Le Fleur

I'm sitting here at home on a Monday night with the light of an almost full moon streaming in through the Levelors and a long list of uncompleted tasks hanging over my head,contemplating the meaning of the last 98,000 miles. At least it was a good weekend, eh?

It was 4 am on Saturday when the alarm went off. That was about as close as I could cut it. Dave was scheduled to arrive at 4:30 and we were planning on hitting the road for Jackson Mississippi shortly thereafter. The recently revived Tour LeFleur had been moved at the last minute from Saturday to Sunday. It was probably a good call. Just 30 miles north a tornado had flattened a swatch of Yazoo City. Regardless, I was still having a lot of trouble getting psyched up for this particular race. I guess in the back of my mind I just knew it wasn't my kind of race. An 2-race omnium consisting of a 3 mi. time trial and a 45 minute circuit race on a very non-technical course offers little advantage for me. Nonetheless, Dave and I arrived right on time, got a great parking spot, and started getting our acts together for the 8 am start.

The Time Trial, as luck would have it, was three miles of strong tailwind on a nice rolling course. I took one look at it and determined that the big powerful guys were going to have a good day. I mean, a tailwind is great and all, but realistically the big guys who could push the 54x11s were going to be in their elements today. I guess that overall I gave the TT a 90% effort which landed me, quite predictably, in the middle of the field which, in this case, was 6th place. Since the weekend event was a 2-race omnium, I really couldn't put too much stock in my TT placing. The afternoon criterium turned out to be much more of a circuit race, again playing to my weaknesses. In fact, I mentioned so someone that the course and conditions were pretty much exactly the opposite of what I would consider good for my own chances.

The Time Trials started late because of some police department confusion, so at least it was starting to get a little warmer by the time I went off. The course had a pretty significant climb jsut after the start, so I was trying to be careful not to blow up on it. Even so, it was a struggle coming over the top. On the plus side, there was a strong tailwind the whole way. I had a max speed in excess of 37 mph and yet my time of 6:18 didn't even come close to the fastest times in the Cat. 1/2/3 race. I guess I did the TT at around a 90% effort level and as a result ended up solidly in the middle of the small masters field, in 6th place. Twelve seconds can make such a big difference in a 3 mile time trial, can't it? I mean, just how much harder would I have had to push in order to make up the 12 seconds between me and 1st place??

The afternoon "circuiterium" was on a rolling non-technical 3-mi. course that included a fast downhill right before the finish. I remarked to a couple of people that it was essentially the opposite of a good course for me. Even before we started, I knew I was going to have trouble. As it turned out, the race was very confusing, at least to me. Donald D was being uncharasterically defensive. I guess I was too. Half of the field was basically sitting on. Halfway through the race there was a 5-deep hot spot. I probably should have paid some attention to the race flyer because I didn't realize that the points went 5 deep until the next day! About a mile before the hot spot Peter Stephens took off with my teammate Dave Schreffler. I backed off and they quickly got a big gap. Dave got the 2nd place hot spot points, moving him up significantly in the overall standings. There was a half-hearted chase with the rest of the field apparently content to battle it out for the remaining hot spot points. Since I didn't realize that the points went all the way down to 5th, I didn't really put in that much of an effort. Mistake number one.

After the hot spot everything came back together at which point I should have launched an attack, but for some reason I never was able to really get into this race. I knew what I should be doing but I was never quite able to execute it. There were a couple more attacks but nothing stuck until the last lap when two riders rolled off the front with only a mile or so to go. I was really expecting more of a response from the other riders, and I guess Donald Davis was too. He got stuck at the front of the pack and nobody would come past, including me. Really, it was like both of us were unable to make a commitment. Mistake number two.

The finish was basically at the bottom of a long shallow downhill. With the top two places already up the road, it was Donald with me on his wheel half a kilo before the line when we got streamed on the left by the sprint. I dumped it down into the 12 but by then we were already going pretty fast and it was pretty hard to come past anybody. I still had a little left at the finish but the door in front of me closed suddenly and I had to back off for a moment. So I ended up 6th in the circuit race. On the plus side, Dave put in another great sprint and got 4th overall in the circuit race right behind Jaro. That moved him up into a tie with Jaro for 3rd GC. He ended up in 4th because the tie was broken based on the circuit race finish order, but nonetheless I don't think I would be exaggerating to say he was excited. I think he called his mom to tell her the news. So we ended up with 4th and 6th, which was respectable.

The combined Womens/Juniors race had been run just before ours and that one worked out fairly well. An early break by Debbie Milne, with junior rider Tyler Hutchington in tow pulled out an NOBC chase group of Mignon Guerin and junior rider Robert Monahan. I have to say it was really neat to see that duo working so smoothly together. Later, I looked at the results and realized that they had posted idential time trial times earlier in the morning, which explains why they were so smooth. Anyway, they were out there for almost the whole race and finished 3rd and 4th overall, which was 2nd for each in their respective classes. Meanwhile, Vivian was monitoring the remnant of the pack. She somehow got confused about the laps and sprinted on the bell lap. A lap later she sprinted for the real finish and took the pack sprint, so she and Mignon finished 2nd and 3rd in the Women's race.

We split after the Masters race, stopping in Jackson for a nice early dinner before making the 3 hour drive back to NOLA. I'm looking forward to a bigger and better Tour LeFleur next year. Man, I really miss that downtown criterium couse they used to use! So this morning I went out for an easy spin just to loosen the legs up a bit. Along the way I saw a bald eagle perched up at the top of a tree being harassed by a couple of noisy seagulls. I took yet another fuzzy photo. Later in the day I received my official Starbucks "Gold Card." Well, I guess I've arrived, eh??