It Was Time

It's been two weeks.  Two weeks of sitting around, eating, sitting around some more, eating some more, and not sleeping very well.  Although the collarbone is obviously not healed yet, it seemed good enough to take a shot at a ride on the trainer. Like it or not, it was time.

As frustrating as it's been to be off the bike all this time, I can't say I was particularly anxious to get on the trainer.  Frankly, I'd rather be under-dressed and riding up the Gavia in snowstorm than ride the trainer inside. But it is what it is, and what it is is time to get back on the bike.  So I set the trainer up in the office, flipped on the old Hunter tabletop fan, and climbed up on the bike ever so carefully.  Reaching out to the handlebar was a bit uncomfortable, and for some reason lifting my right hand off of the handlebar was downright painful, but once in position it wasn't bad at all.  I managed about fifty minutes, which was about all I could take without lapsing into some mild form of insanity, which I figured was sufficient for the first day back.

Meanwhile, Jorge Cardona, who used to race here in New Orleans, was down in Tampa visiting his father and posted an old photo of a criterium we had on Canal Street in New Orleans back around 1991 or so.  A little later, when his flight back stopped in New Orleans, they got stuck here for a couple of hours because someone from Miami might have had Typhoid Fever.  Anyway, the riders I can identify in the photo include myself, Jorge, and Rob Konrad. I think the race was tied in with some sort of Latin America festival.  I can't imagine getting part of Canal Street shut down for a bike race nowadays.  For some reason I don't remember much about that particular race.  I have the feeling that I was somehow rushed and couldn't stick around very long.

The Clavicle

So yesterday evening I had my first followup with Dr. Savoie at Tulane's Sports Medicine clinic. He feeling reasonably good about things and so we're going to pass on the surgical option for now since the shoulder seems to be maintaining a good relationship with the rest of me, which is to say it's still out where it needs to be. When I told him that the current x-brace that I've been wearing tends to move farther out on my collarbone than the break we devised a little field modification involving lots of velcro that should help keep some pressure on the piece closest to my neck so it stays close enough to the other pieces that they'll all eventually merge into a big glob of bony matrix.  Naturally, that is making it a little more painful today, especially when I'm on the computer typing, which is pretty much what I do all day.  So I think I'll stop in a minute and take some Advil! Otherwise, I rode the little folding bike in to work again today, which is a lot less stressful than driving and parking, especially since today is Farmers' Market day at the office.  The x-ray above is from yesterday evening and is from a different perspective than the one I posted last week, which is why the gap looks so much more impressive.

A Bike That Works

My ride for the next few weeks!

It was an incredibly boring Saturday, and the worst part was being stuck at the house surrounded by a hundred little jobs that I'd been putting off all summer, but not being able to do anything that required two fully functional arms.  In the morning I went out and trimmed some of the most overgrown of the hedges and bushes around the house.  Of course nothing above shoulder height got trimmed, but at least it kept me busy for a little while.  By mid-afternoon I'd watched about enough Hallmark movies on TV and eaten most everything in the house that didn't require cooking and I started wondering if I might have a bike that would work for my current situation.  There was no way I could reach forward enough to get my right hand onto the handlebar of any of my usual bikes, and even if I could, I probably wouldn't want to.  There was also the issue of starting and stopping.  Getting on and off of a regular bike didn't look like it was going to work very well, and I certainly wasn't willing to risk a fall.  So I turned my attention to the little folding bike I've had for a few years.  It usually gets pushed into service around Mardi Gras and JazzFest when we have a bunch of people who want to get somewhere where parking is impossible. The nice thing about it is that it's easy to adjust the the handlebar and seat height over a very wide range.  So I raised the handlebar up nice and high, pushed the seat down enough so I could touch the ground with getting off the saddle, put it in a low gear and gave it a try.  It worked!  I could sit upright and ride with one hand on the bar (two if really necessary) and start and stop without getting off the saddle.  Granted, I wasn't going to be going any faster than brisk walking speed, but that's OK under the circumstances.

A cool front came through last night and this morning, although it was till cloudy, it was cool, dry and breezy, so naturally my thought turned to coffee.  It was time to give the folding bike a trial run to the coffee shop.  It was nice to be back on a bike, even though I doubt I cracked 10 mph, and after getting back home I had to kick myself for forgetting to log the ride to Strava!  Oh well, maybe next time.

An Unproductive Week

Well it's been a long and unproductive week.  Between the dull ache of broken bones and the side effects of various analgesics from hydrocodone to ethanol, it's been harder than usual to get things done.  I shouldn't complain, though, compared to the last time, when I broke the other collarbone, the pain has been relatively light and I've been doing OK on regular Advil most of the time.  Every now and then I'll reach or something and the pain level will jump from dull to very, very intense, but otherwise it's not really that bad.  Typing with my right hand, for example, isn't bad at all as long as I keep the keyboard very close.  Using the mouse with that hand is more of a challenge, and I've been doing a lot of left-handed mousing at work.  The touchpad on the laptop is actually a lot easier to deal with.  The real challenges are walking the dogs and getting dressed.  Even if I'm holding the leashes with my left hand, it one of the dogs tugs on the leash it gets transmitted over to the other collarbone.  The really fun thing is getting dressed.  This morning was the first time I successfully pulled on a T-shirt.  It's not that the collarbone itself is less painful, it's just that I've refined my technique!  The problem is that I really can't lift that arm above my shoulder -- not even close, actually.  Anyway, it seems to take me half an hour to get dressed, and even then it's not quite up to my normal standards.  Next, I have to put the x-brace back on and tighten the straps, which has been challenging since The Wife has been away at a conference all week and it would normally involve reaching behind my back.  If I stick the velcro just the right way, though, I have enough slack to get the thing on, and can still reach the ends in order to pull them tight.

Anyway, it's been a long week.  On Monday a friend, who was a club member and sponsor, died suddenly.  I learned about it shortly after getting back to work from my neighbor's funeral. Two in one week was really hard. I went to the visitation today, rather under-dressed since putting on a sport coat and tie is entirely out of the question right now, and the place was absolutely packed.  Ronnie was a fireman and a very outgoing one at that, so he had a lot of friends.  Although he never did much actual racing, he really liked being part of the club and up until the last few years was a regular fixture on training rides.  He'll be missed by a lot of people.

So it feels really strange not having any plans for the weekend -- not even the Giro Ride.  I've been off the bike for five days now, and I think that maybe I'll be able to get on the trainer in a day or two, although I doubt I'll be able to put any weight on my right arm for another couple of weeks at best. Fortunately it happens to be a good time of year to take a week off!  The hard part is going to be on Sunday when the cool front comes through and we get a few days of spectacular fall weather.  Now that's going to hurt.  In the meantime I need to replace my smashed helmet, check out the bike, and think about building up a new bike with that Campi 11-speed stuff I got from Matt a few weeks ago.  I don't guess I'll be building much of anything until I can use my right arm, though. Yesterday I made travel arrangements for the November 2nd USAC Local Associations summit in Colorado Springs, from which I go directly to D.C. or the annual NCURA conference.  Hopefully the collarbone will be significantly better by then.

Fun While It Lasted

Last weekend was the annual Six Gap Century Race Ride up in Dahlonega, GA. For the last few years we've put together a number of people from the club to make the trip and kind of cap off the road racing season with this ride.  At 104 miles and five or six long climbs, this ride can be approached as a long fun challenge or as a long hard race.  It's your choice, and for a lot of people the choice changes after the first or second climb.  On Friday we had no fewer than ten people lined up for the trip.  By the time we actually left on Saturday morning it was down to five.  I was driving up with David and Graeme and we would be staying with Pat and Steve at a friend's house there in Dahlonega who has graciously hosted us for the last few years.  The forecast for Sunday's ride was calling for nice temperatures and a chance of rain, but compared to the climbing the weather was the least of our concerns.

The eight hour ride on Saturday was uneventful, landing us in town with lots of time to get registered, check out the Expo, buy a ton of energy gels, and watch one of the criteriums before heading over to our host's place for a great dinner.  Sunday morning we were up early, arriving as usual in the dark to get a parking spot in the school lot with enough time left over to pump up tires and otherwise get our acts together.  I hid the car key in its usual spot and the three of us rolled down the sidewalk past hundreds of other riders, inserting ourselves into the mix just behind the "under 6 hours" sign.

The start was fairly smooth and for the next fifteen miles or so it was the usual battle to stay reasonably close to the front, which in this case meant there were only a hundred or so riders ahead of us.  I lot track of Graeme and Steve right away, but could see David up ahead of me now and then. The first climb is Neel's gap, about 6.5 miles long and 1,500 feet.  Although it's long it feels fairly smooth.  I was just staying among the people around me for this one, and I'm sure a group probably raced off the front, but at any rate I found I was quite comfortable with a 39x23 for much of the distance.  The next climb is Jack's Gap, which is shorter but seems a little steeper. I rode my own pace up this one, and let a lot of riders ride away from me on that one, but as usual I bombed the downhill with a few others and by the end of the descent was back in a fairly sizable group.  Soon we were climbing Gap #3, Unicoi, which like Jack's has some pretty steep sections but is relatively short at around 2.5 miles.  Of course, on all of these climbs I was looking at speeds in the 8-12 mph range. Near the top of Unicoi most of the group was well ahead of me, but I knew that this was one of the longer downhills so once I came over the crest I went straight from the 39x25 to the 53x12. I got together with another rider who was doing the same thing and we flew down the first part together at 40-48 mph, but then we got stuck behind the line of cars that was itself stuck behind the re-forming group that we'd been with at the start of the climb.  It took us a long time to work our way past all of the cars on the narrow winding mountain road, but finally we made contact as the road flattened out and the speed dropped back below 30 mph.  I was really glad to be back with a group leading up to the long 7 mile, 1,800 foot climb up to Hogpen Gap. As the group started to bunch up a bit approaching a right-hand turn I coasted past the rider who had accompanied me on the downhill and commented, "that was fun!"  A few seconds later I was lying on the ground thinking, "Crap, it's broken."  Coming around the turn just a bit before the start of the Hogpen climb, I'd moved to the outside of the group to avoid hitting the brakes.  Unfortunately there was a little patch of sandy gravel right in the middle of the turn and when my front tire hit it, it completely washed out, dumping me immediately onto my head, right shoulder and right forearm. I was still holding onto the handlebar when I hit it was so fast.  In fact, it was almost exactly like the crash I'd had in Lafayette except that this time I broke a collarbone instead of a few ribs.  Yes, I was pissed.  I'd been having a really fun ride and was looking forward to the challenging climb up Hogpen, but there I was, alone in the middle of nowhere.  "Oh well," I thought.  "It was fun while it lasted." 

I walked over to the side of the road with my bike and leaned over it for a little while taking inventory.  I knew immediately that the collarbone was broken. I could feel the broken ends of the bone grinding against each other.  My head felt OK, although I'd hit it pretty hard, but the helmet, now broken in a few places, had done its job.  The group went around the curve and for a little while I was left alone to contemplate my next move.  I was right at the bottom of two climbs, each with a rest area at the top.  I got back on the bike and figured I'd ride slowly toward Hogpen as long as I could and then hope to flag down someone associated with the ride to get a lift back to the cars.  I hadn't ridden more than a few hundred meters when Graeme and a few others came by asking what had happened since I was riding slowly with one hand on the bars. Just then one of them recognized a car approaching from behind and flagged it down.  It was a woman and her kids who was driving the course supporting her husband who had been in the same group I'd been in.  She offered me a ride to the top, so we put the bike on the rack and took off.  A mile or two later we were picking our way though a long string of riders going 10 mph.  It was slow and tricky passing riders one at a time on the narrow road.  She stopped to hand her husband a bottle and then we continued up to the top where I got out and tracked down someone from the ride to see if I could get a ride back to the parking lot.  Their policy was to prohibit race volunteers from transporting anyone who was injured, so although my bike got a free ride back, I had to wait for an ambulance, which was a terrible waste of an ambulance.  At least I got to cheer on a number of people I know as they came over the top, and just as I was getting into the ambulance David rode up, so I gave him my transponder to return to the event folks.  When they loaded me in I glanced over to see one of them unwrapping a it to start an IV.  Really?  I asked what they thought they were doing that for, and they really did not have an answer, so I told them to stop.  Anyway, it was a long ride to the hospital in Dahlonega.

The ER was fairly quiet so I was all x-rayed and finished before the others had finished their rides.  They had put me in a sling, which is marginally better than nothing, and handed me a CD with the x-rays, so I waited in the waiting room for about an hour until Graeme and David could get over there to pick me up.  By the time were ate something it was starting to rain. I had taken some hydrocodone, so Graeme was put in charge of driving.  The weather got worse and worse as the night wore on, and by 10:30 or so we decided it would be safer and smarter to book a room in Montgomery and finish the drive in the morning, so we checked into a nice Hampton Inn.  By 4:15 am the next morning we were on the road again, but the weather didn't seem much better.  I checked the radar on the iPad and knew we'd have a couple more hours of driving in the dark and rain.  Just to twist the knife, one of the headlights burned out.  Luckily, I had a spare bulb in the car, so we were able to stop at a gas station and, thanks to David's skinny arms, change out the bulb and gas up for the final push.  It was about 9:30 am when I got home.  I rushed off to a 10:00 funeral and then headed to work where I got just a little bit done when I wasn't nodding off from the narcotics.  Yesterday I went to see Dr. Savoie at Tulane's sports medicine institute who suggested we put me into an x-brace and see how things look a week from now.  We will probably be able to avoid surgery for this one if things look like they are progressing.  In the meantime, it's kind of hard to type and get dressed and write, and I've been using the mouse with my left hand a lot, but the pain is not very bad as long as I stay still.  Guess I'll be off the bike for a while.  Naturally the weather should be spectacular.....

Off and On the Back

Hanging onto the Cat. 1/2/3 race

Last Sunday I made my way over to Lake Charles for the LAMBRA Criterium Championships.  Donald Davis had called the day before and I told him to stop by the house and spend the night rather than drive the additional 3 hours from Pensacola. I was not feeling quite "up" for this race, but often enough that's not a good indication of how you'll actually race the next day.  So we were up early (I had to get there in time for the first race since I had the race clock, generator and assorted items we'd used for the LaPlace time trial) to catch a ride with Mark D. who would be helping officiate with Ricky. It was nice that the first race didn't start until 10:00.  When we arrived, the temperature along the lake was comfortable and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Unfortunately there were only a few more riders than there were clouds.  I guess the late date and location in the far southwestern corner of the LAMBRA district kept a lot of riders from coming.  There were only seven riders for the Cat. 5 race, and by the time we started the Master 40+/55+ race we had only nine at the starting line.  Among those nine, however, were some strong riders, including a couple from Austin. My attempt at a warmup was pretty poor and so I went to the front from the start and pulled for the first lap, hoping to get warmed up before the attacks started.  Half of the course was long and straight, but the other half featured five turns and a sweeping curve, all in quick succession. Anyway, as soon as I pulled off the attacks started and I soon found myself hanging on the back of the strung-out paceline.  This was not going to be an easy race and I was not feeling even remotely strong for it.  My legs were achy from the start, and getting stuck near the back where I had to accelerate hard after the turns wasn't helping either.  So there I was, hanging on for dear life and hoping that maybe the strong guys up front would ease up and put all their eggs in the sprint basket. The way I felt, I figured my only hope was to sit on the back and try to conserve as much as possible in case I got lucky and it came down to a sprint. Unfortunately, I was anything but lucky that day. 

When Donald launched an attack fairly early in the race it strung us out pretty well as we approached the technical half of the course.  I was near the back, behind John Dias, digging hard to close things back up after the first turn when he started coughing.  He was coming off of a head cold and in the midst of that last surge had apparently inhaled something.  So as we're going through the series of tight turns (this was basically a parking lot, so the turns came one after the other) a gap started opening ahead of him. He waved us through as soon as it was safe, but there was already a pretty good gap and we were already pretty well toasted, so just like that I was off the back with Glen Richard and I think one of the Austin guys.  I was already gassed and just couldn't get the speed back up to where it needed to be.  A little while later John recovered and joined us, so we became a three or four-rider chase group (I use the term "chase" loosely).  Oh, since I was the only 55+ rider, I won a gold medal just for surviving.  Anyway, that was disappointing on a number of levels.

So a couple hours later, since I was there for the duration anyway, I entered the Cat. 1/2/3 race.  This one was offering a good prizelist, so at least there were a few more riders (well, there were only 18, but that turned out to be the biggest field of the day).  I figured I needed the exercise.  By the time we started at 2:15 pm, it was nice and hot, and in retrospect I was probably already nice and dehydrated.  Of the 18 riders, five were on the Herring Gas team (one of those was a guest rider from Plano). My teammate Mark McMurry was there, along with a couple of riders who had ridden the Masters race earlier.  I knew it would be fast despite the small field size.  Sure enough, by the time we had finished a couple of laps I was already hanging on near the back.  Herring was launching attack after attack and there were probably only three or four guys up front who were both willing and able to chase them down.  That, along with a number of prime laps, made for some fast racing.  For a long time I found myself sitting on Mark's wheel.  Mark is a pure sprinter, so I knew he was not likely to get dropped and also not likely to put his nose into the wind unless absolutely necessary.  I, on the other hand, was suffering.  We were only halfway through the 1-hour race when the pace surged and a gap opened one rider ahead of me and I ended up off the back again with another couple of riders. We started working together and I noticed that the pack up ahead was occasionally bunching up which told me that they were not drilling it full-time.  There was hope.  I guess we were chasing for four or five laps, mostly holding our own, when the pack eased up for a lap and we (or at least most of us) were able to close it back up and get back into the race.  Of course, I was pretty much worthless by then and resorted to hanging on the back again to try and recover, which never actually happened. What had happened to slow things down and allow us to catch was that Herring had finally succeeded in popping one of their riders, Frank Moak, off the front.  The other riders were really feeling the effects of all of the chasing they'd been doing, so they had kind of looked around at each other when Frank went.  He ended up staying off the front to the finish.  Meanwhile, back in the pack, we were coming down to the last few laps and I instinctively started trying to move up closer to the front. It was one of those situations when your head writes a check your legs can't cash.  As I made the effort to pass a few riders I felt the muscle cramps starting in my calves.  That's very unusual for me in such a short race, but unusual or not, I got the message.  There wasn't going to be any Deus ex machina finish for me today. I made the best effort I could for the finish, but 11th overall was the best I could manage.  Again, rather disappointing.

So, after that whole debacle, and with the annual Six Gap Century ride ("It's not a race") looming this weekend, I decided I'd best take it really easy this week since the last thing I want is to start that 104 mile sufferfest with sore legs. I did an easy ride on Monday with the Tulane group, and that evening went over to the hospital to visit a good friend and neighbor who was near the end of her battle with colon cancer. At 2 am the next morning the phone rang. It was her mother telling us that she had passed away.  Somehow I made it out for the 6:15 am ride on Tuesday, but once the pace ramped up I pulled out of the long paceline rather than play chicken in the dark at 30 mph with the pedestrians and oncoming cyclists.  Instead I rode easy, eventually turning around to get back into the remnant of the group on its way back.  My travel plans are still a little bit up in the air for the weekend, but somehow I'm sure I'll find my way up to Dahlonega for that last hard ride of the season.  One little ray of sunshine, though was the photo of my friend Gina Voci's new little boy. Ahh, the circle of life.....

Up for Air (Long)

Pro/1/2 riders line up for the criterium start

It's been a busy week.  It all started about a week ago when, after considerable debate, I decided to register for the 50+ masters category at the Pensacola Classic stage race.  The fact that the road race was only 25 miles had me looking seriously at the 40+ option, but as the clock ticked toward the close of pre-registration I could see that the 50+/60+ field was going to be nearly the same size as the 30+/40+ field.  Also, I recognized a few names and knew it would be competitive. Brian had lined up a condo on the beach, so left NOLA in the early afternoon, arriving a bit before John, Mignon, Celeste, and Isaac.  That gave us lots of time to pick up packets and hang out at the other condo full of bike racers where there was food and adult beverages.

The Saturday morning road race was on a long 25-mile course with basically one strategic climb. Once we got past the considerable congestion on the side road near the start line, our race started out fairly slowly.  Eventually there were some attacks and little breaks, but nobody was letting anything go for too long in a 25 mile race, especially not before "the" hill.  I'd missed the break last year on that hill, so I wasn't about to take any chances this year. Naturally there was an attack there, but I didn't have too much trouble staying in contact this time even though we shed a few riders. Things stayed together to the finish and since I was feeling pretty good I was definitely interested.  With 500 meters to go I was up near the front on the left side when the pace ramped up prior to the sprint.  At 300 meters the sprint started in earnest but when I got nudged across the centerline I hesitated for a moment. One rider had opened a little gap and when another came past me on the left I went too, quickly dumping it into the 12 for the final 200 meters.  I was closing in on 2nd place, but the finish line came up a little too early, so I placed 3rd.

I was still hanging around the finish line when the Cat. 3 race's big pack sprint arrived, and didn't even realize at first that there had been a crash at the line.  One of the LAMBRA riders riding back from the sprint spotted me and said that Ben Bradley had gone down really hard.  I rushed over there to find him on the ground surrounded by people after having crashed head-first into the bumper of a car that was parked on the shoulder just past the finish.  Apparently he'd gotten nudged to the left and hit the barricade that was up against the big officials' trailer, clipping the wheel of one of the handcycles on the edge of the road, and then slamming into the car.  We would later learn that he had broken his jaw in a couple of places, broken a few metacarpals, fractured a vertebra (C7), and probably sustained a few other injuries.  His helmet was broken in a number of places.  The ambulance arrived and parked itself right in the oncoming traffic lane, completely blocking the start/finish with a big Cat. 4 pack sprint expected to arrive any minute.  They finally convinced them to move the ambulance before the race arrived, but the riders ended up having to finish in just the left lane which of course kind of screwed up the sprint. All that they posted for road race results were the chip times, I think without bonuses included.

The evening time trial was in a much better location than last year, heading east on the beach road with very little traffic.  I rode the three miles to the start with John and then did my usual disappointing time trial, pushing me way down on the GC list.  We headed over to a nearby restaurant for dinner later that evening.

I was up in the dark Sunday morning in order to make the 7 am start time for the 50+/60+ criterium in old Pensacola.  I'd ridden the course a couple of times before and really liked it.  The half-hour race was good and fast with one rider escaping fairly early and finishing ahead of the pack. With a lap to go I was second wheel behind a rider who seemed to be determined to pull us all around to the finish.  Coming through the second-to-last turn I knew he was going too slowly to survive and was trying to keep my options open, fully expecting a stream of rider to come flying past on the right.  Coming into the last turn I caught a glimpse of Tom Gillis, who had been providing a lot of the power in the group, coming past. I went for his wheel through the turn and sprinted hard for the line.  It was a repeat of the road race finish.  I got my wheel up to about his bottom bracket before crossing the line in 3rd place.  I ended up 6th on GC, one place out of the money.  I have no idea how they came up with the GC times.  All they posted were stage finish times from the chips, to the thousandths of a second.  I tried to figure out how they came up with the GC time they showed for me but based on the stage times they posted I couldn't even come close. I guess if you don't show all of the details, nobody can complain. Anyway, I remain very unimpressed and disappointed with chip timing.

I was still hanging around at the criterium for the Cat. 1/2 race, which strangely wasn't the last one on the schedule, when a medic from Sacred Heart trauma center came up and asked if I knew GW Wenzel.  Apparently he'd crashed and probably broken his collarbone and this guy needed someone to take charge of his bike since he's come there alone. Brian had wanted to get home earlier, so Celeste was driving back with me, I also had Mignon's and Isaac's bikes.  So with three bikes on the roof and three in the back we headed to the hospital to find GW and check on Ben who was scheduled or surgery that morning.

We found GW in the ER, still waiting for an x-ray, and got his truck keys so we could drive back to the race, transfer his bike to his truck, and drive back to the hospital.  I made him a little map to his truck because I was not entirely sure he'd remember all of our conversation after looking at what was left of his helmet.  Then we went upstairs to find Ben.  His parents were still waiting for him to come out of recovery when we arrived, but a few minutes later they said we could see him.  They had spent a very long time piecing his jaw back together with metal plates and wire, so his lip and face were quite swollen and there was still a lot of nasty bloody stuff draining out of the tube in his nose.  He was still pretty groggy, but we were glad to be able to see him before heading back to New Orleans. He was definitely going to be staying in Pensacola for a while and even now I'm not sure if he's back yet or, for that matter, if he will be back in New Orleans or in Plaquemines where his parents live.

Work has been really busy this week with a grant proposal that was due this afternoon. I arrived at the office on Monday to find the carpet completely ripped out, along with big sections of the wall, black plastic taped up, and our huge commercial dehumidifiers and air scrubbers running.  I turned on my desktop computer and immediately blew a circuit breaker.  Crap.  I ended up going back to the house in order get some work done.  Then the next day we're on the interstate driving out to Metairie to visit a friend in the hospital when the car sunroof virtually exploded.  I guess a rock popped up rom a truck that had just cut in front of us.  At any rate, it was really loud.  It sounded like someone had fired off a shotgun on the roof. I'm still trying to get that fixed. At least it didn't happen on the way back from Pensacola in the middle of nowhere. So anyway, I'm just now coming up for air and trying to catch up on things.  I still haven't gotten the Pensacola results in the way I need them in order to update our LCCS points.  Maybe tomorrow? 

Road Champs- Natchez

Cat. 4s

Last weekend was the LAMBRA Road Championships event up at the Natchez State Park.  Since I had to bring the medals, clock and a few other items up there in time for the 9 am Junior races, I was on the road well before dawn.  The Masters 55+ race wasn't until 1 pm, so once I arrived I had a little time to kill.  A cold front was on its way, and just as the Juniors finished it started to rain.  Fortunately it was never very heavy, and by the time the next set of races had started, the rain was over and the cloud cover was keeping the temperatures down to a reasonable level.

The 55+/60+ race had a fairly small field of thirteen, and the 7-lap race started out at pretty easy.  I found myself at the front more often than normal, and it was clear that half the riders had no interest in putting their noses into the wind.  This course features a pretty good long stair-step climb, followed by a short downhill and then a very steep but short uphill.  Then there are a couple of miles of rollers with a fast downhill left-hand curve coming into a right-hand turn, and then a short but significant little uphill.  The rest of the race is a net downhill run with a few rollers thrown in for good measure before turning on a very rough road for the final mile or so.  I think it was on the second or third lap, just after flying through the sharp right-hander, that I glanced back and sensed disorder.  Without really thinking, I attacked the little uphill and the next thing I knew we had a 3-rider break.  "Let's work together," I said as I dropped off the front and Stanley Prutz pulled through.  I'm not exactly sure who the third rider was, but the fact that we had three riders from three teams was good.  The third rider, from Shreveport's LaS'port team, eventually dropped off the back, but his presence in the initial break kept his two other teammates from chasing which was a huge advantage. After one lap off the front we had over a minute on the field.  Stanley seemed really strong and was probably doing 70% of the work for the last few laps.  I was struggling a bit on the climbs, especially that short steep one after the stair-step, and as we started the last lap I could see the handwriting on the wall.  Sure enough, Stanley attacked that climb hard and although I came over the top within a couple of bike lengths of his wheel, I couldn't sustain the pace and watched him ride away.  I finished out the lap, placing 2nd, and waited quite a while before the rest of the field finished.

I had gotten a spot in one of the cabins with the officials for the night, so we all drove in to Natchez for dinner.  The cabin was basically within walking distance of the start line, which was nice.  The next morning I decided to go ahead and enter the Cat. 1/2 race since the field was small and I obviously needed the exercise.  I was only hoping to avoid having to do an extended time trial for this one, and knew for sure I'd be dropped before the half-way point.  After a really easy first lap, there was a hard attack on the climbs at the beginning of lap 2.  I though that if they were going to attack the hills every lap for the next thirteen laps, I might as well let them go.  A little while later another rider who had done the same thing rolled past me and we started working together, eventually catching back up to the group.  We did the exact same thing for the next three laps, but by then a break was off the front and the group I was in was down to five of six with more than half of the race yet to go.  Another attack left just me, Stanley, and Brendon Hale, and we soon settled into a steady pace.  Again, Stanley was doing more than his fair share of the work, and again, I was suffering on that little steep climb.  Otherwise, though, the cool front had brought in some delightful weather and it was good training.  As we approached the finish line with two laps to go the break caught and passed us, and Brendon thought they had said that we also had only one lap to go (like it was a criterium and we were finishing on the same lap as the leader).  I wasn't so sure about that, but when he sprinted a lap later I sprinted too, but as it turned out we did indeed have another lap to go.  The officials felt sorry for us and told us they would count that sprint if we wanted, but we decided to finish out the distance.  The next time, Stanley attacked a little earlier than I expected and although I was gaining on him, I ran out of road before we got to the finish.  Of course, we were sprinting or 8th place, so it wasn't really a big deal.  Anyway, it was a fun weekend and I left feeling like I might not be in slightly better shape than I'd thought.

Next weekend is the Pensacola Stage Race. That's always an expensive weekend, but I like the courses and appreciate the support the north Florida guys give to the LAMBRA races, so I always try to make that one.  I'll probably go ahead and register in the 50+ race if for no other reason than the $10 lower entry fee.

Back At It

On the way back along Chef Menteur Highway

After a good four hours of sleep I rolled out of bed and onto the bike.  The air outside was thick and humid, and it was dark enough to need both headlight and taillight.  I was a little early, so I took my time as I rode out to meet the Giro Ride. The biggest thing on my mind at the time was whether to have hot coffee or iced coffee.  It was a decision that turned out to be moot when I found the Starbucks to be closed.  It seemed that they had electricity, so perhaps they were having trouble getting enough staff back to work or something.  There were a couple of things we knew for sure about the Giro.  Lakeshore Drive was definitely unusable after having been submerged by the lake during the hurricane.  I also knew that once we got out past the levee on Highway 90, where the road had also been flooded, we'd probably have to deal with mud, debris and possibly standing water.

The turnout was surprisingly good, and the pace down Hayne Blvd. was pretty fast, perhaps just a little bit slower than normal.  It felt good to be back at it, but events of the past week had clearly taken their toll.  Basically, I felt like I had been off the bike for a month. As we had crossed the industrial canal bridge I'd looked down to see that the huge floodgates, finished only a month or so ago, were still closed.  Out on Chef Highway the floodgates east of the city were open, so we were able to ride over the levee there, but on the other side we found the right lane partially submerged and full of debris, forcing us into the left lane along with the trucks.  It didn't take us long to decide it was too dangerous to continue, so we turned around, ultimately cutting about ten miles off of the Giro route.

Here in the city things are slowly returning to normal.  The power company made a lot of progress on Sunday, but there are still a lot of areas without power.  On the way home we watched a caravan of a dozen power trucks as it turned onto Wisner heading into town. I'm glad that tomorrow is a holiday because we can all use the extra day to get things back in order before returning to business as usual on Tuesday.

Power!

The power finally came back on around 11:30, which would be about an hour and a half ago, and the temperature inside the house is getting down to a level at which I might actually get a few hours of sleep. It's been a few rather uncomfortable nights, but really, it could have been a lot worse.

I'm heading to Starbucks in the morning to see what we can do about a Giro Ride, considering that various floodgates may or may not still be closed and some parts of Chef Highway may or may not still be underwater. It seems like I haven't been able to put together enough consistent quality training since that crash way back at the beginning of July to really get back in shape.  Some years are just like that.

Outages

NOLA Power Outages Thursday morning

Well, we survived Hurricane Isaac without much damage, which is more than I can say for most of the trees around here.  It's Thursday morning and the power has been out since around 2 am yesterday.  At the height of the storm I could feel the house moving in the stronger wind gusts, which is rather disconcerting to day the least.  The map shows the current power situation around 30 hours later (the red lines are the ones without power).  There's no telling how long it will be before we're back on the grid, but I think most of the damage was due to trees taking down power lines, so I guess it could be anywhere from twelve hours to a few days. There are two trees down within sight of my house, one of which took down the power lines, and the other looks like it just took the telephone/cable lines.  Although we had an overnight curfew (it was quite peaceful), traffic is picking up on S. Claiborne now despite the lack of traffic signals.  We have had a few breaks from the rain, but for the most part it has been raining for two days now.  There's some standing water in the low spots of the basement -- seepage from the completely saturated ground outside, and without ventilation it's getting kind of musty down there. At least the cloud cover has kept the temperatures down and it's been rather pleasant sitting out on the front porch enjoying the breeze. The police department has been patrolling regularly and a few looting arrests have been made, so things are much better in that regard than they were seven years ago, and the new floodgates and pumping stations worked without a hitch, so despite a huge amount of rainfall, things were generally under control and there was never any hint of street flooding near my house.

This house, built in the 1920's was designed for New Orleans in the pre-air-conditioning era, and fortunately most of those features have been preserved.  The porch, window screens, casement windows, etc. have really made things tolerable. The neighbors came over for dinner by candlelight last night and even though there was no a/c, the breeze coming through the open windows made it quite pleasant.

I'm guessing I won't be getting out on the bike again today unless it really clears up.  Even if it does, there's a ton of clean-up that needs to be done, and unfortunately I have a brother in law who has been in intensive care in Baton Rouge since yesterday, so we may be driving up there some time soon.  Since I-10 is closed around LaPlace and the Causeway is still closed, it could be a long trip.  We may be able to wait until things are open again, however.  We're supposed to be back at work tomorrow and classes at Tulane are set to resume on Tuesday.  It's about time to give the generator a little break since I'm still not sure where I will be able to find gas......

Sneaking One In

Starting back down the river from Ormond

Last night when Mignon sent an email out to the group asking if anyone was thinking about trying to sneak in a final pre-hurricane ride in the morning, I thought the chances were slim.  As it turned out, however, Tropical Storm Isaac (it remains to be seen whether it was even achieve hurricane status) hadn't really gotten its act together overnight and I awoke to dry streets.  It was, of course, pretty windy, but once the sun started to come up you could see that the sky didn't look all that threatening.  Up on the levee we had Tim, Woody, Mignon, and (!) Richard Hughes, in addition to myself as we rolled out at 6:15.  Most of the ride out to Ormond had a quartering crosswind, and the sections where it was more tailwind than crosswind got pretty fast.  The farther out we got, the more I started thinking about how hard the 20+ mile ride back was going to be.  Indeed, the ride back was hard.  A few times I almost lost it when Tim pulled off and the wind hit me full-force. I was already off of the levee and on my way down Oak Street when it started raining, so I guess our timing was pretty good. After riding I went out and filled up the neighbor's two 5-gallon gas cans, stopped in at Freret Hardware to say hello to Vivian and pick up some lamp oil just in case we end up without power for a long time.  I'm really not thinking this one is going to be too bad here in the city, although the lake is already starting to flood the area between the seawall and the levee.  I did spend some time down in the basement moving some things up off of the ground as a precaution, but here at the house I know that we won't get any water in our basement until it's at least six feet deep in Lakeview.

The Cruel Truth - Take Warning

It's not called "The Race of Truth" for nothing, and the cruel truth was that I wasn't even remotely prepared for it.  Anticipating disaster, I'd stopped by Vivan's house on Saturday and picked up her time trial wheels, hoping they might at least minimize the impact of what I was already expecting to be a lackluster time trial performance.  Donald Davis was arriving at the house Saturday afternoon, so I had already gotten the results spreadsheet and officiating supplies ready, and had even picked up a new pop-up shelter for the club to replace the one that had been flattened by the storm at the Tour de Louisiane back in June.  Everything was ready, except of course me.

Sunday morning I was on the road to LaPlace just before 6 am with the car loaded up with stuff for the event -- generator, shelter, chair, race clock, traffic cones, table, flags, banners, clipboards, computer, printer, etc.  I was already tired.  Maybe it was that half bottle of wine I'd had over dinnner? Peake Racing was on hand with lots of volunteers, so once we handed out all of the race numbers and got the first few riders started, I squeezed into my skinsuit and rolled around for a few minutes before my start time.  I wouldn't call it an actual warmup, but my plan was to start out easy and work my way into it.  There was what felt like a light ENE wind blowing, so I was expecting a mild crosswind with a bit of a tailwind on the way back.  I started out smoothly, rolling up to 26 or 27 mph rather quickly with what felt like a little tailwind.  A couple of miles later the road turned just slightly to the right and my speed started dropping quickly.  I felt like I had no power at all, and I guess I was only five miles into the 40 km Time Trial when I saw 22 mph on the computer and thought, "This is ridiculous!"  If all I could muster was a pathetic 22 mph under those conditions, I was seriously questioning why I was out there.  I forced myself back up to 24 or so, but knew my ride was basically over as whatever motivation I might have had went right out the window.  Some days you just don't have anything to offer, and this was one of those. Mitch, who had started a minute behind me, went sailing by before the turnaround.  A few miles later as I rounded the pylon at 20 km Jorge powered past me as well.  I held his pace for a couple of miles, but eventually backed off again, dropping down to 22 mph.  Grant passed me about halfway back.  I'd have to say that was about the worst time trial I've done in twenty years.  I dried off and sat down at the computer to start entering finish times, and about halfway through realized that they didn't look right at all.  The starter had not written down the actual start times, but instead had written down the time of day, so I didn't have the easy cross-checks that I normally do.  It took me quite a while to figure out that I had forgotten about the 5-minute gap between the 20km riders and the 40km riders, and had to then correct all of the start times.  Anyway, we eventually got everything done, with a couple of mistakes in the Cat. 1/2s because I got a couple of incorrect times that were relayed via cellphone from the finish line.  Amazingly, Frank Moak came on top with a 54:33.  How does he do that?  On a good day I would have been thrilled with a 58:00 myself, and this was definitely not a good day (I coasted in at 1:03:35).

By mid-afternoon on Sunday the news media and city in general was going in to full-on hurricane panic mode as the storm track for Tropical Storm Isaac had shifted more to the west and was now heading directly for the city.  At some point in the early afternoon I was sitting at the computer working on the results when I heard a loud noise.  I got up to see if something had fallen in the kitchen, and checked down in the basement to see if maybe the big pop-up tent or something had fallen over, but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary.  Later than night when I was removing the clip-ons from my bike I picked up the wheel bag containing the front wheel I'd borrowed from Vivian and noticed that the front tire was flat.  When I opened the bag I found everything coated in a white powder.  The sidewall had completely blown out.  I guess the tire was a little old.  At least it hadn't happened during my time trial.  Well, actually, maybe that would have been a good thing, under the circumstances, as I distinctly remember wishing I'd get a flat so I could quit.  Anyway, I got the results posted to the website, uploaded them to the USAC database, and then met with the Tulane Cycling officers to get a start on the club's plans for the year, budget, etc.  By 10 pm I got about halfway through updating the LCCS points rankings before I started falling asleep at the keyboard and decided to call it a night.  Unfortunately I was then "urged" to go out into the night in search of gasoline thanks to the increasingly alarming newscasters.  The closest gas station had a line about two blocks long, the next two were not selling gas, either because they had sold out or were waiting for the price to go up.  I ended up filling up the car way out by Elmwood.  Anyway, this morning the forecast, IMHO, looks more encouraging and I'm not really expecting to have to evacuate the city for this one.

As I climbed the path  up to the levee this morning I glanced over my right shoulder at the red sky and thought, "...sailors take warning."  A Tropical Storm was heading our way.  It was relatively cool and breezy, and of course there was nobody to ride with, but I figured I'd better put in a few miles since the weather would probably become an issue on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Out near the turnaround I ran into a rider who recently moved to town and with whom we'd had breakfast after Saturday's Giro Ride (and whose name of course I can't recall right now), so at least I had some company for the return trip.

Blasts from the Past

Late last night I got an email from Tim Fitzgerald, and attached to it was a black and white photo from the 1984 Race Across Louisiana.  I have to admit it was a little hard to admit how long ago that was.  Anyway, I figured I'd put it up on the NOBC History page at some point and went to sleep.

It was relatively cool this morning as I rode out to meet the 6:15 am ride on the levee.  It was another reminder that summer was coming to an end and hurricane season was reaching its peak.  As the mornings get darker, riders start showing up later and later, so I wasn't surprised to find just a couple of riders there when I arrived, nor was I surprised when a quite a few others suddenly materialized within just a couple of minutes. It was a pretty normal Wednesday ride with everyone taking long steady pulls, all within a narrow range of a couple mph of 20.  The one non-normal thing was the presence of Adam Watts (of Bicycle World fame) who I probably hadn't seen on the ride in six months. As remarkable as his presence was, the fact that he had promoted one of the Race Across Louisiana races around the time the photo I'd received seven hours before had been taken was even more remarkable.  Anyway, I'd been planning on riding out to the lakefront after work for the training race, but by the time I got home it was nearly 6 pm already, so I opened a bottle of Malbec instead ..... using a Campagnolo corkscrew, of course.

Tuesday

Decorated Water Meter Cover on Oak Street

It's that time of year when it seems each morning is noticeably darker than the previous one.  I don't like that.  It signals the beginning of Fall, and those of us who get up before 6am are the first to feel its effects.  I took a few minutes to put the lights on the bike and headed out just as the dawn was filtering over the horizon.  Down on Freret Street, as I rode through a little cloud of marijuana smoke and approached the 4-way stop that I ride through every morning, a few school children waited for their bus.  Ahhh, the telltale signs of public school back in session. I should mention, for the benefit of those from elsewhere, that here in New Orleans, that public schools here are probably not what they are where you live.  My aunt, who was a school teacher, used to have a great story to explain the fact that one segment of the population here has a rather unique accent that sounds a lot like Brooklynese.  Way back in the early part of the century New Orleans already had a well-established parochial school system. The public school system was populated largely by recent immigrants.  It was also a disaster, so they city brought in a new director who happened to be from Brooklyn.  He then proceeded to bring in a lot of teachers from Brooklyn.  Since most of the children in the schools were from immigrant families, they learned English primarily from their school teachers.  Anyway, it's a nice story.

So there was a pretty big group up on the levee this morning, and to make matters worse there were a lot of other people up on the levee enjoying the relatively cool morning, or perhaps starting to train for the annual MS Tour ride.  As a result, it was a lot of stop-and-go for the first few miles today.  Otherwise it was a pretty uneventful ride and I ended up spending a lot of time sitting on the back of the paceline kind of zoned out. It wasn't until the last few miles that I snapped out of it and got back to work.  I stopped in at Zotz for a quick cup of coffee on the way home and noticed that someone had decorated all of the water meter covers.  The design on these old covers has become something of a New Orleans icon despite the fact that they were all cast in Wabash.  At any rate, you can actually by jewelry modeled after our water meter covers.

The Far Corner: Rocky Mount Weekend

Hanging on in the Cat. 1/2/3 Criterium

It wasn't a great plan, but at least it was a plan.  A grant proposal that I expected to come down to the wire on Friday had already eliminated any reasonable option I might have had of driving up to Shreveport early.  Instead, I was resigned to a 1:30 am departure for the long drive up to the far northwest corner of the "L" state. On the plus side, since I was the only crazy enough to do something like this, I had lots of room in the Volvo.  The forecast for the weekend in New Orleans was dismal, so I figured that perhaps there would be a bit less rain a few hundred miles north.  I arrived at Rocky Mount right on schedule, leaving just about an hour to register before the 8:05 am start and get my act together.  I was pretty sleepy, but I figured I'd knock out the road race and have plenty of time to catch up on sleep because there was no afternoon time trial this year. I signed up for the 55+ race since the 40+ and 55+ would all be racing together and I figured my chances of winning my entry fee back would be better in the 55+. At the start we had a good-sized field of 30 with riders from Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas and Florida.  One of the nice things about this particular race location is that it brings together riders who don't always get to race with each other.  It's a longer drive from New Orleans than from Dallas. 

As expected, I wasn't feeling too sharp for the start, and when they announced a KOM prize for the first time up the "big" hill, about 3 miles into the official race (about five, counting the neutral section). Naturally there was a sprint for that, but fortunately nobody tried to capitalize on it and everything came back together right away.  Two riders rolled off the front around that time and the pack gave them quite a bit of rope before there was any sort of response, and I was really wondering if they were gone for good.  Donald and a couple others finally put the hammer down and reeled them back in.  There were a number of rather sharp attacks on the second of the three laps, but by then the rest of the group was apparently not willing to take too many chances and nothing stuck for long, so we came into the third lap all together.  One bit of excitement was when we were coming up to the right-hand turn #3 and half of the field was way over the center line approaching the somewhat downhill turn.  Suddenly a truck coming from the left turned right into the group, and luckily there was still just enough time for riders to get out of the way as the surprised driver turned onto the shoulder. 

I knew that at least a couple of riders were definitely going to attack the big climb on that final lap, so I made sure to stay toward the front of the group.  The big guy who I think had been in the early break took another shot at it, but it didn't last long and the pace slowed down again.  The whole race was like that.  There would be a really fast attack that wouldn't last very long, and then it would slow down when it came back together.  By the third lap I was actually feeling better on the climbs and as we started up the big hill I was keeping my options open in expectation of a hard attack.  We were about halfway up when I heard a crash behind me.  Practically simultaneously there was a attack at the front.  I never had a chance to look back, and only mumbled, "Damn," as I lugged my overgeared self over the last half of the climb and around the right-hander at the top.  The lead riders kept the pressure on and the next couple of miles of rollers were really fast and hard.  As it turned out, the crash had split the field and the surge afterward had made it impossible for many riders to get back on, so as we made the right turn with maybe seven or eight miles to go the group was down to I guess eight or nine riders.  There were a couple of short attacks, but most riders in the group were resigned to a sprint finish up the really big hill to Rocky Mount, so the pace started to really lag, dropping down into the teens now and then.  I looked back and could see a small group of three chasing.  At the speed we were going, I figured they would catch, and we were about a mile or so from the finish when they did.  The finish is a departure from the race circuit and is basically a one-kilometer climb that tops out 250 meters before the finish.  As we started up the climb I was behind Donald Davis and could tell he was anxious to go. He was momentarily trapped behind the front row which hadn't strung out yet, and as soon as there was an opening he attacked.  It was too early for me and I had to let a few more wheels go before making a big effort.  Coming over the top I found myself kind of in-between a lead group and the rest of the group, and rolled across the line in 6th, I think.  That was good for 1st in the 55+ race, so I was happy to have covered my entry fee!

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sleeping and catching up on the LAMBRA LCCS scoring, finally getting that all up to date.

Sunday morning was a criterium at a community college.  It was a nice but very open course with one section with some nice technical turns, but then a long half-kilometer that was basically a big semicircle. The masters race was fairly fast, but no at all steady because of repeated attacks.  A couple of miles into the 45-minute race Donald went to the front and just hammered for most of a lap.  That was enough to split half the riders right off the back.  As expected, the finish stretch around a long right-hand curve got really fast and since I wasn't sufficiently motivated I ended up I guess 8th or 9th or something, but still 1st among the 55+ riders, so I was happy to have covered the hotel bill too!  I wasn't really very happy about that. My sprint felt really weak. 

After watching one or two of the other races, and since I had to stay until the end in order to bring some of the LAMBRA equipment back with me for the upcoming time trial, I was lured into entering the Cat. 1/2/3 race by the discounted second-race $10 entry fee.  My plan for this one was simple.  Try not to get dropped and see if you get lucky at the end.  With none of the Herring riders in attendance, the LaS'port team had everyone out-numbered and out-gunned, so their plan was obviously to launch attack after attack, which they did nicely.  Luckily for me the other riders from S3 and various other teams were being pretty attentive. I had teammate Robert Monahan in this race, so since it was my second of the day I figured I could take a few chances and helped chase down a break or two.  As often happens, I was actually feeling better for this race than I had for the Masters race. I can't explain that, but it isn't unusual at all.  I may not have a lot of snap left in my legs, but in general I don't usually feel like the first race takes all that much out me otherwise.  Anyway, as you might expect I was spending a lot of time near the tail end of the field as the LaS'port traded attacks up front.  The problem with hanging out at the back of this race was that these guys were going through the technical section way too slowly.  I don't know what the problem was, but every lap I'd be on the brakes coming in to the first of the two tight turns, and then having to sprint out of the last one as the accordion came back together. At one point I saw Robert drifting back to where I was and told him he needed to get back up front asap.  So despite LaS'port's best efforts, I think everything came back together by the end.  I had moved up into a good position at the start of the last lap, and was surprised to still be about fifth wheel after the technical section, but then with only about 300 meters to go the riders on the front inexplicably eased up and we started getting streamed.  My sprint again felt weak and I ended up 9th, easing up just before the line as Robert came past to take the last spot that was in the money.  It was a great weekend, made even better by the fact that back home they had nothing but rain, some of it quite severe.  Around 2 pm I hopped back onto I-49, set the cruise control, and settled back for the long drive back, having timed it just right to miss the last of the rain as I came in to town.

Track, Time Trials and Taxes

6:33 am, Saturday:  "What about this weather? Is race going to be rained out?" I checked the radar and was rather surprised to see a line of thunderstorms between me and the Team Time Trial Championship course up in Vacherie.  The start wasn't until 9 am, so there was still hope.  Donald Davis, who would be riding with three Midsouth Masters riders, had spent the night at the house on his way in from Pensacola.  We headed out at 7 am to make what would normally be an easy one-hour drive, but by the time we were crossing the spillway we were in the middle of a pretty severe storm. Soon I was down to 50 mph and straining to see where I was going.  Up on the roof both of my track bikes were getting a thorough cleaning.  The Team Time Trial was just the first part of my weekend plans.

I was scheduled to ride the 29 mile TTT with teammates Keith Andrews, Mark McMurry and Chuck Bell. We had a second team lined up as well, but soon after we arrived a couple of members of that one had to cancel.  Also, soon after we arrived, the rain started again.  We ended up pushing the start back by a full hour, but by then it was down to a light drizzle.  The course was on a freshly asphalted road that felt pretty fast.  It looked like we'd be starting out with a significant headwind, but in fact it was barely noticeable.  We started out nice and easy, keeping it at 25-26 mph most of the way to the turnaround.  It was really smooth, which should have been a clue that we weren't going quite fast enough.  I found myself taking pulls of 50-60 pedal strokes before my legs would start to load up and I'd drop back. Since I was by far the smallest on the team, however, I felt fully recovered by the time my next pull came up.  We tiptoed around the turnaround on the still-wet street and settled into a pace of around 27 mph for most of the return trip.  A mile or so before the finish Mark took a really long pull, ramping it up to about 30 mph, at which point Keith dropped off the back.  Then, when Mark pulled off Chuck maintained the pace.  Unfortunately Mark didn't realize that Keith was gone and a big gap opened.  I yelled to Chuck to ease up and backed off myself.  We were still going pretty fast, and were probably only 300 meters from the finish, so I doubt it cost us much.  Unfortunately, just as we got to the finish line a big semi stopped in the right lane ahead of us.  I was on the front at the time and started to go around on the right but spotted someone with a dog standing there and thought better of it, switching over and going around in the left lane that was fortunately clear.  We ended up with an OK time of 1:05:09 which turned out to be only 3rd in the masters and 8th overall.  On the plus side, I wasn't particularly tired or sore afterward!  It was one of the smoothest team time trials I've ever done.

So after the TTT, I jumped in the car and continued up the river to Baton Rouge where I was scheduled to officiate the LSU collegiate track meet that afternoon and the next morning.  They had an OK turnout for a track race, but of course it all took longer than planned (doesn't it always?) and by 10 pm everyone was more than ready to call it a day.  My Blue track bike got a lot of use, as did the vintage front wheel from my Viner.  Despite the fact that a number of riders were riding the track for the very first time, the races all went pretty smoothly and there were no crashes, much to my relief. Things wrapped up on Sunday around 1 pm so I was back home in New Orleans by mid-afternoon with lots of time to get ready for my next adventure, getting my property tax assessment reduced to something more reasonable.

So Monday morning after gathering up the necessary dated photos, insurance papers, comparables, etc., I headed over to City Hall where I expected to wait in line for a couple of hours in order to meet with an assessor about the 300% increase in my assessment.  What I found was beyond belief.  There were a couple hundred people lining the entire block-long length of the ground floor hallway.  I took my place and the end of the line, writing my name on a paper tablet next to the number 460.  Six hours later I was still in line in the hallway.  Someone came down from the 4th floor office and started handing out tickets to people who wanted to come back first thing in the morning rather than take a chance on being able to see an assessor that day.  I took a ticket.  it was after 4 pm and I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 8 am, so I figured that any negotiating skills I might have had already been severely compromised.  So this morning I was back at City Hall bright and early and was ushered practically immediately up to the 4th floor ahead of the two hundred or so people already waiting in line in the hallway.  My optimism started to sag a couple of hours later when I was still waiting in the 4th floor hallway outside the assessor's office.  Finally we were called into the office where we were given new tickets and told to wait once again.  I guess another hour went by before my number came up and I got to sit down with a Service Representative who was basically doing triage for the actual appraisers.  She looked up my house on the computer and it was immediately obvious that they had estimated the house's living space by about 100%.  Fortunately I had brought an old appraisal with the correct number.  So I got a new ticket and moved to a new line where I waited another hour or so to finally see an actual appraiser who immediately corrected the square footage number, pulled up similar properties in the neighborhood, and said "Looks like most houses are at around $280k.  How's that for you?"  After agreeing to this highly scientific assessment, which reduced my appraised value by over $185,000, I was finally out of there,wondering if I should have held out for an even lower number.  Now I'm basically a couple of days behind with work, and in particular a $3.4M grant proposal that is due on Friday.  It may be a couple more days before those race results get uploaded to USAC and I get the LCCS points updated!

Wednesdays on the Levee

It's interesting the way that group rides evolve.  The morning levee rides, for example, have become reasonably predictable with each day of the week having developed its own little routine.  Wednesdays, coming of course the day after what is typically a fairly hard Tuesday ride, have become the days for long pulls in a smooth, small paceline.  Today was pretty much the definition of the current Wednesday ride.  I don't think the group ever numbered more than six or seven, and except for a few brief surges the pace didn't venture much outside of a narrow range from 21 to 24 mph.  On these days I'll typically take pulls of maybe 100 pedal strokes, as compared to 40 or 50 on a faster ride.  Some riders take slightly longer pulls at slightly slower speeds, others take shorter pulls at slightly higher speeds, but the differences are small -- on the order of one or two mph at best -- so it's always pretty easy to stay in contact.  Sometimes where the rider in front surges more than that, I'll just let a little gap open and then slowly close it up rather than make the more sudden acceleration that would have been needed to stay on the wheel in front.  This, of course, is not a particularly wise tactic if you are in either an actual race or a fast training ride.  Anyway, it was a typical ride today and on the way home I stopped in at Zotz for an iced coffee.

After getting home I spent about an hour searching all over the place for an old property appraisal and taking photos of the house to back up my upcoming trip down to the city assessor's office next week.  I've also tracked down the recent listings and sale prices of a couple of houses in the next block, all of which have a lot more living space and other amenities than mine but sold for way, way less than the amount the city would like to base my property tax bill on.  In the process of rummaging through files and storage boxes I ran across an old photo of me in what must have been one of the very first bike races I ever did.  It's from 1972 and I'm riding my recently upgraded Atala that had cost $110 new.  I'd just swapped out the steel cottered cranks for a new Nervar Star alloy cotterless crankset and upgraded the steel wheels to fiamme red-label tubulars. I'm wearing the NOBC club jersey, but also cut-off shorts and tennis shoes, and of course the old classic leather helmet, and you've got to love the hairy legs.  In the background is the Southern Yacht Club (destroyed by Katrina and later rebuilt) and the old Coast Guard lighthouse (also destroyed by Katrina but now in the process of being rebuilt and restored).  That might even be my girlfriend's convertible Oldsmobile Cutlass parked along the lakefront.  Fortunately, I haven't changed at all since then......

Out to the End

End of old section, start of new.

I heard the garbage truck outside the bedroom window Saturday morning as I awoke.  It seemed darker than usual for 5:45 am, but I didn't think much about it as I got dressed for the Saturday Giro.  Down in the basement I fill water bottles under the single bare light bulb, and before putting on my riding shoes I opened the door to bring in the empty garbage can.  As I stepped out into the thick humid dawn I felt something hit my face.  A raindrop?? A light rain was just beginning to fall.  I went back upstairs to have a look at the weather radar. 

End of the path near Norco.

It didn't look good. 

I sat there or a few minutes watching the animated radar and wondering if I should pump up the tires on the rain bike.  Then I heard the first clap of thunder. I shut everything down and climbed back into bed, still wearing my team kit and put in a couple more hours of sleep while the rainstorm drifted through.  I heard there were a few riders at the Starbucks who sat around drinking coffee until finally throwing in the towel and going home.

So by 10:30 am or so the rain was over and it was looking a lot better.  I've been feeling rather mileage deprived lately, having missed riding on Thursday entirely, so I thought I'd head out to the levee and ride all the way out to the end.  The bike path had been extended upriver recently, and in fact was not yet officially open, and I thought I'd go check out the new asphalt.  It was already getting pretty warm by the time I left.  Considering the heat and the fact I'd be riding solo, and the likelihood of a little headwind for the return trip, I stayed in a low gear and tried to keep my speed between 18 and 20 mph.  The bike path was still rather deserted as I headed up the river, but most of the water had evaporated. I could hear my seatpost creaking inside the aluminum seat tube and knew that water and grit had finally worked their way down in there. Somewhere way out around the Luling bridge I saw Rolan riding toward me.  "I'm going all the way to the end," I yelled as he slowed and made a U-turn to join me.  A couple of miles later we came to a barricade across the bike path.  On the other side was fresh blacktop, still missing its center line stripe. 

Naturally we went around it.  Over the next few miles we had to detour down onto River Road a couple of times to get around pipes near Norco, but back up on the levee the asphalt continued.  A little while later, though, we came to the end of the paved road, maybe a mile before the Spillway, and turned back.  Rolan turned off about halfway back as the heat got hotter and humidity got heavier.  I sucked the last drops of water out of one bottle and started in on the other, riding all the way to Audubon Park and adding a couple of laps around the road there or good measure.  I was a little surprised how tired I was by the time I got home, but at least I'd gotten in 56 miles on the bike.  I was already wishing I'd gotten in the car and made the 6 hour drive to race in Oxford, but complications on Friday, including a dying car battery and ridiculous property tax assessment had pushed that a few spots down on my priority list.

So Sunday morning looked a lot better as I rode out to the Giro Ride.  Unfortunately I'd miss my pre-Giro coffee because I'd fallen back asleep after shutting off the alarm clock.  I'd be there in plenty of time to make the ride, but my usual twenty minutes of caffeine loading were definitely out.  There were a few key riders missing, of course, thanks to the races in Oxford, and there were a couple more TT bikes than usual (the Team TT is next weekend), but turnout was still good.  As soon as the pace started to pick up I noticed that my legs felt a little sore.  Really?  From what?  This sort of thing never happened when I was 25, but now it's a fairly frequent occurrence. 

Anyway, the Giro was fairly fast today and even though I wasn't riding aggressively enough to be on the right side of the splits for the sprints, I got a good workout, again went through every drop of water I'd brought, and got home feeling quite empty.  I ended up logging about 250 miles for the week, which it about normal for this time of year.  I've always said that I don't start to feel like I'm in shape until I have a few consecutive 250-mile weeks under my belt.  I heard there was some Olympic bicycle racing going on this week over in England, but you wouldn't know it from NBC's prime-time coverage.  I did, however, see hours of women in bikinis and horses leaping over things and even British celebrities and royalty cheering for the track races that they didn't show.