Unexpected Developments

The rides last Thursday and Friday were predictable and routine. Of course, I should have known that some sorts of unexpected developments would soon materialize, if for no other reason than to maintain the cosmic balance and re-center the pendulum. Friday's Friendly Friday ride had a nice turnout and collegial atmosphere, just as it should have. I had recently updated the Tour de LA website and set up the BikeReg registration site, and was just holding off on making announcements and such because we still had not received the official OK from the church where we have staged the road race for the past couple of decades. It always takes weeks to get in touch with the church, and then even more time to get a reply, so this wasn't all that unusual, even though things were running a bit behind this year. I knew it was unlikely there would be a problem, but just to be on the safe side I set online registration to open the following Monday. Well, that evening we found out that the church had another event scheduled for that Saturday and we would not be able to use the venue. This was a huge problem because there is only one other possible staging site on the loop, which is a smaller church with limited parking, that is on the narrowest and bumpiest road on the entire course. Also, the time trial that was to follow the road race would have to be re-routed, and needless to say, we had never contacted the other church and had no idea if it would even be available. There is another course that we have used before for the Tulane race that would work pretty well, but with the race scheduled in barely more than two weeks it would be a real fire drill to make that happen. So it looks like we will have to re-schedule for the last weekend in June, which of course means re-doing all of the other arrangements - the criterium course, website, registration site, USAC permit, calendar postings, etc., etc. At the moment we are waiting to see if the original church will even be available on the 29th. If not, then Plan B goes out the window and we move on to Plan C. So basically, SNAFU. In the meantime, the Tour of Hernando, way up on the northern edge of Mississippi, will host the LAMBRA criterium championship. That will all be the week prior to the, hopefully, rescheduled Tour de La.

Friday

So with all those complications in mind, I headed out Saturday morning to meet the Giro group at Starbucks, and then split off and meet the training race group for a little intensity, followed by some Z2 out to The Wall and back. It was a plan. Well, in yet another unexpected development, when we got to Franklin Avenue we found that they had Lakeshore Drive closed for some festival involving beer and fried chicken, which doesn't really narrow it down at all in New Orleans. That meant that the normal training race route would not be possible. So having no idea if the race would or would not happen, or what route it might use even if it did, I decided to stick with the Giro group. That turned out to be a good ride, although of course somewhat lacking the sharp bits of intensity I'd been seeking.

It had been my plan all along to do the Sunday Giro, so I expected that to be basically a repeat of Saturday, and that's exactly how it all started. As I was having my pre-ride coffee at Starbucks an unfamiliar rider showed up and introduced himself. Josh was from the northshore, and I could not figure out if I'd ever ridden with him before or not. He had a nice new Trek with him. Soon the other riders started filtering in, and we headed out with 12 or 14 riders, I guess. As Giro rides have been lately, the pace was relatively moderate compared to the normal pre-bridge-closure Giro rides, which led to a handful of riders taking long steady pulls at the front, no doubt in an effort to substitute duration for intensity.

On the way back a few people went for the Goodyear Sign sprint, but then a couple of them kept the pressure on as they headed for the turn onto I-510. I found myself in-between, so I put my head down and started closing the gap. Behind me, the rest of the group also realized what was going on and they started to re-group to catch up. There was about to be another unexpected development. 

I was just about to turn onto the on-ramp when I heard the unmistakable sound of carbon and aluminum sliding across asphalt somewhere behind. Matt and Chris, who had been ahead of me didn't hear it and kept going. I hit the brakes and turned back to see three riders on the ground - VJ, Josh, and Jason. Fortunately the cars behind them had all come to a stop, because Jason was sitting in the middle of the left lane and the rest were in the right. I think Josh unexpectedly hit a small heat buckle in the asphalt and lost it, with VJ and Jason right behind. We collected the bikes and bodies and moved to the shoulder to assess the damage, and indeed there was damage. Fortunately, no bones were broken (update - VJ later found he had broken a rib), but the same could not be said about the bikes. Jason escaped with some minor road rash and a twisted brake lever, but Josh's practically brand new bike looked like someone had taken a belt sander to the entire right fork blade, and broken the carbon handlebar to boot. He was pretty scraped up, but otherwise OK. My post-crash analysis leads me to believe that VJ probably body-surfed on top of him and his bike as they went down. Although VJ's injuries were amazingly minor for someone who had landed on the road at 28 mph, it was clear that his bike had taken the brunt of the crash. Both fork blades were broken up near the crown, and the crank spider and chainring were bent and smashed up against the downtube. The front wheel also had at least one broken spoke.

So we were going to need to transport two people and their bikes. Josh called someone in town to come out and pick him up. VJ got in touch with Matt, who was still riding back with Chris, so Matt was going to ride back to his house and then come back to pick him up. The rest of the group eventually continued on, it being Mothers' Day and all, which by the way reminded us of another crash in the same place, also on Mothers' Day a couple of years ago. Anyway, I decided to hang around until Josh and VJ were picked up before cruising back  home solo. We were pretty lucky that the injuries were fairly minor, I think.

Tuesday along the lake

Monday night and into Tuesday morning some big thunderstorms came through with lots of rain and wind, but as expected, most of it had moved off to the east well before my usual 5:45 am ride time. I headed out to NOMA on damp streets and through the occasional puddle wondering if anyone was going to show up for the Tuesday ride. Not unexpectedly, only Charles did, so we rode a lap of a fairly deserted Lakeshore Drive, at which time Charles had to head back home for carpool duty, and I continued on to the lake trail. Fortunately, the bike path was essentially dry thanks to the fact that it hadn't really rained in well over a week. If the levee had not been so dry, there would definitely have been a lot of water still running off across the bike path. As usual, I was not very motivated riding alone, but at least I got the miles in, arriving back home a good ten minutes later than usual thanks to the combination of my own slower pace and the fact that, being alone, I was stopping at all of the red lights on the commute back through town.