Summer Pattern

Friendly Friday

Although most of last week was abnormally hot and dry even by New Orleans standards, by Sunday it looked like things were starting to settle back into the more typical summer weather pattern. On the plus side, that means a daily chance of scattered thunderstorms to cool things down a bit. On the minus side it also means no huge blob of high pressure to protect us from storms and hurricanes coming out of the Gulf. Indeed, there are already three disturbances that are being tracked out there - two with relatively low chances of development but one with a high chance. The models are currently keeping that one well south of the Gulf, but then again, it's early.

Sunday Giro starting back from Venetian Isles

Last week was just a series of really warm but mostly uneventful group rides here in the city. They all seemed a little harder than they should have, as rides on hot summer days always seem to. 

Summer Pattern

For some reason the Saturday Giro was particularly fast. I'm pretty sure there was a bit of a race going on among a handful of riders up at the front, where I definitely wasn't. We had a significant west northwest wind, and as a result our average speed from the time we hit Hayne until the turnaround out at Venetian Isles was 28.2 mph with a max a bit over 34. Even sitting in the group that was a significant effort. On the way back we were more in the 25-28 mph range, and as always the headwind made it seem easier as long as you stayed in the wheels and off of the front. We were just about to Fortier Blvd. and starting to ramp up for the drag race to the Goodyear sign sprint when I saw Richie sit up with a flat. He was already toward the back and nobody was stopping, so I eased over and went back to help out. It was still a long way back into a headwind and it would have been a pretty miserable slog alone. So he got the flat fixed and we rode back together, which must have looked almost comical since he's about the tallest rider in the group and I'm about the shortest. Anyway, he continued on to the west when I turned off at Marconi. A minute later I thought to myself, "Damn, I should have given him a spare tube and CO2." I'd noticed he had only the one spare back when he fixed his flat. As it turned out, he didn't even make it to Canal Blvd. before he had another flat and ended up calling someone for a ride home. As I made my way town Norman Francis, sucking the last drops of electrolyte solution out of my water bottle, I came across Joe who mentioned he was supposed to be helping a few people do a practice duathlon out around Audubon Park later that day.

Charley

By the time I got home and took a quick shower the dog, who now thinks he should be taken for two-mile walks in the park on a daily basis, was already harassing me so I threw him in the car and drove over to Audubon Park where we could take a long walk under the oak trees. Halfway around I hear, "Hey Randy, is that you?" It was Joe sitting under an oak tree with water and stuff waiting for his people to arrive at the ad hoc transition area. As I stopped to chat Keith Andrews, who was riding around the park, also stopped by. So ultimately the word for the day on Saturday was "dehydration." I spent the rest of the day drinking whatever cold fluids I could lay my hands on. Thankfully, the dog was good and worn out.

Sunday's Giro, although it featured pretty much the same wind conditions as Saturday, was considerably more civilized, which is to say I wasn't hanging on for dear life quite as frequently. Later in the afternoon we took the dog for a long walk in City Park, followed by a much-needed stop at the coffee shop on the Lafitte Greenway for an iced coffee.

Finally wore him out

This morning, Monday, there were a few light scattered showers around in the morning. I aired up the tires on the old Orbea and rode that bike just in case the roads were wet so that I wouldn't be risking a puncture on the somewhat nicer tires on the Bianchi. Only four of us showed up at the start, joined a little later my Mark M, so we had a pretty nice ride. There were a few light raindrops here and there, but really nothing that was enough to get the pavement really wet. This time of year I almost welcome a little rain shower now and then. At any rate, the cloud cover kept the temperature, but definitely not the humidity, down to more tolerable levels than it had been for the prior week, so that was good.

Brandon Weekend

The Cat. 1/2/3 road race winners - a race is a race even it it's small!

Last weekend was the Brandon Grand Prix that included the LAMBRA road championship in Saturday and a criterium on Sunday. Since my brother recently bought a house up in Madison (basically the other side of the Jackson MS area), and was going to be there over the weekend painting walls and stuff, I figured I'd camp out at the empty house over Saturday night to save on the hotel cost. With gas running at around $5/gallon, the road trip costs were already adding up, so I was glad to have that opportunity. A final check of pre-registrations on Friday night left me wondering, "Where are all the bike racers?" I hadn't seen numbers that low since the 70s when everyone started together, the road race was 110 miles, there was no course control, jerseys were made out of wool, and the race had to be done within a 2-week period in July. Back then we considered a field size of 20 to be big. No field last Saturday achieved half that size. This kind of thing is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Potential riders look at the start list, find it to be small, and so they don't sign up themselves. Some races have stopped showing the "Who's Registered" page on BikeReg lately, probably for the same reason. Anyway, I was going regardless and looking forward to riding both the road course and the criterium course, both of which I'd ridden the year before when the event was held in September. With the scarcity of nearby races lately, it would be the first criterium for me since that same race last year.

The Saturday morning alarm went off at 3:30 am and I stumbled down to the basement to load up the car, not just with my bike and bag, but also with the radio equipment, a big ice chest that I almost never bring, my new Jackery power supply (just in case), the laptop, spare wheels, and a bottle of merlot. By 4 am I was on the road for the 3-hour drive up to Brandon, Mississippi with an ETA of 7:00. We have been in the middle of a pretty significant heat wave down here lately, and I was expecting the race temperature to get up in to the 90s, so I had a bag of Scratch electrolyte mix and some HammerGel on hand. The masters race was to start at 8 am and would be under 60 miles, so I wasn't too worried about it, but better to play it safe rather than end up with heat exhaustion on the side of the road somewhere. Turnout at the race itself was, to put it mildly, pitiful. Those who were there were excited to be racing but everyone was asking what the hell happened to the bike racers. This was an event that should have attracted at least 100 riders. As it was, there were, I think, a total of 30 riders on hand, and some of those were from outside of LAMBRA. We had riders from Texas and Tennessee and Alabama but I think nobody from Lafayette, four or five from the New Orleans area, and about that many from the Jackson area.

Frank and I finishing up the road race

Of course, every cloud has its silver lining, and it this case it was that the Masters race was slow, unlike last year when it was quite the opposite. So this time I made it up and over the "big" hill on the way to the loop without any problem and settled in to the back of the dozen rider combined Master and Women's field. Of note was the fact that we had on hand Frank Moak, Woody Boudreaux, and Julia Simpson. My guess would be that Frank had twisted Woody's arm to get him to come! So as I said, the pace was pretty slow. I guess everybody was a little worried about the heat combined with the small number of people to share the work. I doubt we were halfway through the distance when the Cat. 4/5 breakaway (apparently the rest of the race was already shattered) caught us. The front of our group sped up when that happened and we were all mixed together for a number of miles. I chatted with a couple of the riders to let them know it was technically illegal for us to be working together, and also that it probably wouldn't matter since there was apparently no chance of anyone else from their race catching them. Eventually one of the Masters drifted back to ask what we should do and I told him that the Masters should neutralize until the 4/5s had a significant gap. He went up to the front and made that happen, so everything was back to normal after that. 

Somewhere on the back stretch one rider had hit a pothole and flatted. Later, I saw Woody looking down at his front wheel which was rapidly deflating (he'd hit a big chunk of gravel that was in the road). Julia also flatted, although I'm not sure if it was before Woody or after. Woody ended up changing his tube - he has a newish bike with disc brakes and didn't have spare wheels - and finishing. Our race really started about ten miles before the finish when a few of the stronger riders started launching attacks. I survived the first big one, but there was a quick counter-attack and a little gap opened up that I just couldn't close. That left five riders ahead of me and just two, including Woody, behind me. It also left me all alone, so I just resigned myself to a long time trial. Fortunately the last 8 or 9 miles of the course is relatively flat and probably a net downhill, so it wasn't all that bad. I could see the group up ahead the whole time, and about a mile from the finish I saw one rider come off the back. I was Frank who looked fairly spent. He had been one of the riders doing all of the work. He latched on when I came past and we rode in the last bit together. So actually I was not all that unhappy with myself under the circumstances. Granted, I had avoided putting my nose into the wind like the plague, but I wasn't feeling too bad and with a bit more motivation might very well have been able to survive one or two more attacks. 

After the race I waited around until things were packed up and had a nice lunch with the officials at some place near the hospitals in Jackson before continuing a few miles north to Madison where my brother was busy painting walls. It was really the first day he'd been able to get into the house and unfortunately one discover was that the air-conditioner was barely functioning. I looked up at the wildly oscillating ceiling fan and soon realized that one of the five blades had the wrong bracket installed and was blowing air up while the others were blowing air down. I installed a couple of shower heads and a toilet seat and took a cool shower (the gas hadn't been turned on yet so no hot water). Luckily one of my brother's daughters lives nearby so we left the hot house for a nice dinner where we polished off the bottle of wine and spent the night in fully functional a/c. 

Finish camera image of Julia and Zion finishing the criterium

The next morning I headed back down to Brandon for the criterium where the turnout was no better than it had been the day before and I discovered my rear tire was flat. It's a fun little course that includes a short but steep rise from the road up into a parking lot that makes things interesting. It's probably about 8 percent, but just for five or six pedal strokes. Anyway, the Masters race was a good workout even if I ended up off the back. By then it was starting to get pretty hot, especially since we were basically in the middle of an asphalt parking lot. A little while later I decided to jump into the Cat. 1/2/3/4 race to provide a little pack fodder. For that one we also had Julia and Zion from NOLA. That one started out pretty fast and I found myself feeling a little out of practice on the fast downhill sweeper which of course resulted in me being off the back. There was a 2-rider break by then and, as is my usual MO, I continued until they caught me and then jumped onto the back. By then I was nicely warmed up and it wasn't too difficult to sit on the back of the duo (would have been illegal for me to lead, anyway) until they lapped more riders. So, long story short, I ended up riding with Zion and Julia, dropping off on the last lap when we were about to be lapped again and I didn't want to be in the way of the finish sprint. I hung around until everything was packed up and was back home by 4:30 or so. Robert was using just pencil and paper for registration and results, so I still haven't seen the official criterium results, although I did take photos of what was posted for the road race. 

Despite the tiny turnout I had a pretty nice time at the races and by the time I got home I was feeling that good kind of soreness in my quads that I only seem to get when I race. I'm hoping it will go away by Wednesday!

Tour de la Louisiane #51

Last week could be well-described by the term "unexplained absences." It started on Monday, which was Memorial Day. As usual there was Kenny B's Memorial Day ride through town out to the Chalmette battlefield with stops at Holt Cemetery and the WWII museum. I rode out to Starbucks where the ride would start, just as I had done the prior two mornings for the Giro. For some reason the turnout for this year's ride was pretty small. Go figure. Sitting there before the ride I chatted with the sidearm-carrying Veteran who I see there often in the mornings. He and some of his friends go out every year to Holt Cemetery the day before Memorial Day to clean it up and put flags at the graves of the soldiers. This year, that was our first stop, and when we got I was surprised to find that he was already there. Anyway, it was a nice ride even if the group started out small and finished even smaller. 

Memorial Day Ride

The rest of the week was just the usual routine of group rides for me, which was good because I was increasingly anxious and distracted ahead of the big Tour de Louisiane weekend. Pre-registration was lagging even more than last year, for reasons unknown, but at least the weather forecast looked pretty good. Mignon had done a ton of work on the planning, and on Thursday evening she, Christian, and Ty stopped by so we could split up the stuff that we'd need to transport across the lake. That evening I stapled together about 100 copies of the race bible and made sure the big Excel workbook we use for registration and results was in reasonably decent shape. I'd taken Friday off so I could pre-assign bib numbers in the morning and populate the spreadsheets. Pre-registration ended at midnight Thursday with only 70 riders registered. I don't really get that. We are busting our butts to put on three races at three different venues as close to the city as is really feasible for that kind of thing and there were probably 100 other riders in the general area who apparently came up with excuses to stay at home. To twist the knife, this was one of those years when we were quite short on sponsorship money, so with that kind of turnout the club lost $3-4,000. It would be one thing if the forecast had been for rain all weekend, but as it was we were virtually guaranteed to have mostly dry conditions and even relatively low humidity on Saturday.

At the road race

So I loaded up the Volvo with the P/A system, generator, two bins of equipment, numbers, pins, flags, banners, tent, computers, camera, etc. and headed across the lake around 2 pm. My plan was to freshen up the road marking for the Time Trial before checking in to the Comfort Suites hotel at Highway 59 and I-12. Well, as luck would have it I was halfway between the start line and finish line when a little rainstorm sprung up on top of me and washed away my road marking plan. Fortunately, I could still see the marking from last year on the wet roadway. So I drove over to the hotel where I found Steve, one of the two motorefs we have, already there. I knew he'd be staying with me Friday night but didn't know when he'd be arriving, so the timing had fortunately worked out. After hanging out in the hotel room for a couple of hours we drove up to the Abita Brewpub for dinner. That turned out to be remarkably nice. They had added a bunch of outdoor seating since I'd last been there, and even had some live jazz music.

Earlier in the week - Friendly Friday Ride. All of these
people should have been racing on Saturday!

Saturday morning I got up really early, stopped at Starbucks where they didn't even have coffee ready (I got an Americano instead) and made the drive up to Stoney Point, stopping to put up the 1 KM sign along the way. As I was driving there I got a call that turned out to be one of the Covington police officers wondering where everyone was. He had the day wrong for the criterium. That caused me a little bit of concern that maybe I had somehow given them the wrong date (I hadn't). Soon all of the other volunteers started to show up and by 7:45 am we were ready to check in riders and, we were hoping, register some new riders. I was quite surprised that we had no race-day registrations. Perhaps people were still remembering the COVID year and thought it wouldn't be allowed. Who knows? On the plus side, that all went smoothly as we got the start/finish area set up, checked in with the Sheriff's deputies (I think we have 8 or so for this 16-mile, 6-corner course) and got the follow cars lined up for the 9:00 start. This year we were allowing riders who suffered a mishap in the road race to go ahead and race the other stages if they wanted. A few ended up taking advantage of that.

The Road Races went off nicely this year. There was only one crash, and it was self-inflicted when one of the Cat. 3/4 riders who thought he had the pack sprint in the bag sat up early to put his hands in the air only to see someone starting to pass him out of the corner of his eye. He dropped back down to the bars and one of his sweaty un-gloved hands slipped off the bar and he went down just after crossing the line. Fortunately he didn't take anyone else down. We wrapped up the results quickly right at the finish line, and after tearing down everything and cleaning up I headed back to the hotel to post the Road Race results and make printed copies to bring to the 5:30 time trial. Meanwhile, Ricky went over to the nearby Bogue Chitto state park and did some riding on the mountain bike trails there before meeting back at the hotel. The time trial went nice and smooth except for a couple of mistakes on my part, but at least we didn't have a thunderstorm, which has practically gotten to be tradition. There were two riders for whom I had apparently written down the wrong starting times. Both were staged immediately behind missing riders, and as always we waited out the 30 seconds for the ghost riders before starting their 30 second intervals, but somehow I had written down the start time for the missing riders for them. Of course I discovered that at dinner, again at Abita Brewpub, when one of the riders emailed me about his time, so it didn't get corrected until after dinner.

The Covington criterium, as always, seemed kind of chaotic to me but apparently well-organized to the riders. With three officials and two motorefs plus me the start/finish setup went fine, especially since we had an extra half hour thanks to there being only one Junior who we had race with the women. Once again there was some confusion about the Boston Street closure. Since it's a state highway the Covington police have an issue with closing it, even though at our meeting earlier in the month they always say it's fine. We may just end up shortening the course by two blocks and avoiding it altogether. Anyway, thanks to our ability to have radio communication with the police they were able to open the street back up to traffic between races and then close it again when each race started. We had a few corner marshals around the course as well to help control that corner and also the bike and pedestrian traffic on the Tammany Trace which crosses the course in two places. 

Thanks no doubt to the smallish fields there were no crashes at all for the criteriums and everything went off as planned except for one little snafu with the Baldwin Motors Subaru that was to lead a neutral lap for the Cat. 3/4 field. Somehow the diver got confused and turned right instead of left, unexpectedly showing up back at the finish. Luckily the riders knew better as did the motoref who was with them!

Working the race with me this year we had Ricky D, Cole S, and Mark D officiating/scoring, plus motorefs Ian F and Steve. Mignon was handing registration and police and awards and primes and one of the corners in the road race among other things. Christian F did a ton of work with course setup for the road race and criterium as well as serving as a corner marshal. Chip E was in charge of the road race follow cars. He drove one and Kerry P, Randy H, Ty P, and Christian F drove the others. Boyd and Ty were also taking photos. Ty also picked up and deployed the hay bales around the crit course. Adam Watts handled the criterium pit, and Erich M served as announcer and general DJ for the criterium. After the last of the prizes were handed out and the last podium photos were taken we tore down the criterium course and were ready to roll by 1:30 or so. Mignon, Kerry and I went over to Buster's, where we used to do the awards back in the day, for a late lunch since we were starving by then! After driving back across the lake I unloaded the car and got to work posting the final results to the website and sending out the appropriate announcements. 

It was a long week, but I know the riders really appreciated it, even if the field sizes weren't as big as they should have been. The next race weekend is up in the Jackson MS area June 18-19 for the Brandon Grand Prix which will include a road race and a criterium, presumably like last year. My brother just bought a house up around there but I don't imagine that is all finalized yet, plus he still has to sell the house in Orlando and make the actual move. I am definitely looking forward to free lodging for races in the Jackson area next year, though!