Up to S'port

The Sunday Giro coming down the Casino bridge onto Hayne Blvd.

After eighteen hours of driving the prior weekend, I was kind of dreading the 5-hour drive up to Shreveport for the Rocky Mount Road Race. On the other hand, I've always liked the course up there, even when it's kicked my butt. The race had originally been scheduled as a Stage Race back in May, but was cancelled at the last minute because of severe weather. I was glad that they had quickly decided to re-schedule it, even though it was ultimately shortened to just the Road Race. Given the late date on the calendar, that made a lot of sense because a low turnout was to be expected. A couple of days earlier I had installed a new set of Campi Record shifters to replace the old Super-Record ones that, by then, had at least 55,000 miles on them and were pretty worn out with broken return springs and generally sloppy action. It was quite a change to have shifters that actually shifted immediately and with a reassuring click!

Fortunately, I was able to leave work early and was on the road by 4 pm or so, not that it saved me from being stuck in traffic heading out of New Orleans and then again coming into Baton Rouge. I was travelling alone, so between the satellite radio and Spotify, and the fact that I wasn't in any particular hurry, it was a relatively easy drive if you ignore how much my back was hurting by the time I arrived. Naturally, when I got to the hotel they were checking in an entire high-school basketball team. Then my room key didn't work so I had to go back down to the desk to get them re-coded. I put the bike and the bag in the room and then went down the street and was that lonely looking guy eating dinner alone at Burger King.

I was up early Saturday morning and enjoyed a relaxed cup of coffee at the Starbucks near the hotel (frankly, that was a major factor in my choice of hotels) before making the half-hour drive up to the road course at - you guessed it - Rocky Mount, Louisiana, which consists of an intersection with a small school, two houses, and an abundance of insect life. Thanks to the 9:30 am start time, the officials were all there early as well, so I got the radio base station set up, handed out a few of the handhelds to the EMS and lead vehicles, dropped off my spare wheels, and rode a couple of easy miles before my 10:10 am start. Despite the expected small turnout, the LaS'port team had everything well under control with lead and follow cars, a couple of moto-refs, police at the intersections, etc.

The Master 55 race would be three laps of the rolling 21-mile course, and with ten riders at the start, ours was actually one of the largest of the day. I have no idea why people don't seem willing to make the effort to go to organized races lately, especially the well-established ones with nice prizes and good organization. The LaS'port folks even had food for everyone after the race. Anyway, looking at the riders around me I realized that I was once again rather badly outnumbered. Six of the ten riders were from the LaS'port team, unless you count Tim Perry who rides for Ft. Wayne Outfitters who lives right down the road and is practically a LaS'port teammate as well. For the past few years Tim has been focused on time trials, and just this year has won his age group at the state championships in Louisiana/Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, and Missouri, and also won the National TT Championship. So you can probably guess what his race strategy was. I was coming into this race feeling still a little tired from 6 Gap, but was determined to make it a workout regardless.

The first lap was pretty steady, although I was pushing the pace a bit on the climbs. Master's races sometimes get really slow, and I just wasn't in the mood for it I guess. Around the end of the first lap Tim attacked and opened a gap that we closed fairly quickly. He attacked again a while later and that resulted in only two of us making it across. Although I knew Tim would eventually take off on a 30 mph time trial, I liked the group of Tim, Grant and me and when we came together said, "let's keep this together!" The next lap and a half was a nice 3-man rotation. Tim was obviously soft-pedaling when he'd come to the front and was going up the hills particularly slowly. I knew there was a group chasing us, so I didn't want the pace to lag too much. I also knew that Tim probably didn't care if we were caught or not since he was probably going to launch a decisive attack on one of the bigger hills on the second half of the loop and drop everyone anyway. Of course, that's exactly what happened about seven miles from the finish. Grant and I were starting to hurt, and when Tim went flying past me about five mph faster all I could do was shake my head and make a feeble and largely unsuccessful attempt to match his pace. Grant and I traded pulls the rest of the way in. I jumped at about 200 meters to go and immediately felt my calf muscle start to cramp. I'd caught him a bit by surprise and had a nice gap, but when I glanced back I could see him gaining on me so I had to accelerate again, just barely making it across the line in time.

I was pleasantly surprised how good I'd felt in this race. I'd been expecting the effects of 6-gap to still be lingering like they had been for most of the week, but I guess the easy ride on Friday gave them that final bit of recovery time they needed.

I rode out to the Giro Ride this morning in a pretty stiff ENE wind, knowing that the wind and moderate threat of rain, along with other things going on in town, would make for a small group. Jaden was there, though, so things were reasonably fast and although my quads were complaining a bit from Saturday's thrashing I was otherwise fine. Granted, I spent a lot of time sitting on the back of the group, especially on the way back when the speeds got fast because of the tailwind. By the time I got close to home I could feel a light rain starting to fall. I'd been planning on riding with the Tulane Sunday Social group at 10:30, but by then it was genuinely raining so I called it a wrap for the week at 284 miles.