Tour de la Louisiane #51

Last week could be well-described by the term "unexplained absences." It started on Monday, which was Memorial Day. As usual there was Kenny B's Memorial Day ride through town out to the Chalmette battlefield with stops at Holt Cemetery and the WWII museum. I rode out to Starbucks where the ride would start, just as I had done the prior two mornings for the Giro. For some reason the turnout for this year's ride was pretty small. Go figure. Sitting there before the ride I chatted with the sidearm-carrying Veteran who I see there often in the mornings. He and some of his friends go out every year to Holt Cemetery the day before Memorial Day to clean it up and put flags at the graves of the soldiers. This year, that was our first stop, and when we got I was surprised to find that he was already there. Anyway, it was a nice ride even if the group started out small and finished even smaller. 

Memorial Day Ride

The rest of the week was just the usual routine of group rides for me, which was good because I was increasingly anxious and distracted ahead of the big Tour de Louisiane weekend. Pre-registration was lagging even more than last year, for reasons unknown, but at least the weather forecast looked pretty good. Mignon had done a ton of work on the planning, and on Thursday evening she, Christian, and Ty stopped by so we could split up the stuff that we'd need to transport across the lake. That evening I stapled together about 100 copies of the race bible and made sure the big Excel workbook we use for registration and results was in reasonably decent shape. I'd taken Friday off so I could pre-assign bib numbers in the morning and populate the spreadsheets. Pre-registration ended at midnight Thursday with only 70 riders registered. I don't really get that. We are busting our butts to put on three races at three different venues as close to the city as is really feasible for that kind of thing and there were probably 100 other riders in the general area who apparently came up with excuses to stay at home. To twist the knife, this was one of those years when we were quite short on sponsorship money, so with that kind of turnout the club lost $3-4,000. It would be one thing if the forecast had been for rain all weekend, but as it was we were virtually guaranteed to have mostly dry conditions and even relatively low humidity on Saturday.

At the road race

So I loaded up the Volvo with the P/A system, generator, two bins of equipment, numbers, pins, flags, banners, tent, computers, camera, etc. and headed across the lake around 2 pm. My plan was to freshen up the road marking for the Time Trial before checking in to the Comfort Suites hotel at Highway 59 and I-12. Well, as luck would have it I was halfway between the start line and finish line when a little rainstorm sprung up on top of me and washed away my road marking plan. Fortunately, I could still see the marking from last year on the wet roadway. So I drove over to the hotel where I found Steve, one of the two motorefs we have, already there. I knew he'd be staying with me Friday night but didn't know when he'd be arriving, so the timing had fortunately worked out. After hanging out in the hotel room for a couple of hours we drove up to the Abita Brewpub for dinner. That turned out to be remarkably nice. They had added a bunch of outdoor seating since I'd last been there, and even had some live jazz music.

Earlier in the week - Friendly Friday Ride. All of these
people should have been racing on Saturday!

Saturday morning I got up really early, stopped at Starbucks where they didn't even have coffee ready (I got an Americano instead) and made the drive up to Stoney Point, stopping to put up the 1 KM sign along the way. As I was driving there I got a call that turned out to be one of the Covington police officers wondering where everyone was. He had the day wrong for the criterium. That caused me a little bit of concern that maybe I had somehow given them the wrong date (I hadn't). Soon all of the other volunteers started to show up and by 7:45 am we were ready to check in riders and, we were hoping, register some new riders. I was quite surprised that we had no race-day registrations. Perhaps people were still remembering the COVID year and thought it wouldn't be allowed. Who knows? On the plus side, that all went smoothly as we got the start/finish area set up, checked in with the Sheriff's deputies (I think we have 8 or so for this 16-mile, 6-corner course) and got the follow cars lined up for the 9:00 start. This year we were allowing riders who suffered a mishap in the road race to go ahead and race the other stages if they wanted. A few ended up taking advantage of that.

The Road Races went off nicely this year. There was only one crash, and it was self-inflicted when one of the Cat. 3/4 riders who thought he had the pack sprint in the bag sat up early to put his hands in the air only to see someone starting to pass him out of the corner of his eye. He dropped back down to the bars and one of his sweaty un-gloved hands slipped off the bar and he went down just after crossing the line. Fortunately he didn't take anyone else down. We wrapped up the results quickly right at the finish line, and after tearing down everything and cleaning up I headed back to the hotel to post the Road Race results and make printed copies to bring to the 5:30 time trial. Meanwhile, Ricky went over to the nearby Bogue Chitto state park and did some riding on the mountain bike trails there before meeting back at the hotel. The time trial went nice and smooth except for a couple of mistakes on my part, but at least we didn't have a thunderstorm, which has practically gotten to be tradition. There were two riders for whom I had apparently written down the wrong starting times. Both were staged immediately behind missing riders, and as always we waited out the 30 seconds for the ghost riders before starting their 30 second intervals, but somehow I had written down the start time for the missing riders for them. Of course I discovered that at dinner, again at Abita Brewpub, when one of the riders emailed me about his time, so it didn't get corrected until after dinner.

The Covington criterium, as always, seemed kind of chaotic to me but apparently well-organized to the riders. With three officials and two motorefs plus me the start/finish setup went fine, especially since we had an extra half hour thanks to there being only one Junior who we had race with the women. Once again there was some confusion about the Boston Street closure. Since it's a state highway the Covington police have an issue with closing it, even though at our meeting earlier in the month they always say it's fine. We may just end up shortening the course by two blocks and avoiding it altogether. Anyway, thanks to our ability to have radio communication with the police they were able to open the street back up to traffic between races and then close it again when each race started. We had a few corner marshals around the course as well to help control that corner and also the bike and pedestrian traffic on the Tammany Trace which crosses the course in two places. 

Thanks no doubt to the smallish fields there were no crashes at all for the criteriums and everything went off as planned except for one little snafu with the Baldwin Motors Subaru that was to lead a neutral lap for the Cat. 3/4 field. Somehow the diver got confused and turned right instead of left, unexpectedly showing up back at the finish. Luckily the riders knew better as did the motoref who was with them!

Working the race with me this year we had Ricky D, Cole S, and Mark D officiating/scoring, plus motorefs Ian F and Steve. Mignon was handing registration and police and awards and primes and one of the corners in the road race among other things. Christian F did a ton of work with course setup for the road race and criterium as well as serving as a corner marshal. Chip E was in charge of the road race follow cars. He drove one and Kerry P, Randy H, Ty P, and Christian F drove the others. Boyd and Ty were also taking photos. Ty also picked up and deployed the hay bales around the crit course. Adam Watts handled the criterium pit, and Erich M served as announcer and general DJ for the criterium. After the last of the prizes were handed out and the last podium photos were taken we tore down the criterium course and were ready to roll by 1:30 or so. Mignon, Kerry and I went over to Buster's, where we used to do the awards back in the day, for a late lunch since we were starving by then! After driving back across the lake I unloaded the car and got to work posting the final results to the website and sending out the appropriate announcements. 

It was a long week, but I know the riders really appreciated it, even if the field sizes weren't as big as they should have been. The next race weekend is up in the Jackson MS area June 18-19 for the Brandon Grand Prix which will include a road race and a criterium, presumably like last year. My brother just bought a house up around there but I don't imagine that is all finalized yet, plus he still has to sell the house in Orlando and make the actual move. I am definitely looking forward to free lodging for races in the Jackson area next year, though!

Punishment Pass

Front of the Giro Ride coming over the Danziger bridge Saturday or Sunday morning.

It was another fairly routine riding week for me. We seem to be rapidly getting into summer mode now, and I have been arriving back home pretty well soaked in sweat. Even so, it's not yet as hot as it will be later on in the summer, and I've yet to resort to freezing those huge waterbottles in preparation for the weekend rides. I did re-stock on Hammergel and Scratch, though, and have been adding a scoop of Scratch electrolytes to one waterbottle pretty regularly now, partially for the actual electrolytes, but also just because the taste helps me drink more. Even with that I'm still a pound or two low after the longer rides, so a bit dehydrated for sure.

There was a big group for the Friday morning ride.

This week's Friendly Friday ride had a particularly big group so I guess the earlier sunrise and warmer weather is pulling in a few more riders. We are finally at that time of the year when I can comfortably leave home without a headlight by about 6:15. I am still using a headlight on its lowest setting when I ride out to meet the levee group for 6 am, but I can usually turn it off shortly after the ride starts.

Saturday's Giro Ride seemed fairly easy this week, as a few of the usual workhorses were absent. We are still taking the alternate route down France Road and Almonaster, and I guess that will continue for at least another two or three weeks until they get the Seabrook bridge repaired. After Saturday's Giro I drove out to the Tour de La road course to check it out and re-mark the turns. We took the dog along for the drive to see how he'd handle a longer drive, which fortunately turned out fine. The road course looked no worse than usual. There were lots of fairly recent asphalt patches on almost all of the roads, so I guess the parish did a little road maintenance some time last year. There were only a couple of actual potholes that could cause problems, so I marked those with white road marking paint that may or may not still be there by the time the race happens. Of course the one or two mile stretch along Sunlight Road, between that sharp left-hand turn where we had a crash last year and the next turn at the Sunlight Baptist Church, is still all broken up in a way that I can't really fix myself. Basically it needs to be completely re-surfaced, so all I can do is warn the riders about it. Otherwise the course looked OK. I didn't check the time trial course, but will need to re-mark that finish line at some point soon.

The Sunday Giro heads out along Lakeshore Drive

Saturday afternoon the weather forecast for Sunday morning was looking pretty bad with a high chance of rain all morning, but when I got up Sunday the radar was clear and the rain chances were really low so I went ahead and headed out to Starbucks for the Giro. Turnout was predictably a bit low, but we had a big enough group on hand regardless. There seemed to be a slight chance of rain around 10:00 but we are always back well before then. Things were going along just fine until the front of the group didn't make the left turn from Almonaster onto Michoud like we'd done the prior two times and instead continued on Almonaster, which meant we'd have to negotiate those dangerously angled railroad tracks near the end. Just as we got there and riders, including myself, were weaving all over the place in order to cross the tracks at a safer angle the warning bell went off and the railroad crossing arms started coming down - basically right on top of me. I had to duck to slip under on of them as it was coming down. At the turnaround where some people sprint it out for the actual finish line while others turn around early and stop under the tree those of us who hadn't turned early had a bit of a surprise. I usually turn around around 200 meters from the end where there's a turn lane by the fire station. When I did I could see that the riders who had turned around early were already riding back.  A couple of us had to make a pretty decent effort to get up to that group before the pace started to rise, but most of the riders who had sprinted were basically left behind. I knew that was going to piss them off, as well it should have. It was two or three miles later when they came sprinting past the group on the right - clearly a punishment pass - and the group I was with never really made an effort to go with them. That was pretty much the last we saw of them. Although things had gotten pretty fast for a while on the way out, the ride back was relatively easy. 

Rerouted

The Sunday Giro starting to string out as the pace rises on the way back down Chef.

After last week's excursion to Augusta I was really wanting to race. Unfortunately it was just another week of the usual group rides, however. I guess I had maybe 4 hours of sleep before I headed out on Monday morning for the 6 am Mellow Monday ride. I might have just slept in except for two factors. One was my compulsive need to mitigate the lost training mileage from the prior week. Another even more critical factor, however, was that the dog woke me up at about 4:45 am. Although the dog is getting better about it, he is still waking us up once or twice a night in order to go out. He is also getting a little bit better about not wanting to wrap his teeth about arms and ankles. Even so, there's still a lot of puppy left in him. He has destroyed all of the soft dog toys so we are now just getting the relatively indestructible ones from places like Bullymake. They seem to last a bit longer and he can't tear them apart and swallow the pieces quite as easily. 

Thursday on the Levee Ride

Anyway, the weekday rides were fairly routine. It's finally getting warmer, bordering on hot, around here, and the sun is coming up early enough that headlights aren't needed for more than twenty minutes or so, which is good because the battery in mine is definitely on its last leg. I love this time of year when I don't need to check the outdoor temperature before getting dressed. It probably saves me ten minutes in the morning since I don't have to make wardrobe decisions, search for the right layers, put on base layers and then outer layers and long gloves and caps and stuff. What a relief. Of course, that all means that we're only a week or two away from having my glasses covered with sweat, but I'll take sweat over ice any day.

Sunday's alternate Giro Route.

One little wrinkle this week was the emergency closure of the Seabrook bridge at the eastern end of Lakeshore Drive. That resulted in an ad hoc route change for the Giro that was nevertheless well-attended. The only way over the Industrial Canal for the Giro will be via the big Chef Menteur Blvd. Danziger bridge for at least the next month or two until they get the Seabrook bridge repaired. On Saturday we took Franklin to Leon C. Simon to Press down the Chef, crossed over the bridge, then worked out way over to Almonaster. We went all the way out to where Almonaster turns into Old Gentilly Road and meets up with Chef Menteur. The only problem with that was the diagonal railroad tracks near the end. I was amazed that nobody crashed. For Sunday we decided instead to turn off of Almonaster at Michoud just to avoid the tracks that are guaranteed to eventually take someone down. Too bad, though, because I really liked that long unbroken stretch. We used to ride Almonaster as part of the Giro years ago, but switched over to Chef Menteur when the road surface started to get really bad. It's been mostly re-paved since then, so it's pretty fast with just a couple of surprise potholes, although I hear it can be kind of muddy when it's been raining. Coming back on Almonaster I was having flashbacks of the sprint at the western end that we used to do for the Giro Ride. On Sunday we didn't quite make it that far without stopping, however, because Jaden picked up a screw in his rear tire. That took a couple of tries to repair and since that was the second flat for the day I was a good twenty minutes late getting home, which wouldn't have been much of a problem except that it was Candy's birthday and we needed to go out to Gambino's to pick up a Lemon and Chocolate Doberge birthday cake because we were having the neighbors, one of which was also celebrating a birthday, over that evening.

The Tour de Louisiane is looming just a few weeks away and as usual I feel like everything is still up in the air. I'm cautiously optimistic that we will have a decent turnout this year but you never really know until a few days before the race. As always, the big challenge is finding enough volunteers to handle the road race setup and follow cars, and then for the criterium course setup and marshaling. Hoping for the best, as usual.

Back to Augusta

It had been a long time - 28 years to be exact - since I'd been to Augusta, but memories of the road course at Fort Gordon and the criterium in the old part of the city along the Savannah River were still fresh in my mind. I'd had a couple of really good races, along with one mechanical disaster, when I'd been there for the USCF Master's Nationals with Mike Lew, Mike Williams, and a couple other teammates. This time it would be for the USAC Collegiate Road Nationals, supporting Tulane's Julia Simpson and alumnus Gavin Blair who was now riding for Maryland where he's in graduate school. I'd be taking my bike, and although I wasn't expecting to get in much riding, I was hoping to be able to check out the road course that was essentially identical to the one I'd raced on back during the Clinton administration. Over the years that course has been used for numerous national championships.

Julia - TT

As usual, collegiate nationals was scheduled basically on top of everyone's final exams. Dustin had an exam in the morning on Wednesday right before we planned to leave. Julia had one on Monday afternoon, maybe twelve hours after we expected to be back. On the plus side, the weather forecast for Augusta couldn't have been much better. We met up at HQ, aka University Square, around 2 pm to load up the nice big Tulane van. With only three of us in a 12-passenger van (with the last two seat rows removed) we had plenty of space for bikes, spare wheels, tools, tent, chairs, trainer, cooler, etc., etc. The nine-hour drive was long but uneventful, and we arrived at a nice Airbnb not far from the base at a reasonable hour. Gavin had driven down from College Park and arrived ahead of us. For Thursday the plan was to go get our credentials for Fort Gordon and check out the road course. Despite what they warned about in the technical guide, all we really needed was a driver's license to feed into the kiosk in the visitor center, which then spit out a little slip of paper with your photo on it. When we arrived at the start location on Thursday morning I was a little surprised to see so many of the collegiate team vans, busses, and trailers there doing the same thing. It was kind of cool, though. We pulled the bikes out and headed out for a lap of the 15-mile loop. After so many years, I was surprised how well I remembered it. The only difference was that it looked like it had been repaved within the last few years, so almost the entire course was on just the smoothest, fastest, most pristine asphalt you could imagine. Your tax dollars at work, indeed. 

The first six miles of the course feature two or three significant climbs, after which it becomes more rolling. Then, a couple of kilos from the finish, there's a nice downhill to a little creek crossing that you can hardly tell is there, after which a one-kilometer climb begins that tops out about 300 meters from the finish line. The climb and finish were still quite firmly burned into my memory, and I could still identify the spot where I shifted into my biggest gear, which back then was probably a 52x13, to start the sprint, only to have the chain wedge itself between the freewheel and dropout, leaving me to coast across the finish line as the entire race streamed past. Anyway, I really enjoyed the ride around the course and trip down memory lane. The rest of the day involved a trip to the grocery store where Chef Dustin loaded up on about twice as much food as I probably would have.

The announcer was saying "This guy really left it all on the course."

Time Trial:  Friday featured the time trial, which was an out-and-back affair on the road course. Julia and Gavin were both in the Club division (collegiate is divided into Club and Varsity), so would be starting reasonably close together in the early afternoon following the team time trials. They had one aero helmet between them and planned on swapping it from Julia to Gavin once Julia finished. It was going to be kind of tight, timing-wise, though. Fortunately it worked out, and Gavin strapped on his helmet just moments before his start, much to the consternation of one of the officials. Julia finished 11th out of 30, and Gavin followed that up by placing an excellent 8th out of 42. Patton Sims made the podium in that race, finishing 4th. earlier in the day Lance Abshire's Colorado Mesa team had won the Varsity Team Time Trial. It was a pretty good day for LAMBRA riders.

Julia comes up the Road Race hill past our tent. At least they had a little tailwind for this climb.

Road Race:  The Road Races were on Saturday with Julia's going off in the first wave and Gavin's in the second. Julia's mother had joined us for the Time Trial and Julia's father and sister would be there for the Road Race and Criterium. We arrived nice and early and parked the van at a flat spot in the feed zone, about 2/3 of the way up the final climb. USAC had the finish line area all set up with the barricades and banners and official's trailer and everything, which is always impressive. I got to say hello to Valecia who we often deal with for event permits. It was windy, but the temperature was perfect for racing. We set up the tent and stuff and I had just enough time to sneak in a quick ten miles before heading up the hill to watch the start. Julia was focused on staying with the lead group and hoping to be able to do something in the final sprint. That would not be easy on this course since the climb always strings out the pack before anyone even gets to the 200 meter mark. Gavin, however, had other plans. During the race Julia was looking good, holding a mid-pack position on the climbs. Her race didn't look like it was particularly aggressive, though, and so although they lost a number of rider from simple attrition, there were still at least 20 left for the final sprint up the hill to the finish. Julia ended up 12th out of 25. 

Gavin's field comes up the hill past the feed zone.

Gavin's race had a big field of 55 at the line, so I knew it would be fast. It was. With little confidence in his sprint on a course like this, Gavin was all-in for a breakaway even if it had to be solo, which ultimately it was. Knowing the course, the best bet for a last-lap break was right after the bigger climbs in the first half of the course, and indeed he got away with about 8 miles to go. Unfortunately nobody came with him, so it was just a matter of whether he could build up enough of a gap to hold off the expected pack sprint that was bound to start a kilometer out. As it turned out he was able to hold off the charging pack until maybe 300 meters before the line but then got streamed by the sprinters, finishing 31st out of 55. It was a noble and very impressive ride and I think he was happy with it even if the ultimate placing didn't really reflect the magnitude of the effort. Looking at the results I noticed a rider from Indiana named Grace Saccone and figured it had to be Tom Saccone's daughter. Tom had raced here for a while in the 80's, notably winning the French Quarter criterium in 1989. He had been coaching the Indiana women's Little 500 team for a number of years but last I'd heard he was involved with his daughter's soccer. In the Varsity Road Race, Lance Abshire and a teammate had a solid breakaway, finishing first and second with Patton Sims finishing third. Lance and Patton are both from Louisiana, so that was kind of nice to see.

Criterium: Sunday's criterium was a nice little rectangle, about a block offset from the course I'd ridden back in '94. Since then they had built a nice kind of park / entertainment area that spanned the course from the start/finish to the back side where we set up our tent on the neutral ground of Broad Street, just past turn #2. As in the road race, the Club Women would be going first. I was a little surprised how cool it was - around 58° - so I pulled out my rain jacket, which was the only thing I had with long sleeves. Julia's race was 70 minutes. 

In the final laps Julia moved up near the front.

Kind of like the road race, the group stayed pretty much intact for the whole race. Julia was mostly staying sheltered in the back half of the field, which made us nervous every time there'd be an attack, but as it turned out she had everything under control. As planned, she was hoping for a pack sprint, and with a field of only 26 and a nice wide 4-corner course with long straights it wouldn't be too difficult to move around when necessary. The race did indeed come down to a 31 mph pack sprint and we were thrilled to see Julia come across the line in a solid 5th place, earning herself one of those big medals and a podium photo. Right behind her was Grace Saccone. I wasn't sure if I'd recognize Tom if I saw him, but later in the day I saw some Indiana riders talking and asked if he was there. One of them said, "No, but his daughter is right here." So I did get to chat with Grace for a minute and explain why some old guy from New Orleans knew her father.  

Part of Gavin's field along the back stretch.

Gavin's race was next, and with a field of 51 I knew it was going to be fast and aggressive. It was, with an average speed of 27.8 mph for the 80-minute race and a top speed of 35.9 mph on a pancake-flat rectangle. As in the road race, Gavin was hoping for a breakaway, but also as in the road race the big field wasn't really letting anything go very far before chasing it down. After a few futile attempts, Gavin settled in around mid-pack waiting for an opportunity. 

Gavin launches an attach with one to go!

Well sometimes you have to make your own opportunities and when things came down to 2 laps to go and at least 31 riders were still together there was only one option left. He worked his way to the front and as they were ringing the bell for the final lap he launched. It's a classic and time-honored move that always makes the sprinters hesitate, but it's also a roll of the dice. He flew down the back stretch at 30 mph but he was kind of a marked man from his solo attack in the road race and although he'd gotten a decent enough gap it wasn't quite enough to hold off the sprinters on the long drag race from the final corner to the finish line. 

Always throw you bike, even if it's for 22nd place!

Still, he ended up 22nd out of 51, and if there had been a "most aggressive" prize for the weekend he'd have won it hands-down. We had to wait around until after the final race - the Varsity Men where Lance finished 5th - for the awards ceremony, so it was late afternoon by the time we finally rolled out of Augusta. 

A championship podium and one of the big medals!

Fortunately, I was well-rested for the 9 hours on the road, aided only by two Red Bulls. We unloaded stuff at HQ a bit after midnight and Julia dropped me off at home around 12:30 before returning the van to campus and heading home herself. It was a really fun long weekend and I was happy I'd finally been able to go.

Waiting for the awards as Lance Abshire rolls past in the Varsity Criterium.

Photos at https://photos.app.goo.gl/oj3ViH3A59uhoUto9  

Back to Cuba

Although the windy Tuesday ride started with a pretty big group, there were only four of us that did the full ride out to Ormond.

Well, the Cuba in Alabama anyway. Last week was a fairly routine week of fairly routine rides that included the Saturday Giro that may or may not have been a good idea for someone planning to race bikes on Sunday. Then again, the Cuba Road Race & Alabama State Road Championship wasn't going to be exactly the world championship or anything, and the masters race was only 46 miles. I'd sent out an email earlier in the week looking for some company for this race, but nobody responded. Granted, it was French Quarter Festival weekend here in New Orleans and the race was over three hours away, but it's not like there's a race within driving distance every weekend lately. So I rolled out of bed at 4 am Sunday morning, made some coffee, and was on the road by 4:30. The races started at 9:00 but I wanted to be sure to get there by 8:00 since I had some radios that might be needed. The drive up Interstate 59 through Hattiesburg and Meridian was smooth and quiet. The weather was practically perfect - 70°F with a clear sky and light wind. I arrived right on time and found the parking area that was a bit farther down the road from the finish than it used to be back when this race was part of the Meridian-Cuba race weekend. Robert was already sitting at a table handing out race numbers when I arrived, so I carried over the heavy box of USAC championship medals that we'd finally received from USAC, along with the "radio bin." A few minutes later Ricky, the Chief Ref, arrived, along with Ian, the single moto-ref.

Turnout for this race was a bit on the low side, which is practically status quo lately. I think there were barely 50 riders in total, with the largest groups being the Masters with 19 and the Cat. 4/5 with 18. The lollipop course was the same we had used in the somewhat distant past. I remembered a short but steep climb about ten miles in - 7 miles from the start of the loop - and then just a lot of rolling hills with a fun and fast downhill somewhere in the last half of the loop that we'd be doing just twice. There was, however, one thing about the course I'd forgotten about.

Our race started about on time, 5 minutes after the Cat. 1/2/3s and 5 minutes ahead of the Cat. 4/5s. Although the pack started off at a nice moderate pace, one or two riders took off pretty much from the start and had a big gap by the time we were even onto the loop. That seemed to happen almost every year when I'd done this course before. For this race my main goal was to not get dropped. I found a nice spot near the back of the group where I hung out waiting for those two climbs that started around 10 miles in. The group seemed to stay pretty much intact for those climbs, which was kind of a relief for me. I never felt like I was on the limit there, but was a little surprised that nobody had attacked. Well, a few miles later I knew why. The last turn on the loop is a fairly sharp left-hander, and what I'd forgotten about it was that it went straight uphill afterward. So two things happened here that I should have anticipated. The front of the group attacked the climb pretty hard. I should definitely not been at the back when we came around that turn, and the result of that crucial error was that I really had no chance of going with the front part of the pack that separated itself before I even got through the turn myself. There were a few riders scattered between that front group and the back group, but I don't think any of them managed to make it up to the shelter of the front group in time. That left us with one or two riders way out there somewhere, then a chasing group, and then the rest of us - maybe 9 riders or so. There was never any serious effort to chase, so I figured out race was essentially over at that point, and if I had any doubts about that they were soundly quashed after we started the second lap and were passed by the Cat. 4/5 group's 3-man break. Some time later the moto came up alongside to warn us that the Cat. 4/5 pack was about to pass us.

Here's where I should explain that in a road race you can't take pace from riders in a group that you didn't start with. Well, the 4/5s passed us pretty slowly and as a result the two group got kind of mixed together. Our pace picked up by a few mph as a result, and I thought that if that continued and we got pulled up to the Masters break there'd be hell to pay. The motoref was having trouble getting the masters to neutralize, so we continued like this for a few miles. I thought that when we hit the climb 7 miles into the lap the groups might just naturally separate, but when that didn't happen the moto came up and pretty firmly told the masters to back off. That finally separated the two group and the Cat. 4/5s slowly disappeared up the road. Over the rest of that lap I guess there were maybe a couple of feeble attacks but things came back together each time, so we were destined to a pack sprint for something like 7th place, I guess. I have to say that I always like the finish to this race. After turning off of the loop you're only about 3 miles from the finish and you get a bit of downhill until you hit a little climb where the road crossed over the Interstate. That's at around 1 km from the finish. Up ahead you can see the start of a climb that curves to the left with the 200 meter flag sitting up near the top of it. Although my motivation was pretty low for a sprint for a minor placing that had to be many minutes behind the winners I figured I should make an effort just to get a feel for how I was doing. I was only one or two spots from the back of the group when the sprint started right at the start of the climb. I was still able to pass a few people before the finish even though I felt like I'd made only about a 90% effort, so I actually felt pretty good about that. I ended up 9th, which surprised me because I had thought there were more riders in the lead group(s). I guess I was 3rd or 4th in our pack sprint and felt like I could have placed higher if I'd not been starting from the back. After our finish I grabbed a radio and rode back down the climb so I could alert the officials when the Cat. 1/2/3 sprint, which turned out to be 5 riders, was approaching. Then I rode back to the parking area and ultimately picked up a bunch of the LAMBRA race equipment so I'd have it on hand for the Tour de Louisiane the first weekend in June.

Charley

The next day, Monday, I went out to the 6 am "Mellow Monday" ride at the City Park Museum of Art. For some reason that ride was less mellow than usual, but the faster segment is short so I don't think I did too much damage, especially since I was trying to limit my time in the wind. This morning's levee ride turned out to be kind of windy. There was a gusty north wind blowing, and with the way the levee meanders we had a lot of crosswind and a surprising amount of tailwind and direct headwind. I was still feeling the Sunday race in my legs a bit by the end.

Meanwhile back at home the new dog has been busy barking at everything, getting us up a couple of times every night, and destroying chew toys at the rate of about two a day. We are going to get rid of all of the dog toys that have stuffing in them because his favorite thing is to tear into them until he can pull the stuffing out, half of which he swallows. He's about at the end of his heartworm treatment now - it's been one month since the last two shots - so we're bringing him to our regular Vet tomorrow. He still has to take some Ivermectin for a little while at this point but hopefully we won't have to keep him quiet, which is increasingly impossible, for much longer. 

Summerish

Waiting for the Seabrook Drawbridge
 Easter Sunday

The Sunday Giro had, somewhat uncharacteristically, stopped en masse at the red light on Bullard at Hayne when I looked over at the rider next to me and remarked, "This is the hottest I've been on a ride this year." That wasn't to say that is was the kind of mind-numbing soul-sucking mid-summer heat that I knew was yet to come, but still, I think we were at a bit of a seasonal turning point. Back at home I found myself thinking it was about time to stash the long tights and long-sleeve jerseys and winter gloves and such somewhere in the back of the kit drawer for the duration.

Somewhere north of Pass Christian. Brandon, Colin, Charles, Steve.

A week ago Sunday a few of us went over to Pass Christian to meet Steve Martin for a 70-miler. I was looking forward to a break in my steady diet of local group rides, and the weather was looking like it would be excellent, which in fact it was. Well, unless you count that headwind on the way back. Anyway Steve, Colin, Charles, Brandon, and I had a pretty great ride in the country where everyone was on the same page, which kept the pace smooth and steady. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and with a light tailwind as we headed north from the coast, all seemed right with the world as each of us took long pulls at moderate effort levels. In its own way, the ride was a kind of recovery ride in that there wasn't much in the way of intensity unless you count the last 20 miles or so into an increasing south wind.

Friday

This week it was kind of back to the routine except for Thursday. Monday and Tuesday were certainly routine, anyway. Wednesday morning, however, greeted me with a 17 mph south wind, which made the ride out to meet the WeMoRi easy enough. As usual, I merged into the string of little headlights along Marconi, a bit surprised at how few there were. I guessed that the crosswind along the lakefront had shattered the group and there was another group somewhere behind. As it turned out, I was wrong about that. On the plus side, the smaller group made for a better workout. I was happy to put in the extra effort because the forecast for Thursday morning was calling for rain. Indeed, it was too wet to ride that morning, although the weather cleared up nicely later in the day. Fortunately the Tulane group was planning a 5:30 levee ride, and with things already winding down at the office ahead of Easter weekend I was able to make it out to that one, where I also needed to hand off a BikeReg check to Joey for deposit into the TUCA account. 

The weekend was really nice. For me, temperatures in the upper low to mid-80s are always the most comfortable. It was also Paris-Roubaix weekend, featuring the first women's Paris-Roubaix on Saturday, followed by the classic men's race on Sunday. Although GCN, to which I subscribe because it's the cheapest, couldn't carry those races live because other pricier services had exclusive rights to them, they did show really nice 30-minute highlights later in the day which I thought was perfect. Back at home, it was another double-Giro weekend for me. I had started out on Saturday thinking I might add some extra miles before going home, but by the time I was back on Lakeshore Drive I was more than ready to call it a day. It always seems to take a couple of weeks to get used to the warmer summer temperatures and I never seem to eat or drink quite enough on the Giro rides. I'd brought along a bit of HammerGel that I did have a the turnaround, so it wasn't a complete failure, but on the other hand I didn't even go through a single small water bottle.

Sunday cool-down

Sunday was Easter and of course that meant a somewhat smaller than usual Giro Ride group, not to imply that there wasn't enough willing and able horsepower to make it worthy. As I was having my pre-ride coffee at Starbucks David Schreffler appeared, decked out in patriotic garb. I hadn't seen him in years since he moved to St. Louis. He was in town visiting some family and then heading down to Tampa where he is expecting to move soon. Despite the smaller than usual turnout, the ride turned out to be pretty fast. I did manage to convince myself to make some efforts here and there, and as usual the warmer temperature - it was only in the mid-upper 70s I guess - agreed with me. 

Dave S

There's a race in Cuba (Alabama) next Sunday that I'm hoping to make, so I'll  have to keep that in mind this week. The masters race is only 46 miles, so it won't be like some of the long hot races of attrition we used to have on that course as part of the Meridian race weekend, so I guess that's good. Or maybe not. Sometimes the shorter the race the faster and more aggressive it becomes, and given my recent tendency to get dropped on the first uphill attack, that isn't really ideal. I'll have to go back and take a good look at the course profile so I'm at least not caught off-guard this time. I had some great races on that course back in the day, especially when it was in the middle of the summer, the distance was longer, and the temperature was higher. At any rate there's stuff I'll want to pick up from Robert to have on hand for the Tour de Louisiane that we need to really get moving on since June is rapidly approaching. At least I got the event permit submitted and set up BikeReg to open registration starting today.

Time Trial Sunday

I have always had mixed feelings about time trials. On the one hand, they are without a doubt an objective undeniable measure of your current aerobic fitness, or lack thereof, in relation to the other riders that day. For me, aerobic fitness is more about not getting dropped before the sprint rather than launching a successful long-distance breakaway. On the other hand, a 40 km time trial is an hour-long (if you're lucky) solitary test of mental toughness, determination, and suffering - not necessarily in that order. My strategy for avoiding doing time trials without becoming the subject of ridicule has been to instead put them on, thus providing credible cover for leaving the bike at home. Last Sunday we put on the LAMBRA Time Trial Championship, aka the "Race of Truth" out on the LaPlace course where we have done it every year since 2009, which would be 14 years for the arithmetically challenged. The weekend before I'd driven out to the course with a couple of cans of road-marking paint in order to find the three turnaround marks at roughly (the start and finish are offset) 5 km, 10 km, and 20 km for the 10, 20, and 40 km time trial distances respectively. A new wrinkle was that I was going to add a turnaround for a 15 km time trial. That was for the two handcycle riders who were planning to come. The U.S. Paralympics Cycling event for them is a 15 km time trial. 

Although it had been a bit less than a year since I'd freshened up the course markings, they were remarkably difficult to find from the seat of a car even though I'd started Strava, set to metric, on my phone. I think that Hurricane Ida had probably scoured the road surface a bit last fall. I had to backtrack at one point before I found the old badly faded mark. From the turnaround at 5 km I needed to go another 2.5 km to add the new marks for the 15 km turnaround. So now there were four turnaround marks and I was a little worried that it would get confusing, mainly for our turnaround marshals who would have to drive out ahead of the race and find them. So the Saturday before the race, after riding part of a shortened Giro and getting pretty well rain-soaked on the way home, I drove out to LaPlace again, this time with four fenceposts. I put one over on the shoulder at each turnaround with a bit of orange survey tape to make it easy for the turn marshals to find. I already had turnaround signs for the three usual turnarounds, so I made a new sign for the one for the 15 km riders (actually only one of them was able to come as it turned out). I had already assigned bib numbers and start times, and posted all of that to the website, so in the afternoon it was just a matter of getting everything together for race day. Branden came over with his pickup and got the awards podium, cooler, signage, and traffic cones, which would leave me lots of room in the station wagon for the tent, generator, clock, tables, computers, etc. Robert would be coming down in the morning from Jackson with the big caution signs and safety vests that had been used for the Hattiesburg race. Over the prior week we had signed up enough volunteers to keep things more or less on track, so at least we wouldn't be begging for help on race day, which sometimes happens.

Sunday morning I was out there in the dark getting things set up. All of the volunteers showed up, and things went pretty smoothly. We had two young Juniors doing the 10 km TT, then a 5 minute gap, then the handcycle rider doing the 15 km TT, then a two minute gap, then seven riders toing the 20 km TT, another five minute gap, and finally all of the 40 km riders. It seemed like a plan. Of course there are always unpredictable things at races, and this race was no exception. After starting everyone I walked back to the tent to start doing results (by then the young Juniors had finished). Quite a while later I heard from the turnaround marshal for the 15 km TT that he had never seen the handcycle rider. I had a result for him and his time looked quite reasonable, so that was mystery. After some detective work later that day we discovered that someone had put a random traffic come in the middle of the road somewhere between the turnaround for 10 km and 15 km. It may have been where the kayak people like to park and put in. The handcycle rider, knowing that his was the second turnaround, saw it, and although there was no sign or turn marshal, assumed it was his turnaround. I guess he wasn't more than a kilometer short of the actual 15 km. Meanwhile, one of the first 20 km riders somehow turned early, possibly at the sign for the 15 km rather than the sign for the 20 km, resulting in an average speed of something like 29 mph which was obviously wrong. Fortunately she was the only rider in her age group so it didn't affect any of the placings. The only other problem we had was with bib numbers that were unreadable from the side of the road, especially when multiple riders were finishing almost together. That required a process of elimination that delayed results a bit. I'm still not convinced that the finish times for a couple of those riders were accurate, even though we had two separate timers and multiple other people assisting at the finish line. I need to remember to tell people exactly where to put their numbers next year because putting them in the middle of your back is no bueno.

The weather this year was pretty nice. There was a significant northeast breeze, but it must not have been too bad because Matt Govero set a new course record of 50:48! Brett Reagan rode Merckx style and still did a 57:35 and that wasn't even the fastest Merckx style time. Sam Leblanc rode a 57:08. The fastest woman on the day was Jessica Jones who did a 58:17. I had been told a couple of months earlier by USAC that we would have official USAC championship medals in time for the race. Well of course when I asked about it again a couple of weeks before the race I was told the in fact would not be ready. Luckily we had enough leftover LAMBRA medals we'd made last year for the Road and Crit championships (USAC didn't provide medals in 2020 or 2021) to cover everyone, but it would have been nice to have had the nicer official medals.

After the TT most of the race volunteers went half a mile down the road to the Frenier Landing restaurant where we had a surprisingly nice lunch. Although that restaurant had been there for at least a decade I'd never been there and was quite happy to find it to be quite nice. 

So all-in-all the TT went pretty well. There were really just four or five people that we had problems with - either wrong turnarounds or bib number problems - which isn't really all that unusual. I was a little disappointed with the turnout. We had just over 50 riders this year. For many years we would get about 100, so I have no idea why the turnout suffered this year except that there were a lot of things going on - festivals, Final Four in New Orleans, etc.

Now it's time to get moving for the 51st annual Tour de Louisiane. 

I am a Rock

Rolling in behind the Cat. 4 sprint to ask Ricky if I should do another lap

Last week started out windy. Is it just me, or have we had a lot of high winds lately? Tuesday, up on the levee, there was a 16-20 mph south wind, which means mostly crosswind for our usual 40 mile route that we unanimously shortened to 30 for obvious reasons. At least it wasn't cold. By Wednesday morning's WeMoRi the wind had settled down (I use the term loosely here) to a mere 9-10 mph, which given the extra horsepower at the front along Lakeshore Drive was more than adequate to shatter the group, a consequence that I thankfully did not witness in person since I didn't jump into the group until Marconi. The wind and the pace offered little shelter for the weak and decrepit like myself, and even if it had, my recent shift into a slightly more racing-oriented mindset saw me making a bit more of an effort here and there, sufficient to nudge my heart rate, however momentarily, above 170, which is by no means sustainable. As a side-note, though, I really wonder what my heart rate was during efforts like this back when I was, say, 25. Back then heart rate was measured with a wrist watch, a finger, and math. 

But I digress.

River's up a bit

So back at the levee on Thursday the wind had finally died down to practically nothing, the temperature had dropped back into the 50s, it was foggy as hell, and other than the fact that we couldn't really see what we might or might not run into at any moment, things were going along just swimmingly until Rich flatted - twice. By then I was starting to think (to be honest, a more appropriate word might be "worry") about the upcoming 70 mile masters race in Hattiesburg on Saturday. That certainly factored into my calculations on the length and speed of my visits to the front of the paceline, but probably had little effect on the ultimate outcome two days later.

The new dog has been routinely waking us up two or three times a night, and Thursday night being no exception I decided to skip my usual morning ride on Friday. It was really due to the convenient combination of laziness, sleep deprivation, and the ready availability of that well-worn "recovery day" excuse. That evening I put the race wheels on the bike, took off the saddle bag and tail light, threw some stuff in my race bag, and set the alarm for 5:00 am. I wanted to get to the race early since I was bringing some signs and stuff for them to use. I was a little worried about the temperature, which dipped down to the low 40s during the drive, so I'd included a couple of base layer options along with knee and arm warmers. The forecast called for sunny skies and a temperature increase of over 20 degrees before noon, and by the time I had to make my wardrobe decisions for our 9:00 am start I went with a short sleeve base layer and sunscreen arm warmers under a very thing summer race jersey. Surprisingly, I was never particularly cold.

The masters race started behind the Cat. 1/2/3s and ahead of the Cat. 4s on a beautiful and smooth 23-mile circuit with a number of turns, most of which were well-manned. I had neglected to pay much attention to the course profile ahead of time, other than to note that there didn't seem to be any super-steep climbs, an unfortunate omission that would soon come back to bite me. Our race started out surprisingly slowly and after a mile or two I found myself more or less accidentally on the front. Even worse, in my effort to get warmed up I rolled off the front without realizing it until I glanced back to see a surprising gap. Well, of course there was a reason for the gap and the slow pace. There was a one-kilometer climb about 5 miles into the loop that was maybe 4-6%. Normally that wouldn't be too much of a problem, but of course there were those back in the pack with plans for that little climb. Just as I got to it and was trying to drop back down into the group someone attacked down the right side as I was drifting backwards. This was no bueno. I was quickly gapped off and had to basically sprint just to get back up to the last person, who himself was rapidly blowing up. My heart rate redlined before I came over the top and along with the other rider I was dropped like a rock. So I'm like 6 miles into a 70 mile race and already OTB. It was immediately clear that the two of us were not going to make it back into the shelter of the pack and in fact the other rider I was with didn't really seem to be interested in trying anyway. So we rode together for a number of miles until we started to see another rider up ahead who I was eventually able to identify as Eddie Corcoran. Now if you know Eddie, whose WeMoRi nickname is "Eddie the Hammer," you know that there is no way he should have been dropped in the first ten miles of a masters race like this. As we got closer I took one last pull to close the gap, which unintentionally dropped the rider I'd been with. Eddie had apparently hit his sprint shifter by mistake, unintentionally shifting to the small ring, and then when trying to get it back onto the big ring it had just completely fallen off, requiring him to stop to put it back in place. Anyway, I was glad to have him to ride with and we traded pulls for the rest of that lap. As we approached the start of lap #2, though, he looked at me and said, "Randy, I think I'm going to bail."

Alone again.

I was about halfway around my second lap, cruising at a nice enough training pace, when I glanced back to see Will and TJ, who were off the front of the Cat. 4 race, approaching. We said "Hi" as they rode past, neither looking particularly stressed. I stood up and took a hard look back again but the rest of the Cat. 4 race was nowhere in sight. I was maybe three miles from the end of the second lap when I finally heard the lead moto coming up on me ahead of them. As we made the final turn they came past and a minute later their sprint started. I easily followed behind and as I rolled past the finish line I looked over at Ricky, the CR, and asked, "Should I go ahead and ride out my last lap?"  Although I would have liked to have done another lap, I knew I was probably the last rider in the Masters race and so I'd really just be in the way. Ricky looked up and said, "I'll excuse you for the last lap." That allowed me to hang around the finish line and watch Scott and Brett sprint it out for first place, and then see Lisa, who was with one other rider in-between the lead break and the pack, come through for third. The pack was way back there somewhere and eventually sprinted it out for, I think, 5th place. So although it was a pretty disappointing day for me, I'm still counting it as a good solid 46-mile training ride. I guess I need to start making more hard efforts, or heaven forbid 30-second intervals, in training, although it's entirely questionable whether either can overcome the ravages of time.

Sunday Giro returning along Lakeshore Drive

Undeterred, and resolving not to sell all my bikes quite yet, I went out and rode the Sunday Giro where the weather was great and the pace was less than brutal. I was happy to find my legs working normally enough that I went ahead and sprinted up the Seabrook bridge at the end. It would have been better if I hadn't blown up before reaching the top, but it felt good and under the circumstances I couldn't really complain.

Foggy Monday on the Lakefront

Monday morning I went out in a thick humid fog for the Mellow Monday ride, which was mostly mellow and mostly wet. My glasses didn't make it two blocks from the house before I had to stow them in my pocket, and of course I arrived back home pretty wet, but at least the fog was mostly gone by then, which was good because despite an heroic effort to keep me safe my tail light's battery, which I'd forgotten to recharge and which had been giving me "low battery" warnings since I'd started, finally died on the way home.

Rouleurs, Sprinters, and Climbers

The past week was, for me, relatively low-volume but with a much-needed high-intensity weekend. It was also another week for flat tires, one of which was mine. After a pretty normal Mellow Monday ride, things went South weather-wise and Tuesday morning's ride was rained out. On Wednesday there was a Northwest wind that was at least strong enough to split the WeMoRi group on its return trip from the Seabrook end of Lakeshore Drive. I got out there at my usual time and, also as usual rode a bit on Lakeshore Drive looking for the telltale cluster of flashing white lights to the east. As they approached I turned onto Marconi and waited to be swept up into the group. When I merged into the group in the dark I was surprised that it wasn't larger (I had no idea it has splintered earlier). It took a while for my physiology to adjust to the faster effort but as my heart rate and breathing settled down to what is normal for this sort of thing I was starting to wonder why there seemed to be such a sense of urgency up at the front. Of course it was because there was, somewhere behind us, another group that was presumably chasing. After we made the final loop around the Elysian Fields circle I finally got a glimpse of the other group. Anyway, that turned out to be a pretty good workout. 

Thursday's weather was better with a temperature in the mid-50s and not nearly as much wind. I'd brought a couple of patched tubes along to give to Dan or whoever needed them. We ended up using both of the patched tubes I'd brought along, so I guess that was good. Little did I know I'd be returning home with two more tubes, both with holes in them! At least we got in the full Thursday ride, even though we were a good fifteen minutes late getting back.

Friday morning I was headed north with a serious 15 mph south tailwind to meet the Friendly Friday ride when I suddenly heard the rear tire explode. The tire had a clean slash all the way across the tread, and I could feel something inside. That turned out to be half of an old box-cutter blade. The tube was almost sliced in half. So on the side of Carrollton Avenue in the dark I scanned the gutter and found a discarded cigarette box that I used as a boot. MacGyver would have been proud.

Slashed!

I put a new tube in and inflated the tire and it looked like the boot would hold. I'd already missed the group, but I decided to ride easy out to Lakeshore Drive and pick the group up on its way back. After all, I still had another tube and two CO2 cartridges, so I wasn't too likely to get stranded and have to call for emergency extraction. I waited and waited but never saw the group, and finally turned back to ride home. As I later learned, only Charles had shown up for the ride that morning, and he'd turned off of Lakeshore Drive early, at Wisner, so I even missed him. At least I made it back home with air still in the tire.

Chris lines up for the D race as race director Tim Molyneaux checks out the field.

There was a collegiate/USAC race on Saturday up near Atlanta, put on by Georgia Tech. I'd been thinking earlier that I might skip that one since there was a race in Hattiesburg the following week. At the last minute, though, I decided to go ahead and drive up with Christopher, Julia, and Dustin in one of the larger Tulane vans in order to help with the driving duties and get in a 50-mile Masters road race. We didn't leave until I guess 1:30 or so, and therefore didn't arrive at the hotel near the road course until pretty late, but otherwise everything went smoothly and we were up early the next morning, arriving at the course around 7 am for Christopher's 8:00 Category D race. The lollipop course was on a short but silky smooth loop with only a couple of troublesome climbs, so the only thing I was worried about was the cold temperature's effect on my lungs and the moderate crosswind on the outbound segment. Christopher's race took off more or less on time, so I had plenty of time to contemplate wardrobe options. The temperature didn't look like it was going to increase a whole lot because of the overcast sky, so I rolled up to the line with knee-warmers and a long-sleeve base layer under regular arm-warmers. I had just enough time to see Christopher roll across the line alone but in 3rd place before my race started.

Emily Barrera photo. GW, the Rouleur guy, and me

The 40+/50+ Masters field was pretty big for this kind of thing, with 28 riders, 17 of whom were 50+, which was surprising. The lollipop course featured a short loop of about five miles with just a couple of short but significant climbs. The entire course was nearly perfect smooth asphalt, which made it feel quite fast. 

Julia's Category A race started just behind the Masters, and she would end up finishing 8th in the field of 18.

The race started out with a fairly strong crosswind coming from the left and of course the riders up in front were immediately pushing the pace. I spent that whole segment on the white line scrapping for a little draft and closing gaps. The average speed along that stretch was something over 28 mph. Of course I knew better than to be at the back, but I was suffering from a serious lack of confidence and was just hoping things would settle down. Well, they did settle down -- until we hit that crosswind stretch again. This time the speed surged into the 30s and soon enough gaps started opening up ahead of me as riders began to blow. I closed a couple of gaps but the last one was too long and too late. I ended up getting together with three other riders and we started a rather nice paceline rotation. One of these guys was a tall Rouleur who was taking longer pulls than the rest of us. I spent a lot of time on his wheel in the paceline. The other was GW from Auburn who is another road dinosaur like me. A couple of laps later we lost one of the riders but it didn't really affect our speed. Eventually we started seeing a group of riders up the road that turned out to be another group that had gotten shelled. After chasing pretty hard for another lap we caught that group about halfway through the last lap. That made for a group of seven that was, of course, mostly 50+ riders. We were still the back half of the race, a good five hopeless minutes off the pace of the front group, but at least I'd get to sprint, even if it was just for something like 16th place. It would probably be the first legitimate sprint in an actual race in two years. After the left turn taking us onto the final mile or so before the finish one rider rolled off the front. I knew I shouldn't but I went ahead and closed that gap anyway since, honestly, the real race was already in the parking lot. So I'm sitting there second wheel with a kilometer to go and the guy starts to blow up, at which point, quite predictably, I get streamed on the left by most of the rest as the drag race to the finish line starts. I managed to get into the back of that line and launched a reasonable sprint from an entirely unreasonable position, finishing 3rd in our off-the-back group for an unimpressive 9th place in the 50+. 

Yeah, that's broken.

As soon as I got back I found out from Dustin, who was about to line up for his race, that Christopher had actually crashed on the final turn in his Category D race when his chain somehow slipped, and had finished with wat turned out to be a broken collarbone. By the time I finished he had already gotten a ride to the nearby hospital. Then a little while later we were surprised to find Dustin riding back to the van after dropping out of the big Cat. 1/2/3 field. At least that allowed us to pick Chris up from the emergency room. Since he wasn't feeling too terrible we decided to go ahead with our original plan for Sunday which was to drive over to Oxford, Alabama for a quick ride up to the top of Cheaha Mountain.

Observation tower

The next morning we dropped Chris off at a Starbucks in Oxford and went over to the Choccolocco Sports Park to start our ride. The temperature was still quite cold (it had been 34° earlier that morning) but the sun was out and I think we all under-estimated how quickly we would warm up when the climbing started and over-dressed a bit. As we started the climbing someone remarked, "three sprinters walk into a bar..." in reference to the fact that none of us was what you'd call a climber but all of us might qualify as sprinters that, as everyone knows, suffer on the climbs. That ride went pretty nicely despite my somewhat sore legs. Since I should really have been taking a rest day considering the prior day's unfamiliar intensity, I decided to keep my effort level under control. That meant spending a fair amount of time in my lowest gear at 6-7 mph, which still required some significant wattage, but not so much that I was ever redlined. It was kind of nice to be able to actually look at some of the scenery during the climb. I've done Six Gap over ten times and hardly ever see much of the scenery. The Cheaha climb itself is broken up by a few easier and even downhill segments, and I'd guess that the grade is mostly in the 6% range, so it didn't seem nearly as difficult as the longer Six Gap climbs. Our whole ride out and back was only 35 miles, albeit with over 4,000 feet of climbing.

We went up the observation tower at the top, took a couple of photos, and then hit the downhill. The earlier sections of steep downhill felt pretty sketchy because of a fairly gusty wind that was blowing my aero front wheel around a bit, so I used a whole lot more brake than normal. Later on, though, we must have had more wind protection, or been going in a different relative direction, so it was easier to just let it fly. I think Dustin hit around 53 mph while I hit just 50 ... coasting. It was fun and the road surface was practically perfect, so other that that crosswind at the time it felt pretty good.

The drive back went really smoothly and we arrived back in town around 6:30 pm. I went out to the Mellow Monday ride this morning and was happy to find that my legs felt fine despite the fact that the weekend featured, for me, some of the highest intensity of the year so far.