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.