East Meets West - Coming Together

A rare cool front came through earlier this week, and although the morning temperature has still been around 80F, the drop in humidity has everyone prematurely thinking about Fall.  Of course, we are still a very long and hot way from Fall around here, but the sensation of having sweat actually evaporate from my skin has been a welcome relief, however temporary.

The Tuesday/Thursday morning levee ride group, which has been recently disrupted and effectively evicted from its usual route because of the Corps of Engineers' work along the river, is finally starting to come back together as people figure out how and when and where they can meet up out on the lakefront.  For those of us coming from uptown it has meant an earlier 5:45 am start and a twenty minute trek through town, punctuated by a few stop lights on the way out and considerably more on the way back.  We have been hitting Lakeshore Drive right around 6:10, and then heading west to meet up with the Metairie/Kenner group that is heading east.  This morning there were a couple of people waiting around West End where the eastbound group meets the westbound group.  By the time we were all together heading back east on Lakeshore drive the group was probably up to a dozen or so.  The Strava Activity Playback shows it nicely, at least for those riders in the group who upload their rides to Strava.  The best thing about the playback is that you can figure out when the various groups pass key locations, which makes it a lot easier for everyone to eventually come together.

Any opportunity for a nap

This morning the weather was great with just a light breeze and still a noticeable remnant of the cool front. As we rode through City Park we spotted one of the Coyotes that have been living there and occasionally picking off pet dogs.  We had a nice long paceline going on the Lake Trail, both coming and going, so in many ways it was like being back on the river levee since there were a lot of the same riders.

Tomorrow we'll be meeting up at 6:30 at the Reily Center for the Friday Tulane coffee ride.  This is getting to be kind of a standard easy Friday ride out to the lakefront and back with a stop at Fair Grinds. This was one of the very first dedicated coffee shops that I came across back in the 80s, although it might have had a different name back then.  The current name is a play on "Fair Gounds" which is what the nearby horse racing track, and location of the Jazz Fest, is called.    A few of the Tulane riders are back in town, and there are a couple of new ones as well, so I hope a few of them can make it.  This will be the last free weekend for a while since the whole month of August is packed with LAMBRA races, most of which involve championships of one sort or another.

Rolling and Bowling

The Sunday Giro Meeting

Things have been rolling along pretty much on auto-pilot lately, which has actually been kind of a nice break from the usual chaos.  On Friday my office had a "Staff Retreat" in an apartment at the Lower Pontalba Building on Jackson Square. I'm sure these sorts of things are helpful for a lot of people, but personally they always seem a bit contrived.  I'm pretty sure The Baroness would never have tolerated such a thing. Afterward we headed over to Fulton Alley for some bowling and adult beverages. I have never been much of a bowler and in this case I was rather worried about my right shoulder which has never fully recovered from that crash that broke my collarbone.  As it turned out, it was only moderately painful, which unfortunately eliminated the only credible excuse I could come up with.  The net result of this unfettered, lopsided and unfamiliar activity was some moderate soreness and a pulled muscle somewhere on the inside of my leg that bugged me for the next three or four days.  It was probably a good thing that it rained Saturday morning so I didn't do the Giro Ride.

The Sunday Giro was good, with a pretty good turnout and relatively nice weather.  My memory of the ride itself is pretty much a total blank except that we had a new rider in the group who had recently moved here.  She is doing a Fellowship at LSUHSC in trauma and turned out to be a good rider with some solid abilities and track experience.

Since I knew it would be raining that morning I send out an email to see if anyone wanted to try out the WattBikes at the Tulane Cycling training center we've been putting together.  A number of people showed up and I ended up spending most of the day there, although I never actually did anything you could call "training."  I had wanted to see if we could set up a group ride on the WattBike software so that it would display everyone's data together on the big monitor, but the borrowed USB ANT+ dongle didn't seem to be cooperating.  I went ahead an ordered one for myself, which arrived yesterday, so I tried it out earlier today just to see if it worked.  It looks like it will work pretty well, although we definitely need to buy a cheap laptop to keep at the center for this sort of thing. Speaking of Tulane Cycling, we have been getting  a few inquiries lately from incoming students, which is great to see.  Hopefully we can hit the ground running this year and the training center will help keep some of the new riders from dropping out of sight once it starts getting cold and dark this winter.  It should be interesting.

So this week has been pretty standard, except for the fact that I rode out to the lake on Tuesday and Thursday instead of driving out to ride on the river levee.  On Tuesday, three of us met on Carrollton at Fontainbleau at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am, which unfortunately is likely to be the status quo for a while.  The reason is that we were meeting another small group, some of which were also exiles from the river levee rides, that was coming from Metairie.  The plan was to meet up somewhere on Lakeshore Drive or on the Lake Trail bike path.  That worked out pretty well, although we decided on the way back to change our route a bit so we could be sure to meet them on Lakeshore Drive in order to skip having to ride that extra bit on Robt. E. Lee.  We tried it again this morning and met the Metairie group right at the west end of Lakeshore Drive at about 6:10 I guess, which was perfect timing. We had a good 42 mile ride and I got home just a bit before 8:00, so this plan should work OK until the levee is finished, if I live that long.

Stuff you see around a university

On Wednesday I again rode out to meet the WeMoRi.  I am finding it really hard jumping into that ride and going from 18 mph to 30 mph all of a sudden.  It takes me half of the lap around City Park to recover from that.  Anyway, it's still a better workout than I'd likely do my myself. Since they ride so early I have to leave home at 5:45, and as a result I'm on my way back home a lot earlier than usual.  This time I decided to stop at Starbucks on the way back, which was nice.  I can see that becoming a regular stop for me on Wednesdays if I keep doing this.  Once it starts getting darker in the morning I may have to re-think my options, however. Tomorrow I'm meeting Ben at 6:15 for an easy coffee ride out to the lakefront.  We are planning on meeting up with a new medical student who just moved to town from Colorado and seems susceptible to being talked into doing some collegiate racing.

At some point recently we finally got notification that the NOBC's 501(c)3 status had been re-instated by the IRS.  That took a couple of years to happen after we lost it because nobody knew we were supposed to start sending in tax returns a few years back.  Luckily we have an ex-president who is a CPA and was able to deal with them for us.

Midsummer Lull, Another Fatality

As often happens in July, there is a bit of a lull in the racing scene around here as both riders and promoters take a little break from the summer heat. My usual morning routine is also in a state of flux as we all try to figure out what and when and where we can best replicate the levee training rides that have been a fixture for over ten years now.

So last weekend, after a fairly routine and not particularly fast Giro Ride on Saturday, I headed across the lake Sunday morning for a club training ride.  We would be starting half an hour earlier than the more traditional 8:00 am in deference to the expected temperature, although as it turned out the morning temperature was a bit less oppressive than usual.  The turnout for this 65 mile ride was pretty thin, which I guess I'll attribute to riders either taking an easy weekend or taking the opportunity to do their own rides with small groups.  Anyway, we had a really nice ride that was mostly at a moderate but steady pace.  Back at the Lee Road Junior High parking lot I stopped to take pictures of the fledgling barn swallows nesting under the shelter in front of the school.

The bike path on the levee was supposed to be closed by Tuesday, although as far as I know it is still open.  River Road, however, is definitely closed where the pipes are being put underneath it.  I've reluctantly decided to give up driving out to Harahan in order to ride on the bike path in the morning.  It is just eating up too much ride time.  So on Tuesday I met a couple of other riders on Carrollton near S. Claiborne to ride out to the lakefront and put in a few miles on the Lake Trail bike path.  Unfortunately I had to turn back early because of a morning meeting.  On Wednesday I rode out to meet the WeMoRi again, rather fortunately missing the part along Lakeshore Drive in a crosswind that shattered much of the group.

On Thursday a few of us met up at Fontainbleau and Carrollton for another trip out to the lakefront bike path.  We left early, around 5:45 am, in order to meet up with another group that was riding from the west.  We met them right at the start of the bike path, where we turned around to do a lap of Lakeshore Drive before heading back to the bike path and riding that all the way out to the Casino at Williams Blvd.  It all worked out pretty well, although next time we'll probably just go straight to Lakeshore Drive and catch the Metairie group there.  I got back home just a bit after 8 am with 40-odd miles, which was similar to what we were doing on the river levee, so that was good.

On Thursday afternoon I learned about a cyclist fatality that happened downtown at St. Claude and Elysian Fields.  A rider who had been riding normally in the bike lane was crushed by the rear wheels of a tractor-trailer that took a right turn in front of him.  Let me just take a moment to reinforce the advice I always give to riders.  Never, ever let yourself get between a truck and the curb anywhere near an intersection.  This is one of the most common ways that riders are killed in metro areas.  In this case, there was a separate right turn lane that the truck did not take, which probably made the cyclist think that the truck was continuing straight and that it was OK to be momentarily between the truck and the curb.  However, the truck then turned right past the turn lane and the cyclist was trapped and caught by the sweep of the rear wheels.  One of the local guys who is closely involved with Plan B was right behind the truck and saw the whole thing and took photos immediately afterward.  I felt I should blur out the more disturbing part of the photo before posting it here, but on the other hand I thought it important that people see the outcome of this sort of thing.  The truck driver was not charged with anything at the time.  Very sad, and very disturbing for those of us who spend a lot of time riding in the city.  Naturally everyone wants to point fingers at who was at fault, and it is certainly clear that the truck driver deserves a large share of blame for being so negligent and careless, even if it might have been difficult for him to see the cyclist in his mirrors.  He was, in fact, crossing a bike lane at a place where nobody would have expected him to be turning.

Farther Upriver

I drove out to the Thursday levee ride early this morning.  There had been signs advising that River Road would be closed today about a mile farther upriver from where we've been starting lately and there was a good chance that the bike path would also be closed at that point.  They are getting ready to run some big drainage pipes under River Road and then across the levee there, and a closure of both River Road and the bike path is imminent.  Once that happens, my options will be severely limited.  Riding around the construction site will not be particularly convenient and as it stands now I'm about at the end of my rope anyway.  The drive time right now is costing me around half an hour of precious morning ride time, not to mention the hassle of loading the bike in and out of the car, changing shoes, etc.  I think I'll probably be riding out toward the lake every day soon.  It would be nice if we could get a group together that could ride out from someplace uptown at the relatively reasonable hour of 6:15 or 6:30.

So anyway, today's ride was fairly steady except when Robert and maybe Mark would surge at the front.  We are still enjoying slightly lower morning temperatures than normal for this time of year, which is to say it hasn't been above 80F. It doesn't last long, but it's nice while it does. With little to no wind today, the group stayed together despite the occasional surges, and the steady speed meant I was hearing that irritating creak starting to reappear down around my bottom bracket.  I can only surmise, based on the copious amount of grease I slathered around the bearings a couple of weeks ago, that it may be coming from the interface between the bottom bracket shell and the pressed-in BB30 bearing housings.  I really don't want to have to pull those, and it's been suggested that a liberal application of WD-40 might be worth a try, but in the meantime I'm just trying to ignore it.  We're hoping to get a northshore ride together for Sunday since there's nothing really on the race calendar until August.

On the Tulane Cycling front, getting the last little things wrapped up has been kind of like pulling teeth.  I need keys for three of the interior doors.  I've explained that to the architect months ago, the facilities services guys a month ago, and the locksmith a couple of weeks ago.  Today I get an email from the locksmith saying there are five interior doors and he doesn't have keys for any of them.  No kidding. So I go through the explanation again.  Keys for the three doors on the left.  Shouldn't this be a simple thing for a locksmith?  Then I'm trying to order twenty stack chairs.  The place from which I want to order them just drops them off from the back of the truck.  That wouldn't be too much of a problem except there's not an obvious place to do that at University Square, which used to be a small shopping center.  So I ask Purchasing if I can have them delivered to them and then transported over here.  I get a response that depends on the kind of truck they will be delivered from.  If I knew the answer to that question I wouldn't have had to ask in the first place. The signage for the door is on indefinite hold because the computer that they use to control the machine that makes the signs apparently got replaced with one that requires upgraded software that they don't have yet. Two steps forward, one step back.  Situation normal.

One little ray of light lately was the news that we finally got the NOBC's 501(c)3 tax-exempt status re-instated by the IRS after having it revoked because nobody was submitting tax returns when they started requiring that a few years ago for organizations with under $25k/year in revenue.  The tax return for us doesn't even include any financial information.  It's just like saying, "yeah, were're still  here and still not bringing in more than $25k per year."

Wheel-Surfing in Cajun Country

I was looking forward to the annual Vuelta d' Acadiana over in Lafayette last weekend.  For a change, I wouldn't have any officiating or promoting responsibilities and could just be a bike racer.  Well, almost.  I did need to get the LAMBRA race clock and generator over there in time for registration, and since I couldn't leave until Saturday morning that meant a 4 am wake-up in order to be on the road arount 4:30.  Turnout from the club was going to be a little low.  The women's team had four riders registered, but there were only two of us in the master's race and Steve was only a possibility for the Cat. 4 race.

The first stage was a 3.8 mile time trial on a new course. The night before I'd decided to snap on the larger of the two fairings that fit onto the back of my Giro time trial helmet.  This generally termed "grasping at straws."  Riding a regular road bike with just clip-on aero bars and a TT helmet doesn't provide a lot of confidence when you're standing there in line between guys with expensive time trial bikes, especially when you're not exactly in top shape anyway.  So the first thing I discovered was that the fairing made it nearly impossible to lift my head enough to see where I was going.  The second thing I discovered was that I felt faster when I wasn't looking where I was going.  So I did the TT mostly looking at the white line on the edge of the road. I'd been expecting the headwind to be a major factor, but it turned out to be only a minor issue.  I got a good start, rolled it up to about 25 mph, and wasn't really willing to push it much past that.  Since this was a points-based omnium I'd need to be in the top ten to get any points, and I didn't really think that was very likely.  I placed 13th with an average speed of 25.0, but on the plus side, it hadn't taken much out of me and I felt kind of good about it despite the relatively slow time.

The second stage on Saturday was the criterium, which was just around the corner from the hotel where I was staying with Bob and the women's team.  We stopped for lunch, checked into the hotel, and I went over to the criterium course to set up the club's tent.  Since it was still quite early, I got a spot under a tree right across from the finish line.  The women's race was one of the first.  Within a lap or two the race was already coming apart with Stephanie Smith and Amy Floyd hammering off the front and Mignon and Mary stuck in-between them and the disintegrating pack.  Pretty quickly, Stephanie dropped Amy and Mignon and Mary got together.  Behind them, Sherri and another rider got together.  Stephanie then proceeded to lap everyone except Amy.  Migon finished 4th and Sherri 5th with Roberta 7th and Alison 8th. 

The Masters field was once again rather small with only 16 riders on the line. There were about six riders from Texas, so I figured the Acadiana team would have a harder time than usual. I quickly saw that there were a number of guys who were willing and able to chase down the breaks, so I figured my best (probably only) bet was to surf wheels at the back and plan on a pack sprint.  The Acadiana guys were still working the front and there were two breaks that looked like they might stick, but fortunately everything was pulled back as we neared the end of the 50 minute race.  With three laps to go I decided to get back into the race and worked my way up to second or third wheel with two laps to go.  Things got a little shuffled at the beginning of the bell lap and I was maybe sixth wheel coming into the final turn. Although I couldn't quite come around the guy in 3rd before the line, I was happy to feel my sprint legs starting to come around. The average speed was a bit over 24 mph with the sprint topping out at 34.2. You can watch the video of the whole criterium, but you won't see all that much of me in it!

Sunday was a 50-mile, 3-lap road race on the same course we've used for the past few years.  The points for my 4th place in the criterium had me around 7th, I think, in the omnium.  I thought that the road race would probably go down sort of like the criterium had and that if a break went off the front it would be more because they were really fast than because they had a lot of teammates blocking in the pack.  Even better, Kenny had decided to do the Masters road race rather than the Cat. 1/2/3 race.  I knew he wouldn't sit around while a break rolled off the front.  So once again my convenient strategy was to surf wheels at the back and roll the dice on another pack finish.  The first lap, and especially the second lap, were actually pretty fast with a number of attacks. The last really serious attempt at a break came just after the feed zone and the right-hand turn where I crashed two years ago.  That attack very nearly did the trick, but fortunately there were enough riders willing to work that it was reeled in.  After that one I think the Acadiana guys figured a pack sprint was inevitable and the pace eased up a bit. All this time I had been way at the back of the pack. When we got to the feed zone about three miles from the finish things started to get a little messy as everybody wanted to get up near the front.  I should have been a little more assertive here but I never got close enough to the front before the sprint started.  I had relatively fresh legs but ended up kind of stuck in traffic without ever really standing up and sprinting.  So I ended up 7th in the Road Race and 7th overall.  Not great, but it was a fun weekend anyway and it did provide a bit of a confidence boost after my disappointing result at the Harbor Master race.