September Already

September always seems complicated. After getting through our Age-graded road races I looked at my calendar and wondered how it is that everything seems to crash together around the end of September and beginning of October. Right now I've got Rocktoberfest weighing  heavily on my mind. We haven't done a road race in October in a while, and I am hoping there are enough riders out there to make it a decent race. In years past, I wouldn't be worried, but nowadays we have track races coming up, the Six Gap Century, promotions already beginning for the cyclocross season, the MS Tour, and a few other charity rides, plus the usual Fall season festivals to further complicate the landscape. As always this time of year, cash is short as well. At work, I'm expecting it to get really busy for me starting tomorrow as a couple of projects that have been stalled are now finally moving again.

All that were left from the big Saturday group. Spend a lot of time chasing TT bikes.

So last weekend the weather was unusually good.  A cool front finally made it through and after a cloudy Saturday morning we had a spectacular low-humidity weekend with temperatures largely in the 70s. On Saturday I decided to make the trip across the lake for one of the northshore rides, and was quite surprised to find maybe forty people there. Starting at Abita Springs we headed north toward Enon, taking Old Military Road up to Highway 40.  I don't think I'd ridden Old Military since it was repaved last year and riding it was really a trip down memory lane. Back in the 70s and 80s we had tons of road races that started and finished on Old Military at Pat O'Brien Road, including the Tour de Louisiane. In fact, the very first time I was thrust into the race organizer/official/promoter role for the Tour the road races started there. About mid-way through the road races a big thunderstorm moved in, bringing with it lots of horizontal rain and lightning. Officiating back then was basically me, a clipboard, and a mechanical stopwatch. Well, with a couple of laps still to go, this thunderstorm hits and soaks everything. We had no pop-up shelters, rain gear, cameras, computers, or even plastic bags. Then, with the pack just a few miles down the road we find out that one of the corners is totally flooded. I made a quick decision to finish the race and sent people running up the course to try and communicate that to the packs so they would hopefully sprint for an early finish and not drown at the next intersection.  Well, they all finished, but we couldn't write down times or race numbers because all the paper was soaked.  I scratched some of it into the wet paper anyway. The next morning we had a riders meeting and worked out the road race results by consensus. Such was road racing in the old days.

Tour de La Women, Pat O'brien Rd, at Old Military
with me in the background, around 1980 or so.

Anyway, I was surprised to find that, riding down that road, I remembered every little hill and every little curve and found myself looking for the old oak tree that I always used as a landmark about a mile before the finish. The weather got better and better, and the group smaller and smaller as we rode last Saturday. There were a few triathlon bikes in the mix and they and a couple others were keeping the pace brisk enough that I guess riders were starting to come off the back by the time we were on Fairhaven Road. Of the forty or so that started with us, I think we had about eight by the time we got to the turnaround on Lee Road.  We never saw any of the others again, so perhaps they did a different loop or turned back so early that they were gone by the time we got back. Anyway, it was a nice ride and I was glad I'd made the drive. I was feeling the need for a little terrain and scenery, and doing two back-to-back Giro Rides again didn't seem like much fun. Besides, with Candy in Baton Rouge for the weekend and Danielle at a wedding in Idaho, it didn't matter one bit when I left home or when I got back.

Sunday's weather was really, really nice, except for the wind which was significant.  There were a few other things going on that morning - the Pensacola stage race, an MS Tour training ride, etc., and I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised to find a particularly small group rolling out from Starbucks for the Sunday Giro. As it turned out, the ride was pretty fast despite the skeleton crew, and with the prior day's ride in the rolling  hills still in my legs, by the time I got back home I was already planning an easy recovery ride for today.