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.