Under the Weather

I knew it was going to happen.  I caught a cold some time during our little Disneycation and for the past few days have been more miserable than someone standing in a 120 minute queue on a hot summer day for a ride down Space Mountain. There was a long list of things I wanted to do over the holidays, but it's looking like few of them will actually get done. In-between doses of cold medicine I was able to sit through the annual New Rules Webinar and Safe Sport Refresher courses, taking the brief tests afterward and presumably satisfying my official's license CEU requirements for next year. I also renewed my USAC rider and officials licenses and submitted the required background check information, and renewed my NOBC club membership, so at least all that's taken care of. My officials license is still showing up as "pended" due to a CEU requirement, but I'm assuming that's because everybody's on vacation.

On the new rules front, I was glad to see that they have finally changed the wording in the stage race rules so that the smaller stage races that don't use timing chips/cameras can specify how they will do pack timing.  We haven't ever complied with the older inflexible 1-second rule since it's neither feasible nor fair anyway. I'm way behind on a lot of LAMBRA stuff, and need to get some input on the annual meeting since we have some significant proposed revisions to the bylaws to consider and we are overdue for an election of officers. I kind of hate to have the meeting here since it would be a long trip for some people (i.e. they probably won't come). Guess I'll have to make some phone calls since email hasn't really gotten me much of a response.

Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here being alternately cold and hot, with a runny nose and scratchy throat, looking at the newly-arrived $3k+ property tax bill, the same gloomy sky we've had for the past couple of days, and the collection of potholes and patches outside the window that is supposed to be a city street. It's all a little depressing.

Happy Place?

There were a few things I knew from the outset.  It would be long and painful. I would be off the bike for nearly a week. It would be expensive, and I would probably end up sick.  I'm talking, of course, about a visit to the happiest place on earth, Disney World, and I was correct on all four counts.

We headed out from New Orleans for the long drive down to Orlando at around 6 am on a Monday morning. Meanwhile Danielle and Shannon were flying from Seattle to meet us there. I almost never make long drives on weekdays, and was a little surprised how easy it was. Even the notorious I-4 stretch was relatively sane as we approached Orlando at around 4:30 pm.

Just checking.....

This was the first time I'd been to Disney World since they started using RFID chips for everything. My little wristband held the key to our hotel room, our park admission, Fastpass reservations, etc.  We decided against linking our credit card to it, but that was also an option. Since Candy had bought the park "tickets" online through Orbitz when she'd arranged for the flights from and to Seattle, and then had added an extra day of room reservations at the last minute, things got a little confused and we had to get new wristbands after the first day, which involved multiple locations and multiple people, but it finally got done.  Our first day was actually at Universal Studios rather than a Disney park, although they are practically indistinguishable. The crowds weren't very bad, which I found surprising since I had been expecting the worst. Still, there were the usual long periods of standing in lines. Day two was mostly at Animal Kingdom, followed by Epcot, which was actually quite nice. We didn't really have much of a plan, but Danielle had downloaded the Disney App (which is pretty impressive) and gotten Fastpasses for some of the key attractions. I was amazed that the entire park had solid cellular, data, and even wireless connectivity, and I can't even begin to imagine how many point-of-sale transactions they are processing every minute. The behind the scenes data network infrastructure is always the most amazing part of Disney World to me.

We stopped to eat at the English pub, where I had a stout along with my hamburger and chips. The hit for four people was over $100, of course. We returned there for the fireworks show because there's a little patio area down behind the pub that's right on the water and is one of the best places to watch the fireworks show since few people know about it and even fewer can figure out how to get down there. All this time I'm thinking how the parks are less crowded than I'd expected, considering the holidays.

Spectacular as usual

Well, Christmas day we got up early and took the Disney bus (they run about 400 buses!) to the Magic Kingdom.  It was packed. I've been to Disneyworld a few times over the years, but this was the most crowded I'd ever seen it. After a couple of hours Danielle and Shannon bailed and went back to the hotel for a while while we soldiered on, waiting in some long lines since the only Fastpasses we had were for later in the evening. We ended up eating a dinner of hot dogs and fries, sitting on the sidewalk, waiting for one of the parades to start, where we met back up with Danielle and Shannon. We were able to knock out a couple of rides like Space Mountain with our Fastpasses before the big electric light parade started, which was nice but of course really, really crowded. Then we hit a few more rides before finally heading back to the hotel around 11 pm. We didn't stay for the midnight fireworks.  There was a fair amount of traffic for the drive back on Saturday, but it wasn't too bad and we were back home by 5 pm.  This morning I woke up with a sore throat.  I knew my chances of making it through the trip without getting sick were slim. Aside from the thousands of snotty-nosed kids running around the theme parks, Candy, with whom I'd spent about 18 hours in the car, had been working through a cold for the past week and Danielle was kind of sick on Friday. All I can do now is hope for the best, but at least the Christmas in Disneyworld trip is behind me.

The Long Sunday Giro

Pat threw out the suggestion that we do a long Sunday Giro Ride a few days ago. From home, the regular Giro Ride, like the one I did yesterday, works out to about 62 miles for me. The long Giro adds about 30 to that total. It didn't take me long to sign on to this ride, though. It's looking like I'll be off the bike for a week because of holiday travel, so it wasn't going to matter much if I had sore legs while sitting in the car on Monday. I just noticed that this is my 2,001st blog post, which I guess is some kind of milestone. Speaking of which, it's looking like I won't be making 12,000 miles this year. I've logged 11,665 this year and I guess I will add another hundred or two after I get back to town. Given the missed weekends in the early spring when I was travelling with the Tulane team, I think it will still be a respectable mileage total. I've logged somewhere between 11k and 13k each year for probably the last ten years, at least.

So this morning it was still pretty chilly - somewhere in the upper 40s I think - with a significant wind out of the east.  Knowing I'd be doing the long ride, and that the temperature would probably be near 60 by the time we got back, I dressed a bit less warmly than I might have otherwise.  It made the ride out to Starbucks kind of cold, but really not all that bad. There will be some much colder days to come, I'm sure. The ride out to Slidell seemed very controlled. I guess we had around 15 riders who made the long ride, and for most of the way it was just smooth rotating paceline into the wind. When we got to the gas station in Slidell where we always stop, I lifted the bike over a curb and when I put it down I heard a strange sound. The front wheel had a ton of play in it and I thought that the Mavic hub bearing locknut (I use the term loosely) had come loose. I borrowed a multi-tool and tried to tighten it, but it seemed tight, and when I put the wheel back on everything was normal.  I think that although the quick-release seemed locked down OK, it was somehow hung up on something. I'd taken the front wheel off the night before when I was cleaning the bike, so I must not have put it back on properly.  Kind of scary since that fork doesn't have lawyer tabs on it. It still seems like kind of a mystery, however. Very unusual.

The ride back into town got pretty fast. Faster than I thought it would, in fact. We were still working a paceline, but the closer we got to the city the more people started getting out of the rotation and sitting on the back. I was one of them. My legs had felt sore from the start, and by the time we were about 75 miles in, they were starting to be a problem. That's when I started looking for a little more shelter. Anyway, it was a pretty good ride, and although my legs were a bit achy at the end, I was glad I'd made it.

Drugs of Choice

Pulled on the long tights and threw on a wind vest this morning. There's still a strong wind blowing - it's been four days now - although it's shifted now to the east northeast, which, around here, means it's on its way out. It was 41 when I went out to meet the Giro Ride group at Starbucks, and all I could think about was the cup of hot coffee I was going to get when I arrived. Although I rarely have more than one cup a day, my brain clearly rewired itself long ago to tolerate nothing less. Earlier in the week we learned that Bobby Lea was suspended because of a positive drug test for noroxycodone, a metabolite of oxycodone. He's a track rider who was in the last Olympics, and while learning of a track rider failing a drug test isn't the most surprising thing I can think of, I was a little perplexed by the drug of choice in this case. Bobby promptly sent an explanation that he had taken Percocet because he was trying to sleep and didn't realize it would cause a positive drug test, which is a bit of a stretch for an athlete at that level, but I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, all I know is the only time I've been given prescriptions for narcotics like that has been for things like pulled wisdom teeth and broken bones. I suppose it helped me sleep under the circumstances.

Anyway, the Giro was kind of slow and grueling on the way out to the east, and after we got onto Chef Highway I found myself way at the back sitting on Daniel's wheel.  He was staying out the the rotating paceline and I was fine with that.  The way back, as expected, got pretty fast leading up to the Goodyear sign sprint and generally any time we got the full benefit of the tailwind.

Today, after getting a start on the LAMBRA website calendar page for 2016, which I'll be putting up tomorrow with or without some of the races that haven't gotten back to me yet, we went over to Martin Wine Cellar.   Candy had a gift card that got us enough to make it through the week.  Like coffee in the morning, my brain fully expects a glass, or two, of wine every evening.

In fact, it's getting to be that time now.....

Abbreviated

My ride this morning was a bit abbreviated. The cold front that came through overnight dumped a fair amount of rain, but looking out the window at 5:20 am I could see the streets were nearly dry.  I could also see the wind blowing the trees around. Surprisingly, the temperature was still a notch above 60F, so I headed out in shorts, jersey and arm-warmers, which was a good call. I hadn't checked the weather to see how strong the wind was blowing, and of course you never really feel it too much riding through the neighborhoods where it's blocked by houses. Even so, I knew it was going to be a very windy ride. Out at the end of Nashville Avenue I waited with Rick Aubry a few extra minutes hoping someone else would materialize. Didn't happen. So it was just the two of us riding straight into what turned out to be a gusty 15 mph wind blowing straight out of the north.  As we were slogging toward the lake at speeds in the 15 mph range I wondered if anyone would be there when we arrived. I knew the bike path along the lake out in Metairie and Kenner would probably still be wet from the levee runoff, and combined with the wind I wasn't surprised to find only a couple of people out on Lakeshore Drive.

We headed off for a lap anyway, with Jim setting the pace at the front and the rest of us trying to eschelon up against the curb. The gusty crosswind made it especially difficult to maintain a straight line, but the wind still made you want to tuck into the draft as tightly as possible. Fortunately the pace was moderate. When we came around the traffic circle at Elysian Fields we were surprised to find the far end kind of flooded. One of the storm drains there is apparently clogged up. I rode through about four inches of water as most of us eased up for a bit. Heading back along the lake there were a few sections where the waves were spraying water onto the road, and a few more where the right lane was full of water. By the time we got back to West End I was more than ready to head back home. My backside was soaked from the wheelspray and the crosswind wasn't making it any fun at all, so Rick and I headed back.

Since it was earlier than usual, I suggested we take Canal Blvd. rather than the circuitous route we usually take. I was curious to see if that might be a better route than Marconi and Harrison since that's where the detour traffic has been going since the Wisner bridge was closed.  Well, that didn't work out too well. Even though we were about 45 minutes earlier than usual, traffic on Canal Blvd. was heavier and faster than I expected. It seemed like most of the drivers were turning onto the interstate, but were already getting up to speed on Canal.

Guess we'll stick with Marconi.

Change and Adaptation

"Lakefront first or City Park first?"  The response to my query came at 4:43 am. "Lakeshore first ,....after that ...there was no consensus??!!!" It was the first WeMoRi since the Wisner bridge was closed and the flurry of mostly smart-ass emails in the preceding days had done little to settle the key question of how the route would adapt. Not having everyone on the same page for a fast group ride in the dark on city streets seemed like a recipe for disaster, but I went out anyway, meeting the group near Marconi and Lakeshore Drive. I really had no idea how the group's route would change, and apparently I wasn't alone.  As I soon came to realize, they were kind of making things up as they went along. We crossed Robert E. Lee and continued down Marconi, past Harrison and under the interstate, over the broken up concrete, finally making a U-turn, amid cacophonous warnings, just before City Park Avenue. From there it was all the way back to Lakeshore drive, then east around the fountain, and back to Marconi. At that point, any form of consensus that might have existed earlier apparently expired. Nobody had really thought through the rest of the ride, or perhaps they had all thought through it and arrived at different conclusions. A few people turned right. I waited for the rest of the group and the decision was to turn and take Wisner down to Harrison and then back around to Marconi, which worked out fine. As expected, there were a few cars backed up behind the group, which was already in cool-down mode, by the time we got to Marconi. I'm sure it will take a couple more weeks for the new route to stabilize.  Change is hard, especially when nobody's in charge.

The somewhat shorter route had me arriving at Starbucks few minutes earlier than usual where I was surprised to find the outdoor patio cleared of furniture and with a freshly applied new floor finish. I wonder if we'll see new furniture too once it's all put back together. Inside, I heard someone say, "Hey Randy" and looked over to see Pat Farrell. He had to run off right away so we didn't get to talk much, however. I stayed just long enough to finish my coffee, making it home well before the first pre-cold-front rain shower started. There's more rain in the forecast, especially for this afternoon, and then of course the temperature will drop again, but this morning I rode in just summer shorts and jersey. When it was time to head to work the rain had stopped but the streets were wet and, in consideration of the forecast, I took the car.

Recovering from CX

That little hour riding around the cyclocross course in Baton Rouge last Sunday is still with me. As always seems to be the case when I fall, one side of my neck is still sore to the touch. There's a dull off-and-on headache on once side of my head that is either from that or from sinus irritation. Then there are the other aches and pains that were related more to riding and running than falling, although for me that latter two are sometimes indistinguishable to the untrained eye.

This morning I was a little surprised to see the thermometer at 51F.  I thought the forecast had been for something more like 54, not that three degrees would have mattered much except psychologically. This morning we tried taking the Lafitte Greenway bike path from Jeff. Davis, since the Wisner overpass is now closed and we would need to find out way over to Marconi anyway. That was OK, although of course there was still the very rough stretch from City Park Avenue to the underpass. Out at the lake there was a pretty big group that came together, and still feeling kind of achy I quickly decided to just hang around at the back.

Right after the turnaround out in Kenner my phone rang. A phone call at that hour of the morning is never a good thing. By the time I got it out of my pocket it had already gone to voicemail, but I could see it had come from my father. I had to sit up and remove my glove in order to check the voicemail, and by the time I was finished with that the group was long gone. Fortunately, there was practically no wind, so I just rolled back into town at 19 mph or so. It was a pretty morning with the temperature in the low 50s, so it was kind of nice to be riding solo. I probably needed another recovery day anyway.

Traffic on Marconi coming back was much heavier than usual and of course there were now a lot of cars coming down Harrison Avenue from Wisner because of the detour, so making the left turn onto Harrison took quite a while and still didn't feel particularly safe. I think they have changed the light cycle too so that it stays red for Marconi longer than it used to.

When I came out of the park and crossed the bayou I was surprised to see the uptown group just ahead of me. They must have gotten tied up with traffic too, plus Brian had called me to see if I was OK since I'd disappeared out of the group at the lake.

It looks like the next cold front will be coming through during the day tomorrow.  The chance of rain starts going up at 7 am, so hopefully we'll get through the WeMoRi before it starts raining, but it doesn't look like it's for certain.

Season's End

The road season just seems to get longer and longer every year, even here in Louisiana. With collegiate races kicking off in late February and cyclocross into mid-late December, there's just a couple of months of generally uncomfortable weather in-between.

It was kind of a long and busy weekend for me. Friday night was the annual Psychiatry party down at the Westin, so dinner consisted mostly of sushi, crab cakes, and wine.  Mostly wine.  That made me a little slow to roll out of bed for the Giro Ride on Saturday morning, but at least it wasn't cold. In fact, the weather was warm and humid. The ride itself was nice, and the pace was mostly under control except for one stretch on Chef Highway on the way out.  We'd been rolling along at comfortable speeds in the general vicinity of 24-25 mph, when, for no apparent reason, things suddenly started to string out and the pace surged to around 29.  Katie and Sherri were ahead of me and I saw a gap starting to open as they struggled to find shelter in the crosswind, so I rode up there and got into the wind to try and pull them back, but by then the gap was getting too big for comfort. They never really got my wheel, so I put my head down and ramped it up to 31 or so but wasn't making much progress.  Looking back under my arm I could see a few people coming, and so I eased up for a moment to catch my breath, then latched onto them to make the bridge up to the rest of the group.

After the Giro, I headed over to Sears to get new tires for the car. There was a pretty good sale on Michelins, and since we are planning a drive to Orlando during the holidays I figured it was time to bite the bullet. So I drop off the car and wander over to the Clearview shopping mall to hang around for the expected hour and a half it was supposed to take. I get a call advising that the alignment was off and asking if I wanted them to do an alignment. I absolutely don't want the Sears folks trying to do an alignment on the Volvo. I only barely trust them to change the tires without forgetting to tighten all the lug nuts. Well, of course the car wasn't ready for over three hours, so I was already a little irritated when I went back over there and watched intently to make sure that they actually did tighten all the lug nuts. It took the very overweight guy three tries just to get one of the wheels properly aligned on the hub, and in general everyone there was operating in the kind of slow motion that would have made the Orleans Sewerage Board proud. Finally I pay the bill and get in the car and the freaking Check Engine light is on.  Obviously when they were doing their little courtesy check, otherwise known as hunting for other things to charge for, somebody had bumped a connector or left vacuum line or something open while the engine was running and the ECM had detected a fault somewhere. So I go get someone who comes over to the car and first tries to tell me that the Check Engine light just means I need an oil change. After explaining that I had not just fallen off of a turnip truck, he goes to Plan B and says it was on when I brought in it. I tell him not to give me that bullshit (I was tired and had been drinking way too much coffee) and to go find a real mechanic with a code reader.  So eventually this mechanic shows up and resets the code and tells me it is saying "O2S 1/2 Signal Stuck Lean," adding that he does not have a clue what that means.  Obviously it was an Oxygen sensor code, but any way it did not reappear, so I finally got back home four hours later. As I'm turning the corner at the house I get a call from the wife that she's finished with her conference, so I just kept going and picked her up from the hotel downtown. I still need to send in the stuff for the $70 rebate on the tires.  Naturally the website form wasn't working correctly and didn't allow me to select the Sears store where the tires were purchased, so I'll probably end up having to send it by mail. Maybe I'll see the gift card some time in March.

Saturday evening was Robin's annual Christmas party, so I headed over there around 7:00 for another meal of party food and red wine. I cut myself off after the third glass, but ended up staying until maybe 10:30. Fortunately, the cyclocross races don't start until 10:00 am and the last one of the season was just 90 minutes away in Baton Rouge.

Sunday morning I threw the old Pennine into the car, along with a bin full of officiating stuff, the computer and my bag. Somehow the weather gods had smiled on the final race of the Delta States Grand Prix of Cyclocross series.  Earlier in the week the forecast for that morning was worse than bleak -- bad enough that Wes was seriously considering postponing it until the next weekend. By Thursday evening, though, it was looking like the approaching cold front had slowed down and probably wouldn't make it to Baton Rouge until after most of the races had ended. As it turned out, we got the whole event done long before any bad weather came through.

So I officiated all of the earlier races, and since the weather was obviously going to hold off, and the temperature was warm, and the Cat. 1/2/3 field was small, I decided to leave the officiating to the other two officials and jump into the race at the back to get some exercise. The course was essentially all flat with a lot of back-and-forth on a big grassy field, one set of artificial barriers, a bit of loose gravel, a little run up some stairs, three short sections of very deep playground type sand, and a little mountain bike singletrack through the woods. It looked tame enough that I figured I should be able to do it without hurting myself.

A Coywolf.  Who knew?

So at the start I took my time clipping in as the rest of the field raced off toward the first set of barriers. When I got to those, I dismounted, ran over them, and then somehow completely missed the handlebar with one hand when remounting and crashed myself in the most inelegant manner possible, whacking my head on the ground in the process. No major damage, though, so I continued on at a moderate pace, looking back after each lap to see when the leaders would be lapping me so I wouldn't get in their way.  I waved them by as they came by (most lapped me twice).  So I was having a nice enough time, but was having a ton of trouble with the sand pits. They came immediately after a left turn from a short downhill at the top of some stairs, so I was never clipped back in early enough to get up enough speed to plow through the sand, which is really the only way to do that, especially with the super narrow cyclocross tires I have on the old Pennine road bike. So on the last lap I decide I'll just carry the bike down the hill and run through the sand, since it will probably be no slower than riding and getting bogged down at the end anyway.  Well, that didn't work out so well.  The bike started coming off my shoulder going down the hill and although I didn't fall, the bike basically did a big flip in the air and landed really hard. I ran through the sand, put the bike down, and it didn't roll. Somehow I'd whacked the rear wheel so hard it looked like a Pringle. I loosened the rear quick-release all the way and although the tire was still rubbing the inside of the chainstay on each revolution, it was at least rideable, so I limped in the last lap, finishing in my usual cyclocross slot, aka DFL. I guess A few spoke nipples must have stripped out.  I still haven't investigated it. Anyway, that was the last race on the calendar for me, and lots of other local riders,

this year.

When I got home I changed shirts, put on a hat to hide my helmet hair, and immediately went across the street to a little Latke Party at the neighbor's house for the third night of party food dinners. Then  I posted the DSGP results along with the lap times from CrossMgr. Finally took a shower around 11 pm.

This morning I was a little sore here and there from the fall, so I went out for an easy spin on the levee, taking some photos of what I was told is a Coywolf, which is a hybrid Coyote and Wolf, that I see all the time hanging around the stables where they have chickens and roosters. The cold front that finally came through New Orleans later in the night brought some rain and cooler temperatures, but nothing like the severe storms they had been predicting earlier in the week. There's a second cold front coming through in a few days, so it's looking like winter is finally almost here. Still haven't broken out the shoe-covers or winter jacket, though.

The Overpass

Since the early 70s I've been riding out to the lakefront by way of Carrollton Avenue or Jefferson Davis Parkway, eventually connecting to Wisner Boulevard which follows Bayou St. John along the eastern edge of City Park all the way out to the lake. Along the way is the Wisner Overpass, built I guess back in the 60s and named, like the boulevard of which it is part, for the Wisner family whose Foundation funded the original road. It originally served only to get traffic over the railroad tracks, but in the early 70s the new Interstate 610 was slipped underneath it as well. I've probably ridden across that overpass ten thousand times, and each time I've wondered if that would be the time I'd crash on one of the gaping gaps in the crumbling roadbed, or get hit by a car from behind and thrown over the 2-foot high decorative aluminum railing onto Interstate 610 or the railroad tracks below. For about a year after Katrina, a large section of that little railing was missing entirely, and although it would otherwise serve as little more than a fulcrum on one's way to certain death on the concrete below, the loss of that bit of psychological security was particularly unnerving. For at least the last 40 years the bridge has featured large gaps between the spans, which I assume had settled into their disconnected locations thanks to a somewhat inadequate foundation and the organic soil on which it was built. Anyway, it's always been a rather uncomfortable traverse but nonetheless the best and quickest option for getting out to Lakeshore Drive. The top of the Wisner Overpass has, for the past few years, served as the finish line for the highly coveted WeMoRi King of the Mountain sprint at around 6:45 am on Wednesdays.  Well, those days are likely over now. The bridge is scheduled for demolition and replacement, and the official start date for the traffic detours was today. So during the cool-down lap of yesterday's WeMoRi a few of us risked life and limb, stopping at the top of the still-open bridge, for a little group photo to commemorate the event. The new bridge isn't scheduled to be completed for a year and a half, which seems rather ridiculous to me, but I guess you get what you pay for.

Yesterday I went out to meet the WeMoRi, riding all the way out to Elysian Fields without seeing the group, then doing a loop around the fountain, and riding slowly back down Lakeshore Drive.  It wasn't until I was nearly at Marconi that I finally saw the approaching headlights. Apparently it was a slow morning. The pace remained relatively easy until we got close to the overpass where a few riders were intent on claiming the final WeMoRi KOM. Otherwise, the ride was a bit easier than usual.  I stopped for quite a while at Starbucks with Brian afterward.  Back at work, we had a special meeting with all of the Development office staff, precipitated by the announcement by our Senior VP that she would be resigning effective June 30. She's been at the university for at least 30 years.  That kind of comes on the heels of impending departures by our CFO who has likewise been here practically forever, and our Provost, along with who knows how many other senior staff members lured away by the current "voluntary separation" program aimed at reducing the deficit. I find it all rather troubling.

This morning I met up with the usual group, plus a new rider, Joost, who recently moved here from California and is originally from The Netherlands. The ride was fairly civilized and the weather was warm enough for shorts. We rode along the lake, which had barely a ripple in it, and out to the Metairie bike path, where a gap started to grow right in the middle of the group. As we approached Causeway my inner alarm bells started ringing as the gap reached the point at which closing it could present a problem.  I went to the front and closed it up at around 26 mph before any more damage could be done. I think that's where we lost Joost. Of course the pace picked up a bit along the lake but never got really out of hand, so it was basically just a typical Thursday morning group ride today.

The Long Giro and Drug Test Drama

It was still chilly Saturday morning when I rolled out to meet the Giro, but I went a little light on the clothing anyway.  The forecast was calling for clear skies and rising temperatures, and Jaden was calling for a Long Giro.  While the standard Giro Ride, plus the ride out and back to Starbucks, gets me around 60 miles from home, the Long Giro extends the ride out to Slidell and I get home with 93. Since I was planning on going  up to Jackson MS to help officiate cyclocross on Sunday, I figured I'd better make hay while the sun was shining on Saturday. The evening before, news had broken about a positive drug test at LAMBRA's age-graded road championship back in early September.  More on that later...

When we came down onto Hayne Blvd. the Giro Ride pace barely changed. Although there was a pretty decent east wind, I knew immediately what that really meant. It meant that most of the stronger riders were planning on doing the Long Giro. Once past the usual turnaround I looked around and took a headcount. We had over a dozen on hand, and soon things formed up into a nice paceline at a surprisingly moderate speed. When we arrived at the store stop in Slidell I was feeling pretty good, but I knew the speed would be higher with the tailwind on the way back.  It was, but fortunately things never got really out of hand, as it was clear that a few of the riders in the group were committed to a zone-2 kind of day. That had the unfortunate effect of disrupting the paceline a bit, but since the effort level wasn't too high it was not much of an issue.

We were at around 70 miles when I started to feel some soreness creeping into my legs, which was pretty normal. I got back home feeling pretty good for a 90+ mile day, which is to say I sat around with my legs up eating stuff for the next couple of hours.

On Sunday I drove up to Jackson/Ridgeland for the second day of the back-to-back cyclocross weekend up there, mainly to help officiate and get more familiar with CrossMgr, a cyclocross race results program I've been experimenting with.

That went pretty well, actually.  I'm impressed with the software. Using it in manual mode for any reasonably sized field makes things a little chaotic for the first lap when there are usually a few groups coming across together, but you can make corrections when there's a lull, so it's not too bad. The really neat thing, which is really more interesting from the riders' perspective than that of the officials, is the post-race analysis that it allows for.  Although the actual times are certainly not exactly accurate, they're pretty close, so you can get some interesting insight into how a race progressed.  I put links to some of the output on the DSGP-Ridgeland Results page. Click on a rider's number on one of the race results pages and you get a neat graphical comparison of that rider with the next one. It was particularly helpful for keeping track of lapped riders.  This particular course is at a facility with a mountain bike trail. It is a little bit of a mountain-bikey type of cyclocross course, and was very fast this year, but on the other hand it features some significant terrain.

Scott Kuppersmith

So, about that positive drug test.  Friday evening I started seeing Facebook posts pointing to a VeloNews article about a positive drug test at the LAMBRA Age-Graded Road Championship. I was a little surprised that USADA or USAC hadn't given me, as LAMBRA President, a little heads-up on that, but anyway it turned out that the rider who won the 40+ race tested positive for an anabolic steroid and, basically Ritalin. For the past few years, ever since the program was started at USAC, LAMBRA has been participating by paying something like $1,200, which USAC matches, for drug testing at one of our races. We send USADA a list of the major races on our calendar and they pick one at which to test three riders.

Kenny, Todd, Alex

This year it was the age-graded road race, probably because I sent in the paperwork and payment a little late and so I guess there wasn't enough time for them to schedule any of the earlier, and larger, races. So they showed up and tested the podium of the 40+ race.  That race had seen a breakaway that included Kenny Bellau and a rider that most of us don't know very well, Todd Hickman, who races mainly in Tennessee and belongs to a TN team since he lives way up in the northernmost end of Mississippi, which is basically a suburb of Memphis.  He shows up now and then at LAMBRA races, and had won the masters criterium championship in 2014.  After the race I was talking to Kenny and he was pretty surprised that he had been beaten in the final sprint finish.  Todd had apparently been doing the bulk of the work and Kenny was sure he must have been pretty tired from the effort.  Kenny just knew he'd be able to easily out-sprint the guy at the end, so he was shocked when they guy just came blazing past him in the last 200 meters of the race.  A year earlier I had been rather surprised that the guy had out-sprinted Mark McMurry and Kevin Landry in the LAMBRA master's criterium championship, since they are both formidable sprinters.  Anyway, the whole situation is both good and bad.  While I feel a little bit sorry for Todd, who by all accounts is a nice guy who got caught doing a bad thing, it is kind of a good thing that LAMBRA gets a little pat on the back for doing the drug testing in the first place.  Of course, I'd rather know that everybody tested negative, but then again, that kind of thing never makes the news, does it?  

Coffee and Cold Air

Coffee Ride stop at the Fair Grinds coffee house

With this morning's temperature down around the mid-40s, it was finally time to look for the shoe-covers and skullcap. I knew the easy Friday coffee ride was going to feel particularly chilly since the wind was still blowing pretty strongly and the pace isn't normally sufficient to generate much body heat. The sky, however, was clear and blue (once the sun came up), so that was nice.  We hadn't even gotten off of campus before Dustin got a flat, but he set about going for the flat-fixing record and I don't think we were delayed more than five minutes. We'd started a few minutes late, though, so three riders had to turn back at Elysian Fields.  The rest of us did the usual lap of Lakeshore Drive and then stopped at Fair Grinds. I took a couple of photos of the antique artwork on the walls there.

Out on the Lakefront

This weekend there are cyclocross races up in Ridgeland, which is basically a suburb of Jackson, Mississippi.  I won't be able to make it up there tomorrow since I need to bring Danielle and her dogs to the airport in the afternoon, so I guess that will be a Giro Ride morning for me.  Jaden sent something out about doing an extended Giro out to Slidell, so if the timing looks like it will work I may tag along for that, and by "tag along" I mean suck wheels. I guess I'll bring the bike up to Jackson, but it will depend on what the officiating situation looks like whether or not I'll actually race. I'd really like to be able to post complete lap times and finish times for all of the races, but to do that I'm going to need a number-caller to help, especially for the first lap or so. Since they give the riders only one number, and half the time you can't read it until they are already past the finish line, it is nearly impossible to read and type in multiple numbers when a small group is still intact.

Jeff Davis Overpass, heading north

I had hoped to get new tires on the car this weekend, but it doesn't look like that's going to work too well, so perhaps I will have to take some time during the week next week to do that. I've been nursing a slow leak in one of the rear tires for a couple of months now, and since the tires have something like 37,000 miles on them now and we're planning a road trip to Orlando over Christmas, I guess I may as well bite the bullet and get it all over with.

The city has officially set December 10 as the date on which the old Wisner overpass will be closed for demolition and rebuilding.  There's a little interview with some members of the Crescent City Cyclists about it on wwltv.  The planned bike path part of the project may not really be usable by people going more than ten miles per hour, but I guess I'll have to see it first to know. It may turn out to be worth using on the way out to the lake, although I see no real possibility of it being useful on the way back unless you were already on the winding little bike path along the bayou that is entirely unsafe for anyone moving at any reasonable speed.

Too Long in the Wind

When I looked over at the thermometer this morning I knew what to expect. The cold front that had come through yesterday had dropped the temperature down to around 52F, but I knew that wasn't going to be the real problem. When I stepped out the door the sound of rustling dry leaves confirmed my expectation.  There was a cold stiff wind blowing at 15-20 mph out of the north-northeast, which meant that the ride along the lakefront would be an hour and a half of white-knuckle echelon practice. Surprisingly, there was a fairly good turnout as the group started out to the east along Lakeshore Drive. The wind was actually from the north-northeast, so in addition to the gusty crosswind there was a significant headwind component as well. Aside from a small group that had rolled off the front at the start, the main group stayed together out to the loop at Seabrook.  Once we started back to the west, however, the pace ramped up quickly as the tailwind started to kick in. The problem was that there was also a huge crosswind, so the eschelon immediately spread all the way across both lanes, and probably into the oncoming lane if I had to guess, which I do since I was doing my best to stay near the front.

Somewhere around Franklin Avenue I heard a pickup truck behind is just laying on the horn.  I didn't have to look back to know what was going on. I'd been hanging on for dear live as the rider at the front was motoring at 28 mph, looking back every now and then, apparently to see if I was still there. The commotion with the pickup truck must have forced riders out of the draft because soon there were just three of us.  I took a short pull and then eased up a bit as Daniel rode past along, mumbling something about people riding like assholes in the crosswind. I latched onto his wheel and found the sweet spot with my front wheel about even with his bottom bracket.  I think I probably spent 90% of the rest of the ride pretty much in that same position.

By the time we got out to the bike path in Metairie there were only a few of us left.  A couple of riders were way up the road somewhere and soon we caught Howard who got into the group and periodically pulled past everyone in futile attempts to either increase the pace or just increase the general level of suffering. I don't know what happened to him after we turned around out by the casino boat because he wasn't with us on the way back.  Most of the way back I was glued to Daniel's draft. He spent most of the time on the front.  Every now and then Brian, who had been in that lead group earlier, would come past and give him a break.  At one point we tried rotating through but taking short pulls was way more painful since you'd end up out in the wind so long while dropping back and then you'd have to accelerate again to get onto the wheel of the last rider (there were only four of us). We ended up reverting to Daniel and Brian doing most of the pulling.

When we finally turned south to head back home it was a huge relief, but within ten minutes I started getting really cold.  For one thing, it's always a little warmer along the south shore of the lake, and for another, we had slowed down and the combination of the cold temperature and damp clothing started getting uncomfortable.  All I could think of was the hot coffee I hoped was waiting for me at home.

The Western Sky

Damp roads from yesterday's rain, together with a slowly approaching cold front, must have kept a lot of people from riding this morning. I myself spent a little time staring out the window at the wet street while checking the radar.  Off to the west was a line of rain showers, but it was pretty clear that wouldn't arrive for a few more hours. The streets didn't look too wet, so I decided to go despite the 12 mph northwest wind. Just to be on the safe side, I wore two jerseys and arm-warmers.  A bit of overkill, but the possibility of being sprayed with water while in the middle of the WeMoRi group made it seem like a reasonable decision.

I got out to the lakefront a few minutes later than usual, so when I hit Lakeshore Drive I turned west rather than east, turning around at Marconi and then again near the bridge.  A minute later, as I was crawling around at 15 mph, Woody and Joe came flying past.  They surprised me a bit and despite the fact they weren't going really full-speed, it took me a little while to get up to speed and latch on.  Looking back, I couldn't see any lights at all. So I stayed mostly at the back until Joe took off just prior to the bridge and Woody didn't react. On City Park Avenue when Woody eased up I asked him if it had been a small group.  He said there were only like seven or eight people that morning. I ended up riding alone down Marconi until three riders came by.  They all turned off to go back to the parking lot at Robert E. Lee, so I continued on solo.  Looking back I still couldn't see anybody.  Then at Filmore I saw a couple of WeMoRi riders waiting. I turned around and waited with them until another couple of guys rolled past. Anyway, it was kind of a strange WeMoRi this morning.  Off to the west the sky was looking pretty dark, so I just headed back home rather than making my usual stop at Starbucks. As it turned out, the line of rain kind of petered out and most of it went to the north, so now the temperature is gradually falling as the cold front moves fully through. We should be down to the low 50s or maybe even the upper 40s tomorrow morning. I'm thinking it will feel colder than that.

As I was contemplating the weather and my lackluster morning's training, only three blocks from home, my rear tire went flat. Sigh....   Just rode it in on the rim.

December First and 77

It was one of those mornings when you have the best of intentions.  After an easy ride on Monday morning that probably never cracked 20 mph, I had the idea I'd work some intensity into this morning's ride. That idea feel by the wayside almost the minute I swung my leg over that tattered Selle Italia SLR that I've been meaning to replace since this time last year. I may give the Specialized Romin that's currently on the track bike another try. If that doesn't work out I guess I'll have to bite the bullet at try to find something that's both light and comfortable enough for my well-worn and thinly padded crotch. The SLR has been pretty significantly changed since I got my current one, but that may still be my best shot.

So the first day of the last month of 2015 started out with a rather lackluster ride on my part. I guess it was around 70 degrees when I headed out in the dark, and now, at 10 am, it's 77 with the relative humidity at 73%. Perhaps that had something to do with it.  I'd spent half the night breathing out of only one nostril, so there's probably something in the air that's messing with my head. It always clears up a lot once I start riding, though.

I followed wheels out to the lakefront where a pretty large group came together for the lap of Lakeshore Drive.  I'd guess around 25 were on hand.  The pace was moderate until the last few miles, so that was good, although as easy as it would have been to move up to the front to take a few pulls, my head just wasn't in it today. Out along the lake the water was almost dead calm with a very light offshore breeze out of the south.  It was the kind of wind that makes sailors take along someone who smokes so they can tell the direction it's blowing. The pace picked up heading out to Kenner on the bike path, but the calm air and ample draft made it easy to roll along near the back at the 24-26 mph speed the group was maintaining.

Riding to work this morning I was getting showered with falling leaves here and there. The trees know it's supposed to be winter. Off to the northwest there's a somewhat stalled cold front slowly sagging in our direction, but it's not expected to give us much rain when it finally comes through around dinner time. By tomorrow morning we should have a pretty significant north wind but the temperature out on the lakefront will probably be down to only 60F or so. It's not looking like we'll see anything requiring much more than arm-warmers and base layers for at least the next then days. I'm not complaining. Next weekend's cyclocross races in Jackson, Mississippi should be dry and comfortable with temperatures in the 50s and 60s.