The Threat of Christmas Hangs in the Air

Where did I read that?  Somehow that phrase always comes to mind this time of year when the riding gets harder, routines become compromised, the weather goes from unpredictable to random, and my bank account starts bleeding profusely.  After a couple of nice rides Saturday and early Sunday morning, I had to descend into LAMBRA administration for the 11:00 annual business meeting. Right off the bat I realized that the catering had been incorrectly scheduled for Monday, so I quickly ordered some pizza before launching into a little intro for the dozen or so club representatives, plus our USAC Regional Representative Stuart Lamp, who were able to attend.  It was actually a pretty good meeting as such things go.  I should be able to get an initial 2014 race calendar up in a day or two.  There will be a few loose ends as usual, but I was happy to see most of the sponsoring clubs ready to step up to the plate again next year.  I still need to send out a summary.  One thing that I hadn't really anticipated was the decision to eliminate LCCS points for Cat. 4 women, but in light of the fact that none of them has had any real reason to upgrade for years, it's worth a try.  I'll talk with our upgrade coordinator so he understands the situation and is prepared to be sufficiently flexible.  It really makes no sense that although the women start our as Cat. 4s instead of Cat. 5s like the men, they still have to meet the same 4 to 3 upgrade requirements as the men.  We also tasked a couple of the guys to start working on a reorganization plan for LAMBRA.  Things have changed since the days when there were a fairly small number of fairly large clubs.  The organization is currently set up as an association of clubs, but it's getting to be time to change that because of the appearance of small elite club/teams and race director organizations.  I can see us moving toward a Board of Directors elected by popular vote rather than the club representative system we have now.  We also need to get more people actively involved in LAMBRA administration so that the same people don't get stuck doing everything forever. I think an elected Board and various committees should do that.  I just hope they don't all feel obligated to make a while bunch of rules and just keep the focus on helping ensure that we have good events with accurate results. Should be interesting, but at any rate I'm glad to see people taking an interest in this.

So last night I logged on to my USAC account to renew my racing and official's licenses for 2014.  There's also a Race Director's license in play that I think I get for free.  Anyway, it was rather painful.  The racing license was $70 and the official's license was $75 plus another $35 for the new required criminal background check.  That's like the equivalent of two new tires and a chain, and I still  haven't renewed my club membership. It'll end up being over $200.  I remember when it was more like $25.  Then, just to twist the knife, there is a new continuing education requirement for the official's license.  I had to email the Regional Director to find out where the secret place on the website was to take care of that.  Then, I figured this should be fairly easy so I logged onto the SafeSport training site this morning thinking I could at least knock that one out in half an hour.  No way.  They estimate 90 minutes.  I didn't even look at the rulebook update training site that I also have to take care of.  This is all going to make it really hard for some of our volunteer officials who typically officiate only when necessary to renew their licenses.  I'm worried about that.  Basically I have to now prove I'm not a criminal and have been duly trained in the finer points of sexual harassment, bullying, hazing, sexual misconduct, and "grooming behaviors" -- whatever that is -- in order to officiate bike races. The rulebook CEU requirement should be a walk in the park after that.  On top of all that, The Daughter has to have her second root canal in two months next week, not to mention the looming threat of Christmas.  Whew.

Anyway, I did get out on the bike Monday and today, both days riding mostly or entirely alone. Monday was still chilly, but at least I had the whole bike path to myself and spotted the eagle again near the country club. This morning it had just finished raining when I got up and the streets were soaking wet.  I stared at the radar for a while, looked out the window a few times, and made an executive decision to wait until 6:30 in hopes that the streets would at least be a little drier.  The Daughter decided to skip her ride altogether.  At least the temperature was a comfortable 64 or 65 degrees. The streets were still every bit as wet at 6:30 as they had been at 6:00, but at least it wasn't raining so I headed out to the levee and put in some 26 miles at a reasonable pace.  The neck is still an issue, however, and I finally broke down and scheduled an appointment at TISM with Greg Stewart who I'm sure has seen more than his share of people who have landed on their heads. I'll might get the "Why did you wait so long?" lecture, but at least the sports medicine folks understand the mentality that makes a football player with a concussion want to get back in the game.