Rapides Recap

I've been pretty busy lately, and not in that Jered Gruber flying around the country from one international race to another with my euro-chic fiance interviewing cycling superheroes kind of way. (Where do I send my resume for that job?) In fact, the farthest away I got was Alexandria, Louisiana, a three-hour drive from New Orleans. The impetus for that particular drive was the Racing Rapides weekend. This event had previously been an omnium, but the USAC schedule of fees kind of got in the way of the prizelist, or vice-versa, and it was considerably cheaper for the organizers to run three separate races than an omnium. So Friday evening saw me heading west on I-10 with an ETA at Ed's house in Pineville of around 10:15 pm. Following me was Mignon, who was planning on driving back after the road race on Saturday. The drive was fairly uneventful until somewhere around the notorious town of Bunkie where we paused to make an unplanned donation to the local sheriff's office. We arrived at Ed's house right about the same time as Ed himself who had been out in his canoe all day catching crabs, so dinner consisted of freshly boiled blue crabs and cold beer. Kids, this is not exactly recommended pre-race dining.

Saturday morning started with a 5km time trial on a nice curvy course. I was feeling particularly unmotivated about this time trial, since the odds of my getting within range of the prizelist weren't particularly good. I did a nice warmup, rolled up to the line, and started out fairly easy, completing the course at about 90% effort. This of course resulted in a less than stellar time and a placing of 9th in the small field of thirteen 40+ masters riders. We had a couple of hours to kill between the TT and the RR, but we chose to hang out in the shade for the duration. Although the temperature was rising into the 90s, there was a nice breeze blowing and lots of shade, so this was rather pleasant. A few more people who had skipped the time trial started filtering in, one of which was Lenny K. who hadn't raced in about a decade. I led him over to say hello to Mike Lew, one of the other local dinosaurs, but when Lenny reached down to tap Mike on the shoulder, Mike's somewhat overprotective dog clamped onto his hand, drawing blood.

So after the women, juniors and Cat. 5s finished their road races, the 40+ masters finally got underway. We had a somewhat larger field of 22 or so for this race that would take us three times around the circuit. Things got pretty quick pretty quickly in this race. The course had two rather long climbs on it, but otherwise the terrain wasn't too difficult. At one point, after the group had closed down yet another attack, I rolled through and found myself off the front, so I figured, "what the hell, I'll keep it rolling for a while and see if anyone gets nervous enough to do some work to chase." It would at least give Dave a chance to sit in for a while. Well, although I had a pretty significant gap, my threat level is apparently pretty low. By the time I was caught I'd probably done more damage to myself than anybody else. The attacks and surges continued on the second lap, and when we hit the long climb on the back side of the course there was a pretty serious attack that shattered the group right away. I found myself way too far back when it happened, and all the alarm bells started going off. When I came up to Mitch I told him we had to close quick before they got organized, so he put his head down and ramped it up to 32 mph. I think we were about the last ones who made it across. The group was now down to about a dozen.

The first half of the last lap had a few more attacks, but nothing stuck and everyone started thinking about the finish and getting defensive, which is to say the pace finally slowed down a bit. I was feeling rather beat and spend most of the last half of the last lap near the back scrounging around for a draft in the crosswind. Dave wasn't feeling too chipper either. The early taste of mid-summer heat was really taking the starch out of everyone. So it came down to a long 300 meter sprint in the end, with me taking a disappointing 7th and Dave 8th.

Sunday was the criterium in the old downtown area of Alexandria. This is a nice course with lots of turns and a long, long finish straight. I decided to play the sprinter for this one, staying out of the action at the front and rolling the dice that a break wouldn't get away. There were lots of attempts to make that happen. Jerry had Jay and Jason working the front, and Donald Davis and a couple others were also keeping things interesting. The pace was actually pretty fast for most of the race, but nobody was able to get away and although we lost a number of riders, it came down to a sprint. With a couple of laps to go I made my way up closer to the front and was in a fairly good position halfway through the last lap as Jay and Jayson tried to keep the speed up for Jerry, but then people started pulling off a little faster than I'd expected and I found myself in danger of having to lead out the sprint, which is never a good thing for me. Luckily, someone attacked prior to the last two turns and I was able to latch onto his wheel, coming around the last turn second wheel. Now, if the finish line had been 150 meters from there, I'd have been gold, but it was probably over twice that far, so I hung back for a little while. It was likely a little while too long because I heard riders starting to come around on both sides and had to go. I clicked down a couple of cogs and stood on it, but not before three guys passed us. I ended up 4th and Dave 5th, which I was fairly happy about.

Today was a long day in Baton Rouge at the capitol building for "Tulane Day." At least I finally got the Racing Rapides results uploaded to the USAC database, and I got some of the Tour de La web pages updated, but I still need to do the LCCS rankings for both this race and the prior one, neither of which will be easy.

Coming Soon.....

So much to blog about; so little time. Racing Rapides was a lot of fun in the sun. Matt Davis rides away from the Cat. 1/2/3s less than ten miles into a 73 mile afternoon road race with temperatures in the 90s, then laps them in the crit the next day, rides through the pack and rides off the front again, taking along one lucky passenger. Mike's son bites Lenny. Boiled crabs and beer at 11 pm the night before a road race. Complete sentences to come later.....

Perhaps tonight....

Behind the Motors

I must have missed the email. You know, the one that said it was Time Trial Bike Day. After dragging myself out of bed and forcing my legs around in little circles long enough to get to the morning levee ride, I was hoping for a nice moderate paced ride. I'm planning on racing this weekend in Alexandria (as usual, it's Thursday and I haven't made any arrangements yet) and I'd just as soon not start out with sore legs. So my plan was to take the ride as easily as I could.

Within moments of arriving, however, I noticed a number of full-on TT bikes in attendance. Matt was on his P4 with the "water bottle" and deeeeep carbon wheels. Next to him was Rob on his lo-rider Giant Trinity. Then VJ rolled up on his electronic shifting Look 5-ninety something. A few more relatively pedestrian TT bikes lurked in the shadows. It was not looking like it would be an easy ride.

At least the pace didn't go ballistic from the start, but it didn't take long for the faster guys to filter up to the front. Mike C. rode off the front first, which stepped the pace up a notch. There were a few more surges, which opened some fairly big gaps. Eventually the speed got up into the range where the only guys regular road bikes brave enough to keep taking pulls were Woody, Brady, Tracy and maybe one or two others. It's not that it's all that hard to take the pull itself. The problem is getting back into the paceline afterwards.

So by the time we were halfway out the rotation on the front consisted of Matt, Rob and VJ. I somehow ended up next in line, but once the pace got really fast I just started letting them in in front of me. I wasn't getting any complaints and the three of them seemed happy with the ten-mile team time trial they were doing while the rest of us sat there behind them. At least they were nice and smooth, so for the most part it felt like a very long and fast motorpacing workout. This was about the best I could hope for without dropping off the back and riding by myself. Since there wasn't much wind and the pace up front was so smooth, it was fairly easy to sit there behind the motors spinning a 53x14 and waiting for the Destrehan bridge to appear.

I felt pretty well-done by the time I got home, but thanks to the relatively steady pace and lack of wind, my legs didn't seem to have suffered much damage. Soon after I got home, I heard about the Landis "revelations." Great. I can't really imagine what his motivations are, but I'm guessing there was cash involved. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this than actual racing for the rest of the year.

Batture Houses and Levee Crashes

Monday morning I got out to the levee a bit early and so to kill a little time I rode past the row of batture houses just down from where we start our weekday rides. I've always been fascinated by these houses, perched precariously on pilings on the wrong side of the levee. These are the only ones left around here, as far as I know, and some of them have been substantially upgraded over the years. When I got back to the start I was rather relieved that nobody else showed up. I was still feeling a little bit of the weekend in my legs, so I really needed a nice, easy spin. Of course, no matter how slowly I start out a ride, I always seem to end up pushing myself at some point. Then I realize it and sit up, coast for a little while, and usually end up pushing too hard again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

After work, the neighbors came over with dinner (and wine!). I'm still working on the cake they brought to celebrate The Wife's birthday. It was a nice dinner, and as usual I crashed right into bed shortly thereafter.

So Tuesday morning I get out to the levee for the 6:15 ride and there's already a big crowd up there. I guess we had around 20 at one point, and although the pace got pretty fast, it didn't get quite as fast as it sometimes does. Tim wasn't there and Woody wasn't pushing too hard, so aside from the occasional surges by Howard it was reasonably steady. Even so, the group split and re-connected a number of times on the way out. Somewhere out around the Luling bridge David clipped a wheel or something and crashed pretty hard. I never even knew about it until we were halfway back. Richard said he got a lot of road rash, but nothing seemed to be broken. Since he lives out there, he just went down the levee and call his wife for extraction, so we never even saw him on our return trip. Today we had a visiting rider, Tracy, who is in town for business. Anyway, I was feeling OK today, but not particularly snappy for some reason. Back at work I was thinking about how small a window I have right now for actual work. I mean, with the Giro d' Italia in the morning and the Tour of California in the afternoon, how am I supposed to get any work done? Somehow I missed the finish of today's TOC stage. Apparently, so did all of those people watching it on Versus. Even Lance had something to say about it: "Who's the dumbass @versustv that cut off @AmgenTourof Cali coverage with a mile to go for pregame hockey?? #pathetic"

This evening I found out that they're putting the boat that Kenny commandeered after Katrina on display in the Presbytere on Jackson Square. Wow. I figured that boat must have ended up in a landfill somewhere by now. It's pretty cool that it survived. The story is still online. Apparently there will be ceremony on June 1.

Weekend Events

A wedding, a ride in a rainstorm, and a cyclist in intensive care. It's been a long weekend. It all started around 5:00 am Friday morning when drove The Wife to the airport to catch a plane for Moline, IL and a visit with The Daughter in Iowa City. Her luggage apparently caught a later flight. I got back home in plenty of time to get in my usual Friday morning ride, so at least that worked out nicely. Near the end of the ride I came upon Vivian changing a flat on the bike path, so I rode with her down to Oak Street where the tire went flat again. That time she found the little sliver of glass. By then I was already feeling rather tired, so I stopped at Zotz for a cup of dark roast. After work I picked up my father and met my sisters and brother and most of their families for dinner. Everyone was in town for my neice's wedding on Saturday. I was expecting four house guests from Dallas to arrive around 9 pm, but got word they wouldn't be arriving until around midnight. I stayed up until 1:30 am with no sign of them and finally fell asleep until they showed up around 3 am. A couple of hours sleep and it was time to head out to the Saturday Giro Ride!


I actually got to the Harrison Ave. Starbucks earlier than usual, but spent most of the ride struggling a bit from the accumulated sleep deprivation. Since I'd left the dog in my bedroom so he wouldn't bother the house guests, I rushed straight home after the ride. My weekend guests were just heading out when I got home, and a little while later my brother called asking if I wanted to meet them at Riccobono's for breakfast. I jumped into the shower and rushed over there just as a little rain shower arrived. Later that afternoon I learned that one of the guys on the LSU cycling team, Michael Bitton, a graduate student, had been hit by a car on River Road and, basically, left for dead in the ditch by a hit-and-run driver. He is still in intensive care fighting for his life with broken vertebrae, brain injury, severe damage to hip and shoulder, broken sternum and ribs, and internal bleeding. The police identified the vehicle based on car parts left at the scene and the word went out quickly via email lists, Facebook and the media. This afternoon the police arrested the driver. His lawyer is already trying to lay the blame on the cyclist and the road itself. Anyway, I hope Michael comes through this OK. I understand that he at least escaped any significant spinal cord injury. Some time in the afternoon I got the online registration for the Tour de La. set up. I still need to add in the maps and other information for the criterium, make the final arrangements with City Park, update the Race Bible, etc.

Anyway, the real rain started just in time for the wedding, which was thankfully only half an hour long. Then the sky really opened up for the drive from the church to the reception. The reception itself was quite nice with lively music and dancing. Of course I ended up drinking a bit too much wine, so although I got back home well before 10 pm, I was more than ready for bed by then. There was a Sunday ride planned for the northshore, on the Tour de La course. There was no way I was going to make it, however. I set my sights instead on the Sunday Giro Ride.

Sunday's radar image was quite colorful. Most of it was way to the west of us and I figured we'd be able to get through the Giro Ride before it got here. When I got to Starbucks I found a smaller group than usual, even though it included a couple of people who had originally planned on doing the northshore ride. Mignon looked around at who was there and wondered out loud if she'd be able to stay with the group. I was already regretting those last two glasses of wine I'd had the night before. The sky was cloudy but didn't look threatening as we headed out. Despite the smallish group, the pace got pretty fast and stayed that way all the way down Hayne Blvd. A little later there were some words exchanged between Mike W. and Tim and a couple of miles after that the attacks started. The speed kept going from extremely fast to merely very fast and I ended up skipping a bunch of pulls in the interest of pack survival. We lost a number of people along the way. There was a final surge and sprint at Venetian Isles and then when we turned around and I looked up at the western sky, I knew we were in trouble. The sky ahead was dark and gloomy. We were going to get wet. Possibly very wet. We were already flying down Chef on the way back when the remnants of the original group tried to turn around and latch on. I don't know how many of them made it. Luckily for them Charlie flatted shortly thereafter. Unluckily for them the pace went right back up to where it had been as soon as we got going again.

I guess the rain started shortly after we turned off of Chef Highway. I sat up for a moment and stuffed my camera into the ziplock bag with my phone. The sky was looking even worse, and soon we were riding in a fairly heavy rain. Mignon, who had taken the Bullard shortcut and was hiding out at the gas station by the interstate joined us a bit reluctantly. This was understandable, since normal people would be seeking shelter under the circumstances under which we were riding. Still, the pace remained fast all the way down Hayne and when the rain went from bad to torrential downpour near the end of Hayne she and Chip disappeared off the back. The ride over the bridges and down Leon C. Simon was brief but epic. The streets were flooding and the rain was so heavy that I was worried the cars wouldn't be able to see us. The only thing that would have been worse would have been to be riding alone. The rain finally eased up as we got to City Park, so I stopped at Starbucks again where they gave me a discount because they recognized me from that morning and I sat down with Mark to wait for the others. I finally sent Mignon a text and found out that she and Chip had stopped to wait it out. As I rode home down Canal Blvd. it started raining more heavily again. There was a flooded-out car stalled in the Canal Blvd. underpass. The Carrollton Ave. underpass was about four feet deep, judging by the water level on the stalled car down there, and had been closed off by the police. Luckily there is a sidewalk much higher up so I was able to get across. The Palmetto drainage canal was definitely at flood stage, and this was probably nearly an hour after the worst of the rain.


After I got home and warmed up a bit, I spent some time cleaning off the bike and lubricating the chain. Hopefully all of those "sealed" bearings didn't get too much water in them.


I wonder if my shoes will be dry by morning.....

Ouch, Ouch

The last couple of days have been rather painful, in more ways than one. Wednesday morning, of course, was the usual training ride up on the levee. I wasn't feeling too sharp, but since the Wednesday ride is usually pretty smooth I wasn't too worried. It turned out to be a pretty hard ride, however, and I got back home feeling kind of drained. It was a feeling that would stick with me for the next day or so. The night before, the neighbor had asked me to assemble a bike for her son that she had gotten online. This turned out to be a rather frustrating experience, more so since it was, at least, a "brand name" Schwinn. Basically every bearing on the bike was both overtightened and under-lubricated, and with an anxious 4 year-old hovering over me there wasn't really time to disassemble everything and make it right, so I readjusted what I could. In the end, I think the chain was still too tight and the bottom bracket was still badly in need of adjustment and lube. Perhaps I'll get bike again when I have some time to do a decent job on it. Anyway, that job convinced me to put off for yet another day the filing of the LAMBRA 990 tax return, which I was certain would be a piece of cake anyway.

At the end of the work day I rushed back home and then rode out to the Arena, next to the Superdome, for a highly unofficial criterium on the short course around the building. I was still feeling flat-out exhausted, but just couldn't pass up the opportunity to try out this "course" at training race speed. It is part of a potential future race course and was also serving as our "Plan B" course for the Tour de La crit if we hadn't gotten the OK for the City Park course. We ended up with over a dozen riders, which was nice, but I knew things would come apart quickly because of the gusty winds. The race started out with a couple of warmup laps, but by the time we were ten minutes into the 45 minute race things were coming apart at the seams. I was really hurting, sitting on wheels near the back and hoping I could hang on. When a gap started to open up a couple of riders ahead of me, I hesitated for a while, but finally had to put my head down and bury the pain needle in the red for half a lap to close it. At that point I was hanging on for dear life while Woody, Tim, Mike and Dave traded attacks up front. I could see Tim and Woody taking turns softening us up for the coup de gras, and soon Tim launched himself into breakaway land leaving the rest of us gasping for breath as Woody looked around at us and soft-pedaled. I was slowly starting to feel a little more snap but a few laps later (actually a lot of laps, since they were probably less than a minute long) there was an attack and I again got gapped off the back and essentially blew up. I figured my race was over, but half a lap later I saw the riders ahead bunch up and made one last do-or-die effort. My timing turned out to have been good, and luckily there wasn't a counter attack when I got back into the draft.

When we got down to four laps to go I figured I'd stay on the front and keep the pace fast so that Dave could get set up for the sprint without worrying too much about an attack. I was finally starting to feel better. As we came around the last corner with one more lap to go I saw a Herring jersey come flying around me. Naturally I assumed it was Woody launching a final attack, so I tried to pick up a little of his draft to keep the gap from getting too big and glanced back to make sure Dave was coming. He was, so I backed off a bit so he could get the wheel and right about that time I realized the rider who had passed us was Tim, who had just lapped us. So Tim finished right ahead of me and the rest of us looked at each other wondering, "are we finished?" Everyone did another lap and sprinted anyway! Man, was I tired after that one! Later that night I went to file LAMBRA's first ever Form 990 with the IRS, assuming I could use the really simple e-Postcard thing, only to discover that since they had classified us as a 501(c)3 "Private Foundation," I would have to file the much more complicated 990-PF just like the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Thank goodness for Reggie Bresette! I called him this morning and he said he could take care of it for us and get it filed before the deadline on Saturday so the IRS wouldn't revoke our nonprofit status. Then we can go about getting our status changed to whatever it's really supposed to be.

Thursday morning I got on the bike and, Ouch, my quads were still sore from the prior day's double duty. I was hoping the ride wouldn't be too hard, but, well, it sure didn't feel that way. In fact, it felt really hard and fast. We had a bit of a tailwind going out and that kept the pace way up in the 27-30 mph range for a lot of it. I had to make a few really hard efforts just to stay with the rapidly disintegrating paceline. Once we hit the parish line and a few of the guys turned around, the pace eased up just a tiny bit, but it was by no means easy. I was really struggling but at least I wasn't getting dropped. Then, somewhere near the second grain elevator, about a mile before the turnaround, a big rock got thrown up as we were flying along at maybe 28 mph and whacked me on the shin. Ouch! That one really, really hurt and I had to back off and wince in pain for a little while. I hate it when that happens. For the ride back I decided that my place was at the back today. Someone else was going to have to battle the headwind.

Long Lines

The air still felt nice at 6 am today. I rode out to the levee to find a big group for the Tuesday morning ride, and even though a couple of the fast guys were missing, there were still more than enough to keep things interesting. I was feeling kind of sluggish this morning, so I guess it was good that the occasional crosswind was forcing me to pay attention. For some reason the pace was none too stable today - surging one minute and coasting the next. More than once I found myself closing big gaps that never should have opened in the first place. Go figure. The result was that I did a lot of work on the way out, which led, of course, to a fair amount of wheel-sucking on the way back.

At one point I pulled out my camera to take some photos and the extra effort nearly got me dropped. It's amazing how hard it is sometimes to deal with the camera when the group is really rolling like it was today. There are a couple of places along the bike path where the river makes these long curves. They are the only places to get a nice photo of the long line of riders as it sweeps around .

The rest of the day was pretty much downhill. I was really having a lot of trouble focusing on anything. Perhaps it was because I'd skipped my usual cup of coffee. Anyway, I had been kind of holding out a little hope that I'd make it out to Almonaster Blvd. for Kenny's training race, but by the time I left the office it was already after 5:30 and I just didn't feel like I was up to the rush. Then I got home to find that the dog had decided to take a leak on the living room floor.

Tomorrow there will be a training criterium around the Arena downtown, next to the Superdome. It will be interesting to see if we are able to actually get away with it. I'm hoping I'll be able to make that one. We'll see.

In Town

It seemed a little strange to actually be in town for the second weekend in a row during May, but here I am. By Friday afternoon I'd already made a bunch (far, far too many, in fact) of copies of Tour de LA flyers, LAMBRA brochures, and NOBC one-pagers, and I was thinking I was all set for Saturday's Tour de Lis. Thanks to Mignon's relentless networking we were scheduled to have a table there with information on bike racing. We'd also arranged to have a popup shelter and table for the Tulane Cycling Club. I knew it would be a great opportunity for some much-needed visibility. Later in the afternoon I got a call from Robin asking that I bring the NOBC pop-up shelter, so I ditched my plans to ride out there and instead put in a reservation for the car. Later that evening Jordan emailed asking if anyone had done any handouts for Tulane Cycling. Nobody had, so some time around midnight I whipped something up and printed out as many as my little home printer and inadequate paper supply could handle.

The event itself was quite a laid-back affair with around 600 participants that included a run/walk and a short multi-lap bike ride. I got there around 6:30 armed with a big cup of coffee and rushed around putting up shelters and stealing tables and hanging banners for both the NOBC/LAMBRA booth and the Tulane Cycling booth. I looked around at all of the organization and volunteers and thought, "This could be a much bigger event." Our little "booth" was reasonably active, especially after some of the Giro Ride riders stopped by. At one point the person who writes the "What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today" blog, who happens to be a Tulane faculty member, came over for a visit, so it was nice to finally put a face to the blog. To liven things up a bit, the CEO of SRAM, who was in town for the event, stopped by and ended up hanging around for quite a while once Kenny showed up. This was a nice development for a number of reasons. I'd just read a nice article in Road Bike Action magazine on the history of SRAM, which was the major sponsor of the Tour de Lis this year. He and his wife are also Tulane alumni. I think the event raised somewhere around $180k this year for the LAF, CAGNO and WBR. By the time I got back home around noon, Kenny had already texted me to say he'd talked Stan into riding the Sunday Giro. I was impressed. Anyway, despite my best intentions I never did ride on Saturday.

Sunday morning was noticeably cooler and quite windy thanks to a little cool front, and as I rode into the headwind out to the Harrison Starbucks to meet the Giro Ride I noted how fresh my legs felt after a day off. I figured the ride today would be smaller than usual since it's Mother's Day. I was right about that. I also figured it would be an easy ride. I wasn't quite so right about that, however. Kenny and Stan showed up as I was finishing my coffee and a little while later we all headed for Lakeshore Drive and turned into a brisk northeast or southeast (or both) headwind. Rob seemed to be feeling particularly frisky today and zoomed off the front on Hayne Blvd. I knew he wouldn't get too far in the headwind, but it nonetheless got the group going. The rest of the way down Hayne stayed fairly fast, and I was glad to see that the CEO of SRAM can ride! So we basically battled the headwind all the way out to the Venetian Isles turnaround. Fortunately, there wasn't too much of a crosswind component so although the group did eventually split, it didn't shatter like it sometimes does.

The return trip, of course, got pretty fast thanks to some nice sections of tailwind, although we never really approached the 37 mph rumored to have been Saturday's top speed. As we were approaching the Goodyear Sign Sprint I found myself second wheel behind Eddie D with a very long way to go. Just as I was resigning myself to doing a long leadout for the group, however, we got streamed on the left by an early sprint and I never really had a chance to catch a wheel. Oh well. Live by the sprint, die by the sprint.

So it was a pretty decent workout today despite the smaller than usual group. I rode back by way of the French Quarter with Kenny, Stan (who was staying downtown), Eddie and Woody. After Kenny peeled off at Louisiana I had a nice relaxing ride back home as I enjoyed what just might be one of the last pleasantly cool mornings until Fall.

Nearly Summer

It seems as if the sun comes up earlier each morning lately, and while there's still a hint of coolness to the pre-dawn air, it doesn't linger for long. Best of all, though, is the welcome simplicity of going out in shorts and jersey without even checking the thermometer. It's nearly summer now, for all practical purposes, and from now until some time near the end of August it will just get warmer and warmer. Another thing that happens this time of year is that the number of people on the group rides starts to climb. Indeed, the morning levee rides have been well-attended this week.

The Thursday early ride may have started out in a nice civilized way, but it didn't last very long. There weren't any actual attacks or anything. Instead the speed just kept notching up and up until I was really starting to struggle with it. I'd started the ride with a slightly unhappy stomach, the outcome perhaps of the raw oysters, or the subsequent oyster loaf, I'd had on Magazine Street the night before. Then again, maybe it was just the Guiness Stout. Who knows? Anyway, I tried to ignore it and kept taking pulls. It helped, of course, that the pace slacked off noticeably after Tim and Woody turned back. Yet by the time we got to the turnaround out at Ormond I was more than ready to ease up. Apparently not everyone else was, though, so for me, easing up meant sitting in near the back and trying not to dwell on the discomfort. Fortunately all was better, more or less, by the time I was back home.

Back at work I found an email from Julie at City Park in my in-box. Finally. So the course at the park is available for the Tour de La. That's good. The fee to use the course, well, not so good. In fact, pretty close to the figure for the total event prizelist. The alternatives are likely less expensive, but also far less convenient and far less visible. We will likely go with it, but it still feels like I'm getting, well ... let's just say it's not an effective way to generate good will with the local bike race promoters.

Exam Season

I figured I could get in about an hour and a half Sunday morning. I was scheduled to conduct a LAMBRA Officials' Clinic at 10 am, and with rain in the forecast my options were definitely limited. So I headed over to the Harrison Avenue Starbucks to meet the local caffeinated wheelmen, have a quick cup of iced coffee, and roll over to Robt. E. Lee to meet the Giro Ride. Doing the whole ride was pretty much out of the question for me, so I was planning on turning back after crossing the Seabrook bridge in order to be back home by 8:30 or so. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but it was even more windy than it had been on Saturday, a fact that was driven strongly home as I made my way alone back across the bridge. The gusty crosswind up there on the unprotected bridge was so strong that I came back down with both hands on the brakes and struggling to maintain control of the front wheel. I was having Wizard of Oz images of myself and my bike being blown off the bridge. Anyway, I battled my way back home and then headed over to Tulane to get things set up for the Level C officials exam.

We had a great turnout for this one and everyone passed the exam, so we ended up making ten new officials. Thanks to everyone who came. We really need all of the officials we can get because the chances of more than one actually being available on any given weekend aren't always very good. It was already raining by the time I left and kept raining off and on pretty much all of the rest of the day and most of the night, knocking out the power twice in the process. Monday morning the streets were still wet and so I blew off the morning ride thinking I could always get in a ride in the evening. Well, of course that didn't happen.

The Tuesday morning ride turned out to be a pretty good workout. Tim was in attack mode and so it got pretty fast on the way out. There were repeated surges and attacks until the paceline finally snapped, leaving me out there with Tim and Woody. They were planning on turning around early, so at least I knew I wouldn't have to sustain the unsustainable pace for too long. I ended up back with the group after The Dip, but the pressure was still on a bit. On the way back it seemed like Rob and Donald were taking turns attacking each other, which kept the pace fast and relegated most of us to the back of the paceline for a little rest now and then.

After a week and a half of riding in NOLA, I'm already wishing for a ride with some hills in it. Saturday would be the day, but I'll be manning a LAMBRA/NOBC table at the Tour de Lis event in City Park and will be lucky to get in any riding at all. Sunday is Mother's day, so I don't yet know if there will be any domestic entanglements, but I guess the Giro Ride should at least be an option.

You Never Know

You never know what the Giro Ride will serve up each weekend. All metro group training rides are like that, I guess. There's the weather, of course, but then there's also the rider mix, the traffic, the time of the year, what races are coming up, and how much coffee the riders have just consumed. Today, for example, was an interesting mix. When I stepped out the door promptly at 6:10 am this morning, it was like stepping right into a sauna. Not a regular sauna. A sauna with a 25 mph wind. This was no ordinary wind, either. It was strong and gusty - the way it gets just before a thunderstorm, only there was no thunderstorm. I rode with Jon and a strong tailwind to meet the group at Starbucks, and by the time we got there I was already pretty warm. Iced coffee was called for. Lenny's slipping seat clamp was tightened - twice.


We took Lakeshore Drive this time, at least from Marconi to the London Avenue Canal. It wasn't the most direct route by a long shot, but at least we avoided the torn up road at the start of Leon C. Simon. Things were already getting a little jumpy as we climbed the Seabrook bridge and the headwind hit full-force. As I passed Mignon I looked over and said, "It would be a good idea to stay near the front today." By the time we came down onto Hayne Blvd. I knew it was going to be a hard ride. Despite the wind, Woody was clearly in attack mode and before I knew what hit us a split developed and a group started rolling away. For once, though, there was some serious interest in chasing and we got a pretty decent paceline going before the gap got totally out of hand. The break hovered out there at maybe 20 or 25 seconds for a long time until Mike W got on the front and pretty much towed the rest of the chase group up to them. I don't really know exactly what was going on behind, but the group had already gotten dramatically smaller. The pressure never eased up very much until we were nearing the end of the service road and Erich stood up to close a gap and ended up with one foot unclipped and a dropped chain. I pulled up behind him as he was trying unsuccessfully to get the chain back on and pushed him along while he bent down and put it back on the hard way. Luckily, the group waited for us on Chef. Highway before resuming the torture session.


I was feeling surprisingly good today, especially considering how bad I'd felt the prior two days. Maybe it was just the caffeine. Even so, the crosswind was just absolutely brutal and I spent a lot of time looking for that elusive sweet spot in the draft as our group hammered its way to Venetian Isles. After the turnaround all of the survivors finally regrouped for a little while. It didn't last long, though. With the crosswind coming from the left, most of the group was soon walking, or riding, the tightrope between the white line and the dreaded rumble strip. The sprint for the Goodyear sign was conducted largely on the shoulder of the road. I put in a good effort up the casino bridge, but didn't really have much left for Seabrook. By the time we were back on Lakeshore Drive (what's left of it) the front group was down to an even dozen.

I have to admit that as hard as today's Giro Ride was, it was still a great ride. A lot of it felt a lot like a race. Since I didn't have a race to go to this weekend, this was good!

I'll miss the Giro tomorrow because I'm conducting an Officials Seminar on Sunday. We should be able to make a few new officials. Hopefully they will sick with it for a few years and make the effort to officiate some races because we're running really short on officials lately.