Up in Colorado Springs

Looking through the fence from the OTC at Pikes Peak

It has been a long week. In the last eight days I've ridden exactly 20 miles despite having been in places with great rides and awesome weather.  Friday morning the taxi pulled up at 5:30 am for another ride to the airport, this time for a trip to the USA Cycling Local Associations Summit at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.  Friday night we had a reception at the USAC headquarters where they have recently taken over a bar conveniently located in the middle of their building (it will soon be remodeled into a conference center).  By the time we got back to the dorm at the OTC I was already getting my 24-hour Colorado headache, but before going to bed I fired up the laptop.  Just as I was opening an Excel file listing the meeting attendees, everything stopped, and then it happened.  The dreaded Blue Screen of Death, followed by an automatic reboot resulting is a "media test failure" message.  Crap.  After a few more tries, along with visits to safe mode land, the machine booted normally again, windows loaded normally, everything worked for a while, and then -- BSoD.  I shut it down and went to sleep.  Thank goodness I had the BlackBerry.

After breakfast at the Athlete Center where there were a number of huge wrestlers and impressive women swimmers (some with ice packs on their shoulders), we assembled in the conference room on the other side of the USOC campus.  There was the usual recap by the CEO followed by a lively session with Shawn Farrell, the Technical Director, where we were able to give some input on the proposed 2011 rule changes just prior to the Board meeting where they would be formally considered.  The next day we would learn about the outcome of the meeting where, as it turned out, sleeveless jerseys were legalized for time trials, a whole host of proposed Junior equipment restrictions were defeated, and a long list of other rule changes covering everything from UCI riders in categorized USAC races to Cyclocross feed zones were made.  The rest of the morning consisted of frightening sessions about insurance and nonprofit organization legal issues.  Then, after lunch, we got to see the new USAC online registration and post-event reporting system.  I was impressed with the online registration system. I love BikeReg and would not be inclined to switch unless the USAC system had everything they do at a lower cost.  It looked like it does, and as an added bonus it checks rider entries against the current membership database and won't allow entries by riders with expired licenses.  Promoters who indicate that they will use the system will be able to get their event permits done online without sending a fee to USAC since the fee will simply be deducted from the online entry revenue.  The online post-event reporting met with some significant problems, however, regarding Chief Referee vs. Promoter responsibilities, so that component may take a little longer to get ironed out.  Anyway, the online registration system looks quite viable to me and you can't argue with the benefits of keeping the money (I'm sure USAC has worked it out so they come out a little ahead on this) within the cycling community. 


Colorado Springs visit in 1922


Saturday evening we got on the bus for a nice little dinner at the Phantom Canyon Brewery in the old part of town, across from the Hilton Antlers Hotel.  Although the current Antlers hotel was built in the 40s on the site of the original one (actually the original two since the first one burned down), it was still kind of interesting to see it because it was mentioned in my grandfather's honeymoon trip diary.  Back at the dorm I fired up the laptop and this time it booted normally, so before touching anything else I copied a couple of gigabytes of documents and photos over to a thumb drive while I had the chance. That took quite a long time, but everything went smoothly and it didn't crash again until an hour later.

Sunday's sessions included a presentation on the MyLaps chip-timing system (we had already had a presentation on the Times-7 system), along with an update on the results of the Board meeting on rule changes, a good session on the growing Collegiate program, and coverage of USAC's media and public relations activities and the National Events calendar.  All-in-all it was a great meeting except for the computer issue and the fact that the weather was nothing less than spectacular the whole time we were sitting in the conference room.  Every time we'd have a break I'd walk outside and stare longingly to the west wishing I had a bike.  The flights home were long.  After a two-hour layover at DFW I was more than ready for the relatively quick hop to New Orleans when they announced that the flight would be delayed because the flight crew, which was coming from Barbados, was held up in Customs.  It was well after 10:30 by the time we finally lifted off, and around midnight by the time I got home.  I guess I'll spend tonight trying to diagnose the laptop problem to see what my options are.  The big question with these sorts of random bluescreen errors is "hardware or software?"  I love a mystery, though.  It chilly this morning and I was way too tired to get out of bed to ride, so I guess it will be tomorrow before I'm finally back on the bike.