Wind and Water

This week's training rides, except for today's, were all about the wind.  When I went out Wednesday morning I knew immediately it would be rough.  Up on the levee there was just a handful. I guess the smart ones stayed home.  After the first few miles, Donald got on the front (There were just three or four of us) and pulled all the way out to the turnaround at the parish line. Every time we'd come out from behind the protection of the batture trees, the wind would slam us hard and we'd have to lean noticiably into it.  I really wanted to take a photo showing how much we were leaning, but there was no way I could have taken one hand off the handlebars and survived!  Up north in Mississippi and Alabama they were having much worse problems with severe weather and killer tornados, so I really can't complain. Kenny was holding his first training Time Trial out at the lakefront in the evening, but by the time I got home from work it was already a little too late, and if I needed another excuse, well there was the wind.  Thursday morning wasn't much better as far as the wind was concerned, except that it was coming from the opposite direction and the air was much cooler.  There was a bigger group, of course, but once we got into the first long crosswind section it predictably shattered and I ended up with the front group of five or six riders.  Tim and Woody and Matt were pushing pretty hard, and I figured they were planning on turning back early, which they did when we got to the "little dip."  There was no way I was going to continue on in that wind without a group, so I turned back with them and never regretted it.  I don't think anyone kept going, actually. This morning, finally, the wind was nearly gone as a big high pressure area had moved right on top of us.  We had a nice smooth paceline ride.  It was one of those rides that's so smooth it makes your crotch hurt because you never change your position. Hard ride - happy crotch.  Easy ride - unhappy crotch.  Life is a compromise.

I'll be heading over to Lake Charles on Sunday for the LAMBRA criterium championship.  It'll be a 3:30 am wake-up and 4 am start for the 3-hour drive in order to get there in time to help out with the officiating of the Cat. 5 race that starts at 8:00. Should be fun.

Missed the Rain but Not the Water

Sunday was yet another Giro Ride for me.  With The Daughter still in town, and since it was also Easter, I figured that would be the best I could do anyway. As one would expect for such a holiday, the group was quite a bit smaller than usual. A small group can be a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it means there usually fewer strong riders to sustain the pain. On the other, there are fewer wheels behind which to hide.  As it turned out, this was not one of those easy sightseeing training rides.  There were more than enough riders intent on getting a workout to keep the exertion level high throughout. One of them was me.  Anyway, I don't really remember much of interest about the ride.  It was just another nice Giro with a good group on a nice Easter morning.

On the way back, as we were flying along the I-10 service road around Crowder Blvd., I suddenly heard behind me the "whack, whack, whack" sound that a broken spoke makes, followed immediately by riders shouting.  I looked back and saw Woody at a stop with a number of riders inspecting his rear wheel.  I thought, "Wow, I can't believe Woody broke another spoke!"  He'd broken one earlier in the week at the Arena criterium.  It turned out, however, that the sound I'd heard hadn't been made by a broken spoke at all. It had been made by a nail that had embedded itself in his tire.  The amazing part was that the nail had gone through the tread sideways and somehow had not punctured the tire.

The rest of the day was a blur of turkey and wine with entertainment provided by The Daughter's little dog.  After taking Monday as a rest day, I headed back out to the levee this morning under a cloudy sky for the regular long Tuesday ride.  The weather forecast had been calling for only a 20% chance of rain, so I wasn't expecting to get wet.  Well, somewhere out in Kenner we started feeling some big old raindrops, and when we got to the parish line about half of us turned around while the other half kept going.  The sky wasn't looking too good, so I didn't feel bad about turning back early.  Within a couple of minutes the raindrops stopped, but a few miles later we found the road was soaking wet.  There must have been a pretty good rain shower somewhere behind us as we were riding upriver.  The rain was gone, but the wet road and wheel spray got us just as wet as if we'd been caught in a downpour.  Oh well.  I guess we needed a little rain around here anyway, although the Corps of Engineers is already predicting some very high river levels over the next month, cresting on May 17 at the highest level in over ten years because of all the rain up north in the Mississippi river valley. 

Back to the Lakefront

Monday through Thursday were pretty routine training rides for me, although for some reason I felt a little dragged out and sluggish most of the time.  It was just one of those weeks, I guess.  Perhaps it had something to do with my rather impressive reaction to the bedbug bites on my face and hand that I acquired in Brookhaven compliments of America's Best. On Wednesday evening I rode over to the Arena for a little training criterium, and never felt right the whole time, so I put in a few sporadic hard laps and otherwise just kind of rolled around.  Friday was a holiday, which was nice since I was up late waiting for The Daughter's nearly midnight arrival from Iowa City.  Nevertheless, I rolled out of bed Friday morning and rode out to the levee, not really expecting anyone to be there, and therefore planning to do a really easy spin.  It turned out, however, that we had a nice little group and a ride that was a notch or two above "easy spin." 

So Friday night I finally re-installed the second water bottle cage on the Orbea.  I'd taken it off for the time trial in Brookhaven, primarily for psychological reasons, and hadn't quite gotten around to putting it back.  I figured I'd probably need that second bottle for the Saturday Giro Ride.  The weather around here has been pretty warm lately.  In fact, Thursday night I'd collected up all of the various winter gear - arm-warmers, tights, jackets, etc. - and thrown them all into the wash.  Summer is officially here, I guess. 

So word's been going around that Lakeshore Drive is finally completely open after about a year, so I was hoping that we'd be able to get the first part of the Giro back onto its normal route this morning. When I started out, headed for my pre-Giro coffee stop at Starbucks, I was glad to find the air a little cooler and drier than I'd expected.  Along the way I set off a couple of the traffic cameras without ever getting into the intersection.  Did you know that you can set them off and still stop before crossing the street?  Pretty easy to do, actually.  Anyway, we had a good group for the Giro, and I think everyone was happy to be back on Lakeshore Drive, especially on such a nice day.  It actually took a bit longer than usual for the pace to ramp up once we came down onto Hayne Blvd.  I was finally feeling more or less normal again, but it took quite a long time for me to get my butt up to the front, and when I did, I was still skipping pulls now and then, but at least I was spending more time at the business end of the group for a change.  As we got near to the turnaround, I think about half of the group turned early -- really early.  A number of us who had gone all the way had to put in a little chase to get back, but fortunately the pace was more or less reasonable.

The crash happened on the service road, about halfway between Chef Highway and Lake Forest Blvd.  One of the guys in the middle of the group was holding his water bottle with one hand when he nailed a rock that was in the road.  I guess it must have thrown his front wheel sideways because he went straight to the ground, mostly face-first.  The result was a badly broken helmet, a number of cuts and scrapes, and some pretty significant damage around his left eye socket.  I think at least three others went down on top of him.  We called an ambulance, but he wasn't showing any of the usual signs of a concussion and ultimately rode back with the group.  Of course, by the time we got rolling again at least half an hour had passed and the rest of the ride was pretty sedate.

Best and Worst

It was the best of races, it was the worst of races, it was a race of wisdom, it was a race of foolishness...  I left work early on Friday to make the two hour drive up to Brookhaven, Mississippi for the annual Mississippi Gran Prix stage race feeling unusually unprepared. For one reason or another I'd been up late every night for nearly a week and rather than going into the weekend feeling strong and confident, I was actually feeling more tired and unsettled.  It happens. Friday evening I helped out a little bit with the officiating for the Cat. 1/2/3 criterium in old Brookhaven.  It wasn't easy.  The short, technical course resulted in a strong breakaway that slaughtered the field, motoring consistently at around 28 mph until, only four or so laps before the end, it lapped the field. Then, a couple of corners after the "2-to-go" lap card went up, there was a crash on a particularly dark and narrow corner.  We didn't even know it had happened until the race was over, but the end result was pack time for most of the survivors not in the original break and a trip to the hospital for local rider Ed Novak with, reportedly, a broken finger.

So after staying up late again in order to post the crit results to the LAMBRA website, I got up Saturday morning early and headed out to the Road Race start with a revised version of big the results spreadsheet that had needed some late-night work to fix some last-minute problems.  It was cooler than I usually like but then again that seems to be the status quo for this race. The 31-rider Masters 40+ field was loaded with blue and red.  The blue jerseys represented Donald Davis and six of his teammates from the West Florida Wheelmen, while the red represented the five-rider team from Midsouth Masters.  Additional muscle was provided by Keith Breaux, James Milne (Tupelo), Scott Gurganus (LaS'port), and Grant Dona (S3), among others.  I was feeling anything but sharp for this race, and my plan at the start, if one can call it a plan, was to stay out of the wind, see how the battle between the two big teams played out, and hope for a pack sprint.  Things didn't exactly work out that way, though.  Our 58 mile race was 4 laps of the "old" road course that I'd ridden at least a few times before.  I guess it was on the second lap that a couple of riders rolled off the front.  Both of the two big teams were represented and I immediately sensed the front of the pack backing off.  Big red flag!!  I went around and took off in pursuit of the break that, by then, was about twenty seconds up the road.  Halfway there I was starting to bog down and wondering if I could finish what I'd started.  I glanced under my arm and saw Scott Gurganus coming at me fast.  When he came by I latched on and we traded a few pulls until we caught the break.  The four-rider group came together pretty well and I thought "this is looking pretty good!"  With four teams represented, I figured there would be a lot of resistance to a chase, and considering my prospects in the afternoon's time trial I was perfectly willing to bury myself for a 4th place finish and a gap on the rest of the field. I glanced behind me and couldn't even see the field.  A few miles later I was shocked to hear voices behind me.  A couple of the "independents" and gone to the front and towed the whole pack up to us.

We were coming up to the start/finish area with one lap to go when a group of about six quietly snuck off the front.  There hadn't been an attack or anything, but I could see that the teams weren't going to give chase since they were both represented.  The pack's pace slacked off and when I looked down and saw 18 mph on my computer I figured it was time to do something about it. Donald Davis, with a whole team to support him, was wisely sitting in, which I knew must have been hard on him even if it was clearly the best tactic.  So I went to the front and ramped the pace up a bit so that we weren't losing ground on the break any more.  When I started to fade, I eased over hoping someone would come through, but when I looked back all I saw was red and blue, so I just put my head down again and pressed on into the headwind.  I was burning my last few matches, but I was pretty sure the break would be gone otherwise and I'd be racing for something like 7th place and a big time gap on GC.  I guess I pulled the pack for two or three or four miles until we made a right turn and got out of the headwind.  Finally a few of the "independents" came to the front and once we got a rotation going we started closing in on the break.  A final surge on one of the long downhills finally sealed the deal, and with five or six miles left it was gruppo compacto.  By then my legs were toast.  I sought out what shelter I could, but deep down I knew my race was over.  At least I'd salvaged pack time.  When the uphill sprint started about 300 meters from the line, I was way too far back and pretty much shut it down, coasting across the line in the middle of the strung-out pack in 14th place feeling pretty bad all-around.  The dry air and allergies had really done a number on my lungs and I already knew it was not going to be a good weekend for me.

The evening time trial was a 3-mile affair on a rolling course straight into a headwind.  My legs were still aching when I went out to warm up and I could feel the tightness in my chest.  My motivation was really low, and it showed.  I started out the TT pretty slow, and don't think I ever got the 14 tooth cog dirty the whole time.  The result, of course, was a dismal time of 7:07, good for 13th place. My lungs hurt, my legs hurt, and the dog had eaten my motivation.  A good GC placing seemed entirely out of reach.

It was after midnight when I heard the computer notify me that a new email had arrived.  I knew what it was.  Ricky, the Chief Ref. had finally sent me the results to post to the LAMBRA website.  I dragged myself out of bed and spent half an hour cutting and pasting so that riders could check their interim results in the morning.  After a quick breakfast at the nearby Waffle House, I made my way over to the new circuit race course. My legs were still achy and I had already formulated my plan for this race, which was to basically suck wheels and try not to get dropped. Great plan, right?  The West Florida team had riders in 1st and 2nd on GC, so I figured they would be riding defensively.  Talking with a couple of the Midsouth riders before the start I learned that their plan was for Jay to go for an early break in order to make some of the other independent riders work, and then when that got caught Jason would counter-attack.  He suggested that I come along with him when he did.  Since we were both so far down on GC, we thought that the Florida team might give us a little rope and we might be able to move up a bit without threatening the GC placings of either team's team leaders. It was a plan.

So I lined up for the start somewhere around mid-pack expecting to sit in for much of the first lap.  The ref. said "go" and Scott Gurganus attacked.  Jay, Keith Breaux, and Robert Baker (West Florida) went with him.  The rest of the pack sat back and watched.  With riders in the first two GC spots, the burden to chase fell to the Florida guys and I think everyone in the pack knew it, but since they had one rider in the break, I suppose they didn't want to go after it immediately.  As the gap started to grow I wondered why they were giving that break so much rope.  I knew for sure that Scott and Keith, neither of whom were highly placed on GC, were not going to give up easily. With blue jerseys all over the front of the field, the gap continued to grow, and by the time we'd done two laps of the 4-lap race it had about a minute and a half.  When Duane, the moto-ref came back to the pack and gave them the time split, things finally started to pick up a little.  I was still sitting near the back of the pack and could sense a little increase in anxiety.  Still, the blue jerseys controlled the front. 

With only twelve or so miles left to go I started to doubt they could be caught.  As we started the final lap I saw Donald, the Florida team leader, go to the front and start pulling.  The pace ramped up considerably.  Halfway through the lap we could see the break about 45 seconds up the road.  Keith, who like me had been sitting in, pulled alongside and commented, "this may work out pretty well after all."  Indeed, it looked like we might actually catch the break before the finish.  It would have been a perfect strategy for the West Florida guys except for the fact that their team leader was now doing most of the work.  Anyway, it proved to be too little too late and by the finish the break still had 25 seconds or so on the pack, more than enough, with the bonus, to put the three riders into the top three slots on GC.  I put in a half-hearted sprint from mid-pack to roll across in 13th place.  It had actually been a pretty interesting and dynamic masters stage race, and I was kind of disappointed that I'd ridden so poorly, but it was a fun weekend anyway.  After my race I hung around to watch the finish of the Cat. 1/2/3 race. 

At the end this one came down to a big pack sprint, and as they barrelled up the hill toward the finish line Matt Davis pulled away on the right.  Then I saw Ben Gabardi come flying up the hill on the left.  He pulled even with Matt about 20 yards before the line as they briefly rubbed elbows. When they crossed the line we all looked at each other and said, "who won?"  Ricky had to go to the video on that one.  Ben's bike throw at the line had nudged his wheel ahead of Matt's by the width of a tire.

While I was in Brookhaven, a number of the Tulane Cycling collegiate riders were way over in Lubbock at the SCCCC conference road championships where they nailed down the 2011 Division II conference championship and one of the women won the women's omnium. Very impressive for a collegiate team in its first year of competition.  Back when I was a student at Tulane, during the Nixon administration, bike racing was considered eccentric at best and collegiate bike racing wasn't even on the radar.  It was really gratifying this year to see Tulane and LSU fielding competitive teams.

Mississippi Gran Prix

The 7 pm criterium went off pretty well this year.  The only problem was that a 7-rider break lapped the field three or four laps before the finish, which made sorting out the results rather challenging. 

There were already a number of lapped riders in the pack.  As if that wasn't enough of a problem, there was a crash about a lap and a half before the finish on a particularly dark corner.  The rumor is that Ed Novak went down in that one and broke some fingers.  I haven't been able to confirm that yet, though.  I was kept busy throughout trying to keep track of lapped riders, but for the finish placings I think Ricky is going to have to rely a lot on the camera, which is always kind of sketchy when it's so dark.  We had some big generator powered lights for the finish line, so I think he'll be able to sort most of it out.  The trick will be finding the seven non-lapped riders who were scattered about in the big pack that they lapped.

Back to Brookhaven

Last night, while I should have been sleeping, I spend a couple of hours fixing up the big Excel workbook that will be used for this weekend's Mississippi Gran Prix stage race.  I'd forgotten that the Cat. 4/5 race was being run as an omnium, so I had to completely re-do that spreadsheet so that it would award points and calculate GC based on them.  Of course the promoters hadn't put anything in the race bible about how the points were to be calculated, so I used the default tables from the stage race points competition rules. I'll be on the road back to Brookhaven, MS in an hour or so in order to deliver the LAMBRA generator, flags, clock and miscellaneous other items that we used for the NOBC 2-Person TT. The only race on Friday is the Cat. 1/2/3 criterium at 7 pm, by which time I am sincerely hoping the rain has stopped and the tornado watch has been cancelled.  Since I'll be there anyway, I'll pitch in with the officiating where needed, which may or may not involve fixing whatever I screwed up on that aforementioned spreadsheet.  I'll be riding the masters race again and am disappointed that the usual criterium will be replaced this year by a long circuit race. A stage race with a TT and two road races is not exactly right up my alley, even if I was in shape, which I am definitely not.  Anyway, it will be nice to get away for the weekend and maybe avoid dwelling on the little contribution to the nation's deficit reduction that I'll have to send to the IRS on Monday.  And while I'm on my political soapbox, which as it turns out only raises me up to normal adult height, I might point out that Walt Leger just submitted to bills to the Louisiana legislature that would basically let the City of New Orleans ignore the constitutional property tax exemptions that all nonprofits in the state get. I guess once you've pushed all of the for-profit businesses out of the city you have to try and push the nonprofits out too.

So anyway, I did make it over to the levee this morning for an easy, but very windy, ride with John, Taylor and Dave.  Dave is heading off tomorrow morning for a 6 month tour of duty in fun summer spots like Afghanistan.  He just refers to it all as "the sandbox."  On the plus side, his wife who is an engineer finally found a job after being laid off last summer.  On the minus side, the job is in Virginia. Hopefully everything will work out in the long run.  After the ride we stopped off at Zotz for coffee before saying goodbye.  Now I have to ride back home and get my act together for the weekend.  I wonder if I have two fully functional sets of race wheels.....

Riding on the Edge

It was cooler this morning, and as usual that also meant a gusty north wind.  For some reason, it took me forever to actually get myself out the door, which resulted in a little bit of a time trial out to the levee.  Fortunately I made it there just in time to roll out with a slightly smaller group than usual.  The pace remained rather civilized for the first ten miles or so, but then Woody randomly decided to attack a crosswind section, taking a couple of riders with him.  I made the snap decision to go after it, and although I'd reacted right away, between the crosswind and rapidly lengthening gap, it took me forever to make contact.  I was kind of hanging on by the skin of my teeth for a mile or two, and although I was able to pull through a few times after that, I was also skipping pulls when the going got hard.  As we approached the little dip there was another big acceleration that left Rob and me a bit off the back.  As I'd suspected, they were turning around early, so that left just the two of us. We continued on until we got the The Dip and eased up until the rest of the group, which wasn't too far behind, caught us. The rest of the ride out to the turnaround was a bit less severe, but by then the relentless wind was starting to take its toll and there weren't exactly a lot of people pushing and shoving to get to the front.

As it turned out, the ride back was a lot harder than I'd expected.  At some point fairly early on I dropped all the way back down the paceline.  It was pretty much the last I'd see of the front.  For most of the return trip there was a strong crosswind that was providing a draft for the first five or six riders and practically none for the rest of us. I spent what seemed like an hour riding behind Big Richard right on the edge of the asphalt trying to get a sliver of draft.  I figured that I was at least getting a good workout.

So I have to recommend that you take a look at Brian Toone's heart rate and speed data from last weekend's Pro/Cat.1 Sunny King criterium.  Keep in mind that he wasn't one of the guys who was attacking off the front.  A 42 mile criterium at an average speed of 27.5 mph and an average heart rate of 181 bpm.  That's hard.

Hot Weekend

It was another weekend in town for me, although of course there was some classic action over in France and some good racing closer to home over in Alabama.  Saturday started out warm and humid, pretty well setting the stage for the next few days.  I rode out early to meet the Giro group at Starbucks, taking the opportunity to test out my new lights courtesy of a big collegiate team discount from Cateye.  I knew I wouldn't be doing the whole ride.  The annual Tour de Lis charity run and ride was scheduled to begin around 8 am, and I was already decked out in my Tulane Cycling gear in order to help populate Tulane's little booth at the event.  So with that in mind, I didn't hold back too much as the Giro headed out down Hayne Blvd. since I was going to be turning back about halfway out  anyway.  Jordan was doing the same, so at least I had some company for the ride back to City Park. 

The Tour de Lis had a pretty good turnout, as did Tulane Cycling, and although we mostly just hung around and chatted among ourselves, it was good PR for the club, especially when they headed out together for a few ceremonial laps around the little two-mile loop.  GNO Cyclery had gotten Trek to come with two of their "test ride" trucks, which seemed to be pretty popular.  By the time I got home around noon-ish, I guess the temperature was somewhere north of 80F and was already starting to feel more like summer than spring. In the early afternoon I remembered that the Sunny King criterium up in Anniston was being webcast, so I fired up the laptop and spend a few hours watching the races.  For someone who used to have to wait a month to read about the Tour de France in imported magazines, it is pretty amazing to be sitting on the couch at home watching people I know battle it out at a top quality event.  There were riders I knew in most of the races, and some of them fared quite well.  I was sorry I'd missed seeing Tim Regan take 2nd place in the Masters race, but I was able to watch Woody come back from a mid-race crash in a huge Cat. 2-3 field to finish 3rd.  Then I watched Steve Johnson and Robert Monahan in the Cat. 4 race, and Debbie Milne in the Colavita-dominated Women's race.  Later in the evening was the Pro-Cat. 1 race, which looked to be pretty fast and aggressive.  I think that riders who weren't in the front 25 or so must have had a really hard time doing anything but hanging on for dear life in the huge strung-out pack as the big continental pro teams kept things lively at the front.

So Sunday I was ready for a hard ride and decided to make the trip across the lake for the last of the regular "standing" Sunday northshore rides.  It was already quite warm by the time our 16-rider group started out for the usual 65 mile loop, and with a brisk south wind behind us and a few strong riders up in front, there wasn't much holding back the speed.  I knew it was going to be a fast one.  By the time we hit Highway 10, less than halfway through the ride, we were already down to about ten riders.  When we finally stopped to regroup at the end of Sie Jenkins Road at 38 miles we were down to just six.  It had been a while since I'd been able to make any of the northshore rides, but I was feeling pretty good thanks to my easier- than- usual Saturday ride. Even so, those last miles straight into the growing headwind from Tung Road to Lee Road Middle School were kind of painful - which of course was just what I'd been looking for.

With Both Hands

As advertised, Tuesday's 6 am temperature was in the low 50s.  It felt like the wind was also in the low 50s.  I dug out my long tights and jacket figuring I just might be the only one crazy enough to actually show up for the levee ride. Rolling up to the meeting spot at precisely 6:14, I leaned against one of the big pipes, letting it block the gusty north wind for a moment.  Behind me the bike path was deserted except for that woman who rides the tricycle.  Nothing stops that lady.  I let her go by, took one last look around, and pushed off.  A minute later I saw a couple of blinky lights heading my way.  Four other people!  At first, considering the rather brutal wind conditions, I didn't know if I should be happy or worried.  Then I saw that among the four were both Tim and Woody.  Now, Woody can occasionally be convinced to yield to a moderate pace, but Tim, well, not so much.  They turned around and within a minute Tim was in his characteristic position at the front, characteristically talking to us over his right shoulder. We were still on that section of the bike path where riding upriver means riding toward the south southwest, so for all practical purposes we had a tailwind. A rotation started up and before long we were flying along at 28 mph.  Anyway, I knew that once we made the bend at the Country Club we'd be riding straight into the wind.  On the plus side, I was by far the smallest person in the group so there would be ample draft, on the minus side, a good crosswind gust was liable to blow me right off the levee.  Anyway, as I'd expected, once we got past the headwind part and into the long crosswind stretch, things really started to get difficult and I started skipping pulls in the interest of survival.  We were somewhere out past the parish line when I dropped back after a particularly taxing pull only to see Tim stand up and attack. That was pretty much the last straw, so I backed off a bit and just maintained 19-20 mph for a few miles until I saw them coming back.  Luckily, they were still in conversational mode at the time, but it didn't last too much longer and soon I was down on the drops holding on tightly with both hands just to keep the bike going in a straight line. I was skipping a lot of pulls.  The hardest part, actually, was when we got to a stretch with a strong tailwind. The nice thing about being small is that headwinds seem relatively easy because you get a really good draft, but the flip side is that when the big guys ramp it up into the 30s with a strong tailwind you're pretty much screwed. So despite the shortened ride (nobody went past The Dip), it was a good workout with, at least for me, a number of hard efforts.  I'd post a picture, but I was afraid to take my hands off the bars to get the camera out.

Spring = Water

It was warmer Sunday morning as I rode out to meet the Giro Ride once again, and I knew it would be a good one when all of the traffic signals along Carrollton and Wisner turned green as I approached. It was only 6:30 am, but a couple of riders were already at the Starbucks when I got there, and a few minutes later Woody rode up on his shiny new team Orbea Orca.  Most of his right arm was bandaged thanks to an airborne front wheel midway through a turn at the Dothan Cityfest on Saturday.  The awesome photo came from Debbie M's facebook page and was taken by Dothan Eagle photographer, Max Oden.  Looks like he must have clipped that road reflector at high speed halfway through the turn as he and two others were trying to bridge up to a breakaway.  Anyway, Woody was in pretty good shape, considering. There was actually a pretty good sized group for the Sunday ride and I decided it would be a good day to get in a little intensity. 

We were halfway down Hayne Blvd., and flying along at 28 or so in a long thin paceline when I hit something I never saw.  I could feel the front rim bottom out and reverberate through the frame and immediately thought, "Pinch flat."  A minute later it went flat as expected and I dropped backwards through the group.  Luckily for me, everyone stopped to wait while I fixed it. In contrast to Saturday, the group was reasonably cautious at the intersections, even when it was running through the red lights. I tried to put in a fair amount of time at the business end of the paceline.  I was feeling a little stronger than I had for the last week or so and figured I'd finally recovered from the damage done at Rouge-Roubaix.  As they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Monday morning was windy, as in "Wind Advisory" windy.  I went out anyway, planning on putting in an  easy hour or so on the bike.  One thing about these lonely recovery ride days is that you get a chance to look around at the scenery.  Up on the levee, the first thing you notice right now is that the water level in the river has been creeping up a bit more each day.  Much of the batture is already underwater.  On the plus side, all of the water attracts lots of birds, especially Mexican Whistling Ducks, Wood Ducks, and various Egrets/Herons.  Another result of the high water is that it forces other animals out of the batture.  Tonight on the news they were reporting a story about a Coyote that has been spotted roaming through the yards of high-class uptown houses.  A cool front just came through about an hour ago and the temperature tomorrow morning is supposed to be back down to the 50s (it was in the 70s this morning before sunrise).

No Stopping

There were a few key players missing when I rolled up to the Starbucks for my pre-Giro coffee today.  As I later discovered, once the sun came up, the nose piece for my sunglasses was also missing. A race over in Dothan, Alabama, must have attracted a few of the regulars. The missing riders, as it turned out, didn't seem to have much of an effect on the speed.....or common sense.  It was actually a pretty good Giro with nice warm weather, a clear sky, and a moderate breeze.  The pace was fast but reasonably steady.  For some reason, however, the front of the group seemed intent on riding through red lights and stop signs, mostly right in front of traffic. 

When the group came to the intersection with Chef Highway there were cars coming from both directions, but the front of the group decided to ride against traffic on the shoulder of the road on the wrong side of the neutral ground rather than stop.  So of course the riders who did stop to wait until it was safe to cross had to chase for about a mile.  I think that little move set the public image of cyclists back about two months all by itself.  Later, when the sprint for the Goodyear sign started (with a healthy tailwind) a few riders pulled out into the left lane right in front of a truck.  I myself figured that the Goodyear Sign sprint wasn't worth dying for today.  Anyway, despite all of the needlessly dangerous stuff and an average speed that must have been at least 24 mph, the lack of crosswind kept practically the whole group together to the end today.

I spent a few hours in the afternoon balancing on an extension ladder priming and painting the trim around some porch screens I replaced last weekend. My feet hurt.  Tomorrow I'll probably just do the Giro Ride again so I can attend to some other domestic duties.

Spring Storms

Having come through the weekend with no apparent long-term damage, no doubt an indication that I could have ridden harder on Sunday, I shuffled into the week ahead as usual, starting with an easy ride on Monday and then the long levee ride on Tuesday.  Tuesday, however, saw a cool front come through in the middle of the night and well into Wednesday morning.  Ahead of the front were some pretty strong storms that put the area under various flood and tornado and hail watches and caused some considerable damage. One casualty for me was a good night's sleep, however.  It seems that Cosmo, our recently inherited dog, is quite afraid of thunder and lightning and responds by doing things like trying to dig holes in the floor, carpet, tile, furniture, etc.  This particular spell of thunder and lightning lasted from around midnight until 5 am, and I spent much of that time on the couch in the living room with the lights on and the music turned up in order to distract him from the meteorological drama enough to save me from having to recarpet the bedroom. Things were still rainy by morning, so I set my sights on the afternoon Tulane Cycling ride.  By then the weather was much better, but there was a pretty strong wind blowing up on the levee, which turned the set of five or six 3-minute intervals into a rather hard workout.

So Thursday morning it was very windy and cool enough for knee-warmers and double jerseys.  I really didn't want to go out in that.  After a couple of weeks of nice comfy spring weather, the return of temperatures in the 50s made for a difficult adjustment.  Nonetheless, I forced myself out the door around 6:05 am and headed for the levee with a complete lack of committment.  As I made my way up to the meeting spot I could see that it was deserted and, feeling rather relieved, immediately began planning on doing a short solo ride. Big Richard showed up out of the dark almost the minute I got there, and we figured that nobody else was going to show up.  We were wrong.  Although everyone was a bit late, by the time we were a few miles down the road the group was up to about a dozen and the pace was already creeping upward.  A nice paceline formed up to deal with the wind and things were going smoothly for a couple of rotations until someone who's name will not be mentioned surged at the front pushing the speed up by three or four MPH.  The result, as usual, was that once he pulled off the pace slacked and Woody, Tim, Mark and one or two others decided they didn't want to play that game for the next forty miles and basically attacked down the left side and rode away from the rest of the group, most of which was not about to take a pull in such a headwind if it was just going to be followed up by another big surge.  As I'd suspected, a few of the guys up in front had to turn back early, but by the time we got out to the dip we'd already lost a number of people.

I thought the ride back might be a little easier since there were a few areas with something of a tailwind, but right off the bat Mark rode off the front.  I don't think there was really any big effort to chase, but at any rate the speed certainly went up and stayed there all the way back.  I got back home feeling tired, hungry and still rather cold despite a stop at Zotz for a quick cup of dark roast and sugar.

This morning I discovered a really good video from the Rouge-Roubaix master's/women's race  that was done by Jason O'Mahoney from the Velobrew team out of Gainesville FL.  You get to see me fall on the 2nd dirt section somewhere around the middle of it and then there's some video of the chase group that we were in together as we chased back onto the lead group between the 2nd and 3rd dirt sections.