Wind and Warmers

Every fall there's that day. That fateful, foreboding day. The first day you feel the need to pull on the arm-warmers. That day was today.

The cold front had moved through Friday night and by Saturday morning there was a strong north wind and the air was cool and dry. It wasn't quite cold enough for arm-warmers, but I did stick an extra layer under my jersey to take the chill off as I rode slowly into the wind to meet the Giro Ride. I wondered what the turnout would be like. The annual MS Tour was this weekend, and we are in-between road season and cyclocross season, so I figured we'd be missing a few. Well despite all of that, the turnout seemed almost normal, Despite the rather brutal wind, the ride was surprisingly fast on the way out. Danielle had gone out to meet the Saturday ride that leaves 15 minutes earlier, and I was surprised to see her riding back alone down Chef Highway as we were heading out. Her neck has been hurting her since Six Gap and she had decided to back off before it got too bad. Anyway, the return trip was relatively slow so we never caught the early group. Other than the wind, though, the weather was perfect for riding.

By Sunday morning the wind had died down quite a bit, but the temperature was down to about 60F, so I dug out my arm-warmers before hitting the road. I arrived at Starbucks a bit before 6:30 and wasn't too surprised that I was the first one there. A number of the regular riders had decided to do a Century Ride over near Gulfport, so that, combined with the second day of the MS Tour, would take a bunch of riders out of the Giro mix. Even so, when I walked back out of Starbucks after getting my coffee I was surprised to be still alone. It wasn't until 6:45 before a few more riders showed up, so I knew we'd have a small group today. We rolled out from Starbucks with maybe seven or eight riders. Fortunately we picked up a number more along Lakeshore Drive, so by the time we came down the overpass onto Hayne Blvd. the group had grown to a respectable size. There seemed to be a general consensus to keep the pace smooth and steady today, and about half of the group spent a lot of time in a nice double paceline. The weather was practically perfect today and I had little inclination to suffer and was quite content with the consensus pace of the day.

Later that morning I rode over to meet the Tulane Sunday social ride. I think we had about ten riders for that ride. We decided to brave River Road in order to do a ride on the levee bike path. Fortunately, traffic was pretty light and there were only a couple of impatient drivers willing to risk everyone's life in order to save themselves a couple of minutes. The temperature had warmed up to the mid-70s, so the arm-warmers stayed at home for this ride. We did almost 30 miles at an average speed of 15 mph, stopping at Breads on Oak on the way back. This was the first time in at least two months I'd ridden on the levee bike path.

Six More Gaps

It was a week before the annual Six Gap Century and I was starting to get a little worried. We had about twelve Tulane riders (well, I'm including Kenny and me) interested in going and the weather forecast was calling for rain. Only a few of those going really had enough miles in their legs for such a long and difficult ride, and the idea of them careening down slippery unfamiliar downhills was a little frightening. Fortunately, as the week wore on the forecast improved and my stress level abated a bit. During that time Kenny strained his back and another rider dropped out because of school, so we were down to eleven.

On Friday I left the office a few minutes early and we met up at the local Enterprise car rental place to pick up three minivans. The plan was to head out around 7:30 am so we would arrive in time to sign in and pick up our numbers, watch some of the criterium, and eat dinner at the local Mexican restaurant in Dahlonega. Most of the riders ended up having a bit of a party the night before we left about which I fortunately know little. While they were doing that I put together a couple more fork-mount sliders so we would have some for the third van.

Saturday morning we learned that David had crashed on the streetcar tracks somewhere and put a gash in the heel of his hand that required stitches, so we were down to ten riders -- still a pretty good group. The drive up to Dahlonega went really smoothly and we got there in plenty of time. After we picked up packets I watched Debbie Milne win the women's criterium again and then walked a couple of blocks to the restaurant to get on the list for a table for ten and about half an hour later we were seated. So basically everything on Saturday went according to plan.

Six Gap actually offers both the full Six Gap Century at 104 miles, and a shorter Three Gap ride at around 55. This was good since the shorter ride with two big climbs was quite enough for a few of the riders. Although the 3-Gap riders are supposed to start an hour after the 6-Gap riders, I think we all started together.

It was cool but not cold at the start this year, despite the overcast sky, and I wore just my summer kit plus a little wind protector under my jersey. We got down to the start 15 or 20 minutes early and blended into the masses a few rows behind the "sub-6-hour" section that they reserve for riders who finished the prior year under that threshold. For a change, I wasn't cold as I waited for the start. I guess the temperature at the start was around 63F which is about perfect for this sort of thing. I had one little bottle of HammerGel, an emergency powerbar, and my phone in my pockets and two full water bottles on the bike. I was riding my old Orbea since the Bianchi is still out getting its cable stops fixed, so I had both the Garmin and the old Campi computer on the handlebar.  Redundant systems. I zeroed the Campi computer and started the Garmin and waited in the middle of the sea of riders. Next to us were Steve J. and Pat F. Ben B., Ben S., Danielle, Grayson, Graeme and the rest of the Tulane crew all started together, kind of walking the bikes as the crowd inched toward the start line. I think I finally clipped in just before crossing the timing mat.

The front part of the group this year was relatively calm this year, but I could tell right away that Ben B. wanted to get closer to the front. Soon a few of us were following him in the left lane moving up closer and closer to the front. You have to understand that, in the case of Six Gap, close to the front means being within the lead 100 or do. Danielle was right there with us for most of the first ten miles or so before the first long climb. Looking up ahead I was a little surprised that there didn't seem to be a group off the front.

So my plan this year was a little different from prior years. I had decided to try and keep the pain level down on the climbs and was open to the idea of stopping at a rest stop, which I'd never done before except to wait for an ambulance. The first couple of climbs went pretty well and I rode up them at my own pace, spinning a 39x25, keeping the 27 in reserve for later when I knew I'd need it.

By the time I crested the first "gap" Ben and Graeme were up ahead somewhere. Ben Spain and Steve were nearby, with Ben up the road a bit and Steve dropping back a bit. Things got split up a bit on Jack's Gap, but I was happy that I had company around me the whole time. As usual, the long climb up Hogpen featured a few miles of tortured climbing at 5 mph in the 39x27. Up at the top I saw Ben S and Graeme at the rest stop, but I didn't want to stop yet so I continued on, hitting 50 or so on the downhill. Somewhere on the flatter section between Hogpen and Wolfpen Steve caught up to me and a small group I had latched onto, but once we started up the Wolfpen climb he rode up ahead. Graeme was riding with a low gear of 39x23 and was very unsure about whether he was going to be able to make it up the next climb, but he rode away from me as I slowly spun and stood and spun and stood and spun my way up Wolfpen. By then my lower back was killing me and my right foot was screaming. On the plus side, all of the standing was giving my neck and upper back enough relief that those areas didn't hurt any more than usual.I stopped for a few minutes at the top of Wolfpen where Steve had also stopped to fill a water bottle. Steve would later pass me on the next climb.

So I finally made it over the last climb, Woody's Gap, flew down the downhill picking up one other rider toward the bottom as we came around the sharp hairpin turn. As usual it was looking like I'd be finishing at somewhere around 6 hours. Fortunately, the rider I was with was working with me and helping keep my speed up, and when a pair of faster riders came around us we both latched onto their wheels. Those two riders got us going a little faster but it wasn't looking like I'd make it to the finish in under 6 hours. The last ten miles or so were really fun. The rider I'd come down Woody's Gap with dropped off, but the other two were basically riding a team time trial with me mostly hanging on the back and just taking an occasional pull. Thanks to their help I ended up finishing at 6:01:43, so considering the fact that I'd stopped for water, that time was right in line with my usual times for this ride. Steve finished at 6:00:35. By the time I finished, Ben had already been there for over half an hour. He'd finished at 5:32:18, which was 26th overall.

So Ben Bradley was 6th in the 34-and-under KOM competition, 2nd in the 25-29 age group, and  26th overall. Steve was 107th (18th in the 50-54 group), I was 111th (first in the 60-64 group) , Ben Spain 172nd. Graeme finished at 6:18:55 with Ben. Meanwhile, Danielle was 8th in the 3-Gap KOM competition. I'm not sure where she finished overall since they don't have those results up on the website yet. They were using disposable chip timing, so there a long list of about 400 riders on the "Missing Splits" page.

We finally rolled out of Dahlonega in a light drizzle for the long drive home. That 9 hour drive feels really long after a day with a 5 am wake-up and 6-hour ride in the mountains. We got into New Orleans around 1 am, which was right when we had expected. I was basically worthless at work on Monday, of course.

Solid Month, Ten Long Years

The weather gods have been smiling on my riding schedule lately with the rather unexpected result that I haven't missed a day in over four weeks. During that time I have logged three consecutive 300+ mile weeks and a total of 1,284 miles, without even leaving the city. What does that mean?  Well, nothing really. A pretty large share of those miles would hardly be considered training unless simply sitting on the bike and moving your legs counts. The past couple of days have been pretty great since a cold front came through bringing lots of wind but much, much drier air. It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

Even so, it's pretty unusual to have such a long unbroken streak of rides that hasn't been interrupted by weather or other incursions. Perhaps the fact that I've been forced to ride earlier in the morning since the river levee bike path was torn up has something to do with it. Since we'll be heading up to Dahlonega this weekend for the annual pilgrimage to the Six Gap Century I will at least have a break on Saturday. It's about a 9-hour drive, so it's doubtful I'll get on the bike that day, which is probably a good thing. Last year I started that 104-mile ride with sore legs. This will the sixth year I've done the ride - well fifth if you don't count the year I fell halfway through an broke my collarbone. I'm going up with a bunch of Tulane riders in three rented minivans.  Should be interesting. Some are doing just the 3-Gap ride, which will no doubt be quite challenging enough.

While I'm on the subject of history, it's been ten years since I started this blog, and although Facebook and other forms of electronic communication have definitely cut into posting frequency I've accumulated 1,930 posts since then. I often go back to review old posts and race reports in order to find information about a particular race, or which year it was when something happened. When you've been racing for forty-plus years the races and courses tend to blend together a bit, so it's nice to have a log to which to refer now and then.

So this year I'll be riding Six Gap on my old aluminum/carbon Orbea that I bought from Gina Voci back at the end of 2007 (yes, I had to look back in my blog to see when it had been). That bike has lots of battle scars from lots of races and lots and lots of miles but it's still going strong even if the rear shifter is so worn that it doesn't really "click" when shifting sometimes, and often hesitates to shift at all.

The Bianchi had to get shipped back to wherever the bike ship ships them in order to get its brake cable stops re-riveted back on. A few weeks ago my right shifter had gotten so gunked up from a summer of sweat and rain and dirt that the rear brake cable was hanging up. I replaced the rear section of housing which accomplished nothing, so I had to take it off and push out the brake lever pin to clean it up since that's what was causing the problem. In the process I discovered that one of the two tiny aluminum rivets on each of the top tube cable stops had broken. Making the repair without the appropriate tool small enough to get into the front part of the triangle on my 50cm frame would have been kind of sketchy, so the shop called the Bianchi folks who said to send it back. Anyway, I was certainly not going to risk having one of the brake cable stops let go halfway down one of the 50 mph descents at Six Gap. On the plus side, I still had my 12-27 10-speed cassette. On the minus side, I'd just bought an 11-speed 11-27 cassette. Meanwhile, I ordered a 44cm Cannondale Caad 10 women's edition for Danielle though Mike Lew who recently opened a new bike shop up in Hammond. Mike had fixed me up with my Campi Record Cervelo Prodigy way back in -- I don't know when since it was before my blog. Anyway, it won't arrive for a few weeks since it's one of the new ones, but it was a great deal and has a short enough head tube that I think we can do a reasonable job of fitting it to a 4'10" rider once we deal with the ridiculous headset top cap and track down a teeny tiny stem.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty routine riding, Lots of medium paced group rides, a few blazing fast Giro Rides, but no trips to the northshore or anything. The Tulane Cycling training center has been seeing more and more use lately, which is great, and yesterday I received some autographed jerseys from one of our main sponsors who is involved with Six-day racing in England. One of them is Jason Kenny's from the Rotterdam Six Day 2013. He is reigning Olympic sprint champion in both individual and team sprint. It's particularly interesting because he crashed in it so the back and collar are all ripped up and it is stained both with his blood and paint from the blue band.  Very cool. It still smells of sweat. Others are from Chris Hoy, Bauke Mollema (Tour de France), and Gregory Baugé from Rotterdam Six Day 2013, when he was reigning world champion. He's the Frenchman who got silver in individual and team sprint at London 2012 Olympics. So we have the full podium from the sprint in London in 2012!  Now we just need to get them framed!

Transitioning - Last Local Road Race Weekend

Thursday morning on the lake heading back east from the casino

It looked pretty good on paper. The LAMBRA Criterium Championship in Baton Rouge on Saturday, followed by the LAMBRA Age-Graded Road Championship (plus a few other non-championship age groups) on Sunday in St. Francisville. As the weekend approached, however, the weather forecast was looking bad - 80% chance of rain both days. I figured I'd be racing in the rain. On Wednesday or Thursday the criterium promoter, Dustin, called to talk about cancelling the criterium. There were two corners on the course around the state capitol building that were known to be slick - really slick - when wet. Instead, we decided to use a shortened course that avoided those corners. That took the lap distance down to around six-tenths of a mile and left us with a relatively non-technical criterium, but at this late date in the season re-scheduling was not really a viable option. So when Danielle and I left for Baton Rouge early Saturday morning I was happy to find a relatively clear morning sky. The Masters and Women were two of the first three races on the schedule and so hope for a dry criterium was building. As we neared Baton Rouge the sky became more overcast but was still looking OK. We set up the big NOBC tent, planted the flag, and I pinned on my number for the Master's race.

Rain starting to fall in the Women's race

The 40+/55+ race had a smallish field of 13 or so. No doubt many riders had written the race off because of the weather forecast. We were only a few laps into the race when the field split with a break of five riders up the road. Mark was in there, and I felt he had a good chance for the win on this course, so I didn't take the brief opportunity I had to make the bridge up to them.

With three laps to go I could see the break closing in on us from behind, but then there was a surge and on the next lap they gave us the bell. One rider attacked with me right on his wheel, but  halfway through the lap he hesitated and two riders started coming around on the left. I latched onto the second wheel just moments before the sprint started and it was looking pretty good until I inexplicably drifted a little wide on the curve just before the finish line and lost just enough momentum that I couldn't get past one of them in time. That placed me 7th overall, 2nd in the 55+. Mark attacked the break early on the last lap and almost made it to the line, taking 2nd overall and 1st in the 55+.

Final laps in the deluge

The Juniors raced next, and then as the Women started to warm up the rain started to come down. At first it was fairly light, but unfortunately our alternate course featured the exact same slick old concrete in turn #1 that had caused us to re-route the race in the first place. When one of the women went down there during warmup I knew it wasn't going to be good and warned Danielle to be extra careful there. The women's race started and by about the second lap they were all riding alone, which was probably a good thing. I went over to turn 1 to take some photos and realized that there was some nice concrete on the outside of the turn, so I yelled at our riders to stay wide on turn 1, which I guess helped. With three laps to go the sky just opened up and a serious thunderstorm started, so they shortened the race a bit and got them all safely finished - Danielle finished 3rd. Moments later the rain and wind got even worse. The tent next to us actually broke and the expensive LAMBRA finish line camera was sent crashing to the concrete. A little later they decided to cancel the remaining races as there was no sign the weather would improve any time soon. The LAMBRA camera luckily survived but the big expensive tripod was seriously damaged, the printer got soaked with rain, and the ethernet cable to the camera got broken. We waited a while for the rain to ease up a bit and threw all the wet stuff into the car and headed back to New Orleans. Oh well......

So by Sunday the weather was looking a whole lot better. I picked up Brian B and we made the two-hour drive up to St. Francisville. Turnout for the age-graded road races was pretty good. Brian would be riding the 40+ race and I'd be in the 55+/60+ race. Our little 44 mile race had, somewhat surprisingly, 17 riders, I think. Mark had an outside chance of moving into the lead in the 55+ LCCS points standings, but it would only be possible if Stan somehow placed well below him in the race, which was pretty unlikely. In fact, Stan was well aware of the situation and as far as I could tell was not going to be giving Mark any rope. The race started out fast. There was a little bridge a mile or so from the start that had some of those lengthwise seams on it. The officials warned us about them at the start. Well, we're flying down the downhill toward that bridge at 35 mph with me about 4th or 5th wheel when one of the guys ahead of me rides straight into the crack, wobbles enough that I'm ready for a big crash, then luckily pops out. We cross the bridge and then I hear a crash behind me. I didn't need to look to know what had happened. That one resulted in a concussion and broken collarbone.

There wasn't any time to worry about the crash, however, because Mark was attacking pretty much every hill on the first of the two laps. That made for a pretty punchy first lap with an average speed of around 24 mph that included a number of really fast sections. Most of the field survived, but by the time we started the second lap it was clear that the surges had done some damage. I guess we were five miles or so into the second lap when Butch pushed it a bit going up one of the hills with me on his wheel. It wasn't an attack, really, and as we came over the top he pulled over and gave me the elbow. I didn't think there was any reason to pull through, assuming that the whole group was on my wheel, so I just followed his wheel. Then he looked back, looked over at me and said, "Randy, they're lettin' us go." I glanced back to find an inexplicably large gap and as I pulled through I said to Butch, "Why are they doing that?" Anyway, I figured this might put some pressure on the riders who had been sitting in while Mark had been attacking so the two of us started rotating at a moderate speed on the assumption we'd be pulled back within a mile or so. Well, a few miles later the gap was still holding steady and I was starting to wonder what was going on back there. As it turns out, Mike Lew had been attacking the field repeatedly. Finally, he broke free and a little while later I hear a wheel coming up from behind pretty fast. It was just Mike, and the rest of the field was still a good thirty seconds back. Butch and I had been about ready to pack it in, but when Mike rolled up going three mph faster he said, "Come on, boys!" so we latched on. Well, that was about the last we saw of the field. I learned later that Mark had cramped up pretty badly and dropped off the back. Meanwhile, the three of us were just doing this nice team time trial. Now, had I been feeling a little more aggressive I should have started attacking the hills over the final seven miles, but frankly I was having a hard time getting motivated about that. Unless we were caught, which was looking more and more unlikely, Mike would win the 40+ race and Butch and I would be sprinting it out for 1st and 2nd in the 60+ race. With three miles to go Butch started taking easier and easier pulls, and then, after Mike had taken his pull and swung off, Butch didn't come through. Mike looked over for a moment and then just went back to the front and pulled the last three miles of the race with Butch on his wheel and me on Butch's. When Butch jumped at the 200 meter mark I did too but then I went to shift to a bigger gear and it dropped all the way down to the 11.  We weren't going nearly fast enough for an 11, but it was too late to do anything about it. My cadence dropped momentarily to about 70 and I stood on the pedals trying to get them going again, but the finish was coming up fast and I never got past Butch's handlebars before the line. A little later Brian sprinted out of the lead break in the 40+ race to take a well-deserved 3rd as Ed Novak eeked out the win amidst loud animal noises by about a thousanth of a second.

Age of the Dinosaurs, Rocky Mount and the TT Championships

The Saturday Giro

Things are busy around here lately. The LAMBRA race calendar for August is pretty full, mostly with championship races. The students started returning to the neighborhood around Tulane a couple of weeks ago, and Danielle arrived from Olympia last week. Most classes started today. I like this time of year when things are busy around the university area and there are lots of students and other folks out and about. It's been busy at work as well, so between work and LAMBRA and Tulane Cycling and racing and training there hasn't been a whole lot of spare energy.

So two weekends ago I headed up to Shreveport, or to be exact Bossier City, early on a Friday afternoon. It's a 5+ hour drive and I wanted to get to the bike shop in time to pick up race numbers so I wouldn't have to do that in the morning. Rocky Mount is one of my favorite races and this year they switched it from Omnium format to Stage Race format, but it wasn't quite that simple. You see, we were using the first stage, the road race, as the LAMBRA Road Championship. We had done that last year when it was an omnium. on the face of it, since the RR was the first stage, it shouldn't have presented a problem. As it turned out, however, there was some dissension in the ranks concerning the awarding of LCCS points. I had planned to just score the category races as omniums rather than stage races since some riders were planning on riding only the first stage because that was the road championship for the skill-based races/categories. After I scored the whole event that way and put it up on the web I got some feedback from riders who had decided to skip the event on the assumption that it would be scored as a stage race. Since only the top two stage races count toward the annual LCCS rankings, that was not an unreasonable decision for riders who had already had high placings in two stage races. So I ended up re-scoring the whole thing as a stage race and then also awarding road race points to those riders who had registered only for the road race.

Anyway, to get back to the racing, I was signed up for the 55+ race along with teammate Mark McMurry. Mark was getting dangerously close to the top of the 55+ LCCS ranking so although he often rides Cat. 1/2/3 or 40+, he had decided to race with the dinosaurs instead. The field was pretty small, which was not unexpected, and the road race started out pretty slow. The long 30 mile course has a couple of significant hills on it and so I wasn't too surprised when Shreveport rider and TT specialist Tim P attacked the first big one. I was right there on his wheel all the way up the hill and then, thinking the pack was right behind me, I made the crucial mistake of easing up over the top. By the time I realized  how big the gap was it was too late and he was gone and I was stuck in the middle. The unresponsive pack turned out to be the theme for the weekend. There was virtually no attempt to chase him down and soon he was out of sight with the pack meandering along at a slow speed with only an occasional and brief acceleration. With about ten miles left to go Mark put a little pressure on going up one of the hills, glanced back to see that he had a gap, and decided to go for it. I was sitting at the front and just tooled along at like 20 mph, amazed that nobody was attacking. There were a few little surges, but basically they were content to let me sit on the front at 20 mph while Mark rode off into the distance. So of course Tim won, Mark came second, and then the pack finally arrived 3+ minutes later. The generally uphill sprint was fun and I should have won it, but I inexplicably eased up just before the finish line, not realizing there was someone coming up fast on my left. I'm still kicking myself for that one.

Tulane Cycling Friday Coffee Ride

The 5 mi. TT was held a few hours later from the same location and featured a fast (40-45 mph - some hit 49) downhill followed by a hairpin turn, a mile or so of light fast tailwind, and then a rather brutal mile of climbing back up to the finish. I kind of screwed up by coming around a right-hand turn in a huge gear and deciding not to shift for the steep little uphill right after it. I totally bogged down coming over the top and had to ease up a bit to recover. Even so I wasn't too displeased with my effort, which of course dropped me down to like 5th on GC as usual. The next morning was the criterium which is on a pretty nice parking lot course around a small community college. I was prepared for a hard ride but it didn't really turn out that way. Tim, who had won both the road race and time trial, had dropped out - he doesn't like criteriums with a passion - so Mark was now in the lead on GC with a pretty decent gap. From the start I led out a moderately fast lap, after which Mark came through, saw an unexpected gap with me still sitting on the front, and took off. Again, there was virtually no chase as I sat on the front going slow and watching Mark ride away from us. At the rate we were going I knew he would lap us, and when I heard the motorcycle coming up from behind wondered what would happen next. Well, Mark just kind of blew past the group through the technical section of the course and so I jumped hard to catch his wheel along with a couple others. I was hoping to split the pack here, but half a lap later I glanced back and it was all back together so I just let Mark ride off the front again, not that he needed to. Again, they just let him go, and again I didn't win the pack sprint. Somehow, however, thanks to Tim dropping out and some time bonuses I ended up in 3rd place, so between the two of us we easily covered our hotel room, which constitutes a successful weekend any way you look at it.

So last week was fairly routine rides except that Danielle came along on a couple of them. The LAMBRA TT championship was on Sunday and I was officiating. Given my usual TT performances I wasn't too disappointed about not being able to ride this one, and was able to enjoy the Saturday Giro Ride without worrying about having tired legs for Sunday. The TT went pretty smoothly, and despite the hot and humid conditions Jaden set a new course/LAMBRA 40km record of 52:17, while Stephanie set a new women's record of 59:28. It must have been ten years since we've had a woman go significantly under an hour, so I was really happy to see that.

Reflecting on the TT results afterward, and looking at the times of some of the younger riders compared to those of the old guys who have been dominating many of the time trials for a long, long time, I thought to myself, "The age of the dinosaurs is drawing to a close."  It has been a long time coming, but I am truly glad to see these younger riders kicking ass. We had one casualty in the TT when Tim Doiron failed to notice some random recumbent rider who I guess had gotten on the TT course around the boat launch halfway back from the turnaround. He tried to swerve around at the last minute but caught the left side of the trike and went down hard putting a deep gash in his jaw and upper lip that required stitches. Later, after the TT championships, we had the Louisiana Senior Olympic Games time trial on the same course. I was a little worried about the older guys being out there for 40km on such a hot day. Two of them apparently turned around early, thinking they had gotten to the turnaround that was actually about five miles farther down the road. I have no idea how they got that wrong since over eighty riders ahead of them had gotten it right.

View from the Back

Me, Mark, Paul, and Mike

The LAMBRA Team Time Trial and Alan Kelly Criterium this weekend jolted the mid-summer road season back into action after its July hiatus. Teammate Mark McMurry had assembled a 55+ team composed of riders who might just as easily have ridden a TTT back in 1984. Mike Lew was on hand with an ancient and unique time trial bike that had been built by John Dias' father back when John was a Junor.  I figure it weighed in at around 24 pounds.  Rounding out the team was Paul Kerst from Baton Rouge who has raced only occasionally for the past few years but has always been a formidable time trialist. I knew it was going to be a hard and hot 30 miles. There was a light but increasing quartering headwind and my only consolation was knowing I was the smallest rider of the four. As we had discussed, our start was smooth and controlled. I suppose that among the four of us there must have been at least 100 years of racing experience, so the paceline was incredibly smooth.  I has doing my best taking short pulls and thanks to the headwind I was recovering relatively well until my next pull came around. Mike and I were pulling a little shorter and more slowly than Paul and Mark but it was working pretty well all the way out to the turnaround and we could see that we were slowly catching the team that had started two minutes ahead of us. Our turnaround was pretty sloppy and it took us a little while to get re-organized. There was now a bit of a tailwind and Paul and Mark were showing no signs of slowing down. We'd averaged a bit over 26 mph on the way out and it was looking like the consensus speed for the way back was going to be more like 28. I took a couple of pulls and quickly realized I was slowing them down about 1 mph every time I'd come to the front, so I decided to sit on the back to minimize the accelerations and wait until closer to the end where I could maintain speed and afford to gut it out for a couple of miles without risking getting dropped. So we ended up with a 1:06:53, which was good for 6th overall. Not that I can take much credit for it, but it was a pretty respectable showing for a bunch of old dogs.

Sunday's criterium in Thibodaux was on a nice short technical course with old concrete pavement that was unrideable when wet. The master's race had a reasonable turnout of 16, which was good, but 5 Palmer riders and 4 Acadiana riders, which was not so good. I was still trying to squeeze in a little warmup after having officiated the prior race when they started lining up, so I ended up in the back, which I new was risky. I figured there was a 90% chance that Kenny was going to attack from the gun, which of course he did. Kevin Landry was right there and went with him, so halfway through the first lap we had one Palmer and one Acadiana rider off the front, which was not good for me since that meant about half the field and 80% of the remaining horsepower was not going to chase. Going around one of the corners on the first lap I looked up and there were four Palmer riders lined up on the front and we were going like 22 mph while the break was probably going more like 27. The two riders just rode away from the pack without hardly a challenge. On such a tight course it's hard to move up, and since I wasn't feeling particularly motivated anyway, I found myself stuck near the back dealing with some rather unorthodox cornering and a lot of gap-closing. I immediately started thinking about just easing off the back and latching onto the break which I knew was going to lap the field on the short 0.5 mile circuit.

Pretty soon, though, I heard the motorcycle right behind us and knew we were already being lapped. There were a few short attacks that shed a few more riders but we came into the bell lap with a group of around eight. Kevin attacked early on the back side and strung everything out, but somehow Kenny managed to get to the line first by about half a tire width. As it turned out that particular tire was nearly flat, too. They had to go to the finish camera to figure out who won. Kenny posted some good video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1GTXX12wOo .

So after the master's race I had a little break while the Cat. 4s raced before the Cat. 1/2/3 race. After they finished we had a good fifteen minutes before our race was scheduled to start, and it looked like a big thunderstorm was heading our way. As I was warming up I could feel a light mist starting to fall, and then there were some very impressive and close bolts of lightning. Everyone gathered near the start line hoping for the best but fearing the worst. Sure enough it started raining right on schedule and with the road surface so slick the race was cancelled. I sat under the NOBC tent with Mark for at least half an hour as it poured down rain until it eased enough to venture out to start packing up the car. I had been kind of looking forward to the Cat. 1/2/3 race which would have been the biggest field of the day, so it was a disappointment to have the race cancelled, but having tried to ride on that road in the rain last year I knew there was really no choice. After loading up the car with soaking wet tent, flag, etc., I headed home through more thunderstorms.  On the plus side, I was back home by 2 pm.

Sunrise Season

The northern hemisphere keeps tilting away from the sun, but my ride time remains the same. This is the time of year when we start seeing lots of photos of sunrise from the local cycling community. I had made it out to the 5:45 am meeting spot on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday had headed out around the same time to meet the WeMoRi, but when the alarm went off on Thursday morning I hit the snooze button and promptly fell fast asleep. I finally did get out of the house, around fifteen minutes late. Fortunately, the Thursday group, after meeting at the west end of Lakeshore Drive around 6:10 am, heads east to do an out-and-back lap of Lakeshore Drive before continuing west along the Lake Trail in Jefferson. I knew that if I would be able to find them on Lakeshore Drive. In fact, I was a little surprised that I had to ride a few miles east along the lake into the huge rising sun before I saw them somewhere around Franklin Avenue. Thursday's ride was good, but not particularly fast. On the plus side, however, the group is for this "new" ride is growing as people figure out where and when they can meet it.

This morning I met Ben for the Friday coffee ride, picking up Scott at the end of Nashville and Brian B somewhere out on the lakefront. Ben was out on his Cervelo set up for tomorrow's Team Time Trial. I had promised myself I'd put my aero bars on the bike, but of course I never quite got around to that. I'll be heading down to Vacherie very early tomorrow morning for an hour or so of TTT torture, my only consolation being that I'll be the smallest rider on the 4-man team of 55+ riders.  So how hard could that be?

In the 'best-laid plans' department, the Rocky Mount stage race had to find a new road race course at the last minute after a group went to pre-ride the original course and found a big section of the road had been completely washed out. The road stage of that race serves as our skill-based, aka 'category,' championship. Then the upcoming criterium in Baton Rouge had to change their course because the state is tearing up the road in front of the capitol building in order to make it into a pedestrian-only space. The alternate route that goes around and behind the capitol building is fine except that there are two "caution" pylon things bolted to the middle of the road where the crosswalks are. We'll have the whole road so riders should be able to negotiate those as long as they are aware and paying attention. Should be interesting anyway. Then today the fall Track series dates got changed from Fridays to Saturdays, which is probably a good thing except that one of those Saturdays I'll be on the road to Six Gap.

(Giro)²

Audubon Park - it was still fairly dark, hence the blurriness

It was supposed to be a rainy weekend, but as sometimes happens around here, the rain fell mainly elsewhere leaving us with mostly dry weather, at least down here on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain.  I got up Saturday morning, looked out the window, and thought, "It sure is dark out there!"  I guess there were a few lingering clouds around, and together with the slow creep of shorter days it is starting to get noticeable. Leaving home at 6:04 am, it was a tough call whether to wear my regular sunglasses or opt of the clear lenses. Since I had my contacts in, I wanted my regular glasses because they have the stick-on reading lenses in them which make it easier to read the computer. I ended up wearing them, although I guess that in another couple of weeks that won't really be an option and they'll ride out to Starbucks adorning my helmet.  Anyway, the turnout for the Giro was good and the pace on the way out remained fast. We averaged around 25 mph, excluding the warm-up and cool-down along Lakeshore Drive, even though the return trip was considerably slower. The whole way out along Chef Highway we were pretty much strung out in a long single file going 26-28 mph for the most part.  It was such a long way to the front that I don't even know who was up there driving the train, and there was little chance I was going to ride up there to find out.

Later that day I considered trying to put together a northshore ride but never quite got around to it. I found out from Kenny that evening that Woody, Ed, VJ and I guess a few others were doing a northshore ride but by then it was late enough that I didn't want to track them down to find out when and where.  In the back of my mind I was already thinking of putting in a few extra miles after the Sunday Giro anyway.

The Sunday Giro always seems just a little bit easier than the Saturday Giro. In this case it worked out to about 1 mph slower overall, but similar to Saturday's ride the pace was fast on the way out to Venetian Isles.  This time, though, we had a nice smooth paceline going for a few miles until a couple of guys started to surge at the front which caused the whole lovely thing to collapse back into chaos. The ride back, however, was relatively tame aside from a fast stretch from Highway 11 to the Goodyear sign. When we got back to Lakeshore Drive I found that Steve and Pat had parked down at the end of Williams Blvd and would be riding back there along the Lake Trail, so I decided to join them and a few other riders who were also going that way. We stopped at the gas station on Harrison Avenue to refuel since it was getting pretty hot by then.  I bought a huge bottle of Powerade and still had quite a bit left to drink after filling my big water bottle.There was a light tailwind that made the ride along the water feel easy, but I knew it would be a long ride back once everyone else went home and I turned around into the headwind. By then I had around 70 miles on the odometer so I just settled into a nice long 18 mph pace for most of the way back along the lake, arriving back home with 80.7 miles. In a rather bizarre coincidence, that was exactly the same mileage that Steve ended up with that day. Back at home I spent a couple of hours refueling before venturing out into the heat again to trim hedges. We have had a fairly consistent pattern of rain showers around here for the past couple of weeks, so everything green is growing at full speed, as are the insects. It is feeling pretty subtropical, as it should.  Of course with that comes the annual hurricane season so we're all starting to pay a little more attention to the tropical weather.  Somehow I carried my camera around all weekend but never once took it out to take a photo, so I made a point of taking a few pictures as I rode around the park this morning.  It was darker than it looks in the photos, so the little camera was using too slow of shutter speed to accommodate my blazing speed of 15 mph.

This morning I felt like I needed a nice easy recovery spin. I've been pretty close to 300 miles per week for the past three weeks, and although it's been mostly group rides and has included a fair share of easy miles, it's a lot of saddle time nonetheless.  I rode up St. Charles Avenue early in the morning, returning down Prytania and Magazine to do a few easy laps around Audubon Park before heading home through Tulane's campus. Yesterday I broke down and signed up for the new AT&T internet and phone bundle since my current setup at home dates back to late 2005. Although I kind of hate giving up that direct phone line, the cost of the home phone was getting way out of line with how much we use it, and the internet connection was getting more and more flaky. The downside is that I guess I'll be spending Wednesday morning with some service person at home getting it all switched over which will likely involve moving furniture around to uncover long-hidden phone outlets. I'm still stuck with basic cable from Cox, but perhaps once the new AT&T becomes available, which will probably be pretty soon, they will offer another deal to get me to switch over. We'll see. I would probably be just as happy with an antenna and Hulu.

East Meets West - Coming Together

A rare cool front came through earlier this week, and although the morning temperature has still been around 80F, the drop in humidity has everyone prematurely thinking about Fall.  Of course, we are still a very long and hot way from Fall around here, but the sensation of having sweat actually evaporate from my skin has been a welcome relief, however temporary.

The Tuesday/Thursday morning levee ride group, which has been recently disrupted and effectively evicted from its usual route because of the Corps of Engineers' work along the river, is finally starting to come back together as people figure out how and when and where they can meet up out on the lakefront.  For those of us coming from uptown it has meant an earlier 5:45 am start and a twenty minute trek through town, punctuated by a few stop lights on the way out and considerably more on the way back.  We have been hitting Lakeshore Drive right around 6:10, and then heading west to meet up with the Metairie/Kenner group that is heading east.  This morning there were a couple of people waiting around West End where the eastbound group meets the westbound group.  By the time we were all together heading back east on Lakeshore drive the group was probably up to a dozen or so.  The Strava Activity Playback shows it nicely, at least for those riders in the group who upload their rides to Strava.  The best thing about the playback is that you can figure out when the various groups pass key locations, which makes it a lot easier for everyone to eventually come together.

Any opportunity for a nap

This morning the weather was great with just a light breeze and still a noticeable remnant of the cool front. As we rode through City Park we spotted one of the Coyotes that have been living there and occasionally picking off pet dogs.  We had a nice long paceline going on the Lake Trail, both coming and going, so in many ways it was like being back on the river levee since there were a lot of the same riders.

Tomorrow we'll be meeting up at 6:30 at the Reily Center for the Friday Tulane coffee ride.  This is getting to be kind of a standard easy Friday ride out to the lakefront and back with a stop at Fair Grinds. This was one of the very first dedicated coffee shops that I came across back in the 80s, although it might have had a different name back then.  The current name is a play on "Fair Gounds" which is what the nearby horse racing track, and location of the Jazz Fest, is called.    A few of the Tulane riders are back in town, and there are a couple of new ones as well, so I hope a few of them can make it.  This will be the last free weekend for a while since the whole month of August is packed with LAMBRA races, most of which involve championships of one sort or another.

Rolling and Bowling

The Sunday Giro Meeting

Things have been rolling along pretty much on auto-pilot lately, which has actually been kind of a nice break from the usual chaos.  On Friday my office had a "Staff Retreat" in an apartment at the Lower Pontalba Building on Jackson Square. I'm sure these sorts of things are helpful for a lot of people, but personally they always seem a bit contrived.  I'm pretty sure The Baroness would never have tolerated such a thing. Afterward we headed over to Fulton Alley for some bowling and adult beverages. I have never been much of a bowler and in this case I was rather worried about my right shoulder which has never fully recovered from that crash that broke my collarbone.  As it turned out, it was only moderately painful, which unfortunately eliminated the only credible excuse I could come up with.  The net result of this unfettered, lopsided and unfamiliar activity was some moderate soreness and a pulled muscle somewhere on the inside of my leg that bugged me for the next three or four days.  It was probably a good thing that it rained Saturday morning so I didn't do the Giro Ride.

The Sunday Giro was good, with a pretty good turnout and relatively nice weather.  My memory of the ride itself is pretty much a total blank except that we had a new rider in the group who had recently moved here.  She is doing a Fellowship at LSUHSC in trauma and turned out to be a good rider with some solid abilities and track experience.

Since I knew it would be raining that morning I send out an email to see if anyone wanted to try out the WattBikes at the Tulane Cycling training center we've been putting together.  A number of people showed up and I ended up spending most of the day there, although I never actually did anything you could call "training."  I had wanted to see if we could set up a group ride on the WattBike software so that it would display everyone's data together on the big monitor, but the borrowed USB ANT+ dongle didn't seem to be cooperating.  I went ahead an ordered one for myself, which arrived yesterday, so I tried it out earlier today just to see if it worked.  It looks like it will work pretty well, although we definitely need to buy a cheap laptop to keep at the center for this sort of thing. Speaking of Tulane Cycling, we have been getting  a few inquiries lately from incoming students, which is great to see.  Hopefully we can hit the ground running this year and the training center will help keep some of the new riders from dropping out of sight once it starts getting cold and dark this winter.  It should be interesting.

So this week has been pretty standard, except for the fact that I rode out to the lake on Tuesday and Thursday instead of driving out to ride on the river levee.  On Tuesday, three of us met on Carrollton at Fontainbleau at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am, which unfortunately is likely to be the status quo for a while.  The reason is that we were meeting another small group, some of which were also exiles from the river levee rides, that was coming from Metairie.  The plan was to meet up somewhere on Lakeshore Drive or on the Lake Trail bike path.  That worked out pretty well, although we decided on the way back to change our route a bit so we could be sure to meet them on Lakeshore Drive in order to skip having to ride that extra bit on Robt. E. Lee.  We tried it again this morning and met the Metairie group right at the west end of Lakeshore Drive at about 6:10 I guess, which was perfect timing. We had a good 42 mile ride and I got home just a bit before 8:00, so this plan should work OK until the levee is finished, if I live that long.

Stuff you see around a university

On Wednesday I again rode out to meet the WeMoRi.  I am finding it really hard jumping into that ride and going from 18 mph to 30 mph all of a sudden.  It takes me half of the lap around City Park to recover from that.  Anyway, it's still a better workout than I'd likely do my myself. Since they ride so early I have to leave home at 5:45, and as a result I'm on my way back home a lot earlier than usual.  This time I decided to stop at Starbucks on the way back, which was nice.  I can see that becoming a regular stop for me on Wednesdays if I keep doing this.  Once it starts getting darker in the morning I may have to re-think my options, however. Tomorrow I'm meeting Ben at 6:15 for an easy coffee ride out to the lakefront.  We are planning on meeting up with a new medical student who just moved to town from Colorado and seems susceptible to being talked into doing some collegiate racing.

At some point recently we finally got notification that the NOBC's 501(c)3 status had been re-instated by the IRS.  That took a couple of years to happen after we lost it because nobody knew we were supposed to start sending in tax returns a few years back.  Luckily we have an ex-president who is a CPA and was able to deal with them for us.

Midsummer Lull, Another Fatality

As often happens in July, there is a bit of a lull in the racing scene around here as both riders and promoters take a little break from the summer heat. My usual morning routine is also in a state of flux as we all try to figure out what and when and where we can best replicate the levee training rides that have been a fixture for over ten years now.

So last weekend, after a fairly routine and not particularly fast Giro Ride on Saturday, I headed across the lake Sunday morning for a club training ride.  We would be starting half an hour earlier than the more traditional 8:00 am in deference to the expected temperature, although as it turned out the morning temperature was a bit less oppressive than usual.  The turnout for this 65 mile ride was pretty thin, which I guess I'll attribute to riders either taking an easy weekend or taking the opportunity to do their own rides with small groups.  Anyway, we had a really nice ride that was mostly at a moderate but steady pace.  Back at the Lee Road Junior High parking lot I stopped to take pictures of the fledgling barn swallows nesting under the shelter in front of the school.

The bike path on the levee was supposed to be closed by Tuesday, although as far as I know it is still open.  River Road, however, is definitely closed where the pipes are being put underneath it.  I've reluctantly decided to give up driving out to Harahan in order to ride on the bike path in the morning.  It is just eating up too much ride time.  So on Tuesday I met a couple of other riders on Carrollton near S. Claiborne to ride out to the lakefront and put in a few miles on the Lake Trail bike path.  Unfortunately I had to turn back early because of a morning meeting.  On Wednesday I rode out to meet the WeMoRi again, rather fortunately missing the part along Lakeshore Drive in a crosswind that shattered much of the group.

On Thursday a few of us met up at Fontainbleau and Carrollton for another trip out to the lakefront bike path.  We left early, around 5:45 am, in order to meet up with another group that was riding from the west.  We met them right at the start of the bike path, where we turned around to do a lap of Lakeshore Drive before heading back to the bike path and riding that all the way out to the Casino at Williams Blvd.  It all worked out pretty well, although next time we'll probably just go straight to Lakeshore Drive and catch the Metairie group there.  I got back home just a bit after 8 am with 40-odd miles, which was similar to what we were doing on the river levee, so that was good.

On Thursday afternoon I learned about a cyclist fatality that happened downtown at St. Claude and Elysian Fields.  A rider who had been riding normally in the bike lane was crushed by the rear wheels of a tractor-trailer that took a right turn in front of him.  Let me just take a moment to reinforce the advice I always give to riders.  Never, ever let yourself get between a truck and the curb anywhere near an intersection.  This is one of the most common ways that riders are killed in metro areas.  In this case, there was a separate right turn lane that the truck did not take, which probably made the cyclist think that the truck was continuing straight and that it was OK to be momentarily between the truck and the curb.  However, the truck then turned right past the turn lane and the cyclist was trapped and caught by the sweep of the rear wheels.  One of the local guys who is closely involved with Plan B was right behind the truck and saw the whole thing and took photos immediately afterward.  I felt I should blur out the more disturbing part of the photo before posting it here, but on the other hand I thought it important that people see the outcome of this sort of thing.  The truck driver was not charged with anything at the time.  Very sad, and very disturbing for those of us who spend a lot of time riding in the city.  Naturally everyone wants to point fingers at who was at fault, and it is certainly clear that the truck driver deserves a large share of blame for being so negligent and careless, even if it might have been difficult for him to see the cyclist in his mirrors.  He was, in fact, crossing a bike lane at a place where nobody would have expected him to be turning.

Farther Upriver

I drove out to the Thursday levee ride early this morning.  There had been signs advising that River Road would be closed today about a mile farther upriver from where we've been starting lately and there was a good chance that the bike path would also be closed at that point.  They are getting ready to run some big drainage pipes under River Road and then across the levee there, and a closure of both River Road and the bike path is imminent.  Once that happens, my options will be severely limited.  Riding around the construction site will not be particularly convenient and as it stands now I'm about at the end of my rope anyway.  The drive time right now is costing me around half an hour of precious morning ride time, not to mention the hassle of loading the bike in and out of the car, changing shoes, etc.  I think I'll probably be riding out toward the lake every day soon.  It would be nice if we could get a group together that could ride out from someplace uptown at the relatively reasonable hour of 6:15 or 6:30.

So anyway, today's ride was fairly steady except when Robert and maybe Mark would surge at the front.  We are still enjoying slightly lower morning temperatures than normal for this time of year, which is to say it hasn't been above 80F. It doesn't last long, but it's nice while it does. With little to no wind today, the group stayed together despite the occasional surges, and the steady speed meant I was hearing that irritating creak starting to reappear down around my bottom bracket.  I can only surmise, based on the copious amount of grease I slathered around the bearings a couple of weeks ago, that it may be coming from the interface between the bottom bracket shell and the pressed-in BB30 bearing housings.  I really don't want to have to pull those, and it's been suggested that a liberal application of WD-40 might be worth a try, but in the meantime I'm just trying to ignore it.  We're hoping to get a northshore ride together for Sunday since there's nothing really on the race calendar until August.

On the Tulane Cycling front, getting the last little things wrapped up has been kind of like pulling teeth.  I need keys for three of the interior doors.  I've explained that to the architect months ago, the facilities services guys a month ago, and the locksmith a couple of weeks ago.  Today I get an email from the locksmith saying there are five interior doors and he doesn't have keys for any of them.  No kidding. So I go through the explanation again.  Keys for the three doors on the left.  Shouldn't this be a simple thing for a locksmith?  Then I'm trying to order twenty stack chairs.  The place from which I want to order them just drops them off from the back of the truck.  That wouldn't be too much of a problem except there's not an obvious place to do that at University Square, which used to be a small shopping center.  So I ask Purchasing if I can have them delivered to them and then transported over here.  I get a response that depends on the kind of truck they will be delivered from.  If I knew the answer to that question I wouldn't have had to ask in the first place. The signage for the door is on indefinite hold because the computer that they use to control the machine that makes the signs apparently got replaced with one that requires upgraded software that they don't have yet. Two steps forward, one step back.  Situation normal.

One little ray of light lately was the news that we finally got the NOBC's 501(c)3 tax-exempt status re-instated by the IRS after having it revoked because nobody was submitting tax returns when they started requiring that a few years ago for organizations with under $25k/year in revenue.  The tax return for us doesn't even include any financial information.  It's just like saying, "yeah, were're still  here and still not bringing in more than $25k per year."

Wheel-Surfing in Cajun Country

I was looking forward to the annual Vuelta d' Acadiana over in Lafayette last weekend.  For a change, I wouldn't have any officiating or promoting responsibilities and could just be a bike racer.  Well, almost.  I did need to get the LAMBRA race clock and generator over there in time for registration, and since I couldn't leave until Saturday morning that meant a 4 am wake-up in order to be on the road arount 4:30.  Turnout from the club was going to be a little low.  The women's team had four riders registered, but there were only two of us in the master's race and Steve was only a possibility for the Cat. 4 race.

The first stage was a 3.8 mile time trial on a new course. The night before I'd decided to snap on the larger of the two fairings that fit onto the back of my Giro time trial helmet.  This generally termed "grasping at straws."  Riding a regular road bike with just clip-on aero bars and a TT helmet doesn't provide a lot of confidence when you're standing there in line between guys with expensive time trial bikes, especially when you're not exactly in top shape anyway.  So the first thing I discovered was that the fairing made it nearly impossible to lift my head enough to see where I was going.  The second thing I discovered was that I felt faster when I wasn't looking where I was going.  So I did the TT mostly looking at the white line on the edge of the road. I'd been expecting the headwind to be a major factor, but it turned out to be only a minor issue.  I got a good start, rolled it up to about 25 mph, and wasn't really willing to push it much past that.  Since this was a points-based omnium I'd need to be in the top ten to get any points, and I didn't really think that was very likely.  I placed 13th with an average speed of 25.0, but on the plus side, it hadn't taken much out of me and I felt kind of good about it despite the relatively slow time.

The second stage on Saturday was the criterium, which was just around the corner from the hotel where I was staying with Bob and the women's team.  We stopped for lunch, checked into the hotel, and I went over to the criterium course to set up the club's tent.  Since it was still quite early, I got a spot under a tree right across from the finish line.  The women's race was one of the first.  Within a lap or two the race was already coming apart with Stephanie Smith and Amy Floyd hammering off the front and Mignon and Mary stuck in-between them and the disintegrating pack.  Pretty quickly, Stephanie dropped Amy and Mignon and Mary got together.  Behind them, Sherri and another rider got together.  Stephanie then proceeded to lap everyone except Amy.  Migon finished 4th and Sherri 5th with Roberta 7th and Alison 8th. 

The Masters field was once again rather small with only 16 riders on the line. There were about six riders from Texas, so I figured the Acadiana team would have a harder time than usual. I quickly saw that there were a number of guys who were willing and able to chase down the breaks, so I figured my best (probably only) bet was to surf wheels at the back and plan on a pack sprint.  The Acadiana guys were still working the front and there were two breaks that looked like they might stick, but fortunately everything was pulled back as we neared the end of the 50 minute race.  With three laps to go I decided to get back into the race and worked my way up to second or third wheel with two laps to go.  Things got a little shuffled at the beginning of the bell lap and I was maybe sixth wheel coming into the final turn. Although I couldn't quite come around the guy in 3rd before the line, I was happy to feel my sprint legs starting to come around. The average speed was a bit over 24 mph with the sprint topping out at 34.2. You can watch the video of the whole criterium, but you won't see all that much of me in it!

Sunday was a 50-mile, 3-lap road race on the same course we've used for the past few years.  The points for my 4th place in the criterium had me around 7th, I think, in the omnium.  I thought that the road race would probably go down sort of like the criterium had and that if a break went off the front it would be more because they were really fast than because they had a lot of teammates blocking in the pack.  Even better, Kenny had decided to do the Masters road race rather than the Cat. 1/2/3 race.  I knew he wouldn't sit around while a break rolled off the front.  So once again my convenient strategy was to surf wheels at the back and roll the dice on another pack finish.  The first lap, and especially the second lap, were actually pretty fast with a number of attacks. The last really serious attempt at a break came just after the feed zone and the right-hand turn where I crashed two years ago.  That attack very nearly did the trick, but fortunately there were enough riders willing to work that it was reeled in.  After that one I think the Acadiana guys figured a pack sprint was inevitable and the pace eased up a bit. All this time I had been way at the back of the pack. When we got to the feed zone about three miles from the finish things started to get a little messy as everybody wanted to get up near the front.  I should have been a little more assertive here but I never got close enough to the front before the sprint started.  I had relatively fresh legs but ended up kind of stuck in traffic without ever really standing up and sprinting.  So I ended up 7th in the Road Race and 7th overall.  Not great, but it was a fun weekend anyway and it did provide a bit of a confidence boost after my disappointing result at the Harbor Master race.