Rain Day

Some riders really relish riding under adverse conditions. Rain, cold, snow, gravel roads, wet cobblestones - these are all defining features of the "hard men" of cycling.  I am not exactly one of those.  Although I'll endure some pretty uncomfortable conditions in order to avoid resorting to riding a stationary bike, I do draw the line when the big raindrops start to fall, and at any rate I most certainly get no enjoyment out of riding in the rain or freezing cold or on gravel roads or any combination of the aforementioned. Since Monday I'd been expecting to miss some saddle time because of rain. The forecast had initially been calling for rain from Wednesday through Friday, so to accommodate, I rode a little harder on Tuesday. When Wednesday morning arrived and the promised rain hadn't arrived, I rode a little harder on Wednesday because surely it would be raining Thursday.

Then on Thursday there was still no rain in sight so I went out into the humid 20 mph south wind. Only Rick was waiting at the end of Nashville, and when we got out to West End we picked up only one other rider. Along Lakeshore Drive we picked up a few more, but after the lap of Lakeshore Drive all but one turned back or went home rather than fight the wind along the lake. By the time I was coming back from Kenner I was all alone, but at least I'd gotten in yet another morning ride I'd been expecting to miss.

The forecast for today was looking pretty bleak and it was clear my luck was running out, but when I checked the radar around 6 am it looked like I had a brief window before the rain would arrive. The streets were wet and for all practical purposes there was a very light rain falling, but the air was still warm so I went out for a short spin, arriving back home about ten miles later pretty wet but not cold.

So earlier this week I got one of those emails I routinely receive from someone visiting town who is looking for information on local rides, or rental bikes, or both. Sometimes these are recreational riders who would clearly be out of place on the weekday training rides or weekend Giro Rides, and I'm probably not a lot of help for those people. I usually check to see of the visiting riders have USAC licenses or Facebook pages that might give me a clue as to their cycling experience and fitness. The person this weekend looked like she might survive the Giro Ride, so I'll be lending her a bike Saturday. Hopefully she won't get dropped right away and will get the kind of training ride she's looking for. Some of the local riders will be up in Alabama at what we used to call Sunny King, now the Alabama Cycling Classic, which might, maybe, make the Giro very slightly less intense. A couple of the Tulane riders are going up there for the Cat. 4 races. I hope they survive. This year the Palmer Cycling riders will be competing as a USAC Domestic Elite Team, which essentially means that the Cat. 1 riders get to accumulate NRC Team points. The criterium is supposed to be streamed on Saturday so perhaps I'll be able to watch some of it.

Yesterday I ordered a set of six new stopwatches for the LAMBRA officials. The stopwatches you usually see at the local sporting goods stores don't always work so well for things like stage races or time trials because they typically stop showing tenths of seconds after something like 40 minutes. Since stage race ties on GC are broken by tenths of seconds in the time trial stages, that's a problem, so you have to be sure to get watches that will maintain a 1/100 second display for at least a few hours, preferably 24. The ability to go back and review splits is also useful for those time trials where two or three riders come across the line so close together that you only have time to hit the split button repeatedly without being able to write down each time. Anyway, we've had a few of the Robic watches in use for a few years, so these should hold us for a while. I remember back in the 70s having to go to a local clock and watch shop any paying over $100 for a mechanical stopwatch that would register hours. Wish I knew what happened to that watch!