Sort of Racing

Took a few pics of one race

When Yoda told Luke "Do, or do not. There is no try," he might have been talking about bike racing. I have always known, and often actually demonstrated, that starting a criterium at the back and staying there for any length of time is the equivalent of not trying. It is also the equivalent of getting dropped. And so it was last Sunday at the Harbor Master Criterium over at Esplanade Mall. I had decided earlier in the week that it was time to get back to racing, even though I was clearly still a little bit uncommitted. I knew I wasn't in particularly great shape for racing. While the collarbone is essentially all better now, I've spent the better part of the past two months lollygagging around the back of the group on the training rides and generally using any available excuse to keep my nose out of the wind. By last week, though, I was starting to feel like I was at least capable of hanging onto the back of the race for a while.

Of course I had also offered to help with officiating, and had brought Danielle along with me to help out while I was riding the Masters race, which I didn't figure would be very long. We got there early and helped set things up at the finish line and started putting the riders into the race database as they signed in. I did maybe three laps of the course and rolled up to the back of the medium-sized masters field with all the confidence of a Chihuahua at a Pit Bull fight. Fortunately, the first few laps weren't too crazy, so thing were going OK and I was feeling fine. Right about the time I started thinking that I'd better get my ass closer to the front before things got out of hand, they rang the bell for a prime. Halfway through the lap the field was strung out single-file, and I was probably somewhere around the five riders at the tail end. Not good. Coming around the last couple of turns someone a couple of riders ahead let a big gap open. By the time I got past we were already around the last turn and I knew I wouldn't be able to close it by myself. I took a dig anyway, mumbling "never let a gap open on a prime lap" as I went by, but blew up pretty quickly. After a little bit I was with a nice 4-rider group that was going OK but of course losing a little time on the field with each passing lap. Eventually we were pulled, but I didn't feel too bad about it. I thought that if it hadn't been for that unexpected gap I probably could have hung in with the main group, so in a way it was a good test and a decent result for me at this point.

I helped out with the finishes for most of the other races, but since there were two officials and two cameras I didn't feel like I needed to actually score every lap. Turns out I should have anyway. One of the cameras seemed to be pretty out of focus and badly aimed, and things got really complicated with the large fields on a short course that made it necessary to pull a lot of riders. Adding to the complication, they wanted to place the pulled riders. Results were generally OK but there were still some errors even today, on Wednesday, that I'm still trying to correct.

Yesterday I went  up to Baton Rouge for our annual Tulane Day at the Legislature where we have tables set up in the Rotunda, which is actual rectangular. I got to go up in a big van with some of the engineering physics students who had just won the NASA Big Idea Challenge.  The ride there and back was definitely the best part of the whole day for me. In the afternoon when the legislature was in session they got recognized in both chambers, which was nice. Otherwise it was kind of boring for me, but then again it always is. We have a stage race in Shreveport this weekend but the weather forecast is looking particularly awful. I feel like I need to race, but while a 5-hour drive to get dropped in a masters race is bad enough, doing it to get dropped in the pouring rain with 20 mph winds makes it particularly unappealing. I guess I have one more day to make the final call, so we'll see if the forecast improves by then.