Auburn Flyers Weekend

Hanging around College Street on Saturday

Collegiate racing week three in this year's series took me up to Auburn, Alabama along with ten other riders, eight of whom were Tulane's. For once, the forecast wasn't looking terrible, so I was kind of excited about that. I packed the thermal knickers and long-sleeve jersey anyway, since I know if I hadn't it would have ensured a repeat of the prior weekend's surprise weather. We didn't hit the road until quite late - I think around 5:30 or a bit later - but the drive to Auburn is easier and shorter than almost any of the team's regular road trips to practically anywhere in Texas. There was a ton of fog along I-10, but once we headed north it was easier going. With my regular glasses still out having new lenses installed, I'd been getting by with the single-vision contact lenses that I normally use almost exclusively for riding. They are "12-hour" lenses, and I can tell you that's a remarkably accurate timeframe, after which they start to burn a little. I had to deal with a bit more glare from the oncoming headlights than usual, combined with my gradually diminishing night vision acuity, but it wasn't really all that bad. Having one of the Tulane motor pool minivans with lane-assist added an extra measure of security. So we arrived fairly late, around 10:30 or 11:00 I think, and everyone hit the sack pretty quickly.

Masters start

Saturday were the road races on the same 8-mile course I'd ridden the year before. There was no significant threat of rain and the temperature was probably near 60, so basically summer kit plus base-layer for me. With all of the disruptions in my training routine over the prior month or so, I didn't really know what to expect, but since this was basically just a short Master 35+/45+ training race for me, I didn't have any goals other than not getting dropped by the main field. With 29 riders on the line, at least I would have lots of wheels to draft behind. The course features a moderate climb right after the start, and then a steeper 1-kilometer climb about half-way around, followed by a net downhill punctuated by a couple of short but punchy little climbs. There's a right turn about 600 meters before the finish, all of which is basically flat. The race itself was pretty moderate for the most part. A 2-rider break rode off the front on the first of second of our five laps, and as far as I could tell, there wasn't much of an effort to chase. I suspect there was a little teamwork, in the form of blocking, going on at the front. I was feeling pretty good on the climbs, perhaps because we went up them without any attacks every time except once, and eventually it became clear that it was going to come down to a big field sprint for 3rd place. Over the last few miles I worked on moving up near the front, but the pace had been a little too easy and therefore almost everybody in the field was thinking he had a shot at the sprint, which made the last couple of miles a little sketchy and bunched-up.

I guess I was somewhere in the front third of the group coming around the last turn. From there the speed started ramping up quickly and I positioned myself over on the left, just inside the centerline. A moment later some rider came up alongside on the left trying to push his way in. He made contact with another rider and they bounced off of each other as I went by. The next thing I heard was the sound of a spoke being broken as one rider's wheel must have gone into the quick-release of another, followed by riders and bikes hitting the asphalt. The sprint had already started, though, and when we got to 200 meters a rider went flying past on my left, so I latched onto that wheel and eventually came past it, finishing apparently 3rd in the field sprint, so 5th overall. Surprisingly, all but one of the riders ahead of me was 45+, so I was 4th in that age group. Better than I'd expected.

Afterward one of the riders complimented me on my riding, and specifically on my smoothness, so that kind to took the sting out of the time another rider in the field addressed me as "Sir." I mean, this was a Masters race, you know? At that point I realized that I'd probably been racing Masters longer than the 35 year old riders had been alive. The team as a whole did pretty well. It was practically the first race ever for some of them, so just finishing was the main goal. Gavin, riding in his second-ever Category A race, finished an impressive 11th in a 43-rider field. Kaitlyn was 16th in the Women A race, finishing with the second group, while Julia was 8th in the 35-rider Cat. B race. Dustin rode the Cat 1/2/3 race, winning the field sprint and placing 3rd behind an early 2-rider break. Since we had no plans to race the afternoon time trials, we headed off to lunch and ice cream on S. College Street, which I immediately recognized from some gymnastics trip back when Danielle was at Iowa.

This was a fun group

Sunday's races were at a big oval test track near Auburn. The weather was even better - lots of sunshine and not cold. I was glad to see G.W. Wenzel there, although he wasn't riding this year. Kaitlyn was 8th in the Cat. A race, which was pretty good. All of the other women were lumped together in a 30-rider Cat. B race. You might think that a closed slightly banked oval over a mile long would be really safe, but actually the wide road and lack of actual corners tend to result in big messy bunched-up fields unless the pace gets really fast.

She was OK. Better safe than sorry.

It was probably only about half-way through the Women's B race that a couple of Tulane riders came by and yelled to us that Oriane had crashed. We could just barely make out a couple of riders on the ground and a moto about 500 meters upstream. Dustin rode down there to see how everyone was and right away called me to come down there too. Meanwhile they were trying to figure out how to get the nurse medic down there in the middle of the race. By the time I got my bike and got there they had Oriane covered with  a space blanket and the nurse was treating her like she'd just been pulled out of a crashed car. She was a little shaken-up and had hit her head hard enough to crack the helmet, but other than the usual road rash she seemed to be OK. Even so, they called an ambulance and hauled her off to the nearby hospital, which I guess was good even though she wasn't showing any signs of a concussion by the time we got there. At that point I was planning to go to the hospital and skip my race, but by then the B women had all finished and so they went instead.

Gavin was pretty happy with this win.

My race was Masters combined with Cat. 3/4, which in this case included Gavin, who had just finished placing 4th in the A race, along with Kaitlyn, Julia, Joey, and Arianna, all of whom were racing their second races of the day. That resulted in a pretty big field that had to be around 40 riders at least. Now, since Gavin had basically just done a cool-down lap and then immediately lined up for this race, I would have expected him to sit in for a while, but instead, at the end of the very first lap, I see him launching himself off the front. He ended up in a small break with, I think, a couple of masters riders. Meanwhile, back in the pack, I was kind of chilling near the back enjoying the big draft. It was pretty windy, and so when you came around past the finish and around the curve at that end of the oval, you started up a slight incline and then got hit by a headwind. Every lap the pack would slow down suddenly and everything would bunch up at that point, so I already had my exit strategy worked out when the inevitable crash happened in the middle of the pack with four or five laps to go. Right ahead of me were Kaitlyn and Julia, and we all bailed out onto the grass that sloped steeply downhill to the inside of the oval. Julia somehow made it back up and onto the road without having to unclip, and Kaitlyn was soon back on the road, but I had to unclip and walk back up to the asphalt (I was a bit over-geared, as usual). Once I got going I caught up to Kaitlyn and a four of five others and figured my race was over, but surprisingly when we came around to the start/finish they gave us a free lap with 3 to go. The finish stretch was slightly downhill with a strong tailwind, so I just watched Stuart Lamp, the official, and as soon as he said "go" I sprinted hard. I think just a few of us were able to latch onto what was left of the pack, which, as I would later discover, had been shattered by the crash. So now I'm thinking how great it is that Julia was able to get back to the front group, and figuring we'd be sprinting for something like 12th place. Well, as it turned out, we'd been put back in with basically the front part of the pack that hadn't really been affected by the crash, so a bunch of riders who had gotten held up by the crash and couldn't get back up to the remnant of the main pack, and hadn't gotten a free lap, were now behind us. Anyway, not knowing any of this at the time, I put in a sub-maximal effort at a sprint, still thinking that Julia and a bunch of others were ahead of us. When they posted results I was surprised to see that they had me listed in 9th, way ahead of Julia and obviously a bunch of others who were all ahead of me immediately following the crash. Really, they probably shouldn't have given us a free lap, or at least put us in behind the riders who had gotten gapped off but hadn't stopped at the pit, but since it all transpired on the back side of the course, I guess they were kind of guessing about where to put us in. Anyway, there were only a few prize places, so I don't think anybody really cared. Gavin, who I think was probably powering the break, ended up 2nd behind a Masters riders, so 1st in the Cat. 4s. He was a happy camper, for sure.

Dustin leading the 2nd break

After that was the Cat. 1/2/3 race, where Dustin missed the small early break, then got away with a small chase group. It all came back together in the final couple of laps, though, and Dustin ended up sprinting to 2nd place in the Cat. 1/2 field which I think was also 2nd among all of the 1/2/3s.

Meanwhile, the other girls had returned from the hospital and a couple others had gone out to get something to eat, returning with 60 (yes, 60) soft tacos from Taco Bell. At least nobody went hungry, and we didn't need to stop for dinner on the way home! I dropped the two riders who were in  my van off on campus, stopped by the house to drop off my bags, drove to headquarters to drop off the bike holders and spare wheels and pump, went back to campus to drop off the van, and rode back to the house, arriving I guess around 9:30 pm. It was a fun weekend and I was glad I got to do a couple of races and especially a couple of pack sprints.

False Advertising at College Station

Ready to head back home

Last weekend was another collegiate race weekend, and although those things usually take a big bite out of my own riding time, I was kind of excited about it because the weather forecast was looking so much better than the prior weekend. Granted, it was a pretty low bar, but when I started stuffing things into my travel bag on Friday morning I was expecting dry roads and temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Winter jacket?  Naaah. Thermal knickers? It won't be cold enough for those. Basically, I brought a summer kit, and then threw in a long-sleeve jersey and wind-front base layer "just in case." I know better than that, of course. I mean, after all these years of racing I should know better than to head off on a cycling road trip in February without clothes suitable for 35-degrees and rain.

Keeping warm at the Road Race

There was another reason I should have been less optimistic. On Tuesday I'd come down with a head cold. Scratchy throat, sleepless nights, stuffed-up head. By Friday I'd been on 12-hour pseudoephedrine for three days, but since I was so certain that the weather would be dry and relatively warm, I just knew I'd be able to do at least a bit of riding on Saturday and Sunday, salvaging a bit of the weekend and perhaps keeping me from getting fatter than I already was, having already skipped rides because of the head cold. Although there were only four TU riders making the trip, they had been unable to get a Tulane minivan from the motor pool, so Dustin and I were taking personal cars instead. I'd have one person and four bikes, while Dustin would have the other two bikes and riders. We hit the road around 2 pm on Friday for the long drive to Texas A&M at College Station. The drive was marred by a lot of traffic and a fair amount of road construction, but we still arrived at a pretty reasonable hour.

Cold and wet Time Trial riders

Early Saturday morning, after not sleeping very much, I stumbled in the dark over to the Super-8 motel window, pushed aside the curtain, and thought, "Crap." It was raining, and the temperature was in the 30s, all of which was entirely different than what Weather.com had led us to believe twenty-four hours earlier. It looked like the actual rain would end in time for the 8 am Time Trial, but they weren't offering much hope as far as the temperature went. It was going to be cold and wet all day, and, being only partially recovered from a head cold, there was no way I'd be getting on the bike that day. I hadn't even brought much in the way of warm non-cycling clothes with me, so I layered-up with what I had, and pulled the rain jacket out of my commuting bag for good measure.

Gavin ready to go for the TT

The Time Trial was the same as it had been in earlier years, a 10 km one-way affair at 30-second intervals with absolutely no course control. I don't know how they get away with doing this sort of thing over in Texas without having at least a couple of police cars around. Anyway, it was clear that I wasn't the only one who had been led astray by weather.com's false advertising. All of the riders were clearly improvising in one way or the other, although in some cases they were just wearing their skinsuits and freezing. At any rate, the TT went fine. Gavin, competing as a Cat. A for the first time, was 5th out of 19 with a solid time. Kaitlyn and Julia, competing in Cat. B, went first and second. only 9 seconds apart, and both faster than the 2nd place Cat. A woman. Julie finished 7th in the Women C.

Cat. B Women on the line

By the time the afternoon criteriums started on the A&M campus the roads were reasonably dry, but the temperature was practically unchanged. Riders were wearing everything from summer kit to full tights and jackets. As seems to be typical at collegiate races, they completely changed up the races and start times on the spot, with the result that the B and C women would be riding together. At least this was better than what was posted on the original flyer, which showed one criterium starting 5 minutes after the next. Julia and Kaitlyn were primed for this race, and after Julia put some pressure on the field early in the race, it wasn't long before Kaitlyn rode off the front of the group.

Kaitlyn attacks, Julia creates a gap - teamwork

That quickly split the pack and Julia tucked herself into a small 4-rider chase group where she could bide her time while the others tried in vain to close the gap to Kaitlyn, who somehow managed to stay out there all the way to the end, raising her hands as she crossed what she thought was the non-existent finish line where there was a Bike Barn flag. The actual finish was about thirty feet farther, but it didn't really matter. When Julia's group sprinted, Julia also sat up at the flag rather than the finish line, which was actually just a seam in the road with traffic cones on either end. I don't think that mattered, but she was definitely disappointed to finish 3rd instead of winning the pack sprint. Julie finished 9th in the C category. It felt good to get back in the car with the heater on, I must say.

Pensive Gavin

So Sunday morning it was still cloudy, but at least the temperature was up into the low 50s. I was feeling better than I had the day before and decided that I'd pile on some extra clothes to avoid getting chilled and pull the bike out to see if I could get in some easy to moderate miles without risking pneumonia. Confirming rumors from the prior day, the road course had been modified and shortened to cut out the advertised gravel section because just the day before the county had laid down a nice new thick layer of new and essentially unrideable gravel. I'm sure some were disappointed by this development. I wasn't one of them.

Cat. A RR Field

First off were the A men with Gavin. Dustin was tagging along at the back of that one. I waited until they started, then got my bike together, and jumped in behind them when they came around at the end of the 2nd 6-mile lap. I was still pretty concerned about stressing my compromised lungs, so the first time the pace kicked up into the 30s I eased off the back, stopping at the end of the lap to re-assess before continuing. I was wearing my thick commuting vest over a long-sleeve jersey and wind-front base layer, so despite the bare legs I was pretty warm and ended up with the vest mostly un-zipped and functioning like a parachute. I stopped again at the start before resuming when the breakaway came by, and then dropping off from them to wait for what was left of the field that included Gavin, and riding with them before stopping with one lap to go so I could see the finish. Gavin looked pretty well-toasted but still sprinted and finished 10th out of 21, which was pretty good for his first Cat. A road race.

Flying Feedzone Water Bottle

Next up were the women, and by then I was feeling a little more confident that I could make a few efforts without doing too much lung damage. Dustin and I started behind the B women, who were mixed in with the Cat. C men, which is really never a good thing but almost always happens with collegiate around here.  This race was obviously slower and shorter, so Dustin and I sat at the back for all but the final lap. They were probably only half-way through when the pack split with Julia and Kaitlyn unfortunately on the wrong side of the split. We didn't really know how many of the B women were in the lead group, which fairly quickly disappeared into the distance, and since we couldn't really engage in any coaching under the circumstances we couldn't ride up to Kaitlyn or Julia to ask. Well apparently there must not have been any B women up there because in the end Kaitlyn won the pack sprint with Julia 2nd, which is how the final results were posted.

Right after the women finished we loaded up the cars and headed out for food before hitting the road for home. Julie, who was in the car with me, was having intestinal problems from something she ate at lunch the whole way back. Luckily I had some kind of medicine to help with that in my first aid kit. By the time we left the sun was coming out and it was much warmer, but a few hours later we found ourselves driving through the same chilly wet weather we'd had on Saturday. Still, the drive back seemed a bit smoother and I was probably back home by 9:30 or so. All-in-all I was really happy that I'd been able to get in 50 miles or so without feeling like I'd done any significant lung damage.

Texas State Weekend

Gavin won the Cat. B tme trial, crit, and overall

Last weekend I drove over to San Marcos for the Texas State Ultra collegiate races. From the outset, I had a feeling I was driving away from the good weather and toward the bad weather. I was not mistaken. I was still nursing a sore jaw after having an implant screwed into my jawbone earlier in the week, so I figured I'd get in just a little bit of training and hopefully some more moderate riding. Gavin, Frank (Haoting), and I made the trip in one minivan, with the three women in the other, and Dustin and Joey from LSU going up in Dustin's car. The 8 or 9-hour drive went pretty smoothly and we arrived around 10:30 or so, I guess, which wasn't bad considering we had not left until around 2:00. The temperature was already down to 40 or so, and predicted to drop farther by morning. I went to sleep hoping we'd be able to get in the road races before the rain.

Riding back after taking photos on the hill

Naturally, when I looked out the window at 6 am the next morning it was raining, and although it was predicted to end around 8 am, when the races were scheduled to begin, by then there was no chance we'd be seeing any dry asphalt all weekend. This is at least the third time I've been to this race and the weather each time has been cold and wet. Anyway, although the rain was technically over, there was still a cold mist for the whole road race. Riders were piling on whatever warm clothing they could find, so actual team jerseys were kind of rare. Julia, who is on the Tulane team, raced all day in an LSU jacket. I had planned on starting behind the A men and then eventually dropping back to follow the B men, but I was still rushing spare wheels to the follow car when the A race started, so I lined up with Dustin behind the B race. I was wearing my heavy NOBC jacket, a warm long-sleeve base layer, a short-sleeve wind-front base layer, and a thin long-sleeve Nike base layer, along with full tights and shoe-covers. It was a bit of overkill, but then again I knew I wouldn't be actually racing and might very well end up riding by myself, so better safe than sorry. The road race started out fairly easy, but I immediately realized we weren't doing the loop that I thought we'd be doing. There had never been any course map available, and after the race I realized that we were doing the old loop, but in the opposite direction. Basically, I was totally lost most of the time. So we were probably just about half-way around the first of three laps and I'm not paying much attention and I look up and there's this fairly big climb up ahead. I was still in something like the 53 x 15, loafing around at the back of the pack, when it finally dawned on me that this thing was way more steep than I'd thought. By then I was bogged down and afraid to try and force a shift while standing on the pedals, so pretty much everyone rode away from me before I got to the top. I came over the top and got together with another rider and we traded pulls at a nice pace that was obviously not going to be sufficient to close the gap which was probably already up to 45 seconds or so. This was fine with me, and apparently with him as well. Around the end of that lap we picked up one of the A women who had started with this group and gotten shelled when there had been a big surge, so I got in a nice little 40-something mile paceline ride without ever getting too cold. Mission accomplished, although I'd have liked to have done one more lap just for the miles. Gavin ended up placing 3rd in this race, but the other races were kind of a disaster for us. Kaitlyn and Julia were in the Women's B race. Kaitlyn crashed twice and Julia crashed once, but Julia ended up winning anyway. Kaitlyn smashed up her hip pretty badly and didn't finish. She would later ride the criterium on Sunday, though. Meanwhile, Frank, who was in the A group, somehow took a wrong turn while off the front and ended up on a highway somewhere, finally finding his way back but not finishing the race. Oriane finished 9th in the Women's C race. Oh well. Still, a 1st and a 3rd were good.

Cleat troubles on a 16% - 20% grade section of the TT

That afternoon was the infamous Time Trial on Fulton Ranch Road that features some short sections of around 20% grade. It was still very cold by the time that started around 2 pm. Gavin posted the fastest time in the Men's B category that would have put him 6th in the A race, while Julia did the same in the Women's B category. Oriane, who had just gotten her first pair of cycling shoes the week before, had a cleat come totally loose part-way up the climb. Dustin and I were halfway up the climb taking pictures and when we saw her walking her bike Dustin ran over to see what happened. He kind of hand-tightened the cleat bolts and got her going again, so at least she finished. Frank had a good time that put him 12th among the A riders. Everybody was happy to head back to the hotel after that to clean up. The bikes and clothes and shoes were all covered with mud from the wet road race, but considering the forecast for Sunday, nobody bothered to clean any of it off.

trying to warm up

So Sunday the rain stopped in time for the races, but the course was wet throughout because of the mist that was falling. Fortunately, the whole thing was at a big sprawling high school with fairly new roads. The loop was over a mile around and not very technical at all. It was still pretty cold - around 40 I guess - and never really warmed up at all. Everybody rode the Crit, including Frank and Oriane who had never ridden one before. Considering the wet roads they had instructions to just drop off the back whenever it got sketchy.

Gavin, on the left, realizing he has a flat rear coming into a wet downhill turn.

In the Women's race, Kaitlyn went for one of the early points primes, won it, and then dropped out of the front group. Julia stayed in there and ended up winning the sprint, locking up the omnium in the process.

Julia swept the B race.

In the Men's B race there was a lot of action. Frank came off the back fairly early as expected, but Gavin was looking for a win and was up at the front a lot. I was taking photos part-way around the course where there was a little downhill turn when the group came by and I heard Gavin yelling "flat!" A piece of metal wire had gone through his rear tire. Luckily we had spare wheels in the pit, and with the course being so long, he was able to cut across to the pit, change the wheel, and jump back in just as they were coming around again. A couple of laps later he was off the front with another rider who quickly dropped off. Gavin then just put his head down and went for it. There was still a lot of time on the clock, and there was definitely an active chase going on behind him. After a while a 2-rider break separated from the pack and was hovering around 12-20 seconds behind him, so we were starting to worry that he would be caught. Somehow he found a little extra for the last few laps and pulled it out a few more seconds, winning the criterium and the overall, with lots of room to spare.

So although Saturday hadn't gone as planned, and the weather pretty much sucked the whole time, it all worked out OK with some good results to show. After stopping for lunch we hit the road for home around mid-afternoon, getting back in to NOLA as a thick fog was settling in around 10:30 pm. It was a fun trip, although I wish I could have gotten in some more riding myself.

Burned, Drilled, Fogged, and on the Road

The weather around here has been unseasonably warm for about a week now. Naturally it's about to change pretty significantly, but it's been quite a relief to be able to ride in basically summer kit for a few days. Being early February, I have had a really hard time not over-dressing. Basically, I can't accept the thermometer at face value, and pulled on the arm-warmers a few times when they really weren't needed.

Last weekend, after a pretty routine Giro Ride on Saturday, I went with a small group of Tulane riders up to Independence for an easy 60+ miles in the country. The strongest riders weren't there, so I actually had a pretty relaxing ride. I needed it, I think. A week or so ago I broke down and visited the dermatologist, which of course resulted in a liberal application of liquid nitrogen and a scrape biopsy on a little spot on my back. Amazing how they can pick out that one spot from among the thousands of others on my sun-ravaged body. I guess I was about the last generation before sunscreen became readily available. As a child I would get sunburned to the point of blistering at least once or twice each year. Back then we used "suntan lotion" which was basically mineral oil that did essentially nothing but provide an excuse to rub your hands over your girlfriend's body on the beach. So anyway, with the LN2 burns are slowly healing, I found myself at the dentist yesterday for phase II of an implant I need to replace that tooth that had to be pulled back in December because it had cracked underneath an old crown. I had already been back the week before when they did a CAT scan of my mouth in order to figure out where to drill -- in to the bone. So I wasn't exactly looking forward to this little visit during which they would slice open my gum down to the bone, force my mouth open way past its normal limit, drill a hole into my jaw bone, thread the hole, screw in a post, and then stitch up the gum. After that I went home and briefly - very briefly - contemplated whether or not to go to work. Luckily I decided to stay home, because an hour later when the anesthetic started to wear off, I knew I was going to be in for a couple of uncomfortable days on Ibuprofen. It's still a bit swollen and obviously tender. Fortunately I am well-stocked on avocados and soup at home.

Levee fog - one of the better sections

This morning I ventured out to the levee for the Thursday ride. Although there were heavy fog warnings out, there was really no fog until I got to the river. There, there was plenty of fog. I guess there were six or seven of us by the time we got to the playground. So there we were riding along the levee bike path, in the dark, in a paceline, in fog so thick you could barely see the rider in front. It was stressful, even at a relatively sedate 22 mph. I was spending a lot of time about a bike length behind the rider in front of me, just so I'd have a slim chance of avoiding a crash if something suddenly appeared out of the darkness in front. By the time we got to Williams Blvd. all but three had turned back. We decided to continue on to the Big Dip. Things improved ever so slightly after sunrise, which I can only assume happened somewhere above the fog layer, but it was still pretty sketchy for most of it. At one point Rich, who was on the front at the time, hit the brakes pretty hard when we came up on a police car that was stopped on the bike path in a particularly foggy area. Once he finished playing with his phone he said something to us on his loudspeaker, but we couldn't understand it. I can only assume it was along the lines of "Slow the f^*k down!" Anyway, we all survived, and thanks to the shortened distance I had time to stop for coffee, which I sipped carefully in order to avoid hitting the injured gum where the stitches were.

Tomorrow we'll have a small component of the Tulane cycling team heading off to Texas State for the first collegiate road event of the brief season. Naturally, a cold front is coming through tonight and the temperature in San Marcos will be in the upper 30s for the start of the road race with rain in the forecast for Sunday. At least it shouldn't be as bad as it was a few years back when the whole weekend was basically freezing cold rain. I'm going to bring the bike and hopefully tag along with the A or B race in order to get in some miles. That never really works out too well for me. I tend to sit at the back so I don't affect the collegiate race, which means I inevitably hesitate when the pace surges and get gapped off at some point.