Winter Collegiate Races

Last weekend I made the long drive over to San Marcos, Texas for the Texas State Ultra collegiate races with the Tulane team. We had three mini-vans for this one, all packed to the gills with bikes, wheels, riders and pretty much every shred of cold-weather riding clothing available. My car left NOLA around 11:30 (the plan had been for 9 am but it took over an hour to actually pick up the minivans from Enterprise and then we had to squeeze 4 bikes, 4 people, and numerous wheels in there. It was like a game of Tetris. Since these were the "short" or standard-size minivans, only two bikes will fit with their rear wheels still on, and only by sticking the rear of the bike in-between the two rear seats. Both wheels had to be removed from the other two bikes, and then wheels get slotted in-between bikes. Anyway, the drive up there was pretty nice and we arrived in time to eat at the local Mexican place around the corner from the hotel. The other two minivans didn't leave NOLA until after 4 pm, so they didn't arrive until something like 2 am.

The morning temperature for the start of the road races was around 32F, so we stopped first at the local Starbucks and then headed across the Interstate to the back of a big shopping mall where registration was supposed to be. As I approached, however, I saw a long line of cars with bikes coming out of the parking lot, so I followed them until they turned into a dead-end street. Turned out the race didn't quite have permission to use the parking lot at the shopping  mall. There was a light rain falling as we found a place to park and learned that the start had been pushed back one hour. Registration was done with the official sitting in her car registering people through the car window. We hung out in our cars with the engines running for the next hour.

Early break in the Women B/C race

Kenny and I had planned on following the Cat. A race. To be more precise we planned on drafting off of the Cat. A race follow car. The Cat. A race started last, and as they lined up we realized that Ben's spare wheels had mistakenly been put into the Cat. B or C follow car. Kenny and I left on our bikes before the A race started, and started riding backwards around the course. Eventually we met the A race, but by the time we turned around and got going we were hopelessly off the back. We rode back around to the finish line and got to see the finish of the B Women (Danielle won) and then I got a ride so we could try and get Ben's wheels into the proper follow car. We drove backwards around the course and finally flagged down one follow car, pulled out the wheels, and then flagged down the A follow car, which was inexplicably three minutes behind the A pack because they thought they were supposed to follow the last rider.  We put the wheels in the car and told them to go follow the pack. I got in some more miles before going back to the finish to see the A race sprint (Ben got 3rd). The 2 pm time trial was supposed to be this awesome hill climb but they changed it because I guess they thought people would spin out their rear wheels, so it ended up being a little 2 mile slightly uphill TT that was pretty confusing. The start line consisted of one official, one stopwatch, and a start line. There was no start list so riders were starting more or less randomly whenever they showed up, since the change to the start location and time had everyone pretty confused. When Danielle got back she said she had thrown her sunglasses off to the side of the road because she couldn't see (it was still in the 30s and there was a cold mist falling), so once the start line cleared I borrowed a bike and rode along the course looking for them. I was shocked when a couple of A riders then came blasting past me ... on the right. Apparently they had just shown up at the start line and were started. Our rider had rushed to get to the start when he thought he was supposed to be starting quite a while earlier. Anyway, someone had turned in the sunglasses so we go them the at the Crit.

So on Sunday the conditions for the criterium were essentially the same.  Very cold and wet.  The B/C women started around 8 am on a very short technical course that was mostly in the parking lot of a high school. Danielle split the field early but the other two women in the break didn't want to work so it mostly came back together. Then she attacked the last lap and opened a huge gap. She had the race in the bag approaching the last turn when she came up on a lapped rider (wearing running shoes) and had to change her line at the last minute, and ended up crashing on a paint stripe, so I think she ended up around 5th as a result. The officials pretty much just sat in their car in the parking lot and scored the races through the windshield, so Kenny and I ended up handling the lap cards, bell, etc. Ben Spain won his race, which was great. The last race was the A race which was only 20 minutes (collegiate rules require 60). Ben B. attacked toward the end and opened a big gap, only to slide out on a wet off-camber turn. Luckily he could still get a free lap, so he was back in the race but with only a few laps left to go it really took the wind out of his sails.

The ride back home was rough. It was great that we were able to leave so early, which should have put us back in New Orleans by 9:30 or so, but then we rain into torrential rain all the way from Lafayette to almost LaPlace and so spent literally hours going 30-40 mph on the interstate. I had to unclench my hands from the steering wheel a few times. We didn't arrive back home until around 11:00, which by collegiate race standards was still rather early. Next weekend we're heading up to Arkansas where the forecast is calling for lows in the teens but at least no rain.