Old Guys and Fat Cyclists

So I spent most of this morning's ride feeling kind of angry at myself because I had obviously failed, practically completely, to recover from Wednesday's training. As soon as I got on the bike I knew my legs weren't good, but I was running a couple of minutes late, so I took the faster but bumpier route to the levee down Carrollton Avenue. It was lucky that I did. Lucky for Brady, that is. It was still a bit dark as I turned onto Carrollton, and there in the middle of the street was a little black camera case. Behind me there was an RTA bus about to pull out from the bus stop. I reached down as I went past and picked it up, hoping that its owner had thought to put something on it or in it so I could track him or her down. When I turned onto Willow Street I could see another rider way up the road but didn't catch up to him until we were at the levee. It was Brady. When we stopped to meet the group I pulled out the camera case and said, "I think somebody lost a camera." Well, it turned out to be Brady's camera that had bounced out of his jersey pocket just a minute or two before I came by.

The long Thursday ride started out at a nice moderate pace, and although I felt just fine rolling along at a steady pace with the group, every time I'd put my face in the wind my legs would load up right away. I dunno, maybe seafood gumbo and Merlot don't qualify as good recovery food. I'm actually thinking about making a trip to the LBS for a big tub of one of those recovery drink mixes. It would probably be a wise thing to do, it's just that they tend cost a dollar or two per serving, which is just criminal, IMHO. Anyway, at some point we picked up Tim, who was on his TT bike, and I knew what that meant. The pace jumped up right away, and we were strung out in a long line when the back half of the group had to slow a bit to get safely past some pedestrians. Unfortunately, the front few riders hadn't slowed at all and a gap opened up quickly. This happens frequently when we're doing these group training rides on the bike path, and is probably the main reason, aside from brutal winter crosswinds, that the groups split up. A couple of people jumped around to make the bridge but I decided to try and reel it in a little more gradually since my quads were not happy with the alternative option. Famous last words. I finally blew up and waited for the shattered remnants to regroup, after which Donald came up to the front and took one of his super-long pulls to let everybody recover a little. The ride back was a whole lot slower, especially since the wind had picked up a bit by then. I spent the last five miles sitting-in near the back feeling really old and worn out.


Appropriately enough, I just finished reading one of the always excellent Pez Cycling "Toolbox" articles entitled, "Kicking it Old Style." It kind of hit home with me on a couple of levels. The article itself was pretty much right on the money, reminding me that indeed, every one of those old established group rides that you find all over the country has a couple of those same old school warriors who rarely get dropped, save their expensive race equipment for the races, and tend to start off conversations with, "Back in the old days....." The other thing that stuck me, though, was that "back in the old days" we didn't have any of those old experienced riders. Almost everybody I rode with was under 30 and the few riders who were older than that had really only been racing for maybe five years. We were mostly making it up as we went along, scanning the pages of outdated copies of CycleSport, or that famous and extremely badly translated CONI manual (yes, I have a copy somewhere at home) for advice on training and racing. I remember thinking how lucky the younger riders were over in Europe where they had access to a couple of generations of old experienced guys who could help mentor the new riders. Well, we may not yet have a cadre of local ex-professionals showing up for the Giro Rides, but we do have a number of guys who have been racing for two or three decades and who can at least point the new riders in the right direction. Never thought I'd be one of those, though.


But just in case you're feeling sorry for yourself, NOW is definitely time to pay a visit to Fat Cyclist's website, if you haven't already. You will see what I mean when you go there. Whatever you may think about Lance Armstrong himself, his foundation is doing good things for people like Elden and his family for whom good things are presently in rather short supply

Wednesday Double

You know, there was a time when I did a morning ride and an evening training race every Tuesday and Thursday. All it did was make me stronger. Nowadays, I just do one evening training race a week and I have to be careful to take it easy the following day so I can recover before the weekend. The morning ride today was a notch faster than the usual Wednesday ride. It was Rob's fault. For some reason he was pushing the pace most of the time. In fact, there were three or four occasions when I came to the front to take my pull and practically the minute I started, Rob came past me going a mile per hour faster. Anyway, this morning it wasn't so much the speed - it was the humidity. As soon as I got up on the levee my sunglasses fogged up. They pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the ride.

After a particularly boring day at work today, I headed home a bit after 5 pm so I could make it out to the lakefront in time for the training race. My gloves, along with the pads inside my helmet, were still soaked with sweat when I put them on around 5:30. I hate that. On the plus side, though, I had a warm 15 mph south wind pushing me all the way out to Lakeshore Drive, which allowed me to get through the Palmetto St. intersection at about 30 mph. It's much easier dealing with the traffic when you're going the same speed they are.

The training race turnout was a little thin today, although I think it was mainly because a few people arrived late. When Diego joined the group after the first lap, I braced myself for the inevitable attacks. He didn't waste much time before launching the first one. I was right there, so I just had to go with it. It took everything I had just to catch his draft. He looked back to see if I was going to come though, but I had nothing. In general, the race was rather slow today, perhaps because of the crosswind. On the last lap I got tired of the sluggishness and took off on my own. I knew it was doomed, but what the hell? So I dangled off the front for a whole lot longer than I should have. I looked down at the speedometer to see 21 mph and wondered, "where are those guys?" It soon dawned on me that they were probably all waiting for Diego to attack and start to bridge, which he wasn't doing. Instead he was waiting for them to make the first move. Damn. If I could time trial, I might have been able to make it to the finish under those conditions. The reality, though, was that the wind was just killing me. Finally, about half a kilometer before the finish, Kenny and Ed rocketed past, followed by the rest of the group.

So today I get a letter (a letter - on paper, with an actual stamp) from Nashbar telling me that their website servers were "recently the subject of an illegal attack that allowed unknown persons to obtain the names, addresses, email addresses, web account password, and credit of debit cart information..." Recently?? Digging through the 3-page letter I discovered that the actual breach was back in early March, which probably explains the fraudulent charges on my debit card back in April. So now, FOUR MONTHS LATER, they're telling me about it. Well, thank goodness they rushed that letter out via First Class Mail, which, by the way, is printed in bold letters at the top of the letter just to be sure you know that they didn't waste any time. Sheesh.

Riding Alone

With The Daughter and her crew scheduled to leave for Iowa City on Sunday morning, I decided to skip the Giro Ride and make up the difference later in the day. As I heard later, Kurt had quite a scare when he developed some sort of tachycardia after dropping off the back of the group. He wisely stopped and called for help and after some IV saline in the ambulance and a trip to the ER, he seemed to be back to normal, although of course a visit to the cardiologist is forthcoming. By the time I finally got out to ride it was around 11 am and getting warmer by the minute. I was determined to get in some miles, though, so I hopped up on the levee and rode 40 miles or so alone. The bike path is still closed down by Ormond where they're laying a new water line over the levee, but I decided I'd just ride down the levee to the street and then back up on the other side. That seemed to work out just fine, but on the way back I made the mistake of looking down at my rear derailleur which was all clogged up with dry grass. It took me and my Swiss army knife quite a while to remove all of the grass wrapped around the jockey wheels. Oh well. It was worth a try.

So Monday I got to the levee on time but nobody else showed up, which often happens on Mondays, so I did another solo ride, this time at 'active recovery' pace. Tuesday, though, things were back to normal and we had a nice group of maybe a dozen as we headed up the river for the long levee ride. It was a fairly steady ride at a decent pace. I think we lost a few people along the way, but for the most part the pace was manageable.

Around lunchtime I decided to ride back home to get something to eat, but when I started heading back to work there was a thunderstorm approaching. Looking down Lowerline Street toward the river I could see it was raining, and at first I just resigned myself to getting wet. Then I said to myself, "Dumbass, you do have a car sitting there at the house." So I turned around and went back to work dry, but encased in steel and glass. When I got home at the end of the day there were a couple of packages waiting for me. These were items I got for the LAMBRA race kit. One was a replacement flagpole for the big white WindFeather flag that we use for the 200M mark in road races. The old pole was literally falling apart and this one is a new improved model that is much better. We'd already replaced the finish line pole with one of these. The other item is a bit of an experiment. It's always a big problem trying to read the screen of the laptop computer when you're sitting at a table on the side of the road somewhere on a sunny day. Well it turns out this is a problem for photographers who use digital cameras too and someone made an interesting sunscreen gizmo for that. So I ordered one for the LAMBRA kit. I think it will probably help a lot. We'll try it out this weekend at the Team Time Trial. Speaking of which, I think we will be able to field a 45+ team this year. It's always a real problem putting these Team Time Trial teams together. I don't really think we should include TTT results in the individual LCCS rankings. Speaking of the LCCS rankings, I updated them earlier today and uploaded the big detailed workbook to the website, but haven't revised the summary web pages yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Bikes, Jaguars, and Airplanes

Kind of a long day, today. I was up early for the ride out to the lakefront to meet the traditional Saturday Giro Ride. As has become typical lately, a lot of the riders just can't seem to make themselves wait for the 'official' 7 am start at West End, so they roll down the road early in little groups, confusing the other riders who don't know if they are THE group or not, so naturally the other riders turn around and join them, just in case. So once again a little group that actually started on time had to chase them all down for the first few miles.

The pace of the ride today seemed fairly fast, at least to me. The MSM guys were up at the front on the way out, attacking and counter-attacking, and by the time we were halfway down Chef Highway the number of riders willing to take a pull was getting dangerously low. So at one point I got to the front and took a relatively long pull at a relatively moderate speed to see if I could get the paceline started again. Well, as soon as I pulled off, Todd (I think) attacked, taking a number of riders with him. I was gapped off immediately and a couple of us worked together for a while to finally regain the lead group. Eventually they slowed down and pretty much everybody else caught back up too. After a few miles at recover speed after the turnaround, things heated up again, ending with the usual sprint for the Goodyear sign. I put in a little effort for that one, although I started from pretty far back, and a few miles later I did the same thing for the sprint to the top of the Casino bridge. By the time we got to the Seabrook bridge I was pretty well toasted and so after a half-hearted sprint halfway to the top I backed off early.

After the Giro I rushed home so I could meet The Daughter and her gymnasts at the Zoo for a "behind the scenes" tour arranged by the Sister in Law who works there. That was pretty interesting, even though I was feeling kind of tired and dehydrated the whole time. We got to go "backstage" at a couple of the exhibits, feeding fish, handling baby alligators, and getting some close-up visits with the foxes, various fish, nutria, etc. Later we visited the Anteater, Cougar and some of the primates whose species we had to promise to keep secret since I guess we weren't really supposed to be there. By the time we'd done all of that we were all getting pretty hot, tired and hungry, so we headed over to Louisiana Pizza Kitchen where I finished off two big classes of Coke and a pizza. The original plan had included an afternoon trip down the the French Quarter, but two of the girls needed to be at the airport for 5:30, so The Wife and I took them over there while The Daughter and the others went down to the Quarter. Well, what should have been a quick trip to the airport turned out to be a very long wait. Just as we were checking them in, they delayed the flight by a couple of hours, so we checked their bags and went over the the Mall to kill some time. Once there, we discovered that the flight had been delayed further, so we went to Barnes and Noble to kill some more time. Of course, once we had been at the bookstore for a while, we found that the flight had been delayed again. So the flight that was supposed to take off at 7:20 didn't finally leave until something like 10:50. Of course that means that somebody's parents will be driving to the Chicago airport to pick them up some time after 1 am.

Flats and Fatigue

Suddenly I realized what time it was. I'd almost forgotten about the Wednesday training race. I dropped what I was doing, buckled up my bag and rushed out of the office, walked over to the bike rack and jumped on the bike. Crap! The rear tire was flat as a pancake. I dug the spare tube and pump out of my bag and got it fixed, but by then it was getting pretty late. By the time I got home, changed clothes and hit the road for the lakefront, the question wasn't whether or not I'd make the training race in time, it was just how many laps I'd miss. Well, the answer was "almost two." I jumped into the race mid-stream, hanging back for about a lap until I got warmed up. I somehow managed to get a pretty good little workout anyway. I guess the biggest problem was keeping clear of Mike W's erratic wheel. I mean, who would go out to ride a group training ride on a track bike with no brake? It would be one thing if he could ride a straight line, but somehow that skill seems to have escaped him all these years. Diego was busy attacking every few minutes, as usual, so that kept the pace high. I was still feeling pretty good as I rode back home from the lakefront. That evening I replaced my cracked Thompson stem with a new 3T one. This time I decided to use an actual torque wrench just to be on the safe side!

This morning it was surprisingly dark as I rode over to the levee for the long ride. Brett was there again, and I swear I heard a couple of people groan when they saw him ride up to the meeting place. The pace this morning was fast, but for the most part it wasn't too crazy, and it wasn't until I got home that I really started to feel tired. In fact, I felt pretty much worthless all day at work. I had to ride home at lunchtime in order to walk The Daughter's dog, who is staying with us while she's coaching over on the northshore. It was hot and muggy, and by the time I got back to the office I was sweaty and tired. I probably should have just stayed at home. Around 5:30 I walked out of the office, feeling kind of glad to have the day behind me, only to find that the tire on my bike was flat again. Damn. A close inspection revealed a tiny piece of glass lodged in the tire that I'd missed the day before.

It was just that kind of day. I think I'll have another glass of wine now.....

An Early Turnaround

This morning it seemed somewhat darker than usual when I left home at 6 am. I looked to the east hoping it was due to clouds, but it was mostly clear, leaving me no choice but to acknowledge the sad fact that our hemisphere is once again beginning its tilt away from the sun. As if to drive home the point, the air felt unusually cool - one might even say "pleasant," keeping in mind that these things are all relative. I was riding the old Cervelo today after discovering a crack in the Orbea's handlebar stem near one of the steerer clamp bolts. That pretty Thompson stem was really nice, so I'm kind of disappointed about that. It's really rather unusual that I actually manage to break stuff like that. It must have been the awesome force generated by my massive shoulders when I sprint.

So the group today started out smaller than usual. Woody and Tim were absent, which didn't surprise me since Woody had said something last weekend about taking a week off. However, making a rare appearance at the morning training ride was Brett R., and between him and Chad and a couple of others, the ride turned out to be fairly fast anyway. Yesterday, Pat had warned that the bike path was closed down around Destrehan. For the last couple of months they've had a temporary gravel road crossing the levee there where they are installing a big water pipe to connect the west bank's water purification system to the east bank's. It looks like we may be making an early turnaround for quite some time since it's hardly worth the trouble of going around it when the bike path ends just a couple of miles past it anyway. So we all turned around and headed back, picking up a little headwind here and there, but generally rolling along at a good clip in the mid-20s. As usual, the paceline kind of started to fall apart on the way back, but I think most everybody managed to hang on in some fashion until we got to the playground.

A Ride in the Park

Last Sunday was the LAMBRA Criterium Champion-
ship, held once again in City Park here in New Orleans. You would think that would make things really easy for me, but between helping out with setup and officiating, the actual racing turned out to be the most relaxing part of the whole day. You see, The Daughter had arrived from Iowa some time around 12:30 am on Sunday morning. She is coaching a training camp in Pontchatoula for the team she coaches, so along with her came six young gymnasts. My own wake-up call came less than four hours later, since I had to load up the car with all of the LAMBRA equipment, plus my own bike and wheels, and get out to the park around 6:15 am. Fortunately the MSM guys had things pretty much under control, so I helped the Chief Ref. get set up. That's when I discovered that video capture software on my laptop was crashing every time it was run. Luckily, the CR was planning on using his own video camera, so even though we wouldn't have the nice big frame-by-frame video on the laptop screen, we would still be OK as long as his camera functioned (which it didn't do very well for the first race of the day).

The Masters race started fairly early in the morning when the temperature was still pretty nice. I had managed to get in two laps of warmup before lining up near the back of the smallish group. The 50-minute race started out with a flurry of attacks, and at one point I got off the front with Mark G., and thought we might be able to make it stick. We got chased down pretty quickly, though. I guess we were at least halfway through the race when another split happened, this time putting Rob, Woody and me a few seconds ahead of the pack. Although I figured MSM would soon get a chase going, I thought this combination looked good. Over the course of the next few laps we stretched the lead out to maybe 20 seconds or so. Then, with maybe five laps to go, we saw Tim trying to bridge up to us solo. Since he's Woody's teammate, Woody stopped working. Of course Rob had no interest in letting Tim catch us, so he was still willing to work. For me it didn't matter as much since I was the only 45+ rider, but I still felt like racing so Rob and I worked the next few laps and on the bell lap I took a long final pull as we approached the museum circle. When I started to fade about halfway around, Rob jumped hard. Woody had to get around me before he could really start his sprint and the two of them just jettisoned me like a spent booster rocket. Woody got the win in a photo-finish. I was happy that our break survived because 3rd place was worth enough cash to cover my next entry fee an hour or so later.

The Cat. 1/2/3 race started our surprisingly calmly. I'd been expecting Kenny to do his trademark attack from the start, but in fact the Herring guys were planning on waiting until a little later in the 75-minute race before really putting on the pressure. Even so, there were a number of attacks and some significant breaks, and I found myself doing a bit of work chasing a few of them down. Brandon was riding really well and taking a couple of primes and helping chase down some of the breaks. We were probably half-way into the race when Diego attacked hard coming out of the U-turn and I had to really bury myself just to stay with him. I thought it might be the big break, but he eased up and everything came back together. Then, just a little later, he attacked again and a few riders went clear. For a while the pack was holding the gap, but when I saw Tim attack and start to bridge up to them, I knew we were in trouble. Soon the 4-rider group began pulling away and there just wasn't enough horsepower left in the pack to mount another successful chase. Finally, the pack gave up the chase and set its sights on 5th place. Overall, I think the pace of the Cat. 1/2/3 race was probably a bit slower than the Masters race had been. Anyway as it came down to the bell lap I pulled alongside Brandon and said, "You need to be first out of that last corner." I took him (and probably a couple others) up to the front and did a long final pull through the back side of the course, hoping to keep the pace fast enough to delay the start of the sprint a bit and keep him in a good position so he'd have a shot at the sprint. I wasn't quite successful at that, as the attack came on the bridge before the museum circle and a bunch of riders went streaming past on the left. Somehow, though, Brandon got himself in there and he and Mark G. battled it out for the pack sprint where Brandon ended up 6th overall and 3rd among the Cat. 3s.

The weather was great this year and the course is a pretty nice one. Somehow it always seems to promote successful breakaways even though I wouldn't say it's extremely technical. I guess that acceleration after the U-turn eventually takes its toll, though. It was a fun event. We're still trying to sort out a few issues with the results. It sure would help if people would wait around long enough to check the results at the race. I mean, that's why we post them and have a 15-minute protest period. When they send me an email the next day saying that they think they were placed incorrectly, it's not always very easy to check out. Some of the results go home with the Chief Referee, some end up with one of the other Refs, some get lost, etc. Word to the wise: If you care about where you placed, stay around until the results are posted.

Results and Photos: http://www.lambra.org/results/2009/LAMBRA_Crit_2009_r.htm

Stuff Going On

It's been kind of busy lately. After two somewhat soggy days, the "cool front" has finally eased past us, bringing with it some welcome, if minimal, relief from the heat and humidity. That's not saying it's cool, of course, but at least it's a bit less hot. I went out to the Giro ride this morning with the firm intention of staying off the front. I was feeling kind of dragged out by Thursday evening, and I didn't want to start Sunday's criterium with sore legs. The group started out in a particularly disorganized manner today with a bunch of little groups that started early and eventually came together along Lakeshore Drive. I went all the way down to Shelter #1 looking for "the" group, but all I found were Michael and Brady who said there was nobody else coming. So we headed down Lakeshore Drive in pursuit, finally catching up with the group shortly before the Seabrook bridge.

The pace picked up pretty quickly, and at one point I remember thinking, "I'm doing at least as much work closing gaps at the back as I would be pulling at the front." I stuck to my plan, though, and avoided any really hard efforts for the most part. On the way back, just as we turned onto Hayne Blvd., we passed Rosanne and Rusty on the side of the road. A few of us turned around to help, since it looked like more than just a flat tire. In fact, it was a broken chain. Rusty had a chain tool and a spare connector link, so he got that fixed fairly quickly. Then, maybe half a mile later, we came across two triathletes who were in the bus shelter working on a bike, so we stopped and Kenny got their flat fixed. In the end, I got in around 65 miles, the vast majority of which were done at a nice moderate effort level.

There's a lot of stuff going on right now. The Daughter is on her way down from Iowa with four of the club gymnasts she coaches, scheduled to arrive some time around 1:30 am. We picked two others up at the airport this evening, after which we went over to my father's house for his birthday party. My brother's family has been in town for a few days. Since my nephew will be starting grad school at LSU in the fall, they took the opportunity to have a birthday party for my father and also check out a housing arrangement in Baton Rouge. I'll be up around 5:15 am tomorrow to load up the car with all of the race officiating stuff, plus my bike, so I can be at City Park by 6 or so to help set up for the LAMBRA Criterium Championships. I set up a results and registration spreadsheet for the Chief Referee earlier today. I'm already feeling pretty tired. At least the temperatures tomorrow shouldn't be too severe.

Too Hot to Stop

Despite the fact that stepping out the door Tuesday morning felt like walking into an overcrowded sauna, I went out to meet the group with every intention of logging a hard ride. If sweating buckets qualifies as "hard," I definitely achieved my goal. There was a big group on Tuesday, and as we covered the first few miles it continued to grow in size. Pretty soon, the fast overall speed got demoted to around third place in the ride's challenge hierarchy. The top difficulty was responding to repeated attacks, largely by Tim who seemed to be in the midst of a hard interval session. The other issue was that the group was riding particularly dangerously. At one point, as a runner was approaching in the oncoming lane, Brooks decided it would be a good time to attack. Just as he pulled even with the lead rider, right at the time when the runner was maybe 50 feet in front of the 27 mph paceline, the aforementioned lead rider pulled off to the left, and of course Brooks went left, heading straight for the terrified runner who was saved only by her quick reaction and explosive leaping ability. Geez, you'd think it was the last kilo of yesterday's TDF. Anyway, after closing more gaps than I could count in my anoxic state, there was another attack and another big gap opened up. I put my head down and ever so slowly and painfully made the bridge. Just as I got into the draft of the three riders, Tim attacked again. That time I didn't have an answer and dropped back to whatever was left of the group. Eventually they eased up, since a couple of them were turning around at the Little Dip, and after that the pace got a lot smoother.

Out at the turnaround near the Ormond Plantation, I made my U-turn as the rest of the riders re-grouped. As soon as I stopped, the sweat started dripping and I though, "It's too hot to stop," so I got back on the bike and rolled along easy until things got going again. The ride back was considerably easier since I think most riders were pretty well cooked by then. When I got home I felt quite a bit more exhausted than usual.

Fortunately, Wednesday morning's ride was cooler, smaller and slower. Everyone was being especially careful to be nice to the pedestrians in an attempt to make up for yesterday's episode of bike path terrorism.

Hopefully I'll make it out to the lakefront this evening for the Wednesday training race, even though I'm already feeling pretty tired. I was up until after midnight last night updating the LCCS points rankings and getting the results from the last two weekends formatted and uploaded to the USA Cycling Results and Rankings database. We have our criterium championships this weekend right here in City Park, so at least I won't need to travel. I will, however, need to be there at sunrise with the LAMBRA Great White Box, pylons, signs, coolers, flags, clock, etc.

La Vuelta, La Melta

Stephen Mire and I headed west to Lafayette late Friday for a weekend of racing in Acadiana. Although the annual La Vuelta de Acadiana stage race added Friday night criteriums for the Cat. 1/2/3 and Open Women's fields, for the rest of us it's a typical 3-stage weekend stage race. En route we met up with Mignon, who, since she couldn't make the required Friday night criterim for the Women's race with Viv and Judith, was registered in the regular Cat. 4 race with Stephen and Pat.

So Saturday morning we set out to find the road race, stopping at the local Starbucks first, and subsequently missing a turn. We went about ten miles in the wrong direction before realizing our mistake (sugar cane fields pretty much all look alike no matter which road you're on) and arrived just as registration was about to close. It was already getting pretty warm by the time we started our respective 65-mile road races that would take us four times around the dead-flat course. With only a light wind and a hot spot at the end of Lap 1, I knew it would be hard for anything to get away for very long. I was riding the Master 35+ race along with six of the MSM team, Woody, who was riding the Master's race because he couldn't make the Friday night criterium for the Cat. 1/2/3 race. Although it was a smallish field, it contained a lot of horsepower. As we got nearer to the hot spot at the end of the first lap, things started to get more and more nervous. On this course you can see the finish line from about a kilometer away, and as often happens on that sort of course, the sprint started early. Also, as often happens, most of those who started it faded well before the 200 meter mark. As the right side of the group started to get streamed by the left side, I saw that Woody was kind of boxed in over there and tried to get him on my wheel as I went past. I'm not sure he did, but he ended taking the second place points. I think I was about fourth, for which I got zero points. The next couple of laps were interesting, but largely controlled by the MSM guys who outnumbered everyone else. At one point I launched a little attack when we caught another rider who had been off the front and found myself out there all alone. The pack didn't seem too anxious about chasing, so I decided to roll it and see if maybe someone would try to bridge. A small break would have been my best option on that course, so I figured it was worth a try. Well, I stayed out there for a long, long time, but the pack was just holding the gap and letting me work, so with a bit more than a lap left to go, I eased up. As we went through the feed zone on the last lap someone attacked, which is pretty bad form, and so no effort was spared to chase that one down. After that I think everyone was resigned to a pack sprint. I started that one a bit too far back and thought I had a good wheel on the left just when everything seemed to go through on the right. So the best I could do was 5th, which got me a $20 stage bonus and no points. The Masters field finished just a couple of minutes behind the Cat. 4s who had started with a ten minute gap.

Meanwhile in the Cat. 4 race, all three of our riders finished with the main pack with Stephen taking 3rd in the pack sprint despite major cramping in both legs, and Mignon finishing an impressive 15th. Mignon reluctantly headed home after the road race while Stephen and I went back to our severely under-air-conditioned hotel room with nonfunctional internet to hang out until the afternoon Time Trial.

It was sweltering by the time the TT started, but at least there was a bit of a tailwind for the one-way 3.8 mi. course. The first time I looked down at the computer I was going around 29 mph. I spent most of the TT in the 53 x 14, which was probably at least one cog too low, considering the tailwind. I was looking at 28-30 on the computer until the 1 km sign, at which point I had to ease up for a little while before making a final push for the finish. Despite an average speed of well over 27 mph, my time was good for only 10th place, which pretty much put the 6-deep GC prizelist out of reach. Stephen, meanwhile, was still not recovered from the leg cramps he got in the road race and his TT time showed it.

Sunday's criterium was fun, even though the fast non-technical course and long finish straight weren't really my cup of tea. As we waited at the line for the 10 am start, we were already dripping sweat. Unlike the relatively negative racing of the road race, the criterium was quite fast and active with a number of strong attacks. Since I figured the GC was out of reach for me, I was mostly just sitting in hoping to get lucky in the pack sprint. Even so, I did go up to the front a few times to help chase down some dangerous attacks. There was a hot spot at the halfway point of the criterium, and although I didn't think I could get one of the two places that were worth bonuses, I also wanted to be prepared in case someone used the sprint to launch an attack. As we approached the last turn before the hot spot the pack started to bunch up, and then in the middle of the turn one rider slid out, taking another rider with him. I was caught on the outside of that and had to hop the curb and take an extended detour in the grass, followed by an all-out chase to regain the group. I was still feeling pretty good as the last few laps counted down to the bell, so I thought I'd take a shot at the sprint. I was in a pretty good spot on the last lap, but before the last turn I got streamed by a few riders and had to start the sprint from pretty far back. Once again I ended up 5th. I was a little disappointed with my racing last weekend, but not so much that it wasn't fun anyway. Stephen took another 3rd in the Criterium, so if he'd done a decent time trial he probably would have made the top two or three on GC. Pat was happy to finally finish a stage race without incident! Earlier in the day Vivian and Judith had finished 7th and 10th respectively, while a new club member, Robert, took 2nd in the Junior Criterim (and 1st on GC).

We stuck around to watch the Cat. 1/2/3 battle between Matt Davis and Eric Murphy, which was pretty interesting. A 2-man break spent most of the race off the front, only to get caught with two laps to go. A crash right in front of the start/finish took Stanley Prutz out of the race, leaving him with a few square feet of road rash and a broken frame. He'd already had a tire blow out and his front derailleur break off in previous stages. In the final sprint, Chris Lowry took first place, leaving Matt and Eric to battle for the 2nd and 3rd place bonuses. I saw the video image from that finish and it was really almost too close to call. They gave 2nd place to Matt, but Eric still took the GC win by a slim 2 second. I took a few photos of the Women, Cat. 4s and Cat. 1/2/3s from the criterium.

Off to Lafayette

It's been a busy week and my mileage has suffered a bit. Tuesday was basically a wash-out for me, although I heard that the lakefront time trial went off anyway. I made it out to the lakefront Wednesday evening for the training race, arriving a bit late and jumping in near the end of the first lap. It was already going pretty fast when there was yet another attack up near the front and that time the group split. Naturally I ended up on the wrong side of the split. A chase ensued, but then riders started dropping like flies. Howard took a massive pull and got us really close, then Matt followed up and brought us to within four or five bikelengths. I was on his wheel completely maxed out, but we were practically caught up when he suddenly eased up. I didn't really know what to make of that, but it was enough to open the gap again and there was nothing I could do about it. Matt was on his TT bike and I was just hanging on for dear life. So the gap got bigger and by then it was just Matt and I, and I was about to crack. With about a lap to go Matt made one last attempt to close and brought us up to 34 mph. I couldn't quite hang on and came off of his wheel, but a bit later he managed to close it. Good workout!

Thursday was a short day for me because of a little crisis at work, so I didn't get to do the whole long ride in the morning. Today, though, we had a nice little group that rolled out the Friday ride at a nice even pace. Later this evening I'm heading across the lake to pick up Steve and then West to Lafayette for this weekend's Vuelta de Acadiana. I'm feeling kind of dragged out lately, and this race is flat and hot, so it may turn out to be more of a hard training ride for me.

Stars, Stripes and Fireworks

It was hot and sunny on Friday afternoon when I headed North on I-55 with Sam and Rich and LAMBRA's "Great White Box." We were aiming for the Plein Air Classic, two races near Oxford, MS, home of Ole Miss. I knew the turnout for this one would be a bit on the light side because of the July 4th holiday and the location, but the fact is that if you want to race bikes around here you can't let those little six-hour drives get in your way too often. Saturday's race was a circuit race on a fairly short triangular circuit with a finish line located in a new residential/retail development.

By the time we arrived at the race location on Saturday morning my stomach was already feeling kind of unsettled. It may have been the hotel "continental breakfast" bacon at did it. Who knows? Anyway, it wasn't all that bad. The Master's race had a small field, and by the time our race started at 10 am it was already getting pretty warm. There were a few attacks on the first lap, and so I was focused on staying up near the front without doing too much work. There were three guys who were pushing the pace, but somehow it never occurred to me that there might already be a gap behind us. Apparently the sharp turns and accordion effect were taking their toll. I think we were just starting our third lap when I finally looked back and was shocked to find that we had a huge gap on the field. "So that's why the other guys were looking at me like that," I thought. I'd been pretty much sitting on their wheels, thinking that the whole pack was sitting on mine. Once I saw we had a break, of course, I got to work, and after a couple more laps we had extended it out to at least a minute. Our four-man break worked together well until the last couple of laps when the attacks started. Nothing got away, though, and at least three of us came flying into the final two turns pretty fast, with me foolishly in third wheel. On the last sharp right-hand turn, just 150 meters from the finish, Greg Casals (ACCM) drifted a bit too wide and hesitated, at which point I jumped hard to the inside. With 50 meters to go my wheel nudged ahead of Scott Gurganus' for a moment, but he put in a last minute surge and won handily.

After a late lunch/dinner at Rooster's in Oxford we hung around the luxurious Super8 hotel swatting cockroaches until after dark when we decided to ride down to campus to see the big fireworks show. It was a pretty good one. The ride back was particularly fun because toward the end we were screaming downhill on this narrow road in the pitch dark without headlights, just barely able to make out the faint image of the white line thanks to the light from the fireflies in the bushes.

Sunday morning it was pouring down rain and so Rich made a quick decision to skip the 8 am combined Cat. 5/Women 3-4/Junior race and wait until the regular Cat. 5 race an hour or so later. That worked out well because by then the worst of the rain had passed and the roads were already starting to dry out. By the time the 10 am masters race started, at around 10:30 because of the earlier rain delay, it was pretty dry and conveniently overcast. Our race was really animated by the Memphis guys. John McLauchlin must have attacked six or seven times and spent quite a bit of time off the front while a few of us chased. The strategy certainly made me do more work than I'd wanted, although it kind of played into the hands of a few of the other riders who hadn't scored points in the circuit race. The finish line was at the bottom of a long gradual downhill on a wide road. When I have nightmares about criterium finishes, this is exactly what they look like! It was a drag race that took us up to around 41 mph, and I totally blew it, finishing 6th and dropping from 2nd to 4th in the omnium. Under conditions like that, the minute I come out from the draft it's like hitting a wall! A few riders with superior momentum easily passed me just before the finish.

After that disappointing finish I decided to go ahead and ride the Cat. 1/2/3 race about an hour later. This one started out pretty fast with a number of attacks. In the pack were Woody, who had just come back from Nationals where he'd crashed (Kenny also crashed and broke his frame), Debbie Milne in her Stars and Stripes jersey, Frank Moak and Clark Butcher, and a number of guys who had ridden the masters race with me earlier. My plan was to hang out near the back and see if I could keep from getting dropped, but I quickly noticed that Woody was stationed on the front and was having to cover all of the attacks practically by himself, so I went up there for a while to give him what little help I could. When a 4-rider group that included Frank and Clark, along with Eric Murphy and Brian Toone, took off, I rolled to the front and looked back under my arm for Woody. I wasn't sure if he wanted to let this combination go or not. With Brian and Eric in there, there was certainly no guarantee of a Herring Gas win. He looked at me with that, "No, no. Don't chase!" look, so I backed it down just enough to keep the gap growing without encouraging an immediate attack. Over the course of the next few laps a few riders tried to bridge, but they were chased down quickly and the gap continued to grow. We lost Sam during one of those, but soon afterward the pack gave up the chase and the pace settled down. I dropped back to my more familiar position near the back.

As we got down to the last few laps, things started getting a little jumpier, and I went into the final turn maybe five riders from the front. Of course, we were only sprinting for 5th place. This time the sprint went about the same for me, which is to say I was spun out in my 53x12 well before the finish. I well-timed bike throw netted me 8th place by the width of a tire and I was pretty happy with that, considering. Overall, it was a fun weekend and the prizes were good enough to cover my hotel cost, so what more can you ask? The Oxford guys did a great job with this race, so all it really needs is a little better turnout from the clubs "down south."

End of a Week

It was another long ride Thursday morning on the levee, and I was in the mood to get a good workout. You see, I'd completely forgotten about the Wednesday training race, and when I walked out of the office around 5:45 it was way too late to make it. I guess I'd been kind of preoccupied all day between checking on Masters Nationals results and, well, WORK. Anyway, the Thursday ride was goood, if unremarkable, and as is usual this time of year I arrived back home wet, tired and hungry. For some reason my legs have felt kind of sore all week, even though I've been trying to give them a little rest. After I got home I noticed I'd received a text message. It was from Tim who said he and Jen had been at the hospital since 2 am and that the baby was almost there. A few hours later I checked back and by then there was a new baby girl in the family. Later that day I got a call from Gina who was on her way to Louisville for her criterium on Friday, having finished up her Residency in Emergency Medicine a few days ago. Since she'll be starting work in a few weeks, she figured she'd have some fun in the interim, even though she was pretty out of shape. Checking the results this morning I see that she didn't finish. Vivian, who rode in a different age group, placed in the 20s in her race the same day. The Herring guys are racing today.

So this morning I had a nice easy ride with just a couple of other riders up on the levee. Since a lot of people don't have work today, including me, the bike path was pretty busy. In particular, I noticed a whole lot of women this morning. Later today I'll be heading up to Oxford, MS with Sam and Rich for a couple of races up around Ole Miss. Kenny, Woody and Scott are supposed to be going there right after their nationals criteriums on Saturday. Looks like it'll be a hot weekend, and I don't feel very well prepared for this one. Oh well. Situation normal.

Riding to Work

This morning's training ride was a fairly typical one at first. Everybody was taking long steady pulls at moderate speeds, except for Sam who darted ahead and rode off the front for a while. Woody was with us for a while, but he was being careful to protect his legs ahead of his trip to Louisville tomorrow where he, Kenny and Scott K will be racing their respective m-nats criteriums. From today's time trials, word is already out that Mike Olheiser won his age group, but I haven't yet heard anything about the fate of our LAMBRA riders (Mat Davis, Mark Graffagnini, Stan Prutz, Charles Hobbs, Vivian Torres, and whoever else I'm missing). Anyway, for the return trip from the turnaround at today's ride, we all hopped aboard the "D" train as Donald pulled the whole bunch of us pretty much the entire way back at 24-25 mph. My legs were still feeling kind of sore from yesterday, so I wasn't inclined to rock that boat at all.

After a quick shower I headed off to work by way of the neighborhood bank's ATM machine and Maple Street Starbucks. At the bank I discovered that they had done away with deposit envelopes and that the new machines now simply suck in each deposit check one at a time, scan them, figure out the amount, and make the deposits that way. I was impressed that it could read the handwritten checks. So I headed down Short Street toward Starbucks, and for some reason decided to get my camera out. This is the street that I normally use to get to the bike path for my morning rides. The first thing that caught my eye was the brightly painted handmade sign at Sycamore St. that says "Slow your roll." There are a number of little signs this scattered about the lower Carrollton neighborhood, and although I have no idea who makes them, I like seeing them. A bit farther down Short Street, near Willow, is a particularly brightly painted little Camelback house, probably originally built as a simple Shotgun around 1900 or so, that I've always found interesting. The tropical plants around this house are further decorated with bromeliads, giving it kind of a Caribbean feel.

Every now and then, it's nice to look up from the handlebars for a few minutes.....