Fall Reminder

"Still, New Orleans survives, and these days it serves its oysters Rockefeller and its bananas Foster, its beignets and its gumbo, with smiling, heartfelt thanks for your visit. " (NY Times, R.W. Apple Jr.)
Thanks for the heads-up on this one, Joey!

Here's a photo I took today from the roof showing Tulane Med school in the lower-left. The large building on the right is Charity Hospital - completely closed since Katrina. Hidden behind Charity is the VA hospital - still closed. Half of the Med School building and all of the research building have been pretty much fully functional for a few months now. The tall buildings in the background are office buildings along Poydras, across from the Superdome where you can see the ongoing roof work. Click the photo to see a few more photos showing Canal St., the French Quarter, and a view toward the northeast showing the housing development, I-10, and Lake Pontchartrain. There's still a fair amount of blue plastic out there on the roofs.

The predicted cool front came through last night as we were sitting out on the little front porch of "Iris," a tiny little restaurant just off of Carrollton Avenue on Jeannette along the still-unused streetcar tracks leading to the car barn. We arrived a bit after 7 p.m., and the three of us went through two bottles of wine by the time we were done around 9:30 or so. Iris is a "post-Katrina" restaurant. Everything in New Orleans is defined as either "pre-Katrina" or "post-Katrina" nowadays. The cold Gazpacho with calamari was excellent, fragrant and tasty with a drizzle of olive oil floating on top exactly as I like it. Although it's tiny and crowded, this place gets two thumbs-up from me.

I awoke this morning, a little groggy from the prior evening's repast, to find much cooler and drier weather than we've had lately. That was the up-side. The down-side was that the wind was blowing out of the northwest like a hurricane. I hit the levee meeting spot right on time and the place was deserted, so I rolled slowly upriver toward the playground contemplating my options. Rob wizzed past from the other direction with the wind at this back, then Donald and Ronnie showed up and turned around to join me. Eventually we accumulated about a half-dozen. Todd was on his TT bike and spent the whole time hovering just off the tail end of the paceline where he could regulate his effort without interfering with the pace. It was a hard ride with gusty crosswinds blowing us around much of the time. We turned around early today, at the dip. On a day like this it would have easily taken us an extra ten minutes to ride the whole distance. Even the trip back from the turnaround seemed largely into the wind except for that one stretch from Williams down to the country club where the river runs more southerly. It was there that Ronnie got on the front and pulled for a mile or two at 34-35 mph steady. That ended abruptly, though when we made the bend at the country club and dropped down to 21 mph with the wind in our faces. Riding to work on the commuter I could still feel the morning's ride in my legs.

Today's team time trial at the Giro was hotly contested and super fast. CSC won by just one second with an average speed of 56.8 kph. In yankee language that works out to something like 35 mph. - Average. On my best day I probably couldn't hang onto the tail end of that tiger for more than two minutes.

Midweek Musing

Well, the commuter and I did manage to make it home yesterday evening thanks to someone in The Wife's office who had a patch kit and pump. It had been a long time since I had ridden the bike home with The Wife. She has never really gotten the hang of inner-city commuting, though. For me, the ride is an exercise in moderation. The goal is to go just fast enough to feel the breeze, yet slow enough to stay comfortable in dress clothes. For her, it is an exercise in, well . . . exercise. The Wife, riding her antique Trek mountain bike with road slicks, practically attacked the Broad St. overpass (relatively speaking, of course). By the time I reached the two block long flat section on top, she was already disappearing down the other side. She finally realized that I was tooling along at my usual commuting pace half a mile later and waited for me under an oak tree. When we got home she went out for a run. I went to the refrigerator and ate some ice cream.

Today it is hot and hazy and surprisingly windy in New Orleans. There's supposed to be a little cool front that will come through late tonight, which means we might get a low temperature somewhere in the upper 60s. This morning's ride was fairly easy with long tailwind stretches on the way out, but some harder crosswinds coming back. Nothing too exciting, though.

After a number of phone calls, I finally got my digital signature to work. I had to buy one in order to submit our lobbying report to Congress this year and although I thought I had retrieved the certificate correctly, as it turned out there was one more step that I had missed. It's a pretty screwy system that needs a certain version of Adobe Acrobat that has to be running inside of Internet Explorer with a certain version of the report form. Basically, it's a pain in the ass designed to reduce the work in Washington D.C. while transferring more of the work and expense to the people who the people in D.C. have forced to fill out the forms. That would be me.

The Daughter is in the midst of Finals Week up in Iowa. The thought of finals still sends a chill through me. Toward the end of next week, though, she's flying to Nassau with a few friends for a little R&R. After that, I don't know what she's got up her sleeve.

Another One?

It was hazy, overcast and warm this morning, so naturally I was running late to meet the long Tuesday levee ride. Riding as fast as I dared I headed down Carrollton and Willow, past the streetcar barn and over the tracks, past the two 4-way stops and through the gap in the old parish levee at the end of Willow, across the railroad tracks and finally up the levee path on-ramp. As I hit the base I could see John flying along the path above me. We had both missed the start by maybe a minute or two. When I came around the Ochnser bend I could see a flashing headlight ahead telling me that the group hadn't entirely coalesced yet. We caught before the playground and found a particularly sluggish group. I rolled along for a while at under 20 mph with a couple of the guys and when we finally looked back the group was still well behind us. We slowed down even more and finally it all came together. Even so, we were missing a few of the regulars this morning and that kept the pace meter in the "civilized" range despite a nice little tailwind. The civilization began to decay about half-way back, though, as the persistent head/crosswind began to take its toll. A mile or two from the Huey P. we were down to just a handful when Donald must have heard a voice saying "attack!" So he takes off like he's Robbie McEwen and the rest of kind of look at each other as if to say "WTF?" So we gradually reel him back and then he attacks again. I'm about to go when someone behind me (aka "the voice of reason") says "let him go." So we all ease up for a little while and he rolls off into the distance. Eventually big Richard comes around and gently lifts the pace again so that we're no longer losing ground. About 400 meters before the bridge, for reasons I cannot exlpain, my legs said "let's give this a shot." I can see Donald glancing behind him every so often, so I wait for him to do it again and as soon as he looks forward again I take off. I'm going about 30 and closing fast when he looks behind again and sees me coming. He leaps out of the saddle again and attacks. I might have held on for a little while longer, but it made me laugh so much I had to ease up! Anyway, that was fun.

So last night I stole the 27" tire off of my Pennine and put it on the front wheel of my commuter to replace the blown-out tire from yesterday's aborted attempt to get to work, so I was good to go today and had a nice tailwind to ease the climb up the Broad Street overpass. Then, around 12:30, I decided I'd better go find something to eat because my breakfast of watermelon and coffee wasn't cutting it. I unlocked the bike from in front of the building and rode down to a little lunch place on Poydras where they have a good deal on the vegetable plate, and on the way back, half a block before I get back to the office, the rear tire goes flat. Now, this is not the tire that blew out yesterday. This is another one. How is it that flat tires always seem to come in clusters? As luck would have it, The Wife had also ridden her bike in to work today, and I don't have a spare tube or pump with me. There's not much that's open down here in the CBD, but the Walgreen's drug store a couple of block away is. Drug stores usually have at least patch kits and cheap bicycle pumps, right? Well, not this one.

Looks like the commuter may be spending the night downtown. At least the RTA busses are still free until June 30!

Smooth and Steady Start; Commutus Interruptus

It was an exceptionally smooth and steady start to the week up on the levee this morning. I had only Joe for company, and after a few miles he dropped back and settled into my draft as he often does. The weekend's rides were still in my legs, though, and so the plan for me was a low-gear, low-intensity ride. With the flags hanging limply in the still air and a thick haze filtering the sunlight, the weather made it easy. I rolled along, spinning a 39x15, all the way out at a steady speed that probably never varied more than half an mph from 18.5. A quarter mile from the turnaround a little bump betrayed a softening rear tire, so at the turnaround I stopped to change the tube. The return trip was just a mirror image with 1 mph tacked onto it to keep me on schedule. Even the woman in the big SUV who started to coast through the stop sign without even looking in my direction couldn't spoil such a peaceful morning spin. It would take something else entirely.

Although I had an 11:00 meeting uptown, I decided to go ahead and ride downtown to work first and then take The Wife's car back uptown to the meeting. I was running a bit late, but there was plenty of time and this way I could sort through the morning email and prepare for the meeting at the office. It was a plan. The tires on the commuter were a little low, so I topped them up with my trusty old blue Silca floor pump and hit the road more or less on schedule. Half a mile later my leisurely commute was rudely interrupted when the front tire exploded. It was obviously a case of casing failure. I turned around and limped back home on the rim. Now, if I had built up that second new front wheel like I had planned, this wouldn't have happened, but I handn't, so when I got back to the house I checked the tire and found the tear in the casing near the bead. Not really fixable - on to Plan B. The front wheel on the commuter is an old 27 inch one, so although I'm well stocked with used 700C tires, there's not another 27-incher to be had. Readily at hand, however, was an old 700C front with rusty spokes that I had rescued from someone's Katrina debris pile a couple of months ago. It was holding air, but it had a big dry-rotted "hybrid" tire on it that wouldn't fit inside the fenders on my commuter, which was actually designed for 26" wheels. So I decided to swap out the tire with one of the narrower 700C tires I had lying about. However, I would need a narrower tube to go with it, and since I had already flatted earlier that morning, I had to patch one. So I did all that and went to mount the new tube and tire and realized that the rim was drilled for Shraeder valves rather than Presta. Did I have any Shraeder tubes that would fit? Nope. I briefly considered rigging something up, but now it was getting seriously late and my meditative calmness from the morning ride had already become a distant memory. I tossed wheel number two aside and moved on to Plan C. Plan C, of course, was to use my nice newly built training wheel with its nearly booted and repaired Michelin Pro Race tire off of my Cervelo for the day. Yeah, it hurt, but whatchagonnado? I finally arrived at work just in time to turn right around and get a ride back uptown for my meeting.

Just for the record, here's the latest on the University. Total estimated revenue losses including operating losses ($100M), property damages ($155M), research asset losses, library and art losses, and hazard mitigation: $390 Million. Total received to date from FEMA: $0. Total received to date from federal government appropriations: $0. Time we have been working on recovering something through FEMA and the federal legislature: Eight months. Anxiety level: High.

10 p.m. Sunday

No racing for me this weekend, but a couple of good training rides made it OK, even if one of them was wet. Saturday the weather was great and I went out to the Giro ride ready for a hard training ride. The thing about the Giro ride, and probably most local group training rides, it that a smart rider can make it into whatever he wants. You can sit in and take it relatively easy, or you can stay on the front and hammer yourself to death. You can also make it into anything in-between. So Saturday I spent some significant time in the front group and also put in a decent effort for most of the sprints. Afterward I rode back uptown with Tim, Charlie, Mark and Realdo and ended up riding a few miles down the levee before finally heading home with close too 80 miles on the odo. My legs were hurting the rest of the day, and I was seriously wondering if doing the Northshore training ride on Sunday morning was a smart idea. I wish we had more races nearby like in the "old days." On the "plus" side, we finally got the OK from the local church to use their parking area for the Tour de Louisiane road race this year. I'll try and get everything updated over the next few days.

Smart or not, Sunday morning found me at The Morning Call to meet up with Charlie for a ride across the Lake. The weather was kind of sketchy and combined with the fact that it was the final day of Jazz Fest, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find that we had only a small group. It wasn't long after we started before the rain started. It was almost all just a light drizzle, though. Not quite enough to make you cold, but definitely enough wheel spray to make it uncomfortable. I was determined not to let the pace stagnate, though, and so we got in a pretty good training ride despite the wet streets and my close call rounding one of the wet, gravelly turns. Strangely, Rick was consistently dropping off the pace on the climbs, only to catch back up and sometimes pass the group on the flats. I guess he must have been on a different page of the training manual that the rest of us today. I was amazed all weekend at how nice my newly-build wheels felt. I guess I had gotten used to the old ones and didn't notice the roughness of the rear hub or the slightly out-of-true wheels. I mean, the new wheels just feel so . . . smooth! I was surprised that although my legs felt stiff and a little bit sore, they still felt pretty good on the bike today. If my stomach hadn't been hurting all morning, it would have been a really nice ride.

Looks like Fats Domino wasn't quite up to performing as advertised at the Jazz Fest today. I think Lionel Ritchie filled in though. I hope the Jazz Fest was a big success this year. I think probably it was. The weather has certainly been pretty good, and that's usually a big factor.

I heard from Gina on Saturday and found out that she is buying a condo somewhere in Atlanta. She told me where, but I didn't recognize the area so naturally my brain immediately dumped the data.

My niece, the one who is at Annapolis, was in town tonight for dinner, but is heading out tomorrow and by Wednesday will be in Hawaii to go on a "cruise" on a Navy destroyer. Interestingly, she's looking for a decent bike. She's really on a budget, but if you know of anything that might fit someone who is around 5'10" let me know.

Frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriday!

You know it must be summer now because even the Friday levee ride is attracting six or seven riders lately. Even more telling is the fact that the pace is getting faster. This morning was no exception. I headed out, new rear wheel and all, a little early, riding down Short Street. Short parallels Carrollton Avenue, but is a whole lot smoother, and although there's a stop sign at almost every corner, it's still a nicer route early in the morning. Of course, lately there are a bunch of huge holes and sandy areas where some of the many water leaks have been repaired. Over on Carrollton, there is still no sign of the return of "our" streetcars. You see, after Katrina they took "our" authentic streetcars, which are really supposed to run only on the St. Charles/Carrollton tracks, downtown to replace the imitation ones that were flooded. I don't know when we'll get our streetcars back, but the downtown folks had better not be thinking of keeping them or all hell is going to break loose!

This morning's ride started at a nice comfortable 19 mph, but slowly and steadily escalated, and by the time we were half-way back we were rolling at 24-25 mph. It was pretty steady, though, so no problems really except that we lost a few people toward then end. I think they basically just sat up to ride in at a slower pace, though. When I got home I gave the rear wheel a spin and it looked nice and true, so I'm good to go on that score. I'll probably build up the front tonight so I can save that nice SpeedCific wheel for more important things. Guess I'm going to need to buy a couple of nice tires for those wheels, though.

The wife took the day off to go to the Jazz Fest today, but I just had too much stuff going on at work and besides, my statute of limitations for standing around listening to music is substantially shorter than hers.

For a change, I have no real plans for this weekend, so maybe I can get a couple of new wheels built, get started on fixing the garage roof, plant that new Ligustrum to replace the one that died, ride a Giro or two, get the Tour de Louisiane website updated, send in the event permit (Courtney just emailed that we got the parking at the church approved!!), set up the online registration, make the new course maps, work out the new road race distances and starting times, etc. I guess, technically, those might be called "plans."

Long Ride, Long Day

Strangely, I slept poorly last night. I'm sure the fact that we got a new coffee maker at work that needed extensive testing with Starbuck's best couldn't have been responsible, but anyway I woke up feeling tired. This being Thursday, the long levee ride was on tap, and once the group got going and I noticed there were four or five guys on TT bikes, I figured it would be trouble. We had just started going well when Tim, on his TT bike, rolled off the front taking a couple of guys with him. A gap opened quickly, and after hesitating for a second I went to the front and tried to close. I was going 28 mph and still losing ground when I realized what was going on. Tim was doing some long intervals and there was no way on earth I was going to catch until he eased up. Eventually, of course, he did, repeating the exercise once or twice again. By the time we were halfway back I was already hurting. Apparently I require sleep. It has always amazed me how my legs can feel great one day and then lousy a couple of days later, and vice-versa. I guess the lesson is that no matter how bad you feel warming up for a race, there's always a chance you'll feel like Superman by the time you get to the finish line.

Work today mostly involved collecting a long list of new things to do on short notice while actually accomplishing little. Appropriately enough, a big thunderstorm rolled through in the afternoon, so I went downstairs to the disappointing pre-made sandwich place and bought a Hubig's pie. You don't want to know what they make those things our of, but apparently they have just discovered the web. It is looking like enrollment at Tulane and all of the other New Orleans universities will be significantly down this Fall, which means more financial trouble for sure. The Senate passed a big emergency supplemental appropriations bill today that included a lot of hurricane relief stuff. The health care amendments, however, were not included. Apparently the new railroad tracks in Mississippi and the subsidies for sugar cane farmers in Hawaii were more important than health care in New Orleans. Guess which states two of the most powerful people on Appropriations come from. At least my one success for the day was straightening out a problem with my mortgage company where they claimed some computer glitch was the reason that my payment had not been applied to my mortgage. Yeah, right. One little sign of progress is that the roof people have started to disassemble the huge crane that they built outside our office window and have been using to haul stuff up and down from the street to the roof and back since the hurricane. Now if they could just fix one or two of the blasted elevators so I don't feel like I have to make an elevator reservation in order to get lunch, that would be nice!

Things improved by the time I got home, though. There, waiting on the front porch for me, was a box containing the rims and spokes I had ordered, and in the mailbox was a revised estimate from Allstate Insurance that finally looks like something I can work with. So I got to work and had a new rear wheel built up before the evening news. I'll try it out tomorrow morning and then true it up again. I've gotta say, those Mavic Open Pro anodized rims are really nice. These will be pretty bullet-proof wheels. Campi hubs, Open Pro rims, double-butted DT spokes, and brass nips. The rear built up pretty well, thanks mostly to the fact that I didn't worry too much if it wasn't absolutely, perfectly true. Now I just need to build up two new front wheels and I'll be all stocked up wheel-wise. While I was working down in the basement, I missed a call from Gina V who bought a house somewhere in Atlanta today. Damn, she works fast! I'll have to give her a call in the morning and get the scoop. Her vmail didn't sound too optimistic about her racing season, however.

Final Load

Yesterday morning I woke up early, ready to ride. It seems that finally my circadian rhythm and the Earth's rotation are coming into alignment. It always happens that way this time of year. I'll be fine until around mid-January, then I sink into some kind of slump until late March, and finally begin to feel some energy coming back some time in April. So I rode a bit harder than usual on Tuesday and relished every second of it. If I hadn't gone over my father's house last night and consumed large quantities of wine, all would have been well. Fifteen minutes after getting home I was out for the count. That is, until I woke up quite thirsty around midnight. But all was well by morning when I rode out to meet the levee ride group, so I guess my liver function is still adequate. It was a nice typical Wednesday ride with about a dozen riders and a steady pace of 22-25 the whole way out and back. Courney E was there telling us about the big snake that surprised her (and her little dog too) in the backyard of her new house in Mandeville. Her husband came out and dispatched the creature, much to the chagrin of Donald who had been known to stop and pick up snakes and turtles during training rides, bringing them back home in his jersey pockets.

After the morning ride, as I approached my house I saw a welcome sight. The debris pick-up crew was on our block! This was really exciting. Three of the neighbors were out front watching. Our block was down to just one remaining pile of Katrina debris, which was in front of my next-door neighbor's house. This should be the final load of debris on our block. It's been eight months now since Katrina, for those who are counting. Now if we can just get the Sewerage & Water Board out there to fix the water leak two houses down that has grown alarmingly over the past few weeks, we would be home free! What started as a soggy area near the water meter immediately after Katrina has now grown into a miniature marshland complete with a gurgling spring and babbling brook flowing down the block to the storm drain. It's been so long that we are concerned about the roots of the large Oak tree that it's under.

So it looks like I'm going to be putting together Tulane's proposal to the Board of Regents for our $15.3M portion of the Department of Education Katrina Relief for Higher Education fund. Should be interesting. The 37-pages of documents attached to the request for proposals seems to have been designed to make it as difficult as possible, quite inappropriately incorporating 34 CFR 74-99 into the whole thing as if it were a regular grant. Ah well, that's why I get the big bucks, eh? Meanwhile, the First Lady was in town today making some awards from a Foundation to some local schools to help rebuild their libraries.

Catch-up

By Sunday night another weekend of insufficient riding was starting to mess with my head. Race announcements are everywhere this time of year, and even if many of them are out of reach for one reason or another, I still need to feel like I could hold my own if circumstances somehow found me on the starting line. I'm not exactly getting that feeling, though, and when I start missing the intensity of the weekend group rides, I know it's getting serious and I feel the need, if only psychological, to "catch up." So I headed out the door a little bit early this morning to put in an extra 10 solo before meeting up with whoever might show on a Monday morning after the first JazzFest weekend where Bruce Springsteen apparently brought everyone to tears with "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?" I should have been there for that. Anyway, the weather this morning was practically perfect - temperature in the mid-60s, almost no wind, clear blue skies. I did my 10 miles of solo work and then met up with a couple more guys along the way, arriving back home feeling a little bit more satisfied. Just after I met Joe F. this morning we came across Sally D. on the side of the bike path just beginning to fix a flat. Sally and her husband Billy did a fair amount of racing back in the 80s and were still doing a lot of riding into the 90s until Billy crashed rather heavily one morning and did some major damage to his elbow. I don't think he's been on the bike in the last three or four years. Anyway, she has taken to riding Billy's bike lately. While helping to fix her flat I noticed that the rear tire, tube and Mr. Tuffy were all practically melted together into one crumbling mess. It had apparently been a very long time since that tube had been changed! She said that Billy had just been through two back surgeries, spending about six weeks in the hospital, and was now back home recovering.

On my commute in to work this morning I noticed that the traffic is essentially back to the pre-Katrina norm, at least along my communting route. The cars are screaming past me on the Broad St. overpass at 50 mph despite the 35 mph speed limit, as per usual. A couple of months ago my ride to work was a whole lot more peaceful. The workers on the roof at work are about finished with the side of the roof that I see out my window and for the first time since the hurricane it is beginning to look almost normal. It's interesting that many of the guys working on this job seem to be from Eastern Europe, maybe even Russia. Of course at work we are still focusing a lot of our energy on securing federal and state supplemental funding to help offset our losses, and at home I now have a "supplemental" insurance adjuster who will probably get me a few more dollars so that I can put a proper roof on the place. I was glad to see that between my patch job and the three buckets in the attic catching leaks that the strong storm Saturday night didn't cause any more noticible ceiling damage.

Got a TM from GeVo last night saying that she didn't ride Athens, and was feeling just a little bit better. Probably a wise decision, actually.

Weekend in the Boondocks

I ran out the door early Saturday morning and got in a nice solo training ride while the gettin' was good. I had been volunteered to help with some interior contruction type work at the country home of one of The Wife's co-workers. This place is way, way out in the middle of nowhere, the nearest town being Mount Hermon, LA. I had been told that they needed to install some molding in the little guest house out back. The little guest house was built by someone who was apparently unfamiliar with the concept of a right angle. Fortunately, being from New Orleans, I'm not too uncomfortable dealing with fix-up jobs involving houses that are less than square, and I am entirely capable of compromise when it comes to this sort of thing. As it turned out, the molding was the easy part. Before that, I had to frame up two entirely non-standard closet doors using certain methods that ran afoul of some basic principles of pysics, including gravity. Then I had to install a bunch of panelling over pre-existing sheetrock on walls where the studs were obviously placed at random intervals. The owners thought it all looked wonderful when we were done. I was far less impressed and made them promise they would never divulge the name of the person who had done the work.

I had brought the bike with me, but Saturday night was a big storm, complete with a four-hour power outage and tornado warnings, and when I woke up just before dawn the road was still wet, the wind was gusting, and there was a light rain falling. Since that was my only window for a ride today, I was screwed. Naturally the weather improved tremendously while I was improvising new construction techniques and mumbling things like "nobody will notice this once it's all painted." Maybe I'll try and get out the door extra early tomorrow and log a few bonus miles. I could use them.

Haven't heard from GiVo today. She said she would stop driving around Birmingham AL before finishing the last leg Saturday morning to Athens for the Twilight. I see that one of her teammates finished 4th in the Pro, 1,2, Women's race, but I don't know if GiVo started or not.

Joe Martin is coming up. $80 entry fee? I'd have to come in 4th to break even. Sure would be fun though.

The Feds . . .

U.S. Post Office celebrates reopening of its main branch
04:18 PM CDT on Friday, April 28, 2006
WWLTV.com
The U.S. Postal Office’s main branch held a celebration Friday morning marking its reopening.
The post office said mail was being routed through Baton Rouge, which had added at least a day to delivery time. A representative for the post office said not only will mail service be quicker, but magazines will be delivered as well. The U.S Post Office said there were still problems getting mail to people that had moved. They also added that catalog deliveries would not resume until June 1.

Rather Bored

It's been relatively quiet at the office today, due in no small part to the fact that I'm the only one here, and although I've a bunch of items on my to-do list I'm feeling rather bored fumbling through our cumbersome online accounting reports and cranking out some tedious reports that nobody will ever pay any attention to whatsoever. This morning's ride was easy, as planned. I started solo a little bit early after I ran into Realdo. He turned around eventually but I picked up Charlie, and then on the way back we waited for the four or five guys who had started at the regular time to catch us.

So I think I'm going to build up a pair of training wheels. Standard fare, of course. 32-spoke, Open Pro, with a Campi rear hub and an old Campi Record front. By "old" I mean around 1980 or so. Isn't it interesting that the "old style" loose-bearing Campi hubs are still smooth after 20 years while the fancy-schmancy sealed-bearing ultralight cartridge hubs seem to self-destruct much sooner? I may go ahead and get a third cheaper rim and also rebuild the damaged wheel from my run-in with the truck, but that one will probably go on the commuter so that I can put the wheel I've been commuting on for the past few years back on the old Pennine where it belongs. It's been quite a few years since I built a wheel, but then building a regular 32-hole 3-cross wheel on a solid rim like the Open Pro is not exactly rocket-science and sometimes it seems practically therapeutic. Since people always say I need therapy, I guess that's good!

The "new" LAMBRA website is finally being properly referenced in the domain nameservers, so I added a couple of our sponsor advertisements during lunch. I think there is one or maybe a couple more sponsors, but I don't have their stuff yet.

Got a TM from Gina V about half an hour ago. She said she had still not gotten to Little Rock, AK. Long drive for someone who just escaped from a hospital bed. It's about ten hours from Little Rock to Athens. That would put her in there around 1 or 2 a.m., but hey, it's Athens Twilight and her race probably doesn't start until around 7 p.m.

What would you do?

Cool

A little bit of a cool front finally came through following yesterday's rainstorms, dropping this morning's temperature all the way down into the lower 60s! Now, yes, I know some people don't consider that to be "cool" by any stretch, but everything's relative. A few weeks from now I'll be waking to temperatures already around 80F and the 60s will be both a climatologic and cultural distant memory. The only fly in the ointment this morning was the brisk Northwest wind. Brisk enough, I guess, to dissuade more than a couple of the usual crowd from showing up. Since my regular "training" front wheel currently looks like a Pringles potato chip, I decided to put some rubber on the cool Speedcific / Nimble Spider front wheel that I'm buying from Kevin, so I mounted up a nice Michelin Pro that Ronnie had given me. It had a huge gash all the way through the casing right in the middle of the tread, but I had sewn in a boot a while ago, so it was time to try it out. No problems! Once I get my regular front wheel rebuilt, I'll have to put some proper rubber on the thing.

By the time we made it all the way out to the Ormond plantation turnaround there were only four of us left to battle the remaining 21 miles of crosswind. On the plus side, nobody had to ride in the gutter! We took the first few miles of the return trip pretty easy, but then Donald looked at his watch and asked Tim if he thought he could tow us back in at about 30 mph because he was running late for work. That was right about when Tim had to head home, of course. Donald and I picked up the pace a bit, but of course never threatened the 30 mph mark. It was a good ride anyway, and as an added benefit, I didn't get hit by any trucks today!

So it looks like Gina V won't be able to stop over in New Orleans on her way to the Athens Twilight. I got a TM from her yesterday telling me she was lying in a hospital bed. Apparently she had some sort of gastritis and had gotten pretty sick so they admitted her to run some tests and things that mostly didn't provide a solid answer. Anyway, she called last night to say that they had released her, so she was planning on hitting the road this morning for the long haul straight from AZ to Athens. Between crashes and illness, this year's racing season hasn't been kind to her so far.

I think I'll probably be the only one in the office tomorrow. Everyone else will either be out of town or at the first day of the Jazz Fest.

I Got Trucked!

It's been kind of a rough start to the day today. First I get hit by a car, then I get rained on.

When I peeked out the window this morning the sky was darker than usual but the streets were dry. Considering that it had rained last night, I was glad to see the streets weren't slick, so I headed out as usual. I guess I should have taken a few minutes to check the weather radar, but hey, I need to ride! So I rode out to the levee down Willow Street, past Leonidas where the five people were shot the other night, and arrived at the usual meeting spot right on time. Naturally nobody was there since they were all probably clever enough to have flipped on the Weather Channel. The skies looked ominous and there were faint flashes of lightning way off in the distance, but I though I might be able to squeeze in 20 miles before the rain started. A few miles out I saw Realdo on his way in, so I turned around. He said it was already starting to rain down the road. I decided the prudent thing to do at this point was to call it a day and head for the showers, so when we got to the parish line I split off down the levee to River Road at Oak Street. Just after the railroad tracks there's a really sketchy intersection where people coming upriver on River Road have to stop and make a left turn in order to cross the tracks and pick up River Road on the other side. They're always in a hurry and I'm used to seeing them run the stop sign there, so I 'm always careful. Well, this morning as I coming across the tracks a woman in a little car rolls through the stop sign and cuts the corner right in front of me, so I'm all the way over to the right and already pissed off when the big pickup truck behind her does the same thing. He's cut the corner so much that he's entirely in my lane but heading in the other direction and I have no place left to go so I bounce up against his front fender and I'm pounding fruitlessly on his door as I go down, still clipped in. Luckily I was probably going less than 10 mph at the time, but I was shocked that he was not stopping. I could hear him accelerating as I hit the ground and thought for a moment he was going to run, but he pulled over on the other side of the road finally, after rolling over my front wheel. So the front wheel looks like a taco chip, but otherwise I was pretty much undamaged. Some very light road rash on my leg and that's about it. The guy was very apologetic and gave me his contact info, so I guess we'll see if he will ever actually pay for the wheel. He offered that he knows Billy at GNO Cyclery, and seemed like a decent enough guy, so I called The Wife for extraction just as the rain started to get heavy. I wonder if you can get 36-hole rims any more! This was my old front wheel with a high-flange Campagnolo Nuevo Tipo hub from the 70s.

Having cut my morning ride short, and considering the rain, I took a quick shower so that I could get a ride to work with The Wife this morning. Right about the time we walked out the door the skies opened up into a torrential downpour - enough for some minor street flooding here and there. By the time I got into the car I was already soaking wet from trying to juggle an umbrella, my messenger bag, a cup of coffee and a Silca pump. "Why the pump?" you might ask. Well one of the folks at work is planning to go to the Jazz Fest this weekend and as anyone who has done it before knows, trying to drive to Jazz Fest is pure torture, so lots of people dust off their old bikes and ride there since it's in the middle of town. The Jazz Fest is probably the biggest event in town aside from Mardi Gras and attracts a lot of visitors and locals alike. Check out who will be there.

Summerrrrrrry

For once I didn't wake up late and actually arrived at the start of the Thursday levee ride a few minutes early. The air was thick, warm and humid, and with a high expected today in the upper 80s, it's definitely starting to feel like summer around here. I had planned to do a fairly hard workout this morning, but was seduced by the back of the pack where Donald was short-circuiting the rotation. Early on, I was back there when the pace ramped up into the upper 20s, and I just never got motivated enough to make the effort to get out into the wind and move up ahead of Donald in order to get back into the rotation. It pretty much stayed very fast all the way out, so it wasn't like I was soft-pedaling or anything. I don't think they missed me anyway. The ride back featured a lot more headwind, so I did a lot of work at the front, finally arriving back home feeling like I had gotten my money's worth.

I posted the results from the Mississippi Gran Prix stage race yesterday and so far there haven't been any serious complaints. I'll probably work out the LCCS rankings tomorrow. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be three weeks before the next good race, the Rocky Mount omnium up around Shreveport. This race is put together with a lot of help from Russ Walker. He's the guy with "Big Daddy" printed on the back of his shorts who kicked our butts last weekend, winning the RR and Crit and finishing only a couple of seconds out of first in the TT. His e-mail ID starts with "udropped." The Tour de Louisiane is scheduled for July 1 this year and I think the only really "iffy" thing that's still not nailed down is the parking for the Road Race since we're using a new course this year. Wherever we can get enough parking will probably be where the start/finish is, so it's kind of important. Keith went out there to scout things out last week.

The LAMBRA website should be moving from one server to another in the next day or so. It should be completely transparent to everyone except me. Once the DNS changes take effect I'll need to work on the home page a bit to add the advertisements that will be helping to pay for the web hosting costs.

Anyway, I should get back to work now. Lots to paperwork do right now. Lobbying reports are due, need to revise my position description, we're supposed to do a complete new physical inventory, etc., etc. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Oh yeah, I think Gina V is supposed to swing through the Crescent City on Thursday en route to Charlotte or Atlanta or something. I think she'll be spending the night at the house, so hopefully she'll have time to go out for a ride in the morning to catch me up with all of the women's NRC race series scuttlebut.

Day 2 in Brookhaven

Unlike last year, it was already warm when we arrived at the community college where the criterium was being held. The biggest difference for me, though, wasn't the temperature; it was the fact that, being in 10th place on GC, I didn't feel much pressure at all. My legs felt surprisingly good, so I figured I would just go for a good stage placing today and not worry much about GC at all. I got a fast start, clipping in quickly and making the first turn near the front. Russ W pushed the pace for the first couple of laps for some reason, but after that it settled down into a fairly typical masters criterium. Compared with last year, when I was trying to defend a top-three spot on GC, it felt relatively easy. Perhaps it was, or perhaps it was just that I spent less time at the front. There was a hot spot at the mid-way point of the 55-minute criterium, and although I wasn't interested in picking up the few seconds that were up for grabs, I made sure I stayed near the front. I was expecting an attack. What happened wasn't really an attack, but a big and dangerous gap did open that required a concerted effort to close. The whole race was nearly lost at that point when a small group got away for most of a lap, but it was pulled back by the time we got to the hill near the finish. I thought that overall the race was less aggressive than I had expected, and so I arrived at the 4-laps-to-go mark with surprisingly fresh legs. The last few laps got faster, of couse, and every time the pace slowed a bit riders would swarm up from behind, each trying to move into a better position. Half-way through the last lap I was not in a very great spot, but then on the second-to-last turn there was some room on the inside and I swung through, emerging on the fifth or sixth wheel, just behind Jay S. Coming into the finish of this course there is a nice little climb that tops out about 150 meters before the finish. For all practical purposes the sprint starts at the bottom of the climb. Half-way up, Jay started to fade a little and I immediately heard wheels coming up on my left, against the fence. I saw a spot of daylight and got onto one of the wheels moving forward. I think it might have been Russ W. or maybe the person on his wheel. Keith was right behind me, as I was to learn later. Anyway, it was a fun last lap and I managed to get across in 4th place with Keith right on my wheel. Definitely a better-than-expected result for me. When the dust cleared, I was still in 10th place on GC, thanks to my mediocre time trial, but the good news was that I was starting to feel that old excitement that keeps me racing year after year. Charlie D. finished with the pack and kept his 9th place on GC. Not sure where Keith ended up on the overall, though. In fact, I'm not exactly sure who won the master's, so I guess I'll wait until I see the full results.

The Cat. 1,2,3 race was pretty interesting and somewhat controversial. Early in the race a break went off the front. It later split into two groups, with what was left of the pack chasing about 30 seconds back. Before the break split a couple of guys made a long and difficult bridge up to the break. That was pretty impressive because these guys were going fast. As the 75-minute race wore on, the front break dwindled to only three riders while the second group held its own. The pack pretty much gave up eventually and the lead break lapped them. Then, just to make sure the officials were as confused as possible, the second group caught the pack, lapping them on their last lap, so that they ended up essentially sprinting into the back of the pack. Along the way one rider in the lapped pack dropped back in order to help one of his teammates in one of the breaks. I think he or they got penalized for that. It was a pretty good race to watch. I'm sure I'll get the full results tomorrow for posting to the website(s). The winner on GC: Mike Olheiser , winner of this year's Rouge-Roubaix, from the Memphis Motor Werks team. The Herring Gas guys worked hard and almost pulled off the win, but not quite this time. Brooks was tired by happy to have finished with the pack today.

The Cat. 4 race went pretty well for Jason, though I don't remember exactly where he placed. Likewise, we had a couple of guys in the Cat. 5 race who finished near the top.

Although I had driven up to the race alone, I drove back with the car packed to the gills. Both Brooks B. and George H. needed rides back to New Orleans, so we put two bikes on the roof, and loaded up the old Volvo with a bike case and bike, stationary trainer, about ten wheels, six or seven bags, pumps, etc., somehow salvaging enough space to put squeeze in three people too. For some reason I just love travelling like this.

MS Gran Prix, Day 1

Running low on battery here and forgot the charger at home, so this will be brief. The Road Race had a lot of horsepower in it today, but many were riding defensively since they knew the afternoon Time Trial would completely reshuffle the results. There were a number of strong attacks, but nothing was sustained long enough and there were always enough people back in the pack to chase them down, so at the end it came down to a big pack sprint. The last few miles have a few climbs and the finish 500m is mostly uphill, so things broke up a bit. About a kilo before the finish there was a crash in front of me that required a lot of body english to avoid. Somebody crossed wheels with Jay S and went down right in front of me, but luckily I was able to get around him on the left. Shortly after that I Jaro came blasting up the right side, partly in the gravel, as the sprint started to wind up. He ended up 3rd! There were a lot of fresh legs that showed up for the sprint. I ended up 6th, I think, so pack time and no bonus, however the climb created enough of a split that most of the back part of the pack didn't get the same time as the top dozen or so. The evening TT didn't go well for me at all, not that I was too surprised. I did a 9:14 for the 4 miler, but my 30-second man caught me. I can't say that I put 100% into it, really, but even if I had I probably would have picked up only a couple of places. The top time of the day was in the Cat. 1,2,3 race and was an 8:02 by Bain Foote, so basically there were a few people who took over a minute out of me in 4 miles. I think I was around 12th or so in the TT. On GC, I'm at 10th going in to the circuit race tomorrow. Tomorrow's circuit race should be pretty interesting because there are a few people in the 2nd through 5th place spots that are really close. That means that the hot spot at the mid-way point will be hotly contested, as will the finish of course. I really don't have much of a game plan other than to maybe support Charlie who is in 9th if he is looking good. I'm not too interested in trying to defend 10th place, so maybe I'll just lay it all on the line and see if I can make something happen. We'll just have to wait and see how the legs are in the morning.

Nonstop

I walked out the basement door into the humid morning air and rode off past the bags of garbage that were supposed to be picked up on Wednesday but still line the streets. Bad enough that nearly seven months after Katrina we're still on a once-a-week garbage pickup schedule, but since the Corps of Engineers handed duties over to the city's contractors a month or so ago they haven't managed to do even that. Two houses down from mine the water leak that started shortly after the hurricane has evolved into a small stream now, gurgling up from around the water meter and feeding a large puddle that extends half a block to the storm drain. The water leak that was fixed in front of my house a month ago still awaits asphalt and in the meantime creates a cloud of dust every time a car goes by. We have an election tomorrow (hope everyone who's racing remembered to vote absentee) that should be pretty interesting. For the first time since the 70s I think there are more white candidates than black, which seems to be very upsetting to some people. There will be a lawsuit if the "wrong" person wins. Anyway, there will certainly be a run-off anyway so it won't be settled for a while yet. In the last week, they've all pretty much resorted to calling each other liars as usual. I had five political messages on the answering machine when I got home, and at least three more called while I was eating dinner.

I was surprised to find so many people on the Friday training ride today. I guess we had about a dozen guys today, and for the most part everyone was happy to cruise along at around 21 mph. It was pretty much just the ride I was looking for. There was a lot going on at work and so I was going nonstop all day. Just when I had the day all planned out, I get an email that Senator Landrieu's staff wants some photos of Tulane Hospital that show the effects of the hurricane for a supplemental appropriations bill we're trying to get approved, so I spent quite a bit of time tracking down someone who could give me something on short notice. Finally, the COO tried to email me a 25 mb PowerPoint presentation that was just a bunch of rather low-resolution photos. Her mail server, however, kept choking on the file size, so I ended up walking over there in a pouring rainstorm with my thumbdrive. After all that, I looked at the pictures and they were pretty bad. On my morning ride I found that my rear brake wasn't releasing very well. I knew what the problem was. Last summer the plastic covering the cable housing had broken and sweat was getting in there and making a mess. So I had to run over to The Bicycle Connection to pick up a new housing and a big bottle of HammerGel orange (yum!). I thought it would be quicker to go to Todd's shop out in Metairie since it's just off of the interstate. Traffic was really heavy, though, and it took forever. Anyway, at least I have a fully functional rear brake now. While I was at the shop I mentioned that I wanted to get a new pair of official Look cleats with the teflon inserts. The ones I'm using now on my new shoes are some off-brand that don't have that solid feeling that the Look ones do when I clip in. They also float a lot more freely which I find rather uncomfortable. Anyway, Todd had a pair lying around on the workbench and handed them to me, but when I got home I discovered that the rectangular metal washers holding my off-brand ones on were too long for the new cleats and I didn't want to take the old ones off of my old shoes, so I guess I'll deal with that later.

I'll be hitting the road in the Volvo around 5:30 tomorrow morning for the 2-hour drive up to the Mississippi Gran Prix stage race. It looks like the weather will be good, so it should be fun even though I'll probably get my lunch eaten. I think we will have a reasonable number of riders from the club for this one, so that will be nice. Wish me luck. I'll need it.

Better. Not Great, but Better

As promised, I stayed off the bike yesterday and slept late. As NOT promised, I had gone out Monday afternoon for an easy "sightseeing" ride around Audubon Park - something I had not done in a long time. On Spring and Summer evenings, the park's 1.8 mile loop, which includes a bike lane, is usually crowded with people running, walking, rollerblading, riding, walking dogs, etc. It's a nice place for an easy ride and a very dangerous place for training. Luckily I was doing the former and not the latter. Right away I ran into Rob K who was out doing the same thing, so we rode together, chatting and dodging stray children and dogs, until dusk. It was really quite relaxing. I need to do this more often.

So this morning I went out to meet the levee ride, arriving at just the last moment. My legs were feeling better today, although I feel I'm a far cry from that rare feeling of being really "in shape." I guess we must have had a light tailwind on the way out today because it stayed pretty fast but didn't feel all that hard, although there were a couple of times when I had to close some unexpected gaps at unexpected speeds. For the most part, though, it was fairly steady. Right after the turnaround, while we were still going pretty slowly, Brady joined in, having missed the group by just a minute or so. He said he could see us up the road and was making up ground at first, but when we really started to roll we pulled away. Been there, done that! I was thinking that the ride back would be easier, but in fact it proved to be harder. At least that's how it felt to me. For one thing, there was a light headwind, and for another, the number of people pulling was smaller. Every time someone at the front would surge the pace up by a couple mph, another person would drop out of the rotation and start sitting on in the back, so the rotation kept dwindling until finally the pace slacked off a bit when we got closer to the end. Then, of course, it picked up again as if it was the finish of a race because Rob just couldn't let Howard go!

So I still need to register for the Mississippi Gran Prix this weekend and am a little disappointed that my plea to the email list for a ride drew no responses. I guess I'll have to resort to the telephone. Damn, I hate the telephone! At least Charlie has reserved a few rooms for the team already and the club's reimbursing entry fees for this one. Anyway, I guess I'm in for a good beating this weekend, especially in the 4 mile time trial for which I am woefully unprepared, as usual. A few of the guys are going up Friday afternoon because there's a Crit for the Cat. 1,2,3 field only that night that is part of the stage race. I'd rather make the 2-hour drive up there Saturday morning, though, so I'll have Friday night to get my act together.

Draggin' Arse

I'm guessing I should have gone easier on Monday because today I felt like I was dragging an anchor on the morning training ride. Then again, maybe it's just all of that Easter candy that I can't seem to walk past without sampling.

There was a pretty big group up on the levee today, and despite the fog, which was surprisingly thick in some spots, the pace was fairly fast. Early on I recognized that I was not firing on all cylinders, so I dropped to the back of the long line to sit in the draft of VJ who was on his TT bike trying to stay out of trouble. It wasn't entirely relaxing because the combination of a long string of riders and the fog made for a choppy pace, but it was OK.

On the way out after one of the many "rider up" calls from up front I saw Howard come past the group from the opposite direction, preparing to make a U-turn so he could join the group. The pace at the time was maybe 25 mph, and when he did VJ and Tim eased up a bit to help him latch on. As I coasted past VJ, I looked up to see the gap between the back of the group and me growing at an alarming rate. Somebody had just put the hammer down and just as Howard was making his turn, the group accelerated to around 30 mph. Geez! Alarm bells started going off in my head. So I try to accelerate gradually to close the gap and look down at the computer to see 28 mph on the screen. Then I look up to see that I'm still losing ground. Behind me, Tim, VJ and Howard are just getting organized. There's no way I'm going to make this bridge on my own, so I ease up a bit to wait for help. Just as I do, the trio comes blasting past me about 5 mph faster and I miss the draft. I had to get out of the saddle, sprint, and then bury myself for a while at 31 mph before I finally caught. Well, after that it was a cinch I wasn't going to be showing myself at the front! For the rest of the ride the pace would occasionally surge up into the 30s, usually when Howard would hit the front. I was staying near the back putting in quite enough effort just dealing with the erratic pace back there. So anyway, I'm thinking tomorrow should be an easy day for me because something is definitely not right.

One More Time -- With Pain

Riding out to meet the Sunday Giro ride this morning I was figuring it would be a nice moderate Easter Sunday pace.

Not even close.

The group was significantly smaller than usual, but it didn't seem to matter much. The pace was fast both coming and going, and unlike yesterday, there was significant droppage. At one point we're flying down Chef Highway at 28-30 mph with maybe a dozen guys rotating at the front and the rest sitting on. I finally decide to drop back and take a break and look over to see Warren S. I haven't seen him on a group ride in a long time. Apparently he just finished doing Ironman Arizona. He's rolling along in the paceline without showing much discomfort, which wouldn't ordinarily be such a big deal except that he's had a couple of heart attacks so far and I think probably coronary bypass surgery. His cardiologist, Steve R., was also in the pack today. Sweet, eh? So after the turnaround I'm thinking "it's got to slow down now."

Wrong again.

By the time I sprint up the Seabrook Bridge near the end of the ride, my legs are toast. I'm hoping that old saying about "if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger" will prove to be correct! All I can say is that as far as I could tell, pretty much everyone was wasted by the time we finished. I rode home with Brett R. at like 16 mph and had to stand to get over the overpasses without falling over.

Right after I got home we had to drive up to Baton Rouge to visit the mother in law. I pretty much felt like a Presbyterian in a Synagogue the whole time. They wanted to take her out to the Zoo. Let's just say it was a long day. At least there's one silver lining. Thanks to Katrina, I don't have to stay up late tonight to do my taxes because we have all been granted an automatic extension! I wasn't going to take it, but I'm way too tired for math right now, even if TurboTax is looking over my shoulder.

So I'll leave you with a little video of Tim R from Saturday's Giro ride that I took with my el cheapo camera.

The Saturday Giro

There was a big group on Lakeshore Drive for this morning's Giro Ride, and once we got over the bridge and onto Hayne Boulevard, the pace picked up quickly. Somewhere on the way out I think someone flatted toward the back, but with a group this size and the adrenelin flowing freely the guys at the front, who were motoring along at around 30 mph at the time, didn't even hesitate. In fact, I doubt they even heard about. The Chef Highway stretch was fast and, as usual, turned into a nice paceline for a while until the number of people in the rotation started to dwindle. There was a very long drag race leading up to the turnaround that got us up to around 36 mph. There were a few little attacks leading up to it that I figured wouldn't make it, but eventually I went with one of them, only to hear the sound of fast moving wheels coming up on my right. Yeah, I got streamed. John R. came by and told me to get on his wheel and we made up a little ground, but it was really too late by then.

Although the pace slowed down for a while after the turnaround, it picked up again and stayed pretty fast all the way back. After sprinting up the last bridge, I was pretty wasted, but it was a good training ride for sure. One thing that was kind of surprising was how many people survived in the pack to the end. Often the size of the group drops a lot as the ride goes on, but today it seemed like we ended up with almost as many people as we started with. Probably around 40 riders - maybe a few more than that. So today I brought the little camera along. Not too many pictures came out, but anyway the first one up there is just as the group is rolling out on Lakeshore Drive. The second one is on the way back riding down Hayne Blvd. with the Lake Pontchartrain levee on the right.

In the afternoon today I replaced a few of the plants around the house that died after the hurricane. We had gone to Banting's Nursery yesterday, coming home with over $200 of plants, most of which we planted in front of The Mom's apartment house since we had promised her that we would take care of it. (The flooding was about four feet there and so pretty much all of the decorative plants and all of the magnolia trees were killed.) Today while I was planting Camelias under the Oak tree out front, The Wife and her sister took off for a bike ride. The Sister in Law probably rides 25 miles a year, most of which were today. Naturally, The Wife took her all the way out to City Park where she promptly crashed on a sandy turn. Neither had brought cell phones, so they had to ride back. When they arrived, she said the thought she must have dislocated her elbow. I suspected she had broken the end of it, but I guess she was trying to stay optimistic about it so I didn't push it. Instead, we headed over to the ER at Lakeside Hospital. The ER waiting room was really quite nice and there were only a couple of people there, so she was in and out in maybe an hour and a half. The verdict on the elbow: broken. Needs to find an orthopedist now.

Storm Damage

Apparently The Daughter didn't think we would want to know last night when it all happened.

The usual Friday morning training ride was much longer and faster today because many businesses and most all schools, are closed today for Good Friday. The group was rolling pretty fast most of the way today, and when we got to the usual turnaround, most of the guys decided to continue on another five miles or so to "the dip." When I finally got home I fired up the computer to check my email and the first thing that came up was the "Daily Iowan" with a headline about tornados having wiped out a lot of Iowa City. I called The Daughter, but of course didn't get an answer. Finally, she called back. Last night around 8:30 or so, just as she was walking into the Rec Center to work out, the tornado warning sirens went off. Everyone in the Rec Center was herded into the locker rooms where they were to stay for the next couple of hours as at least one tornado ripped through Iowa City. She was pissed off that they wouldn't let them work out while they were there. Luckily, nobody in area around the university was badly injured, which was really quite amazing considering the damage. A number of frat and sorority houses were heavily damaged and the big old church that we have occasionally attended had most of the roof ripped off and one wall collapsed. There were about 80 people in the church at the time, but they had all taken shelter in the basement when the sirens went off. Flashbacks from The Wizard of Oz. The Daughter's house was spared any damage, luckily, but it was damned close! There are some amazing photos of the storm damage in the local newspaper website. Hurricanes, tornados, floods - it's been an interesting year. The Daughter's coach sent out the following email this morning:

Hello Everyone,
Just wanted to update all of you in case any of you saw the damage we sustained last night. Last night, Iowa City was hit by three consecutive tornadoes somewhere between the hours of 8:20pm and 10:00pm. The first in many years that have even come close to Iowa City. Fortunately for us, all of the girls are fine (thank God for cell phones!) and it seems other than being a little frightened, we are all ok. The campus has sustained quite a bit of damage across the river. Iowa has cancelled class today in order to clean up the debris that is blocking the roads. It seems that at least one of the three tornadoes was an F3 and we feel very lucky that none of us were in harm's way. All of the girls were extremely responsible and stayed in
basements, bathtubs, under tables wherever they could and checked in with me to make sure we had all been accounted for. It was a crazy ordeal to say the least but we wanted you to know that the sun is shining again and we are all fine! It will be a while before the campus returns to normal but never fear, the Field house is still standing strong!!!! Please call if you have questions or concerns. Have a great day!

Larissa

Meanwhile, way down here in the crescent city, the weather is great. We could use a little rain, but otherwise the morning temperatures have been in the low 60s with highs around 80. I'll probably do the Giro ride tomorrow, and today I have a lot of errands on my to-do list. Maybe I'll actually do one or two of them.

Running Loose

It's still a struggle for me to get up in the dark and push myself out the door to meet the 6:15 am training ride, but I know that in a few weeks there will be more light at 6:00 and consequently I'll be at least slightly more awake, so I just have to hang on for a little while longer. Today, though, I had an early morning meeting on the calendar and knew I wouldn't be able to do the whole ride, so I made sure I was on time. After all, I am trying to get back in shape all in one week. Today, it showed. I started out feeling a little sluggish and by the time I got back home I was just plain tired. It turned out to be a good workout, though. Even though I had to bail out early, at the dip, Brady and Donald both turned around there too, so the ride back was definitely within the "training effect" range - probably much better than if I had ridden back alone. Brady and I are planning to meet over lunch next week to talk about what we might do about a weekday evening training race series. In fact, yesterday I sent the lambra-racing list a note with a link to the Tuesday Night Worlds in St. Louis, thanks to Dan at Bike Drool. It sure would be great is someone around here would promote something like that.

Today on my commute to work I had an unexpected "incident." This is the kind of thing that probably doesn't happen in most places, but around downtown New Orleans it isn't quite as surprising as you might think. So here I am, having just come down the Broad Street Overpass, enjoying the momentum and soft-pedaling the couple of blocks to the stop light at Tulane Avenue. Out of the corner of my eye I see someone sitting on the bench at the bus stop, which is just part of the normal inner-city scenery across the street from the Parish Prison and Criminal Courts Building, both of which are still not back in business since the hurricane. As I approach, the enormous woman spots me and suddenly jumps up off of the bench and starts screaming something at me. She sounds really angry, as if I had just snatched a Big Mac and order of Fries out of her chubby little hands. She's standing in the middle of the lane and is screaming something like "Get off dat bike. Gimme dat bike sos I can ride it." Apparently she has mistaken me for a Liberal Democrat. I ease over to the left to make a little more room between me and this unrestrained mental case, and as I go by she lunges her 350 pound self toward me. If I'd been close enough, I'm sure she would have taken me down. As I passed I got this mental picture of her huge ass perched on my little bike. Yeeech! Anyway, just so you know, since Charity Hospital has been closed down, there are a lot of un-medicated mental cases like her running loose around here, especially since Houston figured out what was happening to their crime and school achievement statistics and started pushing them out. Just as an update, all of the hospitals in the area that are open, including Tulane's, are really struggling. Pretty much all of the patients they are seeing in the emergency rooms have no way to pay, so they are ending up filling their beds with indigent patients. It's kind of hard to break even in the hospital business if you're doing it all for free. In fact Tulane hospital, which is actually owned by HCA and is a for-profit hospital, has apparently just decided to close down DePaul hospital, which is where they have been doing all of their psychiatric work. I hear that the hospital is losing around $4M a month right now, and the situation is similar at most of the other hospitals. Things are still pretty tough around here. On a brighter note, the level of activity downtown seems to be increasing steadily.

Long Levee Day

Last night around 10 p.m. I decided it was time to change out those old worn out chainrings, chain, cassette and jockey wheels for the new stuff. Everything went on without a problem, and after tightening up the headset, again, I was looking forward to trying it out in the morning.

I jumped out of bed this morning knowing I was going to be late for the long levee ride. I seem to be having a problem dealing with the early morning darkness since we made the switch to daylight savings time. Basically, I went from being asleep to time-trialing in the span of maybe ten minutes, sprinting up the levee and onto the bike path to begin the chase. Luckily, the group was still in warm-up mode and I had them in sight after only a mile or two. I was able to tuck into the draft soon after the playground for a little recovery before things got faster -- which they did, of course. Soon after the dip the group got much smaller for some reason and I figured that a lot of people must have turned around early. I think the real culprit was a flat that those of us nearer the front didn't know about, though, because after we turned around we ran into most of the group coming the other way. The return trip was relatively civilized until the last six or seven miles when the pace ramped up and the group split a couple of times. I ended up having to make a solo bridge up to a small break, after which I never saw most of the pack again.

I was glad last night to receive an Excel file from last weekend's race promoter that looked real good. I made it into an html file and uploaded the results to the website, sending out an email about it shortly after 9 p.m. Within the hour the emails started coming in about errors. Most were relatively minor. A number of people had the wrong club listed because I had used a lookup table linked to the USCF database and so whenever there was an incorrect USCF number (there always are a few typos) it matched up to the wrong club. There was also one or two incorrect or missing placings, one of which I didn't get until tonight, but anyway I should have it all corrected some time tomorrow so that I can start working on the LCCS rankings.

The weather has been pretty nice with morning temperatures in the low-mid 60s, and even during the day it's felt pretty nice. I even went out after work and put in another hour on the levee.

So it was a good day on the bike.

Anticipation

When I finally arrived back home yesterday night there was a box waiting for me. I had ordered a bunch of 9-speed drivetrain parts and, amazingly, they had arrived. On time and under budget. So although I didn't stay up all night rebuilding the bike, I'm already anticipating the smooth feel of fresh chainrings against a fresh chain, cassette and jockey wheels. The balky shifter and cobbled together rear wheel will have to be next, but after shelling out probably $1,200 for the last trip to Iowa it may have to wait a little bit. (Since a balance beam routine is limited to 90 seconds, that works out to about $800 per minute. ) I should probably also be thinking about replacing handlebars and stem, especially after watching Hincapie bite the dust at Paris-Roubaix yesterday. BTW, if, like me, you didn't see it on TV, there's a nice video clip on eurosport.com that shows the crash, the railroad crossing incident, and the finish.

I've already gotten a couple of warnings about the results problems at last weekend's Tour le Fleur, so I'm anticipating that I'll have trouble getting the LCCS points updated for that one. So far, no results have been sent out. Apparently most of the final results were still not done hours after the last race ended and so most people went home without knowing their final omnium placings. My guess is that we won't have all of the necessary 12 places for the Cat. 1,2 and Cat. 3 riders since they all rode together. Likewise the Master 35+ and 45+. Last year at this race I think we never got adequate results for the Cat. 4 or Cat. 5 race and so never awarded any LCCS points for it at all. Luckily (I guess) we don't use the omnium placings, just the individual race placings. Anyway, it will be interesting and there will be some unhappy campers now that the importance of LCCS points seems to be right on par with food and shelter.

Despite an early meeting at work this morning I did get myself out on the bike for about an hour,most of it alone until Dan and ultimately Richard H showed up. I felt like I hadn't been on a bike in a week, which isn't all that far from the truth. Man, when you start taking the weekends away from a weekend athlete, it really sucks. I was surprised by how cool it was, too. I am definitely ready to put the arm-warmers away for the summer at this point. Looks like George Hincapie has nothing to anticipate right now except surgery to fix his broken shoulder. Sunday was certainly a day in hell for Discovery!

So today there is a whole crew of people outside my window at the office putting on a new roof surface. I think one or two of them speak English as a native language. The office smells like melted tar and there's lots of noise. Every now and then it sounds like someone drops a ton of bricks on the roof over my head.

Homeward

I'm sitting in the Cedar Rapids airport waiting for my flight back to New Orleans. What an interesting weekend. Paris-Roubaix did not fail to deliver its usual drama. A surprise victory, Hincapie on the ground with a broken steerer and perhaps collarbone, Boonen crossing in 5th but getting 2nd because riders ahead slipped through a train crossing. On the home front, Realdo won the Tour le Fleur criterium yesterday, but I don't know any of the details. Last night's northwestern NCAA regionals was great to watch, but our three girls from University of Iowa, including The Daughter, didn't make it onto the podium. The competition was definitely up a notch from last year. At other Regionals this weekend there were lots of other upsets. Not a single team from California qualified for Nationals - both Stanford and UCLA, each of which has multiple Olympians on the team, missed the mark. Out of maybe a dozen teams that qualify for Nationals, five of them are from the SEC (yes, LSU qualified). It will be a very interesting Nationals meet this year.

The weather here in Iowa is marvelous today. I wish I was on my bike, but it won't happen today. Another weekend off the bike. What's that so far this year? Four? I sure do need a few solid weeks in a row at this point.

Aimless in Ames

The fat lady was on the only exercise bike, pedals barely turning, intently reading a book and sipping water. It was 6:30 am and aside from the fat lady there were a few other people in the hotel "fitness center." Like me, each was wearing a college T-shirt. It was practically a college gymnastics parents' convention. A couple of minutes after I arrived, the fat lady thankfully put away her book, lifted herself from the exercise bike, strapped on her water bottle holder and split. The bike was mine. Both of the rubber toe straps were lying on the floor. I suppose her fat feet wouldn't fit into them. So, once I put them back onto the pedals I was able to get in 45 minutes without anyone glaring at me for bike time. Better than nothing, I guess.

The meet isn't until 6 pm tonight, but checkout time is noon. It's still in the 30s outside. What to do? Drove over to the Hi-Vee grocery store with The Daughter. I got a scone and coffee at the Starbucks, she got yogurt and fruit. At least the fog has lifted and the skies today are clear. The meet tonight will probably not end until 10 pm, then we'll have to make the 2-hour drive back to Iowa City for another night in a hotel room before catching a flight out Sunday morning.

Yesterday we spent two or three hours at the gym watching practice sessons. Last night we went to a really good Italian restaurant on Main Street that, interestingly, had a few items on the menu with the word "Cajun" in them. An Italian restaurant in Ames, Iowa with something like "Cajun pasta." Go figure. Anyway I had something called a "crock pizza" which was quite good. The Guiness Stout was pretty good too.

Wish I had my bike.

Change of Scenery

Up at 4:15 a.m. this morning for an early flight to Memphis and a quick walk to another terminal for another plane to Minneapolis. We had enough time in Minneapolis for an early lunch before getting on the much smaller airplane for the last hop to Cedar Rapids where The Wife got a free double upgrade on the rental car so that I'm not stuck driving some huge Mercury that was obviously designed for the average NFL linebacker. Yecch!

So at least we arrived in Iowa City early enough for a visit to the hotel exercise room. It just amazes me the money and technology that must go into building these ridiculous exercise "bikes." The thing is designed so that 100% of your body weight rests directly on the very joints you are using, namely your hips. After half an hour, dripping sweat, my hips hurt enough that I have to hold myself up above the seat with my arms. What a pain in the ass. Literally. So I got in 45 minutes of moderate exercise and major sweating. At least the hotel has free high speed internet, so while The Wife and The Daughter are out roaming around the local shopping mall buying something that they didn't know they needed until today. I'm just glad I'm not dragging along behind them bored out of my mind.

Alone Again . . . Naturally.

After being off the bike Monday and not riding Tuesday morning, I made sure to get out of the office and hustle back to the house yesterday after work so I could ride out to the lakefront for the first Tuesday training race. As usual, I hit Lakeshore Drive a couple of minutes late, so I continued on expecting to eventually see the group coming the other way. I didn't. I was alone. The weather was perfect. There was little traffic except around the Elysian Fields traffic circle where the Corps of Engineers debris collection people were checking in at the end of the day, parking their pickup trucks anywhere they felt like it. I kept thinking that there must be someone else out there I could ride with. There wasn't. So I got in a couple of hours on the bike, which was good. I don't get it, though. Do the local riders think that the weekend Giro ride is really going to get them in shape for racing? Maybe it's just that the only reason they ever enter races is to justify their training, and it's actually the training they like. Anyway, if I could find the time and energy to actually promote a Tuesday night race series, I would, but as it is I'm challenged just to get myself out there by 6 p.m. Damn, we need a race promoter around here. It would be so easy.

I headed out to the morning levee ride today a bit late. As usual I'm having trouble adjusting to the darker mornings since we switched to DST last week. Luckily, just as I was coming up the ramp to the bike path, Realdo was cruising by in the same direction. I rode alongside him for a while and soon we could see the group about a minute up the road. As the pace picked up, I slipped back onto his wheel and he gradually ramped it up to 25 - 27 mph until we caught. He had to turn around and head home right after we closed, though. The ride was good, though. Nice pace, especially once Tim rolled off the front about 20 seconds and we started to chase.

Guess I won't be able to ride tomorrow - 6:20 a.m. flight to Cedar Rapids by way of Memphis and Minneapolis, then a rental car to Iowa City for the night and a two-hour drive to Ames the next morning. All I can do is hope for a working hotel exercise bike.

Damn I hate those things.

Sunday Monday Tuesday

Yeah, I've been pretty tied up lately, so here's the Reader's Digest recap:

Sunday
Sunday began with fun and ended with work. After Saturday's local training race, I was excited to be heading across the lake for my first ride in the country in quite a while. It was already comfortably warm when I met up with Charlie and Kevin at the Morning Call at the relatively civilized hour of 8 a.m. DST. Once on the causeway we noticed there was no traffic coming the other way. As it turned out, the third car this month and the second in a week had plunged over the side and into the lake. This time the driver was rescued. It has been suggested that this is indicative post-Katrina stress and that people are having trouble keeping their minds on what they're doing.

There was a group of six waiting for us on the other side for a planned 60-mile training ride. I was up for a moderately hard ride and was trying to ignore the fact that the plastic POS that serves as a poor excuse for a locknut on my rear wheel had broken once again and was being held in place, more or less, by a couple of rubber bands cut from an old inner tube. We headed out around 9 with a nice little tailwind to ride what has become our "standard" weekend route. Although I could definitely feel Saturday's training race still in my legs, I felt pretty good and was particularly enjoying the little climbs along the route. It was a bit frustrating that we had a few mechanical and other issues that broke up the ride more than I would have liked, but such is the nature of group rides.

I had only a few hours after returning home before I had to get dressed up and head downtown to the Marriott for the start of a 2-day Katrina Forum organized by the Board of Regents. I wrote this on Monday morning while sitting in the 3rd row of a presentation on the social aspects of disasters, pretending that I was taking copious notes. Actually, I'm pissed that I couldn't ride this morning and will also have to miss tomorrow's group ride. Text Message late last night from Gina V: "racing sux. lost fitness from crash. next weekend is sea otter. gonna get killed." Yeah, I feel the pain. . .

Tuesday
So here I am again. Even with DST in effect, I still got home too late for a ride yesterday, and again this morning I had to get downtown by 8 am. I'm holding out some slim hope of making it out to the lakefront this evening if I can escape from this place early enough. Of course I'm now a couple of days behind at work and with a trip to Iowa coming up on Thursday it is not looking to be a good week of training . . . again. I guess I'll be riding one of those broken and badly fitting hotel excercise room bikes this weekend while everyone else is racing.

The meeting I'm in is unfocused and boring and I think it's just providing a justification for certain people to do what they were going to do anyway which is to spread around the money intended for the hurricane-impacted universities. Right now I'm listening to a guy from Woods Hole talk about ecosystem stuff. He's presenting a recycled ld presentation and has obviously not taken the time to relate it to either Louisiana or the effects of Katrina. I can almost hear the people behind me snoring.

Training Race

This morning's informal training race (is there such a thing as a formal training race?) went pretty well. We had a nice-sized turnout on Lakeshore Drive for the 29-mile, 10-lap race, and it was quite fast and animated. From the start it seemed like there was a lot of nervousness in the bunch and the attacks came often. I was rather surprised, actually, as I would have expected most riders to be a little defensive until they were able to get a better handle on their early season fitness. As it turned out, there must have been six attacks within the first two laps, with Tim and Realdo separating themselves from the pack before the third lap started. I can't say that they were going super-fast, though, and in fact I think we still had a chance to catch them were it not for an odd crash. Brett and Brooks had opened a gap on the rest of the pack but were slowly getting reeled back in when Brooks touched wheels with Brett and went down. As we went by, he was sitting up in the middle of the right lane looking somewhat surprised and confused. A lap or so later he was back in the pack.

Anyway, that was pretty much the end of any concerted effort to catch the lead duo, but the rest of the race was still fairly fast (average speed was 25 mph) and fun. We should do this again.