Tour Tour Tour

Last weekend I made the drive up to Hernando, Mississippi for the second annual Tour de Hernando, put on by the Memphis Marx-Bensdorf club. Since the Sunday criterium was also serving as the LAMBRA criterium championship, I was bringing a bag full of medals with me. Of course, I knew that riders from Louisiana and Mississippi would be in rather short supply, since Hernando is a pretty long drive for most of them. On the other hand, it was an opportunity for the north Mississippi riders, who likewise don't often make the road trips down to races around New Orleans, a chance to snag some of the coveted USAC medals. This race offered a lot of different categories and age groups, including the 50+/60+ one I'd be racing in. That sort of thing can be good and bad. On the one hand, it's nice being able to race with people who are, at least presumably, around the same age or skill level as yourself. On the other hand, unless turnout is particularly robust, the field sizes tend to be fairly small, as was the case that weekend. The organizers had Start2Finish on hand, so they were using chip timing and posting results in real time. There was just one sprint finish in the criterium where they could have used an actual linescan type finish camera rather than a regular video, but I guess the judges were able to make the call with the combination of chip times and video. I had driven up to Madison on Friday to visit with my brother and two of his kids who live around there, and also to shorten the drive and eliminate one hotel room night. Since my Saturday road race didn't start until around 11:00 or something, I had plenty of time that morning for the 2+ hour drive from Madison to Hernando.

By the time my road race started it was already getting pretty warm, which isn't usually a huge problem for me. It was only 40-something miles for the old geezers, so I knew that wouldn't be my biggest problem. The course was pretty good and significantly more challenging than I had expected, but I was feeling fine and taking an occasional pull at the front. During one of those times when I was on the front, we came up over a rise and coming down the other side I could see an intersection with a police officer on the left. For some reason I had it in my head the the course was all left turns. So I flew down the hill and came through the turn at about 27 mph. Unfortunately turning the wrong way! I'd been so focused on the turn and the speed and the officer that I guess I didn't seen the directional signage. I quickly realized that everyone else had turned the other way, but by the time I slowed down and made a U-turn the group was already pretty far up the road. We were only 6 miles into the 8 mile lap. Of course I chased, and soon I could see that the small group ahead had split, but I never could get quite close enough to get back into the race. When I came into the start/finish area with one lap to go the officials told me I was the only 60+ rider left, so if I wanted to stop it would be fine, which of course I did. It turned out to be a pretty nice 37 mile workout in the hills with 1,600 feet of elevation and an average heart rate of 150 (probably elevated a bit due to moderate dehydration). 

Oops!!

On Sunday I got to the triangular criterium course early, since I wanted to make sure the medals were available for the first race. My own race was one of the earlier ones, so although it was hot, it wasn't too bad. We started with just 8 riders, of which I was the only 60+ one. From the gun, one guy, Ryan Jones from Huntsville, attacked. I went with him as he accelerated to 30 mph, but quickly realized that nobody else was coming. I probably should have made the effort to stay with him, but instead I backed off to the relative security of the rest of the field. Pretty soon there were just 4 of us. On the last lap, I decided to go to the back so I wouldn't interfere with the 50+ guys who would be sprinting for 2nd place. The finish was maybe 150 meters from the last turn, and was slightly downhill with a moderate tailwind, so despite coming around it last, I still passed one rider and almost another before the finish, topping out a 35 mph. It was fun. There were races all the way until around 2:30 pm, so I spent a lot of time getting more and more dehydrated and overheated. Since I'd won some cash for basically being the only 60+ survivor, I figured I'd give a little of it back by entering the Cat. 1/2/3 race. I told the officials that I would start at the back and do about three laps before pulling out. I knew I was way too dehydrated to be doing another race in the heat. I ended up doing four laps. Over the course of the day I think I consumed four or five soft drinks, plus the Skratch-enhanced water in my bottle. On the 5 hour drive home I stopped at a Love's and got the extra giant sized fountain drink, and later a cup of coffee at a Starbucks. I still didn't have to pee until after I got home at around 8:30 pm, confirming my suspicion that I was more than slightly dehydrated. Anyway, the weekend was way more fun than sitting on the couch after doing another Giro Ride.

The Tour de La:  On Monday I got a text from the St. Bernard Parish police officer in charge of the criterium telling me that there were some new speed bumps on the crit course! Yikes. I ended up skipping my Tuesday morning ride and driving out there to have a look. As it turned out, the four speed bumps between turns 1 and 2 had quite a bit of space between them on all sides, which was at least enough to convince me that our smallish fields would be able to handle them without disaster. Still, I got in touch with Howard who got in touch with the parish president about whether it was possible to remove them. I haven't heard back about that, and from what I saw, I doubt it is feasible, so I'm expecting them to be there for the criterium. Hopefully they won't cause a big problem. At least they aren't in the finish straight or immediately before a corner. I think they are basically there to slow cars down where there is a little off-street parking area for the park. Just goes to show you, if it ain't one thing, it's something else. It took us weeks, plus a postponement, to move the road race to a different course, and I had been thinking how relatively simple and secure the criterium arrangements had been. Oh well. Of course it's Wednesday now and as usual people are waiting to see if other people register, and those people are waiting to see if the ones who are waiting will register, so registrations are low like last year. All we can hope for is a last-minute flurry of registrations. Costs are the same whether there are 300 or 30 riders, and of course the reason races disappear is because of multiple years of low turnouts.

The Other Tour: So since we had to postpone the Tour de La this year, it now starts on the same day as the Tour de France. I went ahead and subscribed to Peacock so I should be able to watch the replays every day rather than try to record the occasional coverage on NBC. I've never really followed all of the Pro riders and teams, but I do like to keep track of those from the U.S., and on that note I was quite disappointed to learn today that Sepp Kuss wouldn't be racing this year. Every year I marvel at how he makes climbing the Alps, or Pyrenees, or whatever, look so smooth and easy. This year, though, it was obvious that he wasn't riding well at the Critérium du Dauphiné, and when he didn't start the final stage I knew he must be sick. Turns out he caught COVID and wasn't recovered enough to do the Tour de France. It's another blow for his team, Visma-Lease a Bike, this year. After dominating the grand tours last year, they have had nothing but bad luck since. Vingegaard had a bad crash in April and nobody seemed sure he would be able to race the Tour until just a few days ago, but under the circumstances you have to wonder if he is sufficiently recovered to make a run for the GC. It should be an interesting race this year.

Meanwhile back at home, I did some work on the washing machine the other day because it was galloping across the basement floor during the spin cycle. That was likely a combination of being overloaded with heavy cotton clothes, worn suspension rods/springs/etc., and/or a worn out and loose hub fitting under the basket. I replaced the four suspension rods the other night, so we'll see how it goes the next time we do a big load. I ran a small load of cycling stuff through it this morning and it seemed fine, but then that's on the Delicate cycle and they weigh  next to nothing, even wet. Danielle sent me a Fi dog tracker a couple of weeks ago, so Charley is busy improving his ranking by taking his daily 5-7 mile walks with Candy. I set up a Strava account for Candy so now it shows the dog walks automatically there too. The sidewalk that they tore up at the beginning of the month has, predictably, been abandoned without being finished, so there's just this big missing square of mud. Typical city incompetence. 

Up the River in Natchez

Thursday's lakefront ride. The group is getting larger.

It was another 300 mile week for me, which wasn't quite as taxing as one might imagine. The weekday rides, aside from being mostly hot and humid, seemed a little faster than usual but not significantly harder, probably due to the extra people who always seem to come out of the woodwork this time of year. When there are more than just a handful of riders in the paceline, I sometimes go miles before finally coming to the front to take a pull. For me, sitting in a paceline behind four or five riders can easily drop my heart rate down to 120 bpm or even lower, even at 27 mph. If it's like that for too long I'll sometimes slide over into the wind a bit, especially if I'm on the back. Otherwise, I'm always aware of larger riders behind me and the fact that they may not be getting much of a draft, and are probably back there cursing me every time I put my hands on the drops.

Anyway, Friendly Friday's ride had a quite a big turnout, as had Thursday's ride, and of course that made it relatively fast. The whole time, however, I was thinking about the next day's Natchez ride that I'd signed up for. Depending on who shows up for Natchez, the front group can get pretty competitive, and so I was trying to be careful not to blow up my legs too much.

Unlike last year, when I had driven up to Natchez on Friday evening, this year I decided to just get up early and drive up on Saturday morning. By "early" I mean 4:00 am. I decided to take the slightly longer, but easier route, staying on I-55 all the way up to US 84, so I'd be on nice 4-lane the whole way. The shortcut via US 98, that I often take, involves a long stretch on a 2-lane highway that can be either nice and smooth or frustrating, depending on how many local farmers you get stuck behind. Anyway, I arrived in Natchez just a bit after 7 am as planned. The organizers were still busy setting up the tents and registration table and all, so it was a little while before I actually picked up my packet. This event doesn't keep track of times or anything, so there aren't any numbers to pin on or stickers to affix or anything. My sense was that turnout was fairly low this year, for reasons I cannot fathom.

Natchez Trace

The weather was as good as it gets for early June. When I'd left New Orleans at 4 am the temperature there was around 80°F. By the time I got to Natchez it was more like 69° with much, much lower humidity, and the sky was clear and blue. There was a light wind that seemed to be coming more or less from the north, but I knew we wouldn't feel much of it since the entire route is lined with trees and dense forest. As usual, I was having lots of flashbacks from all of the Natchez Classic Stage Races I'd done there, starting way back in the mid-80s. Interestingly, this ride attracts a number of riders who you might consider to be semi-retired bike racers who also have long histories of racing there. I had a chance to chat with Curtis a few times before and after the ride about what can be done to increase turnout and eventually incorporate a criterium. I could be wrong, but I think that providing times and publishing the "results" might make it feel more like a challenge and pull in more riders.

So we started out with a neutral section from the river to the Natchez Trace, and fairly quickly fell into a paceline, at least up near the front. The Trace can be kind of deceptive because the road is graded and therefore has long sections that are just 1-3% but look like they're almost flat. You find yourself wondering why it seems harder than it should now and then. Although the pace was what I would consider moderate - figure 22-23 mph on the flat - we were apparently shedding riders pretty quickly. By the time we turned off of the Trace onto 553, which was 12 or 13 miles into the ride, we were already down to seven, including other old-timers like Frank, Heath, and Trey. Last year the pace seemed a bit faster, especially after we made the turnaround. 

This year I think the pace was a little more steady, at least until the last ten miles. We were on the way back, maybe 48 miles into the 62 mile ride, when Frank started to apply a little pressure going up one of the longer uphill stretches. It wasn't enough to put anyone off the back or anything, but I was starting to sense some competition creeping into our nice collegial ride.

Well, my instincts were right, and not long after that one of the guys launched a full-out attack down the left side that required a significant effort to close down. By then the dye had been cast, and what followed was a series of short attacks and chases, during which I think we lost one rider. We were still a few miles from the end of the Trace when another one of those took a while to close. As soon as it was all back together, Frank's race instinct took over and he launched another solo attack at just the right time when everyone was hoping for a bit of recovery. That put him maybe 15 or 20 seconds up the road before a little paceline formed to chase. At that point I was starting to feel the miles on the little climbs so decided to just tailgun and watch the show from the back. I guess we were less than a mile from the end of the Trace when Frank must have eased up a bit and the gap came down quickly, with everyone re-grouping as we exited the Trace. From there it's more of a casual commute through town to get back to the river.

Afterward there was cold Coke (or other Coke products) along with a nice lunch and live music. I sat there for a while, consuming a couple of sandwiches and telling old racing stories of questionable veracity before finally grabbing a cold Coke for the road and wandering back to the parking lot. It was still much cooler than the weather in New Orleans, so hanging around had been quite pleasant. I took the short route home down Highway 61 through Baton Rouge, which was quite smooth and relaxing, until of course I got to the I-10 raceway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. As usual, traffic came to a standstill for a little while over the Spillway where of course there had been a crash. The speed limit there is, I think, 60 mph. The average actual speed, however, is more like 75, and of course people drive like f'ing idiots there because they know the state troopers aren't going to risk their own lives on that elevated stretch by trying to pull anyone over. They just wait for the inevitable 911 call, I guess. It's only a matter of time before they install some sort of automated ticketing system there.

So back at home I had to decide what to do about Sunday. I needed to go out and mark the course for the Tour de La that will be June 29-30, so I decided to do the regular northshore Talisheek ride starting at 7 am from Mandeville. That went nicely and didn't even feel very hot until the last twenty miles or so. In fact, I hadn't even gone through one water bottle when we stopped at the store 42 miles into the 55 mile ride, where I got a can of Coke. 

After that ride I threw the bike back in the car and headed north to the road course that is somewhere around Zona, LA. That was practically an hour's drive from Mandeville, but on the plus side, I arrived at the church right when the last of the congregation was leaving, so I was able to park in the shade of the tree. Then I set the Garmin temporarily to Metric so I could mark the 200 meter mark and the 1 km mark. That done. I marked the start of the Time Trial right at the north end of the parking lot, then paced off 100 paces and marked the finish for the out-and-back 3-mile course. Then I paced back 50 paces and marked my measurement point. From there I started my Garmin again and rode 1.5 miles  up the road to mark the turnaround, then continued around the course marking all of the five turns on the course. There was hardly any traffic as I rode the 17 mile loop that we had used a few years back for a couple of Tulane collegiate races. I got back to the car kind of hot and thirsty, which was no surprise. That put me just over 300 miles for the week.