Way Up in Tupelo

Sunday's Renasant Criterium masters

It's a long way to Tupelo from New Orleans, but it promised two days of criteriums, one of which was the LAMBRA Criterium Championship, and besides, I had most of the LAMBRA equipment that would be needed. So early Saturday morning I loaded up the Volvo, clamped the bike to the roof, picked up coffee and Starbucks, and headed northeast to the far, far corner of Mississippi. I knew that the travel issue would limit the number of LAMBRA riders willing to make the trip, but on the other hand, I expected the race to draw riders from nearby cities in Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. That would at least make for an interesting mix. This was the race's second year, so I knew the race director would have all of the basics under control, and since the weather was looking to be dry all weekend I figured I'd easily be able to jump into at least one of the races. We had two officials lined up for the weekend, so I was basically just backup and someone to handle the finish line camera.

After an uneventful 5+ hour drive I arrived at the course nice and early since the first race wasn't scheduled to start until 2 pm. By the time we had things all set up at the finish line I was already hot and tired, so I decided I'd focus on officiating on Saturday and save the racing for Sunday. The last race of the day was the Cat. 1/2/3 race and since it was starting at 7:30 pm I knew it would be ending in the dark, which would complicate judging tremendously. The night before I had gone over to Lowe's and picked up a set of LED work lights that I planned to put right on the finish line. I knew that they would probably be just barely adequate, or inadequate, since the finish was pretty wide and even at 9,000 lumens the finish camera was going to be seriously challenged.

Getting the finish set up on Saturday

So as we're preparing for the start of the first race and riders are still doing warm-up laps, we get word that someone has crashed on turn #3 (the course on Saturday was a particularly short rectangle). That crash resulted in a broken collarbone and concussion, I think, so everything was delayed about ten minutes until the ambulance cleared the course. Later, there would be another crash, this time involving the Race Director himself. With the finish line pretty close to the first turn, it had been decided to tell the riders to go straight after the finish rather than taking turn #1. Unfortunately, in one of the races there was a rider who came across the finish line with one to go just a few seconds before the lead pack sprinted. When that rider got to the corner the leaders had caught up to him. They were going straight. He was turning left. I think that one resulted in another broken collarbone.

Anyway, over the course of the afternoon we got things back on track time-wise and started the rather large and very aggressive Cat. 1/2/3 race more or less on time. As the hour-long race progressed I watched the camera images get darker and darker, despite my adjustments to the capture rate. A few laps before the finish the camera's automatic motion detection stopped working which told me that it had gotten too dark, even with the lights, to expect much. Unfortunately it was also dark enough that it was hard to read the rider numbers by eye until they passed in front of the lights. Anyway, the camera has a "force" option for such situations and I recorded the finish. The other judges had only partial results since there was a pack sprint. After much squinting and a little detective work we pieced together the finish order fairly well, I think. Riders who had come across the line closer to the camera had readable numbers. Those that came across farther away didn't. Still, we were quite confident about the top 6 or so, which allowed for awards and podium photos. By the time we picked up, packed up, and checked into the hotel it was almost 10 pm. Robert and I walked over to the restaurant next to the hotel to find that they stopped serving dinner at 10 pm. It was about 10:05 when we arrived. Luckily, we spotted Adam Morris at a table with a bunch of other riders and friends and since Adam apparently knows everyone in Tupelo, including the server, they added our order to their table and we got something to eat, plus some bonus entertainment from both the server and the big table next to us where someone was having a birthday party involving lots of adult beverages.

GW and me finishing out the remaining laps

So on Sunday I went out to the course really early to set up the big USAC banners and finish line area. We had decided to move the finish upstream a bit for Sunday to avoid complications with turn #1 like we'd had on Saturday. I went over and registered for the Masters race, mainly just to get some riding in. Trying to help with officiating and setup and then jumping into a race never works for me, so the only question was whether I'd be dropped from the start or dropped halfway through (turned out to be the latter). At the start we had only six riders, which was pretty disappointing. However among those six were a number of riders I knew, including Hunter East, a Cat. 1 from Little Rock, who was the current Arkansas state champion and current national 55-59 Road and Criterium champion, and Emile Abraham, a 45 year old Cat. 1 from Atlanta who was 2nd at last year's masters nationals and winner of his masters race at Sunny King. We also had GW Wenzel, a 62 year old Cat. 1 from Auburn who's been racing since the dinosaurs roamed the earth, like me. Todd Hollingsworth from Alabama and Jeff Buse from the Tupelo area (also serving as stand-in race director after Matt's crash). Surprisingly the race started off smoothly, and for quite a few laps the whole little group just rode paceline. Then they announced a Prime and I knew my time was about over. Sure enough, the surge for the Prime opened gaps and the race was on at the front. That left GW and me together with Jeff dangling about twenty seconds up the road, and the rest way up ahead. This wasn't unexpected, of course, so GW and I quickly settled into a nice pace trading turns at the front and ultimately succeeding in not being lapped by the leaders (barely). I enjoyed the course which included a few more blocks and turns than the short Saturday course. The Cat. 1/2/3 race a little later was very fast and animated although marred by a crash at one point. With everything ending in the early afternoon I was all packed up and back on the road by 4 pm or so. The drive back was remarkably smooth with surprisingly little traffic. On the satellite radio I had temporary access to the Beatles Channel where they were playing every song the Beatles ever produced, in chronological order, with interesting stories about most of them. I guess I got to the late 60s by the time I got home.

Ready to ride at Stoney Point

The next morning, Memorial Day, I was up early again to drive across the lake to do a group reconnaissance ride on the Tour de La road course. We had maybe 12 or 15 riders and had a really nice ride. The first lap was fairly easy as I stopped before each intersection to freshen up some of the road markings. There were a lot of bad sections of road on the back side of the course - a couple of those smaller roads have been deteriorating for years. Most of it shouldn't be bad enough to cause a crash, although there are definitely a few spots that could result in a pinch flat for riders running lower tire pressures. Otherwise, though, the course looked fine and after we finished the first lap we stopped to regroup and so that I could get rid of the empty paint can and replace it with a full water bottle.

The bar at the Southern Hotel in Covington

The second and third laps were mostly at a pretty fast pace. On the second lap we ended up with Mike Lew and Brandon (?) off the front, chased by Steve Johnson and me. It was a good little workout. The second lap was just slightly slower but still fast enough to do some damage. By the time I got home I was good and exhausted. Then on Tuesday I left work early to drive across the lake again, this time with Mignon, to meet with Fred and the Covington police, fire, and mayor's office folks so we could finalize details for the Tour de Louisiane criterium June 9. Since we've done the criterium there for so many years, and since everything would be the same this year, that went smoothly. We stopped at the nearby Southern Hotel afterward to pick up a gift certificate they were donating as a Prime. As we were walking out I spotted this older gentleman sitting at the bar and had to stop and take a rather iconic candid photo. 

Next weekend will be two days over in Hammond for a road race and two criteriums. Then the following weekend will be the Tour de La. After that I think I'll be more than ready for a little break with just the Pontchartrain weekday series between then and the road championships at the beginning of August.

A Busy Few Weeks

We are gearing up for the 48th Tour de Louisiane stage race - June 8-9.

I was walking down the hall at work to get a cup of coffee a minute ago and thinking, "All this volunteer stuff is getting out of hand!" Actually, I'm sure it has been more of a timing issue where a lot of things seem to have been happening more or less on top of each other. Once we had put on the Westbank race, and then followed it up the following week by putting on the Time Trial Championship, we (and by that I mean about four of us) barely had time to breathe before getting back to the usual last-minute preparations for the upcoming 48th annual Tour de Louisiane stage race that is now just a couple of weeks away. To complicate things, it's been quite busy at work, and Danielle was in town to pick up her PhD at the LSUHSC graduation ceremonies.

Stretching the limits of my phone camera but not too bad a pic of Danielle after being hooded

Danielle and Shannon flew in from Olympia (well, actually Seattle) on the 14th. There were some pre-commencement things on the 15th over at LSUHSC, and then graduation ceremonies the morning of the 16th, followed by lunch over at Blue Crab and then a get-together for dinner at Catalino's Guatemalan restaurant on Maple Street. A couple of days later my niece Rachael Barnes picked up her MD degree up at Wake Forest. Early Friday morning Candy flew out to San Francisco, and Danielle and Shannon started loading up two big U-Haul moving containers with all of the stuff she's had down here since she started grad school a few years ago, plus the scooter, bikes, a dining room table and chairs, and anything else I could convince her to take. I'd been a little bit worried about the vulnerability of those things sitting out on the street, but fortunately U-Haul called and picked them up right away on Saturday.

The crit had a "misfit" class for
blue bikes, tandems, and other odd
bikes.

Shortly afterward I took Danielle and Shannon to the airport to fly back to the PNW, and went straight from there to the Federal City Criterium over in Algiers. I didn't bring the bike. I'd been so wrapped up in everything else going on that I knew I wouldn't be able to shift gears and jump into a criterium like that. As it turned out, I had more time than I'd expected and probably could have raced it but under the circumstances I rather enjoyed just hanging out at a small race and kind of winding down while helping to officiate a bit and then bringing all of the LAMBRA equipment back with me so I could then take it with me up to Tupelo this coming weekend. I was just happy that, with all of the complications, I'd only missed one day of riding.

Waiting for the start of the Beth's Friends Fondeaux

On Sunday I rode the BFF charity ride, which was connected to the Federal City criterium the day before. It started at Urban South brewery down on Tchoupitoulas Street and turned out to be kind of interesting. I decided to drive the car over there in the morning, and arrived a good hour early, which would have been nice except that I then couldn't find my wallet that I needed in order to pay the registration fee. After searching through my bag, I figured I must have left it at the house, so I got back int the car and rushed back home and still couldn't find it. I finally searched through my bag for, I think, the fourth time and found it hidden away down in the bottom of the bag. Then I had to rush back to Urban South and register.

Nice group for the BFF ride - mostly Giro/WeMoRi people

Luckily I got there with time to spare, which was good because Mignon had been planning on stashing some stuff in my car since she had ridden over from Jefferson. The whole time I was monitoring the weather because some heavy rain was heading our way and was looking to hit us around 11 am, which was just about when I figured we'd be finishing the ride. This ride goes over the Mississippi River bridge in the closed HOV lane, and then kind of wanders around the westbank on some nice out-and-back roads before crossing back over the bridge to the east bank. It's kind of loosely organized, but enjoyable and fast enough to qualify as training. A few riders took off early as we went over the bridge, but most of the front group that was composed mainly of Giro riders, stayed together. That kept the pace brisk but fairly civilized. As we approached the bridge on the way back I started getting tornado watch alerts on my Garmin via my phones Garmin Connect app. When we got back to Urban South I grabbed a cold Coke (it was beginning to feel like summer) and sat down for a few minutes.

Dennis and Reggie at Urban South post-ride

By then the weather was deteriorating rapidly and when I saw Mignon come in we went down to my car a couple of blocks away and stashed the bikes in there just as the first raindrops started falling. There was no way she was going to be able to ride back to her house with the weather like it was. A few minutes later all hell broke loose - lightning, thunder, hail, and wind. Luckily we were nice and comfortable inside drinking beer and eating jambalaya and pizza. A little later Reggie and Andrea showed up. They had been at the top of the bridge in the lightning and hail and everything. I'm sure a lot of riders had an unexpectedly exciting bridge crossing in the middle of that storm! I got to catch up with Wendy and a few other riders who I don't see that often, so it was all quite nice.

So tomorrow morning I'm heading up to Tupelo with a car full of race stuff for two criteriums, the latter of which is the LAMBRA criterium championship. It will be interesting to see who makes the long drive for that. It's almost six hours from New Orleans, so not exactly centrally located for most or our riders. I expect it will draw as many from Tennessee, Alabama and Florida as from LAMBRA. I'll be helping to officiate, but I plan to jump into one or both masters races if I can, just for the exercise. I haven't really raced all year unless you count the Auburn races earlier in the season, so I am not feeling confident about anything except my ability to get dropped in a criterium. The following weekend is the Hammerdal Classic nearby in Hammond that I'm hoping to race/officiate, and then the next weekend is the Tour.  So basically there will be no rest for the weary until the end of June. After the Tour there's a track race at the Baton Rouge Velodrome, and then the weekday Pontchartrain series starts.

The Race of Truth

Off to get the start line set up

The truth is, putting on a race, even a relatively basic one like a time trial, can be a lot of work depending on just how OCD you are. Last Sunday was the LAMBRA Time Trial Championship. On the face of it, putting on a time trial seems pretty straightforward. Line them up, write down the time when the started, write down the time when they finished, and subtract. Simple. Of course, reality is never quite that simple, at least nowadays when riders expect porta potties, police, start times, and correct results. I can remember when Candy and I would put on the whole Spring time trial series down across from Belle Chasse. On Saturday we'd swing by the bike shop and pick up a few trinkets to give as prizes. Sunday morning we'd jump into the MG or Triumph and drive over to the Scarsdale ferry landing with a clipboard, a stopwatch, and a pencil. The twenty or so riders would sign in, and if we were lucky we'd send a volunteer 12.5 miles down the river road to the Carlisle Sign with a traffic cone. After the finish we'd do the math in our heads. We'd take a sheet of paper with the results back home and then, maybe, in a few weeks or months, there was a chance they would be included in a newsletter that would be typed up on a typewriter and mailed out to club members. Things are a little different now. This year we had around 90 riders, which was similar to last year. They were all required to pre-register so that I could make up a start list, grouping age and skill categories together and seeding riders within them according to USAC time trial ranking points, which most riders probably don't even know exist. In order to do that, I print out all of the waivers from the online registration system. Then I download the list of registered riders and sort them according to class and category. From that I build a spreadsheet with groups organized by distance, age, and category. This year I used a rather complicated Excel formula/format so that I wouldn't have to input the colons when typing in the times. That turned out to be rather complicated and required a whole new formula to do the time calculations and rankings. Once I had all of the riders listed, I sub-sorted each group according to USAC ranking time. Then I assigned sequential bib numbers. Then I went through the stack of paper waiver forms and wrote the assigned bib number for each rider on his or her form. Then I went back through those forms and stapled the appropriate bib numbers to them. Then I sorted the waiver/bib numbers by last name. The whole process took at least four hours and was not without complications. For example, a number of riders, all from outside of LAMBRA, had registered for more than one class or category. In some states they allow this, so you do one ride and that time counts for all of the classes and categories your are eligible for. We don't do that. Unless you have chip timing, it delays the results tremendously and also would be rather difficult to deal with. Anyway, I had to contact those riders, find out which single class or category they wanted to enter, issue refunds for the duplicate entries, etc.

So on race day, I picked up Gavin at 5:45 or so, arriving at the TT location around 6:30. As our handful of volunteers started to arrive we got things set up at the registration location, and then at the start line, and then at the finish line, all of which were in separate places. They we tallied up our volunteers and of course didn't have quite enough to do things the way we wanted to. Luckily we were able to convince a few people to help out. With three different turn-arounds to marshal, and riders finishing well before most of the others had started, we need quite a few volunteers. At least three at the start, at least three or four at the finish, at least three at the turnarounds, and at least one at the registration desk to get waivers signed and numbers handed out. Somehow we managed it. I started all of the riders, then rushed back to the registration desk with the first batch of finish times. I think I made two typos that were of course noticed and corrected, but otherwise the results went smoothly. On the other hand, awarding medals was somewhat confusing since we skip over the non-LAMBRA riders to identify the top three LAMBRA riders in each class/category, but then we also duplicate medals for any non-LAMBRA riders who finish in the top three of their races. Luckily we had enough medals left over from last year because USAC didn't ship out the 2019 medals until Monday. I'm expecting them to arrive today.

Tulane riders Gavin, Kaitlyn, and Julia heading to Nationals in Augusta

So anyway, it was a long day, but there were some bright spots. For one, it didn't rain. That always complicates everything and lowers turnout. For another, despite a significant north wind, we had a new LAMBRA and course record of 51:12 set by Peter Reed. In all, there were 20 riders who went under an hour for the 40 km time trial that day. Also notable was that we had six 70+riders. Gavin Blair, one of the Tulane riders, posted a 58:40 in Merckx mode (no aero bars or disk wheels).

Gavin, Kaitlyn, and Julia took off for Augusta this morning with Dustin and Joey for Collegiate Road Nationals. I'm hoping they fare well. The road course up there is the same one on an Army base that I rode when I went to Masters Nationals way, way back in, for me at least, friction-shifting days. I would have placed very well in the road race had my chain not jammed between the freewheel and dropout when I made the final shift to start my sprint. I've never been quite that frustrated in my life. On the plus side, I placed 5th in the criterium there which I remember as being fairly technical and very fast and animated.