Three-day Weekend before Next

Lining up in St. Francisville - some came to race, some to ride

The alarm went off at 4:30 am. It was Saturday morning, barely, and I was picking Joey up from campus for 4:50. I'd gotten everything together the night before, so I pulled on a pair of bib shorts, straps hanging down, and a t-shirt, clamped the bike to the roof of the car, threw my bag and front wheel in the back and headed over to Tulane. We were riding the Gran Fondo St. Francisville, put on by Bill Burke and Premier Event Management, that started at 7:30. It was the first cycling event over there in a few years. The parish council had enacted some insane anti-cycling laws after a car ran down a couple of cyclists (totally the driver's fault, not the cyclists') but eventually those people got voted out and more sane people voted in and the rules changed. As Gran Fondos go, this one was a bit less grand than most, with the long ride just 58 miles, but I was looking forward to the ride anyway. I'd ridden most of the course many times in the past as part of various races and training rides, so I knew the roads pretty well, and I knew Bill's crew would be well organized. We made good time and arrived well before our target time of 7:00, so there was lots of time to pick up numbers and gear up. They were using passive disposable stick-on timing chip numbers from Chronotrack that consisted basically of a big sticker that went around your seatpost with the number part kind of flapping in the breeze behind. As those things go, these were pretty good - much better and easier to deal with than the ones that you have to somehow affix to your handlebar. Turnout was a little disappointing, but that didn't mean there wasn't enough horsepower on hand to turn it into a race. I can never really get in to race mode on these kinds of things, and was planning to stay out of trouble like I'd done for the Tour de Jefferson. There were around 90 riders for the long ride but of course at least that many additional who would be turning off along the way for shorter loops.

Things started off fairly calmly for the first ten miles or so, then the pace just gradually increased. 4D had a bunch of riders, mostly up at the front, and every now and then there'd be a brief surge. I was just following wheels toward the back and feeling a little nervous about the unfamiliar riders, some of whom were on tri bikes. Eventually, most of the more sketchy riders drifted off the back. We weren't too far into the ride when what I gather was a 4-rider break that included Dustin and Chris Brown went off the front. If there was a surge and attempt to chase, it wasn't apparent to me at the back, and indeed I didn't realize they were gone until probably ten miles later when I looked over at Barry and said something about the pace, to which he replied that he thought it wouldn't be as erratic now that the break was gone. I replied, "well, at least not until we hit those two climbs near Red Bug hill." I was feeling quite comfortable but wasn't really wanting to have to sprint up those climbs. Well of course when we got to them there was an attack and by the time we got to the top there were riders scattered all over the place. I could see a group coming together up ahead but didn't really want to put in the time trial it would have taken to catch it. Looking back, there was nothing resembling a group at all. No-man's land, indeed. So I kept pressure on the pedals and eventually a few riders caught up. I took some long pulls hoping we could work together to make the bridge because the group ahead wasn't going all that terribly fast, but twice when I pulled off there was a big gap behind me and nobody to pull through, so I eased up until we had a nice little group of seven. After a while a few of them kind of recovered so we had a nice little paceline for the last 12 miles or so, which was really the only part of the ride during which I did much work, which is to say an average heart rate of 157 and average speed of 24 or so. A few of the group sprinted at the end, but between the lead break and the second group there were 14 riders up the road. We were about a minute forty-five behind that second group, and averaged 23.8 for the whole ride, which was fine for this non-race race. I finished up feeling pretty good about the ride, and not particularly tired despite Strava tagging it as "Massive" relative effort. Strava apparently doesn't know how efficiently I can suck wheels. Results are at https://trinitytiming.com/results/#/race/NlBt02/G/. 

Sunday was the usual Giro Ride. An unexpected cool front had come though overnight and I was surprised to find it so cool and breezy as I rode out to Starbucks in the morning. There was a pretty good sized group on hand, but not many people seemed interested in pushing the pace, so it was only got fast in a few places, mostly when there was a good tailwind. It's so nice to be able to ride out to the Giro without needing a headlight now that the sun is coming up early enough. 

Next weekend is the 50th Tour de Louisiane. I have a lot of loose ends to tie up, but fortunately Mignon has picked up a whole lot of the slack. We're still trying to figure out who we can get to pick up something soft like wood chip bags to cushion some of the things alongside the criterium course. It's always hard to find someone willing to handle that since it's a fair bit of work. I still need to print out race bibles, etc., etc. Online registration stands at around 40, which is about normal since most people wait until like Wednesday to register. We'll probably do race-day registration, although the flyer says pre-registration is required, since the COVID situation has improved significantly, at least for the moment. At any rate I'll probably wait until Wednesday to make any announcement about that. Tomorrow Kenny B is leading a Memorial Day ride, which I think I'll do even though there is apparently also going to be a holiday Giro at the same time, starting from the same place. I feel like I could use an easier ride tomorrow.