Road Trip

Planning, and I use the term loosely, had been both late and minimal, but by early in the week there were four of us determined to make our way up to Calhoun, GA for the Georgia Tech Calhoun Road Race on Saturday. We were too late to get a Tulane van and in fact we'd be going kind of "unofficially" which is to say we'd be paying our own way for this collegiate race that included non-collegiate categories. Samuel and Josiah would both be riding the Collegiate D race, and then following up an hour later with the Category 5 race. Neither had been in a road race before. Dustin was entered in the Pro 1-3 race that I think included Collegiate Category A, while I would be riding the Master 40 race like last year. Dustin's mother had used some of her Hilton points to get us a really nice suite at the Hampton Inn, so that was a big help. 

I'd be driving there in the Volvo and Dustin would be taking his car, so everything seemed to be falling nicely into place by Wednesday. Well, until Candy called me that afternoon to say she'd run over something in the road and slashed one of the car tires. 

Friendly Friday

Although the tires on the car probably had another ten thousand miles in them I figured I may as well bite the bullet and get all four replaced. It was looking like Sunday would be rain, so nice fresh tire tread wouldn't be a bad idea. Of course, that meant missing my usual Thursday morning ride so I could get the car to the local Firestone shop where they had tires on hand at 7 am. Fortunately, that all went pretty smoothly other than the fact that the tires they had were all-weather tires which are a little louder and less efficient than the touring type tires I usually get, but at least I'll be well-prepared for the next time it snows in New Orleans. 

I did manage to get out to the Friendly Friday ride that turned out to be a little more of a workout than I was aiming for, but at least I'd have the rest of the day to recover while sitting in the car. With three bikes on the roof we left NOLA around 1:00 pm and met up with Dustin around Slidell where Josiah switched over to his car to keep him company. The 8-hour drive went pretty smoothly and we arrived at the hotel around 10 pm after losing an hour to the time zone change.

Saturday morning was cold - around 30°F - but at least it looked like we'd have a bit of sunshine. Conditions were actually quite similar to last year with a significant northwest wind and cold (by my standards) temperatures, and I was glad that my race didn't start until 10:00. Even so, I wore thermal knickers, base layer, arm-warmers, etc. The locals were mostly in what I'd call summer kit with maybe arm-warmers. When I was hanging around prior to the start I was surprised to meet up with Dave Schreffler who used to be in NOLA many years ago but was now down in Tampa. Turned out he was on his way back from someplace and saw that there was a conveniently located race that morning and decided to do it before the next part of his trip. 

The moment the fatal gap opened on the first lap

The Masters race had 34 riders, of which 23 were "50+," including Jame Carney who is the coach of the Piedmont University team and a two-time Olympian, former Pro, etc. It was looking a lot like it would be a repeat of last year for me, which was not exactly encouraging news. Like last year there was a head/crosswind from the left on the first long northbound segment of the lollipop course that resulted in a long line of riders hugging the right edge of the road. Just before the first turn there was a little rise that the front of the group attacked really hard. By the time the back part of the group (where I was of course) got there the lead riders were already 300 meters ahead and flying down a steep grade at 35-40 mph. I was already redlined well before hitting the steepest little climb on the course that featured a bit of 10-14%, so by the time we came over the top there were gaps everywhere and riders were strung out for a quarter mile. The next few miles were full-gas for all of us in the back half of the group trying to close things back up and rejoin what was left of the group. After some really hard efforts most, but not all, of us made it back to the tail end of the main bunch. Then, as we went up a little grade before the next right turn someone a couple of riders ahead of me blew up and opened a gap. I'd already burned all my matches and hadn't quite recovered, so I just couldn't make that last crucial bridge. 

Grupetto!

I eventually responded, but it was too little, too late. That left me alone for quite a long time, but I could see a small group of three behind me so I eventually eased up to get in which them. That group turned out to include Dave. So that was kind of it for us and the next forty miles or so were basically a moderately hard paceline training ride. After a while we started picking up stragglers from the main field (there was a small break ahead of them but it looks like the main field of 17-20 riders stayed mostly together) that eventually brought our little grupetto up to around nine riders. Despite the fact that we'd be sprinting for something like 25th place overall a few of us went ahead and had a nice little sprint at the end. I felt good for that and think I was 2nd or 3rd there, but that just meant I was 18th in the 50+ age group. A little disappointing but not entirely unexpected.

The Tulane riders had a good experience in the Collegiate D race with Sam placing 5th for a podium spot and Josiah finishing a minute later for 10th. Right after my race finished they started the Pro/1-3 race and the Cat. 5 race. Not wanting to sit around and get cold I decided to ride out to the loop and do it in the reverse direction so I could see some of the action. I was happy to see the Tulane riders staying safely in the 25-rider field (they would finish 15th and 16th). I was stopped at the corner where my own race had come apart for me when Dustin's field came by and as he rolled past he yelled for me to pick up his arm-warmers that he promptly deposited on the side of the road, so at least I wasn't entirely useless. Dustin would end up finishing 14th in the Pro/1/2 category. His field also included another 16 Cat. 3 riders and, I think, also the 22 Collegiate A riders. So basically it was a great race with, for us, respectable results.

As predicted, it was raining the next morning with no hope of stopping, so we had to ditch our original plan of riding Cheahea mountain on the way home, which was a shame but at least got us home around mid-afternoon. An hour or so into the drive back the Volvo shut down cruise control and anti-lock braking. Probably all of the water eventually got to one of the wheel speed sensors. I'd forgotten how much easier road trips were with cruise control, though!