Not Exactly High-Mileage

A nice photo by Ross Agulair

Last week was probably the lowest-mileage week I've had all year. It wasn't my fault. Honest! But I always seem to have a few of these kinds of weeks this time of year. This time it was kind of a perfect storm (pun intended). My usual Monday morning recovery ride (using the term loosely since the prior day had been rather easy as well) was followed up on Tuesday by a rain day. Tuesdays and Thursday are usually my "long ride" days on which I routinely log around 40 miles before breakfast. Luckily, on Wednesday I got in the WeMoRi before the rain resumed, but I wasn't so lucky on Thursday which turned out to be another wash-out. So I was already 80+ miles in the hole before the weekend, during which I was scheduled to officiate the LAMBRA track championships where we spend a day and a half distributing about 70 medals among about 15 riders. Not that it wasn't some good solid racing, but I just wish half of the people who I know have track bikes would show up for this event.

So anyway, on Saturday morning I picked up Gavin who was pretty much under the weather with a head cold, and made the drive up to Baton Rouge, arriving around 8 am ahead of the scheduled 9 am first race. I immediately started setting up the finish line camera and associated laptop, all of which went smoothly.

Or so I thought.

You see, a few weeks prior there had been an electrical fire at the park where the velodrome is located that resulted in cancellation of the whole weeknight series since there were no lights. As I learned on Saturday, when the park had added the rock wall and skate park and other fun things, they hadn't upgraded the electrical systems. The result was that when they turned on the lights for the BMX track, plus the lights for the Skate Park, plus the lights for the Velodrome, the main panel self-ignited. Being a municipal park, of course, getting the situation properly repaired will no doubt entail numerous sealed bids and delays and cost over-runs, with the net result being that I'm not really expecting to see lighting at the velodrome until Spring. Fortunately, all of the track events last weekend were being held during the day. Unfortunately, when I asked Dustin if the electrical outlet on the judging stand was live he confidently replied that it was. So of course I left the generator at home. So after hooking up the camera and laptop I started up the camera software and was perplexed that it didn't seem to be able to find the camera. I went around and checked all of the connections and they all looked fine. All the while I was listening to the music playing from the little p/a system that Dustin had brought. Then I finally noticed that the light on the camera transformer wasn't lit. Neither was the light on the laptop. Turned out that the p/a system had a battery, like the laptop, and that yes, the outlet was not working. Luckily, I was able to call Chris who lives in BR and he was able to bring his generator over. So after all of that, I was rather disappointed that there was never a finish that was so close that I needed the camera to resolve the winner, although there were a few sprints during the Points Race where I did go back and look at the images to confirm the placings.

Since I knew I wouldn't be able to do any of my usual long rides over the weekend, I had planned ahead and brought my track bike with me on Saturday. The plan was to get in some miles on the track during the 3-hour lunch break in the middle of the day. So when we wrapped up the first session I opened up my bag to collect my riding clothes and discovered to my dismay that although I'd brought helmet, gloves and shoes I'd neglected to bring shorts or jersey. Luckily, Elliott happened to have a spare skinsuit that fit, so my day was saved. As everyone went off to lunch I hopped onto the bike and proceeded to tick off approximately 144 laps around the track, logging around 30 miles, which somehow seemed to me to make the whole day of officiating worthwhile!

Sunday's races were concluded in the morning, so I guess I was back home around 2:30 or so. All-in-all it was a nice enough weekend. Not having electricity was still way better than having to deal with rain or cold, so no complaints there.