A Busy Few Weeks

We are gearing up for the 48th Tour de Louisiane stage race - June 8-9.

I was walking down the hall at work to get a cup of coffee a minute ago and thinking, "All this volunteer stuff is getting out of hand!" Actually, I'm sure it has been more of a timing issue where a lot of things seem to have been happening more or less on top of each other. Once we had put on the Westbank race, and then followed it up the following week by putting on the Time Trial Championship, we (and by that I mean about four of us) barely had time to breathe before getting back to the usual last-minute preparations for the upcoming 48th annual Tour de Louisiane stage race that is now just a couple of weeks away. To complicate things, it's been quite busy at work, and Danielle was in town to pick up her PhD at the LSUHSC graduation ceremonies.

Stretching the limits of my phone camera but not too bad a pic of Danielle after being hooded

Danielle and Shannon flew in from Olympia (well, actually Seattle) on the 14th. There were some pre-commencement things on the 15th over at LSUHSC, and then graduation ceremonies the morning of the 16th, followed by lunch over at Blue Crab and then a get-together for dinner at Catalino's Guatemalan restaurant on Maple Street. A couple of days later my niece Rachael Barnes picked up her MD degree up at Wake Forest. Early Friday morning Candy flew out to San Francisco, and Danielle and Shannon started loading up two big U-Haul moving containers with all of the stuff she's had down here since she started grad school a few years ago, plus the scooter, bikes, a dining room table and chairs, and anything else I could convince her to take. I'd been a little bit worried about the vulnerability of those things sitting out on the street, but fortunately U-Haul called and picked them up right away on Saturday.

The crit had a "misfit" class for
blue bikes, tandems, and other odd
bikes.

Shortly afterward I took Danielle and Shannon to the airport to fly back to the PNW, and went straight from there to the Federal City Criterium over in Algiers. I didn't bring the bike. I'd been so wrapped up in everything else going on that I knew I wouldn't be able to shift gears and jump into a criterium like that. As it turned out, I had more time than I'd expected and probably could have raced it but under the circumstances I rather enjoyed just hanging out at a small race and kind of winding down while helping to officiate a bit and then bringing all of the LAMBRA equipment back with me so I could then take it with me up to Tupelo this coming weekend. I was just happy that, with all of the complications, I'd only missed one day of riding.

Waiting for the start of the Beth's Friends Fondeaux

On Sunday I rode the BFF charity ride, which was connected to the Federal City criterium the day before. It started at Urban South brewery down on Tchoupitoulas Street and turned out to be kind of interesting. I decided to drive the car over there in the morning, and arrived a good hour early, which would have been nice except that I then couldn't find my wallet that I needed in order to pay the registration fee. After searching through my bag, I figured I must have left it at the house, so I got back int the car and rushed back home and still couldn't find it. I finally searched through my bag for, I think, the fourth time and found it hidden away down in the bottom of the bag. Then I had to rush back to Urban South and register.

Nice group for the BFF ride - mostly Giro/WeMoRi people

Luckily I got there with time to spare, which was good because Mignon had been planning on stashing some stuff in my car since she had ridden over from Jefferson. The whole time I was monitoring the weather because some heavy rain was heading our way and was looking to hit us around 11 am, which was just about when I figured we'd be finishing the ride. This ride goes over the Mississippi River bridge in the closed HOV lane, and then kind of wanders around the westbank on some nice out-and-back roads before crossing back over the bridge to the east bank. It's kind of loosely organized, but enjoyable and fast enough to qualify as training. A few riders took off early as we went over the bridge, but most of the front group that was composed mainly of Giro riders, stayed together. That kept the pace brisk but fairly civilized. As we approached the bridge on the way back I started getting tornado watch alerts on my Garmin via my phones Garmin Connect app. When we got back to Urban South I grabbed a cold Coke (it was beginning to feel like summer) and sat down for a few minutes.

Dennis and Reggie at Urban South post-ride

By then the weather was deteriorating rapidly and when I saw Mignon come in we went down to my car a couple of blocks away and stashed the bikes in there just as the first raindrops started falling. There was no way she was going to be able to ride back to her house with the weather like it was. A few minutes later all hell broke loose - lightning, thunder, hail, and wind. Luckily we were nice and comfortable inside drinking beer and eating jambalaya and pizza. A little later Reggie and Andrea showed up. They had been at the top of the bridge in the lightning and hail and everything. I'm sure a lot of riders had an unexpectedly exciting bridge crossing in the middle of that storm! I got to catch up with Wendy and a few other riders who I don't see that often, so it was all quite nice.

So tomorrow morning I'm heading up to Tupelo with a car full of race stuff for two criteriums, the latter of which is the LAMBRA criterium championship. It will be interesting to see who makes the long drive for that. It's almost six hours from New Orleans, so not exactly centrally located for most or our riders. I expect it will draw as many from Tennessee, Alabama and Florida as from LAMBRA. I'll be helping to officiate, but I plan to jump into one or both masters races if I can, just for the exercise. I haven't really raced all year unless you count the Auburn races earlier in the season, so I am not feeling confident about anything except my ability to get dropped in a criterium. The following weekend is the Hammerdal Classic nearby in Hammond that I'm hoping to race/officiate, and then the next weekend is the Tour.  So basically there will be no rest for the weary until the end of June. After the Tour there's a track race at the Baton Rouge Velodrome, and then the weekday Pontchartrain series starts.

The Race of Truth

Off to get the start line set up

The truth is, putting on a race, even a relatively basic one like a time trial, can be a lot of work depending on just how OCD you are. Last Sunday was the LAMBRA Time Trial Championship. On the face of it, putting on a time trial seems pretty straightforward. Line them up, write down the time when the started, write down the time when they finished, and subtract. Simple. Of course, reality is never quite that simple, at least nowadays when riders expect porta potties, police, start times, and correct results. I can remember when Candy and I would put on the whole Spring time trial series down across from Belle Chasse. On Saturday we'd swing by the bike shop and pick up a few trinkets to give as prizes. Sunday morning we'd jump into the MG or Triumph and drive over to the Scarsdale ferry landing with a clipboard, a stopwatch, and a pencil. The twenty or so riders would sign in, and if we were lucky we'd send a volunteer 12.5 miles down the river road to the Carlisle Sign with a traffic cone. After the finish we'd do the math in our heads. We'd take a sheet of paper with the results back home and then, maybe, in a few weeks or months, there was a chance they would be included in a newsletter that would be typed up on a typewriter and mailed out to club members. Things are a little different now. This year we had around 90 riders, which was similar to last year. They were all required to pre-register so that I could make up a start list, grouping age and skill categories together and seeding riders within them according to USAC time trial ranking points, which most riders probably don't even know exist. In order to do that, I print out all of the waivers from the online registration system. Then I download the list of registered riders and sort them according to class and category. From that I build a spreadsheet with groups organized by distance, age, and category. This year I used a rather complicated Excel formula/format so that I wouldn't have to input the colons when typing in the times. That turned out to be rather complicated and required a whole new formula to do the time calculations and rankings. Once I had all of the riders listed, I sub-sorted each group according to USAC ranking time. Then I assigned sequential bib numbers. Then I went through the stack of paper waiver forms and wrote the assigned bib number for each rider on his or her form. Then I went back through those forms and stapled the appropriate bib numbers to them. Then I sorted the waiver/bib numbers by last name. The whole process took at least four hours and was not without complications. For example, a number of riders, all from outside of LAMBRA, had registered for more than one class or category. In some states they allow this, so you do one ride and that time counts for all of the classes and categories your are eligible for. We don't do that. Unless you have chip timing, it delays the results tremendously and also would be rather difficult to deal with. Anyway, I had to contact those riders, find out which single class or category they wanted to enter, issue refunds for the duplicate entries, etc.

So on race day, I picked up Gavin at 5:45 or so, arriving at the TT location around 6:30. As our handful of volunteers started to arrive we got things set up at the registration location, and then at the start line, and then at the finish line, all of which were in separate places. They we tallied up our volunteers and of course didn't have quite enough to do things the way we wanted to. Luckily we were able to convince a few people to help out. With three different turn-arounds to marshal, and riders finishing well before most of the others had started, we need quite a few volunteers. At least three at the start, at least three or four at the finish, at least three at the turnarounds, and at least one at the registration desk to get waivers signed and numbers handed out. Somehow we managed it. I started all of the riders, then rushed back to the registration desk with the first batch of finish times. I think I made two typos that were of course noticed and corrected, but otherwise the results went smoothly. On the other hand, awarding medals was somewhat confusing since we skip over the non-LAMBRA riders to identify the top three LAMBRA riders in each class/category, but then we also duplicate medals for any non-LAMBRA riders who finish in the top three of their races. Luckily we had enough medals left over from last year because USAC didn't ship out the 2019 medals until Monday. I'm expecting them to arrive today.

Tulane riders Gavin, Kaitlyn, and Julia heading to Nationals in Augusta

So anyway, it was a long day, but there were some bright spots. For one, it didn't rain. That always complicates everything and lowers turnout. For another, despite a significant north wind, we had a new LAMBRA and course record of 51:12 set by Peter Reed. In all, there were 20 riders who went under an hour for the 40 km time trial that day. Also notable was that we had six 70+riders. Gavin Blair, one of the Tulane riders, posted a 58:40 in Merckx mode (no aero bars or disk wheels).

Gavin, Kaitlyn, and Julia took off for Augusta this morning with Dustin and Joey for Collegiate Road Nationals. I'm hoping they fare well. The road course up there is the same one on an Army base that I rode when I went to Masters Nationals way, way back in, for me at least, friction-shifting days. I would have placed very well in the road race had my chain not jammed between the freewheel and dropout when I made the final shift to start my sprint. I've never been quite that frustrated in my life. On the plus side, I placed 5th in the criterium there which I remember as being fairly technical and very fast and animated.

Westbank Speed - Eastbank Blood

Good turnout for the Westbank Speed Festival

It's been a few weeks since I've logged anything here, so I'll be doing a bit of catch-up ... in reverse. Some months ago Michelle Ginsburg and John Crosby called to see if the club might be interested in putting on a race at the NOLA Motorsports Park.

Michelle has raced on and off for at least a couple of decades and John races cars and is somehow connected with the Motorsports Park over on the westbank, which is what everyone in New Orleans calls the "other" side of the river, which is actually mainly to the south. So one day Mignon and I went over there to meet up with John and Michelle to see what might or might not be feasible. We had done a few informal training type races there a fairly long time ago, but they were done on weekday evenings and the traffic difficulties involved in getting over there after work proved to be their undoing. Since then, the park has been somewhat improved and better marketed, and seems to get a fair amount of use. It isn't just some small local track. This is a full-fledged multi-million dollar facility with multiple course options, the shortest of which is 1.8 miles.

So we checked out the facilities and talked it over, and I made up a rough budget that included the per-rider track fee, USAC insurance fee, LAMBRA per-rider fee, officiating costs, etc., and concluded that we might possibly break even if we could generate at least $1,500 in cash sponsorship. With a typical local-level entry fee of around $35, the club would net $9 per rider, not including reduced entries to club members, lower fees for a couple of categories, etc., to help cover a reasonable prizelist and related expenses.

Car Trophy!

Frankly, I thought we wouldn't be able to do it, but on the other hand we have a recently growing group of riders on the westbank, a number of whom own businesses there and have been sponsoring their own clubs. So we put the word out, and right away Joe Amadee offered to shake the bushes over there. By mid-February we had the necessary sponsorship in hand, all from westbank businesses, and the event was officially a "go" for April 27, the only day we could get the track because they don't run anything on it that day because of the nearby Zurich Golf Classic and the noise issue. Never mind that we were already scheduled to put on the LAMBRA Time Trial championship the following week, and had barely scratched the surface for sponsorship for the June Tour de Louisiane, and by "we" I mean Mignon, Pat, Christian, and me. Joe kicked in a couple hundred extra so that I could get ten big trophies with cars on top for the winners, and we started promoting the Westbank Speed Festival at NOLA Motorsports Park as best we could. By Wednesday of last week I knew we would have a good turnout. The weather was going to be great, riders were anxiously talking about it, and pre-registrations were starting to come in. By the time pre-reg closed on Friday night we had 80-something riders registered, with many of them signed up for more than one of the overlapping-category races.

We got out to the track on Sunday around 7 am to set up and were surprised to find that the track crew had already placed pylons marking off the course for us, which saved us a lot of time. We had a lot of race-day registrations too, so we ended up with 126 riders registered for 172 races. The first race was the Cat. 4/5 race with 58 riders on the line, which was probably the biggest field we've seen for anything in a while. Anyway, the races went off great despite a few crashes, and everyone really enjoyed the course and venue that included a restaurant, go-cart racing, and real bathrooms. John, Michelle, and Joe deserve a ton of credit because the race would not have happened without them. Mignon, Pat and Christian did a lot of legwork on race day and also spearheaded pre-race promotion. Ricky Dunn came down to officiate, and along with Michelle, and thanks to the long course that minimized lapped riders, results were fast and accurate and everything stayed right on schedule. I was pretty exhausted by the time I got home, unloaded everything, cleaned up and posted results, etc. I'd brought my bike to the race but the Masters race was immediately after the big Cat. 4/5 race and I probably wouldn't have had enough warm-up time, if any, anyway.

Matt hit hard on Wednesday morning

The WeMoRi the Wednesday prior to the race had a little excitement when Matt and a city bus tried to concurrently occupy the same space on Wisner Blvd. and Matt, who was on his TT bike, went down pretty hard when the bus closed the door on him and he ran out of road. As usual, I had ridden out to the WeMoRi and since I was running a couple of minutes early I turned right on Lakeshore Drive and went over the Bayou St. John bridge, planning to loop around the traffic circle. Coming over the top of the bridge I saw two riders, who turned out to be Matt and Rob, flying by the other way, so fearing that the pack was right on their heels I went around the traffic circle backwards and right back over the bridge, fully expecting to be swallowed up by the group at any moment. That moment, however, didn't come until I was nearly to Marconi. Matt and Rob must have been at least a minute ahead, maybe more. So anyway, I get into the group and suffer at the back for a while as I adjust to the abrupt increase in effort level as we make the right turn onto Wisner and the pace starts to ramp up again. We come through the light at Elysian Fields and there's Matt on the grass with his bike still in the street and Rob hovering over him. Most of the group stopped, of course, and someone took off to go get a car because it was clear that Matt wouldn't be riding home that day. He had gone right over the bars on his TT bike, whacked his helmeted forehead on the concrete enough to suffer a concussion, and landed on his right shoulder and back. Could've been worse, I guess, but he was obviously a little disoriented and definitely in a lot of pain. (He showed up on his bike the following Sunday during the Giro Ride cool-down.)

New Tatoo

My own injuries from the crash a few weeks ago are all pretty much healed up, and I never lost much riding time at all, although I now have a tatoo on my left kneecap from three teeth of Keith's chainring as I road-surfed on top of his bike. I never could get all of the grease out of the wounds without doing a lot of painful additional tissue damage. The knee still  hurts a little bit, but that seems to be improving, albeit slowly. Otherwise, it's been a lot of routine levee rides with Giro Rides on the weekend and the  usual commute to and from work. The next opportunity for me to race will be in a couple of weeks, again on the westbank, at the Federal City criterium. That may be complicated by some officiating duties and also the fact that Danielle's graduation ceremony is the week before and she will be leaving that afternoon and will definitely need a ride to the airport, so basically it's all a bit up in the air at the moment. Situation normal.....

The Chainring Massacre, Detective Work, and Defense

Mystery Canyon bike hit from behind on LSD

So last Tuesday evening we, and by "we" I mean the local cycling community, learned that a rider had been hit from behind on Lakeshore Drive, presumably in the right lane with the big bicycles painted on it and the signs that say "Bicycles may use full lane." The driver had stopped and said he'd been blinded by the sun, which wasn't unreasonable considering the time of day and direction, not that it was an excuse for continuing to drive without being able to see what was in front of his car. Strangely, in fact extremely strangely, nobody seemed to know who the rider was. A couple of riders had happened upon the scene as the police were about to leave, and all they knew was that (a) the rider had been taken away in an ambulance and was "stable," and (b) the police were going to leave what was left of the carbon fiber Canyon with carbon Mavic wheels and Garmin and Speedplay pedals on the side of the road like it was a piece of debris. Kristina, who arrived as the police were leaving, got Matt to come pick up the broken bike. Thus began a week-long detective story to identify the rider and get the bike back to him. Once word went out on FB, everyone with a Canyon bike was identified and contacted and none of them had been in a crash. The plot thickened. The Garmin was investigated to see where and when the mystery rider rode, and it turned out that most of the rides started downtown near Poydras, probably at a Condo. I searched Strava but couldn't turn up anything solid. That nobody in the competitive cycling community had a clue was rather shocking, since the bike wasn't exactly some department store junk, but a fairly legit racing bike.

Found him!

It wasn't until Monday that Matthew J got the Garmin files from Charlie T and tediously created short Strava segments along the route the mystery rider had taken until he finally got a name - Miguel Solano - who nobody seemed to know. Using resources that will remain confidential, I was able to track down the rider's contact information and ultimately his FB page. Surprisingly, we had three mutual friends, all in Texas, all cyclists. The phone number was called and by Monday afternoon he'd been contacted. He had been at University Medical Center with a fractured L1 vertebra, had surgery, and was recovering. I felt so relieved that we had finally solved the mystery. It had been bothering me for a week!

Danielle preparing for her presentation

On Friday Danielle did her dissertation defense, cleanly jumping the last major hurdle for her PhD in Epidemiology from LSUHSC. I sat in for the presentation but then had to run (almost literally) back to my office for an important conference call, then went to the LSU Dental School for their School of Public Health crawfish boil, the back to work for a meeting. Danielle will be heading back to Olympia at the end of the week, then returning for graduation for a few days. In the interim she will be starting a new job at the Washington State Department of Health in Tumwater, which is basically part of the Olympia metro area. We are very proud of her.

Fog and wet roads on Saturday, but a solid training ride anyway.

It was a Giro Ride weekend for me, which was good considering all of the other things going on. Saturday's Giro featured a lot of heavy fog for practically the entire ride, so when I went out on Sunday morning, thankfully in summer kit, I was glad to see that there was just a little bit of actual fog, even though it felt like I was riding in a light rain on the way to Starbucks. The ride itself had a good turnout and there were a few at the front keeping the pace high, so that was good. I was planning on going to Pontchatoula right after the Giro since a number of the Tulane riders needed a ride to a end-of-season crawfish boil over at Dustin's place. I was mostly hanging out in the draft and things went nicely out to the turnaround at Venetian Isles. There was a bit of a tailwind on the way back, and just as things were picking up, Matt flatted and everyone stopped. We got going again pretty quickly and of course the speed got fairly high heading back down Chef highway and onto that little stretch of I-510 before we turned onto Lake Forest Blvd. As I've probably mentioned before, Lake Forest Blvd. is a concrete road on top of swamp mud, so it's a minefield of cracks and sharp-edged holes. So naturally whoever was at the front decided it would be a good idea to go 27 mph there. So I'm sitting in this long thin line of riders when I see a little gap opening up a couple of riders ahead. Just then, Matt comes up on the left and Keith N moves over onto his wheel and I move over onto Keith's wheel as Matt starts closing the gap at 29 mph.

After the crash. Keith on the right trying to walk it off.

Things were going just great for a little while until suddenly I see Keith's bike sliding sideways in front of me, which washes out my front wheel and dumps me basically on top of his bike. It seemed like we slid for a really long time, and I had time to roll onto my back before grinding to a halt. I picked myself up and took a quick inventory. The bike, surprisingly, seemed fine. More surprisingly, I still had most of my skin. I could feel a light burn on my right hip, there was road rash on my right lower leg, and there was blood running down my left leg from my knee to my socks, but I hadn't hit my head and I hadn't broken any bones, so I was kind of excited about that.

Keith's hip. His arm and elbow were similar.

Keith, on the other hand, looked far worse, and I surmised that I had probably surfed on top of him and his bike for a little while before making contact with the concrete. He was missing patches of skin best measured in square feet. Remarkably, his bike was also fully functional since it had been a sliding type of crash with no real sudden impact. In fact, the "incident detection" on my Garmin hadn't even been triggered (I'd set it off by accident just the day before when I dropped the front wheel to the ground after hosing it off outside). So while most of the group continued on, six or seven of us rode back the rest of the way rather slowly. I could see some nice black impressions from Keith's chain on my arm, and on my left shorts, extending all the way to my kneecap, was the impression of a chainring. I had three good puncture wounds from the chainring on my kneecap, which had bled rather profusely for a couple of minutes. Back at home I took a quick and rather stinging shower, cleaned the wounds up as much as I could (I'm sure I will still end up with a grease tattoo on my kneecap, however), closed the skin with some would closures, and rushed off to pick up people for the crawfish boil. Fortunately the injuries weren't too painful, so everything was fine until I was back in New Orleans that evening and the knee started to hurt. I was a little swollen. On Monday I went for an easy short ride on the levee with Danielle, mostly just to keep the knee moving, and then headed to work after taking a 12-hour Aleve, which worked pretty well.

Relatively minor injuries for me - relatively

This morning I headed out to meet the Tuesday levee ride, not knowing if I'd be able to make the full ride or keep up. My knee was still hurting every time I put pressure on the pedals, so I wasn't very confident. After waiting for a train, I met up with the other riders who had delayed their start for a few minutes because of the train. I told them I'd be sitting on the back and possibly turning around early. We were about fifteen minutes into the ride when my knee started feeling better. I don't know if it was just that the pedaling had loosened it up, or that the Naproxin had kicked in, but by the time we were halfway out to Ormond I was able to start taking pulls. We weren't going super fast, so that certainly helped. We picked up a few riders along the way, and on the way back one of them basically attacked when his turn came at the front, just after Pat had pulled off. Pat had slowed the pace by one or two mph, so perhaps the guy felt like he should ramp it up again, but anyway he went way overboard. I heard Rich say something, and could hear Pat also saying something as he struggled to get back on. That pushed the speed up from the 23-24 mph we'd been going to around 29 mph, at which point the rider pulled off and asked "did I do something wrong?" as he dropped back. I think the result was that he had gapped off two riders, and ultimately himself as well. Anyway, by then my knee was feeling basically normal and I was not feeling any pain, so that was kind of a relief. I'd been wondering if I'd done more damage than I'd thought, but I now think it was just the inflammation and swelling.

A Lull

We've been in kind of a lull since the Red Bluff fondo a few weeks ago, so not much to blog about other than a lot of routine early morning rides in the dark, plus the weekend Giro Rides. It has been in the mid to low fifties in the morning all week, which to me feels rather cold and is practically impossible to dress for. As we approach April the training rides are starting to get a little faster for a little longer, but unfortunately we don't have any really nearby races on the calendar until the end of April when we'll be hosting the Westbank Speed Festival at the NOLA Motorsports Park. This should be a fun day with a full slate of races on the track, plus the opportunity to try out Karting. It's actually a really expensive venue for us to use. Even with $35 entry fees, the club will probably net about $5 per rider at best.

Fortunately the riders who live on the Westbank stepped up and raised enough sponsorship to cover a nice little prizelist. Then, the week after that race we will be hosting the Time Trial Championships. In addition, I'm just about to submit the Tour de Louisiane event permit for June 8-9. I'm probably going to go with BikeReg for online registration for that one. USAC has finally worked out a deal with them, and even though everything won't be ready for official roll-out until June 1, I think most of what I need should be in place now. It'll be a little more work to get that all set up since, at the moment, I can't duplicate a prior year online registration setup from USAC so that it will migrate to BikeReg, although that is one of the things they are currently working on. Another interesting development, and one that should be in place in time for the Time Trial, is a long-awaited deal between USAT and USAC on some kind of joint racing license or membership thing. Hopefully that will make it easier for USAT riders to come do our Time Trial. We'll see.

Saturday Giro Ride stopped for a flat (didn't stop for the next one, though!)

Last weekend we had a couple of nice Giro Rides. With the weather warming up and the road season rapidly approaching, the number of riders is increasing, as is the speed. Even so, the Tuesday/Thursday morning levee rides are still a bit inconsistent, attendance-wise. On Tuesday it was chilly and quite windy. I think there were like four of us, and a couple had plausible excuses for turning around early. Then, this morning (Thursday) we had a big turnout, which for this ride is about a dozen, that made for a much faster ride. By the way, the Mississippi River level has started to drop a bit and the Corps of Engineers has started closing off the Bonnet Carre Spillway, so maybe I won't have to move stuff from the basement to the main floor after all!

Thursday morning returning on the levee

As usual, I've been loafing around most of this year around Zone 2, which is to say I'm doing just enough riding to keep from getting much fatter but not really enough to keep from getting dropped in a real race.  Situation normal. February and March are never good for me, and I don't usually feel like I've hit my stride until around mid-June or July. On the plus side, there a good slate of LAMBRA races in May and June, followed by the usual lull in July into August, but that does at least open up the opportunity to travel. Maybe.

Danielle flew in from Washington a few days ago. We have my niece's wedding this weekend, so lots of family will be arriving today and tomorrow. I think we have a bunch of family kind of camping out at our house overnight before they can get into a short term rental down the street, and there's a crawfish boil at my sister's house tonight. I'm going to have to take tomorrow off from work, I'm afraid, lest I appear to be more antisocial than I really am. Then next week Danielle defends her dissertation at LSUHSC before flying back to Olympia where she already has a job lined up with the Department of Health. The only bad thing is that the Tulane Cycling team has Conference Championships over in Denton TX this coming weekend and neither Dustin nor I can go because of weddings, so that's a little disappointing since they are offering a couple of non-collegiate races. Masters Nationals this year is in Colorado Springs, which would be a nice place to go, and a terrible place for me to race. I mean, going from sea level to 6,000 feet and expecting to survive repeated high-intensity efforts, uphill, is just ludicrous. I still have vivid memories of the 1980 nationals in Bisbee, Arizona where it was only around 3,000 feet but on a course that was straight uphill in one direction and straight downhill in the other. I felt great climbing on the first lap, came flying down the mountain at 55 mph with the group, and completely imploded halfway up the next lap having still not recovered from the first lap's climb. Lesson learned for sure. Anyway, the Crossroads Cycling Classic and LAMBRA Road Championships just decided to move to that same weekend. This morning Steve was talking about going up to the Alabama Cycling Classic, aka Sunny King, April 13-14, which would be fun but kind of a heavy lift for me right now. We'll see.

Mardi Gras to Red Bluff

Endymion, Saturday night

There's always so much going on this time of year that I tend to feel a little overwhelmed. Last Tuesday was Mardi Gras. For me, it wasn't really a very active Mardi Gras season. Between the weird weather for most of the week before, and I guess some general laziness, the only parades I made it out to see were Endymion on Saturday night and Thoth, the Sunday before Fat Tuesday.

For Endymion we went down to the Tidewater Building downtown as usual with a ton of food and drink for the annual get-together at Candy's office in the Psychiatry department. Although the weather was warm and there was no threat of rain, for some reason the turnout at the office was kind of weak this year. The parade, however, did not disappoint, so that was nice.

The weather forecasts leading up to that day had been calling for lots of rain, so it was kind of a last-minute decision to hop on the bike and ride down to Magazine Street next to Whole Foods. Candy needed to pick something up from Walgreen's, so she took a long hike to the Riverbend, and met me just as the parade was starting. It was kind of a strange parade, as it turned out. Because of the weather threat, they started an hour earlier than scheduled, and then pulled out all of the marching bands and dance groups and other fun walking entertainment, so it was just one float after the other. Back when I was a kid, of course, that would have been a dream come true, because all of the bands and things were nothing more than unwelcome interruptions to the far more important bead-catching activities. Anyway, the float riders were throwing tons of stuff, which is still fun to catch even at my advanced age, but I missed the other stuff a lot. So after a really quiet Monday after a cold front had come through, I was up early on Shrove Tuesday for a short little spin on the levee and a ride over to Audubon Park to watch the start of the annual Royal Run that very few people even know about. Somehow I think it's kind of cool that this tradition continues and you get a chance to see the king and queen of Rex before they get costumed and made-up, and if you want, you can get a Rex T-shirt and have some king cake and champagne.

Queen and King of Rex at the Royal Run, 7 am

After that I went back home and got cleaned up as the truck floats started to line up outside the back window along S. Claiborne Avenue. Our plan for the day was to ride bikes down to St. Charles Avenue near Napoleon, watch the Rex parade, and then walk down to the French Quarter. Although it was a bit cold in the morning, it warmed up a bit during the day and there was no chance of rain, so that was encouraging. We walked down to the "Rex House" that had recently suffered a devastating fire. Rex stops there every year to toast various folks while waiting for Zulu to clear Jackson Avenue. This year the family that has owned the house for about a century erected a big stand out in front of the gutted mansion just so that the tradition could continue unbroken.

For some reason, however, Rex was stalled there for what seemed like an hour, so we started our long walk downtown later than usual. By the time we got downtown we were hungry and decided to get something to eat at Manning's before venturing into the Quarter. Well, that was a big mistake. It took us at least an hour to get a couple of hamburgers, so by the time we made it into the French Quarter it was quite a bit later than usual. As a result, I missed all of my favorite walking groups like the Ducks and St. Ann krewe. Also, I just didn't see that many interesting photo opportunities during my brief stroll up and down Royal and Bourbon streets. It was already starting to get dark when we headed back uptown, and I guess it was 7:30 or 8:00 by the time we got home, having walked at least twelve or fourteen miles. Anyway, not one of my more exciting Mardi Gras experiences.

Rex a few hours later on St. Charles Avenue

With all of the Mardi Gras festivities behind me, the next thing on my calendar was the Red Bluff Gran Fondo. I'd been consulting with Bo for a few months on this new event, and knowing him I knew it would be well organized. The weather forecasts had been looking bad for the event for a few days, but seemed to be improving. Even so, I went there fully expecting to get rained on.

Down in the French Quarter on Royal Street

The roads between Columbia and Monticello up in Mississippi have been a favorite place for area cyclists to indulge in somewhat more brutal than usual training. There are lots of nice little climbs, mostly reasonably steep, combined with rough roads and little to no traffic. I rolled out of bed that Saturday morning around 4:45 am, pick up Gavin and Mignon around 5:30 and got up to Monticello a bit before 8 am for the 9 am group start. Mignon and I were registered for the full 102 mile route. Gavin, along with a number of other bike racers I know, were all registered for the shorter metric century, which guaranteed it would turn into a race. As it turned out, Gavin "won" the metric "not a race" with Dustin 2nd. We were probably only ten or fifteen miles into it when the group split, with mostly the more serious metric century riders in the front group and the rest of us in the second group. Along the way there were a number of flat tires thanks to the speed and road surfaces, which included a few very short segments of gravel. Knowing that I would be riding over 100 miles, and knowing the guys pushing the pace wouldn't be, I was just trying to conserve as much as possible without getting dropped. Fortunately, the group I was with was all on the same page and once the "race" group went off the front we settled down into a nice moderate pace.

Gavin and I did the Giro on Sunday. My legs were
still pretty sore.

At around 53 miles we came to the intersection where the metric century route split off from the full century route. There was a bit of confusion there, mostly because most riders hadn't really studied the course. Fortunately I'd downloaded the route onto my Garmin and was getting nice alerts and maps prior to the intersections, so I always knew which way to go. Anyway, I think most of the group I was with stopped at that intersection, which was also a rest stop with cookies and drinks and stuff, while made the right-hand turn to do the second half of the century ride. I was surprised to see only two other riders ahead of me do the same. I caught up to one (Drew from Oxford) and we started riding together at what I thought was a nice sustainable pace, fully expecting at least a few more riders to catch up to us. Well, what actually happened was that a pair of riders came flying up to us - one of them had flatted so the other had stayed with him - at race speed. The two of us latched onto what was essentially a 2-man team time trial for a few miles before it became obvious that the pace was going to be unsustainable for us, at which point we dropped off and continued our own 2-man paceline. That was essentially how we remained for the next 45 miles as our strength gradually began to fade. We were probably about 25 miles from the end when we decided to stop at a rest stop to refill on water. As we were standing there with the local volunteers filling our bottles and trying to give us all sorts of food, we saw a rider go by. He couldn't have been more than a minute or two behind us. Drew kind of rushed to get back on the bike, so I rushed with him. For the next ten or fifteen miles, which included about twenty turns and lots of neat little twisty roads with punchy little climbs, we watched him about 45 seconds ahead of us and wondered why he didn't just ease up for a second and wait for us. It was Cale Guidry from BG down in Thibodaux, who I knew was a strong rider who was never afraid to be out in the wind, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but I wasn't really in race mode for this and the extra wheel would have been nice. Anyway, we were maybe ten miles from the end when we suddenly caught him. I thought he would latch onto us since, by that time, we were not going very fast and were climbing even the smallest hills in the lowest gears we had. As it turned out, his legs were cramping up and he limped in a couple of minutes behind us.

Anyway, we ended up finishing 4th and 5th, which would have been impressive if there had been more riders doing the full century (52 finished), but really most of the horsepower had done the shorter route as a race. Those two rider who had passed us at around 50 miles and the rider who had been ahead of them apparently got together eventually and they finished over 20 minutes ahead of us. My legs were pretty shattered by the time we finished and even on Monday were still achy. We waited around for Mignon, who was the 3rd woman to finish, ate pulled pork and stuff, and tried to re-hydrate before heading home, arriving back in town just after dark without ever having seen a drop of rain. The only problem with that was that I'd neglected to put on any sunscreen, so ended up with a mild and very unexpected sunburn. So in our car we had the winner of the metric century, 4th or 5th in the full century, and 3rd in the Women's full century. [Full results] 

Auburn Flyers Weekend

Hanging around College Street on Saturday

Collegiate racing week three in this year's series took me up to Auburn, Alabama along with ten other riders, eight of whom were Tulane's. For once, the forecast wasn't looking terrible, so I was kind of excited about that. I packed the thermal knickers and long-sleeve jersey anyway, since I know if I hadn't it would have ensured a repeat of the prior weekend's surprise weather. We didn't hit the road until quite late - I think around 5:30 or a bit later - but the drive to Auburn is easier and shorter than almost any of the team's regular road trips to practically anywhere in Texas. There was a ton of fog along I-10, but once we headed north it was easier going. With my regular glasses still out having new lenses installed, I'd been getting by with the single-vision contact lenses that I normally use almost exclusively for riding. They are "12-hour" lenses, and I can tell you that's a remarkably accurate timeframe, after which they start to burn a little. I had to deal with a bit more glare from the oncoming headlights than usual, combined with my gradually diminishing night vision acuity, but it wasn't really all that bad. Having one of the Tulane motor pool minivans with lane-assist added an extra measure of security. So we arrived fairly late, around 10:30 or 11:00 I think, and everyone hit the sack pretty quickly.

Masters start

Saturday were the road races on the same 8-mile course I'd ridden the year before. There was no significant threat of rain and the temperature was probably near 60, so basically summer kit plus base-layer for me. With all of the disruptions in my training routine over the prior month or so, I didn't really know what to expect, but since this was basically just a short Master 35+/45+ training race for me, I didn't have any goals other than not getting dropped by the main field. With 29 riders on the line, at least I would have lots of wheels to draft behind. The course features a moderate climb right after the start, and then a steeper 1-kilometer climb about half-way around, followed by a net downhill punctuated by a couple of short but punchy little climbs. There's a right turn about 600 meters before the finish, all of which is basically flat. The race itself was pretty moderate for the most part. A 2-rider break rode off the front on the first of second of our five laps, and as far as I could tell, there wasn't much of an effort to chase. I suspect there was a little teamwork, in the form of blocking, going on at the front. I was feeling pretty good on the climbs, perhaps because we went up them without any attacks every time except once, and eventually it became clear that it was going to come down to a big field sprint for 3rd place. Over the last few miles I worked on moving up near the front, but the pace had been a little too easy and therefore almost everybody in the field was thinking he had a shot at the sprint, which made the last couple of miles a little sketchy and bunched-up.

I guess I was somewhere in the front third of the group coming around the last turn. From there the speed started ramping up quickly and I positioned myself over on the left, just inside the centerline. A moment later some rider came up alongside on the left trying to push his way in. He made contact with another rider and they bounced off of each other as I went by. The next thing I heard was the sound of a spoke being broken as one rider's wheel must have gone into the quick-release of another, followed by riders and bikes hitting the asphalt. The sprint had already started, though, and when we got to 200 meters a rider went flying past on my left, so I latched onto that wheel and eventually came past it, finishing apparently 3rd in the field sprint, so 5th overall. Surprisingly, all but one of the riders ahead of me was 45+, so I was 4th in that age group. Better than I'd expected.

Afterward one of the riders complimented me on my riding, and specifically on my smoothness, so that kind to took the sting out of the time another rider in the field addressed me as "Sir." I mean, this was a Masters race, you know? At that point I realized that I'd probably been racing Masters longer than the 35 year old riders had been alive. The team as a whole did pretty well. It was practically the first race ever for some of them, so just finishing was the main goal. Gavin, riding in his second-ever Category A race, finished an impressive 11th in a 43-rider field. Kaitlyn was 16th in the Women A race, finishing with the second group, while Julia was 8th in the 35-rider Cat. B race. Dustin rode the Cat 1/2/3 race, winning the field sprint and placing 3rd behind an early 2-rider break. Since we had no plans to race the afternoon time trials, we headed off to lunch and ice cream on S. College Street, which I immediately recognized from some gymnastics trip back when Danielle was at Iowa.

This was a fun group

Sunday's races were at a big oval test track near Auburn. The weather was even better - lots of sunshine and not cold. I was glad to see G.W. Wenzel there, although he wasn't riding this year. Kaitlyn was 8th in the Cat. A race, which was pretty good. All of the other women were lumped together in a 30-rider Cat. B race. You might think that a closed slightly banked oval over a mile long would be really safe, but actually the wide road and lack of actual corners tend to result in big messy bunched-up fields unless the pace gets really fast.

She was OK. Better safe than sorry.

It was probably only about half-way through the Women's B race that a couple of Tulane riders came by and yelled to us that Oriane had crashed. We could just barely make out a couple of riders on the ground and a moto about 500 meters upstream. Dustin rode down there to see how everyone was and right away called me to come down there too. Meanwhile they were trying to figure out how to get the nurse medic down there in the middle of the race. By the time I got my bike and got there they had Oriane covered with  a space blanket and the nurse was treating her like she'd just been pulled out of a crashed car. She was a little shaken-up and had hit her head hard enough to crack the helmet, but other than the usual road rash she seemed to be OK. Even so, they called an ambulance and hauled her off to the nearby hospital, which I guess was good even though she wasn't showing any signs of a concussion by the time we got there. At that point I was planning to go to the hospital and skip my race, but by then the B women had all finished and so they went instead.

Gavin was pretty happy with this win.

My race was Masters combined with Cat. 3/4, which in this case included Gavin, who had just finished placing 4th in the A race, along with Kaitlyn, Julia, Joey, and Arianna, all of whom were racing their second races of the day. That resulted in a pretty big field that had to be around 40 riders at least. Now, since Gavin had basically just done a cool-down lap and then immediately lined up for this race, I would have expected him to sit in for a while, but instead, at the end of the very first lap, I see him launching himself off the front. He ended up in a small break with, I think, a couple of masters riders. Meanwhile, back in the pack, I was kind of chilling near the back enjoying the big draft. It was pretty windy, and so when you came around past the finish and around the curve at that end of the oval, you started up a slight incline and then got hit by a headwind. Every lap the pack would slow down suddenly and everything would bunch up at that point, so I already had my exit strategy worked out when the inevitable crash happened in the middle of the pack with four or five laps to go. Right ahead of me were Kaitlyn and Julia, and we all bailed out onto the grass that sloped steeply downhill to the inside of the oval. Julia somehow made it back up and onto the road without having to unclip, and Kaitlyn was soon back on the road, but I had to unclip and walk back up to the asphalt (I was a bit over-geared, as usual). Once I got going I caught up to Kaitlyn and a four of five others and figured my race was over, but surprisingly when we came around to the start/finish they gave us a free lap with 3 to go. The finish stretch was slightly downhill with a strong tailwind, so I just watched Stuart Lamp, the official, and as soon as he said "go" I sprinted hard. I think just a few of us were able to latch onto what was left of the pack, which, as I would later discover, had been shattered by the crash. So now I'm thinking how great it is that Julia was able to get back to the front group, and figuring we'd be sprinting for something like 12th place. Well, as it turned out, we'd been put back in with basically the front part of the pack that hadn't really been affected by the crash, so a bunch of riders who had gotten held up by the crash and couldn't get back up to the remnant of the main pack, and hadn't gotten a free lap, were now behind us. Anyway, not knowing any of this at the time, I put in a sub-maximal effort at a sprint, still thinking that Julia and a bunch of others were ahead of us. When they posted results I was surprised to see that they had me listed in 9th, way ahead of Julia and obviously a bunch of others who were all ahead of me immediately following the crash. Really, they probably shouldn't have given us a free lap, or at least put us in behind the riders who had gotten gapped off but hadn't stopped at the pit, but since it all transpired on the back side of the course, I guess they were kind of guessing about where to put us in. Anyway, there were only a few prize places, so I don't think anybody really cared. Gavin, who I think was probably powering the break, ended up 2nd behind a Masters riders, so 1st in the Cat. 4s. He was a happy camper, for sure.

Dustin leading the 2nd break

After that was the Cat. 1/2/3 race, where Dustin missed the small early break, then got away with a small chase group. It all came back together in the final couple of laps, though, and Dustin ended up sprinting to 2nd place in the Cat. 1/2 field which I think was also 2nd among all of the 1/2/3s.

Meanwhile, the other girls had returned from the hospital and a couple others had gone out to get something to eat, returning with 60 (yes, 60) soft tacos from Taco Bell. At least nobody went hungry, and we didn't need to stop for dinner on the way home! I dropped the two riders who were in  my van off on campus, stopped by the house to drop off my bags, drove to headquarters to drop off the bike holders and spare wheels and pump, went back to campus to drop off the van, and rode back to the house, arriving I guess around 9:30 pm. It was a fun weekend and I was glad I got to do a couple of races and especially a couple of pack sprints.

False Advertising at College Station

Ready to head back home

Last weekend was another collegiate race weekend, and although those things usually take a big bite out of my own riding time, I was kind of excited about it because the weather forecast was looking so much better than the prior weekend. Granted, it was a pretty low bar, but when I started stuffing things into my travel bag on Friday morning I was expecting dry roads and temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Winter jacket?  Naaah. Thermal knickers? It won't be cold enough for those. Basically, I brought a summer kit, and then threw in a long-sleeve jersey and wind-front base layer "just in case." I know better than that, of course. I mean, after all these years of racing I should know better than to head off on a cycling road trip in February without clothes suitable for 35-degrees and rain.

Keeping warm at the Road Race

There was another reason I should have been less optimistic. On Tuesday I'd come down with a head cold. Scratchy throat, sleepless nights, stuffed-up head. By Friday I'd been on 12-hour pseudoephedrine for three days, but since I was so certain that the weather would be dry and relatively warm, I just knew I'd be able to do at least a bit of riding on Saturday and Sunday, salvaging a bit of the weekend and perhaps keeping me from getting fatter than I already was, having already skipped rides because of the head cold. Although there were only four TU riders making the trip, they had been unable to get a Tulane minivan from the motor pool, so Dustin and I were taking personal cars instead. I'd have one person and four bikes, while Dustin would have the other two bikes and riders. We hit the road around 2 pm on Friday for the long drive to Texas A&M at College Station. The drive was marred by a lot of traffic and a fair amount of road construction, but we still arrived at a pretty reasonable hour.

Cold and wet Time Trial riders

Early Saturday morning, after not sleeping very much, I stumbled in the dark over to the Super-8 motel window, pushed aside the curtain, and thought, "Crap." It was raining, and the temperature was in the 30s, all of which was entirely different than what Weather.com had led us to believe twenty-four hours earlier. It looked like the actual rain would end in time for the 8 am Time Trial, but they weren't offering much hope as far as the temperature went. It was going to be cold and wet all day, and, being only partially recovered from a head cold, there was no way I'd be getting on the bike that day. I hadn't even brought much in the way of warm non-cycling clothes with me, so I layered-up with what I had, and pulled the rain jacket out of my commuting bag for good measure.

Gavin ready to go for the TT

The Time Trial was the same as it had been in earlier years, a 10 km one-way affair at 30-second intervals with absolutely no course control. I don't know how they get away with doing this sort of thing over in Texas without having at least a couple of police cars around. Anyway, it was clear that I wasn't the only one who had been led astray by weather.com's false advertising. All of the riders were clearly improvising in one way or the other, although in some cases they were just wearing their skinsuits and freezing. At any rate, the TT went fine. Gavin, competing as a Cat. A for the first time, was 5th out of 19 with a solid time. Kaitlyn and Julia, competing in Cat. B, went first and second. only 9 seconds apart, and both faster than the 2nd place Cat. A woman. Julie finished 7th in the Women C.

Cat. B Women on the line

By the time the afternoon criteriums started on the A&M campus the roads were reasonably dry, but the temperature was practically unchanged. Riders were wearing everything from summer kit to full tights and jackets. As seems to be typical at collegiate races, they completely changed up the races and start times on the spot, with the result that the B and C women would be riding together. At least this was better than what was posted on the original flyer, which showed one criterium starting 5 minutes after the next. Julia and Kaitlyn were primed for this race, and after Julia put some pressure on the field early in the race, it wasn't long before Kaitlyn rode off the front of the group.

Kaitlyn attacks, Julia creates a gap - teamwork

That quickly split the pack and Julia tucked herself into a small 4-rider chase group where she could bide her time while the others tried in vain to close the gap to Kaitlyn, who somehow managed to stay out there all the way to the end, raising her hands as she crossed what she thought was the non-existent finish line where there was a Bike Barn flag. The actual finish was about thirty feet farther, but it didn't really matter. When Julia's group sprinted, Julia also sat up at the flag rather than the finish line, which was actually just a seam in the road with traffic cones on either end. I don't think that mattered, but she was definitely disappointed to finish 3rd instead of winning the pack sprint. Julie finished 9th in the C category. It felt good to get back in the car with the heater on, I must say.

Pensive Gavin

So Sunday morning it was still cloudy, but at least the temperature was up into the low 50s. I was feeling better than I had the day before and decided that I'd pile on some extra clothes to avoid getting chilled and pull the bike out to see if I could get in some easy to moderate miles without risking pneumonia. Confirming rumors from the prior day, the road course had been modified and shortened to cut out the advertised gravel section because just the day before the county had laid down a nice new thick layer of new and essentially unrideable gravel. I'm sure some were disappointed by this development. I wasn't one of them.

Cat. A RR Field

First off were the A men with Gavin. Dustin was tagging along at the back of that one. I waited until they started, then got my bike together, and jumped in behind them when they came around at the end of the 2nd 6-mile lap. I was still pretty concerned about stressing my compromised lungs, so the first time the pace kicked up into the 30s I eased off the back, stopping at the end of the lap to re-assess before continuing. I was wearing my thick commuting vest over a long-sleeve jersey and wind-front base layer, so despite the bare legs I was pretty warm and ended up with the vest mostly un-zipped and functioning like a parachute. I stopped again at the start before resuming when the breakaway came by, and then dropping off from them to wait for what was left of the field that included Gavin, and riding with them before stopping with one lap to go so I could see the finish. Gavin looked pretty well-toasted but still sprinted and finished 10th out of 21, which was pretty good for his first Cat. A road race.

Flying Feedzone Water Bottle

Next up were the women, and by then I was feeling a little more confident that I could make a few efforts without doing too much lung damage. Dustin and I started behind the B women, who were mixed in with the Cat. C men, which is really never a good thing but almost always happens with collegiate around here.  This race was obviously slower and shorter, so Dustin and I sat at the back for all but the final lap. They were probably only half-way through when the pack split with Julia and Kaitlyn unfortunately on the wrong side of the split. We didn't really know how many of the B women were in the lead group, which fairly quickly disappeared into the distance, and since we couldn't really engage in any coaching under the circumstances we couldn't ride up to Kaitlyn or Julia to ask. Well apparently there must not have been any B women up there because in the end Kaitlyn won the pack sprint with Julia 2nd, which is how the final results were posted.

Right after the women finished we loaded up the cars and headed out for food before hitting the road for home. Julie, who was in the car with me, was having intestinal problems from something she ate at lunch the whole way back. Luckily I had some kind of medicine to help with that in my first aid kit. By the time we left the sun was coming out and it was much warmer, but a few hours later we found ourselves driving through the same chilly wet weather we'd had on Saturday. Still, the drive back seemed a bit smoother and I was probably back home by 9:30 or so. All-in-all I was really happy that I'd been able to get in 50 miles or so without feeling like I'd done any significant lung damage.