Up in the Air

I’m writing this at 31,000 feet, somewhere between Colorado Springs and Chicago, en route to D.C. with a couple of hours to kill and a couple more hours to lose, and wishing I was on the bike.  The USAC Local Associations Conference went well, and somewhere in my overstuffed gate-checked carry-on is a long list of things to think about, investigate, and hopefully get done.  For the first time in a couple of years, there was almost no discussion of chip-timing systems.  The sessions were more focused on the business of improving the racing environment, attracting more riders, and especially streamlining the interactions with USA Cycling.  They are trying hard to go electronic, and at the core of that push are their online registration system and their results and rankings program. 

For 2012, there will be some new incentives for promoters, and possibly also the local associations, to use the registration system.  Although it’s already the least expensive option, albeit only slightly, they plan to give rebates amounting to 80 cents per registration next year.  They’re also developing a registration and results tool that race organizers will be able to use for their events  - probably something along the lines of the one that Sportsbase Online had.  Those of us who have been using BikeReg for years are just a little hesitant to turn our backs on the system that’s been working so well for us, but the cost difference, especially for larger events, will be hard to ignore.  They have already deployed iPhone and Android apps that allow riders to show race officials their current license status (and also notified the officials that they have to accept it).  Down the line, perhaps not all that far in fact, may be the ability to register for an event through the USAC registration system and then on race day just whip out your smartphone at the registration desk.  The thing that has really made that all feasible is a new system they are about to implement that will allow them to accept digital signatures from USAC members who register online (only through the USAC system, of course).  It’s interesting. 

Online post-event reporting and payment systems that were supposed to be deployed earlier this year are still likely to need a few more months of development, but they’re also on the way.  In the Results and Rankings world, we may soon be able to use a rider’s ranking to do things like seed time trials or do call-ups for criteriums.  They’re already planning on using it to do call-ups for cyclocross nationals.  If you look at an event that is using the USAC system for online registration, you will see each riders predicted placing based on data in the results and rankings database.  Apparently it was pretty accurate at masters nationals this year.  So anyway, I’m still popping Sudafed and will be off the bike until Thursday at the earliest when I return to New Orleans. Right now I’m on the way to the NCURA annual conference and kind of looking forward to getting some more information on STAR Metrics and the Data Act, and hoping that if and when the universities have to start providing even more reporting data we might somehow be able to do so in a way that would allow us to actually make some productive use of it, which I’m pretty sure the government won’t.

Back at home, I was sorry to have to miss today’s NOBC coffee shop ride, but I may have to break out the old not-really-a Cyclocross bike for the upcoming race in Baton Rouge.  No doubt I will be woefully out of shape for it, and entirely devoid of most necessary skills, but the beauty of cyclocross is that nobody will really care, including me.  In the meantime I need to send out an email about the planned LAMBRA annual meeting, which will be Dec. 3 in Jackson MS, along with a request for proposed 2012 event dates.  I also need to get jersey sizes for all of our LCCS and track championship winners, pick up and ship out both the extremely late 2010 awards and surprisingly early 2011 LCCS awards.

I won’t be arriving at my little D.C. hotel until around 10 pm tonight, I think.  Perhaps I’ll get this all uploaded to Blogger before tomorrow.  Then it will be two and a half rather full days of sessions and related “networking opportunities” before a late night arrival back in NOLA on Wednesday.

Involuntary Fall Break

It was Tuesday evening of last week and I was sitting in a rather crowded conference room in the AAU office up in D.C. when I started to feel the scratchy throat.  Perhaps it was just coincidence, but I'd just spent a couple of hours at 30,000 feet breathing dry communal air.  I was trying to be optimistic, hoping that it wasn't what, deep down, I knew it probably was. Later that night I searched the little ziplock bag I'd brought to hold my toothbrush and stuff, hoping to find a couple of decongestant tablets, tylenol, aspirin, oxycodone - anything - but I'd packed light for this quick trip and hadn't brought my usual travel supplies.  The next morning I stopped at the local drug store before heading back for another six hours of workshopping. Although I didn't feel terribly sick, I had a pretty good sore throat and low-grade fever, held somewhat in check by the generic CVS cold medicine. By the time I got home late that night it was taking its usual course.  The sore throat was going away and the bronchitis was starting to kick in. I already knew it was going to be a week or so before I'd feel well again.  Naturally, The Daughter was also arriving that night for a visit.

I spent the next two days at home nursing the developing chest cold.  It seems there is always some combination of events, usually including work, illness, and other things beyond my control, that puts me off the bike for a while this time of year.  It's one reason I never actually plan to take a week off.  For one thing, I just don't train hard enough to justify a week or two of extended recovery.  For another, I know something like this will force me to take a break anyway.  One thing I know for sure.  You don't go out and try to train in the cold when you have a chest cold.  A bout with pneumonia will put a big kink in your fitness plans.  Been there, done that.

So although I wasn't feeling quite up to riding, I was reasonably busy over the weekend, went out for an easy little spin on Monday morning, and made it in to work with a pocket full of pharmaceuticals.  That evening we had our usual Halloween open house.  That tradition started the year of Katrina.  Halloween was the first weekend that most of the block was back at home, and we all ended up out on a neighbor's porch drinking wine, telling our Katrina stories, and waiting for the lone little trick-or-treater who ultimately showed up.  This year the street was packed with kids and lots of people stopped by the house for gumbo and pasta salad and related snacks and adult beverages.  I still had a nagging little cough and some chest congestion, but have been more or less on the road to recovery since then.  Even so, since there was no real urgency to get back on the bike, I figured I'd give it another day or two just to be on the safe side and set my sights on Wedesday.  As luck would have it, I ended up with an 8 am conference call appointment this morning, so rather than blow off yet another ride, I hit the road in the dark and put in 25 miles or so, arriving back at the house well before 7:30.  Riding solo on the levee in the dark with nothing but a little blinking LED headlight is remarkably stressful.  If I had to do that often I'd definitely be in the market for a real headlight that allows for seeing in addition to being seen.  Anyway, I survived it.  Hopefully I'll get in another ride tomorrow before heading off for the annual USAC Local Associations conference in Colorado on Friday and the NCURA conference in D.C. from Sunday through Wednesday.  Like it or not, I'll end up with essentially two weeks off the bike.  Situation normal.

Get the picture

Worth a thousand words.....

Bonus Miles

It was around 6:30 am when I left the house, and I didn't make it more than two blocks before turning around.  I was signed up to do the annual Tour de Jefferson ride which started at 9 am, and I knew the temperature would up around 70F by then, so despite the chill in the pre-dawn air, I'd gone out with just a jersey and arm-warmers. It didn't take me long to decide that I'd rather do the ride with a wind vest in my pocket than be cold for the next hour.  A bunch of us were planning to meet at the local Starbucks for 7:00 in order to get about twenty bonus miles by riding to the ride.  It would be nearly twenty miles, including a ferry ride across the river, so even with two hours to spare, the timing would be a little tight.

I was pleasantly surprised to find over a dozen riders in our group as we headed off down St. Charles Avenue for the Canal Street ferry landing.  Although we had plenty of time to make the 7:45 ferry, I wanted to make sure we kept rolling just in case we were delayed by a flat or something.  Fortunately, the ride downtown went smoothly and we got to the foot of Canal Street with a good fifteen minutes to spare.  I was glad I'd decided to wear the wind vest, but knew I'd be stuffing it into my pocket pretty soon.  The nine or ten mile ride from the ferry back upriver to the ride start went pretty well.  I had been a little worried about getting delayed at the Harvey Canal if there had been a ship going through the lock there, but there were no problems at all, unless you count the fact that we overshot the spot where we needed to turn off of the bike path and had to ride back half a mile or so. 

We arrived at Bayou Segnette park with almost half an hour to spare, so we had just enough time to sign in and make our way to the front of the big group waiting for the start, which we accomplished by doing a little cyclocross style riding.

This ride is a 50-mile group ride that is kind of a west-bank Giro Ride since a lot of the usual Giro riders participate.  There's a stretch early in the ride that includes a few miles on the narrow levee bike path, and so it always gets a little fast as riders try to stay toward the front before hitting that.  It's like trying to make the hole shot at the start of a mountain bike race. 

Once we were off the bike path and out on the open road again, the pace ramped up pretty quickly.  I guess were were still less than twenty-five miles into the ride when I dropped back down the paceline only to be surprised when Jeff looked over and said, "I'm it."  Somewhere along the way the group had split and there was already a front group of twenty-five or so. 

It was easy sitting in the draft, since there wasn't really much wind, but the speeds were definitely up around Giro Ride territory, spending lots of time in the 26-30 mph range.  For myself, I was feeling pretty good, but the knowledge that it would be an 87-mile day for me was sufficient motivation to keep me off the front.  Besides, it was an absolutely perfect Fall day and I didn't really know where I was going anyway.  Although I've lived in New Orleans all my life, much of the West Bank remains foreign territory for me.

So we got back to the start just as they were getting the crawfish etouffe and red beans and rice ready to serve. Our original group, of course, had gotten a little split up since some riders were planning on riding easy, some were planning to stay with the front group, and others were scattered in-between.  A few took off for home early while the rest of us waited for the last riders to arrive before heading back downriver for the return trip. As we rode the ferry back across the river I noticed a pirate woman standing at the rail.  No doubt on her way to work in the French Quarter on a day that included a Saints game.  I finally rolled up to the house around 2 pm with 87 miles on the odometer.  It was a nice long ride on a nice Fall day.

Fallin' Behind

Well, we have gotten our first taste of Fall down here in New Orleans, and I can't say I've heard anyone complaining.  Last week's Saturday Giro had a good turnout and stayed pretty fast for the most part, and the weather was warm and breezy.  The Wife's sister was in town from Dallas, so we spent some time down the French Quarter, stopping for coffee at Envie, walking down to Frenchman Street (named for the Frenchmen that the Spanish governor with the Irish name "Bloody O'Reily" executed), and later heading over to Magazine Street for a somewhat lengthy wait for lunch at Cafe Rani. Sunday's Giro turnout was relatively small.  It was just as well, since I had to turn around early to get back in time for a quick brunch at the Ritz.

Last week was more or less a blur, riding-wise.  A cool front came through and by Tuesday morning the pre-dawn temperature had dipped just barely below 50F.  In order to minimize the shock, I went out with long tights, two jerseys, arm-warmers and a wind vest.  I can't say I was ever particularly hot.  The next couple of mornings were similar, although I skipped Wednesday and turned back early on Thursday because of time constraints, and went out fifteen minutes late on Friday for a nice solo ride.  It's nice to do a solo ride once in a while.  They always seem to turn out the same, though.  I tell myself I'll just do an easy spin, but after a few miles the speed starts creeping up and eventually I have to sit up a coast for a while so it doesn't turn into a time trial.

At some point during the week I updated the NOBC History page with some old photos that Bob Perrin dropped off.  This was stuff from the Tour de Louisiana and La Boucherie Gran Prix French Quarter criterium, circa 1973.  It was a little disconcerting to find myself in one of those looking like I was a college student (which I was).  Seems like just yesterday.  I remember the wool jersey and how it felt, and smelled, in the middle of the summer; I remember the leather helmet; I even remember the socks. A few teammates, including Boyd Fink, Chris Todd, Randy Holmes, Mike Schramel, Jim McFadden, and Dave Weatherly are in there.

So anyway, by Friday afternoon I was pretty much ready to call it a week.  Fortunately, we had tickets to the annual Red, Whites and Blues wine tasting over at City Park where there was a lot of food of which I didn't eat much, and a lot of wine that I sampled fairly liberally, only one of which I couldn't make myself swallow.  Whoever got the idea that wine could be improved by flavoring it with chocolate must have been drinking some really bad wine. The whole thing is really just a couple of hours long and is highlighted by a raffle for a ton of wine, which once again none of us won. Out in the garden they had Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns, which I really enjoyed.  They may not be classically trained musicians, but they sure sounded good to me.

Tomorrow morning I'll be doing the Tour of Jefferson ride, which should be fun since the weather will be close to perfect.  Some of us are planning to ride to the ride, which involves taking the Canal St. Ferry to the foreign land known locally as The West Bank, which is not, technically, west, at least around here.  We may have to make a last minute change in our departure time - still working on that.

Passive-Aggressive

It's been a bit of a dull week so far.  The weather, while quite nice, has been virtually identical each day, as was the dull sinus-type headache that plagued me for the first three days.  I think I had a little touch of a head cold going on.  This morning I rolled the bike out the door and looked up at the stars wishing I didn't have to ride in the dark again.  Alas, Congress has decreed that we must ride that way until November before finally making the switch. My regular route takes me down Carrollton Avenue where there's a nice bike lane.  Unfortunately, the city has been digging up and replacing a long section of streetcar tracks for the past couple of months and all of the street lights along that stretch have been off for the duration.  On the plus side, they finally fixed the water leak and resulting hole along that stretch.  Unfortunately they still haven't fixed the other water leak where it's been coming up through a manhole cover for the past few months.  Since there aren't any street lights there, I sometimes don't see it soon enough, or if I do, there's a car coming up behind and I'm forced to ride through the water. It's not much, but somehow I just really hate having that little spray of water hitting my legs that early in the morning.  I can't imagine how on earth those guys can possibly be taking so long to fix such a small section of tracks.  If the first transcontinental railroad had been constructed at the same pace, California would still be a frontier.  Anyway, my dirty bike and I arrived promptly at the levee, blending into the cluster of blinking lights a few minutes before we rolled down the "hill" for the Thursday long ride.

I chatted for a couple of minutes with Mignon about the NOBC group that she is registering for the upcoming Tour de Jefferson ride, but after a couple of miles the pace started to rise as we accumulated more riders and settled into a long paceline.  I guess two-thirds of the group wasn't interested in being on the front today, which is kind of typical this time of year, so the speed remained relatively steady, which is more than I can say about a few of the riders who seemed to be having balance issues.  People really need to put more emphasis on riding a straight line.  While I'm on my soapbox, let me also remind everyone that the red blinky light flashing in my eyes while we're in the paceline isn't really serving any purpose other than to make it hard to see where we're going, so please reach back and turn the thing off.  Nobody's going to be coming up on us from behind.  Anyway, things seemed shaky enough this morning that I spent a lot of time riding an extra bike length behind the wheel in front of me until the sun started to rise.

On the ride back today, somewhere around River Ridge, which seems to be the home of some sort of underground anti-bike, take-back-the-levee activist cell, we were rolling along at a nice steady pace of 22-23 mph as we approached a woman walking her dog.  Coming the other way on his bike was Bob Perrin, so we at first eased up, and then braked since everything was coming together at the same place.  The woman wasn't budging from the middle of the bike path, nor was she keeping her dog close to her, so by the time we all converged, Bob had come to a stop and the paceline was down to walking speed as we threaded our way past.  I didn't see it as a much of a problem, thinking that the woman was either clueless or stupid (or perhaps both).  As we went past, I saw Donald turn around and tell the woman, "That's why we yielded to you!"  It turned out that the woman, possible stupidity notwithstanding, was just being passive-aggressive and must have said something about pedestrians having right of way, not that any of us were arguing the point.  (Passive–aggressive behavior, a personality trait, is passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to following through with expectations in interpersonal or occupational situations.)   So that slowed things down for a little while as we collectively scratched our heads and wondered why someone would think such behavior was necessary, or helpful.  Eventually, of course, things got going again and I found myself spending a whole lot of time sitting in VJ's draft.

Last weekend Bob Perrin stopped by and gave me a few really old local racing photos from the early 70s.  This one shows me in one of the La Boucherie Gran Prix races that the club promoted down in the French Quarter around '72 or '73.  Eventually I'll get them all scanned and up on the NOBC archive website.  I still remember that old helmet and even those socks. 

Too Early

The radio came on at 5:45 am and I promptly drifted off to sleep again.  A moment later, apparently, I jolted awake, thinking, "Damn, I'm late!"  I threw on riding clothes, rushed downstairs, filled a couple of water bottles and took off for the lakefront.  I was still half-asleep.  Somewhere out around Bayou St. John I looked up and thought, "It sure is dark."  I glanced down at my watch as I rode under a street lamp.  Crap!  I'd left home a good twenty-five minutes early.  I hate it when that happens. Harrison Avenue through the park was basically pitch black.  So as I rode up to Starbucks almost an hour before the start of the Giro Ride, I was a little surprised to see Daniel already there.  On the plus side, I had lots of time to sip my morning coffee.

It was windy this morning, but otherwise the weather was nearly perfect. The group was pretty large as we rolled down Lakeshore Drive, but aside from the wind I wasn't expecting a particularly hard ride.  For one thing, a few of the usual instigators were missing.  For another, it looked like we'd have a direct headwind or tailwind for most of the ride.  One thing about the combination of a direct headwind and a large group is that, unless you're at the front, sitting in the draft can feel really easy.  In fact, the pace did get fairly fast here and there, but in general things were rather inconsistent today.  After battling the headwind all the way out, we finally turned around.  Things were slow to get going, however, and so I rode ahead to catch a couple of riders who were already up the road.  Of course, I knew the group would eventually get back up to speed, and considering the tailwind, I knew they'd be going pretty fast when they caught us.  Once that happened, I think we went a few miles without the speed dropping much below 30 mph.  So anyway, there were a few really fast stretches until we got back to Hayne Blvd. where things slowed down to conversational mode before the final surges over the bridges.

Off Balance

It seems that everything has been just a bit off-balance lately.  The weekend started out with a nice cool morning ride out toward the lakefront on Saturday.  It was cool enough to warrant a little extra wind protection as I made my way to Starbucks looking forward to a hot cup of coffee.  With the days getting noticeably shorter by the day, it was still quite dark as I rode across City Park on Harrison Avenue. There wasn't a car in sight, so I rode in the traffic lane rather than the bike path since there's sometimes a bit of debris on the path that my little blinky light wasn't going to pick up early enough to avoid a nasty surprise.  The Saturday Giro had a brisk northeast wind to deal with, making for a hard ride on the way out and a fast one on the way back.  I was feeling pretty good and got in a good workout. 

It wasn't until much later in the day that I learned that Robin, who had dropped off of the group on the way out, had been hit from behind by a truck that was reportedly going around 50 mph.  The truck crushed his rear wheel and he was thrown up onto the hood.  The driver, who hadn't been looking where he was going, looked down at him on the ground and asked, "What do you want me to do?"  Robin responded, "Call 911." No kidding?  At least the driver, who apparently didn't have insurance, stuck around.  Robin spent the next two days in the hospital with fractures in three vertebrae and a whole lot of pain.  Of course, it could have been a whole lot worse, so we can at least be thankful for that.  Since it was the MS Tour weekend around here, turnout for the Giro was a little lower than usual, especially on Sunday.  We still got in a pretty good workout, but toward the end the group really split up a lot.  I came over the Seabrook bridge with one other rider who continued on Leon C. Simon when I turned onto Lakeshore Drive, and then soft-pedaled for quite a while so I wouldn't have to ride back home alone.

I've felt like I've been in a fog since Monday, however.  I think I may have a little sinus infection or something, as often happens this time of year.  I always seem to have trouble adapting to spectacular weather.  This morning I woke up with a stiff neck and stuffy nose, just like the last two mornings.  Of course, I went out to ride anyway.  The Wednesday group was relatively big, with a dozen or so riders in attendance.  The ride itself was fairly typical with moderate speeds and long pulls, and although I felt a little better by the time I got home, something still seems a bit off-balance.  On the plus side, I finally picked up the LCCS awards for 2010 about eight months later than I should have, and in the process placed the order for the 2011 ones.  Maybe I need to get a little more sleep.....

Planning to Plan

So I spent this week's riding time more or less in recovery and sightseeing mode.  With only the track championships (which I'll probably be officiating anyway) and local Tour de Jefferson "ride" on the horizon, it seems appropriate to be winding down just a bit.  The truth is, however, that I haven't really been all that wound up this year anyway, so it's more a matter of roadie tradition and habit than anything else.  The air this morning was dry and cool, and it's looking like we'll have a little taste of Fall for the next couple of days, at least in the early morning hours.  Around here, that means a temperature of 70F, or even (brrrrrrr!) down into the upper 60s.  I'm thinking about plans for the next few months, which are always rather busy for me.  Somewhere in there I absolutely need to replace my worn-through saddle and maybe pick up some new gloves and shoe-covers to tide me through the winter. We will have a couple of visits from family members, a little Halloween open house, some travel, etc.  Some travel arrangements have been made, others not quite yet.  Plus, I need to schedule the annual LAMBRA meeting, make sure the awards get ordered on time this year, officiate the track championships, hopefully sell a property of my mother's, etc.  I actually just this week got the awards and team trophy for last year's LCCS!  Better late than never, I guess.  I'll probably order the ones for this year when I go pick them up tomorrow. 

Words to live by

Speaking of awards, USA Cycling has worked out a deal with Voler for state championship (and I assume BAR/LCCS) jerseys that looks promising.  We've never given out state championship jerseys before because of the cost and order minimums involved.  The deal with Voler, however, would allow LAMBRA to come up with a standard LAMBRA championship design, and then the winning riders in all of the championship classes and categories could buy championship jerseys, if they want to, via an online ordering system after confirmation from LAMBRA. It is essentially the same system they now use for the national championship jerseys, and the cost per jersey is really low - under $40.  LAMBRA would even get a small "royalty" on each one ordered.  Once they have the design set up, they can print jerseys as needed and ship them out within three or four days.

This morning's Friday ride was smooth and easy -- a lot of time at 20-22 mph taking long pulls with Scott, David, Zack and Taylor.  So anyway, I guess I'll be riding the Giro this weekend (possibly with arm-warmers?).  The rides may be a little smaller than usual because this is the MS Tour weekend, so a fair number of the local riders will be battling the north wind from Hammond to McComb tomorrow and then reversing the route on Sunday.  I did that ride one year and it was a lot of fun, but I will kind of have my hands full this weekend anyway.

Six Gap Recap

Me, Keith and Steve - still pretty dark!

Keith, Kris and I hit the road early Saturday morning for the long drive up into the foothills of Georgia for the annual pilgrimage to the Six Gap Century.  Compared with last year, the weather forecast was looking quite encouraging, with a low of around 50, a high in the low 70s, and virtually no chance of rain.  We arrived at Dahlonega in the early afternoon, giving us time to pick up our packets and watch the Juniors and Masters criteriums.  If we'd gotten there a little earlier and I'd have had time to find out how many masters had registered, I might have convinced myself to enter.  As it turned out they had only about 13 in the combined 35+/45+ race, so winning back my entry fee would have been a distinct possibility.  Anyway, we met up with Steve and Pat and headed over to our host's house for dinner and vino.  Kris had made a last-minute decision to switch to a compact crankset, which FedEx had delivered that morning, so we swapped that out in the driveway before it got dark and he took it for a very brief test ride.  It was a little too brief, as it turned out, because he dropped his chain a couple of times the next day.  Afterward, we stayed up to watch the LSU game on their enormous TV before hitting the sack ... or couch.  I didn't sleep well at all, as my stomach was giving me grief for some reason.

As usual, Sunday morning was kind of a rush.  Even though we arrived at the school where the ride started about an hour ahead of time, there were about a thousand cars ahead of us as we inched our way into the parking lot. I put a flask of HammerGel in my pocket, made sure my two water bottles were full, and contemplated the temperature.  By then the sun was starting to peek over the horizon, but I was already pretty chilled.  Knowing I'd probably regret it later, which I did, I put on two jerseys and arm-warmers, and headed down to the starting line about 15 minutes before the 7:30 start.  They had a little area roped off at the front for people who had gone under 6 hours, so I stepped over the tape and waited there, shivering, as the overly enthusiastic announcer tried somewhat successfully to raise the general level of early morning excitement.  He started asking people in the sub-6 hour corral what their last year times had been and asking the crowd if they were "worthy."  I wasn't paying much attention when suddenly he stuck the microphone in front of my face.  I said "5:50-something" (I looked it up later, it was 5:56), and for some reason he seemed doubtful (more on him later).  I was tempted to respond to the big guy with a Yoda-esque "Judge me by my size, do you?"  but just let it slide. 

The ride started right on time (I'm in the video!) as over 1,000 of us rolled off into the Georgia countryside for 103 miles of long slow climbs and scary-fast downhills.  The first ten or fifteen miles went pretty smoothly, and I was a little surprised that the pace wasn't any faster than it was, not that I was complaining. Although I can't help wanting to finish with a respectable time, for this ride mere respectability would have to suffice. I was hanging out somewhere in the front 40 or 50, mainly to stay out of trouble, as we rode up and down the rollers leading up to the first significant climb, Neel's Gap, at mile 19 or so. Once we started up that climb I looked up ahead and could see a fairly big group of maybe 35 riders already pulling away rather quickly.  I settled in to a nice steady pace of 7-10 mph and stuck with the riders around me.  Attacking Neel's Gap was definitely not in my game plan. After a fast but welcome downhill, I found myself in a nice steady group of 30 or so that was rolling along at a brisk but comfortable speed. We went up the next two climbs, Jack's and Unicoi, more or less together.  The descent down Unicoi is probably my favorite, but this year it was interrupted by traffic.  I had just gotten the speed up into the 45-50 mph range when I came up on a truck that couldn't pass a couple of slower cyclists on the narrow winding road.  It was very frustrating to be dragging the brakes where I'd normally be flying through the curves, but there was just nothing that I or the driver could do. 

We finally came to the start of Hogpen at around mile 44.  For that long climb it's pretty much every man for himself as each riders quickly settles into whatever pace he thinks he can maintain.  In my case, I was alternating between standing in the 39x25 at about 9-10 mph and sitting in the 39x27 at 7-8 mph, mostly sitting.  I could see riders all up and down the road, all crawling along at about the same speed, but was careful not to look up the road too much.  Every time I'd look ahead and see the seemingly endless climb I'd hear this little voice in my head saying, "Why don't you just stop and take a break?" Fortunately I'd taken the time this year to write down the start and finish mileages of the big climbs on my handlebar tape, so at least I knew how much farther the pain would last.  By the top of Hogpen things were pretty well shattered, but there were still a number of riders around, so after the quick downhill we still had a little group as we approached the Wolfpen Gap climb where I was expecting to start unravelling.  By the time I got over that one, which involved avoiding the slower 3-Gappers since we were all back on the same route, a little group of six to ten had pulled away and I was pretty much on my own for the rest of the ride.  After coming over the last big climb at Woody's Gap, I was looking forward to the fast and fun downhill, but was once again frustrated by slow-moving traffic and ended up spending most of the time on the brakes as I followed a couple of cars that were cautiously leapfrogging from one rider to the next.  The rest of the ride was just a lot of rollers where my speed fluctuated from 12 to 40 mph.  I didn't really have much left in the tank at that point, so I was taking it fairly easy on the climbs.

I ended up finishing with a time of 5:50, which was right in line with my other times.  In fact, it's kind of amazing that after doing this ride four times in four years, my finishing times have not varied more than about ten minutes. As I rolled past the tent at the finish the announcer, who looked exhausted, recognized me and asked me my time.  I stopped to chat with Donald Davis who had finished around 5th, or 3rd, a full half hour ahead of me.  As I rolled off to seek liquids and food, Donald headed back out onto the route to ride it backwards back up to the top of Woody Gap so he could cheer for his friends and teammates.  The results, as of this writing, are a little screwy since they include the times for riders who obviously didn't do the whole ride, but anyway they're on the Epic Sports Marketing website. If you want to see what it takes to ride this thing really fast, go over to Brian Toone's blog to see his extensive and annotated ride data and read his reports of the Criterium and Century Ride.  Brian and one other guy, Jimmy Schurman, whose timing chip was obviously not working well, were the first to finish, just under the course record.  Jorge finished at 6:35 and Steve finished at 6:37.  Keith was at 7:20 and Kris, who was pretty dehydrated and exhausted for a while, finished at 7:43. Sadly, I never got over 52 mph because of the traffic, but Keith had a maximum speed of a bit over 56 mph.

We were on the road by around 3:30 or 4:00 and finally arrived back in New Orleans right around midnight. It's Tuesday afternoon now and my back still aches!  Apparently those climbs up to the top of the levee aren't doing it.

Gearing *Down*

After a fairly relaxed week of riding I'll be heading from where I am, here in the South, about nine hours northeast to where the rest of the country thinks is the South, namely Atlanta, or to be more specific, Dahlonega, which is north of Atlanta.  Late last night I rummaged through a box in my basement, finally extracting a little box marked "Six Gap."  Inside was my 12-27 cassette that hadn't seen the light of day since this time last year.  I installed it on my trusty old Rolf wheels with those new pink tires, stuck a huge water bottle into the cage, and planned on an easy Friday morning ride to make sure the off-brand Miche cassette wasn't going to require any derailleur adjustments.

The Six Gap Century has become in recent years the closing bookend for my road season, the opening bookend being Rouge-Roubaix in March.  The intervening seven months usually represent roughly 6,500 of a typical 11,000 mile year.  This year, however, is looking like it will be closer to 10,000 miles for me.  It's just been one of those years.  Anyway, the 103-mile ride is always memorable, usually painful, and sometimes humbling.  I rode it the first couple of times with a low gear of 39x25 before finally springing for that 12-27 cassette.  Even so, most riders opt for gearing substantially lower by going with a "compact" crank setup, typically with a 34-tooth small ring.  The route itself features, as its name would imply, six "gaps" or passes, but a couple of them are short enough to pale in comparison to the others.  The first long climb is Neels Gap that starts at about 19 miles and peaks out t miles later at 26 miles.  The last 4 miles of that one are pretty damned steep. After that one there are a couple of relatively short climbs up Jacks and Unicoi gaps, followed by the excellent 5-mile descent down from Unicoi.  Finally, at about 44 miles, comes THE BIG ONE, Hogpen gap.  This is essentially an 8.5 mile climb that climbs over 1,000 feet, with the steepest sections nearest the top, of course.  There's a nice descent after that one, a bit of flat, and then the 4.2 mile climb up Wolfpen gap starting at 72 miles. This one actually has some of the steepest grades, and will take whatever you might have left in your legs, if anything, right out of you. Then there are a couple of short climbs, a nice fast descent, and a long, long rolling stretch to the finish. Sounds like fun, eh?  The Wolfpen and Hogpen climbs are timed, thanks to the chip-timing system, and I think there's a prize for the winners of that.  Of course, as the organizer reminds everybody at the start, "It's not a race!"  Yeah, right.

Anyway, we'll be heading out around 6:30 tomorrow morning for the long drive, which should provide ample time to contemplate the possibility of riding the new criterium that they're having the evening before.......

At the Beach

I'd been looking forward to the Pensacola Classic Stage Race with a mix of excitement and trepidation.  The extensive pre-event promotion, generous prizelist, and attractive destination promised a good turnout, even for a late-season race.  I figured it would be a good race.  I also figured I'd get may ass kicked.  So naturally I signed up.  After a flurry of emails and text messages I was all set up to drive up with Tim, stay at the luxurious Holiday Inn, right on the beach, with a voucher from BP picking up the hotel tab.  So Friday afternoon I headed home from work a little early, put the racing wheels with their pink Michelin Pro Race 3s on the bike, cleaned off a week's worth of dirt, lubed the chain and waited for Tim to pick me up.  Our timing was going to be pretty tight.  The trip GPS was estimating our arrival for 9:05.  Packet pick-up ended at 9:00.  As we approached Pensacola, the estimated arrival time started dropping. We arrived about ten minutes before they closed down for the night, just in time to pickup our numbers and timing chips and put our names into the door prize jar for a chance to win a Specialized Tarmac.  Then we headed for our room and the minute we walked in the door Tim's phone rang.  It was the organizer calling to tell him he'd won the bike!  Sweet.

I was riding the combined 35+/45+ race, and Saturday morning offered a 50 mile road race on a pretty good 25 mile course with one long climb about two-thirds of the way around.  Unlike the previous year, the finish wasn't right after a nice little climb, but was pretty much a flat drag race - a last-minute change that was made when the folks who controlled the original start location decided they needed a pile of cash from the promoter.  The race started off a little slower than it had the year before, but there were still a few attacks and short-lived breaks.  Everything was together when we hit the one really tactically significant climb, and as I'd expected, or perhaps feared, Donald Davis attacked hard at about the mid-point.  Things got strung out immediately and although I was able to stay in the mix, I didn't think that I needed to go full-bore.  After all, there were a lot of people in the pack and no other big hills nearby, so I thought that surely there would be a chase once we got over the top and the break would get pulled back in a few minutes.  Well, I was wrong.  Up at the top of the climb, which was more like a false flat, a group suddenly came together and the gap just kind of exploded.  The rest of the group didn't really respond.  This was not good.  Before we knew it the gap had gone up to about 30 seconds.  A couple of teams had guys in the break, so that took a number of people out of the chase.  Eventually the break, which had seven riders in it, got out of sight.  At one point I got into a small break that I thought might at least stay away from the pack, but after a few miles it was pulled back and the stage was set for a sprint for 8th place overall, which meant nothing since all of the stage bonuses were in the break anyway.  Even so, you would have thought we were sprinting for the world championship the way riders started crowding the front from about three miles out.  There was definitely some needlessly dangerous riding going on and I couldn't get close enough to the front to have a good shot at the line without doing something stupid.  Since I had no faith whatsoever in the officials giving pack time to everyone (they can never resist when there's chip timing) I sprinted anyway, coming in somewhere around 7th or 8th in the pack which put me in 8th in the 45+ race.  Oh well.  On the plus side, I didn't feel like the road race had taken much out of me.

The afternoon time trial was just a few miles down the beach road from the hotel, and the start times had been posted to the event website, so I carefully figured out when I should leave in order to get in a nice warmup without having to hang around in the sun very long before my start. I knew something was wrong by the time I was halfway there, because by then I should have seen riders coming toward me.  It turned out they were running 35 minutes late.  So much for my plan.  There were no road race results at the time trial, or on the website, and of course the posted start list was now off by about 35 minutes.  The one-way time trial had a fairly good tailwind, which I knew would favor the real TT fanatics, among whom I am not.  I did a nice steady time trial at about 85% effort, maintaining a reasonable 27 mph, which would have been more like 25 mph without the tailwind.  My 30-second man passed me about four kilometers into the five kilometer TT.  That evening we met up at Flounders where I was somewhat embarrassed to find that my legs weren't the least bit sore.  I guess I really need to start taking these time trial things more seriously. 

So I stayed up until 10:30 or so Saturday hoping to see the TT and GC results, but no luck.  The next morning the GC standings were supposed to be posted, but if you tried to go to the website from a smartphone you got redirected to some photography site instead.  There was never a results posting that showed stage times, finish bonuses, at GC all in the same place.  It would have been virtually impossible to protest anything.  Anyway, we headed out to the criterium course where the masters were scheduled to start at 11:00.  We arrived in time to see the Women's race in which Debbie Milne and Allie Hurst spent much of the time off the front.  The rest of the Cat. 1-3 women's field, which included NOBC riders Vivian and Angie got a little split up but were still very much in the race until the last five laps or so.  Debbie attacked hard at one point, opening a 10-second gap on Allie, but withing a lap or so Allie had pulled it back and things were set for a 2-rider sprint.  Unfortunately there was some confusion about the finish lap - perhaps they heard the bell for a pack prime and thought it was their bell lap, or perhaps the bell they heard after that sprint was the bell for some lapped riders, but anyway they ended up sprinting twice with Allie taking both of them.

Things were running about half an hour late, but apparently they shortened the race before mine, which meant that I didn't get the warmup I had been planning for.  At the start I totally flubbed clipping in and spent the next couple of laps trying to move up to a more comfortable position.  Aside from some rider rolling off the front who was apparently one of the Cat. 1/2/3 riders who the officials had allowed to race with us (really??), most of the race was fast but not exceptionally so.  Since my GC possibilities were pretty much in the dumpster because of my time trial, I was just hoping for a sprint finish and a decent shot at the line.  With four laps to go things started to get kind of crazy.  The pace at the front wasn't fast enough to string things out enough, so there was a lot of sketchy riding as things got bunched up.  At one point some big guy tried to repeatedly push me out of his way with his hand on my hip.  Seriously?  Anyway, a little attack with at the bell finally strung it out a little bit, but I couldn't get as close to the front as I'd have liked before the last couple of turns and probably came around the last corner around 10th wheel and ultimately finishing around 7th or 8th, which was 4th in the 45+.  It was at least some small consolation for an otherwise unimpressive weekend performance.

So afterward I peeled off my wet skinsuit, changed, and headed off with my camera to watch the Cat. 1/2/3 race that was already underway.  I took a few photos and then suddenly remembered I'd forgotten to return my chip, so I had to go back to the car, cut it off, and turn it in behind the officials' stand.  Then I decided to go take some photos at one of the corners on the back side of the course.  As I started walking in that direction I heard someone calling my name.  I looked back and it was a police officer.  He said that one of my friends had crashed.  I rushed over to the corner where there was now a fire truck and found Tim sitting on the sidewalk leaning on a brick wall and holding a bandage to the side of his head.  I asked the fireman if he had answered all of the questions correctly, and, satisfied that he didn't have a concussion, asked him what had happened.  It sounded like a rider ahead of him had hit the manhole in that corner, which lifted his rear wheel and caused him to slide out. Tim had no choice but to try and go around on the outside, but after hopping the curb onto the sidewalk he ran out of room, brushed along a brick wall, and then slammed sideways into a brick column, putting a pretty good gash in his ear and causing a fair amount of collateral damage to arms and ankles.  He had dislocated a finger but popped it back into place before I arrived.  Anyway, we got him cleaned up and headed for home shortly after the race ended.  I think we were somewhere in Alabama when the bleeding finally stopped.  So I ended up coming in 9th in the 45+ race, although I really have no idea exactly how that was calculated.  It was really a pretty well put-together race and the only real issue, as far as I was concerned, was with the results posting.  I put a few photos up at http://flic.kr/s/aHsjw5K5kr.

Tapering Off

The Pensacola Classic is this weekend. Now in its second year, I'm expecting they will have a pretty big turnout, especially since it is part of both the LAMBRA and Florida points series'.  It's also the end of the LAMBRA road season, unless you count one possibility that may or may not happen in December in New Orleans.  For the last few weeks I've sensed the racing season starting to taper off a bit as it always does this time of year.  It's kind of hard to detect the change, actually.  The fast parts of the training rides are still just as fast, but things start up just a little bit more slowly and the fastest stretches are just that little bit shorter.  I'm thinking about track and cyclocross and century rides and trying to remember what articles of winter riding gear need to be replaced before it gets cold.  Fortunately we have a few months around here before the real chill sets in.  And then there's November.  I just finished making a week's worth of travel arrangements, including the USAC Local Associations Summit in Colorado Springs, followed immediately by a research administration conference in Washington D.C.  Neither involved much in the way of recreation or, for that matter, exercise. So yesterday was the last of Kenny's bandit Lakefront time trials  (there's a video!). There was a good turnout and some fast times, so although the official road season may be tapering off, it's clear that not all of the riders are.

This morning's levee ride was surprisingly well-attended.  It's quite dark now at 6 am as I ride out to meet the ride, and the riders are starting to show up a little later than usual, but that's OK because we really don't want a 25-rider paceline blasting down the levee in the dark.  By the time things start to ramp up, usually somewhere out past the Huey P. Long bridge, there's a lot more light. I was feeling a little sluggish today, so it was a struggle to stay with the pace, which just seemed to get faster and faster.  Out near The Dip a number of people backed off and turned back, but there was still a good-sized group that did the whole ride.  That kept the pace fairly high and we spent a lot of time, both coming and going, in the 27-30 mph range.  I think there were three or four times when I pulled off after a short pull, only to have Howard come storming past on his TT bike three mph faster. Anyway, although I was trying to take it just a little bit easy, considering the fact that last weekend took a lot out of me and this next weekend is coming up fast, I'm not sure I succeeded.  My goal for the Pensacola race is just to hold my own and have fun.  Down the road are things like the Six Gap Century later in the month, and then the local Tour de Jefferson ride, followed by our Track Championships at the end of October.  Just today I got an email from the Dahlonega folks announcing a criterium the evening before the Six Gap ride.  Tempting. 

Back to Natchez

I'd been debating what to do about the LAMBRA Road Championships for a couple of days.  I've never felt like I was really in shape this year, and since, for one reason or another, I'd missed so many races already this year I was actually considering riding the Master 55+/60+ race instead of the 35+/45+ race.  The downside there, aside from the unavoidable acknowledgement that I was actually old enough to be eligible, was that the field would probably be quite small and the distance rather short at a bit over 36 miles.  On the plus side, the chance I'd be dropped was considerably lower.  I was still on the fence about it as I walked out the door late Wednesday night to walk the dogs. A few seconds later I was on the ground holding my sprained ankle and suddenly thinking that maybe that shorter race would be the right choice this year.  I taped the already swelling ankle and went to bed, hoping I hadn't done too much damage.  The next morning it was better, as long as I didn't twist it, so I went out to meet the Thursday ride.  I needed to make sure my recently reassembled shifter was working anyway.  As often happens, the ankle felt just fine while I was riding, although I was careful not to spend any time out of the saddle.  Just to be on the safe side, I turned around early.

The alarm went off early Saturday morning.  I had to get up to Natchez before registration opened to drop off the LAMBRA clock and generator and, if needed, help out with registration.  I would be driving a rental Kia Soul (the one with the commercial featuring giant rats and rap music), which the agency called a minivan, but which is in fact a mini-minivan.  On the plus side, it had satellite radio and audio input, so I had a nice commercial-free drive, arriving as the crew was setting up the huge tents they always have for this race.  The first races started at 9 am, although my 55+/60+ race didn't roll until 2 pm.  I spent some time fixing up the registration/results spreadsheets and eventually plugging in the Junior race results and watching the Cat. 5 and Masters Women's races before pulling the bike out of the car and getting things together for my own race.  As it turned out, we would have a small field of only nine riders.  The 35+/45+ race, which would start a few minutes ahead of us, had twenty.  I'm not really sure why we don't get larger fields for this race.  The course and venue are great, although it is certainly possible that the hills on the first part of the 5-mile loop scare some people away.  This course starts out with a steep but short climb up to a dam.  A mile later there is a fairly long stair-step climb that is steeper at the top than at the bottom.  That's followed by a quick, short downhill and then a short but very steep little climb that seems to get steeper every lap.  We'd be doing seven laps.  Things started out pretty smoothly, but by the time we were halfway through the first lap it was becoming clear that half the field was not going to be doing any work.  I was feeling fairly good and spent quite a bit of time at the front along with a couple of other riders.  I guess it was on the third lap when I came over the steep hill, pulled for a little while, and pulled off to find only one other rider with me.  He came through and said, "It's just you and me, Randy."  I figured I'd work with it and see where it went, knowing that Mike Williams could probably close the gap by himself once.

As hard as the first couple of miles of this loop are, the last few miles are really fun with long sweeping downhill curves, smooth asphalt, and tree-shaded roads.  I took another pull and saw that my breakaway companion was already having trouble.  I backed off a bit so he could catch back up, but a little while later he was off the back again.  I could see the rest of the group just behind, so I finally just put my head down and went for it.  By the end of the lap I was pretty much out of sight with, I think, four laps left to go.  I wasn't too wild about the prospect of a long time trial on this course, but by then I was pretty much committed.  I never had any time checks, so for the rest of the race I didn't really know what might be going on behind me.  From what I heard afterward, Mike initially closed most of the gap but when nobody was willing to share the work he sat up.  This was, of course, all complicated by the fact that there were essentially two races going on at the same time, so the 60+ riders really didn't have much of a reason to chase me.  Anyway, I ended up doing a rather long time trial and finishing quite a few minutes ahead of the rest of the field.

That evening Curtis invited me over to his house where he and Tommy and a number of the Natchez crew who organized the race were cooking dinner over a interesting outdoor grill kind of thing that was basically a cast iron cylinder with one flat side and a fire inside.  It was both fun and delicious, although I was careful to limit myself to a single beer because by then I was seriously considering doing the Cat. 1/2 race the next morning.

Sunday morning, feeling rather sore, I signed up for the Cat. 1/2 race, mainly just for the exercise.  My goal for this race was to stay with the field for at least six of the 14 laps.  Based on past experience, I figured that would be about when they would start attacking the climbs and the effects of my substandard training program would really kick in.  This race turned out to have a field of only nine riders, which did not bode well for me.  On the other hand, most of these guys were smart enough to know that they wouldn't need the whole 72 miles to make something happen.  As a result, the first few laps were pretty smooth.  We were only a couple of laps into the race when Woody, who had been a bit off the front, flatted.  His teammate Frank, who had ridden the masters race the day before, stopped to help pace him back to the pack after the wheel change.  In the meantime, the other teams kept the pace up a bit.  After a couple of miles I started looking back for Woody and Frank, and shortly after we made the right turn at the Natchez State Park entrance, I caught a glimpse of a solitary rider chasing.  Frank had apparently blown up early in the chase and Woody was now on his own. He ended up chasing for a full 5.2 mi. lap before making contact.  So as I'd expected I was starting to struggle a bit on the hills at lap #5, and then around lap 7 there was a surge up over that steep little hill that gapped me and another rider off the back.  After a brief chase I had just made contact when another attack went.  I just sat up at that point and thought, "I don't need this today!"  So the rest of the race, maybe 35 miles or so, was more of a training ride for me.  It was fine, though, because that's exactly what I'd been expecting.  Don't you just love it when a plan comes together like that?

Afterwards I gathered up all my water bottles and walked down to the feed zone to hand up water bottles to teammates and a few other riders in the Cat. 4 and Women's races.  All-in-all, it was a pretty good weekend.  Now I'm thinking about going to the stage race in Pensacola next weekend.

Blind Faith

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Thus, I found myself in a light drizzle heading out to the levee early yesterday afternoon astride the trusty old rain bike, wearing the trusty old rain jacket.  Meeting up with Mignon who was on her vintage mountain bike, we rode in the off-and-on rain out to The Dip, battling the 20-30 mph winds on the way back.  Although the idea was to do an easy ride, the head and cross winds made that rather difficult, but even so, I was glad I'd ridden.  It had been warm enough to make a two hour ride in the rain relatively enjoyable.  By evening I was already thinking about what kind of ride I might be able to put together for Monday.  I figured the weather would have to be better by then.

So this morning I flew down Carrollton toward the lake, pushed along by a strong south wind left over from the rapidly retreating Tropical Storm, arriving at the Starbucks to find ..... nobody there.  Hmmm.  Considering the fact that it was still extremely windy and the roads were quite wet, I hadn't been expecting many, but then I hadn't been expecting to be alone either.  Fortunately, a few minutes later Tim, Woody, VJ, Daniel and Mignon arrived.  A minute after they sat down it started to rain.  We waited for a while, and then when it looked like it was ending we headed out. Of course, it immediately started raining again.  The lake was quiet with the south wind as we rode down Lakeshore Drive.  I thought that with only six riders, pouring rain, and 20 mph winds we'd be taking it kind of easy.  As usual I was wrong.  Tim and Daniel were making sure we didn't waste the day's ride by going slowly.  By the time we on Chef Highway we were going 27-30 mph in a steady rain.  My glasses were fogged up, but taking them off would have meant exposing my eyes to the wheelspray, and since I was mostly sucking wheels by then, there was a lot of it.  With the combination of water spraying right into my face, foggy and dirty glasses, and rain, I really couldn't see much of what was in front of me.  For all practical purposes I was just riding on blind faith, taking at least a little comfort in the knowledge that the other riders in our little group were all experienced and predictable riders.  Somewhere along Hayne we'd lost Mignon, so we were down to five riders.  Four and a half if you consider how many pulls I was skipping. 

We weren't sure if we'd make it out to Venetian Isles since all reports were that the road was flooded out there.  Indeed, when we came over the levee and through the open floodgate the road ahead looked like a lake, so we made a u-turn and headed back. We weren't halfway back before it became obvious that the wind had completely shifted and was now coming strongly out of the northwest.  By then, although the rain had stopped, the wheelspray hadn't, and it was starting to feel cooler.  I could feel road grit in my teeth, ears, and basically everywhere.  The return trip down Hayne Blvd. got harder and harder as the wind became more and more gusty.  Coming over the Casino bridge there were a couple of times when the wind almost took my front wheel right out from under me.  I don't know what would have happened if I'd been riding deep aero rims, but when we crossed the Seabrook bridge a few minutes later I was careful to stay low and close to the right side barrier where there was at least a little protection from the wind.  Looking down at the lake it was hard to believe it was the same lake we'd ridden along an hour or so earlier.  The lake level had already been a few feet higher than normal because of the tropical storm, and now the wind had shifted around to the north, pushing all that water up against the seawall.  When we came over the levee onto Lakeshore Drive at the bottom of the Seabrook bridge we found the road to already be flooded and had to detour back to Leon C. Simon.

It was a long, wet ride, and by the time I got home my legs were a little sore, I was soaked to the skin, hungry, and chilled.  Not quite an "epic" ride, but close.

Unpredictability

I just lost a couple of paragraphs I'd written here.  It's got something to do with this fancy touchpad thing, but it seems to be rather unpredictable.  Oh well.  So anyway, I really didn't need to miss another day of riding today, but Tropical Storm Lee had different ideas.  Things got really windy and rainy early this morning, and by 6 am I knew I was definitely not going to be riding. As it turned out, that was about the worst weather we got an my house today.  Unfortunately it kind of screwed up my morning, leaving me with nothing to do but make coffee and watch The Weather Channel. By mid-morning I was really starting to get desperate for something to do, but with the weather still rather unpredictable and the roads still quite wet and covered with leaves and branches, I was still hesitant to get on the bike.  So then it hit me.  What better time to take apart that balky right shifter and confirm my suspicions.

For a couple of months it's been acting a little strangely, and the Ergobrain computer has consistently been showing the rear cog as being one lower than it really was.  I suspected a broken spring carrier, but taking a Campi shifter apart is not for the faint of heart, so I'd been putting it off.  Well, with the prospect of three days of steady rain I figured, "no time like the present."  Naturally, no soon than I'd started the clouds parted and the sun came out, at least for a while.

After peeling back the stinky handlebar tape, pulling out the brake and derailleur cables, rolling back the rubber cover to expose the old sweat, and removing the rusty bolt holding the shifter to the handlebars, I pulled the shifter off.  As I'd expected, it was pretty gunky. I sprayed it all down with silicone spray and started taking things apart. I could already see that, as I had suspected, the post that holds the big spring was either broken or cracked.  I removed all of the various parts and springs, cleaned everything up, and ordered a new $10 spring carrier. Guess I'll be riding the old Cervelo for a few days.  Meanwhile, the tropical storm was turning out to be something of a disappointment, not that I heard anyone complaining. Still a little bored, I decided it was time to re-wire the old 10-light brass chandelier that I haven't installed yet.  That turned out to be quite a task, ultimately requiring me to disassemble the whole thing in order to thread the power cord through the impossibly narrow sections.  It took me nearly an hour to take all of the sections apart because they were pretty much welded together with rust.

I think I'm going to ride tomorrow -- somehow.

Depression

Well, our little tropical depression has already achieved Tropical Storm status, and has thereby had an official name bestowed upon it.  I didn't go out to ride in the rain this morning, although in retrospect it might have been the best chance I'd have had for the next few days.  Tropical Storm Lee is just sitting there churning around in the Gulf, pulling moisture up its east side, which happens to be where we are.  The forecast is for rain, rain and more rain, and if we happen to get stuck under one of those trains of rainstorms it's all quite likely to overwhelm the pumping system and start filling up this big bowl we call New Orleans. Hopefully the wind won't be too big of an issue once it finally gets close enough for that to matter, which may not be until Sunday.  In the meantime, it's looking like it will be a wet and depressing weekend.  I'm already seriously considering breaking out the rain bike tomorrow morning if conditions don't look too bad. Meanwhile, here at work, everything has gone quiet this afternoon, which means that a lot of people have already skipped out ahead of the upcoming long weekend.  We have the Tulane Activities Expo this afternoon, so I'll be over there from about 4:00 - 6:00 trying to lure unsuspecting students in to bike racing.  Later tonight I guess I'll have to venture down into the basement and make sure anything that can't swim is at least off the floor.

So I once again signed up for Six Gap yesterday.  It should at provide a late-season goal to keep me off the couch too much.  Ahead of that, there's the LAMBRA road championships in a week, followed by the Pensacola stage race that I'm hoping to make, and later in October we're hoping to have some track racing.  This whole season has been kind of depressing for me so far.  Having missed so many races, I don't feel like I ever really got into shape.  That kind of makes me a bit apprehensive about the races and especially Six Gap, but I guess getting dropped at a race is still better than sitting on the couch watching reruns on television.