Recruiting

So after spending all of last weekend off the bike, I got back into the routine on Monday with a mostly solo ride at a mostly slow pace, and then on Tuesday I was out the door at 5:40 am for another long solo ride due to an early morning meeting.  I missed the group one other day thanks to a flat, so I guess I ended up doing more solo riding than usual this week. 

Thursday afternoon was the annual Tulane Activities Expo where all of the club sports and other miscellaneous organizations set out tables and try to recruit new members.  The cycling club had planned ahead this year and had water bottles, bags, pens and stickers on hand with which to lure unsuspecting students over to our table.  I brought the club's pop-up tent, we rigged up a flag using a jersey, and put Graeme on the rollers for the duration of the two-hour event.  As usual, there were a lot of students milling about (there must be over fifty separate clubs for this thing).  We had snagged the primo location, right on the end across from McAlister Auditorium. 

With the tent, sign and flag, we probably had the best visibility of all the club sports there.  We ended the day with over 100 email IDs, including The Daughter, on our sign-up sheet and if we can get 10% of those actually racing this spring it will be great.  I was very impressed with the team effort.
 
So this morning I was back out at the Giro Ride for the first time in what seems forever.  I didn't want to go too hard today since I'll be up in St. Francisville tomorrow morning for our age-graded championship road races.  We started out with a nice tailwind, so although the speeds got up there pretty quickly, it wasn't too much work to sit in.  Along Chef Highway we got a nice rotation going, so I took some pulls there. 

After some nice low humidity last week, I can feel the muggy weather returning today.  Hopefully we can make it through the next month without a serious hurricane threat.  It's been really quiet in the Gulf so far.  Yesterday I registered for the Six Gap Century once again.  The race tomorrow will be the last La/Ms road race this season, although LCCS points are up for grabs at the Chappell Hill race in Texas and later at the Pensacola Classic stage race.  I won't be able to make Chappell Hill for sure.  Pensacola is possible, I think.  Than cyclocross starts in mid-October.  I figure I'll jump into a few of those once I take the fenders off my old, old road bike and put on the cyclocross wheels.  Should be fun.  A number of riders have been riding the course in City Park for a month already. Somehow I feel like I need cooler weather for that.