Planning to Plan

So I spent this week's riding time more or less in recovery and sightseeing mode.  With only the track championships (which I'll probably be officiating anyway) and local Tour de Jefferson "ride" on the horizon, it seems appropriate to be winding down just a bit.  The truth is, however, that I haven't really been all that wound up this year anyway, so it's more a matter of roadie tradition and habit than anything else.  The air this morning was dry and cool, and it's looking like we'll have a little taste of Fall for the next couple of days, at least in the early morning hours.  Around here, that means a temperature of 70F, or even (brrrrrrr!) down into the upper 60s.  I'm thinking about plans for the next few months, which are always rather busy for me.  Somewhere in there I absolutely need to replace my worn-through saddle and maybe pick up some new gloves and shoe-covers to tide me through the winter. We will have a couple of visits from family members, a little Halloween open house, some travel, etc.  Some travel arrangements have been made, others not quite yet.  Plus, I need to schedule the annual LAMBRA meeting, make sure the awards get ordered on time this year, officiate the track championships, hopefully sell a property of my mother's, etc.  I actually just this week got the awards and team trophy for last year's LCCS!  Better late than never, I guess.  I'll probably order the ones for this year when I go pick them up tomorrow. 

Words to live by

Speaking of awards, USA Cycling has worked out a deal with Voler for state championship (and I assume BAR/LCCS) jerseys that looks promising.  We've never given out state championship jerseys before because of the cost and order minimums involved.  The deal with Voler, however, would allow LAMBRA to come up with a standard LAMBRA championship design, and then the winning riders in all of the championship classes and categories could buy championship jerseys, if they want to, via an online ordering system after confirmation from LAMBRA. It is essentially the same system they now use for the national championship jerseys, and the cost per jersey is really low - under $40.  LAMBRA would even get a small "royalty" on each one ordered.  Once they have the design set up, they can print jerseys as needed and ship them out within three or four days.

This morning's Friday ride was smooth and easy -- a lot of time at 20-22 mph taking long pulls with Scott, David, Zack and Taylor.  So anyway, I guess I'll be riding the Giro this weekend (possibly with arm-warmers?).  The rides may be a little smaller than usual because this is the MS Tour weekend, so a fair number of the local riders will be battling the north wind from Hammond to McComb tomorrow and then reversing the route on Sunday.  I did that ride one year and it was a lot of fun, but I will kind of have my hands full this weekend anyway.

Six Gap Recap

Me, Keith and Steve - still pretty dark!

Keith, Kris and I hit the road early Saturday morning for the long drive up into the foothills of Georgia for the annual pilgrimage to the Six Gap Century.  Compared with last year, the weather forecast was looking quite encouraging, with a low of around 50, a high in the low 70s, and virtually no chance of rain.  We arrived at Dahlonega in the early afternoon, giving us time to pick up our packets and watch the Juniors and Masters criteriums.  If we'd gotten there a little earlier and I'd have had time to find out how many masters had registered, I might have convinced myself to enter.  As it turned out they had only about 13 in the combined 35+/45+ race, so winning back my entry fee would have been a distinct possibility.  Anyway, we met up with Steve and Pat and headed over to our host's house for dinner and vino.  Kris had made a last-minute decision to switch to a compact crankset, which FedEx had delivered that morning, so we swapped that out in the driveway before it got dark and he took it for a very brief test ride.  It was a little too brief, as it turned out, because he dropped his chain a couple of times the next day.  Afterward, we stayed up to watch the LSU game on their enormous TV before hitting the sack ... or couch.  I didn't sleep well at all, as my stomach was giving me grief for some reason.

As usual, Sunday morning was kind of a rush.  Even though we arrived at the school where the ride started about an hour ahead of time, there were about a thousand cars ahead of us as we inched our way into the parking lot. I put a flask of HammerGel in my pocket, made sure my two water bottles were full, and contemplated the temperature.  By then the sun was starting to peek over the horizon, but I was already pretty chilled.  Knowing I'd probably regret it later, which I did, I put on two jerseys and arm-warmers, and headed down to the starting line about 15 minutes before the 7:30 start.  They had a little area roped off at the front for people who had gone under 6 hours, so I stepped over the tape and waited there, shivering, as the overly enthusiastic announcer tried somewhat successfully to raise the general level of early morning excitement.  He started asking people in the sub-6 hour corral what their last year times had been and asking the crowd if they were "worthy."  I wasn't paying much attention when suddenly he stuck the microphone in front of my face.  I said "5:50-something" (I looked it up later, it was 5:56), and for some reason he seemed doubtful (more on him later).  I was tempted to respond to the big guy with a Yoda-esque "Judge me by my size, do you?"  but just let it slide. 

The ride started right on time (I'm in the video!) as over 1,000 of us rolled off into the Georgia countryside for 103 miles of long slow climbs and scary-fast downhills.  The first ten or fifteen miles went pretty smoothly, and I was a little surprised that the pace wasn't any faster than it was, not that I was complaining. Although I can't help wanting to finish with a respectable time, for this ride mere respectability would have to suffice. I was hanging out somewhere in the front 40 or 50, mainly to stay out of trouble, as we rode up and down the rollers leading up to the first significant climb, Neel's Gap, at mile 19 or so. Once we started up that climb I looked up ahead and could see a fairly big group of maybe 35 riders already pulling away rather quickly.  I settled in to a nice steady pace of 7-10 mph and stuck with the riders around me.  Attacking Neel's Gap was definitely not in my game plan. After a fast but welcome downhill, I found myself in a nice steady group of 30 or so that was rolling along at a brisk but comfortable speed. We went up the next two climbs, Jack's and Unicoi, more or less together.  The descent down Unicoi is probably my favorite, but this year it was interrupted by traffic.  I had just gotten the speed up into the 45-50 mph range when I came up on a truck that couldn't pass a couple of slower cyclists on the narrow winding road.  It was very frustrating to be dragging the brakes where I'd normally be flying through the curves, but there was just nothing that I or the driver could do. 

We finally came to the start of Hogpen at around mile 44.  For that long climb it's pretty much every man for himself as each riders quickly settles into whatever pace he thinks he can maintain.  In my case, I was alternating between standing in the 39x25 at about 9-10 mph and sitting in the 39x27 at 7-8 mph, mostly sitting.  I could see riders all up and down the road, all crawling along at about the same speed, but was careful not to look up the road too much.  Every time I'd look ahead and see the seemingly endless climb I'd hear this little voice in my head saying, "Why don't you just stop and take a break?" Fortunately I'd taken the time this year to write down the start and finish mileages of the big climbs on my handlebar tape, so at least I knew how much farther the pain would last.  By the top of Hogpen things were pretty well shattered, but there were still a number of riders around, so after the quick downhill we still had a little group as we approached the Wolfpen Gap climb where I was expecting to start unravelling.  By the time I got over that one, which involved avoiding the slower 3-Gappers since we were all back on the same route, a little group of six to ten had pulled away and I was pretty much on my own for the rest of the ride.  After coming over the last big climb at Woody's Gap, I was looking forward to the fast and fun downhill, but was once again frustrated by slow-moving traffic and ended up spending most of the time on the brakes as I followed a couple of cars that were cautiously leapfrogging from one rider to the next.  The rest of the ride was just a lot of rollers where my speed fluctuated from 12 to 40 mph.  I didn't really have much left in the tank at that point, so I was taking it fairly easy on the climbs.

I ended up finishing with a time of 5:50, which was right in line with my other times.  In fact, it's kind of amazing that after doing this ride four times in four years, my finishing times have not varied more than about ten minutes. As I rolled past the tent at the finish the announcer, who looked exhausted, recognized me and asked me my time.  I stopped to chat with Donald Davis who had finished around 5th, or 3rd, a full half hour ahead of me.  As I rolled off to seek liquids and food, Donald headed back out onto the route to ride it backwards back up to the top of Woody Gap so he could cheer for his friends and teammates.  The results, as of this writing, are a little screwy since they include the times for riders who obviously didn't do the whole ride, but anyway they're on the Epic Sports Marketing website. If you want to see what it takes to ride this thing really fast, go over to Brian Toone's blog to see his extensive and annotated ride data and read his reports of the Criterium and Century Ride.  Brian and one other guy, Jimmy Schurman, whose timing chip was obviously not working well, were the first to finish, just under the course record.  Jorge finished at 6:35 and Steve finished at 6:37.  Keith was at 7:20 and Kris, who was pretty dehydrated and exhausted for a while, finished at 7:43. Sadly, I never got over 52 mph because of the traffic, but Keith had a maximum speed of a bit over 56 mph.

We were on the road by around 3:30 or 4:00 and finally arrived back in New Orleans right around midnight. It's Tuesday afternoon now and my back still aches!  Apparently those climbs up to the top of the levee aren't doing it.

Gearing *Down*

After a fairly relaxed week of riding I'll be heading from where I am, here in the South, about nine hours northeast to where the rest of the country thinks is the South, namely Atlanta, or to be more specific, Dahlonega, which is north of Atlanta.  Late last night I rummaged through a box in my basement, finally extracting a little box marked "Six Gap."  Inside was my 12-27 cassette that hadn't seen the light of day since this time last year.  I installed it on my trusty old Rolf wheels with those new pink tires, stuck a huge water bottle into the cage, and planned on an easy Friday morning ride to make sure the off-brand Miche cassette wasn't going to require any derailleur adjustments.

The Six Gap Century has become in recent years the closing bookend for my road season, the opening bookend being Rouge-Roubaix in March.  The intervening seven months usually represent roughly 6,500 of a typical 11,000 mile year.  This year, however, is looking like it will be closer to 10,000 miles for me.  It's just been one of those years.  Anyway, the 103-mile ride is always memorable, usually painful, and sometimes humbling.  I rode it the first couple of times with a low gear of 39x25 before finally springing for that 12-27 cassette.  Even so, most riders opt for gearing substantially lower by going with a "compact" crank setup, typically with a 34-tooth small ring.  The route itself features, as its name would imply, six "gaps" or passes, but a couple of them are short enough to pale in comparison to the others.  The first long climb is Neels Gap that starts at about 19 miles and peaks out t miles later at 26 miles.  The last 4 miles of that one are pretty damned steep. After that one there are a couple of relatively short climbs up Jacks and Unicoi gaps, followed by the excellent 5-mile descent down from Unicoi.  Finally, at about 44 miles, comes THE BIG ONE, Hogpen gap.  This is essentially an 8.5 mile climb that climbs over 1,000 feet, with the steepest sections nearest the top, of course.  There's a nice descent after that one, a bit of flat, and then the 4.2 mile climb up Wolfpen gap starting at 72 miles. This one actually has some of the steepest grades, and will take whatever you might have left in your legs, if anything, right out of you. Then there are a couple of short climbs, a nice fast descent, and a long, long rolling stretch to the finish. Sounds like fun, eh?  The Wolfpen and Hogpen climbs are timed, thanks to the chip-timing system, and I think there's a prize for the winners of that.  Of course, as the organizer reminds everybody at the start, "It's not a race!"  Yeah, right.

Anyway, we'll be heading out around 6:30 tomorrow morning for the long drive, which should provide ample time to contemplate the possibility of riding the new criterium that they're having the evening before.......

At the Beach

I'd been looking forward to the Pensacola Classic Stage Race with a mix of excitement and trepidation.  The extensive pre-event promotion, generous prizelist, and attractive destination promised a good turnout, even for a late-season race.  I figured it would be a good race.  I also figured I'd get may ass kicked.  So naturally I signed up.  After a flurry of emails and text messages I was all set up to drive up with Tim, stay at the luxurious Holiday Inn, right on the beach, with a voucher from BP picking up the hotel tab.  So Friday afternoon I headed home from work a little early, put the racing wheels with their pink Michelin Pro Race 3s on the bike, cleaned off a week's worth of dirt, lubed the chain and waited for Tim to pick me up.  Our timing was going to be pretty tight.  The trip GPS was estimating our arrival for 9:05.  Packet pick-up ended at 9:00.  As we approached Pensacola, the estimated arrival time started dropping. We arrived about ten minutes before they closed down for the night, just in time to pickup our numbers and timing chips and put our names into the door prize jar for a chance to win a Specialized Tarmac.  Then we headed for our room and the minute we walked in the door Tim's phone rang.  It was the organizer calling to tell him he'd won the bike!  Sweet.

I was riding the combined 35+/45+ race, and Saturday morning offered a 50 mile road race on a pretty good 25 mile course with one long climb about two-thirds of the way around.  Unlike the previous year, the finish wasn't right after a nice little climb, but was pretty much a flat drag race - a last-minute change that was made when the folks who controlled the original start location decided they needed a pile of cash from the promoter.  The race started off a little slower than it had the year before, but there were still a few attacks and short-lived breaks.  Everything was together when we hit the one really tactically significant climb, and as I'd expected, or perhaps feared, Donald Davis attacked hard at about the mid-point.  Things got strung out immediately and although I was able to stay in the mix, I didn't think that I needed to go full-bore.  After all, there were a lot of people in the pack and no other big hills nearby, so I thought that surely there would be a chase once we got over the top and the break would get pulled back in a few minutes.  Well, I was wrong.  Up at the top of the climb, which was more like a false flat, a group suddenly came together and the gap just kind of exploded.  The rest of the group didn't really respond.  This was not good.  Before we knew it the gap had gone up to about 30 seconds.  A couple of teams had guys in the break, so that took a number of people out of the chase.  Eventually the break, which had seven riders in it, got out of sight.  At one point I got into a small break that I thought might at least stay away from the pack, but after a few miles it was pulled back and the stage was set for a sprint for 8th place overall, which meant nothing since all of the stage bonuses were in the break anyway.  Even so, you would have thought we were sprinting for the world championship the way riders started crowding the front from about three miles out.  There was definitely some needlessly dangerous riding going on and I couldn't get close enough to the front to have a good shot at the line without doing something stupid.  Since I had no faith whatsoever in the officials giving pack time to everyone (they can never resist when there's chip timing) I sprinted anyway, coming in somewhere around 7th or 8th in the pack which put me in 8th in the 45+ race.  Oh well.  On the plus side, I didn't feel like the road race had taken much out of me.

The afternoon time trial was just a few miles down the beach road from the hotel, and the start times had been posted to the event website, so I carefully figured out when I should leave in order to get in a nice warmup without having to hang around in the sun very long before my start. I knew something was wrong by the time I was halfway there, because by then I should have seen riders coming toward me.  It turned out they were running 35 minutes late.  So much for my plan.  There were no road race results at the time trial, or on the website, and of course the posted start list was now off by about 35 minutes.  The one-way time trial had a fairly good tailwind, which I knew would favor the real TT fanatics, among whom I am not.  I did a nice steady time trial at about 85% effort, maintaining a reasonable 27 mph, which would have been more like 25 mph without the tailwind.  My 30-second man passed me about four kilometers into the five kilometer TT.  That evening we met up at Flounders where I was somewhat embarrassed to find that my legs weren't the least bit sore.  I guess I really need to start taking these time trial things more seriously. 

So I stayed up until 10:30 or so Saturday hoping to see the TT and GC results, but no luck.  The next morning the GC standings were supposed to be posted, but if you tried to go to the website from a smartphone you got redirected to some photography site instead.  There was never a results posting that showed stage times, finish bonuses, at GC all in the same place.  It would have been virtually impossible to protest anything.  Anyway, we headed out to the criterium course where the masters were scheduled to start at 11:00.  We arrived in time to see the Women's race in which Debbie Milne and Allie Hurst spent much of the time off the front.  The rest of the Cat. 1-3 women's field, which included NOBC riders Vivian and Angie got a little split up but were still very much in the race until the last five laps or so.  Debbie attacked hard at one point, opening a 10-second gap on Allie, but withing a lap or so Allie had pulled it back and things were set for a 2-rider sprint.  Unfortunately there was some confusion about the finish lap - perhaps they heard the bell for a pack prime and thought it was their bell lap, or perhaps the bell they heard after that sprint was the bell for some lapped riders, but anyway they ended up sprinting twice with Allie taking both of them.

Things were running about half an hour late, but apparently they shortened the race before mine, which meant that I didn't get the warmup I had been planning for.  At the start I totally flubbed clipping in and spent the next couple of laps trying to move up to a more comfortable position.  Aside from some rider rolling off the front who was apparently one of the Cat. 1/2/3 riders who the officials had allowed to race with us (really??), most of the race was fast but not exceptionally so.  Since my GC possibilities were pretty much in the dumpster because of my time trial, I was just hoping for a sprint finish and a decent shot at the line.  With four laps to go things started to get kind of crazy.  The pace at the front wasn't fast enough to string things out enough, so there was a lot of sketchy riding as things got bunched up.  At one point some big guy tried to repeatedly push me out of his way with his hand on my hip.  Seriously?  Anyway, a little attack with at the bell finally strung it out a little bit, but I couldn't get as close to the front as I'd have liked before the last couple of turns and probably came around the last corner around 10th wheel and ultimately finishing around 7th or 8th, which was 4th in the 45+.  It was at least some small consolation for an otherwise unimpressive weekend performance.

So afterward I peeled off my wet skinsuit, changed, and headed off with my camera to watch the Cat. 1/2/3 race that was already underway.  I took a few photos and then suddenly remembered I'd forgotten to return my chip, so I had to go back to the car, cut it off, and turn it in behind the officials' stand.  Then I decided to go take some photos at one of the corners on the back side of the course.  As I started walking in that direction I heard someone calling my name.  I looked back and it was a police officer.  He said that one of my friends had crashed.  I rushed over to the corner where there was now a fire truck and found Tim sitting on the sidewalk leaning on a brick wall and holding a bandage to the side of his head.  I asked the fireman if he had answered all of the questions correctly, and, satisfied that he didn't have a concussion, asked him what had happened.  It sounded like a rider ahead of him had hit the manhole in that corner, which lifted his rear wheel and caused him to slide out. Tim had no choice but to try and go around on the outside, but after hopping the curb onto the sidewalk he ran out of room, brushed along a brick wall, and then slammed sideways into a brick column, putting a pretty good gash in his ear and causing a fair amount of collateral damage to arms and ankles.  He had dislocated a finger but popped it back into place before I arrived.  Anyway, we got him cleaned up and headed for home shortly after the race ended.  I think we were somewhere in Alabama when the bleeding finally stopped.  So I ended up coming in 9th in the 45+ race, although I really have no idea exactly how that was calculated.  It was really a pretty well put-together race and the only real issue, as far as I was concerned, was with the results posting.  I put a few photos up at http://flic.kr/s/aHsjw5K5kr.

Tapering Off

The Pensacola Classic is this weekend. Now in its second year, I'm expecting they will have a pretty big turnout, especially since it is part of both the LAMBRA and Florida points series'.  It's also the end of the LAMBRA road season, unless you count one possibility that may or may not happen in December in New Orleans.  For the last few weeks I've sensed the racing season starting to taper off a bit as it always does this time of year.  It's kind of hard to detect the change, actually.  The fast parts of the training rides are still just as fast, but things start up just a little bit more slowly and the fastest stretches are just that little bit shorter.  I'm thinking about track and cyclocross and century rides and trying to remember what articles of winter riding gear need to be replaced before it gets cold.  Fortunately we have a few months around here before the real chill sets in.  And then there's November.  I just finished making a week's worth of travel arrangements, including the USAC Local Associations Summit in Colorado Springs, followed immediately by a research administration conference in Washington D.C.  Neither involved much in the way of recreation or, for that matter, exercise. So yesterday was the last of Kenny's bandit Lakefront time trials  (there's a video!). There was a good turnout and some fast times, so although the official road season may be tapering off, it's clear that not all of the riders are.

This morning's levee ride was surprisingly well-attended.  It's quite dark now at 6 am as I ride out to meet the ride, and the riders are starting to show up a little later than usual, but that's OK because we really don't want a 25-rider paceline blasting down the levee in the dark.  By the time things start to ramp up, usually somewhere out past the Huey P. Long bridge, there's a lot more light. I was feeling a little sluggish today, so it was a struggle to stay with the pace, which just seemed to get faster and faster.  Out near The Dip a number of people backed off and turned back, but there was still a good-sized group that did the whole ride.  That kept the pace fairly high and we spent a lot of time, both coming and going, in the 27-30 mph range.  I think there were three or four times when I pulled off after a short pull, only to have Howard come storming past on his TT bike three mph faster. Anyway, although I was trying to take it just a little bit easy, considering the fact that last weekend took a lot out of me and this next weekend is coming up fast, I'm not sure I succeeded.  My goal for the Pensacola race is just to hold my own and have fun.  Down the road are things like the Six Gap Century later in the month, and then the local Tour de Jefferson ride, followed by our Track Championships at the end of October.  Just today I got an email from the Dahlonega folks announcing a criterium the evening before the Six Gap ride.  Tempting. 

Back to Natchez

I'd been debating what to do about the LAMBRA Road Championships for a couple of days.  I've never felt like I was really in shape this year, and since, for one reason or another, I'd missed so many races already this year I was actually considering riding the Master 55+/60+ race instead of the 35+/45+ race.  The downside there, aside from the unavoidable acknowledgement that I was actually old enough to be eligible, was that the field would probably be quite small and the distance rather short at a bit over 36 miles.  On the plus side, the chance I'd be dropped was considerably lower.  I was still on the fence about it as I walked out the door late Wednesday night to walk the dogs. A few seconds later I was on the ground holding my sprained ankle and suddenly thinking that maybe that shorter race would be the right choice this year.  I taped the already swelling ankle and went to bed, hoping I hadn't done too much damage.  The next morning it was better, as long as I didn't twist it, so I went out to meet the Thursday ride.  I needed to make sure my recently reassembled shifter was working anyway.  As often happens, the ankle felt just fine while I was riding, although I was careful not to spend any time out of the saddle.  Just to be on the safe side, I turned around early.

The alarm went off early Saturday morning.  I had to get up to Natchez before registration opened to drop off the LAMBRA clock and generator and, if needed, help out with registration.  I would be driving a rental Kia Soul (the one with the commercial featuring giant rats and rap music), which the agency called a minivan, but which is in fact a mini-minivan.  On the plus side, it had satellite radio and audio input, so I had a nice commercial-free drive, arriving as the crew was setting up the huge tents they always have for this race.  The first races started at 9 am, although my 55+/60+ race didn't roll until 2 pm.  I spent some time fixing up the registration/results spreadsheets and eventually plugging in the Junior race results and watching the Cat. 5 and Masters Women's races before pulling the bike out of the car and getting things together for my own race.  As it turned out, we would have a small field of only nine riders.  The 35+/45+ race, which would start a few minutes ahead of us, had twenty.  I'm not really sure why we don't get larger fields for this race.  The course and venue are great, although it is certainly possible that the hills on the first part of the 5-mile loop scare some people away.  This course starts out with a steep but short climb up to a dam.  A mile later there is a fairly long stair-step climb that is steeper at the top than at the bottom.  That's followed by a quick, short downhill and then a short but very steep little climb that seems to get steeper every lap.  We'd be doing seven laps.  Things started out pretty smoothly, but by the time we were halfway through the first lap it was becoming clear that half the field was not going to be doing any work.  I was feeling fairly good and spent quite a bit of time at the front along with a couple of other riders.  I guess it was on the third lap when I came over the steep hill, pulled for a little while, and pulled off to find only one other rider with me.  He came through and said, "It's just you and me, Randy."  I figured I'd work with it and see where it went, knowing that Mike Williams could probably close the gap by himself once.

As hard as the first couple of miles of this loop are, the last few miles are really fun with long sweeping downhill curves, smooth asphalt, and tree-shaded roads.  I took another pull and saw that my breakaway companion was already having trouble.  I backed off a bit so he could catch back up, but a little while later he was off the back again.  I could see the rest of the group just behind, so I finally just put my head down and went for it.  By the end of the lap I was pretty much out of sight with, I think, four laps left to go.  I wasn't too wild about the prospect of a long time trial on this course, but by then I was pretty much committed.  I never had any time checks, so for the rest of the race I didn't really know what might be going on behind me.  From what I heard afterward, Mike initially closed most of the gap but when nobody was willing to share the work he sat up.  This was, of course, all complicated by the fact that there were essentially two races going on at the same time, so the 60+ riders really didn't have much of a reason to chase me.  Anyway, I ended up doing a rather long time trial and finishing quite a few minutes ahead of the rest of the field.

That evening Curtis invited me over to his house where he and Tommy and a number of the Natchez crew who organized the race were cooking dinner over a interesting outdoor grill kind of thing that was basically a cast iron cylinder with one flat side and a fire inside.  It was both fun and delicious, although I was careful to limit myself to a single beer because by then I was seriously considering doing the Cat. 1/2 race the next morning.

Sunday morning, feeling rather sore, I signed up for the Cat. 1/2 race, mainly just for the exercise.  My goal for this race was to stay with the field for at least six of the 14 laps.  Based on past experience, I figured that would be about when they would start attacking the climbs and the effects of my substandard training program would really kick in.  This race turned out to have a field of only nine riders, which did not bode well for me.  On the other hand, most of these guys were smart enough to know that they wouldn't need the whole 72 miles to make something happen.  As a result, the first few laps were pretty smooth.  We were only a couple of laps into the race when Woody, who had been a bit off the front, flatted.  His teammate Frank, who had ridden the masters race the day before, stopped to help pace him back to the pack after the wheel change.  In the meantime, the other teams kept the pace up a bit.  After a couple of miles I started looking back for Woody and Frank, and shortly after we made the right turn at the Natchez State Park entrance, I caught a glimpse of a solitary rider chasing.  Frank had apparently blown up early in the chase and Woody was now on his own. He ended up chasing for a full 5.2 mi. lap before making contact.  So as I'd expected I was starting to struggle a bit on the hills at lap #5, and then around lap 7 there was a surge up over that steep little hill that gapped me and another rider off the back.  After a brief chase I had just made contact when another attack went.  I just sat up at that point and thought, "I don't need this today!"  So the rest of the race, maybe 35 miles or so, was more of a training ride for me.  It was fine, though, because that's exactly what I'd been expecting.  Don't you just love it when a plan comes together like that?

Afterwards I gathered up all my water bottles and walked down to the feed zone to hand up water bottles to teammates and a few other riders in the Cat. 4 and Women's races.  All-in-all, it was a pretty good weekend.  Now I'm thinking about going to the stage race in Pensacola next weekend.

Blind Faith

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Thus, I found myself in a light drizzle heading out to the levee early yesterday afternoon astride the trusty old rain bike, wearing the trusty old rain jacket.  Meeting up with Mignon who was on her vintage mountain bike, we rode in the off-and-on rain out to The Dip, battling the 20-30 mph winds on the way back.  Although the idea was to do an easy ride, the head and cross winds made that rather difficult, but even so, I was glad I'd ridden.  It had been warm enough to make a two hour ride in the rain relatively enjoyable.  By evening I was already thinking about what kind of ride I might be able to put together for Monday.  I figured the weather would have to be better by then.

So this morning I flew down Carrollton toward the lake, pushed along by a strong south wind left over from the rapidly retreating Tropical Storm, arriving at the Starbucks to find ..... nobody there.  Hmmm.  Considering the fact that it was still extremely windy and the roads were quite wet, I hadn't been expecting many, but then I hadn't been expecting to be alone either.  Fortunately, a few minutes later Tim, Woody, VJ, Daniel and Mignon arrived.  A minute after they sat down it started to rain.  We waited for a while, and then when it looked like it was ending we headed out. Of course, it immediately started raining again.  The lake was quiet with the south wind as we rode down Lakeshore Drive.  I thought that with only six riders, pouring rain, and 20 mph winds we'd be taking it kind of easy.  As usual I was wrong.  Tim and Daniel were making sure we didn't waste the day's ride by going slowly.  By the time we on Chef Highway we were going 27-30 mph in a steady rain.  My glasses were fogged up, but taking them off would have meant exposing my eyes to the wheelspray, and since I was mostly sucking wheels by then, there was a lot of it.  With the combination of water spraying right into my face, foggy and dirty glasses, and rain, I really couldn't see much of what was in front of me.  For all practical purposes I was just riding on blind faith, taking at least a little comfort in the knowledge that the other riders in our little group were all experienced and predictable riders.  Somewhere along Hayne we'd lost Mignon, so we were down to five riders.  Four and a half if you consider how many pulls I was skipping. 

We weren't sure if we'd make it out to Venetian Isles since all reports were that the road was flooded out there.  Indeed, when we came over the levee and through the open floodgate the road ahead looked like a lake, so we made a u-turn and headed back. We weren't halfway back before it became obvious that the wind had completely shifted and was now coming strongly out of the northwest.  By then, although the rain had stopped, the wheelspray hadn't, and it was starting to feel cooler.  I could feel road grit in my teeth, ears, and basically everywhere.  The return trip down Hayne Blvd. got harder and harder as the wind became more and more gusty.  Coming over the Casino bridge there were a couple of times when the wind almost took my front wheel right out from under me.  I don't know what would have happened if I'd been riding deep aero rims, but when we crossed the Seabrook bridge a few minutes later I was careful to stay low and close to the right side barrier where there was at least a little protection from the wind.  Looking down at the lake it was hard to believe it was the same lake we'd ridden along an hour or so earlier.  The lake level had already been a few feet higher than normal because of the tropical storm, and now the wind had shifted around to the north, pushing all that water up against the seawall.  When we came over the levee onto Lakeshore Drive at the bottom of the Seabrook bridge we found the road to already be flooded and had to detour back to Leon C. Simon.

It was a long, wet ride, and by the time I got home my legs were a little sore, I was soaked to the skin, hungry, and chilled.  Not quite an "epic" ride, but close.

Unpredictability

I just lost a couple of paragraphs I'd written here.  It's got something to do with this fancy touchpad thing, but it seems to be rather unpredictable.  Oh well.  So anyway, I really didn't need to miss another day of riding today, but Tropical Storm Lee had different ideas.  Things got really windy and rainy early this morning, and by 6 am I knew I was definitely not going to be riding. As it turned out, that was about the worst weather we got an my house today.  Unfortunately it kind of screwed up my morning, leaving me with nothing to do but make coffee and watch The Weather Channel. By mid-morning I was really starting to get desperate for something to do, but with the weather still rather unpredictable and the roads still quite wet and covered with leaves and branches, I was still hesitant to get on the bike.  So then it hit me.  What better time to take apart that balky right shifter and confirm my suspicions.

For a couple of months it's been acting a little strangely, and the Ergobrain computer has consistently been showing the rear cog as being one lower than it really was.  I suspected a broken spring carrier, but taking a Campi shifter apart is not for the faint of heart, so I'd been putting it off.  Well, with the prospect of three days of steady rain I figured, "no time like the present."  Naturally, no soon than I'd started the clouds parted and the sun came out, at least for a while.

After peeling back the stinky handlebar tape, pulling out the brake and derailleur cables, rolling back the rubber cover to expose the old sweat, and removing the rusty bolt holding the shifter to the handlebars, I pulled the shifter off.  As I'd expected, it was pretty gunky. I sprayed it all down with silicone spray and started taking things apart. I could already see that, as I had suspected, the post that holds the big spring was either broken or cracked.  I removed all of the various parts and springs, cleaned everything up, and ordered a new $10 spring carrier. Guess I'll be riding the old Cervelo for a few days.  Meanwhile, the tropical storm was turning out to be something of a disappointment, not that I heard anyone complaining. Still a little bored, I decided it was time to re-wire the old 10-light brass chandelier that I haven't installed yet.  That turned out to be quite a task, ultimately requiring me to disassemble the whole thing in order to thread the power cord through the impossibly narrow sections.  It took me nearly an hour to take all of the sections apart because they were pretty much welded together with rust.

I think I'm going to ride tomorrow -- somehow.

Depression

Well, our little tropical depression has already achieved Tropical Storm status, and has thereby had an official name bestowed upon it.  I didn't go out to ride in the rain this morning, although in retrospect it might have been the best chance I'd have had for the next few days.  Tropical Storm Lee is just sitting there churning around in the Gulf, pulling moisture up its east side, which happens to be where we are.  The forecast is for rain, rain and more rain, and if we happen to get stuck under one of those trains of rainstorms it's all quite likely to overwhelm the pumping system and start filling up this big bowl we call New Orleans. Hopefully the wind won't be too big of an issue once it finally gets close enough for that to matter, which may not be until Sunday.  In the meantime, it's looking like it will be a wet and depressing weekend.  I'm already seriously considering breaking out the rain bike tomorrow morning if conditions don't look too bad. Meanwhile, here at work, everything has gone quiet this afternoon, which means that a lot of people have already skipped out ahead of the upcoming long weekend.  We have the Tulane Activities Expo this afternoon, so I'll be over there from about 4:00 - 6:00 trying to lure unsuspecting students in to bike racing.  Later tonight I guess I'll have to venture down into the basement and make sure anything that can't swim is at least off the floor.

So I once again signed up for Six Gap yesterday.  It should at provide a late-season goal to keep me off the couch too much.  Ahead of that, there's the LAMBRA road championships in a week, followed by the Pensacola stage race that I'm hoping to make, and later in October we're hoping to have some track racing.  This whole season has been kind of depressing for me so far.  Having missed so many races, I don't feel like I ever really got into shape.  That kind of makes me a bit apprehensive about the races and especially Six Gap, but I guess getting dropped at a race is still better than sitting on the couch watching reruns on television.