Easy Holiday Week

NOBC City Ride

It was a week of weather issues that provides, conveniently enough, ample excuses and disincentives to make for some nice easy holiday rides. Tuesday evening's "cold front of the week" found me in the dark heading for the lake on Wednesday, naturally running a bit late and struggling against a brutal northwest wind to meet the WeMoRi.

Foggy Giro - on the lakefront

Although I knew I was a little behind schedule, I was still surprised to see the blinking lights of the group coming at me shortly after I had turned onto Robert E. Lee Blvd. I sprinted for the next cross-over but an oncoming car forced me to nearly a stop just as the break flew by. I sprinted again, this time from 9 mph to 28 mph, just barely catching the draft and rapidly plunging into hypoxia. A couple of riders split off the front along Wisner in the semi-crosswind, but surprisingly the rest of the group didn't materialize until well after the City Park Avenue sprint. That's when I found out that the group had turned around early on Lakeshore Drive because of the combination of darkness, rocks and debris blown onto the road by the cold front, and probably also the brutal wind. At least that explained why I had run into them so early. Anyway, I got in my fifteen minutes of Wednesday intensity and then the pace settled down to conversational mode for the second lap around the park. I stopped for a while at Starbucks, where they were in a panic because the expresso machine had broken down, before making my way back home.

Monday - that little spot is an eagle

Later in the day I started organizing (I use the term loosely) an after-Christmas Friday city ride. I had no idea who would, or could, make such a ride the day after Christmas, but I really wasn't up for a real training ride, so I proposed 20-25 miles at conversational pace through the city, ending at the Morning Call in City Park for coffee and donuts (ahem... I mean "café au lait and beignets."  We just called them donuts back in the day before they became so trendy). We had a nice turnout and took a more scenic route than the usual training rides, winding through Old Metairie out to the Lake Trail and Lakeshore Drive, then down to the Quarter via Franklin Avenue, and finally back to City Park by way of Esplanade Avenue.  It was a really nice ride and I had no trouble at all taking care of three beignets in short order. By then we were all starting to get chilled from sitting around in damp riding clothes, so I was glad to get back on the bike and back home to a hot shower.

Although I had initially been holding out a little hope for a ride on Saturday, the weather forecast was not offering a lot of hope in that regard. By late evening I was pretty sure the Saturday Giro would be a wash-out. I guess it was, although there were a few people who spent five hours riding in the rain out to Slidell and back anyway.  I am not quite that crazy, myself. Instead, I went over to Tulane after dinner and rode the WattBike for an hour or so while watching American Flyers. Coincidentally, one of the cyclists from back in the day recently posted some photos on the Midwest Dino Riders FB page of himself riding this rigged up bike with a huge camera mounted to the front fork. The equivalent today can be attached to your handlebars. The movie itself is a little weak, but some of the racing scenes in Colorado were taken from the Coors Classic and are actually pretty good.

So by Sunday the weather was much warmer and less windy, but looking out the window in the morning I could see a good bit of fog, so I went with arm-warmers and toe-covers despite the 68F temperature.  Yes, it was 68 degrees before dawn two days after Christmas. By the time we started the Giro the fog was getting thicker and thicker, and so basically the whole ride was in the fog. Naturally, that meant that the roads were wet too, so by the time I got home I was pretty well soaked through.  It was a good ride, though. A lot of the usual horsepower was absent, or in the case of Woody, recovering from a cold or the flu and sitting in the draft, so the pace was steady. I ended up doing a fair amount of work as a result. While I may be reluctant to spend much time at the front when they are hammering away at 29 mph, the steady 24 mph we had on Sunday made it relatively easy.

I'm off from work all week, so rather than my usual short easy Monday ride, I instead did a slightly longer easy Monday ride. A cold front had come through overnight, so the streets were still a little wet, but it wasn't really a problem until I got out to the lakefront bike path in Metairie. Since the bike path there is alongside the levee rather on top of it, water drains across it from the levee for hours after any significant rainfall. I had really underestimated just how wet that bike path could be, but I was already committed, so I continued on out to the casino and back with water spraying up my backside and onto my bare shins (temps were just in the 50s). I was already starting to get cold as I turned around to head back east since my 16 mph pace wasn't doing much to keep me warm.

Along the way I saw a bald eagle taking off from the grassy area between the bike path and the levee, but never got close enough to get a good picture. Once again I got home chilled and wet. The temperature is supposed to be dropping all afternoon today, so I guess we'll have a couple of days of winter again until the wind shifts back to the south and brings the rain and fog again.  Meanwhile, The Daughter was driving back from Idaho to Olympia right through a snowstorm centered, appropriately enough, on Deadman Pass. I'm sure there was a lot of white-knuckle driving through the mountains, especially when the snow wiped out the tire tracks. Anyway, I've been spending my time trying to wrap up some LAMBRA stuff. In fact, the trophy I ordered for the winning team in the annual LCCS points competition arrived just an hour or so ago. I need to work on some proposed revisions to the bylaws, get the officials' seminar finalized for Jan. 31, schedule a LAMBRA business meeting, probably for the same date, etc.

Weather and Wet Rubber

Tuesday morning - flat tire number one.

The weather has been all over the place around here lately. At the moment it's 71F outside, the ground is wet from earlier rains and light fog, and I'm sitting here alone in the office on the last work day before the long university holidays wondering what tomorrow morning will be like.

Bayou Road, heading back from Slidell on Sunday

Last Thursday there was a little flurry of activity as we tried to figure out a way to get Liz over to Austin for the SCCCC conference championship cyclocross race. Although she was all registered and we'd reserved a hotel room for her, she had a big exam and was planning on making the drive Friday afternoon, I think. The night before she had been down in the Quarter and had lost her wallet that contained her credit cards and drivers license. This presented a problem since she needed her license in order to rent a car. She was trying to finish studying for her exam, get her credit cards cancelled and re-issued, etc. It was not looking good. She was aiming for collegiate nationals, to be held in Austin in January, and was supposed to compete at conference championships in order to qualify. We briefly considered flying her there, but that still left the problem of transportation, with bike and wheels, once she arrived. Finally, after getting an OK from the conference director that she could have one of the slots at nationals anyway, we pulled the plug.

Last weekend was another pair of Giro Rides for me. Saturday morning started out pretty chilly by my standards, although among the group's riders you could find pretty much everything from summer kit to thermal tights. I had compromised with bib tights and a long-sleeve jersey with base layer underneath, which worked out pretty well. The ride itself was unremarkable and the pack rolled along at mostly moderate speeds, which is not unusual this time of year, especially when the temperature and the holidays conspire to make for a relatively small group.

So by Sunday morning it was a little warmer and the wind was a little lighter and the turnout a lot larger. As I lounged around the Starbucks patio I started to seriously consider tagging along with the group that was planning on extending the Giro out to Slidell and back. With the light winds and relatively large group planning on doing that, I figured, "Why not?"  I had no pressing engagements the rest of the day, and the two bucks in my pocket would suffice to provide needed sustenance in the form of a large Payday bar, at the gas station in Slidell.  Liz was in the group as we headed out but punctured out on Chef Highway before the regular turnaround, so she dropped out to fix the flat and pick up the main group on its way back. I guess we had about twenty riders who continued on past Venetian Isles, and after the traditional nature break just on the other side of the Chef bridge we formed up into a nice smooth double paceline at a remarkably steady 22 mph or so in to a light headwind for the duration.

After stopping in Slidell we  headed back, and as often happens the pace started to ramp up along Chef Highway, staying in the 24-28 mph range pretty much all the way to the turn onto the service road. Some riders, myself included, started skipping pulls for the last four or five miles when the pace started getting unstable. I got back home with 93 miles on the computer and a 20.6 average speed, plus a couple of slightly sore quads.

Monday was rainy, and since I could still feel my legs from Sunday's ride I didn't feel too bad about taking a day off the bike. I'd already gone past 12,000 mi. for the year, so I figured I deserved a rest day.

Flat Number Three

So this morning I stepped outside into thick, muggy, 68-degree air.  The streets were wet, but the radar was offering a very good chance of missing the rain. Even so, there was only Brian waiting at the end of Nashville Avenue today.  Along the way we picked up David who had been running late, and the three of us met up with a fairly large group out on Lakeshore Drive. With a bit of an east wind, the tailwind stretch got fairly fast heading toward West End. When we got onto the bike path along the lake I thought to myself, "I'm glad I left my toe-covers on."  I'd been rushing to get out the door and didn't want to take the time to remove them. That was a good thing because the bike path was very wet with water still draining off of the levee. It may as well have been raining. The pace was pretty steady, ramping up a bit toward the turnaround.  Then, on the way back, someone flatted just before Causeway. Most of us waited, and got going again, only to have another flat around the Bonnabel boat launch. So we stopped again, and just as he was finishing up, Woody realized his tire had also gone flat, so we waited yet again for that one as a few raindrops started to fall. Meanwhile, Brian had ridden ahead after the first flat, and so he eventually called to see where the hell I was. We finally met up on Filmore. Luckily the rain stopped and I got home pretty wet and a bit late, but with air in my tires. A cold front is supposed to push through tonight, so the forecast for tomorrow morning is calling for a drop of 20 degrees by morning. The 50 degree air won't be much of a problem, but it's quite possible the streets will still be soaking wet and then, of course, there's the usual 17 mph northwest wind that accompanies every cold front. Guess I'll have to play it by ear.

Early Morning

Early morning winter rides.

There was a time -- long, long ago -- when I did most of my riding in the afternoon. That generally meant dealing with traffic and impatient commuters, steaming summer asphalt, and missed days due to unexpected evening commitments. Eventually, the realities of life and work forced a shift to morning training sessions. At first they were relatively short, typically around 20 miles, and I could head out at 6:30 am and still avoid the frantic efforts to get to work. Of course, working at a university allowed for a little flexibility in that regard, something that I consider a major benefit. There was a time when I could be competitive with a weekday training plan composed mainly of 20-mile solo rides, but as the races got faster and my telomeres shorter, the training rides started getting both longer and faster. Luckily, by that time the river levee bike path had been constructed, and although I initially used it only for recovery days, after a couple of years there was a consistent weekday morning group up there and I started riding with them almost every morning. When the bike path was expanded upriver of Jefferson Parish, the group started doing longer rides on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the 6:40 am rides became 6:15 am rides. Often, especially in the winter when it was cold and dark and windy, I would be in full TT mode, racing the two miles from my house to the levee. The Tuesday and Thursday rides that had started out as moderate or easy paced group rides started to attract more riders and, all of a sudden it seemed, they became serious fast affairs that got me home with 40+ miles on the odometer and sore quads. That format remained in place for a number of years and I had it pretty much down to a science, but then things changed.  The Corps of Engineers started working on the levee. Those early morning rides on the levee could get a little frightening when it was pitch dark or foggy and the guys at the front were still hammering away at 28-30 mph. The occasional pedestrians or other cyclists would cause unpredictable moments of chaos in the paceline, sometimes resulting in a crash, but we continued anyway because it was still better than the alternative.

Last year I started driving out to the start of the ride, which by then was being pushed relentlessly farther and farther upriver. That meant an even earlier wake-up. I hated it, but I did it because the alternative was even less attractive. Eventually the levee closure got so far upriver that it just wasn't worth driving out there any more, mainly because of the amount of time it would take to drive back home in rush-hour traffic. And so I started heading out on my own in the morning, riding out to the lakefront and to the Lake Trail in Jefferson. I needed to ride six or seven miles through the city in order to get out to, and back from, the lakefront, and that exercise consumed more precious morning minutes. Others who lived uptown were forced into the same situation, so eventually we started meeting up in order to ride out and back together. That meant an even earlier start time of 5:45 am. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We chose that time so that we would meet up with another group of river levee exiles coming from Jefferson Parish at the west end of Lakeshore Drive. Coincidentally, the WeMoRi (Wednesday Morning Ride), which started out near the lakefront and had been steadily growing, also started at 5:45, so rather than get up even earlier in order to meet them at 5:45 I compromised and decided to leave home at 5:45 and meet that group on Wednesdays at the Lakefront. So that's the current situation.  Everything from Tuesday through Thursday revolves around 5:45 am.  It's dark at 5:45 am most of the year, so I now have a super bright rechargeable headlight so I don't ride straight into a pothole on the way out to the lake, but I still hate riding in the dark, especially when it's cold, but that's pretty much my standard ride this winter. It took a few months, but the various groups have settled on their alternatives to the river levee, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays we meet up with two different groups, plus a few others, on Lakeshore Drive, which typically makes for a group of, I guess, 10-15 riders racing down Lakeshore Drive in the dark. It demands a great deal of trust in your fellow riders, at least the ones ahead of you.

On the plus side, sometimes the morning sky out by the lake looks pretty amazing.

End of a Cycle

Last weekend we had the last races of the 2014 LAMBRA season. That evening I posted the preliminary calendar for 2015. It's still a little rough and it will take me a week or two to fill add links, contact information and whatever other details I can get, but at least the major race weekends are there. It seems the cycle continues with hardly a break now that we have a solid cyclocross season and an early spring collegiate season.

I have some LAMBRA administrative tasks to finish over the next few weeks, some updates to the bylaws, drafting a suggestion for a new organizational structure, etc. I'm sure by mid-January I'll be fielding questions about the new event permit requirement for certified Race Directors. We'll be doing an officials seminar at the end of January, and probably also another LAMBRA meeting to finish up some things we didn't get to in Jackson, and possibly also a Race Directors meeting if there is sufficient interest. Looking at my Strava profile it seems likely I'll hit the 12,000 mile mark for 2014, which is about normal I think. I've probably been in the 11-12k range every year for at least the past decade. It doesn't look like we'll have any really cold weather all the way through Christmas, and probably very little in the way or rain (which we could actually use some more of right now).

So the New Orleans cyclocross race went quite well this year. The weather was nearly perfect by my standards, although probably a bit on the warm side for some. It was nice to be able to officiate a cyclocross race without being freezing cold, or wet, or both.Turnout was great with over 100 entries, and nobody went to the hospital. Results of the last race were printed out a couple of minutes before the last rider had even finished, posted to the website by dinner time, and uploaded to USAC yesterday. I usually wait a day or so before uploading to USAC because it's kind a a hassle to make corrections in three different places. The post-event report was done and submitted Sunday night and once I drop the envelope with the 1-day license waivers in the mail this afternoon that should be it for the season. I think the only thing I still use postage stamps for is sending in the 1-day licenses to USAC. On Monday morning I made a snap decision to sleep in. It's just that time of year. In the afternoon I went over to the Tulane cycling center and helped Kenny do the firmware updates to the WattBikes that will now allow riders to store their heart rate monitor numbers in their profiles. It also makes it easier to pair the WattBike with a Garmin, so after work I went over there and tried it out. After a bit of menu navigation I had the Garmin picking up the speed, time, distance and cadence from the WattBike, and at the same time both the WattBike and my Garmin were picking up my HRM. The only downside is that after pairing the Garmin with the WattBike I need to remember to re-pair it with my bike when I get home, which just takes a minute.

Early this morning I heard a little rain outside, but by the time I rolled out of bed at 5:15 the streets were almost dry. A little cold front had come through, but the temperature was still around 60F. The only fly in the ointment was the wind, which was blowing pretty hard from the northwest. The three of us that met at 5:45 didn't really feel the wind too much on the way out, but once we hit Lakeshore Drive it was clear that it was going to be a factor. Naturally, the pace started ramping up after we picked up the other riders and got into the tailwind heading east, and then the head/cross wind going the other way split the group a bit. I was basically in full-on crosswind wheelsucking mode, so I was staying with the front group but doing less work than most of the others. The ride out to the casio along the lake into the wind wasn't too bad since I was being careful to stay on the drops, take short pulls, and not let any gaps open. As usual, it was the tailwind that seemed the hardest. Matt and Howard and Brian started pushing the pace pretty hard. For most of the ride back along the lake trail we averaged 28 mph, and that included the section after Causeway where you really have to slow down for a while. I had an average speed of 29.7 for most of the section up until there. Even so, since I wasn't taking pulls consistently my heart rate never got over 170, so I still had a little bit in reserve.

Danielle finished up here last exam this morning and will be heading back home to Olympia tomorrow afternoon. I got her 650c Cannondale packed nicely in an old bike box we picked up from Bicycle World on Saturday. The bike is small enough that I only had to remove the saddle and handlebar. It's in there with the stem and seatpost still in place and the fork pointing straight ahead, and there's still room to spare. This will be a one-way trip for this bike, so although she has a real bike box, for this trip we just used a leftover cardboard box, which I think should work pretty well since the bike's aluminum and I covered it in pipe insulation and bubble wrap, and got the plastic pieces that come with new bikes to protect the derailleur, fork ends, etc.

 

Zero Mile Weekend

You can say what you will about training schedules and the need for rest and recovery, but the fact is that for a lot of riders like me, especially this time of year, taking two whole days off the bike is rather frightening. It's like you can just feel your fitness dropping away like sand in an hourglass. It's one thing if you've spend three or four or five days absolutely hammering, pounding out intervals and hill repeats (whatever those are), but if most of your riding has been easy, known in current parlance as "Zone Two," there is really no need for recovery.  That's exactly why you're riding in Zone Two in the first place. To make matters even worse, once you're well on the down-slope of the aging bell curve you pretty much start getting out of shape fifteen minutes after you get off the bike, and there is no longer any guarantee that even your best efforts will get you back where you were six months ago.

My 1-lap ride

And so last weekend found me up in Jackson, Mississippi for two days of cyclocross officiating plus the annual LAMBRA meeting in-between.  I'd gone up with Ben S in the car and my old Pennine on the roof even though the cold morning temperature quickly persuaded me to abandon all thoughts of actually sneaking into a race. The course up there was a pretty good one, made even better by the fact that you could see about 90% of it from the finish straight.  There was a nice set of stairs to run up, a log or two, an artificial barrier, some significant elevation changes, and a stretch of single-track. I would guess that rider speeds on the course ranged from walking to at least 25 mph. On Saturday morning I did a lap or so around the course just for fun, but it really just confirmed that I probably shouldn't race it. It was the first time I'd been on the dirt in over a year and there was enough technical stuff on this course that faking it just wasn't going to be wise.  Anyway, the races went very well and turnout was pretty good. A few years ago we'd had a race around there and probably got a total of twelve riders. This time it was more like 70. In one of the first races Ben slid out on a turn and probably bent his derailleur hanger, so the next time he shifted to his lowest gear he put the derailleur into the spokes and ripped it off the bike, actually breaking the derailleur in the process.  Luckily one of his Tulane teammates was coming up the next day for Sunday's races so he called him to get him to bring his single-speed (which was massively over-geared for this course).

We had a Cat. 1 woman who was very smooth!

The LAMBRA meeting went reasonably well. We tried to Skype in a few people with only partial success. I guess I should have experimented with a group Skype call ahead of time. I was both surprised and interested to hear from one of the Mississippi mountain bike guys who was at the meeting that he thought it would be a good thing if LAMBRA could bring Mississippi and Louisiana mountain bike racing somewhat under its umbrella to help coordinate the calendar, officiate, etc.  We'll be looking into that. The calendar itself is looking OK, but I am still hoping a couple more races will pop up to fill in some of the gaps. I'm also tasked with writing a draft of some bylaw revisions that would change the LAMBRA organizational structure to something with an elected Board rather than the current one-member-club, one-vote system. That will require some significant thought and probably also a good deal of plagiarism.

Those road racing instincts will get you in trouble!

This coming weekend will be the final race of the 2014 LAMBRA season and also the cyclocross championship, and I am very glad it will be held in New Orleans so I don't have to lose too much of the weekend. The riding this week has been quite chilly in the mornings with temperatures in the upper 40s, but the real problem has been the persistent strong winds from the north and, eventually, east. On Wednesday I went out to meet the WeMoRi as usual. As I wrote in an email to the group about it,

"With the twinkling WeMo orbs closing in on me I made a quick U-turn on Lakeshore Drive and booked it through the turn onto Marconi before hearing LBB come by with a cordial “Hey Randy.” I jumped on his 27 mph wheel that had thankfully decelerated a bit from tailwind territory and tucked myself into the draft. Two cars at Robt. E. Lee, then back to speed in the headwind and cleanly through the right-hander onto Wisner as my lungs struggled to keep up with my legs. LBB was pausing from his steady 25 mph pace only to check the lackluster pursuit behind him every few minutes while I maintained my documentary position three inches from his rear wheel. Up and over the interstate and still no catch, so a final glance behind him rounding the CPB corner and a little surge up to 29 to the sprint with the pitiful rest still too far back to hear."

Thursday's wind was no better. One group got gapped off going through the turn and traffic at the end of Lakeshore Drive and we ended up chasing the entire length of the Lake Trail bike path where there was a nice little tail/cross wind. (Tuesday's ride there had been nothing less than miserable with the group split into 4 and 5-rider eschelons since that's all that could fit in the crosswind.) I think we probably averaged 17 mph on the way back into the wind. This morning I went with the Tulane group for what is now the traditional Friday Coffee Ride. Charlotte flatted on Jeff Davis Pky and the front of the group didn't know for a while, so half of the group went back to help while the rest continued on. We eventually met back up on Lakeshore Drive. I have a lot of LAMBRA and NOBC stuff on my to-do list for the next week or two.  Hopefully I can get the NOBC online membership up and running this weekend, and the 2015 race calendar posted to the website(s). I will be glad to get the final cyclocross race done and results posted, and then perhaps I can start thinking about next year.

Fall and Fog

It's early December and finally the leaves are starting to fall from the deciduous trees, what few we have. This is not a particularly spectacular occurrence around here, since lots of the vegetation remains green all year. Fortunately, however, we do have a few species around that help brighten things up a bit. One is the Ginkgo biloba tree. These are all imports, of course, representing the sole remaining example of a 2 million year old genus that had been assumed to be extinct until it was discovered in a small area of China where apparently some monks had been cultivating it for hundreds of years. Anyway, every fall, for a very, very brief period, the leaves turn a super-bright yellow and the trees are absolutely spectacular until the first strong wind strips them bare. There's one on Tulane's campus that is reputed to be the oldest in the city, and now there are a few scattered around uptown in Audubon Park, along Fontainbleau, and elsewhere. I pass a couple of them on my way to work and so I stopped this morning to take a photo of the leaves falling from one of them. But I digress.

So this week's weather has been a little difficult. After last week's mileagefest, I went out on Monday for just a very brief spin around the park to keep the legs loose, figuring I might need a little recovery before the usual long Tuesday ride. Well Tuesday morning I stepped out the door into a thick fog. I immediately turned around and stuck some paper underneath my jersey and was glad I'd already pulled on the knee-warmers despite the temperature, which was in the upper 50s. I knew I'd be soaking wet by the time I got home. The fog never really got any better and the temperature never got any warmer, and by the time we were finished our lap of Lakeshore Drive I had already decided to cut the ride short and head home.  My feet were already cold and the rest of me was sure to follow.

I was prepared for more of the same on Wednesday, but there wasn't even a hint of fog for the WeMoRi. On my way out to the lakefront Jordan met up with me. I was a few minutes early so we turned onto Lakeshore Drive to meet the group. I looked at my watch and figured we were safe in crossing the Bayou St. John bridge. Normally I would turn around before that since once you're on the bridge you can't make a U-turn to get in with the oncoming group. Well, as it turned out the WeMoRi was going pretty fast that day and as we came down the bridge we saw them coming around the bend at the traffic circle, so we went the wrong way around the top of the circle and sprinted up the bridge to get in with the main group. The rest of the ride was fairly typical and not terribly fast.

This morning the fog was back in force and the temperature was in the low 60s. I left the knee-warmers at home but pulled on the arm-warmers because I knew I'd be soaking wet. There were only three of us at the meeting spot at Nashville and Fontainbleau. At least the warmer weather kept me from getting too cold. We ended up with a decent sized group along Lakeshore Drive, although the fog definitely kept the speed down a bit. I got home with water dripping from my helmet and shoes.

Fortunately there was just enough left-over turkey soup for breakfast!

LSD - Long, Sloooooow, Distance

WeMoRi, on the overpass.

Thanksgiving week was a long one, and a slow one, as it should be. At the beginning of the week there was a plan among a loosely clandestine confederation of local riders to complete a 170 mile ride around Lake Pontchartrain on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Then, a couple of days later, we were planning the annual 110-mile Varsity to Varsity ride with the LSU team from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. With all of that in mind, together with my birthday on Tuesday, I started the week off with the clear goal of logging as little high-intensity riding as possible. The only real problems with that plan were that Thanksgiving week would undoubtedly be a slow one at work, which would possibly allow for a few more minutes of regular morning rides, and the forecast which was looking more and more like a very cold Friday morning.

So I went out on Monday morning alone for a nice easy-paced ride in nearly perfect weather that ended up being a few miles longer than usual. Then on Tuesday I did the usual 5:45 am ride out to the lake, trying to keep my nose out of the wind as much as I could. Fortunately the pace was mostly civilized except for a few brief sections of 27-29 mph. Since I knew it would be quiet at work, Ben and I took a few extra minutes on the way home to stop for coffee. So far, so good.  The legs were feeling fine and weather was holding steady in the mid-50s.

Post WeMo

On Wednesday I went out as usual to meet the WeMoRi, and got a flat on Carrollton Avenue on the way there. I fixed it as quickly as possible and Danielle and I rushed the rest of the way out there assuming we would have to make a quick U-turn somewhere on Wisner or Robert E. Lee. Surprisingly, we ended up waiting for the group on Marconi, which told me they weren't going nearly as fast as usual. That was at least partially due to the fact that a cold front had come through and the temperature was hovering around the 39-40 degree mark. Also, they were having a little post-ride birthday party complete with cake and coffee, so rather than making our usual stop at Starbucks on the way home, we spent that time at the party, which was nice. This all turned out to be another nice recovery type ride for me since I'd only spent about ten minutes at any significant effort level the whole time. On Thanksgiving morning I went out to meet the "Holiday Giro" group at Starbucks. Naturally the turnout was smaller than for a regular weekend Giro, and like a few others I had no intention of doing the entire ride myself since we were planning to have some folks over later in the day. I ended up with 42 miles, but most of it was at 15-20 mph.

Northshore Ride - LSD Defined

So by Wednesday the planned ride around the lake on Friday had morphed into a long ride on the Northshore. That was fine with me since I was quite sure that the 120 miles we were shooting for would be quite sufficient. Ben and Jaden picked me up around 5:15 am on Friday, we drove over to Daniel's house to pile into his car, and then headed across the lake to Stephen Mire's place northeast of Covington. Once we got off of the Causeway we watched as the thermometer started dropping from the 42 degrees it had been in New Orleans to, ultimately, the 32 degrees it was up there in horse country. I piled on the clothes for the start of the ride knowing a lot of it would end up in my already bulging pockets. Even so, I was uncomfortably cold for the first 25 miles or so. On the plus side, everyone was on the same page for this ride, which is to say the Zone 2 page. We used to just call that LSD back in the days before power meters and TSS numbers.

Stephen was sufficiently stressed out about his total stress score to call his coach halfway through the ride for a consult as he was eating a tin of sardines he'd bought at the roadside store. The ride itself was great, even if we didn't always know exactly where we were going. We ended up riding up to Bogalusa, then over to Franklinton, and finally back down toward Covington and Abita Springs. I finished up with 119.3 miles. Jaden and Ben couldn't handle that and after sprinting up the last couple of hills rode past the driveway far enough to make sure they ended up with an even 120. Diego and Stephen took a slightly shorter route back when we discovered a huge egg forming in Diego's rear tire at 437 and Factory Road. Diego made it just a few more miles before it exploded, leaving him to ride in the last 40 minutes on the rim. I got back home after that 7 hour ride feeling surprisingly good. I guess it's actually unusual for me to do a long ride like that at such an easy pace and spinning relatively low gears.

Saturday Giro Ride

On Saturday I had to consider the wisdom of doing the Giro Ride, considering the 110 mile ride planned for the following day. The weather had finally warmed up a bit, and would be nearly 70 by the time the ride ended, I ended up doing the whole ride, again taking it as easily as possible. The group was pretty much in winter ride mode, so the fast sections were brief and when someone dropped the hammer on the way back along Hayne I dropped off with a few others and cruised in at a more seasonally appropriate speed.

Start of the Varsity to Varsity ride on Sunday

I was up early again on Sunday for the drive up to Baton Rouge with some of the Tulane riders. The annual Varsity to Varsity ride started at 7:30 with a pretty large group and nearly ideal weather except for a light but nagging southeast breeze. I was feeling none the worse for wear, and as usual the pace was easy with a number of long stops for food and recovery. They have both lead and follow vans for most of this ride, so it's pretty nice. I had brought along a flask of Hammergel, just in case, but as it turned out there were plenty of bananas in the van each time we stopped. At one of the stops, about mid-way through the ride, a woman appeared with a bag of freshly picked satsumas for us!

I started this ride with, I think, eight Advil in my pocket. It wasn't because I thought my legs would hurt, it was because I knew my neck would. As it turned out, by mile 50 the burning pain in my problematic right foot had completely overshadowed any pain my neck and upper back might be causing. Luckily I was able to work the bones and nerves back into their normal locations at each rest stop, so I would be good for a while afterward, but eventually the pain would return. A couple of times I pulled my foot out of my shoe and rode a few miles with my foot on top of the shoe, which actually helped quite a bit.

Despite my route recommendations, things got messy as the group came into the city and had to negotiate the River Road closure, but everyone eventually came back together except for a few who were off the back with Kenny helping push a badly bonked LSU rider in the last twenty miles. Kenny and Danielle had driven up up to Baton Rouge, so they rode out from New Orleans when they returned and met the group at the spillway. By the end of that ride I'd logged over 400 miles for the week - definitely the highest mileage week of the year for me. This week I'll be officiating both Saturday and Sunday up in Jackson, so this week may turn out to be one of my shortest!

At the finish of the V to V ride at the shop on Magazine Street

Wet Feet, Weddings and Weather

It finally started to warm up around here yesterday, but it's otherwise been pretty uncomfortable since Sunday. I went out last Saturday for the Giro Ride knowing things would be going downhill weather-wise the next day. Since I was supposed to be officiating the cyclocross race up in Monroe on Sunday I decided to tag along with the group that was going out to Fort Pike and back. That adds a few extra miles, which I knew I'd need just to keep up appearances. We had a pretty big group doing the long Giro, but the pace was pretty controlled for the most part. I mean, things did get out of hand a bit on the way back when we picked up a little tailwind, but otherwise it was good winter training. The forecast for Sunday was calling for cold rain up in Monroe which meant I'd probably be cold and wet all day.

To complicate matters, we would be driving up at 4:30 am because Kenny and Candy were getting married Saturday night and we didn't want to miss the wedding out in Jackson Square and the reception in the Presbytère. The temperature was already starting to drop that evening, even through the real cold front was still working its way southwest toward Louisiana. I was amazed how many people travelled in to make the wedding. Jered and Ashley even made the trip, coming all the way from wherever they happened to be in eastern Europe. Stan and Dana Day were also on hand, along with most of Kenny's current and past teammates. Naturally, Frank was wearing his Palmer jersey underneath his jacket and the groom's cake was a faithful rendition of the team jersey. We stayed until a bit after 10:00 I guess, enjoying the jambalaya and wine and dancing, but with a 4 am wake-up on the horizon it wouldn't have been wise to make a long night of it, as much as I would have liked to.

So the next morning we hit the road pretty much on time for the 4+ hour drive up to north Louisiana. We were a little more than halfway when we drove through the approaching cold front and accompanying rain.  Once on the other side I watched the temperature start dropping, and by the time we got to the race it had plummeted about 20 degrees. The ground was soaked and full of mud and puddles, and there was a cold light drizzle falling. Great weather for cyclocross. Not so much for officiating. I put on about three layers with my rain jacket and goretex cap on top and stepped out into the mud. The one thing I was sadly lacking was a pair of waterproof shoes, so it wasn't long before my feet were soaked.

Even the torrential rainstorm we drove through didn't wash
off all of this mud!

This particular race also included collegiate categories, although the fact that the conference scheduled another collegiate cyclocross race in Texas the same weekend pretty much guaranteed nobody would show up for ours. I was a little surprised to see a handful of riders from Texas A&M there. Since Tulane was hosting the collegiate part, we had a number of Tulane riders on hand, but only one or two from the other Louisiana universities. The race itself was pretty good, actually. This was really the best cyclocross course we've had lately, which is to say it wasn't essentially a mountain bike course. There were a couple of good run-ups, a section of road, a big patch of sand, and lots of mud and water. By the time we got finished, loaded up, and fed at the local Mexican restaurant it was already getting late. I figured we'd get back home around 10:00, and we would have except for the weather.

Heading down I-55 from Jackson the weather started getting worse and worse as we caught up with the slow-moving cold front. By the time we were approaching Independence on I-55 it was dark, extremely gusty, and raining heavily.  Then it got worse. Tornado watches were changed to tornado warnings and advisories went out to seek shelter immediately. Since I couldn't see where I was going anyway, we bailed out around Amite and stopped at a closed gas station where we stayed for at least half an hour watching the lightning strike things around us and hoping things would ease up. There were six or seven other cars doing the same thing. Looking at the radar it became clear that the front was going to just train over our location for a long time, so when we got a little lull in the rain we decided to make a run for it. Just ten miles to the south, on the other side of the cold front, it was dry. Well, the lull was very brief and we were soon in complete white-out rain conditions. I got behind a big semi and just followed his tail lights as he weaved around the creeping cars of traumatized drivers, one of which was basically at a dead stop in the left lane of the interstate. After fifteen minutes of white-knuckle driving we popped out the other side onto dry concrete. That was some of the worst rain I've ever driven in for sure.

So of course the next morning it was freezing cold since the front came through town overnight. I had finished building up the new Bianchi Sempre Pro frame that Marc at Bicycle World had gotten Bianchi to send after they messed up the repair on the old one and wanted to at least make sure nothing was going to fall off of it, so I went out that morning for a quick spin down St. Charles Avenue. I was so windy that it was fairly dangerous to be riding, and I was back home pretty soon.

The next couple of days were really cold and windy with morning temperatures in the low 30s. Tuesday morning I layered on full winter kit and went out to meet the 5:45 ride which consisted of three of us. It was still ridiculously windy and cold, so I'd pretty much decided I'd be cutting the ride short. We battled our way up and down Lakeshore Drive, after which I turned back for home while Ben B continued out to the lake bike path for more punishment. The next morning it was colder still when we went out to meet the WeMoRi, but at least the wind had died down by then. Everything was still covered with frost as we rode to Starbucks after the ride. Finally, this morning, after straightening out the slightly off-kilter derailleur hanger on the new Bianchi, the wind started shifting around to the southeast. It was 48F when I left home, a bit overdressed, and 56 by the time I got back. Even so, everybody seemed to be stuck in Zone 2 training mode today. That was nice.

The Dark Side and the Bright Side

Last weekend was the annual USA Cycling Local Associations Summit over in Colorado Springs. This is always an interesting meeting that brings "LA" people from all over the country together with USAC staff to work through proposed new programs, existing problems, and possible solutions. In-between the actual sessions, conversation tends to drift toward the usual things when cyclists get together, which is to say there is a lot of story telling - some old, some new. Still, the focus of the meeting is on the dark side of cycling, namely administration. These are the folks who worry about things that most riders don't really want to think about - insurance, fatalities, drops in race participation, inconvenient rules, and, kind of overshadowing it all, the financing of a national cycling organization.

On the one hand, the meeting confirmed that my own observations about decreasing field sizes in certain categories and disciplines was not restricted to our own little part of the country. On the other, it was encouraging that the national organization has not exactly been sitting around just hoping it will get better all by itself. There are a number of programs and changes in the works that are specifically designed to get more riders into racing, and I came away from the meeting a little worried about what I expect will be some minor belt-tightening at the national level, but also with a few ideas that I'd like to make happen here in our neighborhood. I really liked the new Beginner Racer Program, and am kicking around some ideas gleaned from other areas. For example, someone suggested, perhaps somewhat in jest, having a women-only event called something like "Wine, Women and Wheels." That actually sounds like something we could do around here.

Anyway, it was an interesting meeting and I think we managed to put the brakes on a couple of things that would have caused some wailing and gnashing of teeth among the ridership, especially in the smaller LAs like ours, while encouraging and supporting and suggesting some new programs that should improve communication, visibility, and lower the barrier to racing for new riders. As always there was some feisty discussion about things like the much-hated $15 one-day license fee and the event permit fees for large events. I got back to New Orleans around midnight on Sunday, so Monday's ride consisted of an evening hour on a WattBike at the Tulane cycling center.

I did manage to make it out to the Tuesday ride, feeling by then more or less recovered from spending the better part of four days sitting on my ass in airplanes, airports, and meeting rooms, none of which did my back any good. The Tuesday ride turned out to be pretty fast all the way out to the casino boat, thanks perhaps to a light tailwind. Fortunately, nobody seemed interested in hammering on the way back, so it was mostly conversational pace. This was good since I'd essentially been off the bike for four days. The bitter cold that has hit most of the country (it's single-digits in Colorado Springs, I think) is just now starting to sag down to New Orleans and we're expecting it to be chilly tomorrow and through the weekend. This morning we went out to meet the WeMoRi and about halfway there I put a finishing nail right through my rear tire. I was afraid we'd miss the group, but the wind must have slowed them down a bit because we were able to jump in along Robert E. Lee after circling around once. Once we turned onto Wisner the pace ramped up a bit and then really surged approaching the overpass. I saw something in the 33 mph range and I was still in the second group.

So on the bright side, there were some good development on the Bianchi story, and I have to give a lot of credit to Bianchi and Bicycle World for taking care of me so well on that. My replacement frame arrived at the shop last Thursday, but I wasn't able to stop by before they closed and since I had to fly to Colorado early the next morning it wasn't until yesterday that I finally got over there. I don't get new frames, or bikes, very often. There was the Pennine frame in the early 70s, the awesome Cinelli in the mid-80s, and the Cervelo in the 90s. Pretty much everything else has been second-hand in some fashion or another. As luck would have it, Marc had just finished pressing in the bottom bracket cups and installing the crankset, so I was able to bring it home. After thinking about it I guess I'll stop over there again and pick up new brake and shifter cables since the Bianchi Sempre Pro frameset has that pesky internal cable routing and if I'm going to go through all that trouble I may as well start off with fresh cables. Of course I still have to cut the fork steerer down to size and assemble everything else, so it's entirely possible I won't have it together until next week. There is a cyclocross race up in Monroe that I have to officiate on Sunday, which will mean I'll be hitting the road around 4:30 am I guess. That race will include collegiate categories which should make scoring even more fun than usual.

The 50's and Riding on the Other Side

The annual Tour de Jefferson, otherwise referred to locally as "The Westbank Giro," was last Sunday, and since there was nothing else going on locally I once again decided to ride it. Although last year we drove over to the other side of the river, in years past we have gotten a small group together and ridden there by way of the Canal Street ferry. Well, things are different this year. The ferry doesn't start running until around 10 am, so I thought it would be interesting to ride to the westbank via the newly renovated Huey P. Long bridge. Some of the westbank riders had been riding over the river that way en route to the regular Giro Ride without incident, and I knew that the new roadway included a wide shoulder, so other than the fact that drivers tend to see how fast their little cars can go on it, it seemed like a viable option. The only problem was that the river levee bike path remains closed all of the way from uptown to the bridge, so a few of us decided to meet at a parking lot at the base of the bridge to do the short five-mile ride to the start of the Tour de Jefferson.

This is a difficult time of year, clothing-wise. When the morning temperature is in the 50s, as it was on Sunday, you are stuck somewhere in-between summer and winter clothing options. If you're comfortable at 7 am you will probably be hot by 9 am, and if you want to be comfortable at 9 am you're going to be cold at 7 am. I compromised a bit and wore knickers, a light base layer jersey, and arm-warmers. That worked out pretty nicely for me, but there were lots of riders at the 8:30 am start in regular summer kit, which by that time wasn't such a bad idea. As usual, we lined up at the front of the large group of riders, along with almost all of the regular Giro group. Also as usual, the pace was going full-bore by the time we were six or seven miles in. I was content to sit in toward the back, which was probably nearly as much work as being near the front because I found myself spending a lot of time out in the wind because I wasn't too comfortable with the riding skills of everyone in front of me, like those of the guy rocking back and forth over his over-geared bike with toe-clips and a piece of the front quick-release spring sticking out from his dropout.

Eventually the front group dwindled down to, basically, the usual Giro riders and my comfort level improved a bit, but being toward the back on relatively unfamiliar roads meant some unexpected braking and chasing due to turns and road surface irregularities. Anyway, it was a nice ride and there was beer and jambalaya at the end. Danielle, however, had some big problems with her neck and upper back, and also said that something seemed wrong with her position. I ended up raising her saddle by a good half centimeter, maybe more, re-leveling the saddle, and switching her back to the 90 mm 30-degree drop stem, and ordering a 70 mm 30-degree drop stem to try next. I suspect that the seatpost had slipped a bit on the new bike or had never been quite in the right place to start with. Unfortunately she didn't get to try it out this morning because one of the dogs pulled out some stitches he'd gotten and needed a quick trip to the vet for some superglue and staples.

Monday I went out solo out to the lakefront and lake trail bike path, just kind of cruising along at 17 mph and enjoying the relative solitude and early morning sun thanks to the switch to DST. This morning we ended up with a pretty big group for the long Tuesday ride and with a nice tailwind the pace stayed fast all the way out to the casino boat. I was expecting a hard ride into the quartering headwind on the way back, but for some reason nobody wanted to push it and it was mostly conversation pace.

Guess I should go vote.....

Falling Through Ice

It's been a long week of dark, dark morning rides, complicated this morning by strong winds blowing off of Lake Pontchartrain, but it was a different story last Sunday for the kick-off race of the Delta States Grand Prix cyclocross series up in Baton Rouge. I had kind of mixed feelings about officiating that one. While it would have been lots of fun to ride (notice I did not use the word "race")  the nice technical course at Baton Rouge's City Park, I was assigned to help officiate the race which provided a handy excuse for avoiding the hour of exertion. Sometimes I can do both, and indeed I brought the bike with me, but fortunately for the race, and unfortunately for me, the turnout was great which meant sorting out the results was very time-consuming. We even had a good turnout from the collegiate riders even though there wasn't a specific collegiate race.

The course had a nice gentle slope, a sand pit with a U-turn, and lots of very technical sections, so they had only one actual barrier since most people had to dismount and run numerous times each lap anyway. I jumped on the bike wearing my jeans and snuck in one lap while another official was trying to figure out how many times various riders had been lapped. The fast guys were doing laps of around 5:30, while regular riders were more in the 6 minute range and the laughing group at the back wearing costumes were probably doing more like ten minutes. Some races had people lapped four times within 45 minutes, and one of those had three separate races on the course concurrently, so things got really confusing really quickly and it took quite a while to sort out that one race. Hopefully we got it mostly right, but I wouldn't bet on 100% accuracy with that one. Meanwhile we took a shot at getting the date of the South Central Collegiate Cycling Conference CX championship moved since it had been scheduled for Dec. 21 when most of the Tulane riders would be home for the holidays, and in this case home means Illinois, California, etc. They suggested moving it up one week, but of course that put it in the middle of exams, so basically we won't be able to send many riders there. There's apparently a conference rule that you have to race the conference championship in order to be eligible for nationals, which is pretty ridiculous in this case. We have one new medical student who is a Cat. 1 / Cat. A cyclocross rider and really wants to be able to race nationals, so we'll have to see what we can do about that.

So Monday morning it was back to 5:45 am rides, mostly in the dark. The week was pretty routine Monday through Wednesday, except for a near-crash riding home on Tuesday when I stopped for a car and Big Rich didn't. Tuesday and Wednesday were fairly fast, but not excessively so, and with the warmer temperatures and low winds they were pretty manageable. On Wednesday I jumped into the WeMoRi as usual and immediately found myself in a small front group that was going pretty hard chasing somebody way off the front. It was totally disorganized, however. Fortunately, the hard part of the WeMoRi for me lasts only for about six or seven miles. So the first part of the week was pretty unremarkable.  Then there was today.....

I rushed out the door, already knowing I was late, to meet the 5:45 am group about a mile away. I guess I got there at 5:47 so I kept rolling, wondering how much ahead of me they were. I rounded the corner and could see blinking red lights in the distance, so I shifted up a gear and caught them a mile or so later. This was good since we were riding in to a strong northeast wind. A little cool front had come through last night and although the temperature had dropped to only 60 or so, we had a pretty strong wind to deal with. Out on Lakeshore Drive, heading east we had a quartering headwind that forced everyone into a long eschelon that left the last few riders basically without a draft. Then, when we picked up the tailwind the pace just kept ramping up and up. I'm really not all that comfortable going 30 mph in the dark with someone's super-bright red blinky light shining in my eyes. Somehow I survived and we mostly regrouped before hitting the lake trail bike path. Of course with the tail/cross wind the pace didn't stay slow for long and before long I was looking at the rider in front of me starting to blow up. Matt was already way off the front by himself and Woody seemed like he really wanted to try and reel him back in, so next thing I know it's just Woody, Ray and me. Ray took his turn at the front and when Woody came through the slight acceleration gapped him off. When Woody pulled off I stayed on the front just long enough to come around him, but even with such super-short pulls, I could only get back into his draft one more time before I was gapped off too.

The ride back into the wind was pretty brutal. There was a lot of crosswind component to it, so if a one bike-length gap opened up in front of you it took a huge effort to close it. Plus, with the crosswind, there was room for only four or five on the bike path the way we were escheloned, which predictably started popping riders off the back one by one. I kept thinking of Cavendish's quote, "When echelons form it's similar to falling through ice: you know you've got, like five seconds to rectify and get in the right position to save yourself or it's finished – it's over." I had to dig pretty deep to close a couple of gaps but managed to stay in the front group that dwindled to five by the time we got to the end. It was a much harder ride than I'd expected.

So on the bike front, it looks like Bianchi is sending me a replacement Sempre frame thanks to Marc at Bicycle World, so I can't really complain about that. I think I'll need a new bottom bracket and probably headset since they made a couple of changes there since mine was made. I guess I'll have been without the Bianchi for about two months, but it's still better than having to buy a new frame which I really couldn't afford to do right now.