December Transitions

Sunday's races in Natchez were nice and mostly dry, in stark contrast to the prior week.

Just realized it's been a while since I logged anything here.  That's always an indication of how pre-occupied I am, I guess. I have always found December to be a difficult month. The weather around here is always entirely unpredictable in December, kind of like the elections that we always have in December.  And then there is the ever-present threat of Christmas hanging over my head. It's always money I don't really have, food I shouldn't really be eating, drinks I really shouldn't be drinking, and rides I really shouldn't be skipping.

So two weekends ago I drove up to Ridgeland, MS to help officiate the cyclocross race there. The weather forecast was pretty bad - basically rain and cold the whole weekend. Halfway there the windshield on the Volvo started leaking, so I had drops of cold water falling onto my left thigh.  Before I left to return on Sunday I stopped at the drugstore and got some of that putty stuff you use to stick pictures to the wall of your dorm room and used it to seal up the seam at the top of the windshield. The rain was lighter on the way home, and I only had one drop of water fall onto my leg.. so I guess that was good.  Someone cracked the tail light a couple of weeks ago and that's currently being held together with packing tape.  I guess I'll have to bring the car in after the holidays and get all that fixed.  What a pain.

The mud at Ridgeland was impressive

So the Ridgeland race was held in a semi-private park with mountain bike trails and is actually a pretty great place for a cyclocross race. There's some real terrain, some singletrack, and a nice big shelter with electricity. There was only one problem this year - the weather.  Yeah, I know the cx guys like to compare themselves to Belgians, which is a joke best appreciated by real Belgians, but when push comes to shove, racing cyclocross in mud with the consistency of peanut butter during a rainstorm in 40-degree weather can't possibly be much fun. Even just sitting there for six hours freezing my butt off in front of a computer was pretty painful. About halfway through each race riders would start to run out of brakes, or to be more specific, brake pads.  I think the local shop sold all of the disc brake pads they had in stock between the end of Saturday's races and the start of Sunday's races. The races themselves went fine, although turnout was a bit low, probably thanks to the weather.

Some of the NOBC crew at Apolline for the meeting

That Saturday night we had our annual LAMBRA meeting and elected (more like drafted) a whole slate of new officers,  I was glad to see enough people step up to the plate to fill out the slots.  I don't even remember how long I've been president of LAMBRA, so it will be nice to take a step back as we get the new officers up to speed over the next month or so. I hope they know what they've gotten themselves into! My main goal is to handle the even permit approvals and try and transition the LCCS points series from a manual process to an automated one via the USAC system, like they do for the Florida series and the recent Alabama cyclocross series. Hopefully I'll have a little more time to give to the NOBC and Tour de La next year. The following Monday we had an NOBC party where we "elected" new officers, so those transitions are also in the works. I'm hoping to focus more on the Tour de La for 2017 since Bob and Roberta are backing off a bit from their prior roles as president and secretary/treasurer where they had been doing a lot of the legwork and fundraising.  Although I can write up a pretty good sponsorship proposal, I'm quite awful at the actual fundraising part of the process, so hopefully I'll have some competent help!

All that were left on Thursday.

This past week we finally got some actual cold weather, which is to say we actually fired up the central heat for the first time. It even dipped down into the upper 30s for a little while. The local morning training ride turnout has been down a bit as a result.  Thursday morning it was cold and there was a pretty stiff wind blowing for the early morning ride.  Rob was out there on his track bike for some reason and was really pushing the pace. He ended up off the front on the way back on Lakeshore Drive, taking a couple of guys with him.  The rest of the group was left scrapping for shelter and without much apparent desire to rally a chase.  Soon, one of the breakaway riders came back, then the other. Then Rob went home at the end of Lakeshore Drive, along with most of the others.  We ended up with only four for the ride out to Kenner, one of whom lives out that way and went home when we were halfway back, so it turned out to be a rather slow, but somewhat painful ride.  Even so, knowing I would not be able to ride on Sunday at all, I was glad I hadn't hidden under the covers.

Too much traffic to avoid the water!

On Friday there were just four of us for the Tulane coffee ride, which wasn't too surprising since classes were over and final exams were looming.  It was even colder than Thursday had been, and extremely windy. The north wind was blowing water over the seawall along the lakefront, and the combination of wet legs and cold temperatures made me very glad our next stop was Fair Grinds. Last Saturday I went out to meet the Giro Ride, arriving at Starbucks a bit after 6:30 am.  I was the only rider there.  I got my coffee and sat down inside since it was pretty cold and windy, and waited ..... and waited.  At 6:45 I was starting to wonder if I'd be riding by myself.  Finally riders started to filter in, but the count was still very low by the time we rolled out at 7:00.  Pretty much nobody seemed to want to push the pace that day.  A few people rolled off the front early on the way back, but the rest of the group was definitely in winter ride mode.  I'm pretty sure it was the slowest Giro Ride we've done all year, at least most of it.

Yesterday I went up to Natchez for the final cyclocross race of the season, which was also the LAMBRA cyclocross championship. The weather was really nice.  It was a little chilly sitting there doing nothing, but for the riders, they barely needed arm-warmers.  Turnout was pretty disappointing, which I don't really get. Wes puts a ton of work into setting up these races, so there are good courses, food and drink, parking, good results, announcing, series podiums, race podiums, championship medals, series trophies, and nice weather, plus lots of advance notice, facebook events, calendar listings, etc.  For all that, there was a total of maybe 40 riders.  For the women's race there were more officials and announcers than there were riders. Now, cyclocross may not be quite my cup of tea, but if I wasn't still dealing with this wrist injury that won't heal I probably would have ridden one of the races on my old mountain bike or the old Pennine just for fun like I did last year.  Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out the CrossMgr software, but at least it keeps me occupied when the actual races have only six riders in them. Having come from a time when results were rarely published, often wrong, and never deeper than the prizelists, I feel a certain obligation to get placings and finish times for everyone in the race.  I think it may be some form of cycling-related OCD. Anyway, the officiating was pretty painless, and the drive down US 61 from Natchez to St. Francisville is one of my favorites - 4 lanes, no traffic, nice scenery.  Of course, from there to New Orleans is pure hell, especially on a Sunday evening. It was basically an hour and a half of not being able to use cruise-control.

Anyway, so far the month of December has been pretty bad for me as far as riding goes.  A few missed days because of cyclocross officiating and a lot of slower-than-usual training rides.  It'll only get worse later in the month, I'm afraid.  I can't wait until January when I'm hoping to finally get some winter rides on the northshore together.