brooks was in front of me and he was starting to struggle. The guy in front of him was also losing ground on the tail end of the pack. I yelled at him, "get that wheel!" and he made a big effort to close it. Three of us went around the next turn, still with a pretty big gap ahead of us and he motioned for me to come through. I yelled at the other rider who was still with us, "Come on, they're going to slow down soon, " put my head down, dropped it down one more cog and put in a big effort straight into the headwind. It wasn't enough and I started to crack. The other rider wasn't able to stay with me and I was alone and off the back. My speed dropped down to 24 mph and I figured I was done. Then I went around the next corner and saw the pack mushroom out all across the road. A lull! I stood up and sprinted and by the next turn I was back in the draft. Luckily the pace stayed relatively slow for a little while longer, so I was able to hang on. That was a close one. As we got down to the final laps, I was a little surprised that the pace didn't stay really fast. I think one reason was that there weren't any big teams there. Anyway, with a bit over two laps to go things bunched up and I took the opportunity to move up near the front. The next couple of laps were kind of a blur as I tried to keep my position near the front. Although I kind of blew up in the final drag race to the line, I still managed 8th place. Woody got 5th after working his butt off the whole race, which was pretty impressive. Brandon took home the 10th place prize. We were both pretty well cooked after that one.

On the way home I stopped at the first fast food place I saw on I-49, ripped open one of the prize envelopes, and got one of those huge Cokes and a hamburger.

Warm and Wet

I went out to ride Thursday morning fully expecting a typical long training ride up on the levee bike path. It was, in fact, neither long nor typical, but instead just warm and wet. Looking out from my east-facing window at home, the sky looked just fine, but when I finally emerged from under the oak trees and got a look at the sky to the west I was surprised. Up atop the levee a small group was waiting, casting frequent nervous glances at the menacing low grey clouds to the west. The chances of staying dry were dropping precipitously even as we rolled out, and when Erich joined us he said he was sure that once we got through the rain, it would be fine on the other side. A minute later the first raindrops started to fall. We hadn't even gotten past the Huey P. Long bridge. I reached in my pocket for the camera and stuffed it into the Ziploc bag along with my cellphone. The rain started coming down harder and I knew this was going to be less of a workout and more of an easy spin than originally planned. At least it was reasonably warm, so if one didn't mind the wheel spray in the eyes or the toes sloshing around in the water-filled shoes, it really wasn't too bad.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of heavy rain we came out the other side and the rain tapered off. The road was still wet, of course, so unless you were at the front it was pretty much like riding in the rain anyway since nobody had fenders. We ended up turning around at the parish line, but at least we got in a few miles. By the time I headed off to work the weather was much improved. When I finally called it a day around 5:30 pm, the Colin Goodier Protection Act was just coming before the Senate transportation committee where it was rather quickly approved.

So here I am, having just finished a little project for work and still needing to finish the Tour de La Race Bible, not to mention get my act together so Brandon and I can drive to Alexandria tomorrow evening for the Racing Rapides omnium, but "it's alright 'cause it's midnight and I got two more bottles of wine." Actually, it's alright 'cause I'll probably have some time tomorrow to get that stuff done. I think I need sleep more than wine right now.....

Training Races

The afternoon shower was a little too early to wash out today's Wednesday Worlds training race. At 5 pm sharp I left the office, thinking I was skipping out early, only to find that everyone else was already gone. Go figure. The streets were still a bit damp from a late afternoon shower, but they were drying quickly and it looked like we'd be in the clear for the 6 pm training race out at the lakefront. Half an hour later I was rolling down Carrollton Avenue, dodging potholes, commuters and car doors left and right, and somehow managing to catch every single red light along the way. I still got there in time for the usual rolling start, though, and was glad to see a group of fifteen or so coming over the levee.

I started out by spending half a lap on the front, only because the pace hadn't really ramped up yet. Of course the pace did finally get going, marked by the usual series of suicide attacks, one of which was mine. In general, it seemed a little easier to hang in today. Every now and then the pace would go slack and things would bunch up for a while, but of course that just encouraged more attacks, which of course were followed by brief but really, really fast chases. On the last lap Tim attacked and got a pretty big gap as the rest of the group hesitated. Eventually, though, there was a big surge and he was swallowed up shortly before the finish. Tim and Woody had been doing intervals at lunch today, and I think they had both ridden in the morning too, so you'd think they might be a little tired. Anyway, right around when Tim was getting caught, Brooks attacked down the right side and so Woody, who was up near the front had to go with him, eventually getting stuck at the front when Brooks faded about 300 meters from the finish. I think maybe Mike, who was riding a fixed gear TT bike, might have gotten past everybody by the end. A number of us got kind of screwed up as the sprint started when the group kind of split going around a slow-moving and rather surprised triathlete. Anyway, it was another fun Wednesday Worlds and I got in some good and badly needed intensity.

I'm glad to see that these training races are surviving. They have been going on since the mid-70s. Back then we started from Shelter #1 and did two laps of the entire Lakeshore Drive loop, making for a 20-mile race. By the mid-80s they had evolved into much more organized events with entry fees and numbers and prizes, using the circuit from the Bayou St. John traffic circle to the Seabrook loop. We'd still be using that same loop if the Levee District hadn't usurped the whole east end of Lakeshore Drive to stockpile mud. It'll be kind of neat to have the Tour de Louisiane criterium around Shelter #1 on Lakeshore Drive this year. That was the start of the very first 4 mile time trial of the very first Tour de Louisiane. The distance from Shelter one to the traffic circle and back just happens to be four miles. I think John Howard did that TT in just over 10 minutes. No skinsuit, no aero anything. Normal people like me took more like twelve.

A Good Ride and a Bad Picture

Monday morning came, already warm and sweaty, to the city by the river, and as always I dragged myself out the door into the soft uptown humidity. I was feeling more lazy than tired, and I noticed immediately that my legs felt suspiciously good. It could mean only one thing. I'd obviously squandered last weekend by spending too much time sucking wheels. Water under the bridge, I guess. Speaking of which, the Mighty Mississippi has not dropped a single millimeter since last Friday. The cleared area of the batture, immediately adjacent to the levee with its concrete apron is mostly underwater, and there are some sections where the current there, between the willow trees and the levee, looks to be quite strong.

So today it was just David and me and, since it was a Monday and everyone knows that Mondays are recovery days even if there has been nothing of significance from which to recover, we rode the entire twenty-whatever miles side-by-side philosophizing about weighty matters and occasionally indulging in nostalgic stories of bike races long past. It was, in a word, uneventful.

Then, just as we were coming up to the Jefferson Playground on the way back, something caught my eye. An alligator was casually gliding along right at the foot of the levee. I stopped rather abruptly, spun the bike around and reached for my camera, but alas the gator had already spotted me and made a minor course correction to put even more distance between us. So that thing you see above that looks like a paint-by-numbers Monet is actually a blurry and heavily enhanced photo of said gator amid reflected trees and glare, taken in a hurry from way too far away. Like those photos you see of the Loch Ness Monster, this is all I got, so if you want to claim it's just an old log or something, feel free. At any rate, I'd strongly suggest that if you happen to take a spill while riding your bike on the levee you might want to make sure you stop sliding well before hitting the water.