Katrina Anniversary

City Park lagoon on the way home with a little rainbow and a blurry, aka impressionist, photo

Today is the 13th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans. If you look back in this blog you won't find an entry for August 29, 2005. The last sentence of the last post I made before the hurricane read, "I think this is going to be bad," and the title of the post was "Looks like the Big One."  It was. The following morning we evacuated, spending the entire day en route to Dallas, and it was another day before I had an opportunity to post again. I was using dial-up internet at the time. Over the course of the next week or two this blog and the NOBC Yahoo Group email list because invaluable tools for tracking down members of the cycling community that had been scattered all across the country. Many lost everything, some never returned, some moved away. Yet somehow, within a couple of months, the Giro Ride and the morning levee ride were going again. In a way, they kept us sane.

Since the last road races of the 2018 LAMBRA season a couple of weeks ago I've been on a kind of auto-pilot, just keeping up my regular riding routine but without any near-term goals in mind. There are some track races coming up in Baton Rouge, and then a bunch of official, and not-so-official, gravel and cyclocross races or events or whatever you want to call them. I'm feeling like I'd like to find a cheap cyclocross bike at some point, but as usual such things are hard to find in the 49-50 cm range within my financial comfort zone. The old Pennine can always be pressed into service, of course, but by modern standards it is too big for me and rather heavy, and currently lacking a 700C rear wheel. The frame is designed for 5-speed and although a 6-speed wheel can easily work, I don't seem to have anything handy like that except for some old racing tubulars hanging in the basement. Perhaps I'll get around to building an appropriate wheel eventually.

With the university academic year having started at the beginning of the week, I'm looking forward to helping out with the Tulane team and have somehow volunteered myself for leading some indoor training sessions once a week once it starts getting too dark and/or cold for people to get out on the road consistently. We'll see how that goes. There's actually been a fair amount of activity already and there are a few new members even though the annual Organizations Expo isn't until this Friday.

Down the road, I'm scheduled to head up to Colorado Springs for a couple of days for the USA Cycling Local Associations symposium, which happened to fall on the same weekend as the Pensacola stage race that I had been kind of thinking about sort of maybe riding. Beyond that, I'm assuming I'll be making another trip up to north Georgia for the 6-Gap Century sufferfest. In a moment of weakness, I recently ordered up an 11-29 cassette for the occasion. It will be interesting to see if I can make it work with the existing derailleur and chain, but anyway I'd been thinking about it ever since I was passed halfway up Hogpen Gap by some guy casually spinning along while I was standing up in my 39x27 on an extended section of 10% grade. I seriously doubt having the lower gear will actually allow me to go any faster, but perhaps it will lessen the suffering just a tad.

This morning I headed out in the dark for the usual WeMoRi. The sky, as best I could tell at 5:30 am, looked cloudy. A couple of minutes later a light rain started to fall. I had no idea if it was just a prelude to a downpour or just a passing shower, so I continued on. Halfway to the lakefront it stopped and the roads were dry. I latched onto the group at 28 mph on Lakeshore Drive and made a couple of efforts when the opportunities presented themselves. On the final stretch along the lake to the finish at Shelter #1 the whole group came together. I was somewhere in the middle of it all as the speed started to increase a couple of miles before the finish. Gaps started to open here and there, and I was just surfing along with whatever wheels were still moving forward. We were probably inside of the last kilo and there was a small cluster of riders with a little gap off the front. Then I heard Eddie Corcoran coming up on the outside, and when he passed me I thought, "He's going to blow past those guys before the finish." He did. As I crossed the "line," aka the crosswalk, I looked up at the sky to the southwest. It was dark and ominous, but it looked like it was going to skirt us to the west so I rode the usual cool-down along the lake before heading back for coffee at Starbucks. Before I got there it started raining, and then stopped raining. I went ahead and got a cup of hot coffee, checked email, and headed back home on wet streets. 

Opportunities - LAMBRA Crit and Road Champs

Road Race finish area in Clinton MS (not mine)

There was a time that seems not so long ago, but actually is, when I would have seen the announcement of a first-lap criterium Prime as an opportunity to launch a breakaway. When it was announced on the starting line of Saturday's LAMBRA 40+ Criterium Championship, all it represented to me was an opportunity to get dropped on the first lap. I started fairly cleanly, around mid-pack, on the very bumpy course in downtown Jackson, Mississippi.

The masters field wasn't too big, but there was quite a bit of horsepower in attendance, so I was already expecting an early break. You'd think that by now I'd know enough under such circumstances to stay near the front, and perhaps I actually do, but apparently my physiology has different ideas about sprinting around the entire first lap of a criterium course. So by the time we came to the last corner, which featured a big hole right across where the best line would be, I was near the back. We came flying around the turn with riders taking all kinds of different lines trying to avoid the bumps when Peter, who I think was just ahead of me, almost lost it on the outside. Of course that was like 200 meters before that first-lap prime, so a gap opened up right away that we were never really able to close. So basically we were off the back by the time we finished lap 2. Well, with the front of the race pushing the pace and attacking each other, we eventually accumulated a nice little group anyway as other riders were shelled from the front group. By the time we were half-way through the 40-minute race the front group was starting to break up.  Eventually we were lapped by the lead group, and then by Frank and Kevin who I stayed with until a couple of laps prior to the finish when my front tire exploded like a gunshot on the bumpy downhill. I'd pinched it on one of the many sharp edges and cracks and was immediately riding on the rim heading for a turn I couldn't possibly make and a rapidly approaching barricade. Somehow I got it stopped before running into the barricade, and luckily someone standing there offered me his front wheel so I could finish out the race. Oh well. At least I finished before being lapped by them a second time. Elliott, with whom I'd driven up the evening before, got 3rd in the 35-rider Cat. 4 race, his first since upgrading, so there was that. After the last race of the day we packed up and headed over to Clinton where the NOBC had a couple of rooms for Saturday night, and then drove all the way back to north Jackson for dinner at Bravo, which has practically become a tradition when in Jackson.

So we were up early on Sunday to help set up for the road races, just a few miles from the hotel. I had not ridden, or even seen, the course, but knew there was supposed to be a significant hill at around the 10 mile mark on the 16 mile loop. The Masters race started out calmly enough, as in the phrase "calm before the storm." There was a half-hearted attack the first time up the hill that pretty much everyone survived, but I was fully expecting fireworks on the second of the three laps. We were about four miles from the second lap hill when a couple of the Velovit riders went to the front and started stringing the group out. I was about 4th wheel at the time and by then could clearly read the writing on the wall. Obviously a plan was afoot and a big attack was going to be launched on the hill. We rounded the right-hand corner about half a mile before the climb and Andrew Crater from South Carolina pushed himself in front of me. He could see what was about to happen too.

Getting dropped on the hill

The hill represented the best opportunity on the course to establish a break; also the best opportunity to get dropped. Leading up to the start of the climb the pace picked up even more and I was already in the red zone halfway up when things came apart. Frank and Woody had attacked hard and over the top Andrew and Frank already had a gap. That had not been the plan, though, and Frank wasn't going to help Andrew with the rest of his team, including designated sprinter Woody, still chasing. That was pretty much the last I saw of the front half of the race, but what happened was that the group came back together, and then there were more attacks on the last lap that gapped off Frank I think a couple others. Woody was totally gassed and starting to come off the back a couple of miles before the finish but for some reason the lead group started looking at each other and that lull allowed Woody to rejoin them with only a mile to go. So basically they had a chance to gap off the best sprinter and the blew it, with the predictable result that Woody won. Andrew was royally pissed off and apparently argued with the officials about a car or something that the other guys didn't think had anything to do with the finish. Guess there's more to that story. Meanwhile, back in the second group, we eventually accumulated a nice little paceline of six or so with everyone taking pulls. Naturally there was still a sprint for the finish anyway. I was on Troy's wheel when he basically led it out, and for a little while I thought he was going to take me all the way to the finish. I really should have stood up and sprinted sooner, though, because in the last 50 meters Mike Corcoran came around us, and then right on the line David Blumenthal slipped past me. So it was another bronze medal for being the first 55+ dropped rider.

The guys up in Jackson put on a great race weekend with significant prizes, so I think everyone had a great time. Andrew Do took 2nd in the Cat. 4 race with Elliott 8th, so that was nice. The only bad things about the venues were the road surface in the criterium and the traffic in the road race finish area. I don't know where all those cars were going or coming from, and at least none of them were going fast, but it really did cause some problems with a couple of the finishes. The other problem was the loud music across the street from the officials and finish line that made it almost impossible for the officials to hear the communications from the follow cars and race crew. It was loud enough that it was even hard for them to communicate between each other. Anyway, it was a fun weekend and other than a crash in the Cat. 4 finish that sent one rider to the hospital with a broken bone, everything went quite well. More photos at https://photos.app.goo.gl/prmZf98RLfHyzbLe9.

Team Time Trial and Tribulation

As usual, I didn't have a Team Time Trial team together until a couple of days before the race. We had one Cat. 4 team that was already put together, and then there were the rest of us - Cat. 4, Cat. 5, 40+, 55+. For a while I thought we might be able to cobble together both a 55+ and another Cat. 4 team, but as we got closer to race day it was not looking good. In the end, there were four of us, and we were going to have to race as a Cat. 1/2 team since two of us weren't old enough to race masters. In a way, that was good because the two masters teams ended up putting in the fastest times of the day - way, way faster than ours. So on Friday night I bolted on the old Aerobars, dug out the skinsuit and TT helmet, and assembled a bunch of LAMBRA and NOBC equipment that we'd likely need for the race - table, clock, tent, generator, computer, printer, etc. The bikes were going to have to ride on the roof.

I got up a bit after 5 am on Saturday, loaded up the car, drove over to Starbucks just after they opened at 5:30, and then headed over to mid-city to pick up Elliott. It's about an hour drive to Vacherie, where the TTT was being held, and looking at the big dark clouds I knew we were going to get wet. We arrived around 7 am as planned and I went about setting up the tent and everything in the rain. We put the tent in the corner of the Jubilee Truck Stop parking lot because there was something there to which we could secure the tent to keep it from blowing away if and when a bug thunderstorm came through. Unfortunately, but the time we got it up it was raining hard enough that we were standing in a couple of inches of water. I eventually fired up the generator, being careful to keep the cable more or less out of the standing water, and they started registering teams. Naturally the weather had scared away a few teams. We were the only Cat. 1/2 team, but there were three for the Cat. 4s and two for the Masters. On the down side, that meant we'd be the first team to start. I was fully expecting that we'd be passed by at least a couple of other teams.

Trying the Mio Link HRM

After a fifteen minute rain delay we started out in a light drizzle. Steve led us out, with me, Elliott and Phil following. Steve and I are reasonably close in size, but Elliott is much taller than I, and Phil is probably a bit taller still. Basically, Steve and I were going to be getting a nice draft, Elliott and Phil - not so much. Elliott had a TT bike, as did Steve, but Phil was on his regular road bike without even aerobars. I knew he was in for a hard ride.

Easy to see who was getting the better draft!

On the way out we had a bit of a tailwind. With the light rain and foggy face shield on my TT helmet it was very difficult to read my computer. Everyone else was having the same problem. I was using my new Mio Link optical heart rate monitor, which was working fine, apparently. I never looked at my heart rate during the ride. From the start, Phil was taking rather long pulls, and we were rolling along pretty smoothly. Given our lack of warmup and mix of abilities, I was happy with our 26.5 mph average speed for the outbound leg. We definitely could have gone a bit faster, but I'm pretty sure that would have resulted in at least one rider blowing up completely on the return trip.

Cat. 4 podium

At the turnaround we somehow got pretty badly separated and Steve and I had to wait up a bit for everybody to come back together. There was an increasing headwind all the way back, but at least the rain had pretty much stopped by then. By the time we were halfway back Phil was starting to show the strain of being the biggest guy in the paceline, and together with our accumulating fatigue and the headwind that kept our speed for the return trip down to around 24 mph, so by the finish I was showing a 25.0 mph average. I knew we'd be minutes slower than some of the other teams, but I hadn't been expecting we could do anything better than 26, so I wasn't too disappointed. Our Cat. 4 team did a really good ride and won the Cat. 4 category, posting the 3rd fastest time overall, so that was great.

I think everyone who raced had a good day. The rain wasn't really much of a problem and fortunately we didn't have any issues with lightning. By the time we did the awards the sun was out and the street was almost dry.