Back to Brookhaven

Last night, while I should have been sleeping, I spend a couple of hours fixing up the big Excel workbook that will be used for this weekend's Mississippi Gran Prix stage race.  I'd forgotten that the Cat. 4/5 race was being run as an omnium, so I had to completely re-do that spreadsheet so that it would award points and calculate GC based on them.  Of course the promoters hadn't put anything in the race bible about how the points were to be calculated, so I used the default tables from the stage race points competition rules. I'll be on the road back to Brookhaven, MS in an hour or so in order to deliver the LAMBRA generator, flags, clock and miscellaneous other items that we used for the NOBC 2-Person TT. The only race on Friday is the Cat. 1/2/3 criterium at 7 pm, by which time I am sincerely hoping the rain has stopped and the tornado watch has been cancelled.  Since I'll be there anyway, I'll pitch in with the officiating where needed, which may or may not involve fixing whatever I screwed up on that aforementioned spreadsheet.  I'll be riding the masters race again and am disappointed that the usual criterium will be replaced this year by a long circuit race. A stage race with a TT and two road races is not exactly right up my alley, even if I was in shape, which I am definitely not.  Anyway, it will be nice to get away for the weekend and maybe avoid dwelling on the little contribution to the nation's deficit reduction that I'll have to send to the IRS on Monday.  And while I'm on my political soapbox, which as it turns out only raises me up to normal adult height, I might point out that Walt Leger just submitted to bills to the Louisiana legislature that would basically let the City of New Orleans ignore the constitutional property tax exemptions that all nonprofits in the state get. I guess once you've pushed all of the for-profit businesses out of the city you have to try and push the nonprofits out too.

So anyway, I did make it over to the levee this morning for an easy, but very windy, ride with John, Taylor and Dave.  Dave is heading off tomorrow morning for a 6 month tour of duty in fun summer spots like Afghanistan.  He just refers to it all as "the sandbox."  On the plus side, his wife who is an engineer finally found a job after being laid off last summer.  On the minus side, the job is in Virginia. Hopefully everything will work out in the long run.  After the ride we stopped off at Zotz for coffee before saying goodbye.  Now I have to ride back home and get my act together for the weekend.  I wonder if I have two fully functional sets of race wheels.....

Riding on the Edge

It was cooler this morning, and as usual that also meant a gusty north wind.  For some reason, it took me forever to actually get myself out the door, which resulted in a little bit of a time trial out to the levee.  Fortunately I made it there just in time to roll out with a slightly smaller group than usual.  The pace remained rather civilized for the first ten miles or so, but then Woody randomly decided to attack a crosswind section, taking a couple of riders with him.  I made the snap decision to go after it, and although I'd reacted right away, between the crosswind and rapidly lengthening gap, it took me forever to make contact.  I was kind of hanging on by the skin of my teeth for a mile or two, and although I was able to pull through a few times after that, I was also skipping pulls when the going got hard.  As we approached the little dip there was another big acceleration that left Rob and me a bit off the back.  As I'd suspected, they were turning around early, so that left just the two of us. We continued on until we got the The Dip and eased up until the rest of the group, which wasn't too far behind, caught us. The rest of the ride out to the turnaround was a bit less severe, but by then the relentless wind was starting to take its toll and there weren't exactly a lot of people pushing and shoving to get to the front.

As it turned out, the ride back was a lot harder than I'd expected.  At some point fairly early on I dropped all the way back down the paceline.  It was pretty much the last I'd see of the front.  For most of the return trip there was a strong crosswind that was providing a draft for the first five or six riders and practically none for the rest of us. I spent what seemed like an hour riding behind Big Richard right on the edge of the asphalt trying to get a sliver of draft.  I figured that I was at least getting a good workout.

So I have to recommend that you take a look at Brian Toone's heart rate and speed data from last weekend's Pro/Cat.1 Sunny King criterium.  Keep in mind that he wasn't one of the guys who was attacking off the front.  A 42 mile criterium at an average speed of 27.5 mph and an average heart rate of 181 bpm.  That's hard.

Hot Weekend

It was another weekend in town for me, although of course there was some classic action over in France and some good racing closer to home over in Alabama.  Saturday started out warm and humid, pretty well setting the stage for the next few days.  I rode out early to meet the Giro group at Starbucks, taking the opportunity to test out my new lights courtesy of a big collegiate team discount from Cateye.  I knew I wouldn't be doing the whole ride.  The annual Tour de Lis charity run and ride was scheduled to begin around 8 am, and I was already decked out in my Tulane Cycling gear in order to help populate Tulane's little booth at the event.  So with that in mind, I didn't hold back too much as the Giro headed out down Hayne Blvd. since I was going to be turning back about halfway out  anyway.  Jordan was doing the same, so at least I had some company for the ride back to City Park. 

The Tour de Lis had a pretty good turnout, as did Tulane Cycling, and although we mostly just hung around and chatted among ourselves, it was good PR for the club, especially when they headed out together for a few ceremonial laps around the little two-mile loop.  GNO Cyclery had gotten Trek to come with two of their "test ride" trucks, which seemed to be pretty popular.  By the time I got home around noon-ish, I guess the temperature was somewhere north of 80F and was already starting to feel more like summer than spring. In the early afternoon I remembered that the Sunny King criterium up in Anniston was being webcast, so I fired up the laptop and spend a few hours watching the races.  For someone who used to have to wait a month to read about the Tour de France in imported magazines, it is pretty amazing to be sitting on the couch at home watching people I know battle it out at a top quality event.  There were riders I knew in most of the races, and some of them fared quite well.  I was sorry I'd missed seeing Tim Regan take 2nd place in the Masters race, but I was able to watch Woody come back from a mid-race crash in a huge Cat. 2-3 field to finish 3rd.  Then I watched Steve Johnson and Robert Monahan in the Cat. 4 race, and Debbie Milne in the Colavita-dominated Women's race.  Later in the evening was the Pro-Cat. 1 race, which looked to be pretty fast and aggressive.  I think that riders who weren't in the front 25 or so must have had a really hard time doing anything but hanging on for dear life in the huge strung-out pack as the big continental pro teams kept things lively at the front.

So Sunday I was ready for a hard ride and decided to make the trip across the lake for the last of the regular "standing" Sunday northshore rides.  It was already quite warm by the time our 16-rider group started out for the usual 65 mile loop, and with a brisk south wind behind us and a few strong riders up in front, there wasn't much holding back the speed.  I knew it was going to be a fast one.  By the time we hit Highway 10, less than halfway through the ride, we were already down to about ten riders.  When we finally stopped to regroup at the end of Sie Jenkins Road at 38 miles we were down to just six.  It had been a while since I'd been able to make any of the northshore rides, but I was feeling pretty good thanks to my easier- than- usual Saturday ride. Even so, those last miles straight into the growing headwind from Tung Road to Lee Road Middle School were kind of painful - which of course was just what I'd been looking for.

With Both Hands

As advertised, Tuesday's 6 am temperature was in the low 50s.  It felt like the wind was also in the low 50s.  I dug out my long tights and jacket figuring I just might be the only one crazy enough to actually show up for the levee ride. Rolling up to the meeting spot at precisely 6:14, I leaned against one of the big pipes, letting it block the gusty north wind for a moment.  Behind me the bike path was deserted except for that woman who rides the tricycle.  Nothing stops that lady.  I let her go by, took one last look around, and pushed off.  A minute later I saw a couple of blinky lights heading my way.  Four other people!  At first, considering the rather brutal wind conditions, I didn't know if I should be happy or worried.  Then I saw that among the four were both Tim and Woody.  Now, Woody can occasionally be convinced to yield to a moderate pace, but Tim, well, not so much.  They turned around and within a minute Tim was in his characteristic position at the front, characteristically talking to us over his right shoulder. We were still on that section of the bike path where riding upriver means riding toward the south southwest, so for all practical purposes we had a tailwind. A rotation started up and before long we were flying along at 28 mph.  Anyway, I knew that once we made the bend at the Country Club we'd be riding straight into the wind.  On the plus side, I was by far the smallest person in the group so there would be ample draft, on the minus side, a good crosswind gust was liable to blow me right off the levee.  Anyway, as I'd expected, once we got past the headwind part and into the long crosswind stretch, things really started to get difficult and I started skipping pulls in the interest of survival.  We were somewhere out past the parish line when I dropped back after a particularly taxing pull only to see Tim stand up and attack. That was pretty much the last straw, so I backed off a bit and just maintained 19-20 mph for a few miles until I saw them coming back.  Luckily, they were still in conversational mode at the time, but it didn't last too much longer and soon I was down on the drops holding on tightly with both hands just to keep the bike going in a straight line. I was skipping a lot of pulls.  The hardest part, actually, was when we got to a stretch with a strong tailwind. The nice thing about being small is that headwinds seem relatively easy because you get a really good draft, but the flip side is that when the big guys ramp it up into the 30s with a strong tailwind you're pretty much screwed. So despite the shortened ride (nobody went past The Dip), it was a good workout with, at least for me, a number of hard efforts.  I'd post a picture, but I was afraid to take my hands off the bars to get the camera out.

Spring = Water

It was warmer Sunday morning as I rode out to meet the Giro Ride once again, and I knew it would be a good one when all of the traffic signals along Carrollton and Wisner turned green as I approached. It was only 6:30 am, but a couple of riders were already at the Starbucks when I got there, and a few minutes later Woody rode up on his shiny new team Orbea Orca.  Most of his right arm was bandaged thanks to an airborne front wheel midway through a turn at the Dothan Cityfest on Saturday.  The awesome photo came from Debbie M's facebook page and was taken by Dothan Eagle photographer, Max Oden.  Looks like he must have clipped that road reflector at high speed halfway through the turn as he and two others were trying to bridge up to a breakaway.  Anyway, Woody was in pretty good shape, considering. There was actually a pretty good sized group for the Sunday ride and I decided it would be a good day to get in a little intensity. 

We were halfway down Hayne Blvd., and flying along at 28 or so in a long thin paceline when I hit something I never saw.  I could feel the front rim bottom out and reverberate through the frame and immediately thought, "Pinch flat."  A minute later it went flat as expected and I dropped backwards through the group.  Luckily for me, everyone stopped to wait while I fixed it. In contrast to Saturday, the group was reasonably cautious at the intersections, even when it was running through the red lights. I tried to put in a fair amount of time at the business end of the paceline.  I was feeling a little stronger than I had for the last week or so and figured I'd finally recovered from the damage done at Rouge-Roubaix.  As they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Monday morning was windy, as in "Wind Advisory" windy.  I went out anyway, planning on putting in an  easy hour or so on the bike.  One thing about these lonely recovery ride days is that you get a chance to look around at the scenery.  Up on the levee, the first thing you notice right now is that the water level in the river has been creeping up a bit more each day.  Much of the batture is already underwater.  On the plus side, all of the water attracts lots of birds, especially Mexican Whistling Ducks, Wood Ducks, and various Egrets/Herons.  Another result of the high water is that it forces other animals out of the batture.  Tonight on the news they were reporting a story about a Coyote that has been spotted roaming through the yards of high-class uptown houses.  A cool front just came through about an hour ago and the temperature tomorrow morning is supposed to be back down to the 50s (it was in the 70s this morning before sunrise).

No Stopping

There were a few key players missing when I rolled up to the Starbucks for my pre-Giro coffee today.  As I later discovered, once the sun came up, the nose piece for my sunglasses was also missing. A race over in Dothan, Alabama, must have attracted a few of the regulars. The missing riders, as it turned out, didn't seem to have much of an effect on the speed.....or common sense.  It was actually a pretty good Giro with nice warm weather, a clear sky, and a moderate breeze.  The pace was fast but reasonably steady.  For some reason, however, the front of the group seemed intent on riding through red lights and stop signs, mostly right in front of traffic. 

When the group came to the intersection with Chef Highway there were cars coming from both directions, but the front of the group decided to ride against traffic on the shoulder of the road on the wrong side of the neutral ground rather than stop.  So of course the riders who did stop to wait until it was safe to cross had to chase for about a mile.  I think that little move set the public image of cyclists back about two months all by itself.  Later, when the sprint for the Goodyear sign started (with a healthy tailwind) a few riders pulled out into the left lane right in front of a truck.  I myself figured that the Goodyear Sign sprint wasn't worth dying for today.  Anyway, despite all of the needlessly dangerous stuff and an average speed that must have been at least 24 mph, the lack of crosswind kept practically the whole group together to the end today.

I spent a few hours in the afternoon balancing on an extension ladder priming and painting the trim around some porch screens I replaced last weekend. My feet hurt.  Tomorrow I'll probably just do the Giro Ride again so I can attend to some other domestic duties.

Spring Storms

Having come through the weekend with no apparent long-term damage, no doubt an indication that I could have ridden harder on Sunday, I shuffled into the week ahead as usual, starting with an easy ride on Monday and then the long levee ride on Tuesday.  Tuesday, however, saw a cool front come through in the middle of the night and well into Wednesday morning.  Ahead of the front were some pretty strong storms that put the area under various flood and tornado and hail watches and caused some considerable damage. One casualty for me was a good night's sleep, however.  It seems that Cosmo, our recently inherited dog, is quite afraid of thunder and lightning and responds by doing things like trying to dig holes in the floor, carpet, tile, furniture, etc.  This particular spell of thunder and lightning lasted from around midnight until 5 am, and I spent much of that time on the couch in the living room with the lights on and the music turned up in order to distract him from the meteorological drama enough to save me from having to recarpet the bedroom. Things were still rainy by morning, so I set my sights on the afternoon Tulane Cycling ride.  By then the weather was much better, but there was a pretty strong wind blowing up on the levee, which turned the set of five or six 3-minute intervals into a rather hard workout.

So Thursday morning it was very windy and cool enough for knee-warmers and double jerseys.  I really didn't want to go out in that.  After a couple of weeks of nice comfy spring weather, the return of temperatures in the 50s made for a difficult adjustment.  Nonetheless, I forced myself out the door around 6:05 am and headed for the levee with a complete lack of committment.  As I made my way up to the meeting spot I could see that it was deserted and, feeling rather relieved, immediately began planning on doing a short solo ride. Big Richard showed up out of the dark almost the minute I got there, and we figured that nobody else was going to show up.  We were wrong.  Although everyone was a bit late, by the time we were a few miles down the road the group was up to about a dozen and the pace was already creeping upward.  A nice paceline formed up to deal with the wind and things were going smoothly for a couple of rotations until someone who's name will not be mentioned surged at the front pushing the speed up by three or four MPH.  The result, as usual, was that once he pulled off the pace slacked and Woody, Tim, Mark and one or two others decided they didn't want to play that game for the next forty miles and basically attacked down the left side and rode away from the rest of the group, most of which was not about to take a pull in such a headwind if it was just going to be followed up by another big surge.  As I'd suspected, a few of the guys up in front had to turn back early, but by the time we got out to the dip we'd already lost a number of people.

I thought the ride back might be a little easier since there were a few areas with something of a tailwind, but right off the bat Mark rode off the front.  I don't think there was really any big effort to chase, but at any rate the speed certainly went up and stayed there all the way back.  I got back home feeling tired, hungry and still rather cold despite a stop at Zotz for a quick cup of dark roast and sugar.

This morning I discovered a really good video from the Rouge-Roubaix master's/women's race  that was done by Jason O'Mahoney from the Velobrew team out of Gainesville FL.  You get to see me fall on the 2nd dirt section somewhere around the middle of it and then there's some video of the chase group that we were in together as we chased back onto the lead group between the 2nd and 3rd dirt sections.

Just a Few Seconds

It never ceases to amaze me how multiple entirely independent, radio-free, time trial teams can end up with such similar times at the end of a 40 kilometer race.  Yesterday was our annual NOBC 2-Person Time Trial, a fairly low-key but always fun event for which I usually pull double duty as both race official and competitor (a situation that would no doubt cause wringing of hands among the USAC National Commisaire crowd).  We typically pull off this race on a shoestring and at a slight loss, so lots of other club members are also in similar situations.  The day started for me around 5 am when I fired up the coffee maker and started loading up the station wagon.  By the time the first of our race volunteers arrived at the staging area just north of I-10 near LaPlace, LA, I already had the car unloaded, the pop-up shelter popped up and the finish line flag waving in the southerly wind.

Registration went pretty smoothly, despite the USAC's new online pre-registration system that prints rather un-helpful rider names and categories in the lower right corner of the pre-printed release forms..... upside-down.  No, we do not use ring binders for the release forms and yes, we do want to write the race numbers in the upper right corners of the release forms and yes, we also want to be able to read the license numbers and names for data entry ... right side up, and no, we do not want the system to try to assign bib numbers, especially since both riders on a team get the same number. Turnout was a bit down, since we were missing a few riders who were up at the Tour of Tuscaloosa in AL, and a few of the collegiate riders who were over at the Baylor race in Waco, TX. Anyway, we closed registration right on time, got our start lists printed and posted, and sent off our first rider right at 9 am as planned.  That's when I jumped into my car and squeezed into my skinsuit, taking off my official's hat and putting on my antique TT helmet.  As I'd done for the past few years, I would be riding with Jorge Perera who is a much better time trialist than I, so I was expecting to suffer.

This year's race had a pretty nice tailwind on the way out and of course a correspondingly harsh headwind on the way back.  We started out fairly smoothly (I think Jorge missed his first clip-in attempt) and were soon rolling north at 27-28 mph.  I was already wondering how much we should be holding back in anticipation of the long return trip into the wind.  By the time we were halfway out to the turnaround I could tell that Jorge was riding a lot stronger than I, but without speaking a word we both made the appropriate adjustments with Jorge taking longer pulls.  Even so, things felt pretty good all the way to the turnaround.

The return trip was mostly right into the wind, which wasn't terribly strong, but nonetheless dropped our speed down into the 24-25 mph range.  The 24 mph part would be me; the 25 mph part would be Jorge.  There were a few times when, even after a short pull of maybe 30 pedal strokes (yeah, I'm a stroke counter) I still had a little trouble getting back onto Jorge's wheel smoothly.  The whole way back I was just looking at speed and distance on my computer, while Jorge was looking at time.  When we got within five kilometers of the finish Jorge started taking longer and faster pulls.  I would get in a couple of good pulls, and then need to take a couple of short ones to recover, and despite that we were still dropping down one to one-half mph every time I was on the front.  I think Jorge pulled most of the last kilometer, and after we crossed the line he told me he was trying to get us there in under 56 minutes.  We ended up just ten seconds over at 56:10.  Whenever I finish a TT and think about a difference of ten or fifteen seconds I always think, "Damn, I could have gone just that little bit faster if I'd known it would be that close."  Our time got us 2nd place in the Master 40+ class.  The winners of the 40+ race were a couple of guys from Bike Barn in Houston who also posted the fastest time of the day at 54:30. Definitely more than just a few seconds faster.

End of the Day

The clock is closing in on midnight and I think I've got things more or less under control for tomorrow.  The day started with a ride in the dark to meet the Giro Ride group.  The turnout was surprisingly small, perhaps because of the 2-Person Time Trial scheduled for tomorrow morning. The air was warm and humid as we headed out down Hayne Boulevard, and by the time we were halfway to Paris Road the pace had already gotten fairly fast. Things stayed that way until we briefly slowed down at Chef Highway, but by the time we were a mile down the road we had a fast paceline going.  I was skipping pulls now and then, but somehow ended up on Brett's wheel when he decided to put the hammer down for the final kilometer.  I was going pretty much flat out just trying to stay in the draft.  When we finally turned around I was surprised how few people were left in the group.  The ride back was a lot slower, probably because much of it was straight into the rapidly growing headwind. 

I spent most of the afternoon repairing screens on the front porch, and it wasn't until 8 pm or so before I finally got busy organizing things for tomorrow's 2-person time trial.  I'll be both officiating and riding, as I've done a few times in the past.  I guess it took be a few hours to print out the release forms for the pre-registered riders, copy a bunch of blank ones, and organize everything that I will need tomorrow.  It's all kind of staged down in the basement right now:  Bike, race bag with helmet, shoes and skinsuit, pop-up shelter race clock and stand, finish line flag, PA system, generator, gas can, chairs, and two bins holding clipboards, paper, stopwatches, etc.  I'm tired.....

Dark Mornings

We've had quite a run of awesome riding weather around here lately, but for me it's been a bit diminished by the dark mornings of daylight savings time. I always struggle to get out the door at 6 am on days (nights??)  like this, but when I stepped outside and felt the wind today I thought, "Well, at least we won't have to deal with the fog."  So with blinky lights blinking and west wind blowing, I puttered over to the levee to meet the group.  As we started out we could see more blinky white lights up the road, most of which soon joined the growing group as the pace crept ever so slowly higher. I reached out (those of us with small hands have to "reach out" a bit) with the fingers of both hands -  three clicks on the rear shifter, up to the 17; three clicks on the front to shove the chain onto the 53. I figured it was probably the last I'd see of the 17 for a while. There was a fairly strong wind blowing out of the west northwest, which at least meant we'd be spared most of the usual brutal crosswind sections.  Soon, though, as the pace ramped up higher and higher, little gaps started to open and the number of riders pulling at the front got smaller and smaller. Another click on the rear shifter. I dropped back after a pull and got back into the paceline somewhere behind the gatekeeper, and with the steady headwind I wasn't too inclined to do anything about that.  I was getting plenty enough exercise anyway, closing gaps and dealing with the constantly fluctuating speed.  Twelve miles out I turned off the headlight.  When we finally came to the turnaround out at Ormond, 19 or 20 miles from the start, I was surprised how much of the group was still there.

I'd been thinking that the ride back down the river would be easier because of the tailwinds.  As usual, I was wrong.  Once things got going again the pace was a couple mph faster than it had been before, and it was clear that a few of the guys, some of whom were on TT bikes, wanted more.  I came through at one point, holding the speed we'd been going before, and when I pulled off there was a gap behind me.  I eased up, but then someone came flying around me, then another, then another.  Suddenly there was a group of five or six about fifteen seconds up the road.  There was a brief and rather chaotic attempt to chase, but while the group up ahead was probably rolling along smoothly at 26-27 mph, our group was yo-yoing back and forth from 24 to 27, with gaps opening all over the place.  Needless to say, that dog won't hunt, and the gap continued to grow until all efforts to close it ceased.  Even so, I think our group split once again before we got back.  A couple of times I took a pull that I thought wasn't too hard, only to find when I pulled over that there was nobody behind me. Oh well.

True to Your School

It was Thursday by the time I felt more or less recovered from Sunday's excursion in the Felicianas.  As I discovered during the Thursday morning ride, however, I still wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders.  The morning ride seemed longer and harder than usual, but at least we didn't have any close calls with oncoming riders in the dark like we did on Tuesday. Anyway, by Thursday night I was trying to get my act together for a weekend of blue-shirting up on Baton Rouge.  The LSU collegiate team was hosting a weekend of SC⁴ races.  It was their first time organizing a collegiate race and it was, for all practical purposed, my first time officiating one.  Fortunately I'd convinced Ricky Dunn to come down from Monroe to act as Chief Judge and finish camera operator. So I ran out of the office early on Friday, loaded up the wagon, and hit the road around 4 pm, which should have given me plenty of time to get to the 7 pm pre-registration session at the LSU Union.  I soon realized how inadvertantly wise I'd been in leaving so early because it must have taken me half an hour to extricate myself from the I-10 gridlock.  Then, of course, as I approached Baton Rouge everything came to a stop again. The whole experience just reminded me why I usually prefer to drive to weekend races in the wee hours of the morning.

Anyway, I was glad that most of the teams showed up Friday night to register because getting the team time trial teams registered was pretty confusing and slow.  I also had to get most of the Criterium and Road Race riders registered too.  One complicating factor was that the South Central Collegiate Cycling Conference (SC⁴) issues permanent numbers to the riders. 

Saturday morning I arrived at the Team TT site before dawn to start getting things set up.  Things went fairly smoothly except that one or two teams showed up quite late. Somehow, though, we got the first team off about on time and there weren't any problems with the timing or starts.  I'd brought the laptop down to the finish line, so we had most of the finish times in the computer by the time the last team came over the line and got the results done fairly quickly.  Apparently this was such a surprise to some of the riders that they didn't even consider looking for the results after the TTT.  So we had a few hours to run back to the hotel for a few minutes, grab a quick lunch, and head over to the criterium course on the LSU campus.  The course was pretty interesting, in a rather scary way, since it included a roundabout and a road with a big post in the middle of it.  The Cat. D race was first, and I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised when there was a big crash at the roundabout a few laps before the end that sent one rider to the hospital with a broken collarbone and two fractured wrists (from what I heard).  The guy later showed up for the start of the road race because he wanted to be listed as starting for upgrade purposes. Anyway, the criteriums went pretty well despite lots of riders getting lapped and some confusion about the D race results.  I was glad to see some good results from the new Tulane team.

Early Sunday morning I headed up to St. Francisville in a heavy fog for the road races.  Once the fog lifted and we started the races (about half an hour late) things went pretty smoothly.  As expected, the Midwestern State riders (they are the only team in the conference that has varsity status) swept the Category A race.  The other races seemed to be pretty competitive from what I could tell.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a Tulane rider solo in two minutes ahead of the Cat. B field, and then have his teammate win the sprint for second.  A little while later, another Tulane rider won the Cat. D race after riding the last seven miles on a flat front tires.  His teammate then finished 2nd.  The greenies weren't done yet, though, because ten minutes later one of their teammates won the Women's B race convincingly enough that she got upgraded to Cat. A the next day.  Results are on the LAMBRA website.

So although I didn't get to ride at all, it was a fun and interesting weekend.  Next weekend we are putting on the annual 2-Person Time Trial over in LaPlace, where I get to both officiate and race. This afternoon Mignon and I met with the French Market Corporation again to talk some more about putting on a little criterium as part of their Bastille Day celebration. It will probably be just a single 30 or 45-minute race on a super-short course, but it will certainly be a lot of fun anyway, assuming of course that we can raise enough money to cover the police costs. In the meantime, things are heating up at work, which I guess explains why I'm writing this at 11:30 pm.

Triskaidekaphobia on the Rocks

  Masters 40+ podium 

The 13th annual Rouge-Roubaix started out a little too early for me.  As happens every few years, this year's event coincided with the start of daylight savings time, so Saturday night I dutifully went around the house moving all of the clocks ahead by one hour.  Modern technology, however, intervened when the fancy new bedside clock-radio I'd bought a couple of months ago moved itself ahead in the middle of the night too.  I'd forgotten it could do that.  Hence, the alarm went off at 3:30 am instead of 4:30 am.  Naturally, I didn't notice.  After shaving and brushing my teeth and wondering why I didn't smell coffee brewing (I'd set the coffee maker to start at 4:30) I finally glanced at my wristwatch. Crap! I reset the alarm and got another half hour of sleep before heading off at 4:45 for the Clearview parking lot to meet a few others for the early morning caravan up to St. Francisville.  People were running late, of course, so we didn't really roll out until around 5:30. I spent the next hour and a half of what is normally an hour and forty-five minute drive scanning the road ahead for police cars as we barrelled down I-10 at speeds significantly in excess of the posted limit in order to make it there before packet pickup ended at 7:00. With over 300 pre-registrants, I was a little surprised to find a parking spot in the hotel lot when I arrived with plenty of time to spare before the Masters/Women field's departure at 8:30 am.

This year's race was just a tad under 106 miles with 25 or so on gravel roads that ranged from flat and fast to steep and unrideable.  I long ago gave up trying to understand why I, not to mention 298 other people, keep doing this.  The group rolled out right on time, and as usual there were riders going off the front within the first ten miles.  I wished them luck, because I've done this before and I know there's no way I can be working a breakaway 10 miles into a 106 mile race without bringing along cab fare (which, BTW, Elizabeth had actually put in her jersey pocket before the start, just in case).  My strategy, as usual, was to conserve, conserve, conserve until the second dirt section.  Since I'd flatted before the first dirt section last year, this would be my first traverse with the two year old Masters/Women group. Compared with some of my earlier experiences with the Cat. 1/2/3 field, the pace along this stretch was relatively smooth and steady, despite the constant barrage of flying rocks and sound of gravel hitting carbon fiber, or in my case, aluminum. The road surface here was pretty decent, as gravel roads go.  So we came out of the first long stretch of gravel having lost maybe half to a third of the riders who had started.  Somewhere up the road, reportedly by about three minutes, was a break of eight to ten riders.  Up at the front of our group a number of the stronger riders and teams took up the chase, pulling along the rest of us in their wake at a brisk but steady pace.  Jerry S. had said earlier that his job for this race was going to end at the second gravel section, so I wasn't surprised to see him working hard at the front in support of his teammate.  Donald Davis, as usual, was also up there during this stretch.  Lurking near the front was Debbie Milne, often with Jenn Purcell hovering nearby.  This chase continued steadily from the end of the first gravel section at 32 miles until a few miles before the start of the second at 67 when our group finally caught the break. 

Donald rode the last 40 mi. like this.

So it was gruppo compacto when we hit the second gravel road with its long slippery climb, aka Block House Hill, and its $100 prime at the top.  I had been able to position myself pretty well coming into this section and was feeling quite good as the climb started.  My big problem on these climbs is that, being small and usually on the drops, I can't see much of the road ahead.  Suddenly the rider in front of me moved to the right and a moment later my front wheel sank deeply into a sand pit.  The bike slid to the left, I bounced off of another rider, and we both went down.  Crap.  That felt kind of embarrassing in a Cat. 5 kind of way. I jumped back up and luckily was able to clip back in on the first try, but by now I was way at the back of a rapidly disintegrating field and the leaders were well on the other side of the hill.  My legs were still feeling pretty good, so I dropped the hammer, threw caution to the wind, rolled the dice, and blasted up and down the steep hills as fast as my little legs could go, picking off lone riders one by one as I worked my way closer to the front group, which I still couldn't see.  Near the end of the section I came up on Grant Dona and we immediately formed an unspoken alliance, coming off the gravel back onto the asphalt and regrouping with one or two others.

About 40 seconds up the road I could see the front group, now down to maybe fifteen riders, chasing a 2-rider break.  We put our heads down and started chasing as my legs cried for mercy.  Soon it was just Grant and me. The group ahead was itself in chase mode, so we weren't making much ground, but I knew that if they caught that break they would probably ease up.  After four or five miles I finally saw them make the catch and spread out across the road, and a couple of minutes after that we were back in the relative comfort of the pack.  It was recovery time.  Again.  The pace along this section of rolling hills was fairly steady as riders were trying to recover from the 2nd dirt section and prepare for the 3rd at mile 83.  I think it was along here that I saw Debbie Milne attack, taking Jen with her.  I smiled, impressed with her aggressiveness and timing.  The pack didn't respond at all since most were racing for the Masters prizes, and the pair quickly disappeared over the horizon, never to be seen again. 

As usual, my legs were starting to complain as we approached the final gravel section, but compared to some prior years I was feeling pretty good.  I was still with the lead group, and although I was fully expecting a bout of debilitating leg cramps before the finish, all systems were still functioning with normal parameters.  I slugged down a little more Hammergel and water.  We hit the last gravel section together and started the first really steep climb on a road buried in big loose gravel.  I think maybe one person made it to the top without dismounting, but there was so little traction to be had that everyone else was soon off the bike and walking up the hill.  I was feeling pretty good that I was still in company, and when the road levelled out a bit and people started remounting, I did so as well, only to discover that my chain had somehow come completely off the chainring while I was pushing the bike up the hill, so when I clipped in and pushed on the pedal it just spun around and I went nowhere as everyone around me disappeared up the hill.  Damn!  I tried three times to get the chain back on, finally bending down and grabbing the thing with my hands and forcing the cranks around while holding the bike off the ground until everything sorted itself out.  So once again I was alone and in full-on chase mode, riding the downhills like a Kamikaze on deadline.  I knew I was burning one of my last matches, but was surprised to be passing riders along this stretch, and when I finally popped out onto what passes for pavement around there I soon found myself in a small group that included Grant. We'd had a number of riders from the Cat. 3/4 field (guys who had flatted, crashed, or suffered some other mishap) mixed in with our group for a long time, and we picked up a few more of them over the next few miles. Since they weren't really supposed to be with us, they kept to the back so they wouldn't affect the masters race.  At this point I had no idea how many riders were up the road, but I was thinking at least ten.  For the most part there were just three of us pulling for a long time. This last 18 or 20 miles is always torture, and this year was no exception. As I'd expected, I was starting to get some pretty severe cramping in my hamstrings (lack of climbing in training rides, of course), but after drinking some diluted sports drink and taking on another slug of Hammergel, the cramping subsided for a while and I was able to stay in the rotation.  Somewhere in the last seven or eight miles we picked up another masters rider, among others, who'd been dropped out of the lead group and he started working with us too.  Grant was starting to fade a bit toward the end, but then again so were we all.  I don't think I ever looked back during the final ten miles, but apparently we had accumulated a number of riders who had been dropped out of the front group and although I didn't know it, we were actually racing for third place with just Donald Davis and Frank Jennings still up the road.  I continuted to push the pace as best I could, mostly just to get the pain over with sooner rather than later, and when we made the final turn with 500 meters to go I stood up and gave it one last push up the hill, leading our pain-filled little group across the finish line in St. Francisville.

Overall, I was very surprised that I was able to handle the distance and terrain as well as I did.  Clearly, the Masters race was less intense than some of the others, and of course I sucked wheels as much as possible for the first eighty miles, but considering how many of the long winter training rides I missed in January and February, and the fact that I was able to regain the group after two mishaps, and didn't suffer any flats or serious crashes or broken handlebars, I can't complain.  I think it will be a day or so until we get the complete results.

A Long Shrove Tuesday Week (and a Long Post)

There is something special about Mardi Gras day and the week leading up to it.  Other holidays come with far less intensity and end without the screeching stop best symbolized when the mounted New Orleans Police come down Bourbon Street at midnight followed by an army of street sweepers, officially, if not effectively, closing the door on another Fat Tuesday.  I confess, it's a sight I've never witnessed in person. In fact, I'd venture to say that a good thirty percent of the people who are still there at that time have only sketchy memories of it themselves. The old tradition of wanton celebration leading up to the beginning of Lent somehow makes it all feel like racing at full speed toward a cliff, only to slam on the brakes at the last possible moment before jumping out and kissing the ground. This year we were lucky enough to have a number of visitors with whom to share the experience. 

It started, for me, on Thursday with the arrival of a niece and company from Florida and a nephew's fiancé from Baton Rouge. I went with the neighbors to watch the parades (there were three uptown parades that night) down around 2nd street and St. Charles in the Garden District while the others met up with my sister and company in front of the Columns Hotel where there is usually a bar set up at the sidewalk and convenient toilet facilities available at $1 per at the church across the street.  Those are the two essentials involved in comfortable parade watching unless of course you are forced to drive a car, in which case you will require both a parking spot and a bottle of Advil.  The weather was still warm, but the forecast for the next couple of days was getting troublesome.  Anyway, we wanted to catch the Muses parade for sure because there were a few people we knew who were riding in it. Things were going well, as we awaited the arrival of the first of our two "target" floats, and then, with just one float to go before the first, everything stopped and someone on the float started waving the "POLICE" sign that they keep aboard in case of emergencies.  We're not entirely certain, but from what we could tell it looked like one of the krewe members had gotten falling-down throwing-up drunk and had to be extracted by ambulance.  This resulted in a big gap in the parade, so when that float finally got rolling again it, and the others behind it, took off at top speed and so we completely failed at making contact with our first target float.  The second one, however, worked out well and the group netted a ton of stuff, including a couple of Muses Shoes. 

I had been hoping to ride the Giro on Saturday morning, which would have left me just enough time to rush back for the start of the day parades around 10 am., but the streets were wet and the forecast uncooperative, so I decided instead to stay home and be a good host since The Wife was in Austin for a meeting until Sunday.  The group at the house, which by then had increased to four, again set out after breakfast for The Columns to catch the two "day parades" of Tucks and Iris.  Since I was planning on riding my bike down there, I had the luxury of waiting around the house until the last minute and bypassing the usual parade gridlock and parking hunt.  So I packed up some rain gear and had a nice little ride, the only one I'd get that day, fully expecting to come home in the rain. As it turned out, the rain held off until most of the last parade had passed our spot, and since it was still quite warm, the rain didn't make us feel all that miserable.  On my ride home, however, the sky really opened up and I was glad I'd brought my good rain jacket and Goretex hat.  My shoes and pants, of course, were drenched. Before the parades even ended we got word that the huge Endymion parade, which normally runs on Saturday night, had rescheduled because of the expected bad weather and would now be following Bacchus on Sunday night.  That was going to make for a *very* long night.

So after rainy Saturday, the Sunday morning weather was a bit better and I headed out for the Giro Ride.  Jered and Ashley had arrived around 1 am Sunday morning, and with Ashley still recovering from wisdom teeth surgery and Jered holding out some hope of finding some triathletes to interview for an article he was working on, I rode out alone to the Starbucks by way of Broad Street where I met up with Donald Davis who was in town from Pensacola.  The Sunday Giro turned out to be pretty hard. There was a pretty good wind blowing, and thanks to the pent-up energy from a missed Saturday ride and a number of visiting riders in town for Mardi Gras, there weren't too many easy sections. It was a good ride that left me predictable tired and hungry.  I had to run out soon after getting home to pick up The Wife from the airport, which meant I'd have to miss the day parades, one of which, Thoth, I would really have liked to see.  One good thing about rescheduling Endymion was that she would be able to see it, assuming we could last that long, which ultimately we didn't. We ended up riding over to Whole Foods to restock the kitchen, only to discover that Thoth was still trying to make its way down Magazine Street (where Whole Foods is).  I at least got to see a few of those floats through the big glass storefront windows. The plan that evening was to get a ride with the neighbor down to her parents' condo on St. Charles where she could park in the parking lot.  About an hour before the parade she called and said that she'd already been stick in parade gridlock and there was no way she was going to make it back uptown to pick us up, so I had to deploy Plan B. By then the Florida and Baton Rouge crew had headed back to their own realities, to be replaced by the sister in law and her daughter.  Jered and Ashley had been out all day on their bikes.  So we made our way down to 2nd street, after a couple of detours, with time to spare and headed down to the street to watch Bacchus when it finally arrived.  We never made it to Endymion.  We headed out for home around when the first floats arrived, by which time it was probably 10:30 pm.  Everyone was pretty well exhausted by then and it already looked unlikely that we would be seeing any of the Monday parade.

Mardi Gras morning I went out early to meet the Thursday ride, but I wasn't planning on doing much of the ride.  I wanted instead to head over to Audubon Park to see the start of the Royal Run, a rather amazing little 7 am event that's been going on for twenty years now.  Rex and his queen arrive via long black limousines for the start of this little-known fun run.  This year the queen actually ran it, arriving in gold lame tights, mardi gras colored shoes, and a customized Rex warmup jacket.  Regardless of how slow she runs, the Queen always wins the Royal Run.  The rest of Mardi Gras was more or less our usual routine.  We hitched a ride down to the Andrew Jackson with the neighbors where everyone (except me - I just hate wearing arkward costumes) dressed up in their minion (from Despicable Me) costumes. They were a huge hit.  Every kid, and lots of adults, along the route wanted to pose for pictures with them.  After Rex rolled past, The Wife and I made our traditional walk down to the French Quarter where I wandered around for a couple of hours taking photos and soaking up the happiness.  There are a bunch of Mardi Gras photos that I uploaded to Picasa.  By the time we were halfway home it was around 5 pm and my feet, hips, head, etc. were killing me, so when we got to Napoleon where the streetcars stop on Mardi Gras, we fished out a few bucks and took the easy way down to the end of Neron Place. After a big dinner with everyone I was more than ready to catch up on some sleep, but I was not to be so lucky. 

Around 2 am a strong cold front started coming through and I discovered that the dog that we inherited from my mother is afraid of thunder. In addition, there were some high voltage power lines that were periodically shorting out in the tree across the street, and every time that happened it sounded like someone was setting off a bunch of firecrackers - complete with sparks and flashes of light.  For the next few hours I was up and down trying to keep the dog from digging all the way through the bedroom carpet.  I finally gave up and got dressed around 5:30 during a lull in the weather and took the dogs out for a quick walk.  My plan to make a batch of coffee after that was dashed when the power finally went out, however, so I lit a few candles and sat around for an hour or two until the rain stopped and Entergy got the electricity working again.

This morning's ride was greeted with a strong northwest wind and I was definitely not feeling like pushing it.  We started out with a nice paceline, but eventually I started skipping pulls and finally ended up just sitting in.  Of course, I knew what was going to happen the next time we hit a long crosswind stretch.  I suppose I could have closed the gap that had opened up, but I just didn't have the motivation this morning.  My legs still felt achy - probably a little hangover from the weekend combined with all the walking and lack of recovery time.  I backed off and rode easy with one other rider, turning around early to latch onto Woody and a few others who had turned around at the little dip.  Woody towed us most of the way back.  Now I just need to get my legs feeling a little more recovered before I jump into next Sunday's Rouge-Roubaix where I will certainly inflict far more damage on my own legs than anyone else's.

Mea Culpa

Well the little cool snap we had on Wednesday turned around on us, making Thursday morning a bit warmer. Somehow I had done something to my left knee on Wednesday and by the time I got home from parade watching it was feeling pretty sure.  Knee problems are extremely unusual for me, and as the nagging pain in around my patella grew worse, my level of concern increased. I took some aspirin and went to sleep hoping for the best.

When I hit the floor Thursday morning I was relieved to find that the knee felt perfectly normal again.  Even so, I thought it wise to pull on the knee-warmers anyway.  The temperature was just above 60F, so I might ordinarily have left the knees out in the wind, but I figured there was no harm in playing it safe just in case I was developing a bit of tendinitis.  Besides, it made the ride out to the levee feel all warm and cozy. Even though there were a few clouds in the sky, by the time I met up with the Thursday morning group at 6:15 am it was already light enough to turn the blinkies off. We had a pretty typical group that numbered around a dozen, and the pace started off nice and steady.  I think Woody and Tim were planning on heading over to Florida for a race this weekend, because they looked to be in partial taper mode.  Anyway, pretty much the entire ride out to the turnaround was fast but smooth with half of the riders rotating at the front and the other half lounging on the couch in back.

Once things got going again after the turnaround, it was looking like it would be more of the same, but after a while I realized that nobody was dropping back. Somewhere way up ahead the rotation was getting short-circuited despite the fact that the speed was staying well within normal parameters.  Back in the paceline I started to feel like I wasn't getting much of a training effect, so after a while I rode up the left side and slotted in ahead of the gatekeeper.  When my turn at  the front came up I thought I was maintaining the consensus speed, but when I pulled off it took a long time for the next rider to come through.  I didn't think much about it until it happened again.  I guess I was surging a little more than usual because things kind of started coming apart.  I'm sure there were a few riders cursing me by then, but anyway the net result was that a couple of other riders started going harder, and then gaps started opening, and then the pace started getting choppy, and, well, you know how that goes.  The group eventually split.  Oh well, mea culpa.  I rode back home via Zotz, and then while I was undressing to take a shower I noticed something on the back of my leg.  A tick!  I'd caught two ticks walking around in my arm hair after our excursion in the woods last Saturday, but I sure wasn't expecting to find that one had been hanging around since then.  I mean, it's not like I hadn't checked for them.  This one was a tiny little deer tick with a belly full of my blood.  I hope there aren't any others that I missed! Last night I went back to the parade route and caught some of the Chaos and Muses.  When one of the floats stopped momentarily right in front of us there was some commotion and then someone on the float started waving the "police" sign. I think that one of the krewe members was falling-down, throwing-up drunk or something.  Anyway, there was a delay as they summoned an ambulance and got her off the float.  Getting drunk before riding on a float is kind of like getting drunk before a long boat ride.  Definitely unwise.

We are currently making an attempt to pull together a very small criterium on a very small course in the French Quarter as part of the Bastille Day festival. Mignon called our contact at the French Quarter Corporation and she's still interested. My proposed course is coincidentally just about the same length as the one we used to use back in the late 70s and early 80s near the World Trade Center that went around the statue of Jeanne d'Arc. We're talking short, here.  Like 0.38 mi.  Even more coincidentally, the new course would be about a block from the location on Decatur where they moved Jeanne's statue when the casino was built.  Perhaps Jeanne is looking after us.  Anyway, if we think we can raise enough sponsorship to cover the cost of police and barricades, we might still only be able to do one or two short races, but regardless, I'm sure they would be a blast.  We'll see.

This morning I awoke to wet streets and took it as a sign that I should take a day off.  I ran around the house for a couple of hours cleaning up a bit since my niece and company are expected in late this afternoon, followed at some point by whoever else shows up for Mardi Gras weekend.  I guess I'll ride the Giro Rides Saturday and Sunday since a trip to the northshore will involve a bit too much complication to be feasible.  Tonight and tomorrow are looking kind of sketchy weather-wise.  If they end up postponing the big Endymion parade and running it after the Bacchus parade on Sunday, it could make for a very long night!

Discipline

It took a little more self-discipline than usual to get out the door this morning.  A little cool front had come through during the night, dropping the temperature into the low 50s and kicking up a strong gusty north wind.  I'd been up the night before until around 1:00 am with a 4:30 am wake-up to drive The Wife to the airport for a five day meeting in Austin.  It would have been really easy to crawl back under the covers and call it a recovery day.  Indeed, my legs were still feeling a little bit of last weekend, and the drop in temperature and gusting wind made 54 degrees feel more like 44. On the other hand, there are races looming on the horizon and since this is Mardi Gras week things are likely to get unpredictable.  Various nephews, nieces and others will be flowing through the house from Thursday until next Wednesday, so skipping an otherwise rideable day didn't seem like a good idea.

Although a few of the regulars were missing, we still had a decent group for the long Tuesday morning ride up on the levee. The ride started out with Woody going to the front and pulling for three or four miles.  I was sitting in his draft, which because of the crosswind put my front wheel about even with his rear (wheel).  After he dropped back we started a paceline, but I guess someone about seven riders back started letting us in ahead of him.  That, of course, is essentially suicide in a crosswind like that.  The bike path is wide enough to handle a crosswind eschelon of six or seven at the most.  Everyone else may as well be riding on the front, or alone.  It didn't take long for things to come apart.  I saw a gap open a couple of riders ahead of me and went past thinking it wouldn't be too hard to close.  Once the full force of the wind hit me, though, I knew I was in trouble.  I really had to pull out all the stops to close that little five-second gap.  I think we ended up with six or seven.  The rest of the group just disappeared.  Woody and someone else had to turn back early, so then there were just four or five of us left.  We decided to turn around at The Dip.  It turned out to be a fairly hard workout, and considering how my legs felt going in, I'm glad we didn't go all the way out to Ormond.  My apologies to the Ormond riders who were no doubt wondering why nobody ever showed up on that end this morning.  On the way back we spotted Crazy Guy rushing up the levee so he could get there in time to lean over the centerline as we went past.

Training, Tree-Tipping and American Flyers

The annual NOBC spring training camp, held this year at the Natchez State Park, featured unseasonably good weather and great rides.  Although I'd been looking forward to this first road trip of trip of the year, that apparently did nothing to improve my complete lack of preparation.  Friday afternoon I skipped out of work a little early, made a quick stop at the grocery store, and rushed home to stuff handfuls of cycling clothing into my travel bag.  The forecast was calling for everything from the mid-40s to the mid-80s, so I figured I'd play it safe and save some time by just bringing everything I had.  By 5:15 pm I'd picked up Mignon and was heading for I-55 where we'd meet up with Mark to caravan the rest of the way to the park where Pat had rented a few cabins on the lake.  I wasn't really sure exactly where they were, but we ultimately found them.  That evening we all congregated in one of the cabins where we watched the old classic "American Flyers" movie on my laptop.  The plot is pretty thin but I have to admit that I still like to watch that movie.

The plan for Saturday morning was a long ride north on the Natchez Trace.  Since our training camps are generally quick two-day affairs, they are more about getting in a fair amount of saddle time and doing some team bonding, mixed with some casual discussion about the upcoming racing season.  The Trace is basically a long silky-smooth, graded strip of asphalt through the forest with a 50 mph speed limit and very little traffic.  Other than our goal of riding about 35 miles up to Port Gibson, there wasn't really a plan.

I started out wearing arm-warmers, but within an hour they were in my pocket.  The weather was so nice and the road so smooth that it was hard to keep the speeds down, and although I knew my legs were eventually going to pay the price, I just couldn't help but join in.  On the way back, a few of us took a little detour to check out Emerald Mound before riding back to the cabins.  Later that afternoon we took a little hike through the nearby woods where, since there were no cows to tip over, Mark and Mignon started pushing over some of the many dead trees that we came upon.  Amazingly, we had not yet begun to drink the rather large amount of wine we'd brought.  After a great team effort resulted in an excellent dinner we fired up the laptop again to watch Chasing Legends. 

Sunday's plan was to do a couple of laps around the district championship road course in the park and then ride down to Natchez.  We did two moderately paced laps around the short but hilly course and then headed back to the Natchez Trace to ride the 13 or so miles to Natchez.  The weather was even warmer than it had been the day before, and I had to keep reminding myself that it was still only February.  I think the temperature got well over 80 degrees.  Anyway, when we got to Natchez we did the obligatory ride down the hill and up the other side before seeking out a nice coffee shop where I indulged in five dollars worth of frozen coffee, mocha and whipped cream.  When we got back to the cabins (we'd already checked out and loaded everything into the cars) we snuck into the cabin to rinse off before hitting the road for home.

We were up on the elevated part of I-55 near Pass Manchac when I heard a loud noise that I initially attributed to a loose metal bridge expansion joint. I said aloud, "What was that?"  Mignon looked over and said, "I don't know, do you think we should stop and check the car?"  Everything seemed fine, though, so I didn't.  A mile later the sound of the road suddenly changed and I knew a tire had gone flat, which was immediately confimed as the car swerved a few feet in each direction.  By the time we came to a stop on the narrow shoulder I could already smell the burned rubber.  The right rear tire was completely shredded.  Luckily it was on the right rather than the left.  Even better, I was actually able to get the lug nuts off with the diminutive eight-inch lug wrench. To top it all off, there was actually enough air in the spare tire.  So after a quick wheel change I was back on the road fairly quickly.  On the plus side, I finally got my money's worth out of the Sears road hazard insurance when they picked up about 60% of the cost of the new tire.

Unseasonably Fast

The incongruity was impossible to ignore.  It was the third week of February, my air-conditioner was running, and the pre-dawn temperature was 70° F with a predicted high of 80°.  Short-sleeve jersey weather.  I peeked through the Levelors expecting to see fog, but instead noted only a strong south wind.  It's hard to believe how long this stretch of spring-like weather has lasted.  The lowest temperature that the ten-day forecast currently has on offer is a unimpressive 47°.  The only problem with this fortuitous situation is that about half of the local ridership is acting like it's late March already. I have to admit I'm probably one of them, even though my head is still writing a few checks that my legs can't cash.

So thanks to the unseasonably warm stretch of weather, along with a racing season that is beginning to poke its head over the horizon, this morning's turnout was probably the largest we've had thus far in 2011. As we headed off up the river I looked at the long line of twenty or so riders, felt the steady crosswind, and thought, "This is going to get ugly."  Fortunately the wind direction was offering a scant but noticeable tailwind vector.  Unfortunately, that just meant that the guys in front went even faster.  It wasn't long before I was seeing steady speeds in the 27-30 mph range, and when I dropped way back near the tail end of the paceline I knew I'd probably made a mistake.  The string of riders was already showing some stress and I figured it would just take one or two little surges and stretch of crosswind to undo the whole thing.  We weren't too far past the parish line when it happened.  A couple of riders who had been left too long out in the crosswind started to blow and a gap opened.  I sucked it up and went around, latching onto the wheel of another rider who had found himself in a similar situation.  The front part of the group was starting to pull away.  Suddenly the rider in front of me eased up, momentarily trapping  my front wheel between the edge of the road and his rear wheel.  "Go, go!" I yelled.  No response.  I slowed even more in order to extricate my rear wheel and was finally able to go around on the left.  The gap to the tail end of the front group was still growing - maybe five seconds or so - as I stood on the pedals and made that all-too-familiar last-ditch effort.  Somehow I made it into the draft; the last rider to get across.  For the next few miles all I could do was hang on to whatever thin sliver of draft I could find as the road wound its way along the Mississippi.

After such an unseasonably fast ride out to the turnaround, I wondered if there might be some mercy on the return trip, which I knew would involve considerably more headwind. Although the speeds were more in the 22-25 mph range, the headwind was making things difficult.  By the time we were halfway back the group had already fractured in a few places.  A surge took a handful of riders off the front of the front group and I put my head down to try and limit the losses.  As I pulled off I was surprised to see Howard sprinting past me with another rider on his wheel.  Thanks.  Somehow I managed to claw my way back up to the group when its speed slacked.  I think we were down to six or so chasing Tim, Woody and Mark.  We got a rotation going and were holding our own, but luckily Tim and Mark turned off to go home, so at that point Woody eased up so we could catch.  Things were a little less severe for the rest of the ride, and after we got back to the playground I hung around for a while to wait for Zack who needed to follow me home in order to borrow a Tulane jersey for the Austin race this weekend.  I think tomorrow is going to have to be an easy day for me, especially with the NOBC training camp coming up this weekend.

Weekend Decisions

It was like springtime in February down here in New Orleans last weekend, and with a lot of things going on that made for some difficult decisions.  You just can't be in two places at once.  Saturday morning I was up early for the Giro Ride despite the fact that the city was pretty well fogged in and there was a small weekend race up in Monroe.  As usual, I wore an extra layer since I figured I'd be wet most of the time, and headed out for Starbucks with blinky lights flashing and my glasses in my pocket.  Although I was wearing knee-warmers, it was certainly warm enough by 7 am to go with bare skin, which is the approach that most of the riders took.  I figured that my old knees would appreciate the extra warmth and kept them on, if only because it was easier to carry them on my legs than in my pockets.  Not surprisingly, the warmer weather made for a rather brisk Giro Ride, even though the fog didn't start to burn off significantly until we were nearly finished. The only problem was the increasing amount of mud that has been accumulating on Chef Highway, thanks to the nonstop stream of dump trucks working on various levee projects.  The fact that the morning's fog had left all of that mud nice and sticky didn't help much.  I'm thinking I may as well just blow off cleaning anything on the bike except the drivetrain until April.  On the way back, just after the Goodyear sign sprint, we all ended up on the debris-strewn shoulder because of a dump truck convoy.  By the time we were approaching the turn onto the service road Lenny already had a flat tire, and as we were waiting for him to fix it, Charlie looked at his tire, then at me, and asked, "do you hear something hissing?"  Lenny went through three tubes before finding one that had a long enough stem and didn't explode, so Charlie had lots of time to get his flat fixed. A brief post-ride club breakfast at Kona meant I didn't get home until nearly noon.

Saturday evening was the Krewe du Vieux down in the Quarter, and we planned on an early dinner at Santa Fe on Esplanade followed by an attempt to get close enough to the parade.  Well, dinner was great, but by the time we got down to the quarter it was obvious we weren't going to find a place to park without suffering through forty-five minutes of parade gridlock, so we decided to bail since one of the party has been fighting a back problem and wasn't up for a long walk.

Sunday I had to decide between the Sunday Giro ride, where a group was going to extend the ride to Slidell and back, or the regular Northshore ride. The weather was looking really nice so I decided to do the northshore ride since I haven't made that one in about two months. We had around fifteen for the ride and once again the temperature felt a lot more like mid-March than mid-February. Just after turning off of Tung Road, I heard a commotion behind me and everyone stopped.  At first I thought it was just a simple flat, but it turned out to be a little more complicated than that.  One of the riders on a tri bike had flatted and then had the flat tire wedge itself into the frame, stopping the rear wheel and causing her to skid to a stop.  The result was a two-inch long hole in the tread.  Luckily, I had a piece of Mr. Tuffy stashed in my spare tire bag for just such a problem, and another rider had an old tyvek race number handy, so we were actually able to fashion a good enough boot to get her rolling (back home of course) again. I was feeling a little uncertain about this ride since I hadn't been getting my usual saddle time and certainly hadn't been riding any hills.  Fortunately the general testosterone level in the group remained mostly within normal parameters and despite Saturday's efforts, my legs were feeling pretty good.  By the time we were halfway through the ride I was starting to feel a bit more confident and it was getting harder and harder to fight the urge to push the pace.  I had to keep reminding myself that it was still only Feburary.

I was glad to see that a number of the Tulane riders had made the trip up to Monroe for the Criterium and Time Trial, and now I'm really feeling conflicted about next weekend.  Although it would be a lot of fun to accompany the team to its first South-Central Collegiate Cycling Conference race over in Austin, it happens to be on the same weekend as the NOBC winter training camp up in Natchez.  Since I wouldn't be able to ride if I went to Austin (I'd just be helping with wrenching, logistics, and wound care duties), and since I need all the miles I can get right now, I had to make the decision to go with the training camp, which I expect to be fun too.  Now I'm looking at the March 5-6 collegiate race, Tunis-Roubaix, which is actually offering an Alumni race.  Hmmmmm.  That could be interesting.  Decisions, decisions.