Not Exactly High-Mileage

A nice photo by Ross Agulair

Last week was probably the lowest-mileage week I've had all year. It wasn't my fault. Honest! But I always seem to have a few of these kinds of weeks this time of year. This time it was kind of a perfect storm (pun intended). My usual Monday morning recovery ride (using the term loosely since the prior day had been rather easy as well) was followed up on Tuesday by a rain day. Tuesdays and Thursday are usually my "long ride" days on which I routinely log around 40 miles before breakfast. Luckily, on Wednesday I got in the WeMoRi before the rain resumed, but I wasn't so lucky on Thursday which turned out to be another wash-out. So I was already 80+ miles in the hole before the weekend, during which I was scheduled to officiate the LAMBRA track championships where we spend a day and a half distributing about 70 medals among about 15 riders. Not that it wasn't some good solid racing, but I just wish half of the people who I know have track bikes would show up for this event.

So anyway, on Saturday morning I picked up Gavin who was pretty much under the weather with a head cold, and made the drive up to Baton Rouge, arriving around 8 am ahead of the scheduled 9 am first race. I immediately started setting up the finish line camera and associated laptop, all of which went smoothly.

Or so I thought.

You see, a few weeks prior there had been an electrical fire at the park where the velodrome is located that resulted in cancellation of the whole weeknight series since there were no lights. As I learned on Saturday, when the park had added the rock wall and skate park and other fun things, they hadn't upgraded the electrical systems. The result was that when they turned on the lights for the BMX track, plus the lights for the Skate Park, plus the lights for the Velodrome, the main panel self-ignited. Being a municipal park, of course, getting the situation properly repaired will no doubt entail numerous sealed bids and delays and cost over-runs, with the net result being that I'm not really expecting to see lighting at the velodrome until Spring. Fortunately, all of the track events last weekend were being held during the day. Unfortunately, when I asked Dustin if the electrical outlet on the judging stand was live he confidently replied that it was. So of course I left the generator at home. So after hooking up the camera and laptop I started up the camera software and was perplexed that it didn't seem to be able to find the camera. I went around and checked all of the connections and they all looked fine. All the while I was listening to the music playing from the little p/a system that Dustin had brought. Then I finally noticed that the light on the camera transformer wasn't lit. Neither was the light on the laptop. Turned out that the p/a system had a battery, like the laptop, and that yes, the outlet was not working. Luckily, I was able to call Chris who lives in BR and he was able to bring his generator over. So after all of that, I was rather disappointed that there was never a finish that was so close that I needed the camera to resolve the winner, although there were a few sprints during the Points Race where I did go back and look at the images to confirm the placings.

Since I knew I wouldn't be able to do any of my usual long rides over the weekend, I had planned ahead and brought my track bike with me on Saturday. The plan was to get in some miles on the track during the 3-hour lunch break in the middle of the day. So when we wrapped up the first session I opened up my bag to collect my riding clothes and discovered to my dismay that although I'd brought helmet, gloves and shoes I'd neglected to bring shorts or jersey. Luckily, Elliott happened to have a spare skinsuit that fit, so my day was saved. As everyone went off to lunch I hopped onto the bike and proceeded to tick off approximately 144 laps around the track, logging around 30 miles, which somehow seemed to me to make the whole day of officiating worthwhile!

Sunday's races were concluded in the morning, so I guess I was back home around 2:30 or so. All-in-all it was a nice enough weekend. Not having electricity was still way better than having to deal with rain or cold, so no complaints there.

Change Season and Electric Pumpkins

"Ain't dere no mo!"  Saturday's northshore ride, coming over the firetower hill that doesn't have a firetower any more.

Everything seemed to be in flux last weekend. As is usually the case this time of year, which some like call "Festival Season," there was a lot going on, or not going on. Just a few of the cycling-related items on the calendar were an NOBC northshore ride, Ochsner Ironman, Tour de Jefferson, a bandit cyclocross race in the middle of nowhere, a Tulane Cycling ride, a Tulane football game, the approach of a new cold front, Halloween decorating, and a bunch of other things that didn't even make it onto my personal radar. One of the things not going on was the Sunday Giro Ride, since the Ironman course uses almost all of the Giro Ride course.

So I decided to do the NOBC northshore ride on Saturday, having mapped out a nice and reasonably hilly 75-mile route sure to find disfavor among the tri-bike crowd. I was looking forward to the terrain, but secretly hoping that the ride wouldn't turn into a hammer-fest. After all, it's almost November and time for a little change of scenery and lowering of intensity. Early that morning I stepped out the door into the warm, 100% relative humidity fog. The humidity, I had expected. The fog, not so much. Needless to say, the fog was only worse on the 24-mile long Causeway over Lake Pontchartrain. Fortunately they hadn't put restrictions on the bridge, so although it required constant attention, we didn't lose much time. Arriving at the Lee Road Ballpark we found a nice small group ready to go. Just as I'd been hoping. It was slightly cooler than mid-summer, of course, but the cold front we'd been expecting was still far away and moving at a pace that could best be described as "glacial." The ride itself was great. We had a nice steady pace, despite a few short faster segments and a brief stop at the Enon store, and we were all back to the cars before noon. That was good because I had to go to the Tulane football game at 2:00.

I'm not really a football fan. When you go through grammar school and high school as the shortest kid in the class, you don't get many opportunities to hone your football skills. In fact, you don't really get many chances to touch the football at all, and when you do get a chance, some kid twice your size slams into you. However, since we live just a few blocks from the stadium, and The Wife seems to enjoy watching the game, I just make sure my phone is fully charged before I go. So on Saturday I had just enough time to eat and shower before walking over to the stadium, which of course was when it started to rain. I think I counted 25 Tulane students in the stands. At least it wasn't hot. Up above, the long-awaited cold front was slowly approaching, kicking off a lot of rain. We didn't get through the first quarter before they stopped the game because of lightning and made everyone empty the stands and huddle underneath. The nearest lightning was at least six miles away, and I never heard so much as a single clap of thunder. Still, we were stuck there under the BigAssFan for about 45 minutes during which time I drank a hot beer. Eventually we returned to our wet seats and suffered through the game against SMU as Tulane expertly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Later that night I finally installed a new single-speed freewheel on the old commuter. I'd replaced the chain a few weeks ago and every time I put pressure on the pedals, like when climbing the overpass, I could feel it grinding. When I removed the old freewheel and looked at the teeth, they were worn down to the shape of shark fins, so the new freewheel was definitely over-due by a long shot.

On Sunday a lot of the regular Giro riders were planning on doing the Tour de Jefferson. I wasn't particularly interested in either paying the $50 entry fee or just crashing the 45-mile ride since it spent a fair amount of time meandering through Metairie. By then the cold front had pretty much arrived along with a steady 15-mph northeast wind. So I decided to instead do an easy 50 miles on the levee out to the Spillway and back. Mignon met me along the way as the last of the clouds moved out. The return trip was largely into an unrelenting head/crosswind, and since neither of us wanted to do much suffering, I think we averaged about fifteen miles per hour.

The rest of Sunday was earmarked for Halloween decorating. Every year Candy comes home with even more decorations, many of which require electricity, which leads to me spending a lot of time worrying about whether the twenty various contraptions are going to overload the single outlet supplying power and burn down the house. So this year I tapped into the one circuit that I installed myself (and therefore know it doesn't include any knob and tube wiring from the 20s or random other connections) and ran a new line to a new outlet in the basement from which I could run an extension cord under the front steps to power all that stuff in front of the house. I would have put the new outlet in a better location but didn't have enough wire on hand for that (but had miles of outdoor extension cords). After that I spent hours hanging plastic skeletons from trees and crawling around underneath the shrubbery with electric pumpkins and things while providing the local mosquito population with blood. It is not really something I enjoy doing, but by the end of the evening the four plastic bins in the living room were empty and you could probably see the orange glow of my front yard from the ISS. So other than the 20 mph wind, and the crawling around in the dirt with the bugs, Sunday was beautiful.

Meanwhile, over in Colorado Springs, Derek Brouchard-Hall, the COO of USA Cycling, rather suddenly announced he would be stepping down at the end of the year. Actually, he didn't announce it and neither did USAC. Velo-News announced it, much to the dismay of all of the Local Associations and members who had not been given any kind of heads-up. Rumor has it that Derek will be doing something else cycling-related, but that announcement hasn't come out yet. Of course that opened the floodgates for anyone and everyone looking to blame someone for the decline in traditional road racing. Just for the record, I think Derek did a great job under very difficult circumstances. Most people don't have a clue what USAC actually does, what its responsibilities are, and how hard it is for them make positive changes at the grassroots level where the ground is constantly shifting underfoot. I'm in contact with people at USAC on a weekly basis and as far as I can tell they work their butts off.

So now I come to this morning, Monday, October 22, which is the first morning this fall that I've pulled on the old arm-warmers. It was actually below 60F, just barely, when I stepped out the door into the dark for a much-needed recovery ride. My legs were sore from something. Perhaps cycling, perhaps something else, but at any rate I was not looking to do them any more harm. Unfortunately it was still pretty windy out there, so although it was slow, the ride wasn't quite as easy as I'd have liked. On the plus side, that new single-speed freewheel I installed on the old commuter felt incredibly smooth on the ride in to work!

Just a Hint

The Saturday Giro heads out into the rising sun.

Around the end of last week we had just a hint of Fall. It was nice while it lasted, which wasn't long. After an easy ride on Friday morning when the temperature was low enough to make me wonder where I'd put my arm-warmers the last time I used them back in March or April, I rolled out the door early on Saturday morning to meet the Giro Ride. It was still fairly cool Saturday morning. The Garmin reported 66F as I rode out to Starbucks in the dark, and by the time I got home a few hours later it was still only around 80.

If you get to Starbucks early enough, you get the
primo bike parking spot.

For some reason I had been expecting a rather thin crowd for the Saturday Giro. This time of year there are a lot of competing things going on. So I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of riders showing up, one of whom was Dan Bennett doing his last ride before heading back home to Tucson. Dan was wrapping up one of the first full weeks of riding he's been able to do in a while, and after getting dropped the prior weekend I think he was bound and determined to stay with the group on Saturday. Thanks to the large group, perfect temperature, complete lack of wind, and clear blue sky, the pace was pretty fast. At one point I think Dan came off the back when the speed-o-meter stuck on 30-something MPH for a bit, but luckily the group had to slow down a lot for a light and everyone was able to re-group. Dan was fine for the rest of the ride. He has been having an agonizingly slow recovery from rhabdomyolysis that almost put him into full-on kidney failure so actually he's probably progressing nicely. For someone who has been racing at a Cat. 1 level, however, a recovery period that can drag out to a good year or so is hard to handle. Anyway, I arrived home feeling like I'd gotten a pretty good workout even though there wasn't a drop of sweat clouding the inside of my glasses. Apparently then the humidity is low enough, sweat evaporates before it drips off you. Who knew?  I spent the afternoon sitting in the sun sanding, spot-priming, painting and re-painting the front steps and trimming bushes while the paint dried. That resulted is some very sore quads thanks to all of the contortions required.

On Sunday I drove across the lake with Frank and Mignon for the 72-mile NOBC northshore ride. Over at Abita Springs we found a big group of about 20 ready to go. In a couple of cases, perhaps a little bit too ready. Steve, Pat, Kenny, Fred, and a number of northshore riders who I know but don't know rolled out at 8:00.


We had made a last-minute route change in order to avoid some of Hwy 437 between Barker's Corner and the turnoff to Folsom that involved taking Million Dollar Road to Fitzgerald Church Road. I knew that route well. The only problem was that once we got onto Million Dollar Rd. there were a few riders at the front who didn't, but were pushing the pace anyway, so as we came up to the turn at about 25 mph the back half of the group started yelling that this was the turn. It was too late to hit the brakes too hard, so most of us passed the intersection before turning back. Unfortunately, the front of the group thought someone had flatted, not that they had missed the turn.

The Sunday Northshore Ride coming over the firetower hill before descending to Enon.

As we rolled slowly down Fitzgerald Church I kept looking back because I knew we were still missing a number of riders. I could see one small group coming, so assumed that was everyone. It wasn't. The very front of the group had stopped and they were waiting for what they thought was a flat tire to be fixed. To make a long story short, they finally got back on track and we waited for them at Enon for a few minutes. As usual, a few riders had already turned back and a few more would cut the ride short over the next few miles, but we still had a good-sized group for the return trip. The pace this whole time had been a little erratic but definitely fast enough that I knew we might have some casualties by the end. Somewhere after leaving Enon Fred rolled up alongside me and told me his Di2 battery was dying and he was stuck in his small chainring, which in his case is something like a 34. I think his maximum cadence for the ride turned out to be somewhere north of 150 rpm. After riding the out-and-back down infamous House Creek Road, the group was kind of split but we still had six or seven left with us for the final ten or fifteen miles back to Abita Springs. That was followed by a rather long wait for a table at the Abita Brewhouse, so I didn't get home until, I guess, around 3 pm. By then it was Summer again. I kind of spent the rest of the afternoon and evening eating and drinking anything that didn't try to escape.

It was a good weekend. Looking at Strava, I note that Sunday's ride put my 2018 mileage just over the 10,000 mile mark, so I guess I'll be around my usual 11-12,000 mile total by the end of the year.

Two Rides, Dan, Chickens, and a Hurricane

Brian and Dan riding into the morning sun on Saturday. Brian crashed last Sunday and broke his bike but
otherwise was surprisingly unharmed himself.

It was a needed weekend at home during which I planned to do much around the house but didn't. What I did get to do was ride a bit, so I the bushes that needed trimming and the stairs that needed painting will just have to wait another week, or two, or three.

Double paceline - needed skills

Saturday was the usual Giro Ride, which was usual only until we were halfway out when it wasn't usual. Dan Bennett had told me he'd be in town for his HS 30-year reunion, and sure enough he was already at Starbucks when I arrived well before the crack of dawn. Although there were a few of the usual riders who were riding the annual MS Tour last weekend, and therefore weren't at the Giro, the group on hand Saturday morning seemed to be about normal. Kaitlyn, one of the Tulane students, was there for her first Giro, which turned out to be a rather fast one. Fast enough that she apparently got dropped before we hit the I-10 overpass. For the past few weeks the service roads on both sides of I-310, that we use to get over to Chef Highway, have been barricaded off by the city. As far as I can tell, it's just because they got tired of picking up the illegally dumped trash there. We had been going around the barricades anyway. Well this morning I was surprised when the group turned the opposite direction and headed back over to Bullard, and from there to Chef Highway. Bullard is kind of a mess of broken-up concrete plus a couple of traffic signals, so not exactly ideal. Gavin went to look for Kaitlyn and took a shortcut, but by the time he figured out that she'd turned back, we already gone by, so he spent some time solo. Anyway, it was a reasonably fast Giro, considering. By the time I got home there were some rain clouds heading in our direction, so I scratched plans to paint the steps.

Slow speed bike handling drills

The jaw from which that tooth was pulled almost two weeks ago still hurts periodically. I'm due to return to the dentist on Wednesday. I'm not too happy about this whole thing, but I think I may have lost about a pound as a result of slightly less enthusiastic eating so perhaps there's a silver lining.

Sunday I drove over to Pontchatoula with one of the Tulane riders for their "skills and grills" ride. This was just some easy double paceline miles followed by some slow-speed bike handling skill practice on the grass and then a couple of hours in the back yard eating hamburgers, playing croquet, and chasing Dustin's chickens around. I think it was pretty good team-building. They have a couple of Spanish-speaking riders this year, a few women, and rider from China, so it's an interesting mix. Hopefully most will still be around when the racing starts. I think they have about ten loaner bikes and all of them are currently in use, so that's encouraging.

This morning Dan met me up on the levee for my easy Monday recover ride, not that I had much from which to recover in this case. We had a nice chat, though, and finished up with coffee at Zotz.

Michael blowing up off the Yucatan this morning.
Fortunately heading straight north.

Meanwhile down south of us in the Gulf of Mexico there a new tropical storm named Michael that is blowing up pretty fast. All of the track guidance is still taking it way to our east, so we aren't expecting anything much from it here in New Orleans, but the intensity models have been indicating it will be a pretty significant hurricane by the time it slams into the panhandle of Florida. For us, it means we'll be on the nicer western side, and therefore will ultimately be getting a northerly flow by late tomorrow and Wednesday which should cool things down a bit. Tomorrow will probably be wet, however. Right after that we're expecting a cool front to push through, so by Thursday we may be seeing low morning temperatures in the 60s for the first time in a long time. It's still not time to put away the summer clothes, of course, but I certainly wouldn't mind a couple of cooler morning rides.

Looking out my office window right now as preparations are being made at the Superdome for tonight's Saints game. I think we're supposed to be officially "off" at something like 3 pm today.

Feliciana Fatality Fallout

The accident scene where Buddy and Tom were hit.
The road in the upper right was the finish of Rouge-Roubaix for a number of years.

Back on June 30 two cyclists were hit from behind by a car up in West Feliciana Parish near St. Francisville. One, Buddy Amoroso, was killed. The other, Tom Clement, was seriously injured. They were riding along the right edge of La 66, during the day, wearing high-visibility jerseys, with flashing lights, and a rear-view mirror, on a clear day, on a straight stretch of road. In fact, the accident happened within sight of the finish line that had been used for Rouge-Roubaix for a number of years before it was moved into St. Francisville proper. The 22-year-old driver of the car received a slap on the wrist. He had $15k in insurance. Tom's medical costs will be in the $200-300,000 range. Buddy was a city councilman in Baton Rouge.

West Feliciana parish includes some of the nicest roads for cycling in the state. Even though I'm from New Orleans, around two hours away, I've ridden thousands of miles around there since the early 70s, and the area annually provides venues for numerous road races and charity rides. The country roads around there offer quiet, tree-lined rolling hills. The economy is supported by prisons, tourism, and the state's largest nuclear power plant, along with a tiny bit of surviving farming.

In 1999 Jon Anderson, who was living around St. Francisville and loved to ride his bike on the worst possible unpaved roads he could find, especially in the dead of winter, and preferably in the rain, organized a group ride. Over the succeeding fifteen years it slowly evolved, first into a local-level race, and ultimately into a full-blown two-day early-season 110-mile regional-level battle that included impossible gravel climbs and huge prizelists drawing Professional to entry level riders from all over the country. For most people in the cycling world, it put the little forgotten town of St. Francisville on the map. Every weekend, year-round, cyclists from all over Louisiana and Mississippi could be found riding the many well-traveled routes in the area. You would think that would be considered a positive thing for the city and parish.

So when Buddy was killed by an inattentive motorist while he and his friend were doing everything right, you might have thought the response by the parish would have been to call for better enforcement, signage, driver education, etc., if only to preserve its status as a cycling destination.

Well, you'd be wrong.

The response was headed up by one Mel Percy, one of the parish council members. The back-story I heard is that once upon a time, Mel or one of his buddies, had apparently gotten stuck behind the police-escorted Rouge-Roubaix pack. He's gotten on his cellphone and called the sheriff's office and tried to get them to let him pass since obviously he was important and couldn't wait. Of course they couldn't do that and he had to wait until they got off of the state highway where they were being escorted through the initial 3-mile neutral section until they turned off onto a parish road to begin the actual race.

So anyway, Mel picks some of his local friends to form a bicycle "safety" committee and they come up with what are probably the most insane restrictions on cyclists you can imagine, and write them up in 4th grade English to present to the Parish Council. The obvious intent was to (a) keep cyclists off of "their" roads, keep the local folks from being inconvenienced by having to look where they were going and maybe even slow down and wait, and (c) shift liability to cyclists in case of another serious accident. Of course, perhaps I'm biased, so here's what they proposed (taken from an article in The Advocate). Judge for yourself:

• Requiring cyclists to wear an outer garment with at least 400 square inches of a high-visibility, fluorescent color. Percy said he lifted the wording from the state's hunting regulations, with a modification on the color.
• Requiring lights on the rear of bikes that are visible for one mile.
• Putting a laser device at the front and rear bikes in a group ride to warn cyclists of oncoming vehicles.
• Using rear-view mirrors on bicycle handlebars or riders' helmets.
• Requiring cyclists to ride in single-file formations, within 2 feet of the right-hand pavement edge.
• Prohibiting the use of paint on the roadway to mark the routes for cycling events, and requiring event organizers to remove signs and marking tape from the roads within 24 hours. 

In case you're wondering, yes, Louisiana does have a 3-feet law. It's called the Colin Goodier Protection Act, for the Doctor who was killed on June 9, 2008 on River Road near Baton Rouge when he was run over from behind by a truck. Of course, area cyclists turned out for the hearings that appeared to be just for show. None of these requirements would have prevented the accident that precipitated all of this. Driver education and signage, and improved roads might have, but no such recommendations or actions were considered. So at the end of the day, which was a couple of days ago, we have an ordinance that includes the following:

• That cyclists "wear an outer garment above the waist of which a majority of the material must be high visibility fluorescent colors and must have a forward and rear facing light with daylight visibility a minimum of one half a mile."
• That except for when passing, cyclists "will ride single file within two feet of the right hand side of the road" and "complete their passing procedure within 1/10 of a mile."
• And that cyclists "will ride in groups of no more than 10 riders with a minimum separation between cycling groups of at least a quarter mile."

Most of that is practically unenforceable, of course, if not illegal. Needless to say, this has cast its shadow over the many cycling events held annually in the parish, not the least of which is Rouge-Roubaix. (see "How did the Rouge‐Roubaix Start" for some history on the event.) The irony in all of this, of which there is much, is that the incident that initially ticked off one of the parish people was a race (permitted events aren't really impacted by the legislation), and it was on a state highway (the cyclist requirements apply only to parish roads). I guess I should mention that the requirements don't apply to "residents" riding in their own "neighborhoods." 

So basically we now have a very hostile environment in West Feliciana Parish where we once thought we were, at least in some respects, welcome. Indeed, all of the hotels and other businesses involved with Rouge-Roubaix, are fully supportive of the event. Still, putting on an event like Rouge-Roubaix is a very difficult and taxing task that involves lots of negotiating with businesses, sheriff's offices (in more than one state), churches, residents, sponsors, etc. Trying to accomplish it in an environment where the Parish has clearly indicated cyclists are not welcome makes it just that much more difficult. 

So, not surprisingly, Rouge-Roubaix announced this morning that the 2019 race is officially cancelled. This comes on the heels of last-year's cancellation due to flooding. Lots of riders have already said that they will no longer be riding in West Feliciana Parish. Legal challenges to the ordinance may be forthcoming. It remains to be seen if the sheriff and police will be willing to actually enforce any of this. While I can think of some other options for a Rouge-Roubaix type of race just north of the parish line, much momentum has already been lost.

Far Past Six at 6-Gap

Missing Frank but everyone else ready for the start

I was on the early slopes of the roughly 6-mile Hogpen Gap climb when a rider pulled up alongside. I was plodding my way up the 7-14% grade at about 5 miles per hour, locked into the 39x29. "It gets harder every year," said Steve. I grunted something along the lines of, "No kidding! My legs are shot." Steve inched slowly ahead as my unresponsive legs refused to lift my pace by the half mph it would have taken to stay with him. My neck and back were killing me, I was sweating more than normal, and already running low on water. But I was still riding, and under the circumstances I was happy with that. The bike was shifting when needed, the new 29-tooth cog was easing the strain a bit, and the jaw from which the dentist had ripped a tooth earlier in the week wasn't bothering me at all.

This was my 11th year to ride the 6-Gap Century up in Dahlonega. I would have guessed it hadn't been quite so many years had I not gone back through the blog and checked after Debbie Milne posted about it being her 15th year. I'd driven up the day before with the Tulane group, of which there were ten this year, not counting me and Dustin. Like last year, we didn't get to roll out of New Orleans until about 8:00 am, and like last year we arrived in Dahlonega a few minutes after 6 pm, which is when packet pickup officially ends. Luckily, although the volunteers were starting to pack up, we were still able to pick up our numbers and chips and t-shirts. We had a bit of a wait before we could get a table at Manuel's, which had recently moved to a new location just across the street from the old one. With my mouth still a bit of a disaster zone, I ate carefully and sparingly, as I have had to do all week. It was pretty much the opposite of carbo-loading, I guess, and probably not exactly recommended procedure prior to what would undoubtedly be a difficult 6+ hour ride in the mountains of North Georgia. I'd be putting a lot of faith in the energy gels this year.

At Manuel's Saturday evening

For a change, we had reserved hotel rooms early enough this year to be staying at the nearby Super 8, which was only about fifteen minutes away, and conveniently next to a Waffle House. That was good. When we tried to check in, however, that was bad. As the Indian at the desk tried to explain, English not being his first language by a long shot, the credit card authorization that Tulane had used to make the reservations had apparently been lacking a phone number. So he had cancelled the charge and wanted another credit card. We tried to call Michelle at Tulane to straighten it out, but she didn't answer, so I gave him my own Tulane travel card, knowing full well it was going to cause me all kinds of grief down the road with our corporate travel system. A few minutes later, Michelle returned the call and ultimately, with some difficulty, convinced the guy to credit back the charge on my card and put it instead on her card where it had been originally. Sheesh! Anyway, we were finally all set and everyone hit the sack around 10:30 or so. Hitting the sack, in my case, did not seem to include a lot of sleeping for some reason. Maybe I should have had that beer that I didn't have at dinner.

So Sunday morning we were up well before 6 am and went over to the Waffle House for breakfast. I wasn't really willing to take a chance on anything at Waffle House, considering my mouth and all, so breakfast for me was basically a gel, a cup of hotel coffee, 500 mg of penicillin, and a 12-hour Aleve. Perfect breakfast prior to a six and a half hour ride with close to 12,000 feet of climbing. Anyway, I was rather anxious about the timing and worried that the stop at Waffle House was going to get us to the start too late to get a good parking spot, but fortunately there were lots of spots left when we arrived a bit after 6:30 am for the 7:30 am start.

I got the bike ready with two big water bottles, and put a full flask of gel and a couple of gel packs in my pockets, along with my phone. Then attached the number plate with the timing chip to my handlebar, which I hated doing but it was what it was and the extra wind resistance was unlikely to impact my climbing "speed" anyway. By the time I got down to the start I'd lost track of the other Tulane riders who were doing the full 6-Gap distance, but found Pat and Steve just behind the "6-hour" rope. The start itself was pretty fast but was also fairly uneventful, which is to say I didn't see any crashes. I think there were probably about 100-150 riders up the road ahead of me by the time we hit the first little climb that isn't one of the 6 "gaps" but probably should be. That climb is fairly short and not too steep, and I was comfortable at around 11 mph for the most part. I was already expecting to blow up after a few hours, so I wasn't pushing my luck. I found another rider who was going at just the right speed and just tagged along behind him so he could pace me. The first real climb wasn't too bad, but I remember thinking, "I really need to start working on my core!" as it started. I could tell that my back and arms were going to be causing me trouble later. Somewhere along here I shifted to that new 29-tooth cog, which basically allowed me to go a little more slowly that usual but also with a little less strain.

Somewhere on Hogpen Steve came by as I was inching my way up the mountain at four or five miles per hour. Then he stopped at the top and I didn't, so I went down Hogpen a little bit ahead of him. I didn't push the descent too much, staying in the upper 30s to upper 40s. I think my max was around 49 mph. Right at the top of Wolfpen, which is one of the timed segments, Debbie Milne came flying past. I had just enough time to give her a "Go Debbie" before she crossed the timing mat just ahead of me. Just before the start of the climb up to Wolfpen Gap I stopped for some water because I didn't think I was going to make it with what I had left. Steve apparently passed me again around there. My legs were pretty much cooked at that point and my neck was killing me, especially on the downhills, so I was spending a lot of time going 4-5 mph on the climbs after that. The final long descent, which is always one of my favorites, was even better this year with nice fresh smooth asphalt. If I'd had anything left I would have really pushed it there, but as it was I let gravity do most of the work. It was already obvious that my finishing time would be well over a half-hour longer than it was in my better years, so there wasn't much point in pushing it. The last long stretch of rolling hills was made a bit easier when a couple of riders caught me and I was able to tag along behind most of the way to the finish. My finishing time was by far the slowest ever, something like 6:38. As it turned out I was just a couple of minutes behind Steve. A couple of the Tulane riders, however, had great times, around the 5:30 and under mark, although they neglected to attach their timing chips so they'd be readable, so they don't show up in the official listing. A couple of the TUCA riders who had been planning on doing the shorter 3-gap ride decided to start in-between the official 6-gap and 3-gap start times and managed to take a wrong turn that resulted in a nice long tour of the area south of the actual ride route.

We headed back without much delay this year, stopping for a minute at the hotel again to retrieve my glasses that I had left on the night stand. Other than a couple of hours of moderate rain, the drive back was happily uneventful with Gavin doing the last stretch from Mobile into New Orleans, so I was back home I think before midnight.

Extracted

The moon going down at the turnaround at Ormond

It's dark now when I head out for the morning rides, and with Daylight Saving Time dragging on all the way into November it's just going to get darker and darker every day. I don't much like riding in the dark on the levee bike path. Even at moderate speeds in the 23 mph range, runners and walkers sometimes appear suddenly, even with my retina-singing 900 lumen headlight aimed up the road. At the back of the paceline it's all just a matter of trust, something I have in relatively short supply. So I tend to hang back a bike length or two until the stars fade, which right now takes half an hour or so. This morning our small group headed out with a bright and nearly full moon overhead. Wes was there, having recently made the difficult business decision to shut down his cafe'/bike shop, Rouler, on Baronne Street. I know that for him the place was a lot more than a business, which I'm sure made it all seem a lot more like a personal loss. I had been there for lunch earlier in the week. I am certainly no businessman, but I have never understood how a small operation like that could survive downtown where there are literally a hundred other food and coffee options within a one-mile radius. He did give it quite a good try, though, and everything there was top-notch, but sometimes the quality to quantity ratio is just too high to be sustainable. I wouldn't be surprised to see an online operation rise from those ashes, though.

Pat, Wes and Rich - a conveniently timed flat

Anyway, Tuesday's ride was pretty smooth and steady, which is to say that I was having trouble getting my heart rate over 110 when I wasn't on the front. I admit to lifting the pace a little bit when I was, but my pulls were pretty short and my head was elsewhere most of the time anyway. On the one hand, I kept thinking about 6-Gap coming up on Sunday. That means a day behind the wheel and off the bike on Saturday. My plan, such as it was, had been to do my usual training rides on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then taper off the effort level on Thursday and Friday to make sure I didn't have to start the ride in Dahlonega with tired legs. On the other hand, I had a dentist appointment on Tuesday morning. The prior week I'd gone to the dentist for a long-overdue checkup where they discovered a missing filling in one tooth and something very suspicious under an old crown on another. I had a bad feeling about that. So this visit was to remove the old crown and see what the damage was. The best-case scenario was a little cavity and a new crown. Worst-case was having what was left of the tooth extracted and then more dentist trips to fix everything, not to mention at least a couple thousand dollars worth of work. Well, of course the worst-case scenario unfolded and an hour later I walked out with half of my face numb and one tooth lighter. I'd asked the dentist if I'd be OK for the weekend, and he said, "Sure. What are you planning?" I told him about the drive on Saturday and ride on Sunday. As a result he put in a couple extra stitches to make sure everything held together. So anyway, I went home, called the office to say I wouldn't be in, and took inventory of "soft" food that we had on hand since it was going to be soup and ice cream for a day or two.

This morning I thought I'd ride out to the lakefront easy, watch the WeMoRi from the back, or off the back, stop for coffee, and ride home. Not exactly the workout I'd planned, but I had been instructed not to do any "strenuous" exercise for a day or two. What the hell is "strenuous?" Anyway when I got up at 5:20 am the streets were wet and the radar looked pretty bad, so I decided in this case discretion was indeed the better part of valor and didn't ride. At this point the goal is just to let the jaw heal without incident so it isn't an issue this weekend. Assuming all is well today, I'll do the morning ride tomorrow at the lowest intensity possible and see how that goes. 

Alt-Giro

Having escaped unscathed from the tropical storms and errant hurricanes, things returned quickly to normal around here. Actually, other than a couple of days off for the schools and City Hall, they never really deviated much from normal in the first place. The past couple of weeks have been quite hot. Hotter, in fact, than August had been.

Last weekend I escaped to Colorado Springs for the USA Cycling Local Associations Symposium, by way of United Airlines super economy flights which don't allow for carry-ons other than "personal items" which in my case was a messenger bag containing my laptop and various undergarments. I'd been particularly looking forward to a preview of the new online event permitting, registration and reporting systems. The meeting started out with the usual overview by the USAC CEO, Derek Bouchard-Hall.

I was a little surprised to see that there was still a slight downward trend in road racing racer-days, although actual road licenses were up for the first time in five years or so. My sense here in LAMBRA is that things kind of bottomed out last year. Most of the races this year had stable or increased turnouts around here. Indeed, when they put up a table showing percent increases or decreases in licenses, LAMBRA ranked 3rd with a 14% increase over the previous year. Of course, starting with a low number always makes percent increases look better, but at this point any increase is a good thing. Of all the Local Associations, only three showed decreases, so that's a good thing. However, a lot of that can be attributed to the "automatic renewal" that a lot of people didn't realize they had opted into last year! The new systems looked pretty good, and it seems that the event permitting and online registration is almost ready for prime time, while the post-event reporting is lagging a bit behind. I don't think we'll see much of this rolling out until early 2019, though. New USAC memberships for LAMBRA were up 11%, which was the highest rate in the country. For comparison, Texas was down 9% (which translates into a pretty big number), and TN was down 20%. So anyway, I'd say I left the symposium Saturday afternoon feeling reasonably optimistic. Then I got to the airport. The front part of the COS airport was mostly plywood since it's in the middle of a renovation spurred on by a fire earlier in the year. Then I walked into the nearly deserted TSA checkpoint to find the lights off. I asked the agent what was going on and she said that a truck had backed into one of the big transformers out on the tarmac and the power was out for much of the building. Great. I wandered over the the one little bar/restaurant to sit down and have a beer. The power was out there too, and in fact the blown transformer was right outside the window being loaded onto a truck. They couldn't process credit cards and had to go find the manager with the cash register key just so they could make change. Oh well.

Eventually I walked down to my gate, only to find that the flight was delayed because of weather problems around Dallas. Also, the plane had an oil leak they were investigating. By the time we boarded, there was no way I would be making my connection in Dallas and since it would be late in the evening there wouldn't be any other options until morning. I was pretty much resolved to spending the night at DFW, but fortunately that flight was also delayed so I made it back to New Orleans around 10:30 or so.

Yesterday I met the Tulane club for a road ride up around Independence, LA - about an hour from New Orleans. We had nine riders, which made for a nice double paceline at a decidedly moderate pace. Even so, it was great to finally be riding somewhere that wasn't flat for a change. I'd put a new 11-29 cassette on earlier in the week to wear it in a bit before 6-Gap, which is next weekend. I am hoping I can remember not to shift into the 53 x 29 combination, because that just might rip the derailleur off of the bike due to the shorter chain I have on there. There will be a few Tulane riders going to 6-Gap who are definitely going to have trouble doing the full 110 miles, but fortunately there's a cut-off about half-way where you can opt out and do the 50 mile route instead. I'm not expecting to set any records at 6-Gap and in fact I expect that having the 39x29 option will simply allow me to climb even more slowly than before, if that's even possible.

Last weekend the Giro Ride went over the Seabrook bridge even though it was completely barricaded off for some emergency mechanical work. This weekend it was still closed, but not rideable, so we basically took Chef Highway the whole way from City Park. I guess it was better than nothing, but damn there are a lot of intersections and stop lights on that route. Next week I'll probably do normal rides on Tuesday and Wednesday, but will try to back off a bit on Thursday and Friday so I can at least start 6-Gap with fresh legs.

Forecasts

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along!

Well, while things in the tropics were certainly nice and quiet for the first half of hurricane season, it appears that mother nature is trying to make up for lost time right now. There are five systems currently being tracked. Luckily, none of them is headed straight for us here in New Orleans. Unluckily, the forecast for the next few days at least is looking more and more soggy. Looking out the window of my office here on the 6th floor all I see are dark skies, rain, and lightning.

The city just issued a flood alert. There's something new in the Gulf (Invest #95). There's a Cat. 4 headed for the Carolinas. There's another storm that will likely become a hurricane shortly headed for the Caribbean. I guess it was just good fortune that the front tire on my commuter was flat this morning and I resorted to taking the car, because it's not looking like this rain is going to stop any time soon.

At least last weekend went nicely enough. On Friday I tagged along with the Tulane coffee ride as usual. Dan Bennett was in town, so he and Wayne Sharp joined us. Naturally we spent the whole time telling stories about the old days. Dan also came out for the Giro on Saturday but turned back early when the pace started to go kind of ballistic. It seemed like a pretty fast Giro to me. On the way back a few of us stopped as most of the group blew through a red light at Michoud in front of a turning truck that was on his horn the whole time. Our reward for doing the right thing?  A three-mile chase that dropped all but three of us. If Taco hadn't come to the front and finished it off I don't think Gavin and I would have caught.

Dan and Wayne

On Sunday the Tulane team was doing some skill training over in Pontchatoula, followed by some bar-b-que at Dustin's house. That was mostly an easy ride - some basic paceline and cornering practice. It did get my heart rate going at one point when a big old dog-missile suddenly launched from a house along the road and blew straight through the middle of the paceline. It was a miracle that nobody went down, although I'm pretty sure we came as close to a major pile-up as possible without actually creating one. My collarbone was twitching for hours afterward!

As if the expected rainy weather wasn't going to play enough havoc with my training routine, I will be heading up to Colorado Springs on Thursday for the annual USA Cycling Local Associations Symposium. That will keep me off the bike for three days for sure. After that, there's the Six Gap Century that we'll be doing again the weekend of the 29th. Speaking of that, I went ahead and put that new 11-29 cassette on my training wheel the other day so I could kind of break it in a bit. My chain is just a tad short for the large-large combination, which is to say that it will shift to the 53-29, but it putting a lot of strain on the derailleur. The chain that's on the bike now is at about 2,100 miles right now. I'd normally wait until it was a bit over 2,500 before changing it, but by the end of the month it should be about there anyway, so perhaps I'll pick up a SRAM chain and swap it out before. Kind of hate to leave any chain miles on the table, but it will still be cheaper than ripping the derailleur off the bike somewhere at the bottom of a Georgia climb.

Next??

Looks like at least one of these could become a problem for us.

Looks like things will be getting interesting in a few days.

Rain Bike Morning

It was a Rain Bike day

Tropical Storm Gordon is racing in our general direction, but all indications are that it's headed for the Gulf Coast well over a hundred miles east of the city, so (1) we aren't expecting any significant impact, and (2) naturally the city is taking the opportunity to have a day off. The weather around here has actually been pretty nice thus far, and if things go as expected we could end up with a nice refreshing north wind tomorrow. Of course, we will be getting some rain like we did early this morning, but Gordon is a pretty lopsided storm and at the moment it looks like almost all of the heavy rain in on the eastern side of the center.

This morning I stepped out the door promptly at 5:45 am. The street was dry until I closed the door behind me. Then, right on cue, it started to rain. I turned around, unlocked the door, and went back inside to peruse the weather radar. It didn't look bad at all, and I figured the rain would stop within half an hour, so I pulled the Rain Bike down and pumped up the tires (it hadn't been on the road in months) and waited. Sure enough, the rain stopped. The roads were wet, of course. The Rain Bike has full fenders and heavy tires with Mr. Tuffys inside, so riding on the wet streets isn't a problem at all. Going fast, however, is definitely a problem since the bike probably weighs in at 25 pounds or so, but I wasn't planning on going fast. After three back-to-back Giro Rides, I was more than happy to do a short and easy ride on the levee this morning, and while the ride turned out to be both short and easy, it didn't turn out to be entirely dry. I got rained on twice during the brief 20-something mile ride, but with the temperature around 80F it didn't matter a bit.

Meanwhile, Tulane decided to officially close at 4 pm today, but is expecting normal operations tomorrow. I'm not sure what difference it makes to close at 4 pm instead of 5 pm when nobody is expecting much of anything around here, but anyway, that's what's happening. Looking at the radar right now, around 3 pm, it looks like all of the real rain is going to be in the Mobile - Pensacola area. Maybe as far west as Biloxi. I'm sure the local TV weather forecasters are disappointed. Since this is the first significant threat we've seen all season, they had been covering it as if it was an impending disaster. Hopefully I'll be able to ride tomorrow morning. We'll see.

Rebound

The Sunday Giro heads out - Fred, Matt and VJ

I've mentioned it to a few people over the course of this season, and although I was never really sure if my impression was based more on wishful thinking than on reality, I think perhaps I can safely say it was the latter. I think that Road and Track racing in the U.S., which had been on a downward trajectory ever since the Lance Bubble burst back around 2012, seems to have bottomed out last year and is now showing signs of a rebound.

Ashton Lambie sets new world pursuit record

Locally, road race participation and event promotion seemed to be holding steady or even growing a bit this year, with some increasing participation in the younger age ranges. Seeing this trend, I was finally starting to feel cautiously optimistic. During a conference call with USAC a few weeks ago, the Membership folks up there seemed somewhat optimistic for the first time in a long time, reporting increases in racing licenses across almost all disciplines. Still, I was reluctant to pop open the champagne. I still am. Nonetheless, all the signs are encouraging. There are currently at least two LAMBRA events being planned for 2019 that will, if things work out as hoped, be bigger than anything in recent years aside from the 2016 event in Jackson that despite great effort failed to pull in the numbers they'd hoped for. So it seems I am seeing, for the first time in seven or eight years, positive signals on both the local and national levels.

Ben King wins his 2nd Vuelta stage

What kind of pushed my guarded optimism over the edge recently was hearing the other day that American Ashton Lambie, who I had never heard of before, had rather unexpectedly set a new world record of 4:07:25 in the individual pursuit while down at the Pan Am Games in Mexico, beating the previous record set by Jack Bobridge in 2011 by a solid three seconds, which in the world of track racing, is huge. The team had just set a new U.S. record in the Team Pursuit of 3:53.86.

As if that wasn't enough, this morning Ben King convincingly won a second stage at  the Vuelta d' España.

So, maybe there's hope.

On the local scene, things have been kind of quiet as we are in a bit of a lull between the end of the road season and the beginning of track and cyclocross seasons. People are already doing some specialized training for 'cross and gravel racing. There's still the Pensacola stage race later this month, but after that I think road and crit races will become few and far between. For me it was another double-Giro weekend. Earlier in the week I had been planning on doing some kind of ride on the northshore, but by Friday the weather forecast was calling for a high probability of rain all weekend, so I decided to set my sights a bit closer to home. As it turned out, both Giro Rides went off without rain, unless you count a little shower on the way back home on Saturday. The weather down here has been kind of all over the map lately. At the moment there is a disturbance approaching Florida that has just gotten official "invest" designation, with all of the long-range models predicting it to move into the Gulf and strengthen. It's looking like tropical storm stuff at best, but at any rate it merits watching and will probably bring more rain around mid-week. It has been remarkably quiet in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico thus far this hurricane season, so I can't complain at this point. I mean, we're already into September. The NHC is giving it an 80% chance of development as of this morning, so things may be getting interesting - hopefully not too much so.

Katrina Anniversary

City Park lagoon on the way home with a little rainbow and a blurry, aka impressionist, photo

Today is the 13th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans. If you look back in this blog you won't find an entry for August 29, 2005. The last sentence of the last post I made before the hurricane read, "I think this is going to be bad," and the title of the post was "Looks like the Big One."  It was. The following morning we evacuated, spending the entire day en route to Dallas, and it was another day before I had an opportunity to post again. I was using dial-up internet at the time. Over the course of the next week or two this blog and the NOBC Yahoo Group email list because invaluable tools for tracking down members of the cycling community that had been scattered all across the country. Many lost everything, some never returned, some moved away. Yet somehow, within a couple of months, the Giro Ride and the morning levee ride were going again. In a way, they kept us sane.

Since the last road races of the 2018 LAMBRA season a couple of weeks ago I've been on a kind of auto-pilot, just keeping up my regular riding routine but without any near-term goals in mind. There are some track races coming up in Baton Rouge, and then a bunch of official, and not-so-official, gravel and cyclocross races or events or whatever you want to call them. I'm feeling like I'd like to find a cheap cyclocross bike at some point, but as usual such things are hard to find in the 49-50 cm range within my financial comfort zone. The old Pennine can always be pressed into service, of course, but by modern standards it is too big for me and rather heavy, and currently lacking a 700C rear wheel. The frame is designed for 5-speed and although a 6-speed wheel can easily work, I don't seem to have anything handy like that except for some old racing tubulars hanging in the basement. Perhaps I'll get around to building an appropriate wheel eventually.

With the university academic year having started at the beginning of the week, I'm looking forward to helping out with the Tulane team and have somehow volunteered myself for leading some indoor training sessions once a week once it starts getting too dark and/or cold for people to get out on the road consistently. We'll see how that goes. There's actually been a fair amount of activity already and there are a few new members even though the annual Organizations Expo isn't until this Friday.

Down the road, I'm scheduled to head up to Colorado Springs for a couple of days for the USA Cycling Local Associations symposium, which happened to fall on the same weekend as the Pensacola stage race that I had been kind of thinking about sort of maybe riding. Beyond that, I'm assuming I'll be making another trip up to north Georgia for the 6-Gap Century sufferfest. In a moment of weakness, I recently ordered up an 11-29 cassette for the occasion. It will be interesting to see if I can make it work with the existing derailleur and chain, but anyway I'd been thinking about it ever since I was passed halfway up Hogpen Gap by some guy casually spinning along while I was standing up in my 39x27 on an extended section of 10% grade. I seriously doubt having the lower gear will actually allow me to go any faster, but perhaps it will lessen the suffering just a tad.

This morning I headed out in the dark for the usual WeMoRi. The sky, as best I could tell at 5:30 am, looked cloudy. A couple of minutes later a light rain started to fall. I had no idea if it was just a prelude to a downpour or just a passing shower, so I continued on. Halfway to the lakefront it stopped and the roads were dry. I latched onto the group at 28 mph on Lakeshore Drive and made a couple of efforts when the opportunities presented themselves. On the final stretch along the lake to the finish at Shelter #1 the whole group came together. I was somewhere in the middle of it all as the speed started to increase a couple of miles before the finish. Gaps started to open here and there, and I was just surfing along with whatever wheels were still moving forward. We were probably inside of the last kilo and there was a small cluster of riders with a little gap off the front. Then I heard Eddie Corcoran coming up on the outside, and when he passed me I thought, "He's going to blow past those guys before the finish." He did. As I crossed the "line," aka the crosswalk, I looked up at the sky to the southwest. It was dark and ominous, but it looked like it was going to skirt us to the west so I rode the usual cool-down along the lake before heading back for coffee at Starbucks. Before I got there it started raining, and then stopped raining. I went ahead and got a cup of hot coffee, checked email, and headed back home on wet streets. 

Opportunities - LAMBRA Crit and Road Champs

Road Race finish area in Clinton MS (not mine)

There was a time that seems not so long ago, but actually is, when I would have seen the announcement of a first-lap criterium Prime as an opportunity to launch a breakaway. When it was announced on the starting line of Saturday's LAMBRA 40+ Criterium Championship, all it represented to me was an opportunity to get dropped on the first lap. I started fairly cleanly, around mid-pack, on the very bumpy course in downtown Jackson, Mississippi.

The masters field wasn't too big, but there was quite a bit of horsepower in attendance, so I was already expecting an early break. You'd think that by now I'd know enough under such circumstances to stay near the front, and perhaps I actually do, but apparently my physiology has different ideas about sprinting around the entire first lap of a criterium course. So by the time we came to the last corner, which featured a big hole right across where the best line would be, I was near the back. We came flying around the turn with riders taking all kinds of different lines trying to avoid the bumps when Peter, who I think was just ahead of me, almost lost it on the outside. Of course that was like 200 meters before that first-lap prime, so a gap opened up right away that we were never really able to close. So basically we were off the back by the time we finished lap 2. Well, with the front of the race pushing the pace and attacking each other, we eventually accumulated a nice little group anyway as other riders were shelled from the front group. By the time we were half-way through the 40-minute race the front group was starting to break up.  Eventually we were lapped by the lead group, and then by Frank and Kevin who I stayed with until a couple of laps prior to the finish when my front tire exploded like a gunshot on the bumpy downhill. I'd pinched it on one of the many sharp edges and cracks and was immediately riding on the rim heading for a turn I couldn't possibly make and a rapidly approaching barricade. Somehow I got it stopped before running into the barricade, and luckily someone standing there offered me his front wheel so I could finish out the race. Oh well. At least I finished before being lapped by them a second time. Elliott, with whom I'd driven up the evening before, got 3rd in the 35-rider Cat. 4 race, his first since upgrading, so there was that. After the last race of the day we packed up and headed over to Clinton where the NOBC had a couple of rooms for Saturday night, and then drove all the way back to north Jackson for dinner at Bravo, which has practically become a tradition when in Jackson.

So we were up early on Sunday to help set up for the road races, just a few miles from the hotel. I had not ridden, or even seen, the course, but knew there was supposed to be a significant hill at around the 10 mile mark on the 16 mile loop. The Masters race started out calmly enough, as in the phrase "calm before the storm." There was a half-hearted attack the first time up the hill that pretty much everyone survived, but I was fully expecting fireworks on the second of the three laps. We were about four miles from the second lap hill when a couple of the Velovit riders went to the front and started stringing the group out. I was about 4th wheel at the time and by then could clearly read the writing on the wall. Obviously a plan was afoot and a big attack was going to be launched on the hill. We rounded the right-hand corner about half a mile before the climb and Andrew Crater from South Carolina pushed himself in front of me. He could see what was about to happen too.

Getting dropped on the hill

The hill represented the best opportunity on the course to establish a break; also the best opportunity to get dropped. Leading up to the start of the climb the pace picked up even more and I was already in the red zone halfway up when things came apart. Frank and Woody had attacked hard and over the top Andrew and Frank already had a gap. That had not been the plan, though, and Frank wasn't going to help Andrew with the rest of his team, including designated sprinter Woody, still chasing. That was pretty much the last I saw of the front half of the race, but what happened was that the group came back together, and then there were more attacks on the last lap that gapped off Frank I think a couple others. Woody was totally gassed and starting to come off the back a couple of miles before the finish but for some reason the lead group started looking at each other and that lull allowed Woody to rejoin them with only a mile to go. So basically they had a chance to gap off the best sprinter and the blew it, with the predictable result that Woody won. Andrew was royally pissed off and apparently argued with the officials about a car or something that the other guys didn't think had anything to do with the finish. Guess there's more to that story. Meanwhile, back in the second group, we eventually accumulated a nice little paceline of six or so with everyone taking pulls. Naturally there was still a sprint for the finish anyway. I was on Troy's wheel when he basically led it out, and for a little while I thought he was going to take me all the way to the finish. I really should have stood up and sprinted sooner, though, because in the last 50 meters Mike Corcoran came around us, and then right on the line David Blumenthal slipped past me. So it was another bronze medal for being the first 55+ dropped rider.

The guys up in Jackson put on a great race weekend with significant prizes, so I think everyone had a great time. Andrew Do took 2nd in the Cat. 4 race with Elliott 8th, so that was nice. The only bad things about the venues were the road surface in the criterium and the traffic in the road race finish area. I don't know where all those cars were going or coming from, and at least none of them were going fast, but it really did cause some problems with a couple of the finishes. The other problem was the loud music across the street from the officials and finish line that made it almost impossible for the officials to hear the communications from the follow cars and race crew. It was loud enough that it was even hard for them to communicate between each other. Anyway, it was a fun weekend and other than a crash in the Cat. 4 finish that sent one rider to the hospital with a broken bone, everything went quite well. More photos at https://photos.app.goo.gl/prmZf98RLfHyzbLe9.