Podium for All

Podium photos can be deceiving!

Yesterday I came in last, or third, depending on your perspective. Likewise, Scott, who lapped me once, and very nearly twice, on a 5+ mile road course, came in third to last, or first.

Saturday afternoon I made my way up to Natchez State Park for the LAMBRA "skill-based" road championship. Pre-registrations had been pretty low, so despite my complete lack of confidence I signed up for the Cat. 1/2 race to at least make sure the field size would merit the Cat. 2 riders the minimum number of upgrade points. Since there were only 5 pre-registered, there had already been some discussion about combining the Cat. 1/2s with the Cat. 3s.  I was hoping that would happen, since it offered at least a chance I'd have someone to ride with once I was, inevitably, dropped on the climbs. We hadn't used this course in a few years since the Natchez Bicycle Club, which isn't really a racing club, stopped promoting the championships there. For the past few years we'd kind of pressed other races into being the championship, with the result that we had separate skill-based and age-graded races on different dates. While the two events are still separate, when the Omnium whose first road race we'd been using for the championship said they'd prefer not to do that, we twisted some arms to get a club from Baton Rouge to host the race on the Natchez course. Anyway, I got up to Natchez well before dark and met with the Race Director and volunteers. As usual, a number of volunteers had backed out and they were pretty short-handed, which simplified the decision to combine the Cat. 1/2s with the Cat. 3s.

The best things about this course are that it's nearly devoid of traffic, the speed limit is 15 mph, there only one significant intersection, and it has enough hills and technical sections to present opportunities for breakaways and, as in my case, attrition. The worst thing about the course was that the road surface had deteriorated significantly since we'd last used it.  There were some big potholes and a couple of short sections that were basically gravel.  One road that we use for this loop is normally closed off with a gate and is used so infrequently that there's grass growing up from the cracks. Those cracks were a lot bigger than they had been a few years earlier, too.

So we got to the start a couple of hours early to get everything set up since we were expecting some rain.  It was super humid, and by the time the finish line was ready to go I was soaked with sweat. My race started half an hour later, so I jumped in the car and got into my racing kit, pulled out the bike and did the short and mostly ineffective warmup typical for a longish road race. Since we'd combined the two groups, we had a nice sized field of 20 on the line for the start.  Not exactly a good turnout, but a lot better than facing 73 miles with a 5-rider field. I was going into the race fully expecting to be dropped as soon as they got serious about racing.  I was figuring we'd get two to four laps in before that happened.

I was wrong.

When I saw Scott Kuppersmith launch the first attack of the day, I looked down at my computer.  We hadn't gone four miles yet. I, along with a bunch of people near the back, had to dig kind of deep just to stay in contact as the speed stayed pretty high for most of that lap.  This was particularly bothersome on the stretch of tree-shaded road with all the potholes. It's bad enough being in a fast group trying to avoid potholes you don't see until the last moment. It's worse being short and at the back like that. As we started the second lap the pace slowed and the group bunched up a bit coming in to the section with the steepest climbs. I thought that was a good opportunity to roll to the front so that when someone attacked, which I expected would happen, I'd have a few wheels to drop back on.  So I rolled off the front on the long climb, and pushed it a bit on the one after that, and was surprised not to see the group flying past.  I eased up a bit and discovered a rider who was visiting from Colorado had come with me and there was a significant gap.  Poor guy thought I might be a good breakaway companion. I told him I was a little too old to be doing that sort of thing, but that if there was a separation when we were caught and Scott was in it, he should definitely go with it. "Scott won't quit on you," I said.  So he pulled for a while until we were caught, which happened shortly before the fun downhill and right turn. Well, within a mile or two there was another attack and I think Scott and Nick (the Colorado guy) started to roll off the front.  Meanwhile, a few riders, including myself, were busy getting dropped off the back on the rollers. This was like 10 miles into the race.  Things kind of came back together toward the end of that lap, but the attacks at the front seemed to keep coming. By the time we were halfway through that lap I was dropped for good, along with a few other guys.  For a while I got together with Adrian and Peter, but we lost Peter pretty quickly.  Adrian rolled up to me and asked if I was going to keep trying and I told him I was in it for a good training ride, but had no delusions beyond that.  A little while he dropped off too, so there I was, twenty miles into a 73 mile race. Meanwhile up at the front Scott and Nick were away being chased by a small group of Jaden, Patton, Jeremy, Ben H., and Jon.  The rest of the group was kind of disintegrating in to ones and twos. Eventually, Scott and Nick would stay away to take the gold medals in the Cat. 1/2 and Cat 3 races respectively.  The chase group would get whittled down to just three, of which only Jaden was Cat. 1/2. All of the other Cat. 1/2s dropped out.  So with maybe four laps to go, as I'm riding past the start/finish, Daniel, who was supposed to be in the race ahead of me, was yelling "You're in third place!"  It was, of course, more of a joke than anything since I'd already been lapped by the two lead groups. Somewhere in there it poured down rain for a lap or so, which certainly helped keep the heat down. Anyway, I had a pretty good workout with some good climbing, which I badly needed. In fact, I was a little surprised that I didn't really feel all that bad on the climbs. If the race hadn't started out so hard and we'd gotten a few laps in before the sparks started to fly, I might have been motivated to make more of an effort to stay in the race. On the last lap I was about 500 meters from the finish line when something punctured my rear tire, so I rode in on a flat.  How appropriate.

After my race ended, they were short one follow car for the 3-rider women's race, so I jumped into the car, still wearing my full, soaking wet, kit, to drive around in circles for a while.  Toward the end of that race the Chief Referee flagged me down and said they were going to cut short both the Women's race and Cat. 4 race that were in progress because of an approaching thunderstorm.  Although they got rained on pretty well, the real downpour didn't happen until after they were all finished, so that kind of worked out.  I didn't get out of there until around 5 pm or later, and still had to drive down through Baton Rouge to check on Candy's parents' property that they've been trying to sell for like ten years.  It was clear it had flooded the long-abandoned and vandalized house, but otherwise there wasn't much to see.  Driving back from Baton Rouge to New Orleans I had planned on stopping at Starbucks, but both of the ones on my route were closed because of the flooding. Then, on the elevated interstate leading into LaPlace, everything came to a halt. I was stuck in that for nearly an hour as they cleared what looked like a multiple vehicle crash, so I didn't get home until around 9:30.  My feet were still wet and I was pretty hungry. By the time I'd unloaded the car and gotten something to eat and posted results it was around 11:30.  When I finally took off my wet socks, the same ones I'd raced in, they smelled so bad I brought them down to the basement to dry out with the wet tent and flag and shoes.  Long day.

More Rain and Wet Roads

Red and Yellow Radar Images - a familiar sight lately     

Down here in New Orleans we've been extremely lucky over the past few days.  The torrential rains that have caused catastrophic flooding throughout much of south and central Louisiana have only dealt us passing blows, all easily handled by the city's pumping system.  So while life goes on relatively normally here, fifty or sixty miles in any direction between north and west brings you to varying levels of devastation.  There are some areas that have received rain totals over just a few days in excess of two feet.  Yes, FEET.  Pretty much every little river and creek overflowed, and flooded entire cities like Denham Springs, just outside of Baton Rouge, for example. Although we're still planning on having our category based road championship up in Natchez on Sunday, I'm sure there will be a number of regular riders who won't be able to make it, mainly because their houses and/or cars have been flooded.

I've probably ridden in the rain and/or on wet roads nearly every day lately, and this morning was no exception.  As I stepped out the door at 5:40 this morning I looked up at the sky and was pleased to see stars. The radar was clear, so it looked like we'd at least avoid riding in actual rain for a change. I jumped on the bike, which I haven't even bothered to clean for the past couple of days, and met the group for the ride out to the lakefront. We met up with the usual group, I guess twenty or so riders, and headed off for the lap of Lakeshore Drive.  As usual the pace gradually picked up, but never got too out of hand. We were probably in the 26-27 mph range coming back from the Seabrook loop.

Changing flats and watching for cars on Lakeshore Drive  

As we approached the levee near Elysian Fields I was sitting comfortably on a wheel near the front, escheloned a bit to the right up against the curb. As we started up the little uphill over the levee the rider ahead of me eased up, trapping me between his rear wheel and the curb. At first I didn't think much about it, but then he started slowing down even more.  Riders started streaming past on the left. Just as I extricated myself from the situation and was ready to catch back onto the tail end of the paceline I heard someone yell "Flat!"  So that explained it.  A small group up at the front never heard, or at least never stopped, but most everyone else turned around.

Thus began one of the longest tire changes in history.  Mid-way through the first tire change, another rider in the group discovered his tire had gone flat too.  I guess we were there for about fifteen minutes.  Eventually we got going again, at which point I started thinking seriously about whether I wanted to continue out onto the lakefront bike path, which I knew was going to be full of runoff water from the levee, or just call it a day.  I decided on the former, as did most of the group.  So for about half of that out-and-back on the bike path everyone except the lead rider was treated to a steady stream of wheel-spray in the eyes.  So . much . fun.

A mile or so from Causeway, on the way back, Jason flatted just before the Suburban Canal bridge. Nobody stopped, as we were already running fifteen minutes late, so I turned back and waited for him so he wouldn't get left out there alone.  With the roads so wet the chances of getting a second flat are pretty high. So I finally got back home nearly half an hour later than usual, which wasn't really a problem, and soaking wet, which wasn't really anything different than the past few days, despite the clear sunny sky.  By early afternoon, though, it was raining again.  Of course.

Small Ring Reconnaissance in the Rain

The spillway, 25 miles upriver from home. The road on the other side was open, so no flooding there.   

The decision came early Friday morning.  The weekend's races would be cancelled because of the continuing heavy rain and flooding in southern Louisiana. I posted the news to FB and updated the LAMBRA website while the Race Director sent out an email to the various groups. It was the right decision. Although New Orleans itself somehow missed the worst of it, it wasn't by much.  North of the lake the rivers were already overflowing and flooding roadways and houses. Over the course of the day the flooding just got worse and worse, affecting everything from Covington to Baton Rouge. I-55 was completely closed because of flooding for a while.

Northshore Flooding

Here in New Orleans, though, it was mostly just steady light to moderate rain. I went to sleep Friday night wondering if we'd get away with the Giro Ride in the morning.  Around 4 am I got my answer as a rainstorm came by of sufficient intensity to wake me up. By 6 am the rain had essentially stopped, but with the roads soaking wet and the forecast in considerable doubt, I didn't think it was be worth getting out of bed. Instead, I set my sights on mid-morning and a ride on the river levee. I knew the weather would be gradually improving, so the only constraint for my solo ride would be getting back home in time to watch the women's team pursuit at 2 pm.

Wet roads, but minimal rain

I rolled out from the house around 10:30, by which time the roads were damp but not terribly wet, and headed for the river levee.  I was planning on riding all the way out to the Spillway, and I figured I'd use the ride to do some reconnaissance on the bike path status.  The latest guesstimate from the Corps of Engineers is calling for completion some time in October, which is a long way away from the original date that was supposed to be last April or May.

By the time I got to the bike path there was already a very light kind of misty rain falling. It wasn't quite enough to soak my socks or anything, and the temperature was probably in the upper 70s, so I figured I'd be fine for the duration.

The Green Pipes.  No hint of replacing the bike path here, so you have to battle it out with the trucks on River Road.

The first obstacle on what used to be an unbroken 25 mile bike path and is now more like an obstacle course is the "green pipes" obstacle. This is where Jefferson Parish put pipes over the levee for stormwater drainage.  There is absolutely no hint of any effort to construct a bike path around the pipes.  Instead, you have to ride down to River Road and then back up on the other side, crossing traffic, of course, each time.

Same old, same old. Not even worth
taking a new photo.

The next obstacle is the closure just past Moss Lane in River Ridge. The bike path has been closed here for at least a year now, way, way past multiple projected opening dates.  Here, you have to ride down the grass to Moss and from there to Jefferson Highway. The bike path is closed from there all the way to the upriver end of Jefferson Parish, so you're stuck on Jefferson Highway for a long time.  There's a shoulder for most of it, but the mile or so past Williams Blvd. is 2-lane highway with no shoulder, so it can be a little uncomfortable if there's any significant traffic.

So this was new. Permanent or Temporary??

Once past that road closure you get a few good miles until you hit one of the grain elevators where they are building something over the levee and have made a little kind of sidewalk width path through there.  At least you can stay on the bike for that one.

From there it's a more or less clear shot all the way to the spillway, with just the pre-existing bypasses underneath pipes and stuff for the various petrochemical plants along the river there.

So, despite the wetness and obstacles, I got in a nice easy solo ride of 50 miles or so without a flat, which under the circumstances seemed pretty good.  I got home, gave the bike a quick hose down, slapped a little lube onto the chain, and went upstairs with just enough time to take a shower and catch the live video from Rio.

Heading downriver at the Jefferson Parish line. Still closed.

I was sorry to see that the US women couldn't pull off the win in the team pursuit, but I guess they're not too disappointed to walk away with the silver medals.

Here in New Orleans the rain seems to have stopped for now, but the forecast for the next ten days can be summed up pretty simply as "Scattered thunderstorms, 60-80% chance of rain every single day."  I'm guessing the rain bike may get a little road time next week.

Rain and Racing and Riding

I'm going to get wet on the way home...

The university just sent out an email advising us to "take precautions to protect equipment and files in offices and labs," which seems like a little bit of over-reaction to the rain that's on the way. This always happens the first time anything resembling a tropical storm show up during hurricane season. Still, it's not looking too good for riding tomorrow or Friday with chances of rain in the 80-90% range. Then again, this time of year you never know.

I've been feeling kind of lazy since the last race, which generally translates into falling back into what passes for my routine of early morning group rides. There's not really much to report there. As usual, the default rides had me cranking out around 250 miles last week, 90% of it consisting of drafting behind the biggest guy I can find. There were a few rides where we got pretty wet from unexpected little pop-up thunderstorms, which is pretty normal here this time of year. The most notable of those was the WeMoRi a week ago on Wednesday.  I had headed out for the lake a few minutes early, having checked the radar and coming to the conclusion that we'd be done before any rain arrived to spoil the fun. On the way out to the lakefront I ran into Will, and we ride the rest of the way together, turning onto Lakeshore Drive just as there was enough light in the sky to see the threatening clouds. We got only a couple of miles before, all of a sudden, the temperature dropped almost instantaneously from 84 to 77. Seconds later the wind picked up dramatically and great big raindrops started falling. It was still pretty dark because of the clouds, and we saw a couple of people coming toward us before we made a quick u-turn ourselves.  Most of the WeMoRi was then somewhere behind us, having already been enveloped by the torrential rain from which we were now, quite hopelessly, running. Well, needless to say, we were almost blown off our bikes and completely soaked before even getting off of Lakeshore Drive as we made a mad dash for home. The rain eased  up for a bit as I got closer to uptown, then, just as Charlotte, who had been with the WeMoRi earlier, caught up with me, the sky opened up again.

The weekday morning ride heading back from Kenner on the bike path.

The weekend Giro Rides were pretty normal, with some really fast stuff and a fair amount of more moderate stuff, so nothing really to report there. This week has been consumed with watching the Olympics.  Both the men's and women's road races were pretty spectacular. Although some would say that the course was too dangerous because of the downhill section and cobblestones and painfully steep climb and windy coastal stretch, I don't really agree with that. To me it looked like one of the most worthy courses I've seen in a while that would favor none but the most well-rounded of riders. If it hadn't been wet and leading riders hadn't been taking some significant risks I think things would have turned out much differently.  Basically, two Olympic medals were lost in the men's race because of the crash in the rain, leaving a solo rider too far from the finish. The women's race was similar with another guaranteed gold medal lost, but with the added excitement of USA's Mara Abbott, who had splintered the group on the big climb, unexpectedly having to go solo after her breakaway companion, who had already put half a minute on her by taking risks on the slippery downhill, crashed very badly on a curve. Even though Mara would have probably had to time trial the final 10k or so to the finish, she probably wouldn't have been caught since the next group of three on the road had two teammates of the rider who crashed. Of course, when they saw their lead rider was out (both literally and figuratively), the chase was on and the three-rider group was in team time trial mode all the way to the 200 meter mark, which about where they came past Mara who was just completely. That's about the worst 4th place scenario I can possibly imagine - getting caught within 150 meters of the finish of the Olympic road race.

The Giro Ride cool-down along Lakeshore Drive.

I don't know what the USA team's plans were for that race, but Mara basically dropped two of her teammates on the big climb, setting up a 2-rider break with a rider who she had no realistic chance of beating if it came down to a sprint. That may have been the way it would have worked out if the roads had been dry, but the instant they hit the downhill Annemiek van Vleuten started putting daylight between them as Mara descended the wet roads way more cautiously. Perhaps if she'd taken just a tiny bit more risk here and there on the downhill the chasing riders wouldn't have gotten close enough soon enough to claim the entire podium for themselves. Once they could see her on the final kilometer they knew they could catch if they worked together, and knowing that they'd all be on the podium if they did probably ensured they would cooperate until the very end, which they did.

On the plus side, 42 year old Kristen Armstrong just won the Women's time trial by a mere five seconds.  Overall, the cycling races have been a hundred times more exciting than any Olympics I've ever seen before.

Renaissance

Last weekend there was a new race, The Race at Renaissance, up in Jackson, Mississippi. It's been a long time since there's been a race with such a large prizelist within easy driving distance, and although I was planning on racing the Masters race, I was really more concerned that we didn't screw up the officiating too much. With $5k in the Saturday time trial and then $15k in the Sunday criteriums, I knew that it would pull in a few teams and privateers even though it was a first-year race that showed up on the calendar a little late to make it into the official plans for many.

After work on Friday I waited out a big thunderstorm before hitting the road for the 3-hour drive, and so didn't arrive until nearly 10:30 pm. On the plus side, I had free lodging with one of the other officials at the Hyatt. Both the Time Trial and Criterium were staged at the Renaissance shopping center north of Jackson in Ridgeland. This was the heart of suburban living - fountains, landscaped traffic circles, women's clothing stores, chain restaurants, etc. Anyway, I was registered for just the Masters criterium, which was only 30 minutes, and was more preoccupied with the officiating side of it, so I was mentally out of it before it started.

The organizers, Nunchuck Bunnies, and their sponsors really pulled out all the stops for this event, even though pre-registrations were really low. For a race with this kind of prizelist, you would think there would be more than the 223 registrations they had for the weekend. For some of those Cat. 1s and Cat. 2s who did make the trip, however, it would be a rather spectacular payday.

Sitting on the back of the breakaway after being lapped.  I could do this all day!

Saturday I worked the time trial.  The organizers had built a start ramp that was, as they typically are, a little scary. A few riders opted to start on the road. The Cat. 5s were particularly interesting, and we nearly lost a couple over the edge. With some big gaps between categories, we were able to keep up with the results pretty well, even while the race was still in progress. Things went pretty smoothly and on time, with the only complication being that they were doing the podium presentations way on the other side of the shopping center. Afterward, I went back to the hotel and posted results to the LAMBRA website, then wandered off to lunch. Mike, Ricky and I then did a nice 30 mile ride on the Natchez Trace around 2 pm that featured enough rain for a good soaking and a whole lot more traffic than I had expected. Right as we headed off to dinner I got an email from one of the women questioning some of the TT times.  After much investigation, which had to wait until after dinner, we discovered that two of the TT finish times had gotten swapped. One of the women who had been listed in like 5th was actually 2nd and the other was dropped down to like 7th. This was, of course, many hours after results had been posted at the race, awards had been made, podium photos taken, etc. I was rather surprised that neither of the riders involved had noticed their times were off by something like twenty seconds. Although I corrected the results on the website, it was way too late to do anything about the prizes. Moral of the story:  Check the freaking results and say something if something looks wrong.

Scott and Emile sprint it out for the win as I watch from behind.

Sunday morning the races started at 6:30 am. Yeah. At least the start/finish was within walking distance of the hotel. The organizers couldn't secure the venue, which went right through the middle of the outdoor shopping center, past noon, so they had seven criteriums squeezed into the morning. We somehow got everything off right on time, although the registration data was a little sketchy.  For most of the races we had riders on the line who weren't on our start lists, and the number sequences were kind of all over the place since riders who had registered in more than one criterium were given only one number. The masters race was one of the earlier ones, and the races prior to it were fairly small, so I ran off to get in a little warmup for about half an hour. Unfortunately my heart wasn't really in it and I lined up near the back completely devoid of self-confidence about this race. Naturally, the first few laps were really fast. I don't know exactly how fast because I haven't uploaded the Garmin data yet. About half of the course was on those concrete bricks that they like to use in places like this. It wasn't like cobbles or anything, but it definitely sucked a little power out of your legs. Anyway, I pretty quickly found myself near the back of a long line, having to stand up out of the corners. Soon enough a gap opened up a couple of riders ahead of me and since my head was elsewhere I didn't react quickly. Matt, who had been behind me, came around and I got on his wheel for a while but ended up off the back with Peter Stephens pretty soon thereafter. We cruised around the course a couple mph slower than the pack until I could see a small break about to catch us. A lap or two later Emile Abraham and Scott Kuppersmith came by and I latched onto them pretty easily.  There were only maybe five or six laps to go, and of course I wasn't allowed to do any work in the break, so I had an extremely enjoyable ride following them to the finish.  As a bonus, I got into a few nice photos that someone took. At the finish I saw the medics attending to someone just before the finish line. It turned out to be Alex Habbit who had been in the break and had crashed pretty heavily just before Peter and I had been caught. I turned around right after finishing to check on him, and a minute later found my front wheel was flat. Glad that hadn't happened on the last lap.

The rest of the morning was more officiating. The Pro/1/2/3 criterium looked to be pretty fast with a number of rider dropping out, one crash, and eventually a big split. As Ben Spain described it this morning, the pack was pretty neatly split with all of the usual LAMBRA riders except Jaden in the second group. The race results were pretty telling.  You had to go down to 12th place to find the first rider who wasn't Cat. 1.  Everyone in the lead break of eight was Cat. 1. The first Cat. 3 was Ben at 16th.

So it turned out to be a really nice event. A ton of riders rode two criteriums on Sunday. One was Debbie Milne who won the Women's 40+ race and then the Women's Cat. 1/2/3 race, and picked up a number of $300 and $400 primes that are pretty rare in Women's racing (the event was organized by a women's team, so they had around $5k in the women's races). I'm sure Debbie took home at least $1k, probably significantly more. I can't think of anyone more deserving, though. She's been racing all over the country this year with Flamingo Racing/Stradalli, including some impressive wins and a national championship. I'm pretty sure some of her teammates are as old as her son.

With all of the criteriums having gone off spot on time, we were all done and packed up by about 1:00 or 1:30. We never had a drop of rain for any of the races, but on the way back home I drove through a couple of pretty intense thunderstorms along I-55. Even so, I was back home before 4:30, leaving time before dinner to post results to the LAMBRA site. Just need to complete the post-event report, report of occurrence from the crash in the masters race, and update the LCCS results.  Next up are the team time trial champinships and criterium down around Thibodaux, LA.