April

There is just so much going on in April. Years ago we used to hold the Tour de La in April, but we eventually pushed it farther back into June because there were just too many competing events and activities in April. Well, that and the fact that two of our club presidents around that time were CPAs and CPAs don't even come up for air until June. For me, it's been really busy.

First, there was the road trip with the Tulane team to Collage Station at the end of March. I had brought the bike with plans to get in some miles during the road race, but they had only one or two follow cars. The course included a couple of miles of gravel, so I knew there would be lots of flats. I volunteered to drive one of our minivans behind the Women's B race. I ended up picking up two people on each lap, neither from the race I was supposed to be following. The gravel road was literally lined with riders walking or trying to fix flats or just waiting for a ride back to the finish line. I had to rush to catch back up to the women each time and for the last lap I didn't stop for anybody from other races so I could stay with them.

This weekend was the MSU Velo de Viento in Wichita Falls. I'd intended to go to the MSU race but had to instead drive up to Jonesboro, AR for a work-related conference Wednesday through Friday. That turned out to be an easy 7-hour drive, but of course cost me two days off the bike. I'd already taken Monday as a rest day since the prior week was over 300 miles. I was thinking I'd be able to make up for it over the weekend, though. Well, the weather had other plans. I went out to meet the Giro Ride at Starbucks Saturday morning in the rental car I'd taken to Arkansas. The plan was to do the Giro then drop off the car and ride back home from the car rental place. So I head out a little after 6 am, get almost to Starbucks, and realize I've forgotten my shoes. I rush back home to pick them up and head out again, but now it's starting to rain. I probably wouldn't have even ridden if it hadn't been for the car rental thing. There were only a few people at Starbucks, of course, but we headed out anyway with the plan to do a short Giro. The whole way out along Lakeshore Drive and Hayne I'm getting sprayed with water and feeling generally miserable, so I turned around at the end of Hayne, rode back to Starbucks, returned the car, and rode home.  A couple of hours later the sky was almost clear and the roads were drying so I threw the bike in the car, picked up some road marking paint, and drove across the lake to Enon to mark the road course for next weekend's Tulane "Green Wave Classic" collegiate race. I rode the course once with a can of green paint to mark all of the corners, which used up that can. Then I switched to a can of orange paint and rode most of it again to mark the potholes on Dummyline Road. I ran out of paint before I got to the end of the 2-mile stretch of bad road. Then I got the last can of green paint and put a mark on the finish line, rolled off 200 meters and marked that, and rode back 1 kilometer and marked that. Then I loaded up again and drove over to the time trial course at Lakeshore High where I started my Garmin and car odometer and found the 3-mile finish spot.  The old mark from last year was still there, barely, but it's really hard to find from a car, so I hammered in a stake and painted the top green so the finish line officials will be able to find it next Sunday (if it's still there). By then it was starting to cloud up again, but I was glad to have gotten in 65 miles for the day.  We still have a lot of loose ends to tie up for the Tulane race, and I'm a little worried about having to sort out the final conference points in order to make those awards.

This morning it was raining so I didn't even get out of bed. I probably could have gone out for a ride around 3 pm but would probably have gotten wet anyway. The forecast for the rest of the week isn't looking all that good. Meanwhile, over in Wichita Falls, the Tulane riders had a fairly good race despite the usual 25 mph winds. At least they avoided the rain. Danielle had upgraded to Cat. A the week before to try and score more team points, and so had pretty much jumped into the deep end since they were racing with the Cat. B men who, by this time of the season, were pretty aggressive.