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.