LSD and Hollicross

It's that time of year again.  December always stresses me out.  The bicycle half of my brain keeps nagging me about all that Long Slow Distance (LSD) I'm supposed to be doing, but there are so many competing complications.  There are cyclocross races, a half-finished re-write of the LAMBRA bylaws and LCCS rules, and of course the stress of the arterial bleeding gushing from my checking account.  On top of that, there are always some things at work that really need to be done before the holidays, which is even more of a problem this year because of a planned early departure for a winter road trip to what is nearly the farthest place from New Orleans you can go without a passport.  In light of what may turn out to be nearly a full week of driving with only the slim possibility of a couple of cold and wet rides, I decided on Friday night that I really needed to go with the "long Giro" group out to Slidell on Saturday for what promised to be 95 miles worth of flat and windy paceline riding. I figured a long Saturday ride would diminish my LSD guilt sufficiently to allow for a little cyclocross fun on Sunday. 

Saturday was cold, windy and cloudy.  It somehow seemed perfectly appropriate for a long winter ride.  There was little hope that the temperature would warm up much during the ride, so I dressed a little bit heavier than usual.  You never know what to expect of the Giro this time of year.  The worst would have been a small group of four going out to Slidell with one or two who didn't know what the "S" in LSD stands for.  Of course, you never really know who will be doing the long ride until you're actually all the way out to Venetian Isles, otherwise known as "the point of no return."

Fortunately, there were lots of other riders thinking the same as I.  On the way out to Venetian a few riders rolled off the front.  That would normally have resulted in a bit of a hammer session down Hayne Blvd., but this time the rest of the group was having none of it, knowing that payment for such an early effort on a 95 mile ride would be extracted with interest somewhere around mile 80.  As it turned out we had about 25 riders who continued out to Fort Pike, and then about a dozen, including three Tulane riders, one of whom has just been recruited onto the Herring team, who stayed with us all the way to Slidell.  Despite my best efforts to suck wheels and resist temptation, I was definitely starting to feel the mileage as we sprinted up the overpasses about ten miles from home.  By the time I got home I was pleasantly sore and tired.  Yeah, you know what I mean.

So Sunday I made the short trip out to the Spillway near Norco for the Holli-cross races where I figured I could help out with officiating and then ride the "A" race for fun.  The race location was at the start of a popular mountain bike trail, so I kind of knew there would be a lot of singletrack, but the organizers had done a pretty good job of incorporating the levee road and a big field near the boat launch, complete with a couple of good barriers and a run-up back to the top of the levee.  I have to admit, on the first practice lap I rode I thought I'd missed a turn because I'd been on winding singletrack for so long, but I hadn't.  As it turned out, I really enjoyed the singletrack part because it was mostly hard-packed, flat and technical.  Anyway, we had a pretty good sized field for the race, which I started from my usual position near the back as the real 'crossers sprinted into the headwind on the levee road.  I finally settled in behind a rider who was on a somewhat over-geared single speed.  About mid-way through I passed him and then promptly crashed when I somehow flubbed my re-mount after the levee run-up.  I chased back and caught him again within a lap or so, and then on the next lap dropped the bike a little too hard after the barriers and had to stop to re-seat the chain.  Once again I chased back, ultimately passing him again with a couple of laps left to go.  So anyway, it was a lot of fun, the turnout was about the best we've had yet, and I only crashed once.  Well, I'm sitting here at home and the roofer just finished a little chimney work that he'd forgotten to do last week, so it's back to work.....