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.....