Up in Tupelo

Easy officiating with small fields

A 5-hour drive, a new race with a new promoter, painfully low pre-registrations, unfamiliar officials, and a sketchy plan to both officiate and race. Typical weekend nowadays, it seems. I was just south of Hattiesburg when I looked up to see a very impressive wall cloud between me and Tupelo. Well, no road trip is complete without at least one stretch of white-knuckle driving, right? A few minutes later I drove right into the storm, wipers on high, staring at the red tail lights of the truck ahead of me. When I saw an exit, it took it. Since I wasn't in a hurry, there was no reason not to wait it out. Half an hour later the sky was clearing and wall cloud had been replaced by a rainbow. Mixed messages.

The other half of the 40+ race

Saturday morning I left the hotel around 5:30 or so, drove down to the local Starbucks for coffee, and headed back to set up the finish line. By then it was raining and the radar looked bad. Really bad. I met up with Jeffrey and Morris, both officials from Tennessee who I had run into someplace before, and we got the tent and camera and everything set up. Half an hour before the first race was supposed to start the rain went from bad to worse. Looking at the radar, we decided to delay everything by an hour and combine some of the races in order to make up the time. Since turnout was extremely low for most of those races, combining races wasn't going to be much of a problem. The first few races went off just fine and we were pretty close to being back on schedule, more or less. Then, with just a couple of races left, the computer running the finish camera suddenly froze up. I restarted it and was greeted with a message indicating that it couldn't find a boot drive. Not good. It wasn't until much later when we were packing up to leave, that I discovered that the laptop had been sitting in a slightly low spot on the table, so pretty much all of the rain that was getting blown onto the table had accumulated immediately underneath the laptop, more specifically underneath the hard drive. It was dead. Anyway, by the time the last couple of races went off the weather was much improved and we were even able to put down an actual finish line. That evening I got the link from Ricky for the software and downloaded a copy to my personal laptop that I had been using for registration and results. It seemed to work at the hotel but I was a little cautious about it because it's pretty flaky software that uses an Ethernet port and can be affected by things like anti-virus software.

Sunday's weather was looking to be hot and dry. They were using a different course in the same general vicinity with the start/finish directly in front of the hotel parking lot. We got set up early and thanks to there being no rain, everything started right on time. After the first couple of races, I pulled the bike out of the car, rode one lap of the course, and lined up at the back of the 6-rider 40+ group. This switching from official to racer thing never goes well, so from the start I was just in it for the exercise. For some reason the race started out really slowly, which was nice since it allowed me to at least get a little warmed up. After a couple of easy laps there were a couple of attacks. I came off the back after one of them, but they slowed down and I rolled back up to them. It wasn't long before another attack and I found myself in-between a 3-rider group ahead and two riders behind. I probably could have dug deep and gotten onto the break but I guess I was a little short of both motivation and power, so I waited for the two behind me. We rode a number of laps together, but one of the guys had two teammates in the break and understandable didn't seem willing to work much. Our pace slowed down again, so I went ahead and took a pull, fully expecting him to launch an attack, which he did. I didn't even try to get on them as they flew past me, and just rode out the remaining five or six laps.

Back at the official's tent, things were going fine until, at some point in the middle of the Cat. 1/2/3 race, the camera software refused to allow me to record images. I have not idea why, but fortunately the finish was easy to judge by eye. Anyway, other than the low turnout the races went off pretty well. Even with all of the rain on Saturday, there wasn't a single crash all weekend. I loaded the software onto my old laptop and will give it a try at the Wednesday night criterium after I disable the anti-virus software. Hope it works.

This afternoon we drove up to Baton Rouge to watch them demolish Candy's family house on Harrell's Ferry Road. I guess it took about 45 minutes for one guy to turn it into a pile of rubble. Hopefully, that will help them sell the property.

Giro Here Mnats There

Rui - blast from the past on the Giro

Last weekend was basically a mental recovery weekend for me. I rode the Giro both Saturday and Sunday. I rode out to Starbucks Saturday morning later than usual. That was because I knew that the Starbucks was closed for renovations. I had gone ahead and made coffee at home since there's really no place around there that is open early enough anyway.

So it was around 6:30, I guess, when a car pulled up alongside me on Carrollton Avenue and I heard someone yell, "Randy?"  I looked over to see Rui Ponte, who I don't guess I've seen in person since some time in the mid-80s. He said, "I'll see you at the lakefront!" Rui graduated from Tulane in Architecture and lives in D.C. where he is quite active in the local cycling community. At one point while he was at Tulane he worked on the design of a velodrome.

That's Rui on the front row next to Brian Roberts
some time in the 80s at the Tour de La

As continued my ride out there I wondered how many people knew that the place was closed. I also wondered if people would think that there wouldn't be a Giro Ride because of it. As it turned out, we had pretty much the usual crowd, meeting up in the neutral ground parking area across from Starbucks. We picked up Rui and a number of others along Lakeshore Drive. It was warm and the wind was essentially calm. The group was a little slow to get going, and the pace didn't get particularly fast until we were halfway down Hayne Blvd. It turned out to be a particularly steady ride, thanks no doubt to the lack of wind. When VJ flatted on the way back somewhere on Hayne, most of the group was still together.

Stephanie with hardware and coach Jed

Sunday's Giro was an entirely different story, however. Although the wind was again almost nonexistent, it seemed like only three or four people were willing to do any work at the front. That made for fairly slow and erratic speeds for most of the ride. On the way back, when we turned onto Hayne, I casually rolled off the front at some moderate low-20s speed and ended up probably a couple of minutes ahead of the lackadaisical group. Go figure.

Meanwhile, up in Augusta GA, Masters Nationals was going on. We had just a handful of riders who went, but a couple of them had pretty good results. Peter Reed was 2nd in the 40-44 Time Trial. Stephanie Smith was 2nd in the TT, 2nd in the Crit, and 3rd in the RR in the 35-39 age group. And of course there was Debbie Milne, who is in NC now, although we still claim her. She won the Road Race and was 6th in the Crit in the 45-49 age group. The GeriAtrix guys, Tom Bain and George Heagerty, from Texas, also did well in the 65-69 age group. Tom won the Road Race and was second in both the TT and Crit. George was 4th in the Crit.

On Tuesday I went out to the regular levee ride. The sky was overcast and there was just a touch of rain showing up on radar. Perhaps that was one reason that everyone except Rich and I turned back early. Rich had just gotten back after the unexpected death of his daughter. We didn't talk about it - just traded long steady pulls. We got barely a few raindrops here and there; hardly enough to notice. Even so, it was a lot more time on the front than usual, and so I definitely felt like I'd gotten my money's worth out of the ride by the time I got home.

Tour de La Number 47

Start of the Cat 1/2/3 Tour de La Criterium, June 10

Well, the dust has about settled on this year's iteration of the Tour de Louisiane stage race and by all accounts things went pretty well. The volunteer list kind of came down to the wire as usual, and there were the typical loose ends to tie up the week before the race, but in all it was definitely a success. We had 127 entries this year, which was just slightly more than last year. Still a long way from the 200+ we had around 2009, but my sense is that turnouts have kind of bottomed out in the last year or two and are starting a very slow rebound.

So around Monday before the Tour I realized that I didn't know who had made the police arrangements for the Time Trial. Turned out nobody had! Fortunately, Fred Schroeder was able to get that in place quickly, which was a relief. On Sunday before the race I got Candy to make the copies of the race bible, and then spent an hour or so assembling and stapling. As usual, most of then pre-registrations didn't start coming in until the last couple of days, so it wasn't until Friday that I felt like entry fees would at least cover the prizelist. I had decided to take Friday off from work, so that gave me a lot of time to print out the waivers, organized numbers, and ultimately load everything into the car for the trip across the Causeway. We decided not to do the Friday night registration this year since turnout for that has been pretty low in recent years. I guess we don't get as many riders from far away as we used to, so a lot of the riders are driving in on Saturday morning or arriving late Friday night. Anyway, I didn't head across the Causeway until around 6:30 pm. We had made arrangements for a couple of double rooms at the Holiday Inn Express for the officials, but when I arrived they didn't have any reservations. After a few phone calls the guy who Mignon had made the arrangements with appeared and realized he had never actually booked the rooms. All their double rooms were booked by then, so we ended up with three single rooms, which actually worked out fine since only two of the motorefs needed rooms on Friday night, and only one on Saturday night and Ricky was driving directly to the start on Saturday morning. The road races went really smoothly with only one minor single-rider crash that I know of. We got the results sorted out at the hotel, printed out the TT start sheets and Road Race results, and before I knew it, it was time to head over to the Lakeshore High School to get ready for the 5:30 pm Time Trials. Robin was already there and had already put up the signage, so once the police arrived we set up the start tents, put out the traffic cones, and got things started right on time. The TT results looked good, so after I got back to the hotel I got those posted pretty quickly and the other two officials and I walked over to Copeland's for dinner. It had been a long and hot day, but I was glad it hadn't rained and that nobody had to call 911.

I was up again at 5 am for the Covington criterium, having allowed a little extra time to put up the new USAC snowfence and to give Robin, Fred, and the other volunteers time to put out the bales of wood chippings that we were using instead of hay bales, which were apparently both expensive and in short supply this year. As usual, there were a few cars parked on the course, so things were held up between the first race (just the juniors, so small) and second race while a tow truck removed a couple of cars that had been strategically parked on the outside of corners, including the final one. The rest of the criterium went fine until it was time to line  up the Cat. 1/2/3s. At that point the sun was still out and everything looked good unless you checked the radar. There was a big thunderstorm brewing and heading our way. We started the 1/2/3s right on time, and as the clock ticked down from the 1 hour mark we were keeping one eye on the weather. By the mid-point of their race you could see the big dark clouds approaching. It looked like the worst of it would pass just north of town, but it didn't look like we would escape the rain. Sure enough, with maybe ten or twelve laps left the thunder and lightning and rain started. Once the street got wet, someone over-cooked a corner, slipped on a paint stripe, and took out a bunch of riders. At that point it was pouring down rain and riders started coming into the pit from all directions. There had been a 2-rider break with 10 seconds on the field, but now the field was shattered. With all of the thunder and lightning and confusion we made a quick call to stop the race and re-start ten minutes later when the worst of it would be past. So we called everyone back to the line with 5 laps to go, started the breakaway, and then started the field. A number of riders at that point were content to take it easy and just finish upright, but at any rate we got things finished in a light drizzle, posted the results in a hurry having forgotten that one rider had previously lapped the field, re-posted the correct results, and got the podium ceremonies done. Then we stuffed a ton of wet tents, banners, snowfence and equipment into the car for the drive home where I threw the snowfence and flags and tent tops into the dryer and set everything else out to dry in the basement with the fan blowing on them. Then I posted the final results to the website and sent them to Robert to upload to USAC.

I was still feeling kind of dragged out for the next couple of days, mostly from sleep deprivation I guess, but eventually got back into the routine over the next week or so, riding just the Giro Rides on the weekend and the usual training rides during the week. This afternoon is the first of the Wednesday evening races on Lakeshore Drive, so I'm going to try and get out of here a few minutes early so I can set up the finish camera and help with scoring before jumping into the 1/2/3 race myself. This morning's WeMoRi was uncharacteristically easy, so I guess a few of those regulars are planning on doing the evening race. Then this weekend I am heading up to Tupelo to officiate/race/deliver equipment, for which I have not yet made any arrangements. Registrations for that are frighteningly low right now, so I hope things pick up soon!

Reconnaissance Ride

The Tour road course has some really nice sections and even a bit of shade. This definitely isn't central Texas.

With the 47th annual Tour de Louisiane festivities looming just a week away, it was time for a trip up to the road race course at Stoney Point. I had been kind of dreading the task of riding from one intersection to another with road-marking paint in my bottle cage instead of water, stopping, painting, waddling up the road a bit farther in cycling shoes, painting again, etc., etc., so I was quite happy when Robin texted me that he'd gone ahead and spend a day freshening up the turn markings, sweeping the corners and patching a few of the patchable road surface problems. The TDL road course is an hour and a half drive from home, and although the original plan was for an 8 am start, most of the guys had subsequently decided to arrive early enough to ride an extra 16-mile lap beforehand. On the one hand, that was appealing because it would be a bit cooler. On the other hand, that would mean a very early wake-up call. I was kind of on the fence about it until Mignon texted suggesting we drive up together rather than needlessly burn all that extra gas, so I compromised. We timed it so that we'd get there while the early group was still out on the course, ride backwards until we met them, stop again at Stoney Point for 8 am to see who else showed up, and then take off on some undetermined number of additional laps, which, as it always turns out to be, is one less than originally planned. The Tour de La road course is best described as "death by a thousand cuts." There are really only a couple of places that you could legitimately call climbs, but on the other hand there are essentially no places that you could call flat. It can be very deceiving, with the difficulty of each succeeding lap seemingly increasing exponentially.

Anyway, the early group had gotten a late start so as we were getting ready to go we saw them come sprinting up the road, finishing their first lap. It was still well before 8 am, so we rode with them for a few miles into their second lap and then turned around to get back to the start by 8 to pick up any others. Then we rode backwards on the course and met them about a third of a lap around. For the most part, the pace was moderate and mostly everyone stayed together, which was good. The road surface on this course is about 90% good, 5% OK, and 5% pinch-flat territory where sections of asphalt overlay have broken out, leaving nice sharp inch-high cracks (for lack of a better word). It looked only marginally worse than last year. I ended up with only 47 miles, but when Mignon asked if we were doing another lap I wimped out. Everyone else was ready to head home. I probably would have done another lap if most of the group was doing it too, but it was getting pretty hot and I was feeling pretty tired, so I decided to call it a day.

Right now it's Wednesday afternoon. The forecast for the weekend is looking pretty good, although of course there's always the chance of a thunder storm popping up at random this time of year. A 20% chance of rain Saturday and Sunday with highs of around 90 is about the best one can hope for this time of year, so I'll take it for sure. Other than volunteer assignments and recruiting, most of the key arrangement for the races are pretty well nailed down, so that's good. Online registrations are at 50, which is OK for the Wednesday afternoon before a race weekend, not that I wouldn't like it to be closer to 70. Lots of work to do tonight since I kind of took yesterday evening "off" from Tour de La stuff. I felt like I needed a break.