Not Ready for Rouge

Ouch.....

It's been one thing after the other lately, each of which seems to have taken a bite out of my saddle time.  Such is life.  After the relatively easy, albeit long, drive back from Orlando on Monday we soon found ourselves at the veterinary ER with a dog with an eye problem.  Vets seem to kind of panic when dogs present with eye problems because if it is glaucoma things can progress very quickly to blindness.  The ER visit was inconclusive and we were sent  home with a tiny little bottle of antibiotic/corticosteroid eye drops and a planned visit to our regular vet on Wednesday.  The drops seemed to  help. On Tuesday morning I got out for a shortened ride in order to get back home in time to take The Wife to the airport for a trip back to Florida for a week-long conference.  That left me with full dog duties, a week of Jury Duty, and an empty refrigerator. Luckily I didn't have to go to Jury Duty that morning.  I was not so lucky on Wednesday, but at least I didn't have to report until 10:30, so I went out in the cold and wind to meet the morning ride group which turned out to be just Tom (yes, it was that windy).  It turned out to be a pretty decent workout. Later that afternoon I took the dog to the vet where we ruled out glaucoma, the dog got a checkup and shots, I got heartworm meds for both dogs, and the vet got a little under $400.  Guess I won't be getting that roof rack for the new car just yet.  This morning I had to cut the long ride short again since I had an early meeting and needed to build some dog-walking time into the schedule.  Then I had to negotiate the Broadway Street maze in the car since I was already running too late to make it by bike.  Broadway is normally not too bad, but right now there is a lot going on.  Traffic was backed up squeezing around the places where they are tearing up half of the road to replace plumbing in preparation for re-paving.  Once I got past that, it was again backed up where Tulane is driving piles for the new dorm next to The Boot.  I thought I was home free after that, but then they had St. Charles completely blocked off where they were doing work on the Loyola dorm, so I switched over to Lowerline, only to find that street blocked off for tree-trimming.  Yeah, I was a few minutes late getting to work.

So this Sunday is the infamous Rouge-Roubaix.  I will be staying with the Tulane team and some of the team sponsors this year at the Greenwood plantation B&B, most of whom will be riding the Gran Fondo rather than one of the races.  Normally I would just make the two-hour drive early on Sunday morning, so this introduces a new wrinkle, especially since I will need to find someone to walk the dogs while I'm gone. I'm planning on riding the old Orbea, mainly because I have a cassette for that bike with a 27t cog on it rather than the 25t I have on the Bianchi (and I am way too cheap right now to buy a new Campi cassette just for that race).  I guess I'll need to get that rear brake working first, though.  As usual, I am nowhere near being in shape for a 104 mile race that includes a bunch of steep gravel roads, especially since the last two weeks of training have been so weak, so I will be riding in survival mode from the outset.  To make matters worse, some last-minute road construction has caused some of the course to be re-routed, adding another gravel section  only 6 miles into the race, which will probably be utter chaos since everybody will still be fresh at that point. This one's gonna hurt. I just sent the registration and results spreadsheets to the promoter and chief official.  Looking at the pre-registration list (doesn't close until tonight), it looks like most of the fields will be pretty strong.  The Cat. 4/5 race hit its 75-rider field limit a week ago, which is rather frightening all by itself.  The Masters race is up to 57, so it will probably be at least 70 by race day.  The Pro/1/2 race is up to 43, and includes some pretty serious talent from 14 states plus Canada.

There was an interesting and very characteristic exchange (which is probably still going on) on the Tulane Cycling FB page this morning.  I just had to copy it down for posterity:

Graeme PrestonTulane Cycling: Anybody riding later today?

Charlotte Fournier I probably will be. Not sure what time yet though.
Graeme Preston keep me updated.
Mikołaj Altenberg I hope to, although my bars are untaped on one side at the moment.
David Feinswog Riding at 10. Need to be back for a 1pm lab.
David Feinswog Could be persuaded to ride at 230 instead though due to laziness
Graeme Preston charlotte, what do you think?
Mikołaj Altenberg I have class until 12:30, going at 230 would be good for me.
Graeme Preston David if you can wait lets shoot for 2:30. the more the merrier.
David Feinswog Ok. Im going to try and do 2-3 of kennys 10 min intervals so I may yo-yo on the return trip.
Charlotte Fournier 2:30 works for me
Graeme Preston omg, david that's what i'm gonna do!
Charlotte Fournier oh no i do not like the sound of this