Riding, Rainstorms, and Rest

The WeMoRi Gossip Lap

The weather around here has been occasionally dramatic lately.  After Sunday's race some big thunderstorms rolled through, causing lots of street flooding and some power outages.  We had to abort an attempt to feed the cat we've been taking care of (the one that belongs to the doctor who is still in the hospital after heart bypass surgery) because the streets were too flooded.  We ended up stranded on some relatively high ground (we're talking inches here, not feet) for about 45 minutes until we could even get back to the house.  It's been kind of hit-and-miss like that all week.  On Wednesday I went out to meet the early morning WeMoRi group, knowing that the prospects for the remainder of the day were entirely up in the air.  I met the group right at Lakeshore Drive, so got in about ten miles of reasonably fast riding for the first lap around City Park.  Their second lap is always done at gossip pace.  Sometime I think the main attraction of that particular group ride is actually the gossip rather than the training.  Anyway, there was more rain that afternoon so I didn't even try to go out to the lakefront.  The rain had stopped, but it was clearly just a lull because the city was entirely surrounded by rain, some of it pretty heavy.  By 7:30 it was storming again, complete with more minor street flooding.  Kenny had gone out toward Kenner, gotten a flat just as the sky opened up, couldn't get the flat fixed, rode I don't know how many miles in the rain on a flat, and finally called for extraction.  Last night is stormed again for a couple of hours.  More is predicted for this afternoon, for whatever that's worth.

Lisa Colvin, one of the LAMBRA officials and coaches who had been in Europe getting her UCI coaching certification, was airlifted from Monroe to New Orleans last night.  She caught some virus while over there and it has developed into myocarditis, so it's fairly serious. She's over at Ochsner's CCU, probably along with Fred whose cat we've been taking care of.  Lane, her husband and also a LAMBRA official and our event permit approver, drove down in the middle of the night.  I guess he got in around 2 am or so.

I was glad to see no rain nearby this morning.  We had a very small group for the Thursday levee ride, but at least we got in the full ride, mostly at a steady 23 mph pace except for the time I spent fixing the flat tire I got when I rolled through a patch of gravel or something.  Even though I didn't get to do the training race yesterday evening I am still feeling like I need a rest.  Last night we got an email from a Tulane faculty member who is about to leave for a new job in Santiago, Chile.  He did some track racing in college and grad school at Northwestern and is giving the Tulane cycling team some nice equipment that he doesn't want to take with him. It includes a couple of very nice track frames, a road bike, and a mountain bike, in addition to some miscellaneous parts.  Perfect timing, since we are planning to get the WattBikes unpacked and set up in the cycling center over the weekend.

Jack of All Trades, HarborMaster of None

Last Sunday was the Harbor Master Criterium. This was a first-year event held in New Orleans, mainly in the parking lot of the casino boat that used to be docked at the South Shore Marina.  I was to help officiate along with Ricky who came down from Monroe and Tim from River Ridge, but I was also hoping to jump into the Masters race so the day wouldn't be a total loss riding-wise.  The course was a tight, curvy, 0.6 mile affair, the details of which had remained somewhat of a mystery until a few days before the actual race day.  The Semi-Tough club had spent a lot of time on Saturday clearing away all of the sand and debris that had accumulated, as one would expect, on a parking lot that had been closed off for years.

My preparation for the actual race, and by that I mean my participation therein, not the officiating part, had been pretty bad.  On Sunday morning I loaded up the car with various officiating-type things - tent, generator, flags, banners, clipboards, computer, etc. - and then almost as an afterthought clamped the bike to the roof, threw shorts and jersey into my bag, and headed out to the lake.  The forecast was promising a hot day on the asphalt with only a slight chance of rain.  This was good since there were a couple of places on the course that involved riding over painted asphalt that had been part of the entrance to the old casino.  Pre-registration had been pretty slim, but I had a feeling that there would be a lot of race-day entries.  That often happens for a one-day race in a metro area with a minimal late-registration fee.  I was right, and over half of the day's entries came on race day.  Ricky and I hustled around setting up the finish line and registration computer, and pretty soon I was plugging entries into the laptop as fast as I could.

The early races went off pretty well, and I was glad to see that the tight, short course wasn't causing a lot of problems.  One of the women crashed and broke a collarbone, but I don't know the circumstances. Otherwise there were hardly any crashes of note unless you count Daniel who crashed in the last turn before the finish sprint because he inexplicably decided it would be a good time to fiddle with his computer.  He ended up walking across the finish line.

Racing a crit from the back is hard.

The Masters were up after the Women's race and since the latter was pretty easy to score I was able to head over to the car as soon as they were done to change and get the bike ready.  I even got to take maybe three warm-up laps around the course. Although it usually takes me half an hour before I feel truly warmed up nowadays, this was a good thing because the first few laps of the race were full gas.  It wasn't too long before a little break rode off the front, but by then I was already struggling near the ever-dwindling back of the pack, too busy closing gaps and sprinting out of every turn to worry about what was happening at the front.  Things settled down eventually for the middle part of the 40-minute race and I was finally able to recover a bit.  Another attack split the pack, so I ended up in I guess the third group with eight or nine riders already way up the road.  It was a good workout but I have to say that trying to be a Jack of All Trades, switching between officiating and racing and then back to officiating, doesn't really allow one to master either.  Still, it was better than nothing and the other two officials were more than capable of handling things without me.

The Cat. 1/2 race was pretty fast and interesting despite a small 12-rider field.  When it became obvious that a 3-rider break was going to lap the field, which by then had dwindled to maybe five or six, I asked out loud if the riders in the pack would be able to work with the riders in the break.  I knew the answer to that one, but wanted everyone to be thinking about that. A couple of laps later, when the two groups had merged, Stephen, who had been in the break yelled something about pack riders working for their teammates who had been in the break.  He didn't think they could.  Of course, they can.  The only restriction on that sort of thing involves riders who have been *dropped by the field,* and in this case those weren't riders who had been dropped by the field, they *were* the field.  Granted it was a very small field, but it was the biggest group on the road.  Anyway, it was all worked out and Stephen won anyway.  All-in-all they did a great job with the event.  The course was much better than I thought it would be, they had food trucks out there and beer and stuff like that, so everyone had a great time and we're hoping we'll be able to do this again next year.

Old Portage, New Routine

I almost made it out to the lakefront in time for the start of the Wednesday training race.  Almost.  I guess I missed just the first half-lap, but at least my timing was otherwise pretty convenient.  As I approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle I could see them coming toward me, so I just looped around and merged smoothly into the front part of the group.  For the next three and a half laps we averaged 26+ mph, topping out at 35.1.  It wasn't particularly windy, so the group remained mostly intact for most of the ride.  For a change I felt pretty good, despite having ridden the WeMoRi that morning, but got shuffled too far toward the back when things ramped up for the final sprint.  As usual, the ride back from the training race felt cool and refreshing as I was finally producing less sweat than was evaporating.  It was probably still around 84F, but it felt great anyway.

So on Thursday I drove *way* out on River Road once again, parking on Plantation Ave. to meet the levee ride.  I guess this will be the new routine for a while. Despite the fact that we keep getting pushed farther and farther away by the Corps of Engineers' contractor, the group size is still holding pretty steady.  Rich and a couple others are still riding out and back on River Road, although that has not been without it's own controversy. The ride was pretty nice although I was definitely starting to feel the effects of Wednesday's rides by the time we were heading back.



Lakeshore Drive, heading east

This morning I was happily looking forward to an easy recovery ride.  I left home nice and early, around 6 am (Isn't it nice to have light at 6am?  That's what I like about summer the most!) and headed toward the lakefront via Jeff. Davis, following the old portage along Bayou St. John, and finally crossing over to Wisner.  There were some big classic summer clouds lurking around this morning, which helped block the sun and kept it from heating  up too fast.  Way off to the east I could see a little rain shower.  Even with a bit of tailwind, I don't think I was going more than 15 mph along Lakeshore Drive as I rode east to the Seabrook loop and headed back.  Around Franklin Ave. I saw Ben, Jaden and Kevin going the other way so I made a quick U-turn to meet up with them.  I knew they'd be stopping for coffee on Esplanade, which had been my plan regardless. I guess that increased my speed by a couple of mph, but on the other hand I spent pretty much the whole time on Kevin's wheel. I guess I'll do the Giro tomorrow, and then on Sunday I'll be helping with officiating at the Harbor Master Criterium, and jumping into the Masters race, probably with little or no warm-up.  We'll see how that goes!

So the Tulane Cycling Center setup is still moving along - two steps forward, one step back.  The WattBikes that are stuck over at Receiving should get delivered to the suite next Wednesday and the big video monitor should get installed on Friday. Some time around there we should get the doors re-keyed and at that point I'll probably move a bunch of the team stuff that's been in my basement over there.  Looking forward to that!

Barricades and Bike Noises

I've been back into the "new" routine this week, although not without a few little modifications.  After a much-needed recovery ride on Monday I drove out to meet the Tuesday levee ride for the 6:15 am start.  The Corps recently put up a barricade/gate on the levee bike path a bit upriver from the Huey P. Long bridge, so now I have to drive another half-mile to park on Plantation on the side of the PraxAir shop.  On the plus side, it's on the west side of the building and hence in the shade when I return.  The Tuesday ride was fairly uneventful, averaging twenty-two and a half mph and never getting much over 28.  I wasn't feeling too frisky, so it seemed quite a sufficient workout from my perspective. Since I've been on home-health duty for a cat down on Tchoupitoulas Street my morning routine has been a bit more rushed and I've mostly been taking the car rather than riding, mainly so I'm not too late, and sweaty, getting to work.

WeMoRi - City Park Avenue.
Apparently I didn't get the memo about the photographer.

So my new Wednesday morning routine involves rolling out from home at 5:45 to ride out to the lakefront to meet the WeMoRi ride, which also starts at 5:45.  For now it's light enough that I just use a rear blinky light on the way out, and I could probably get away without that.  Of course that won't last very long, and when this hemisphere starts tilting more I may be re-thinking that particular ride.  Anyway, I made good time on the way out there and was all the way out by the "swim hole" on Lakeshore Drive before I saw the group coming.  There were a few guys off the front who I didn't try to go after, but then a few more came by in chase mode so I latched onto one of them at around 28 mph.  The front group eased up a little later and everything came back together.  Things eventually ramped up to 31 mph for the lead-up to the overpass where there is apparently a sprint.  Then there's another sprint halfway down City Park Avenue where Woody came past the whole group on the left about 3 mph faster than the 30 mph we were already going. The last sprint was just before getting back to Robt. E. Lee Blvd., and that one topped out at about 31 mph.  I haven't really been contesting these little sprints but I'm starting to figure out that a number of riders seem to focus on those.  Anyway, it was a nice ride back home with 30 miles in the log and then a rush to clean up and get to work.  I guess I'll drive out to the levee ride again tomorrow, but I am really hating all this driving in the morning.  It beats getting run over by impatient morning commuters and truck drivers on River Road, but riding out to the levee in the morning used to be so relaxing and took only five minutes.

For the past few weeks, ever since I changed out the headset bearings on the Bianchi, I've been getting this pop or crack sound kind of randomly when I stand or put a lot of pressure on the pedals. Since it started immediately after I'd done the headset work I assumed it must be that the bearing wasn't seating well, so I twice removed, cleaned and replaced it.  It didn't go away, so Monday evening I turned the bike upside down so it was resting on the saddle and rear wheel, and put my weight on the pedal.  Yep, the problem is with the bottom bracket or crankset (which nowadays are basically the same thing).  I haven't had time yet, but I guess I'll have to take that apart and clean it all up.  Hopefully the bearings aren't a pile of rust like they were the last time, which was less than a year ago.  Never had these problems in the old days!

Today the surplus furniture (a couple of desks, a work bench, a bookcase, and a few old desk chairs) got moved into the Tulane Cycling Center suite as planned.  Then, around mid-afternoon, I got a call from the Receiving Department saying that the driver of the semi who was delivering the WattBikes (about 800 pounds worth) didn't find anyone at the suite, and was at Receiving.  I doubt he really checked for anyone since I had a note and my card taped to the door, but anyway he wasn't going to move the bikes into the room anyway, apparently, despite the fact that the company we bought them from asked for all kinds of information about loading ramps, hallway widths, etc., and I had sent them all of that information plus photographs and my contact information.  So apparently the driver just dropped off the pallet at Receiving, which is about a mile down the road, and now Receiving will have to get a work order for Facilities Management to deliver them to the suite here at University Square.  When, I don't know, but at least they are getting closer. Two steps forward, one step back.....

The Week After

By all accounts, the 43rd Tour de Louisiane went off quite well, which is to say nobody went to the hospital and nobody was arrested.  Turnout for the Cat. 5 and Masters races was, in a word, disturbing.  The racing, however, was great, the results timely, and the after-race photo albums numerous.  As usual, I headed across the lake around mid-afternoon on Friday, allowing plenty of time to check in to the Hampton Inn before driving over to The Spokesman to set up for Friday night registration.  In the interest of minimizing race-morning chaos, we keep pre-registration and number pickup open until 10 pm Friday night.  This has worked out quite well, actually.  Nowadays, we don't get very many riders who haven't pre-registered online, but having 50-70% of them pick up their numbers on Friday means there won't be long lines at the registration table Saturday morning.  Indeed, thanks in no small part on the smaller than usual turnout, race morning registration was smooth and relaxed, and we got the first race off pretty much on time.  Robin had already gone around the course putting up signs, patching asphalt, sweeping corners.  The road races went pretty well.  A fairly large break in the Cat. 1/2/3 race got a good gap early in the race and then split in the final few miles, yielding five riders with a couple of minutes on the rest of the field.  By the time road races were over it was getting pretty hot, but the cold watermelon that Robin had for the riders helped cool things down.  We got the RR results taken care of right there on the side of the road and then stopped at McDonalds on the way back to grab cool off in the a/c, get a bite to eat, and upload the results and TT start list to the website.

The Mayor leads out the Cat. 1/2/3 race.

The Time Trial, as usual, went smoothly so I had the results up on the website before Ricky and I had dinner.

So Sunday was the big criterium in downtown Covington.  We were all set up and ready to go for the 7:30 am start of the first race, but waited another twenty minutes for the police to tow away a couple of cars that were on the course.  It was a good thing, too, because one of them was on the outside of the last turn, right where the Masters race would later have a big crash.  The criteirums were a lot of fun to watch, and once Erich Mattei arrived to start his colorful announcing it got even better. The NOBC women rode well and got Sherri on the podium just one second ahead of teammate Mignon.

There were two crashes of note on Sunday. The first was on the last turn before the finish of the Master's race.  I don't know exactly what happened.  I saw the race coming around the corner a couple of blocks away and then they all suddenly disappeared to the outside.  A few riders were ahead of it and a few got around it, but a bunch of them ended up on the ground.  Since it was close to the finish they all got pack time anyway and most came through it OK.  The Cat. 5 race was won handily by teammate Taco de Vries who should be upgrading shortly.  Much later, in the Cat. 1/2/3 race, there was a crash on the back side of the course that took a couple of riders out of the race.  In that race there was another early break.  This one included only a couple of the riders who had been in the RR break the day before.  The break ended up with a big gap on the field, although not enough to make up for the gap in the road race.

The Cat. 1/2/3 Break

Michael McBrien, who had been the last rider to bridge up to the break, was working hard for his teammate Stephen Mire who was leading on GC, when he flatted with maybe five laps to go.  Free laps had ended, so he rode the flat for at least five laps, losing about a minute but amazingly managing to finish about twenty seconds up on the pack.  Post-race publicity was great this year with articles and photos in a couple of newspapers.  For the Cat. 1/2/3 criterium the Mayor had come out on his bike and we had him lead the first lap.  When he pulled off, I blew the whistle and the race started.  It worked out great and there were some great photos.  It was interesting that, thanks to making the break in the criterium, Frank Moak ended up 2nd on GC.  Frank is 54. Stephen Mire, who won, is 26 and Evan East, who was 3rd, is 17. By the time I got home and unloaded the car and uploaded the final results on Sunday afternoon I was pretty much wasted.

Bike Path Problems

So I guess we lost only a little money this year rather than a lot.  Anyway, I didn't make it out on the bike on Monday, so by Tuesday I was more than ready to get back in the routine.  We had a good group up on the levee for the long Tuesday ride.  Things split a couple of times and there was just a small group in front toward the end.  At one point I saw something on the edge of the bike path and initially thought it looked like a tire retread that you see on the side of the interstate all the time.  Then I thought, "There aren't any trucks on the levee!"  As we got closer I recognized it as the tail of an alligator but we were going too fast for me to get the camera out.  Then, as we got to the end of the ride we found that while we'd been out riding the levee construction contractor had put up a fence across the bike path right before the parking area.  We still able to get to the cars without riding on River Road, but it was at any rate not a good sign for future levee rides.  On Wednesday I want out early and got in a good morning ride out to the lake trail bike path, and then followed that up with a somewhat late ride out to the lakefront training race.  I missed the first lap, but was really happy to find a big group.  I really enjoyed the three laps I was able to get in before returning home.  One of the psychiatrists who had been on Tulane's faculty, and had just separated from his wife and moved into an apartment down on Tchoupitoulas Street three days ago was in the hospital waiting for an unplanned quadruple bypass, and I had been volunteered to stick his diabetic cat twice a day.  The cat does not enjoy this process any more than I, and I have the scars to prove it.  Hopefully we can get a little help with this task since I suspect it will be quite a while before the cat's owner will be able to handle it again.  I went out early on Thursday for a long ride out to the lake rather than deal with driving out to the river levee where, as it turned out, they had moved the fence even farther upriver since Tuesday.

Big Giro Ride Group

So after a nice and somewhat wet Friday coffee ride I was looking forward to the Saturday Giro.  The weather was pretty nice that morning with hardly any wind and slightly lower than normal humidity.  Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought it would be a good day for the Giro.  Leaving Starbucks I counted forty riders, so I guess we must have ended up with at least fifty.  As soon as we hit Hayne Blvd. the pace ramped up and pretty much stayed there.  On Chef Highway I though maybe I should go up to the front and take a few pulls, but when I looked up the road all I saw was a three block long single file line of riders going 30 mph and I knew it wasn't going to happen.  As it turned out we averaged 28.5 mph for the 16 mile outbound stretch.  It took a few miles for everyone to recover from that on the way back but of course it eventually ramped up into the high 20s soon enough, so despite the fact that I practically never saw the front, I felt like I got a great workout.  This morning's Giro was a little less dramatic speed-wise.  After the turnaround the group was being particularly sluggish and I just rolled off the front at like 22 mph, soon being joined by a couple of other riders.  We were just doing a nice smooth rotation awaiting the inevitable catch by the rest of the group but then we caught VJ who was on his TT bike.  We did one more rotation and then VJ just sat on the front and motored at 24-25 mph for miles and miles. A couple of guys finally caught us at the end of the service road and eventually things mostly came back together on Hayne.

So the Tour is mostly wrapped up for another year and I somehow got in a good 270 mile week.  I have a pile of things still backlogged at work and at home but hopefully I can get most of those taken care of during the week.  There's a super-tight criterium in New Orleans next weekend and so that should be interesting.

Ready as We'll Be

I guess we're about as ready as we'll be for this weekend's Tour de Louisiane.  The road race course has been painted and marked and Robin was out there today patching some of the little holes in the asphalt.  Jason went out and marked the TT course with mile markers, and the police and Mayor are all lined up for Sunday's criterium.  In general I think we're in pretty good shape.  The only thing that is worrying me is the relatively lackluster pre-registration list.  I mean, where are the Cat. 5s and Masters?  A couple of years ago we were filling up the 50-rider Cat. 5 fields and the Masters had one of the largest fields.  This year the Cat. 1/2/3 field is looking pretty good, and the Cat. 4 field is looking OK, but overall, registrations are down quite a bit.  We're not alone, of course.  Most of the other races seem to be seeing the same thing. I can't really explain it, but it is certainly frustrating.  Every year it gets more and more expensive to put on a race with adequate police, volunteers, and challenging courses, so entry fees become more and more important.  For this race we absorb the online registration surcharge, which for a $65 entry fee is $3.60 (over 5%).  Some of the more vocal riders are always pushing for separate fields for various categories and/or age groups, but the field sizes we're getting aren't doing anything to encourage promoters to move in that direction.  Anyway, it's the same amount of work to put on a stage race with 100 riders as it is to put on a stage race with 300, and I'm gearing up for that weekend of work, at least psychologically.  On the plus side, the weather forecast looks fine with only a slight chance of rain for the weekend.  Not having to deal with huge summer thunderstorms makes this whole process go a lot more smoothly.  Anyway, I'll be officiating along with Ricky and we'll have a number of moto-refs for the Road Race since there will be five groups out on the course at once.

Front of the WeMoRi group on the Wisner overpass  - the easy lap

Wednesday morning I was up a little early so I left home around 5:45, which is about when the WeMoRi starts out by the lake.  That ride does a lap of Lakeshore Drive, around 10 miles, before turning off onto Marconi to ride two laps around the park.  It's about eight miles from my house to Lakeshore Drive.  I've figured out that if I leave around 5:45 I can easily catch the group at the lake near Marconi.  This works out pretty well.  I was almost to Lakeshore Drive on Marconi when I saw Woody, Jaden and a couple others come flying around the corner.  I knew they must be off the front of the group, and maybe twenty seconds later I saw the group so I turned around and merged into it.  They weren't going particularly hard, which was fine since I wasn't really fully warmed up anyway.  The WeMoRi group likes to hammer down Wisner, sprint for some random spot on City Park Avenue, hammer down Marconi, and then do a slightly modified second lap at a conversational pace.

TUCA Cycling Center

Actually, for this group, I would have to call it a gossip pace. Anyway, I was glad to get in a few fast miles and still be back home relatively early since I had some Tour de La stuff to attend to before work.  This morning I drove out to the Thursday levee ride at 6:15.  The Corps of Engineers is beginning to put up the fencing upriver of the Jefferson Playground in preparation for the next section of levee they will be tearing up.  Once that happens, riding on the river levee is going to become impractical for me.  Big Richard called the Levee District and said, "the contractor will pave the first 10k ft section (the stables) once completed. It appears about 2k ft needs to be raised before they reach the stables."  That's about the best we can expect, I guess.  At any rate, it looks like I will be riding out to the lakefront pretty much every day in a week or two.  Hopefully they will get the Jefferson Davis bridge work finished by then so I can avoid Carrollton and add a couple of miles.

Bike Storage Room

Meanwhile, it's been a frustrating week at work, mostly waiting for other people to get back to me so I can move ahead on a couple of things.  One little bright spot, however, was when Facilities Management showed up the other day to start working on the Tulane cycling club's space.  The bike storage room and little locker room are now ready to go, the WattBikes are on order (I hope), and I'm awaiting a call from Facilities on delivering the surplus furniture that we have on 'hold' over in storage.  The big video screen is supposed to be installed by a subcontractor and I haven't heard anything about when that will happen, but I assume it will be pretty soon.  I never got a reply to my most recent email to Card Services about the card-swipe system that we need to install, but The Daughter has written up a draft risk management/safety policy that I probably won't look at until next week.  At least things are moving along.  Once I can get the locksmith in here to make us some real keys I can move a bunch of stuff out of my basement into the storage room of what I am calling the Tulane Cycling Center.  We still need to get a number of things, like workstands, tools, etc., but that will be relatively easy.  I think.

Tour Course

Those clouds looked a lot worse than this photo would imply!

I was up early Saturday morning with plenty of time to get ready for the Saturday Giro Ride.  All suited-up, bike in hand, I opened the basement door just in time to see the rain start.  Another day off the bike looking out the window at wet streets. On Sunday we were planning a recon ride on the Tour de La road race loop.  After meeting at 6:30 or so we made the drive across the lake and up to cucumber corner.  I put a can of neon green marking paint in my bottle cage, force-fit an actual water bottle in the seat tube cage (small frames don't accommodate large water bottles very well) and we headed toward the road course up near Stoney Point.  We met the loop at its last turn where I was surprised to find that a number of the cracks and holes in the pavement had been marked with orange paint.  I remarked that there must have been a recent ride around there.  Since we started out on the final stretch of the race loop, the first thing we came to was the old 1 km mark.  I was glad to be able to actually find it and jumped off the bike to re-paint it.  We rolled past the start/finish and then again noticed that the corner had more orange paint.  I stopped to freshen up one of the arrows, but since this is Turn #1 and is about 100 meters from the start/finish it doesn't really need to be marked.  Four or five miles later, as we approached Turn #2, I could see Robin's truck parked at the corner and Robin standing there with a paint can!  I stopped to freshen one of the arrows, but since Robin was already going around the course marking everything I just stopped briefly at the key spots and freshened up one or two of the markings rather than all of them.  The course was in pretty good shape this year and didn't need any sweeping, although there were a few spots on the smaller roads where the asphalt was starting to crack up.  I stopped to mark the three or four spots where there was enough of an edge to maybe cause a pinch-flat.  Overall, though, the 16 mile loop is pretty smooth, partially shaded, and deceptively challenging.  I used up the last of the paint on the final turn, stashed the can where I could pick it up later, and we started our second lap.  While the first lap had been nice and easy since I was stopping every few miles, the second lap got faster after we all re-grouped at the start/finish.  I guess we did about a lap and a half at a pretty good pace, splitting the group a couple of times so that by the end there were just four of us left.  We mostly re-grouped at the last turn and rode down to the start/finish before coming to the consensus that one more lap wasn't going to happen.  Sixty miles on that course is usually quite sufficient, actually, if one or two laps are done at a significant effort level.  Although there are only a couple of hills that you might call "climbs," this course is all up and down, offering virtually no flat sections for recovery or gap-closing.  Any time there are a couple of guys pushing the pace, the course seems to suddenly go from easy to hard.  So anyway, between Robin and me we got the course very well marked for next Saturday's road races, and after a stop at Starbucks we headed for the Causeway.

Now normally, when I have bikes on the roof of the Volvo, I can go through the 7 ft height sensor fast enough to not trip it and I get charged only the regular $3 rather than the $6 intended for trucks.  This time, I again went through undetected and the screen showed $3.00 as usual.  Then the damned toll-taker manually changed it to $6.  Really?  Of course, sitting there blocking traffic in order to argue with a toll booth operator is a pointless exercise, but I am seriously contemplating a letter to Carlton Dufrechou at the Causeway Commission about this ridiculous extra toll for having fifty pounds of bicycles on the roof instead of inside the car.  I know it's been brought up before on a number of occasions but I had always assumed that the toll-takers weren't able to change the toll and had to collect whatever was indicated.  Now I know that isn't the case and if they wanted to, they could set a policy of allowing rooftop bicycles through at the regular automobile rate.

Knowing I'd be missing a whole weekend of riding because of officiating the Tour I did a slightly longer and harder ride on Monday than my usual recovery ride.  This morning we did the regular long levee ride under some impressive clouds, and I was happy to have made it back home well before any of the rain started.  On the way to work I dropped off the Tour de La Race Bibles for printing.  They end up costing almost $2 each for 175 of them, and that's including my staff discount at the Tulane FedEx/Kinko location.  Meanwhile, pre-registrations are just starting to trickle in.  Although I am certainly guilty of waiting until the last minute to register for races myself, it sure is stressful when you see only a couple dozen riders registered less than a week before the race.  The Tour is probably the best deal around since we absorb the whole online registration fee, but maybe I overestimate the general public's ability to figure that out.  We also forgo the usual T-shirts and water bottles, instead putting the money into police, portable toilets, officials and moto-refs, and prizes.  Crazy, I know.   So I was looking at the 1974 article from Competitive Cyclist about the Tour de Louisiana and thinking about the guys who ended up finishing in the top places.  It's amazing how many of them are still racing and/or involved in racing.  These were the top 5 that year.

1. Tom Officer:  Three podiums at this year's Masters Nationals.
2. John Howard:  Need I say more about John Howard?  He has his own Wikipedia page.  Cycling Hall of Fame, Olympics, Ironman, etc., etc.
3. Dell Blundell:  Recently started up the Dino Riders South facebook page.
4. Mike Neal:  Cycling Hall of Fame, Olympics, national coach.  
5. David Ware:  National Champion.