Winter Gear

We've had some chilly mornings around here lately.  It always seems to take me an extra ten minutes to get out the door on days like those.  It's so easy in the summer.  Shorts, jersey, socks.  When the temperature is in the 30s or even low 40s, the process becomes more complicated.  Long tights, knee-warmers and shorts, knickers, or shorts with cold knees?  Long-sleeve jersey or jacket?  Wind vest?  DeFeet gloves or regular gloves?  Toe-covers, full shoe covers, or both?  And don't forget the chapstick.  So on Friday I got out to the levee at literally the last minute to find only Scott.  Everything was covered in a thick layer of frost, but at least the wind that had beaten us up on Thursday had died down.  I rode with him out to the parish line where he decided to continue on while I turned back.  My neck is still bothering me after 45 minutes or so, so I was happy to be able to sit up every now and then.  A number of the local riders were doing a long ride, nearly 160 miles, around Lake Pontchartrain.  If I hadn't been suffering from the nagging neck and back issues I probably would have joined them, but on this particular morning I was glad I hadn't.  Aside from the cold, I could already feel the wind picking up as I made my way back home.  On the plus side, the bike path was practically deserted.

So this morning I rode out to the Giro Ride with Danielle with the idea of doing the whole ride for the first time in about three weeks.  It was cold enough when I left home, ten minutes late, that I was wearing full tights and my winter jacket - basically full winter gear.  I knew it would get warmer once the sun came up but I just wasn't willing to suffer those first couple of hours. Arriving at Starbucks I was a little surprised to find Ben, Jaden and Woody.  They had all done that 160 mile ride the day before, spending nearly ten hours on the road.  At least I was pretty sure none of them would be kicking butt today.  The ride itself was pretty easy, as Giro Rides go, and I was glad that my neck muscles didn't start complaining too loudly until we were halfway back.

Tomorrow we have the annual LAMBRA meeting.  I hope there's a decent turnout.  It's really hard to get people to travel to this meeting, apparently even if it's just across town.  At the very least we need to get the 2014 calendar in good enough shape to post it, even if some dates are tentative.  Although we don't start until 11:00, I will probably skip the Giro and instead meet a few riders from the Tulane club around 8:00. Maybe I'll get in a few miles before that, but I'm thinking 25 miles will be about it tomorrow.

Wind and Pain and another Year

Friday afternoon I left work a little early in order to make it over to Bayou Bicycles.  I don't think I'd been there in three or four years, but Danielle had made an appointment for a bike fit with Robert Driskill who does the Specialized Body Geometry fittings.  She has been having persistent problems with upper back and shoulder pain on longer rides and figured an independent appraisal of her position might help and I had already tried the obvious stuff like raising the bars a bit and making sure the saddle was level.  I arrived a little late, but that was fine because Robert was still trying to find a stationary trainer he could use that would accommodate her 650C wheel bike.  The system uses a few cameras that feed video to a computer where you can get a good look at the rider in action from multiple angles and then make measurements of key angles to help identify any peculiarities in position or pedaling. 

After that it becomes more art than science as changes can be made in various settings or components such as cleat position, stem length, saddle height, fore-aft setting, etc., etc.  Of course, you expect to be sold some of the Specialized equipment like saddles, shoes, insoles, etc.  Danielle wanted to get a new saddle anyway, since she was still riding the original squishy one that had come with the bike, and she also got some of the Specialized insoles which I have been using for years.  He also lowered her saddle and we will be looking into shortening her reach a bit, possibly with some different handlebars, although the fact that she rides extremely narrow bars makes it hard to just pull them off the shelf.  Anyway, it seems like the saddle change had a pretty big impact, allowing her to actually put some weight on it instead of essentially supporting most of her weight on her hands and feet. We rushed from the bike shop over to David's house for a little Tulane Cycling party.

Saturday morning was cold and very windy and from the outset I knew I wouldn't be doing the whole Giro.  I'm still getting some significant pain between the shoulder blades after half an hour to 45 minutes and at this time of the year it's just not worth the suffering for a few extra miles.  I rode out to the Giro with Danielle and figured we'd turn around at the end of Hayne Blvd.  As it turned out, the group was in easy mode that day since some were planning on doing a long Giro out to Slidell, so the speed down Hayne never got very high.  Danielle was able to stay with the group all the way to Lake Forest Blvd. where we turned right as the group turned left.  Luckily, Brett and Paige did the same thing, so we had some company, and a motor, on the way back.

Sunday morning there was a Tulane ride planned for 8:00, so first I rode out to meet the Giro at 7:00, mainly for the coffee.  Although the entire West Texas A&M equestrian team was there as it had been the day before, the turnout for the Giro was really slim.  It was cold and really, really windy, and the half-dozen riders who arrived early were sitting inside instead of outside.  I doubt there were more than twelve by the time we rolled out a bit after 7:00.  I just rode to the lakefront and then to Wisner with the group, heading back with a nice tailwind in order to stop by the house and meet Danielle before riding over to campus.  We ended up with seven for the Tulane ride. 

Kenny took us out the levee bike path and then through Kenner to the Lakefront bike path, and ultimately back to campus via Carrollton since Jeff. Davis Parkway is currently all torn up for road construction.  It was still really windy and I doubt the temperature rose more than one or two degrees, but the pace was easy so it wasn't too much of a factor.  Although my neck and back issues are improving, the rate is glacial at best.  After half an hour of so some of the muscles between my shoulder blades start getting really tight and painful.  I doubt I'll  be comfortable with a hard ride until that subsides a little more, so although I would have really liked to have done the northshore ride on Sunday, I think I made the right decision.

Sunday afternoon I spent a little time on Oak Street for the annual Po-Boy festival where I had some sort of catfish po-boy and a cup of Abita Jockamo, followed a bit later by dinner and a birthday cake.

So today was my 60th birthday.  At this point it's becoming more and more preferable to try and ignore the relentless march of time than to dwell on it, but on this particular birthday I had the funeral of a close family friend to attend.  I thought back to the other time there had been a funeral on my birthday.  That was JFK's funeral back in 1963.  Anyway, the funeral was in Slidell and by the time we were heading back the weather was getting worse and worse and it was too late to make it worthwhile to go back to the office.  I had not ridden in the morning because it was ridiculously windy and misty, and since then the conditions had been going steadily downhill.  Tomorrow morning at 6 am is looking like 54 degrees dropping to 52 by 8 am with a 100% chance of rain and a 13 mph northwest wind.  This is not encouraging.  If I'd gotten in a ride this morning it would have brought my annual total up over 11,000 miles.  It's looking like that milestone will have to wait until Wednesday.

That Hurt

Having survived the shorter morning ride on Wednesday without analgesics, I decided it was time to put them aside for a while and see how things went.  Thursday morning's temperature was up around 60F with a moderate breeze and overcast skies.  I planned to do the long (42 mi.) morning ride, even though I was pretty sure the muscles in my upper back would not be too  happy about it.

There was a nice group of a dozen or so up on the levee today and the pace heading out was reasonably smooth.  Of course "reasonable" is a relative term. To be a little more specific, it was mostly in the vicinity of 24 mph except for a little excursion onto the grass when one of the big tractors came over the little bridge just as we were approaching it.  Strava says we still had a 24.6 mph average for most of the outbound leg. When we got to the Luling bridge I sat up to stretch a bit.  Although my neck and back seemed to be doing OK, and in fact felt a little better when I was going hard than when I was going easy, I could already feel the muscles tightening up, making it painful to turn my head.  I knew the ride back was going to be painful, and not because of the pace.

We were maybe halfway back when, for some reason, there were a number of surges with big slow-down between them.  I don't know what was going on, but soon I found myself, more or less accidentally, in a 4 or 5-rider group.  The pace settled down a bit thanks to the wind, and there was a nice rotation going at 22-23 mph for a long time.  By then my upper back was really starting to hurt, however.  When we got close to the country club I sat up and let them go, dropping down to 16 mph for a while.  It didn't really help ease the pain much, however.  Eventually the rest of the group caught and I tucked in behind.  At one point I turned to look back and got a pretty sharp stab of pain under my right shoulder blade (which I've felt a few other times over the past week).  That hurt. 

My Bike Sounds Funny

I pulled on my long tights and long-sleeve jersey this morning to protect me from the brutal sub-60 degree temperature out on the levee.  A clear sky meant the blinky light batteries would have a rest today, and even the wind, which had been strong and gusty the past couple of days, had settled down a bit.  A block from home The Daughter said something to the effect of, "My bike sounds funny."  As she pulled up alongside I could hear the unmistakable sound of a flat tire.  Not the best way to start the ride.  She's still riding the same tires that came with the bike seven years ago, although she's also probably put more miles on them in the last two months as she had in the last two years.  A pair of new ones that are a little more flexible are definitely in the cards. I had to get out the pocket knife to pry a stubborn tiny shard of something out of the tire, and after replacing the tube we finally got rolling again.  We were already late for the morning group, but I figured we'd turn around when we saw them coming back.  Out around the Country Club I noticed a Bald Eagle perched, as usual, on the highest dead branch around.  Since we were already late anyway, I stopped to take a photo even though he was a really long way away.  Mignon was coming the other way and stopped to chat for a while before we continued up the river. 

So with all the delays, we didn't even make it to Williams Blvd. before we saw the group coming toward us.  It was fine, though, because I hadn't taken any Advil or Aleve since Tuesday morning and the sore muscles in my upper back were already tight and painful. It was also good to have a little shelter for that long stretch that was more or less into the wind.

So the injury continues to heal very, very slowly.  The neck muscles are still sore enough that it hurts a bit to turn my head all the way to one side or the other, but even so, it's considerably better than it was a week ago. The muscles between my shoulder blades still tighten up and burn after fifteen or twenty minutes on the bike, and the only real relief is to drop my head, which would be fine except that I can't see where I'm going that way.  Sitting up also helps, although not as much as I thought it would.  I might take a shot at a long ride or two this weekend, but not without some pharmaceutical assistance. 

Eight Flats and a Handgun

It was another wet and foggy morning. The air was warmer and thicker than it had been yesterday, and as I rode out to the Starbucks on wet streets I wondered if anyone would show up.  I myself was planning on doing something like I'd done the day before, perhaps riding out to the end of Hayne before turning back.  I knew the muscles in my upper back would be screaming by then anyway. 

I guess there were a dozen riders this morning.  Keith had announced the return of the TVR rides, and given the small group, wet streets and fog, I figured I may as well do that ride since it heads back toward the levee and the pace stays generally under 20 mph.  The mist was so thick when we left that it was essentially raining, but that eased up and we had only the damp street to deal with.

We rode out on Metairie Road down to Central Avenue where we turned toward the river, crossing the multiple railroad tracks underneath the Earhart expressway.  Just as we got there I noticed something on the side of the road and said, "Was that a holster?"  One of the guys had seen it too and it was indeed a holster containing a 9mm handgun.  He picked it up, removed the clip and we rode on, eventually handing it off to a levee district police officer (they had him sign some paperwork for that). 

Anyway, it wasn't long after we'd gotten onto the bike path that the flats started.  I think he ultimately had three or four, and along the way we had another three or four.  I think the total was eight.  On the plus side, the frequent stops gave me time to stretch out the injured muscles in my back.  Somehow I myself escaped flatting.

The muscles in my back are still a long way from fine, and unfortunately they hurt most when I'm riding, so I think it's going to be another week or two before they are back to normal, assuming there isn't some other more serious injury there.

Team Kit Season

It is not uncommon for a team kit order to drag on into December or even January, with actual delivery not being accomplished until some time in April.  And so it was truly amazing that both the NOBC and Tulane Cycling team kit orders were completed in the early fall, and even more amazing that both orders arrived within a day of each other.  One thing that has really simplified the whole process has been the ability of the manufacturers to set up team stores on their websites, thus relieving the clubs from assembling orders, collecting payments, sending deposits, sorting out who gets what, etc., etc.  Nowadays we just get a great big box, inside of which are a whole bunch of individually wrapped orders, each with the rider's name on it.  The Tulane box arrived at my office on Wednesday afternoon.  By Thursday afternoon David and Carly had stopped by, made up bags with team water bottles and kit orders for everyone, and hauled them away for distribution.  By 7:30 am this morning I'd already seen two of the team members wearing their new kits up on the levee.  For myself I had ordered only a new Tulane jersey, a long-sleeve NOBC jersey and a pair of NOBC kickers.  The Daughter, however, had ordered a whole lot of Tulane gear since she doesn't have the stockpile of old stuff that I have.  Well, actually she has a lot of my stockpile right now.  Maybe I'll get some of it back now!

I did indeed venture out to the levee again this morning. It was overcast and damp, and the streets were a little wet with more rain in the forecast.  I wasn't surprised that I was the only one at the meeting spot by the Stacks.  It was just as well, since my neck and upper back are still in pretty bad shape from that beating they took in Jackson last Saturday.  By the time I was twenty minutes in to my ride those muscles were screaming again, and so when I got to Williams Blvd. I stopped to stand for a while.  It didn't really help much.  On the way back I met up with Woody, which at least took my mind off of the pain for a while.  I'm now thinking that it is probably going to be a couple of weeks before this tissue damage is healed and I can ride comfortably for more than half an hour at a time.  Sucks, really.  Tomorrow I'll ride out to the Giro in the morning, but I'm fully expecting to be turning back somewhere along Hayne Blvd.  There are family commitments starting by 10:00 am anyway, so I wouldn't have been able to do the whole ride regardless.  On the plus side, I have reserved a meeting room at Tulane for the annual LAMBRA business meeting.  On the minus side, I now need to send out the notice about that to everyone, make up an agenda, create a brief presentation, make arrangements for lunch since it will be during Thanksgiving break, drop off a check for the room rental fee, get the planning calendar set up, etc.

More Pain

After Sunday's little excursion down the river, and in light of the fact I still couldn't turn my head without wincing in pain, I decided to take a couple of days off the bike.  This had a two-fold purpose, one of which was to allow for some healing to occur and the other was to keep from being T-boned by a car I didn't see because I didn't turn my head to look.  It's now Wednesday and those neck muscles have been slow to heal.  Along with the excruciatingly slow healing process has come a much more definitive ability to pinpoint the location of maximum damage, which seems to be in the general vicinity of my left rhomboids between shoulder blade and spine.  Totally inaccessible, of course.  Turning my head to the right clearly tugs at something down there in a very unpleasant way.  Although the neck doesn't hurt at all unless I look over my shoulder, those back muscles hurt pretty much all the time unless I'm lying flat on my back.

This morning the temperature had plunged down to 39F or so and there was a strong gusty wind blowing out of the north, all of which helped make the decision to stay home and brew some coffee feel quite guiltless; perhaps bordering on wise.  As I sit here at my desk that particular section of my upper back just aches and aches despite the 12-hour Aleve I took this morning.  I will probably go out for some sort of ride tomorrow morning regardless, if for no other reason than prudent psychological maintenance.

To add to the pain, I had a Vet appointment for our two dogs yesterday afternoon.  The older one, an American Eskimo that is like 110 years old in dog years, left with a cortisone shot, two different varieties of flea control, pain medication and a recommendation to have all of his remaining rotten teeth removed.  The other needed shots and a checkup.  Both needed more heartworm and flea control drugs.  I think we were there about an hour and a half, with the price of escape coming in at a very painful $720.  Today The Daughter is having a cap put on a broken tooth.  That should be another grand or so. 

And people wonder why I don't have carbon-fiber race wheels?

This weekend we are hosting a baby shower at the house, and also will finally be laying to rest my mother's ashes now that the missing title to the gravesite has been found.  I'm rather glad there isn't a race nearby this weekend.

One nice thing is that the new Tulane cycling team kits arrived this morning at my office, and I presume that the new order of NOBC kits that was scheduled to ship out last Friday must not be far behind. The NOBC order includes a long-sleeve jersey and knickers, I think.  Just in time for the cooler weather.

Head First

It was a long weekend, for which I am still paying a price.  It all started at 4:30 am on Saturday morning when I slipped out of bed to load up the car with officiating stuff and racing stuff in order to make it up to the cyclocross race north of Jackson, Mississippi in time to get registration set up.  For this race we would have a couple of additional officials, so I was confident I'd be able to race the masters race in order to break up the tedium of officiating.  These cyclocross races in which we allow lapped riders to remain can get pretty challenging to judge, even with fields of only fifteen riders.

I arrived at the course in plenty of time to get the finish line set up.  The DSGP crew had already staked out the course which featured some actual terrain and three artificial barriers, one of which was hidden immediately behind a big rolled hay bale.  As usual the Cat. 4/5 race was the biggest, and also the hardest to score with riders getting quickly scattered all around the course. Ricky, one of the other officals, raced in that one, so when he finished I handed him my messy score sheet and rushed off to my car to pin race numbers onto my vintage NOBC jersey.  It was still pretty cool, so I decided to wear a jersey that was age-appropriate to both the bike and myself.  I had enough time to ride the bike down to the port-o-let before riding back up to the start line where I positioned myself near the back so as to avoid interfering with anyone who was actually racing.  Having not ridden, or even seen, most of the course, I took it easy on the first lap.  Then, seeing a number of riders just a bit ahead of me I decided to see if I could catch them. That didn't last very long.  Coming down the first downhill I planted my front wheel firmly in a little diagonal gully which threw me and the bike off to the right.  I remember thinking that I might be able to save it just before I was slammed head-first to the ground.  That knocked the wind out of me and pretty much destroyed every muscle, ligament and tendon connecting my head to the rest of my body.  I am still hoping that nothing is broken.  It took me a couple of minutes to get up and although I considered just walking back to the finish line to DNF, I thought I may as well ride out the rest of the lap, albeit very carefully.  I ended up finishing, although of course I was lapped by the leaders.  Afterward I found that my helmet had cracked and I had bruise on the top of my forehead where I'd hit.  I still can't comfortably turn my head without some pain.  Anyway, we finished up officiating the rest of the races and I made the 3 hour drive back home thanks to a couple of Advil as I debated the wisdom of doing the planned 104 mile Varsity to Varsity ride the next morning.

Well, despite the neck and back damage, The Daughter and I convinced The Wife to come with us to Baton Rouge at 5:20 am the next morning so we wouldn't have to get a ride back to Baton Rouge to retrieve the car.  The Varsity to Varsity ride is a ride that the LSU team has been doing for a few years in which they ride from the Varsity Sports shop in Baton Rouge to the Varsity Sports shop in New Orleans.  It's long, but it's not a race, so they stop a few times along the way and there are lead and follow vehicles.  This would be The Daughter's first century ride, so I didn't want to miss it.  I popped a 12-hour Aleve before we left and hoped for the best.  As long as I wasn't moving my head around much it was fine, but looking back was next to impossible so I quickly decided to ride herd at the back of the 24-rider group and take a few photos along the way.  This was nice in that I had a draft, but it was a little scary in that I could see the somewhat unstable riding of a few of the newer riders.  I left a little extra space ahead of my front wheel.

The ride went remarkably smoothly.  The weather was nearly perfect, although there was a wind out of the east that seemed to get stronger as the ride went on.  Much of this ride follows River Road, so it passes a number of old plantation homes, sugar cane fields, grain elevators and oil refineries.  It's not exactly the most scenic ride around, but some section are pretty nice.  It's also dead flat, which was good because it would be the longest ride ever for a number of the riders.  This year there were a few Tulane Cycling riders in the group, and I think it was the first century ride for three of them.

It got to where I was really looking forward to the rest stops because the muscles in the back of my neck and upper back were screaming after an hour or two of steady riding.  The last rest stop was a mile or so before the Spillway which comes at around 76 miles. I could see that a few of the riders were starting to hurt, although The Daughter still looked like she was doing fine. 

After riding through the spillway the pace seemed to pick up a bit at the front and three of four riders came off the back.  I backed off to try and pick them up but I could see that the group was riding away from us and there was no way they would catch if it didn't slow down, so I rode ahead, worked through the group, and let the riders at the front know what was going on.  They eased up for a little while and I dropped back to pick up the stranded riders.  All but one of them made it back to the group before the pace started creeping up again, so I dropped back to the LSU rider who was off the back in order to see if I could pace her back up.  After a mile or so I discovered she wasn't on my wheel any more.  I would have realized this earlier but it hurt too much to look back.  So I dropped back and picked her up again, this time keeping a slower pace of around 12 mph. Her calves were cramping up, but I knew that the follow vehicle had gone ahead since we were now on the levee bike path.  She fell off again, so I picked her up and dropped the pace down another notch.  She was really hurting, but a couple of miles later we met the follow car at the "Little Dip" and she was rescued. 

By then the pack was long gone, at least five minutes ahead of me, so I had to ride the last twenty miles alone.  That was fine until I got onto the city streets and realized how tricky it was to ride in traffic without turning your head!  Anyway, I eventually found my way to Varsity Sports, had some pizza and a beer, and then The Daughter and I rode home.

I took some more drugs and went to be early with the full knowledge that I would not be riding on Monday.  Hopefully everything in my neck and back will improve by tomorrow.

Wind and Cold

I wasn't expecting to see many people out riding this morning. A cold front had come through before dawn, leaving behind wet streets, a strong gusty north wind, and falling temperatures. I went out a little late with The Daughter, knowing we'd be doing battle with the wind but glad that the temperature hadn't yet started to really drop. Although the levee bike path was relatively quiet, there were still a number of riders out there, mostly solo or with one or two others.  By tomorrow morning it should be down to 50F or so with a 12-15 mph wind.  I know that doesn't seem so bad to some, but it will be about the closest thing we've had to winter yet this Fall.  I think the cool weather will stick around at least through Saturday, which should make the upcoming cyclocross race up in Jackson, MS feel more like a real cyclocross race with early morning temperatures in the 40s.  The next day we'll be joining the LSU team for their annual ride from Baton Rouge to New Orleans that works out to a bit over 100 miles, but that should be done at a fairly easy pace with a number of stops along the way.  By Wednesday of next week the job site on the levee bike path nearest the Huey P. Long bridge will be closing down a section of the path until some time in 2015.  That will mean a detour of maybe a quarter mile on River Road, which wouldn't be too bad if River Road had a shoulder, or a good road surface, and if that section didn't happen to be right where all of the traffic and trucks turn off of Jefferson Highway onto River Road.  I have already suggested to the contractor and the levee district police that perhaps a few "watch for cyclists" signs or something like that would be a good idea.  No response from either to my email however.  The morning group should be able to take over the lane when needed, but it's going to be dicey for the solo riders, especially once the days get shorter and we're back in the dark. I'm not sure if riding down Carrollton Avenue will seem like a good alternative or not, but depending on how things go it may turn out to be a reasonable option one or two days a week.

So Much

Last Friday I headed off to Colorado Springs for the annual USAC Local Associations Summit.  For some reason my flight went through Denver this time instead of Dallas, which was something I probably should have thought about a little bit ahead of time.  The trip there went fine, but it was a long enough layover in Denver waiting for the 30-minute flight from there to COS that I had plenty of time to realize I probably could have just rented a car in Denver, driven to Colorado Springs, arrived earlier, and likely paid considerably less.  If I'd gotten together with a few other people going to the same meeting and we had shared a rental car it would have been even cheaper.  Oh well.

The "LA" conference is usually pretty packed with information flowing both ways, which is to say that the Local Association representatives usually have a lot to say about the topics that are covered, and the USAC staff have a lot to tell us about plans and changes in the world of competitive cycling.  So much information.  This year was no different, and although we didn't get our usual preview of proposed changes to the racing rules, we certainly filled that gap with discussion about the move to a single racing license, fee increases, discount programs, etc.  There were also the usual rather frightening sessions about insurance and risk management.  On the plus side, we get to meet all of those people we work with via email and telephone all year and have an opportunity to pick the brains of those in other Local Associations who are dealing with similar issues.  The only complication is the rather large difference in perspective and priority between the really big Local Associations and the smaller ones like ours.  The LAs like us all struggle to find enough officials and promoters to put together a reasonable racing season without everyone going too far into the red, largely depending on volunteers and never having quite enough of them or even riders themselves.  The large LAs have issues involving professional race timing companies and promoters with huge budgets and hundreds of participants per race. In that world there is always some friction between the promoters who are being told they have to hire a whole bunch of officials and the officials who actually compete with each other to get assigned to those big events for which they are paid in full.  In our world we have officials who routinely serve at discounted rates or as volunteers, judges who aren't actually officials, registrars who are volunteers from the local clubs, and promoters who are thrilled if there are over 100 entrants and the race breaks even.  Anyway, I am expecting some unhappiness about the jump in license fees from the riders who never cross disciplines, and from the promoters who have to collect an additional $5 from the one-day license riders.  As an example, if you are putting on a weekend event like a stage race or omnium you will be collecting from each 1-day license rider $30 in license fees plus $6 in insurance surcharges (neither of which you get to keep), which works out to $36.  Since the Cat. 5s cannot receive any prizes of value (i.e. cash), just how much of an entry fee over and above those $36 can you charge them without it looking totally out of line with the entry fees for the other classes.  Of course we'd love to see them all buy the $70 annual licenses, but if they don't think they will do more than five or six races some of them will just cut down on racing rather than get annuals.  The event permit fees are finally getting re-worked so that the big jump that used to happen when an even had one race with $2k or more in prizes will go away.  However that means that the smaller races that were getting away with relatively trivial permit fees of $25-50 are probably going to see their fees double.  Realistically it still won't be much more than a drop in the bucket compared to the other costs of putting on anything beyond a local parking lot criterium, but it will still seem like a money grab to some.

So for the first time in years I didn't have an overlapping conference in Washington D.C. and didn't need to rush off to the airport on Sunday morning before the LA Summit actually ended.  Even so, I did need a ride to the airport, so I was there about three hours before my little hop over to Denver.  Again, I was thinking, "I should have rented a car," especially after seeing five or six other people from the meeting who were also waiting for flights to Denver.  Anyway, I finally get on the little plane and am seated amidst an excitable group of high school synchronized swim team members (I could actually smell the chlorine when they sat down) and we make an uneventful flight at about 10,000 feet to Denver that wasn't really worth bothering to put the gear up on the airplane.  Now the excitement started because my arrival time in Denver was also my boarding time for my connecting flight.  Fortunately I knew they were both leaving from the same concourse, albeit about a mile apart, and we arrived a few minutes early.  I hustled down the long concourse and got to the gate a few minutes after the rest of the passengers had boarded, took my seat and kicked back for the long flight back to NOLA.  Or so I thought.  So we're sitting there and nothing's happening when finally the pilot comes on the speaker and says there's an electrical problem that they need to have checked out and it would probably just take five minutes or so.  An hour later we're still at the gate.  Finally it looks like the problem is solved so the pull back from the gate and then the pilot comes on again to tell us there is another problem and they need to run through some diagnostics with the mechanic to see if they can fix it without going back to the gate.  I knew we were in trouble when he said they were going to have to shut everything down and "reboot the plane."  That never works for my computer, so I wasn't giving it much hope.  Of course it didn't work and we had to get towed back to the gate where everybody had to exit the plane and hang around in the airport for another half hour or so.  Finally, three hours late, we took off.  That meant that rather than getting home at 9:30 or so, it was more like 1 am.  Long day.

This morning I went out for the long Tuesday levee ride and when I opened the door I knew the turnout would be slim.  There was a strong gusty wind blowing out of the southeast and the sky was overcast.  I think we started out with seven or eight riders with a pretty strong tailwind.  Somewhere out around Kenner, though, the group split when all but the front two had to slow down to work through some pedestrians in both lanes. I took a pull into what was at the time mostly a crosswind, and then Woody came past and ramped it up to close the gap.  Nobody was able to go with him under the circumstances, however, so the rest of us just formed up a nice little paceline and watched the three riders ahead slowly pull away.  Big Richard and I turned around at The Dip, knowing it would be a long slog into the wind all the way back, but most of the rest continued on.  We met up with Donald, so we had a nice 3-rider group to share the work, which was substantial.  The wind occasionally dropped our speed down to 16-17 mph despite a pretty significant effort.  We had averaged over 25 mph on the way out.