Don't Stop Pedaling, Keep Turning Left

I may not have won many medals, but I certainly put in a lot of chamois time this weekend! It was Thursday before my legs finally felt recovered from the previous weekend's trip to the velodrome, so after an easy morning ride on Friday, Saturday's Giro Ride came up pretty quickly.  If I'd been more serious about the afternoon's LAMBRA Track Championships, I would have skipped the Giro, but I felt that I needed the miles, especially since I wouldn't be riding the road bike on Sunday at all.  The Giro turned out to be fast, but I kept my nose out of the wind for the most part and arrived back at home with a couple of hours to spare before driving up to Baton Rouge to open up registration at 1 pm.  I brought both the newer Blue track bike and the trusty old Viner with me.  I'd swapped cranksets during the week because I wanted the 49 tooth chainring instead of the 48 on the Blue and the two chanksets had different bolt circle diameters.

I was the first to arrive at the velodrome, but by the time I'd hauled some most of the equipment down to the infield, other riders and volunteers started arriving.  Naturally, there was a big rainstorm heading our way, and of course it started raining a bit, but it didn't last long. Mike Lew was there with a couple of bikes for Mignon and Heather, neither of whom had ever been on the track.  They had both been tricked into coming on the premise that they could just ride around the track a few times to see what it was like.  Of course they both ended up registering for the race anyway. I led Heather around the apron for a couple of laps, told her "Don't stop pedaling and keep turning left," and then led her up onto the banking for a couple of laps right before the racing started.  She hadn't raced anything in a couple of years, but took to the track remarkable easily.  She ended up winning the omnium.  Mignon seemed a bit more tentative and was planning on riding only one of the three main sessions over the weekend, so she was mainly just putting in some track time to get used to it.

Track is always a humbling experience for me.  The repeated short maximum efforts with practically no warm-up always hurt.  Nonetheless, it's still a lot of fun and a nice change from the road. The 10-session schedule of events or Saturday was completely incomprehensible to me, so I was never quite sure what I'd be riding next.  The 4k pursuits were set up in the "official" way with qualifiers and finals, and so somehow I ended up riding at least three of them.  As usual, my time trial efforts were all pretty lame.  There were also the match sprints and I think I lost count of how many of those I ended up doing.  Despite all of the races, the results were predictable and I was 4th or 5th out of the 5 or 6 Cat. 1/2/3 riders.  I guess my placings might have been better if I'd ridden in the Masters race, but since I'd done the prior two track races in the 1/2/3s, I figured I'd at least be consistent.  Most of the mass-start races were done with combined Cat. 1/2/3 and Cat. 4/5 fields, and sometimes also the Masters, racing together, so that made things kind of fun for the mass-start races like the Scratch Race, Win-and-Out, Miss-and-Out, and Points Race.  As it turned out, I think I felt best for the Points Race (despite scoring points in only one sprint) and Miss-and-Out. In the Miss-and-Out I backed off when it was down to four or five riders to make sure Mark didn't get boxed in down in the sprinter's lane, so I was eliminated probably one sprint earlier than I would have been otherwise.  Right at 9:00 pm, about halfway through the Masters/Women Miss-and-Out, all the lights at the track suddenly went out plunging the whole race into darkness.  It was lucky that nobody crashed.  Someone at the park didn't get the word that there was a race going on and hit the "off" switch at the usual time.  During a couple of the races I noticed an odd noise coming from my bike, and shortly before the Kilometer, late in the night, I realized that my bottom bracket cup had started backing its way out and cartridge bottom bracket was wobbling enough that the crankarm spider was starting to hit the chainstay.  Luckily I had the Viner there, and Mignon, who had been using it, had gone home, so I hastily swapped the 14t cog for a 13t, which was probably not too wise in the first place, and rode the pursuit or kilo (I don't even remember which) without aerobars, which in my case didn't make much of a difference.

Track races always seem to take longer than expected, and this one was no exception.  Between the pursuit qualifiers and the sprint qualifiers, things were dragging on quite a bit.  It was probably around 10:30 or so by the time we decided to postpone the points race until the next morning and call it a day.  A few of us stopped at Waffle House, which was one of the few places still open, and I headed back to New Orleans with Graeme.  It was well after 1 am by the time I got home and unloaded the car, and then I had to fix the bottom bracket. Total chamois time:  11 hours.

I guess I ended up getting about three hours of sleep before I was on the Road back to Baton Rouge for the Sunday morning sessions which went until around 2 pm.  Afterwards we handed out something like 60 championship medals along with the very first LAMBRA district championship jerseys for the omnium winners.  Mark McMurry ended up 3rd in the championship omnium by just four points, but won the month-long series. Next time the team events need to be excluded from the individual omnium scoring.  Perhaps we can do a team trophy for the team events. Overall, it was a good weekend and probably the best track meet we've had in a few years, thanks largely to Dustin Flint who somehow kept track of the complicated sprint and pursuit qualifying brackets.  Even so, there were a number of riders who I know have track bikes and didn't show up.  Too bad.

Midsummer Rides

No prizes, but a podium!

The midsummer heat and humidity has been in full force lately, and so I'm going to blame that for the fact that I haven't felt good on the bike all week. I had skipped riding on Monday since I was clearly, obviously, dramatically in need of some recovery time, and I guess it helped somewhat.  Still, I've been feeling generally sluggish all week.  I missed Kenny's bandit time trial, which seems to get bigger and bigger every week, on Tuesday evening because we were going out to Mosca's with my father.  It had been quite a few years since I'd ventured into the wilds of the westbank for dinner at Mosca's.  The place was renovated a bit after Katrina, but they were successful in retaining the 1960's roadside restaurant atmosphere and I don't think the menu has changed since at least the Nixon administration.  We had a big family table and just ordered the huge shared plates of Oysters Mosca, Italian Crab Salad, Chicken à La Grande, and Shrimp Mosca.  It was good, messy, as always a bit overpriced.  James Carville and company had the table next to us. It's always amazing who you see at that place because if you didn't know better you'd drive right past it, which is probably what they're hoping the IRS does since they accept only cold, hard cash there.

Wednesday morning on the levee Scott said he'd just had his bike worked on and now the chain was skipping on one of the cogs.  I asked him the obvious questions about new chains on old cassettes, but that didn't seem to be the likely cause, so I took a closer look.  It was pretty obvious that they'd somehow mixed up the spacers in his Campi 10-speed cassette.  That's often what happens shortly after a mechanic says "oops" and the cassette parts scatter across the floor.  Anyway, he brought it back that morning and they straightened it out.  You kind of need the charts to do it right because the spacers aren't all the same width and the setup is different for practically every version (record, chorus, etc.).  I'd been planning on riding out to the lakefront in the evening for the training race, but by the time I got home and walked the dogs it was already nearly 6 pm and the streets were still a little damp from an earlier shower, which provided enough of an excuse.  I'd ridden back from work down Pine Street and by the time I was halfway there I started noticing an unusual amount of traffic. A few blocks later I was riding past a solid line of cars inching their way down the street.  As it turned out, the POTUS was at a little fundraiser thing a few blocks over on Audubon Blvd. and so a bunch of streets were temporarily closed down, forcing people to meander through the neighborhood searching for a way out.  Anyway, I wonder if that $25,000 per person snack time included some discussion about the Tulane football stadium, since it was being held at one of those houses. 

I can't say I was feeling any better this morning for the long Thursday levee ride.  After taking a pull and drifting back to the end of the line, the pace started to ramp up.  Tim, who had just set a new course record for the Tuesday night time trial (10.6 mi. @ 23:16 = 27.3 mph avg.), was up there, along with a few others who were planning on turning around early, and that kept the speeds up in the 25-28 mph range pretty much all the way out to Ormond.  I didn't see much of the front until we were past St. Rose, by which time the size of the group had dwindled a bit.  It wasn't terribly fast, but down around the tail end of the paceline it was erratic enough to make it difficult.  After the turnaround it took a little while for everyone to get back together. We finally got rolling at 25 mph or so near St. Rose, rode through The Dip, and then a little while later VJ, who had been on the front on his TT bike, started having some kind of shifting problem and finally sat up. As I rolled past him I asked what happened, but he had his earphones in and probably didn't hear me.  Steve and I soft-pedaled along for the next couple of miles thinking he'd flatted or something, but soon we couldn't even see anyone behind us and figured it had been something mechanical.  A little while later the paceline came streaming past and I asked Richard what had happened.  It turned out that VJ's cassette lockring had backed itself out, eventually hitting the inside of the dropout and stripping the first few threads on the cassette body.  He ended up having to pull off one cog in order to get enough good threads to screw the lockring back on, so he was able to continue.  Toward the end of the ride the group split and I don't know if he had to stop again to re-tighten the lockring, since I assume it was only hand-tight to begin with.  Anyway, I was just a puddle of sweat by the time I got home thanks to the heat and humidity.

There seems to be quite a bit of interest in the track races coming up this weekend, so I'm looking forward to that and hoping I will be able to race a bit and not have to officiate too much.  At least the weather seems to have settled back into a more normal midsummer routine of random afternoon showers rather than all-day wash-outs.

Road and Track and Back

The weekend was a repeat of last weekend, only a bit more painful. Saturday morning Jon Tenney and a friend of his stopped by the house at 6 am to ride out to the Giro Ride with me.  The weather around here for the past week has been a series of random thunderstorms interspersed with humidity, so we just go out and ride and hope for the best. The turnout was a little on the low side, which wasn't too surprising considering the radar images. Fortunately, we were in-between the rain, so we headed out, picking up more and more riders as we went. We'd just started down Hayne Blvd., when Matt flatted.  I guess half of the group kept riding, the rest of turned back to help. On a group training ride, "helping" means standing around the rider with the flat tire and criticizing his tire-changing technique.  Matt had deep rims but his spare tube didn't have a long enough valve stem.  Luckily someone else had one that would work, so eventually we got back the road. Of course, we'd lost quite a big of time by then.  Even so, I was surprised to see the front of the group coming back as soon as I did.  We turned around and merged back in.  I was not feeling too sharp at all, but fortunately the fast sections were fairly short that day.  I got back home, took a shower, and promptly fell asleep.  A couple of hours later I was awakened by text messages and phone calls from a few people asking if the afternoon track races were still on.  They were.

So by 1:30 I was on the road to Baton Rouge with Graeme and a couple of track bikes for the second race of the LAMBRA Track Cup Omnium.  Checking the radar, I could see a huge rainstorm moving south toward Baton Rouge, but behind it there was no rain showing up.  I figured it would rain for sure, but would probably be over by about the time the racing was to start, which was 4 pm.  Graeme mentioned that he needed to replace his cleats because they were starting to get pretty worn down.  I cautioned him to do it soon because they usually break when you're out of the saddle sprinting.

As expected, it started raining lightly a few minutes after we arrived at the velodrome.  The severity of the rain, however, had diminished considerably, and the track was good to go by 4:30 or so.  Unfortunately the rain had scared most riders away and we had only seven on hand.  Of course, that didn't stop us from racing.  Graeme started warming up on the track and a few minutes later, right in the home stretch, we heard a crash and looked over to see him sliding across the pursuit finish line.  His cleat had broken!  Luckily there's a bike shop practically around the corner from the track, so he was back in action half an hour late.  We just grouped everyone together for the mass-start events.  I started out feeling really lousy.  Fortunately, all of the time trial events were first, and the difference between my time trials when I'm feeling great and when I'm feeling terrible is negligible.  The scratch race, points race, and even the win-and-out were a lot more fun, however.  I guess it was around 8:30 by the time we were done and heading back to New Orleans.  It was a fun day, but I could already tell I'd some some substantial damage to my legs.

Sunday morning there was a northshore training ride on tap, so I was up at 5:30 wondering how I was going to handle 65 miles in the hills when my quads were already feeling like blocks of wood.  Actually, I knew how I was going to handle it -- no well.  Luckily there was a big group waiting for us when we arrived at the Lee Road school.  Considering who was there, I knew it wouldn't be an easy ride.  It wasn't, at least for me.  We started out pretty fast and I wondered if the guys at the front realized we'd be riding back into a headwind.  I was feeling just a little bit better than awful.  For the whole ride I felt overheated and achy, and my legs were complaining on every climb.  Fortunately we were stopping at the intersections to regroup, so somehow I survived, but I can't say it was the most fun I've ever had on a bike.  Basically, all of the efforts on the track, combined with the fact I've been taking it kind of easy for past couple of weeks due to the ribs, which still hurt, had trashed my legs. That's often how I feel after a few hours at the track, so it was situation normal.  I think Monday is going to have to be a recovery day.

Keeping Up

So I've been trying to keep up the mileage, if not so much the intensity, over the past week and a half.  It's been going fairly well, actually.  The road rash is pretty much all healed up, and I know that the rib thing will just be lingering for another couple of weeks regardless of what I do or don't do.  Last weekend was full with two Giro Rides and a few track races in-between.  Saturday afternoon's weather was threatening, which scared away a few people, but as it turned out we didn't have a drop of rain at the velodrome in Baton Rouge.  The original plan had been to do two full omniums to make up for the rained-out one the prior weekend, but after the first one took over four hours, everyone agreed to just skipping the second one.  I split my time between officiating and riding, skipping most of the really hard stuff and just doing the scratch race, miss-and-out, and a kind of odd 2-rider team pursuit.  The start of the latter really hurt.  Pulling hard on the bars is one thing that really hurts the ribs, even now.  Anyway, it was fun and I think I was wise to skip the Kilo and Pursuit, under the circumstances. In fact, considering all of the rain we have been having around here, it was amazing that it didn't really interfere with the weekend riding.

I skipped riding on Monday.  Something in the back of my head keeps telling me to give the ribs an occasional chance to heal.  Monday night Jon, who is in town for a few days, came by so we could re-engineer the broken headset on a bike a friend of his from Denmark (I think) had borrowed.  So they were out on the levee for the Tuesday ride, which I thought turned out to be a little harder than I'd expected.  This morning I was worried about a grant proposal that's due on Friday and skipped riding so I could work on it a little bit before going to the office.  I really ended up mostly staring at it and wondering how on earth we were going to pull the thing together in time.  By 5:30 I was more than ready to ride out to the lakefront to see if I was ready to jump back into the training races.  Naturally, the first thing that happened was that I flatted.  Eventually we got started, but every time the pace stayed up above 31 mph or so for any length of time I was having trouble. Granted, I probably had only 50 psi in my rear tire, but regardless, it was a little disappointing.  On the plus side, I made it home before the rain started.

Patience

FINISHED THE GIRO RIDE BEFORE THE BAD WEATHER ROLLED IN ON SUNDAY

So I've been kind of laying low while waiting for things to heal up, which is not to say I haven't been riding.  Even so, it does require a certain measure of patience.  The road rash, other than the big hole over one of my knuckles, has mostly healed up uneventfully thanks to a box of Tegaderm.  By far the biggest issue has been the broken rib.  Now, nearly two weeks out, it has improved enough that I have been able to sleep reasonably well the last few nights, although sneezing is still to be avoided at all costs. 

On the group rides there has been this little voice in the back of my head reminding me that riding with both a broken rib and broken helmet deserves a little extra measure of caution.  So basically I spend a week or so trying not to crash and not to breathe too hard.  Now that the rib is hurting a little less and I have a nice new helmet, I think I should be more or less back to normal by the weekend, although I'm sure the rib will continue to cause minor problems for a couple more weeks. Anyway things are improving.  Locally, we've had a lot of rain this week that hasn't affected my morning rides, except that it's been extremely humid, but has affected some the evening training races.  It killed off both the Tuesday time trial and the Wednesday training race on the Lakefront, in addition to last Saturday's track races up in Baton Rouge where we sat around under tents for about four hours hoping it would stop long enough to get in some racing, but no such luck.  Hopefully we will fare better next Saturday.  Otherwise, it's been really busy at work and there has been a lot of LAMBRA work (I still need to finish scoring the last race for LCCS points).  We've gotten a number of the August race permits processed, so things are going OK on that front.

Down and Out

Man, it's like we're in the middle of a Crashidemic around here lately.  Riders, including me, have been dropping like flies. Last weekend was the annual "la Vuelta d' Acadiana" over in Lafayette. This is usually a pretty good race, and although the Masters field was looking a little thin I had been looking forward to it.  It's an omnium format race, which isn't generally my favorite, but I was willing to tolerate the time trial and attendant points deficit it would likely cost me in order to do the criterium and road race. 

So when the alarm went off at 5 am Saturday I threw the bike and wheels into the car and hit I-10 for the two and a half hour drive to the time trial course.  Overall, turnout looked pretty good and after signing the (wrong) release form (they had printed out 1-day release forms for all of the pre-registered riders by mistake) I squeezed into my skinsuit and rode around in circles for a while until my start time came up.  The 4 mile TT course started out into a headwind, which wasn't really what I needed motivation-wise.  Within the first half-mile, looking down at the speedometer to see numbers in the 24 mph range, I knew I was wasting my time.  So I held it at about an 80% effort all the way to the turnaround and didn't really go full-bore until maybe the final kilometer.  The predictable result was a dismal placing quite far down on the list.  Fortunately, the criterium was next.

The afternoon criterium were held on a course I'd ridden a number of times in the past, although the last time was probably ten years ago.  There were a couple of notable things about it.  One was the U-turn a little bit past the start/finish, and the other was the final turn that featured a section of road that would put your rear wheel into the air if you hit it right.  Otherwise the course was pretty fast.  I lined up with about twenty Masters around 4 pm.  The race started out fairly conservatively, I thought, but soon a small break went off the front.  I watched it for a little while as the gap started to grow ever so slowly.  A few riders moved to the front and a disorganized chase started to take shape, but I was already getting worried.  With such a small field there wasn't a whole lot of horsepower available to chase down the break.  Finally I set out alone to bridge up to it, making contact just before the U-turn. The pack had responded when I'd gone, so half a lap later the break sat up and the pack caught. 

There had been a time bonus sprint that the break had all to itself, so after that I guess some of them may have been content to ease up.  Anyway, things stayed together for the rest of the race.  I was staying pretty active near or at the front since I was enjoying the more technical nature of most of the circuit.  With two laps to go it started getting pretty tight as riders started getting anxious about their positions. Just before the last turn a rider attacked hard and opened a good gap.  I saw Mark M. come past on the left and grabbed his wheel just before the turn.  From there to the finish it was basically a drag race that ended with Mark 4th and me 5th.  I was reasonably satisfied with it.  Not happy, of course, but considering how lousy I'd felt that morning, it was at least reassuring.  We hung around for a couple more hours to watch the Cat. 4 and Cat. 1/2/3 races before heading to dinner at a sushi place.

Sunday morning was a fairly flat 50-mile road race just northeast of Lafayette.  I was feeling pretty good for this one.  It is kind of liberating to know that my teammate Mark is an accomplished sprinter because it means I can go ahead and take some chances or do some work early that I might otherwise avoid.  If I burn too many matches, I know that as long as Mark gets to the 200 meter mark in the front group he'll place well in the sprint.  Our race was three laps of a 15 mile loop plus a little segment from the start to the loop and then back from the loop to the start. Well, by the time we got onto the loop, maybe two miles after the start, there was already a 2-man break off the front.  The pack didn't seem too concerned about it, but I could see that the gap was growing really quickly.  To make matters worse, one of the riders was from the Acadiana team which had another four riders in the group.  Soon, they were all over the front going after anything and soft-pedaling to slow the group.  The break's gap must have gone out to about two minutes because for the most part we couldn't see it. 

Finally, about halfway around the first lap, I decided it was time to do some work and started working my way around the Acadian obstacles at the front to take some faster pulls. Initially I got some help from one of the Florida riders, and over the course of the next five miles or so some other riders started to lend a hand at overcoming the blockade.  As we started the last section of the first lap the pace finally got consistently high enough that I was comfortable we'd eventually catch the break.  Just before the end of the first lap was the feedzone, followed immediately by a right-hand turn.  I was at the front coming into that section, so I moved over a little to the right and held the 25-26 mph pace to make sure that the feed zone didn't turn into an excuse for the group to slow down for a couple of miles.  I mean, who the heck needs a feed 17 miles into a 50 mile road race?  Back in the day, it was actually illegal to feed for the first 50 miles of a road race.  Anyway, I rode smoothly through at the front, passing over four neon green turn arrows painted on the roadway.  Up ahead was a red arrow confirming the turn.  As I leaned into the turn I could hear a rider coming up on the right, but of course he would be turning too, so I made sure to leave room on the inside.  Suddenly he rammed into me, lifting my front wheel right off the ground.  He had not realized there was a turn there.  This little lack of situational awareness was about to end my race.  The last thing I remember before hitting the asphalt was being at an impossible angle relative to the ground and thinking, "Damnit, I'm going down."  I hit hard on my right side, whacked my head on the pavement, slid a little, rolled, and finally came to a stop.  I looked up to see the offending rider turning around and sprinting back onto the group.  He had somehow not fallen.  I was pissed.  Bob Monahan, who had been in the feedzone, came running over to see if I was OK, and we fumbled for a while with the chain which was wrapped into a couple of figure-eights. Someone told me my helmet was cracked.  I knew my race was over.  The road rash wasn't too bad, but the fall had probably broken a rib or at least caused a significant contusion, and since I'd hit my head I figured it would be best to stand in the shade for a little while until the adrenalin wore off and I could make a better assessment. 

Robert Maupin showed up after having crashed out of the Cat. 4 race, so after hanging around for a little while I convinced him to do one more easy lap with me.  We rode with a couple of stragglers from the Women's race for a while, during which time the two-man break off the front of the Cat. 4 race (Ben Bradley and Tim Dorion) came flying past.  Another small break from the Cat. 4s came by, and then, minutes later, the pack.  Mark and I sped up and hung off the back of the Cat. 4s for a while.  A little later we came upon one of our teammates who had flatted and rode with him for a little bit before heading back to the cars.  Later we found out that another teammate, Mario, had crashed and broken his collarbone in the Cat. 5 race.  Adrian had crashed in the Cat. 5 criterium the day before.  I can't really explain all of the crashes.  Perhaps the combination of heat and questionable riding skills?  I didn't see anything in particular about the courses that would have caused problems.  Anyway, the masters pack did indeed catch the break on the second lap and ultimately came into the finish together.  Mark finished 3rd, moving up to 6th on GC despite a time trial that was just as bad as mine had been.

It was a long drive home with road rash from shoulder to ankle.  It's Tuesday and it still hurts to take a deep breath, so I guess there's a good chance I damaged a rib in my upper back or under my arm.  Nothing to be done about that except to stock up on Advil, I guess.  After I got home I learned that Rick Aubry had crashed on the Saturday Giro.

Four in a Row

I squeezed my head into the time trial helmet and rolled onto Lakeshore Drive to look for the other three-quarters of my team time trial team.  Kenny was holding another time trial training race and in a weak moment I'd allowed myself to be added to one of the club's teams.  The evening temperature was somewhere in the 97-100 degree (F) range, but at least the wind had died down.  It was looking like we'd have a light tailwind on the way out for the 10-mile effort.  I was taking quite a bit of comfort that among our team, composed of Keith A, Mark M. and Steve H, I was by far the smallest.  There is nothing quite like being the smallest guy on a TTT team.  It's like being the smallest guy in a breakaway, except the the other riders aren't trying to drop you.  Anyway, we found ourselves in line just ahead of the Herring Gas team. I wondered if we'd make it to the bridge at two miles before they took a minute out of us and passed (we held out all the way to the Elysian Fields traffic circle).  I was to take the lead at the start.  I'd already suggested that we keep the perceived effort at around 70-80% for the first mile, knowing that it would probably be more like 90% if I was lucky.

Our start was pretty smooth, which was a good sign, and although everyone seemed a little wobbly trying to ride paceline on aero-bars, nobody was surging and the speed was as smooth and steady as one could expect.  With the tailwind we were rolling along at a nice conservative speed of 27-28 mph.  At Elysian Fields the Herring guys blew past us as expected.  They were going at least 31-32 mph. Having them in sight ahead of us nudged our own speed up for a few miles, but after making the loop at the half-way point we started picking up the headwind.  Our speed dropped to around 25.5 mph despite an increase in effort level.  We had already lost Steve.  Passing Franklin Avenue we saw a fire truck parked on the other side of the road and I knew someone had crashed, but all I could make out was a Bicycle World jersey.  It turned out that Stephen Noya had lost it as the Tulane team was flying through some bad pavement at 30 mph and broken his collarbone.  Anyway, by the time we went through the Elysian Fields traffic circle we were beginning to fade.  Mark, who had been suffering the disadvantage of being behind me up until then, was clearly suffering, and although we were holding our speed on average, the pace was beginning to fluctuate more and more between pulls.  Mark switched to Keith's wheel to get a little more draft.  Going up the Bayou St. John bridge we dropped down to 20 mph.  Somehow we held it together, though, and finished it off with a really hard final kilometer or so, yielding an average speed of 26.4 or so and placing us 5th among the day's teams.  It was a pretty good ride.  As we stood around afterward (there were drinks and stuff since it was also a benefit for Scott H.) an ambulance carrying Stephen came rushing past.  Everyone cheered.

So Wednesday morning the legs didn't feel too worse for the wear and I went out for a fairly easy Wednesday morning ride, keeping in mind that the Wednesday Night Worlds were that evening.  After work I rushed home, walked the dogs, and finally made it out the door late enough that I knew I'd miss most of the first lap.  It was miserably hot and humid, and the cars along Carrollton Avenue seemed to have me in their sights too.  People were driving like idiots.  One pickup truck passed so close that I could feel the wind from his television-sized side-view mirror as it rushed past my ear. I was hot and tired and just couldn't muster up the energy to pull off the time-trial I'd need in order to get to Lakeshore Drive in time for the start.  So I got there maybe ten minutes late, and rode along Lakeshore Drive looking for the group.  Unfortunately, when I did finally find it, they were flying toward me on the other side of the median near Elysian Fields and there was no way I could make the U-turn fast enough.  I turned around eventually slotted into the paceline after they had come around the fountain traffic circle.  The group was unusually small -- perhaps a result of the prior day's TTT effort combined with the heat.  Anyway, I got in a few good training laps and limped back home as I sucked the last drops of water from my bottle.

This morning I was running late, again, and missed the start of the long Thursday ride.  It was just as well, though.  I'm planning on racing the Vuelta this weekend and I figured my legs could use a break, so I rolled along the levee at a comfortable pace that crept up to around 20 or 21 mph until I forced myself to ease off a touch.  Out by the Little Dip I saw a small group that had turned around early heading back and decided to join it, so the ride back was a nice easy paceline ride.  Even so, I was dripping sweat by the time I got back home.  Welcome to summer in New Orleans.

1 Herring Gas.......... Moak/Regan/Boudreaux/Lambert.......... :21:34.. 29.49
2 Peake BMW1......... Corcoran/Corcoran/Rinard /Thompson...:22:51.. 27.83
3 MidSouth Masters- Davis/Dupree/Kapowski/Chaison.......... :23:37.. 26.93
4 Peake BMW2......... VJ/Howard/Todd/Judd.........................:23:42.. 26.84
5 NOBC/Desire Title- Andrews/Legai/McMurray/Happel..........:24:04.. 26.43
6 Hard Inc.,............ Chauvin/Porter/Landry/Vanlangendonck..:24:41.. 25.77
7 Melberg's Muscle... Kalmus/Rodrigues/Erchull.....................:24:42.. 25.75
8 NOBC2/DesireTitle-Delaney/Kowitz/Fresnada/Jarmillo..........:24:58.. 25.47
9 WeMoRi!-............. Rose/Waguespack/Miller/Amedee...........:25:20.. 25.11
10 Rabito Speed*.....Hurst/Morvant/Rabito – 1stMIXED..........:26:04.. 24.40
11 Crazy Train........ McArdle/Fontaine/Street/Olivares..........:27:04.. 23.50
12 VenomMultiSRac..Talbot/Theriot/Belker/Benoit.................:27:19.. 23.28
13 WeMoRi!2............Grandina/Rabito/Scariano/Guste...........:27:33.. 23.09
14 Foley's Fire.......... Foley/Danella/Merlot/Kaufman..............:27:35.. 23.06
15 Voodoo Peleton....Vanderbrook/DeSoto/Voros/McLin.........:27:38.. 23.02
16 WeMoRi!/NOBC*.. Guerin/Zeringue/Dolan/Duett – FEMALE.:27:42.. 22.96
17 DoWhatchaWanna..Marshall/Robbins/Robbins/DiMaggio......:28:48.. 22.08
18 XXX???................Frye/Driscoll/Dalrymple.........................:28:54.. 22.01
19 WeMoRi! Mx........ Philibert/Cothern/Franz/Vancleave– MIXD.:29:18..21.71
20 CollarBoneKids.... Noya/Hall/Mire/Barnes....Crash..DNF.......:00:00.. 0.00

Giro Substitute

"Just saw that the 5150 is on the 24th, this coming Sunday.  Anyone up for the Lee Rd. Northshore ride.....?"  The simple mid-week email offered an opportunity for an option for the regular Sunday Giro Ride.  The triathlon would be closing off some of the usual route, and there weren't any races on the calendar, so it seemed like a good idea to put together an ad hoc northshore ride.  That's pretty much how these rides happen during the summer. 

By the time I'd walked the dogs and loaded the bike into the car I was already running late for our 6:30 am meeting at Pucchio's.  I arrived there to find a pretty good crowd that was about ready to roll, so I picked up a quick coffee and headed out across the lake and into a stiff north northeast wind with Mark M. to the ride start at Lee Road Junior High.  It was going to be a hot ride.  When we arrived at the school parking lot I looked around and thought, "This is likely to be a hard ride."  I guess there were about thirty riders on hand for this last-minute little ride.  It was going to be a big, hot, hard ride.

Down from the firetower to Enon

Fortunately, things started out at a reasonable pace and the group was soon strung into a long, long paceline.  I use the term paceline loosely because the guys at the front weren't dropping back.  We breezed through the right turn onto Lee Road without stopping to regroup and I knew the group wouldn't be taking many prisoners today. A few of us split off the front for a while, but by the time we started the long downhill from the Firetower hill to Enon most everybody had reconnected.  Aside from a very brief nature break at the usual place, we rode steady all the way to Highway 10.  Mignon looked back, a little worried I think that she was getting in a little over her head and hoping there was maybe a smaller group just off the back.  There wasn't. 

It was getting warmer as we started the long stretch back to the southeast, and just after the first of the three significant climbs along there, Tim flatted.  We stopped at a little patch of shade while he fixed it.  Mignon rode on ahead to avoid what we all knew was going to be a fast section.  We regrouped at the end of Sie Jenkins Road, picking up a nice bit of tail/crosswind.  This stretch back toward the west features constant rollers and can sometimes feel really hard.  Today, however, it seemed unusually smooth and fast.  Making the final turn back south toward Enon, and picking up a solid tailwind, the group didn't hang around,averaging 28 mph all the way to Enon.  By then the heat was really starting to get to everyone and we stopped for water before taking off on the last stretch.

It is really starting to feel like summer now.....

Summer Speed

Riders started arriving at Starbucks early this morning.  A function of the early sunrise, perhaps.  I had taken a different route from home since I'd read that the stretch of Harrison Avenue that goes through City Park would be closed because of filming.  It was already hot and humid, despite a steady east wind, and I was glad I'd filled one bottle with sports drink instead of plain water.  My legs were still feeling rather achy, much as they had since Tuesday.  Just as the group really got rolling, the lead riders battling the headwind on Hayne Blvd., someone flatted.  I guess about half of the group stopped to help while the rest continued on. I rode around in little circles until we were ready to go, but almost as soon as we started again someone else flatted. 

Finally we got going, deciding to take a little shortcut down Bullard Avenue.  When we got to Chef Highway I thought we would just spin along until we saw the group coming the other way, but instead we rode pretty hard.  When we finally saw the group we turned around and joined in.  It took a few miles, but eventually the pace went up to 30 mph or so  and stayed there or the better part of five miles.  By then I could hardly see through my glasses because of all the sweat and the group had split.  Things came back together, though, somehwere along Bullard. 



A LITTLE UNDECIDED?

Then, as we were turning onto Hayne Blvd. I heard the unmistakable sound of someone crashing.  Somehow Mike Williams had fallen -- probably hit a clump of concrete in the road.  The main casualty of that little spill was his expensive carbon time trial base bar.  Held by a couple of internally routed cables, it dangled in the air the rest of the way.  By the time I got home I was feeling a lot more wiped out than I'd expected.  Tomorrow we're doing a northshore ride.  I expect the weather will be similar to what it was today, unless the brand new tropical storm in the Gulf starts to cause problems.

Long Day

It was a long longest day of the year today.  I woke up feeling, for lack of a better word, lousy.  I rode out to meet the Wednesday group with achy legs, wondering why the hell they were achy.  There were just a few of us this morning, and despite the wind, the pace was smooth and steady.  Well, at least until we caught up to Jay and he started taking pulls on his "urban" Lefty mountain bike at three mph faster than our consensus speed. We just tagged along and then the next person would drop the pace back down to the 21 mph that we'd settled on for the upwind sections.

At lunchtime I rode back to the house for food and Advil, hoping that one or the other might make me feel a little better.  I felt like I needed a long nap.  It wasn't until around 3:30 that I started to feel a little bit more normal.  So I rushed back home at 5:00 to walk the dogs and then rush off down Carrollton Avenue to meet the Wednesday Night Worlds out at the lakefront. I knew I'd never make it for the 6:00 start.  I battled the rush hour traffic, finally emerging onto Lakeshore Drive around 6:10 or so.  Turning east into a strong headwind I rode easy out past the Elysian Fields traffic circle, keeping an eye out the whole time for the group.  Naturally, I crossed paths with the group just as they were flying down the levee going 30 mph with a tailwind.  I made a quick U-turn, but there was never really any hope I could catch, so I continued along and made another U-turn, slotting in as the group plowed into the headwind at a much more manageable pace.  Next thing I knew, Noya attacked down the left side, and since I was right there I felt obliged to go with him.  I was hanging on for dear life for a while, and then we were joined by Woody and Jordan.  I figured I was in a bit over my head, and since I'd missed the first lap entirely I was reluctant, or perhaps unable, to do too much work, so I was skipping a lot of pulls, especially on the downwind stretch.  When we'd made the loop at Seabrook, our speed went from 23 mph in the headwind to 31 mph in the tailwind.  For me, the tailwind felt much harder than the headwind, and I don't think I took a single pull on that stretch.  For the last lap and a half or so Rolan joined us, finally dropping off about half a lap from the end.  Anyway, the training race was just what I needed. 

Sometimes when you feel tired for no apparent reason, a good hard ride like that can feel like hitting the reset button.

Tuesday's Turtle Tumble

Waiting to fix flat number one.

Dry roads with no threat of rain brought a lot of people out of the woodwork this morning for the long Tuesday levee ride.  Rolling out from the start it took a few miles for things to get organized, but by the time we passed underneath the Huey P. Long bridge there was a long string of riders.  Over the next few miles the tailwind-assisted pace gradually crept upward from 20 mph to 23, then to 25 and beyond.  I think it was VJ who planted himself at the front and pulled the whole group like a mother duck for at least three miles. Eventually a rotation started and I took a pull or two with the pace hovering about the 26 mph level.  I dropped back after one pull watching the string of riders stream past me until I finally slotted back into the draft near the tail end of the group.  There were a lot of people out on the levee today - walkers, runners, other riders, etc. -- so every now and them there would be drop in speed as we negotiated our way around them all.  It's always a little uncomfortable being near the back under those situations because you usually can't see what is up ahead very well and have to put a lot of faith in the riders in front of you.  Anyway, somewhere out there the group split.  I didn't even realize it until we went around a bend and I noticed a group of maybe six or seven that was fifteen or twenty seconds up the road.  There wasn't much of a concerted chase going on, and it was a little while before I finally rotated back up toward the front.  Lenny got impatient and sprinted past on the left to bridge up to the break while the rest of us just maintained a reasonably steady pace.  The front group started shedding riders as we got closer to the turnaround, but for the most part the pace didn't get too much out of hand.

The wind must have been picking up during the ride because by the time we had started back we found ourselves in a pretty significant head/crosswind. We stopped momentarily to pick up Richard who was just finishing fixing a flat he'd had a mile or so from the turnaround.  I was pretty far back in the paceline when we hit a long section of crosswind between St. Rose and Kenner that had most of us lined up on the far left edge of the bike path, switching back over to the right at the last second every time there was a rider coming the other way.  I considered going up closer to the front where the draft was better, but it would have been a long time in the wind.  Besides, I knew we would soon be turning more into the wind, which would slow the speed a notch and also allow for a better draft where I was, so I just held my position.

After we passed Williams Blvd. the road started its gradual bend to the south and I was looking forward to getting out of the relentless crosswind when suddenly riders started hitting the brakes ahead of me.  I heard the crash a moment before I saw it, and had just barely enough time to bail out onto the grassy levee to the left, narrowly avoiding one of the bikes that was sliding along the asphalt.  I had no idea what had caused the sudden and entirely unexpected braking, but as I climbed back up to the bike path I could see that three riders had gone down.  I rode back to see if everyone was OK, and as I was standing there Matt walked by holding a big turtle that he then escorted down the levee and released onto the batture.  Apparently someone in the middle of the paceline had touched the brakes rather suddenly because of the turtle and precipitated the crash.  Luckily nobody seemed too badly hurt, although David's Mavic wheel had taken a pretty bad hit.  At least five or six of the spoke heads had popped out of the hub entirely, so the rim was up against the chainstay and wouldn't even roll.  He called for extraction as we waited for Richard, whose tire had gone flat again, to change his tube.  Most of the group took off, leaving just four or five of us to ride back with Richard.

Summer Rain

Things looked good for the Saturday Giro, and after taking the dogs for a very quick walk I hopped on the bike and rushed out to meet the group.  One of the great things about summer is that I almost never need the bike lights.  By 6 am there is plenty of light, and although it was a bit on the humid side I had a nice quiet ride out to Starbucks.  Along the way I noticed a somewhat unusual ENE wind and knew we would have some fast stretches on the return trip.  By the time I'd settled down with my morning coffee riders started appearing from all directions and it was looking to be a big fast summer Giro.  My own legs were feeling a little worse for the wear after a faster than usual solo Friday ride, but I took some comfort in the promise of a big group with lots of available wheels.  I knew there would be a headwind along Hayne Blvd. which would make it even easier to hang in the draft regardless of how hard the guys on the front wanted to go.  With no races on the LAMBRA calendar this weekend, there was always the chance that the Giro would be turned into an ad hoc one.

As I'd expected, a number of riders started pushing the pace up at the front once the group hit Hayne Blvd, stringing everyone out into a long paceline, but the big difference between the front and the sheltered back kept things mostly together as the speed remained comfortably in the 25-28 mph range, ramping up closer to 30 after the turn to the south on Paris Road. The Chef Highway stretch was similar with a few surges up around 30 mph, but mostly in the 25-26 mph range.  I ventured into the front paceline a few times along this stretch, but knowing that the return trip would be even faster kept me from staying there very long.

As often happens, the group puttered along for a while after the turnaround.  I wanted to do a little more work at that point, so I rolled off the front in slow pursuit of another rider as the rest of the pack discussed whatever they discuss when they're going slow.  I caught up with him around Highway 11, and as I went past I commented, "They'll be going 32 mph when they catch us."  Looking back I could see the group strung out into long line, which I knew meant that the hammer had been dropped.  We traded pace for a little while until, as expected, the group came streaming by with a 5 mph advantage.  I tucked in around mid-pack.  For the next three miles, leading up to the Goodyear Sign sprint, the average speed was 31.6 mph.  A mile before the sprint I was already in the 53x13, and had to drop down to the 12 half a mile later.  At one point I looked down at my cassette to see if it had really gone to the 12 because I was starting to spin out.  No such luck, though.  That was all there was.  The sprint of course started way too early and I topped out at only 36 mph or so.  Each time the route turned west the pace would gradually rise into the low to mid-30s.  It was fun.  I sprinted up the Casino bridge at 28 mph in the 14 and the Seabrook bridge was similar.  By then I could see some black clouds over the city and wondered if I'd make it home dry.  No such luck, though.  The sky opened up as we rode through City Park and I arrived home completely soaked.  At least it washed away all the sweat!

So this morning I got dressed for the Sunday Giro, walked the dogs (hope nobody saw me walking dogs while wearing my team kit), and went down to the basement to put on my shoes and ride out to the Starbucks.  That's when I heard it pouring down rain.  WTF?  It was maybe 6:10 am.  I figured I'd wait until 6:30 before making the call.  Kenny texted me to see if I was riding.  Well, at 6:30 it was still raining which is why I'm posting this on my blog at 8 am.  Maybe I'll go out for a little spin on the wet roads on the rain bike.....

Maxchanical Difficulties

Wednesday was knee surgery day for The Wife, which meant arriving at the hospital for 5:30 am.  With impressive efficiency, they had her on the way to surgery by 6:15 or so, at which point The Daughter and I wandered off in search of the elusive PJ's coffee stand at Ochsner Baptist.  The morning weather was nice - not too hot and slightly breezy - so we were able to sit comfortably out on the patio of the waiting room for a few hours.  It was probably 10:00 or so by the time she was out of post-op and in a room where we spent the next few hours waiting for the drugs to wear off enough to take her home.  She has never reacted well to that stuff, and this was no exception.  Her heart rate and oxygen saturation were riding roller coasters for hours until the staff finally got tired of hearing the alarms go off and turned the monitor off.  I guess it was around 2:30 pm by the time we slid her into the car, and even then she was clearly not quite all there yet.  We didn't make it two blocks before I had to pull over so she could throw up.  Cars and Oxycodone don't mix well.  Even so, she's been doing fine since then with few complaints so far.  She'll be in a brace for a month and full recovery is likely six months away, but compared to The Daughter's more complicated ACL repair she has it relatively easy.

Of course all of that meant that I missed not only the morning ride but also the Wednesday night training race.  I know I shouldn't complain too much since I had a pretty good four-month run of good training weeks, but I did hate to miss the training race.  I've been feeling really sluggish since my training went south last week and could have used the forced intensity.

So this morning I rushed out to the levee to meet the group at 6:15, a little surprised to find the streets quite wet from an early morning rain shower.  I was not feeling too sharp at all. Perhaps it was the accumulated lack of sleep or something.  The pace started out pretty easy, so we were a good five miles into the ride before the speed started to pick up.  Jon T. went to the front and put in a long, long pull that kind of set the tone for a while, but then for some reason there were some big surges out nearer the airport and gaps started to open up all over the place. It was a few miles before things stabilized again and as we ride down The Dip at St. Rose I was finally starting to feel better.  I was about midway back in the paceline as we climbed back up to the top of the levee when I heard something behind me.  A quick glance told me there had been a crash.  We all stopped (well, most of us anyway) and I turned back expecting to find that someone had touched wheels or caught the edge of the road.  I wasn't expecting to find a bike missing its right crankarm, however.  It seems that Max's crank had abruptly departed company with his bike as he was climbing and he'd hit the asphalt pretty hard.  His first thought had been that something had happened to his ankle! We had to search the grass alongside the bike path to find the missing crankarm.  I was able to tentatively reattach the crankarm thanks to the little mini-tool I keep in my spare tube bag, so at least he was able to limp back to Williams Blvd.  He lost a bit of skin, but nothing looked serious.  We all stayed with him for that little ride, so the rest of the morning was pretty easy.

The Tour de Rain

The forecast just kept getting worse and worse as we got closer to the start of the 41st annual Tour de Louisiane.  I drove up Friday evening through scattered showers with Mark to get late registration started at The Spokesman in Mandeville.  I think we had maybe 70 riders taken care of by the time we closed down at 10 pm, so I knew we would have a relatively hectic race-day registration.  Arriving at the road race course about an hour before registration was scheduled to open I was glad to find that it wasn't actually raining.  What I wasn't glad to find was that we had left the cash box in the hotel room.  I guess there was something like $1,000 in it since it included envelopes to pay the police at both the road race and time trial, along with small bills to make change with. Laura headed back to make the 40 minute drive to retrieve it, but fortunately was able to get in touch with Mignon who was still on her way across the causeway, so she was able to pick it up and get it to us in time. There were big dark ominous clouds all over the place, but for the moment at least, none were on top of us.  As usual, most of the riders waited until half an hour before registration closed to show up.  That's about when we ran out of safety pins.  We hadn't ordered extras this year since we always have tons of them left over, but unfortunately we didn't have quite enough to handle the nearly 200 riders, each of whom had three numbers to pin on. Of course bike racers always have a number of leftover pins floating around in their race kits, so somehow everyone was able to deal with the shortage.

Just before we were ready to start the first group it started to rain.  Of course.  At the finish line we had light to moderate rain for pretty much the rest of the race, but the wind wasn't bad and it never got really heavy, so we were able to deal with it all fairly well.  I heard that over on the back side of the course there were some really heavy downpours, however.  Riders were generally cautious, although there were a few falls and a number of flats.  Rolan went down on turn 2 and scraped up  his lip, among other things.  At one point I heard that someone had hit another rider who had turned around somewhere near the finish line.  Apparently Robert S. came through the start/finish, I guess alone, when possibly a rider who had just finished one of the other races turned around and they somehow collided head-on.  I'm waiting for Robert to get me some details, but as it turned out he broke both his collarbone and his bike.  I have no idea who the other rider was, since we just heard about it at the finish line second-hand.  Anyway, after the race we stopped at a McDonalds to do the results, which took quite a while since there were a lot of riders off the back of the various groups, but were able to get everything posted an hour before the start of the evening's time trial in Mandeville.

The TT was held on wet streets under a mostly light rain.  Some riders, depending on where they were in the start order, probably had a pretty significant headwind for the 3 mile effort.  By the time we wrapped everything up from that race, drove back across the causeway while I entered finish times into the computer, and got to my house it was getting close to 9 pm.  As usual there were a few issues with the times on the main finish sheet, but after consulting the sheet for the backup finish judge and the stopwatch split memory we got everything worked out and uploaded to the NOBC website around 10 pm.  I guess I finally got to sleep around midnight.  The forecast for Sunday was simple:  100% chance of rain and a flood watch in effect.  The criterium course was on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

I arrived at the criterium early because I knew the parking lot that would have normally served as part of the course would be flooded.  It was.  So I set up a big U-turn with traffic cones and started setting up the finish line area.  Above me I could see blue sky.  It wasn't raining, but looking northwest across the lake I could see big black clouds and lots of rain.  Soon I got a text from Laura telling me that the Causeway was closed to traffic because of the weather.  We rushed out some emails to inform people that we would delay the start of the first race, the Juniors, by at least 30 minutes.  Eventually they re-opened the causeway and the Juniors and Women who had been staying in Mandeville started to arrive.  Naturally, by the time we were ready to start, half an hour late, it began to rain.  A gust of wind came off the lake and crumpled one of the two pop-up shelters, so we squeezed into the one surviving one.  I'd pulled my station wagon right up to the popup tent at the finish line, and had my computer, as well as the PA system, set up inside to protect them in the event of more rain.  The cameras, however, and the laptop to which they were connected, had to be set up under the tent, of course.  So we started the Juniors in the rain and increasingly gusty wind, shortening their already short 30-minute race to 20 minutes.  Toward the end they were really battling the wind, but otherwise it worked out fine.  We rushed to start the Women's race, also shortened to 20 minutes, as the weather started to close in.  Ten minutes later the weather went from bad to worse.  For the last couple of laps the rain was torrential and the wind was probably approaching tropical depression territory in the gusts. The street started to flood and we were all standing in three or four inches of water by then.  With two laps to go we had six people, including me, holding onto the tent frame to keep it from blowing away. 

Somehow the women toughed it out and I got the results, holding the tent down with one hand, and talking into my tape recorder with the other while reading off the finish times from the plastic-covered race clock.  I'd already printed out the Junior results so I put my clipboard into a Turkey Bag and headed across the street to post them. The weather was still really bad, and while I was across the street I saw the wind collapse the one remaining pop-up shelter.  I was already soaked to the bone.  Ricky and I jumped into the car while other people tried to keep the shelter frame from damaging it and I endered the Women's results into the computer.  We had turned off the generator because all of the wires were under water, so I brought the laptop over to the shelter across the street to "post" the women's results.  The rain continued unabated and by then it was clear that we had exhaused all of our options and had little choice but to cancel the remainder of the races for the day.  So for most of the categories, the GC was determined by only the Road Race and the Time Trial. 

YES, THOSE ARE RUBBER BOOTS

Considering the weather, I guess we were lucky to have that.  It's Tuesday now and I still have damp papers and other stuff scattered all over my basement drying out. It was a long weekend and I was disappointed that we couldn't pull off the criterium because turnout had been quite good and the races on Saturday had been great despite the weather.  I got home afterward, unloaded everything, and spent a couple of hours cleaning up the results and getting them posted on the website.  By Monday evening I had the results uploaded to the USAC results and rankings database and had completed all of the post-event paperwork to send off to Colorado Springs. I sent Laura the rider waivers so she could mail out the many, many prizes that weren't picked up on Sunday since a lot of the riders just headed straight home after learning that their criteriums had been cancelled.  It will probably take Laura a couple more day to get everyhing in the mail to everyone.

Down to the Wire

I felt preoccupied this morning as I rode out to meet the 6:15 levee ride.  The Tour de Louisiane online registration closes tonight and it is looking like we will have somewhat bigger fields than usual.  On the one hand, that's great, but on the other hand I cringe at the idea of 50-rider Cat. 5 fields on narrow roads with a centerline rule. I still need to organize race supplies and charge batteries and generally get all of the registration stuff ready for rapid deployment Saturday morning.  To add a little complication to everything, it's looking like there will be scattered thunderstorms around this weekend.  It's amazing how much that disrupts everything.  All we can do is hope, because there's just no way to predict where and when those rain clouds will pop up.  In fact, it's raining a bit right now down here on the south shore and it looks similar up in Mandeville.

So the morning ride today seemed kind of squirrely for some reason.  The pace felt a bit erratic and after a while I dropped back down the paceline and figured I'd wait until things settled down a little.  I don't know that they ever did, though.  It was hot and muggy like yesterday, with a light wind to complicate matters, but for some reason the pace kept swinging back and forth between 23 and 29 mph, and for once it wasn't just Howard who was responsible for that.  I thought it would get better on the way back, but then it seemed a few of the guys at the front were engaged in their own private bike race.  After it bunched up for the umpteenth time I went to the front to try and set a steady pace but soon found myself out there alone.  I eventually ended dropping back again since I was apparently at a complete loss as to what kind of social dynamic was at play up there.

So the TDL pre-registration is currently at 163, which is quite good considering that online registration doesn't close until late tonight. Maybe more people are pre-registering nowadays since it's getting easier and easier?  I guess it will all come down to the wire at Friday night registration. 

Reptiles of the Trail

There seem to be a lot of reptiles hanging out along the Mississippi River Trail, aka the levee bike path.  On Monday I took my somewhat sore legs out for an easy recovery ride.  Along the way I passed a turtle that calmly watched me go by.  That evening, Kurt posted this photo of a little alligator who had apparently climbed up to the top of the levee.  Then this morning during the long Tuesday ride I was sitting on Max's wheel at the front of the paceline when he suddenly twitched and screamed like a little girl.  As I felt myself go over a little speed bump he said, "A snake.  I think I rolled over it."  Sorry about that little snake.  Actually, I never even saw it.  We were going pretty fast today.  The nice weather we had a couple of days ago has deteriorated into the more typical hot and humid soup through which we normally ride this time of year.  Fortunately, it hasn't had much of an effect on the turnout.  We had a nice-sized group this morning as we headed out into a moderate headwind.  I was still feeling some of the effects of the prior weekend, so my legs were loading up every time there was an acceleration, but eventually they loosened up enough to be tolerable.  I arrived back home pretty well drenched in sweat.  So basically it was a routine summer ride.

Last night I stapled and folded a couple hundred Tour de Louisiane Race Bibles as the first flurry of online entries started to arrive.  By noon this morning I knew that the Cat. 5 race was going to hit its field limit before the end of the day.  I think the last remaining spot got taken before I left work. We've never had the Cat. 5s fill up so far ahead of the race date. Forty-five minutes later I walked out of the office to ride home and was shocked to find that it was pouring down rain.  I sat there fiddling with my phone or the next half hour until it eased up a bit, then put on my rain jacket and took off into a light drizzle.  A couple of miles down the road I arrived at home to find the streets there were practically dry.  Such is the nature of the "scattered shower."  So the Tour de La registration stands at 124, so it's looking like we'll have some nice-sized fields this weekend.  I still need to organize the race number sequences, check on batteries, charge radios, and generally get all of our officiating and finish line stuff together.  Relatively speaking we're kind of ahead of the game right now, although as usual the Levee District has still not gotten us the stuff we need to sign for the privilege of using the road, despite the fact that the condition of Shelter #1 is basically an embarassment and the storm drains are now completely clogged up and non-functional.  I rode over there the other day, which was maybe two days after it had rained, and there were ducks swimming in the parking lot.  I'm guessing the criterium will have to be making a big U-turn on Lakeshore Drive rather than going around the shelter via the parking lot.

Faster and Larger

The weather Saturday morning was practically perfect. A little cool front had come through and brought with it cooler and drier air.  By "cooler" I mean it might have been in the low 70s before sunrise, and by "drier" I mean that I could almost still see through my glasses when I got home.  Anyway, the great weather was apparently not lost on the local ridership because the turnout for the Giro Ride was pretty good.  I'd guess there were about 50 in the group as we crested the Seabrook bridge and started what must have been one of the fastest Giro Rides of the year (so far).  I didn't spend much time near the front -- it was soooo easy sitting in the middle of such a big group.  There was a decent breeze blowing from the northeast that somehow didn't seem to slow things down all that much on the way out.  Once things really got rolling on the way back down Chef, I wasn't seeing much on the computer below 28 mph.  In fact, looking back at the Strava data, we averaged over 30 mph for the 5 miles before the Goodyear sprint, for which, by the way, my 53x12 seemed woefully inadequate. 

So with the Tour de Louisiane looming, I got the 2012 Race Bible finished up and uploaded to the website, go the registration and results spreadsheets updated, and probably would have gotten some of the race supplies sorted out if I hadn't gotten roped into a few hours at the City Park amusement park with the neighbor's kid.  Naturally he had a great time, but I have to admit that I consider being there a mild form of torture  -- except for the Carousel.  I do like the Carousel.

Sunday we had planned a reconnaissance ride at the Tour de Louisiane road course so I could re-mark the turns, we could check for unexpected potholes, and we could shovel and blow gravel away from the turns and other intersections.  As it turned out, we had something like 25 people show up for the ride.  The first lap was supposed to be easy so that I could stop at the intersections, pull my road-marking spray paint can out of my water bottle cage, and freshen up the arrows on the road.  The second lap, however, had no such restriction and in fact it turned out to be pretty fast with a 24.8 mph average speed.  It was good. 

The next lap was not quite as fast, and by the time we were on the fourth lap it was starting to get pretty hot and most of us were getting pretty tired, so the pace finally slowed down a bit.  I ended up with about 69 miles.  One thing about that course is that a couple of hard laps will really kick your arse if you aren't careful.  There just aren't any good places on it to recover.  Very deceptive.

A little while ago Robin dropped off a couple hundred copies of the race bible and picked up the "sign bin" to deliver to Laura to give to Brian so he can set up the road course on Saturday morning.  Online registration is up to about 70, which isn't bad a week out from the race.