Flexibility

You know the Giro was fast and windy when everybody is off the saddle just to go over the levee on Lakeshore Drive.

The weekend isn't working out at all the way I thought it would a week ago. I had been hoping to make the trip up to Shreveport for the annual Rocky Mount Stage Race. It's a long drive, but they have some nice courses and the race often attracts a few riders from Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. Sometimes more than from New Orleans, which is actually farther away. As the week started, though, things were looking bad. The forecast for the weekend was pretty awful, and no doubt as a result, pre-registrations were really low. Being able to see who is pre-registered is a two-sided sword.  On the one hand, when you see that a race has a lot of people registered, maybe including some big teams or people you haven't raced with in a while, it definitely encourages you to register yourself. On the other hand, when riders check and see that hardly anyone is registered they start wondering if it's going to be a small race with small fields, so then hold off registering, which of course creates a Catch-22 or self-fulfilling prophecy or something like that. Bottom line is that nobody registers because nobody else registered. Well, the weekend forecast for Shreveport was consistently calling for rain all weekend, like 100% chance of rain, plus winds in the 20 mph neighborhood, plus chilly temperatures in the 50s and low 60s.  I have to admit, the prospect of driving five hours each way to do three races in the rain, and in which I might easily get dropped, was not terribly appealing. I did want to bring the radios up there for the race, though, and then I needed to bring the generator and maybe race clock back with me for the TT championship we're putting on next week. Well, on Thursday morning they pulled the ripcord and cancelled, hoping to re-schedule in the fall.  Naturally, that pretty much guaranteed that the weather forecast would immediately improve, which it did. This whole change of plans gave me a little flexibility for the weekend but presented a couple of new problems. I guess I'll have to drive to Baton Rouge some time this week to pick up some of the LAMBRA equipment I need for the Time Trial. On the plus side, it's looking like we won't get any rain around here until tomorrow afternoon, if ever, so I'll get in two Giro rides I guess.

Time for a new chain

Having some unplanned free time due to the cancellation of the Shreveport trip, I decided to drive over to LaPlace after the Giro Ride this morning to re-paint the course markings for the 5k, 10k, and 20k turnarounds. Meanwhile, up in Grand Junction, Ben Spain and Ben Bradley are in the middle of the collegiate nationals road race right now. Ben Bradley got 6th yesterday in the time trial, which is impressive considering that he lives below sea level and the race is at 7,000 feet. Naturally some guy from Colorado won the thing.

This afternoon I took advantage of my unexpected free time to change my chain. I got an alert from Garmin Connect, which I use to keep track of mileage on some components like chain, headset, etc. I have it set for 3,000 miles for the chain. I had already picked up a replacement, since I like to have one on hand so I don't wait too long and end up ruining the cassette too. I usually look around until I find a Campi chain on sale, which is another reason to get it ahead of time. I've used mostly Campi chains on my last three bikes, mostly just because they seem to work well and last pretty long. I'm sure I could save a bit of money with SRAM or KMC or something, but really it's not such a huge difference and not really worth experimenting.

Been through a lot of chains.....

So tomorrow will be another Giro for me. I had been thinking that it would be raining tomorrow morning but now the forecast is looking pretty good for the morning and I guess we'll probably be fine. Here in New Orleans you have to be flexible because the weather is about as unpredictable as the politics.