I rode up the levee with a firm ENE wind at my back, pleased to see that the light bulbs on the two big pumps (we call them pumps, but I presume they are more like siphons) had finally been replaced. I wondered if Big Richard had replaced them like we'd discussed or if the Sewerage & Water Board had done it. There in the shadows, hiding from the wind, was Rob with his TT bike. I suspect that Rob's TT bike might actually require some modifications were he to enter a UCI or national championship event. If his handlebars aren't lower than the top of his front wheel, they must be pretty darned close. Anyway, up on the unprotected levee the wind was blowing at probably 12-15 mph, and I knew it was going to be a hard one. The only good thing about a northeast wind is that we get a few miles of semi-tailwind to start off, but once around the bend at the country club (which is about to go up for auction, BTW), the river turns abruptly to the north and most of the rest of the ride features crosswinds at best. The group was a little on the small side today, maybe ten or so, and of those ten about half were clearly not interested in the front half of the paceline. Woody issued early notification that he was taking an easy day today and stayed toward the back of the paceline, eventually turning around somewhere around the parish line.
My own legs were feeling just a bit better than yesterday, so I ended up in a three or four-person rotation for a long time, crouching low to get in on the tiny draft offered by Rob and his TT bike. It felt like work the whole time, and recovery opportunities were in exceedingly short supply. One thing about riding on a windy day is that you never feel like you can relax. After pulling off you still have to deal with the wind and the resulting irregular lines it imposes on the riders around you. Up on the levee, there are also pedestrians and other cyclists around whom to maneuver, which temporarily eliminates the draft on the crosswind sections. It all requires a rather firm grip on the handlebars and concentrated focus on staying close to the wheel in front of you, which explains why I have no photographs today. To have taken my camera out of my jersey pocket and snapped a few photos would have resulted in either (a) getting dropped, or (b) causing a crash. As it was, we had a few close calls anyway.
The ride back downriver was the hardest, as it included some long sections that seemed more or less straight into the wind, and a lot more that were just flat-out crosswind. Although we had a pretty good paceline going, we were often struggling just to keep the speed in the 19-21 mph range. By the time I got home my back, shoulders and neck were all hurting a bit. It was nothing a 1.5-egg cheeze omlette and cup of coffee couldn't fix, however. Even so, I was still feeling the effort as I rode my commuter to the office, by way of Starbucks, an hour later.
Last night I engaged in a bit of NOBC archaeology, digging through an old file box of bike club stuff in search of the club's constitution and bylaws. We're finally moving ahead with seeking official 501(c)3 status from our friends at the IRS, and that's one thing, among others, we need to submit. Amazingly, I found it. I had a few copies of the original from around 1972, which had been printed on mimeograph paper, and also a copy of a re-typed version that I had made some time in the 80s. That file is probably on a 5.25 inch floppy disk in CPM format somewhere. Anyway, while I was digging through all of that I pulled out a 1975 race calendar and an old 1972 NOBC Newsletter by Jim McFadden that included race reports from races in Lafayette, LA, Indianola, MS, Big Sandy, TX, and of course New Orleans. Discussing the 25 mi. time trial series, Jim remarks, "Next year I predict three people will break the hour, and eight people will go below 1:05:00." At that point I don't think anyone had gone under 1:01:00, and it would be a few more years before the hour was finally broken - I think it must have been around 1978 or 1979. That year, however, a number of riders did it, which proved to me that much of time trialing was mental. I myself finally posted a 0:59:59 at the state championships down on the Scarsdale, LA river road course, and promptly came down with a bad case of mononucleosis that practically put me off the bike for the better part of a year. Of course, that was in the pre-aero era when you did time trials on your regular road bike with little in the way of special equipment outside of one of those newly invented skinsuits and maybe some packing tape over your shoelaces. Nowadays an hour-flat 40km time trial is considered merely respectable for the Cat. 1-4 riders on a good day. The glaring exception is the women's class where we still rarely see anything under a 1:01:00. I know they can go faster.
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