Fall Cyclocross and Collegiate

Last Sunday the LSU folks up the river put on a Louisiana collegiate ride day up around St. Francisville. The weather around here has been pretty spectacular lately, especially if you are willing to put up with a little wind, and so turnout for the ride was surprisingly good. Just a couple of years ago a similar effort drew maybe ten riders.

This year, Tulane alone brought about ten and when we arrived at the start I was a little shocked to find what looked like a sufficient crowd for a local race. I counted at least forty riders as we rolled out. The route was set up so that we did a first loop of around 40 miles, and then a second loop of about thirty. For the first part we regrouped a number of times since there were a few riders who were pretty new to it, but in general it went remarkably smoothly. I guess about half of the group stopped after the first loop while the remainder stopped for a few minutes and then took off on the second loop. I had only a rough idea of where we were going, myself, but the pace wasn't super fast or anything and so I was hanging out near the back most of the time looking at the scenery, which was actually pretty great. Down here in southern Louisiana we are just beginning to get the first hints of fall.  There are a few leaves falling from the trees and the mornings are getting a little cooler, but suffice it to say I have yet to go in search of my knee-warmers.

So anyway, we were probably a good 60 miles into our 73 mile ride when the asphalt gave way to gravel and a couple of the guys at the front kind of put the hammer down. I lagged behind both because I wanted to keep track of anyone who came off the back and because it was too much effort to get my eyes to focus on the road at speeds above 15 mph or so.

As I looked at the front of the group riding off into the distance I thought to myself, "someone is going to either crash or flat."  A couple of miles later I came up on Jaden on the side of the road just before a little bridge as the rest of the group was circling back. He had broken a spoke in his 16-spoke Shimano front wheel.  He had also flatted his rear wheel.  We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere on an unpaved road and we had to walk to the bridge just to get cellphone reception. We took out the brake shoes and loosened up a couple of spokes to the point where the wobble was just barely clearing the fork blades, changed the tube, and debated the wisdom of trying to ride it out. After a few pedal strokes he decided to call for extraction, so the rest of us continued on. A mile or two later, on another gravel road, Ben Spain flatted his rear wheel.  We stopped and fixed it, rode another mile, and he flatted his front wheel. Basically, those last ten miles cost us about half an hour. Nonetheless, it was a great ride.

The rest of this week was just routine training, largely in the dark, with a missed day yesterday because of a work-related day of meetings with someone from PCORI. It went pretty well, but of course it's a fair deal of work and stress dealing with everything from posters to catering to trips to the airport.

This Sunday will be the first race of the cyclocross series so I will be heading up to Baton Rouge early to officiate that and maybe ride a couple of laps just for the exercise. Meanwhile, it sounds like my Bianchi made it back from wherever the folks at Bicycle World sent it to get the brake cable stops fixed. We're trying out a 5.5cm stem on Danielle's CAAD-10 this week. It's only a 10-degree, so it raises the bar more than I'd like but it seems to be a lot better on her neck because of the shorter reach so we may stick with that for a while.  Perhaps I can find some 36 cm bars with a deeper drop.