Long Week, Long Time

Miss me?  It was a pretty long week.  Complications and deadlines at work, along with family arriving for a nephew's wedding, conspired to keep me off the bike entirely for two or three days. Although I had to skip this weekend's races up in St. Francisville, at least I was able to make both the Saturday and Sunday Giro Rides. 

So to back up a bit to the prior weekend up in Alexandria for the Racing Rapides stage race.....

I ended up driving up to this one alone, leaving home around 5 am.  The race had a pretty good turnout, and since I am currently running quite low on self-confidence I registered in the 55+ race.  We'd be racing with the 40+ group anyway, so I figured at least it would give me a better shot at winning my entry fee back. Waiting for the start of the Masters race felt like an alumni reunion.  On hand were Mike Lew, John Egan, John Dias, and Jorge Merle, and if you know Mike, there was no shortage of old racing stories. 

The road race was on a long 20 mile loop with one or two moderately significant climbs.  Right from the start a break went off the front, and by the start of the second lap of three Donald Davis and Scott Gurganus had a pretty big gap.  A while later I was surprised to see Scott coming back to the pack.  There was never much of an organized chase, and considering who it was, I figured Donald had a pretty good shot at staying out there. It would certainly help that he had a number of teammates in the pack.  At one point, I think the gap went up to a minute and a half, and once he was out of sight, he was out of mind.  The last lap got a bit more active, though, and although I didn't know it, the gap was slowly coming down.  I'd been staying out of the wind for the most part and so I was feeling pretty decent as we came into the final five miles or so when the pace really started to ramp up.  Apparently the guys at the front could see Donald somewhere up the road.  There wasn't quite enough time, though, and the pack would end up finishing a bit more than 20 seconds down.  The pack started getting pretty nervous over the last few miles as riders crowded the front on the narrow winding road.  The Florida team started to organize a leadout, but then the guy in front, along with a few others, inexplicably took an unscheduled right turn off of the course at an intersection.  I don't know how they could have thought there was a right turn on the course, but everyone kind of sat up for a moment for a collective "WTF?"  Anyway, that kind of reshuffled things a couple of miles before the finish.  From there on, it was a battle for position and a sprint that started about half a kilometer out.  I ended up around 6th despite having to back off a couple of times to get around people, so I was pretty happy, and a little surprised, with that.

The afternoon's Time Trial felt really difficult, starting out with a little tailwind, and then turning suddenly right into a strong headwind that dropped my speed from 28-29 mph right down to 22-23 mph.  It took forever to get rolling again, even after the road turned back away from the wind.  I was surprised that my time didn't suck quite as badly as I'd though (it still sucked, though).  Donald, despite his long solo effort just hours earlier, put in one the fastest time trial with a 7:06.  For comparison, my time was 35 long seconds slower, which is an eternity for a 3 mi. time trial.

That night I stayed at Ed Kendrick's house in nearby Pineville, where they'd made some nice lasagna, for dinner.  Sunday's criterium in old Alexandria was fun as usual.  I was hanging around mid-pack watching the show when we came to the mid-race hot spot. Criterium host spots are always rather dangerous in that they provide good opportunities for breakaways, so I went pretty hard for it just in case.  After we crossed the line the leaders eased up, and I was about to let myself drop back when Ed Novak counter-attacked just after turn #1.  I was right behind Donald and sensed a moment of hesitation, instinctively yelling, "Go!  He went, and after a bit of a chase we made it across the gap.  I would have expected the break of seven riders to start working together pretty quickly, but in fact it took a number of laps before things stabilized.  I was a little surprised that we weren't caught in the interim.  Eventually, though, things started to come together and the break started making time on the remnants of the pack.  I was feeling a little confused since I was the only 55+ rider in the break.  My legs were feeling surprisingly good, but I kept wavering between wanting to push the pace and wanting to sit at the back and enjoy the ride.  Very conflicted.  Although there were a couple of attacks toward the end, the break was still together with a couple of laps to go when the pace suddenly eased.  Riders were starting to get nervous about the inevitable sprint.  I figured I may as well go to the front, since I didn't really have anything to lose, so I pulled for about a lap and a half.  I dropped back to nearly the back of the break as we came around the last couple of turns and pretty much just watched the sprint from behind.  I was glad to have won back my entry fee and then some.  I ended up sticking around until the bitter end so I could bring the results file back with me.  It took quie a long time to get the Cat. 1/2/3 results posted.

This weekend was another double-Giro weekend for me.  I was quite sleep-deprived by the time Saturday morning rolled around, but by then I was really looking forward to the Giro.  With my daughter and four dogs in the house, plus a rehearsal dinner party, Saturday's Giro was a nice break!  I ended up riding pretty hard.

Saturday evening was the wedding at City Park.  As we arrived we saw all of the nice little white chairs all lined up, and empty.  Everyone was instead standing in the shade, waiting until the last possible moment before sitting down in the 5:30 pm sun.  I guess the temperature was in the mid-80s.  Fortunately the ceremony itself was fairly brief, after which we headed over to the reception, also mostly outside in City Park.  By then the sun was getting low enough to provide more shade, and as the champagne glasses were filled and the sun went down, the dancing started.  It was nice.

So this morning was a smaller repeat of the Saturday Giro.  Some riders were up in St. Francisville for the West Feliciana Gran Prix, and another small group was doing a long ride on the northshore, but that didn't really make the Giro a whole lot slower. I spent a long time around mid-pack on the way out, staying off to the side where I could get a little extra exercise without actually moving up to the front. Anyway, it was a good Giro and I got a pretty good workout, arriving back home tired, hungry, and with salt caked on my face.

Got, got, got, got no time

Photos will have to speak for themselves today.

Looking upriver toward Ochsner bend.

Crazy Guy pretending I'm not there but hoping I come too close.

U. Iowa Grad School Graduation.

Wednesday morning and the river's holding steady here.

Saved and Restored

The Tuesday morning ride seemed harder than usual.  Harder, in fact, than it actually was.  It was just one of those days when I felt dragged-out right from the start. Tim and Woody attacked as usual.  I went with it, but got dropped by a subsequent attack and ended up in no-man's-land until Howard showed up.  I started to recover a bit and took a nice long pull that started to close the gap.  When I pulled off, Howard attacked.  Seriously?  I got back home 40 some-odd miles later and seriously considered calling in sick.  I suppose I may have been fighting off some kind of bug, or was just suffering the consequences of too little sleep.  Whatever the reason, on a scale of one to ten, I never felt better than a five all day.  There were other complications, too.  The night before, rather late, my laptop's hard drive started to fail.  I got a couple of messages informing me of such and strongly recommending immediate backup.  I took them seriously and first did a full backup, which took literally hours, filled up about four DVDs, and ended with a message, in RED, telling me that the backup had failed.  Huh?  So, reading the writing on the wall, I ran out around lunchtime and bought an external hard drive, stopped by the house where the laptop was thankfully still running, and imaged the entire hard drive onto the external drive. That evening when I turned on the computer, it wouldn't boot.  Since I had to depart early Wednesday for a plane ride up to Iowa City for The Daughter's graduation, all I could do was pack it up with the external drive and deal with it up in Iowa, which coincidentally is where I'd bought the computer a bit over a year ago.

After arriving up here in Hawkeye country, I went over to the big Coralville mall and picked up a 500 gig hard drive for $75.  I remember paying nearly that once for a box of ten 90k floppies back in the 80s.  I swapped the new drive for the old one, popped in my recovery CD, and crossed my fingers.  It started to load and then hung, eventually showing an error message about a faulty device.  Hmmmm.  A couple more tries produced the same result.  I removed the CD and took a look at it.  There were a couple of big fingerprints on the shiny side, so I wiped them off and tried once more.  That did the trick and it loaded, bringing up the recovery screen.  Of course, it still couldn't see the external drive because it didn't have the necessary drivers, so I had to find and install those, and then all looked good.  I had it restore the internal hard drive from the disc image on the external drive, went downstairs to eat, and when I got back everything was back exactly the way it had been before the crash, as if nothing had ever happened.  That was a bit of a relief!

Water, Water

It seemed strange to be watering the plants and grass around the house at a time when the river level is climbing up the banks of the levee. All those disastrous rain storms up the river are now rushing between the levees while we're sprinkling city water on plants that haven't seen rain in a couple of weeks.  I rode out to the levee at the usual time, only to find a train blocking Monticello Street.  I didn't figure it mattered, though, as I'd been expecting to do an easy recovery ride anyway.  Then the train stopped.  Then it backed up.  Finally, it cleared the tracks and I rode up the levee to the bike path just after I saw David B. go flying down the road ahead of me.  Fortunately, he wasn't going too fast because of course I couldn't resist trying to chase him down. I came into his draft somewhere past the playground.  I said hello, but I don't know if he heard me.  In fact, I don't know if he ever knew I was there.  Since I was already running late, I turned back early and took some time to look at the river level.  I guess it was only a foot or two higher than it had been on Friday, but there are now a lot of long stretches of batture that look like rivers with a noticeable current.  This morning they opened part of the Bonnet Carre spillway and it's looking like they will probably open it fully in the near future.  By the weekend they will have to decide whether to start opening the Morganza spillway. 

So back at the office I suddenly realized it was 10:30 am and of course today was Stage 3 of the Giro d' Italia. I checked Cyclingnews but it was apparent I'd just missed the finish.  Something was odd, though. The last line of the live ticker read, "We're going to close the live report now but we'll keep you updated on the site."  A minute or two later I learned that a rider had crashed badly on the descent, and half an hour later my worst fears were confirmed.  Belgian rider Wouter Weylandt had been coming off the tail end of the group on a fast descent.  He looked back to decide whether to chase or drop back to the group behind. His pedal or handle bar clipped a low wall and he went down hard, fracturing his skull.  Despite quick medical attention, he died before getting to the hospital.  A very sad day for the Giro. 

Weekend Rides

It was a pretty routine training weekend that started out chilly and ended up hot and sweaty. I'd been expecting Saturday's Giro Ride to be a really fast one.  There were no races nearby, the weather was nearly ideal, riders are getting in shape. The ride was fast, but not quite as hard as I'd thought it would be.  A few of the key players were absent, and the wind was moderate and only rarely of the crosswind variety, so I guess that helped take the edge off.  Down at the end of Hayne Blvd., where we make a sharp turn onto Paris Road, there was water on the inside of the turn.  Somebody back around mid-pack apparently tried to test the limits of friction there, and a moment after I'd rounded the corner I heard a commotion behind me.  It was just a minor slip and fall, though, and before long we were hammering our way toward Chef Highway.

For the most part, the ride was a lot of fun -- just the right combination of work and play.  On the way back I was riding alongside Eddie D. on the service road when his rear tire exploded.  I'm not sure what he rolled over (there was a fair amount of broken glass around there), but it was one of those explosive kinds of flats.  Half of the group ended up waiting underneath a conveniently located oak tree since it was starting to get pretty warm.  After we got started up again, however, the pace never got much past the conversational level.

Sunday's Giro was on Mother's Day, so lots of good boys and girls were missing, but we had a pretty good ride nonetheless.  The only exciting part was on Chef Highway when a gap opened and a small group decided to make a run for it.  A few of us tried to give chase, but in general, the rest of the pack wasn't really interested.  We got the gap down to maybe fifteen seconds, but nobody would pull through and so it opened up again.  Oh well.  It was fun anyway.

Saved by the Flat

It was a bit after 5 pm when I suddenly remembered about the first Wednesday Worlds training race that Kennny had announced for 6 pm on Lakeshore Drive.  I rushed out of the office, rode back home, changed into riding gear, and headed for the lakefront, arriving just in time to see the group of eight or ten riders still rolling easy.  A few minutes later we had the "official" start.  Unfortunately, the recent cold front's north wind had washed mud and debris up onto the east end of Lakeshore Drive, so we were back on the same shortened circuit from last year, riding back and forth between the Elysian Fields traffic circle to the Bayou St. John (aka Fountain) traffic circle. The first lap was fairly civilized, and then on the second lap we got off on the wrong foot with the Levee District police when the group tried to blow through the traffic circle (in front of the police station) right in front of a police car that was already in the circle.  It was ugly, but luckily the police officer stayed cool, flipped on his siren for a moment, and went about his business without further harassment.  I was feeling a little tired from the morning's ride, so my plan was to stay out of the wind for the first half of the short race.  There were a couple of small breakaways, but each time they were slowly reeled in by the group.  Then, on the last lap, Jordan took off on a bold solo break that nearly succeeded, but everything came back together for the last kilometer, resulting in a bit of a drag race at the end that Tim won.  It was really fun -- not too slow and not too fast -- just what I needed.  By the time I got home and ate dinner, though, I was feeling pretty worn out.

So this morning I set out with every intention of doing the long ride out to Ormond.  There was a moderate wind and it was still chilly enough for arm-warmers, but otherwise the conditions were pretty good.  I, however, was still feeling kind of dragged out for some reason.  Anyway, the pace got fast as usual and I was hurting as usual, and then there was a flat.  That provided a nice little break at just the right time.  Once we got going again after that things ramped up again and next thing I know there are just three or four of us off the front.  Everyone else in the front group was planning on turning around early, so I figured I'd follow suit, especially when they started attacking about a mile before the "little dip" where they were turning.  I survived one attack, but didn't respond quite quickly enough to the second, and rode the last half mile off the back.  I've been trying to add a little more intensity to my training rides, so reducing the mileage a little bit isn't causing me the consternation it might have earlier in the year. I've been spending too much time sitting in on the group rides this year, so it's time to change things up a little.  For the return trip we picked up an additional rider or two and thanks to the headwind turned into a fairly hard workout.  The difference in the river between yesterday and today was fairly dramatic, and I see now that they are planning to open the Spillway on Monday.  The photo above is a composite of two photos taken from around the same spot near Ochsner, one yesterday morning and the other this morning.

Double Tailwind

It was still warm and muggy Tuesday morning when I took off for the regular levee ride.  Down here in the real South (as opposed to, say, Atlanta) Spring is pretty much a done deal now and Summer is fast approaching.  Last week I dumped all of the winter riding clothes into the wash, looking forward to a summer full of mornings when I don't even bother to check the thermometer.  Up on the levee we had a pretty big group as we headed upriver.  It's now light enough at 6:15 am that I don't bother with the headlight any more, and strap on a little rear blinky light just for those mornings when it's cloudy.

So with a fair amount of horsepower at the front, assisted by a nice little tailwind, the group was rolling along at a pretty good clip. I was still mostly hanging out near the end of the paceline as we came around the bend a the country club and continued into River Ridge.  Up ahead there was someone walking or jogging on the right side of the road, and also a rider approaching from the other direction.  As sometimes happens, the timing was working out so that the collision alert warning was about to sound. The riders in front called out, "Slowing" or something to that effect as they started hitting the brakes and the paceline started to bunch up.  Ahead of me and a bit to the left I suddenly saw Doug's front wheel go horizontal and knew someone must have touched wheels.  There was a moment of warning as he tried to save it, but I wasn't sticking around to watch and immediately bailed onto the grassy side of the levee behind Tim.  By the time I got turned around and back onto the asphalt, Doug was sitting there on the river side of the levee looking both beat-up and stunned as he mumbled something to the effect of, "My wife is going to kill me."  It took a while before he finally stood up, and I gather that he may have bounced his head off of the pavement on the way down.  Mark G. gathered him up and they headed back as the group clipped in to continue the ride.  We later learned that Doug had broken something in his shoulder.

So the rest of the ride went smoothly out to the turnaround at Ormond, with a couple of easy miles as we started back, but then we noticed a huge dark cloud building to the northwest.  The pace ramped up a bit as riders started doing the calculations.  "If a cold front leaves the station at 7:15 going east northeast at 15 mph and the pack departs Ormond at 20 mph, will the riders get wet before they reach the playground?"  After a few more miles it was looking like we would easily outrun the rain, but right about that time, somewhere around River Ridge, I think, we suddenly felt a cold, cold downdraft.  The temperature must have dropped ten degrees in fifteen seconds and soon the wind shifted around to the north.  All of a sudden we had a tailwind on the way back after having had a tailwind on the way out.  That never happens, but I didn't hear any complaints.  I don't think the temperature got above 70F the rest of the day.

This morning there was a stiff north wind and it was chilly enough for knee and arm-warmers as I rode out to meet the morning ride. I guess the combination of cooler air and strong wind kept a lot of people in bed this morning because we had only Donald, Big Richard, Mignon and myself.  Despite the wind, though, it was a lovely morning and we had a good ride.  On the way out we ran into Roy Tedesco who was sitting on the side of the bike path apparently waiting for someone with a pump to come along.  We stopped and got his tire aired up and he rode with us out to the turnaround where he continued on as we headed back.  The river level is rising rather quickly right now and the difference between yesterday and today was immediately noticeable.  The nice thing about the rising water, though, is that as it begins to flood the batture we start seeing lots of wildlife.  There were at least four or five varieties of herons, lots of wood ducks, whistling ducks, and a big hawk with red shoulders.

On and Off the Back

I knew it was going to be a long day.  I just didn't know exactly how long it would be.  I threw the bike into the car a bit after 4 am and headed west toward Lake Charles for the LAMBRA Criterium Championships.  The masters race was the second of the day, so I figured I may as well get there early enough to help with the officiating.  Besides, I had bring all of the championship medals.  I have to admit, I rather like those three-hour early morning drives on the interstate, although it would have been nice to have had a little company on this one.  It appears that some New Orleanians prefer Jazzfests to sufferfests.

The masters race had a fairly small field of 20 or so, a quarter of which was Midsouth Masters.  Despite its diminutive size, the race had a lot of horsepower and I wasn't expecting an easy ride.  We started out with a first-lap prime.  I hate first-lap primes!  Thus began a fast and aggressive race in which I was basically a non-factor.  Part of the reason was that I was gambling that the strong team and strong solo riders might cancel each other out.  The other part of the reason was the strong and gusty wind that made moving up difficult and hiding in the pack nearly impossible.  There was an early breakaway that got a decent gap, but I could sense they wouldn't be able to stay out there.  Indeed, they were caught after a concerted chase.  On the next prime another small break took off, and again I didn't get the idea the field was going to let that one go either.  By then I was mostly hanging onto the tail end of the group wondering what I'd gotten myself into and feeling a spectator at a dog fight. There were more attacks and more chases, as I played the accordion at the back, sprinting out of each of the three hard corners as the pack stretched and compressed around the course.  The worst was a particular right-hand turn into a strong head/crosswind that made getting a draft a real challenge.  With six or so laps left to go the pack was once again all together when a couple of riders attacked.  This time it seemed that the front of the group hesitated.  I was still near the back, as was Mitch.  Just as the alarm bells were starting to go off in my head, I saw Mitch get up out of the saddle and knew he'd sensed the same thing.  He went flying past the group and started to bridge.  I think he made it for a little while, but it must have taken so much out of him that he couldn't stick with them.  At five to go I started trying to move up.  The break was not looking like it would be caught, but even so it was difficult to make much progress.  Somehow, though, my old criterium instincts started to finally kick in and I spent the last couple of laps battling for a decent position. There was a surge on the last lap as I hung in at third or fourth wheel, coming around the last turn third, I think, and passing one rider and almost the other before the finish.  So I came in 4th, thanks only to the fact that I sucked wheels most of the time while the strong guys did battle at the front.  That felt hard.

So after officiating a couple of races, I figured I may as well go ahead and give them my prize money back and enter the Cat. 1/2/3 race.  I was probably pretty dehydrated already but after all, it was obvious I needed the training.  Now, of course I knew that my only chance, slim as it might be, in this race would be for a small break to get away, one of the teams like Herring shutting everything down, and then a pack sprint.  Well, that was pretty much the opposite of what actually happened. There were some Texas guys on hand, including Carlos Vargas, so I wasn't really surprised. Once again there was a prime on the first lap, so we started out at full gas.  By the time we were halfway through the second lap I was already feeling like I'd brought a knife to a gunfight.  A break was already off the front but I didn't even know it for another couple of laps.  Nobody was shutting this pack down.  That break was eventually reeled back, which of course only precipitated more attacks.  By then I was hanging onto the back of the race for dear life, struggling to stay in contact after almost every corner.  There were at least four times when I seriously considered sitting up and packing it in.  Anyway, with maybe six laps to go the pace surged once again and once again I was struggling just to stay in contact.  A late break went off the front that included Vargas and two Herring riders who were not likely to outsprint him.  I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the Herring race plan, but these things happen sometimes.  I was back among the last three or four riders in the pack when all of a sudden it seemed like someone was going backwards through the pack.  I don't know if we'd come upon a lapped rider or if someone had just completely blown up, but the net result was that a big gap suddenly opened up a couple of riders ahead of me.  One rider near me made it across, but for the rest of us, it was "game over."  By then there were only a few more laps left, so I just put my head down and figured I may as well finish it out.  I ended up 16th out of 24, 12th in the Cat. 1/2s.  I'm hoping that old saying is true.  You know, the one that goes, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Strange Dog!

Overall I thought the races themselves went pretty well, but the turnout was kind of embarrassing. Here we have a district championship criterium with a pretty decent prizelist and the biggest field numbered 24.  I don't really get it.  Lake Charles may not be in the geographic center of LAMBRA, but it's not exactly in Kansas either.