View from the Back

Me, Mark, Paul, and Mike

The LAMBRA Team Time Trial and Alan Kelly Criterium this weekend jolted the mid-summer road season back into action after its July hiatus. Teammate Mark McMurry had assembled a 55+ team composed of riders who might just as easily have ridden a TTT back in 1984. Mike Lew was on hand with an ancient and unique time trial bike that had been built by John Dias' father back when John was a Junor.  I figure it weighed in at around 24 pounds.  Rounding out the team was Paul Kerst from Baton Rouge who has raced only occasionally for the past few years but has always been a formidable time trialist. I knew it was going to be a hard and hot 30 miles. There was a light but increasing quartering headwind and my only consolation was knowing I was the smallest rider of the four. As we had discussed, our start was smooth and controlled. I suppose that among the four of us there must have been at least 100 years of racing experience, so the paceline was incredibly smooth.  I has doing my best taking short pulls and thanks to the headwind I was recovering relatively well until my next pull came around. Mike and I were pulling a little shorter and more slowly than Paul and Mark but it was working pretty well all the way out to the turnaround and we could see that we were slowly catching the team that had started two minutes ahead of us. Our turnaround was pretty sloppy and it took us a little while to get re-organized. There was now a bit of a tailwind and Paul and Mark were showing no signs of slowing down. We'd averaged a bit over 26 mph on the way out and it was looking like the consensus speed for the way back was going to be more like 28. I took a couple of pulls and quickly realized I was slowing them down about 1 mph every time I'd come to the front, so I decided to sit on the back to minimize the accelerations and wait until closer to the end where I could maintain speed and afford to gut it out for a couple of miles without risking getting dropped. So we ended up with a 1:06:53, which was good for 6th overall. Not that I can take much credit for it, but it was a pretty respectable showing for a bunch of old dogs.

Sunday's criterium in Thibodaux was on a nice short technical course with old concrete pavement that was unrideable when wet. The master's race had a reasonable turnout of 16, which was good, but 5 Palmer riders and 4 Acadiana riders, which was not so good. I was still trying to squeeze in a little warmup after having officiated the prior race when they started lining up, so I ended up in the back, which I new was risky. I figured there was a 90% chance that Kenny was going to attack from the gun, which of course he did. Kevin Landry was right there and went with him, so halfway through the first lap we had one Palmer and one Acadiana rider off the front, which was not good for me since that meant about half the field and 80% of the remaining horsepower was not going to chase. Going around one of the corners on the first lap I looked up and there were four Palmer riders lined up on the front and we were going like 22 mph while the break was probably going more like 27. The two riders just rode away from the pack without hardly a challenge. On such a tight course it's hard to move up, and since I wasn't feeling particularly motivated anyway, I found myself stuck near the back dealing with some rather unorthodox cornering and a lot of gap-closing. I immediately started thinking about just easing off the back and latching onto the break which I knew was going to lap the field on the short 0.5 mile circuit.

Pretty soon, though, I heard the motorcycle right behind us and knew we were already being lapped. There were a few short attacks that shed a few more riders but we came into the bell lap with a group of around eight. Kevin attacked early on the back side and strung everything out, but somehow Kenny managed to get to the line first by about half a tire width. As it turned out that particular tire was nearly flat, too. They had to go to the finish camera to figure out who won. Kenny posted some good video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1GTXX12wOo .

So after the master's race I had a little break while the Cat. 4s raced before the Cat. 1/2/3 race. After they finished we had a good fifteen minutes before our race was scheduled to start, and it looked like a big thunderstorm was heading our way. As I was warming up I could feel a light mist starting to fall, and then there were some very impressive and close bolts of lightning. Everyone gathered near the start line hoping for the best but fearing the worst. Sure enough it started raining right on schedule and with the road surface so slick the race was cancelled. I sat under the NOBC tent with Mark for at least half an hour as it poured down rain until it eased enough to venture out to start packing up the car. I had been kind of looking forward to the Cat. 1/2/3 race which would have been the biggest field of the day, so it was a disappointment to have the race cancelled, but having tried to ride on that road in the rain last year I knew there was really no choice. After loading up the car with soaking wet tent, flag, etc., I headed home through more thunderstorms.  On the plus side, I was back home by 2 pm.

Sunrise Season

The northern hemisphere keeps tilting away from the sun, but my ride time remains the same. This is the time of year when we start seeing lots of photos of sunrise from the local cycling community. I had made it out to the 5:45 am meeting spot on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday had headed out around the same time to meet the WeMoRi, but when the alarm went off on Thursday morning I hit the snooze button and promptly fell fast asleep. I finally did get out of the house, around fifteen minutes late. Fortunately, the Thursday group, after meeting at the west end of Lakeshore Drive around 6:10 am, heads east to do an out-and-back lap of Lakeshore Drive before continuing west along the Lake Trail in Jefferson. I knew that if I would be able to find them on Lakeshore Drive. In fact, I was a little surprised that I had to ride a few miles east along the lake into the huge rising sun before I saw them somewhere around Franklin Avenue. Thursday's ride was good, but not particularly fast. On the plus side, however, the group is for this "new" ride is growing as people figure out where and when they can meet it.

This morning I met Ben for the Friday coffee ride, picking up Scott at the end of Nashville and Brian B somewhere out on the lakefront. Ben was out on his Cervelo set up for tomorrow's Team Time Trial. I had promised myself I'd put my aero bars on the bike, but of course I never quite got around to that. I'll be heading down to Vacherie very early tomorrow morning for an hour or so of TTT torture, my only consolation being that I'll be the smallest rider on the 4-man team of 55+ riders.  So how hard could that be?

In the 'best-laid plans' department, the Rocky Mount stage race had to find a new road race course at the last minute after a group went to pre-ride the original course and found a big section of the road had been completely washed out. The road stage of that race serves as our skill-based, aka 'category,' championship. Then the upcoming criterium in Baton Rouge had to change their course because the state is tearing up the road in front of the capitol building in order to make it into a pedestrian-only space. The alternate route that goes around and behind the capitol building is fine except that there are two "caution" pylon things bolted to the middle of the road where the crosswalks are. We'll have the whole road so riders should be able to negotiate those as long as they are aware and paying attention. Should be interesting anyway. Then today the fall Track series dates got changed from Fridays to Saturdays, which is probably a good thing except that one of those Saturdays I'll be on the road to Six Gap.

(Giro)²

Audubon Park - it was still fairly dark, hence the blurriness

It was supposed to be a rainy weekend, but as sometimes happens around here, the rain fell mainly elsewhere leaving us with mostly dry weather, at least down here on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain.  I got up Saturday morning, looked out the window, and thought, "It sure is dark out there!"  I guess there were a few lingering clouds around, and together with the slow creep of shorter days it is starting to get noticeable. Leaving home at 6:04 am, it was a tough call whether to wear my regular sunglasses or opt of the clear lenses. Since I had my contacts in, I wanted my regular glasses because they have the stick-on reading lenses in them which make it easier to read the computer. I ended up wearing them, although I guess that in another couple of weeks that won't really be an option and they'll ride out to Starbucks adorning my helmet.  Anyway, the turnout for the Giro was good and the pace on the way out remained fast. We averaged around 25 mph, excluding the warm-up and cool-down along Lakeshore Drive, even though the return trip was considerably slower. The whole way out along Chef Highway we were pretty much strung out in a long single file going 26-28 mph for the most part.  It was such a long way to the front that I don't even know who was up there driving the train, and there was little chance I was going to ride up there to find out.

Later that day I considered trying to put together a northshore ride but never quite got around to it. I found out from Kenny that evening that Woody, Ed, VJ and I guess a few others were doing a northshore ride but by then it was late enough that I didn't want to track them down to find out when and where.  In the back of my mind I was already thinking of putting in a few extra miles after the Sunday Giro anyway.

The Sunday Giro always seems just a little bit easier than the Saturday Giro. In this case it worked out to about 1 mph slower overall, but similar to Saturday's ride the pace was fast on the way out to Venetian Isles.  This time, though, we had a nice smooth paceline going for a few miles until a couple of guys started to surge at the front which caused the whole lovely thing to collapse back into chaos. The ride back, however, was relatively tame aside from a fast stretch from Highway 11 to the Goodyear sign. When we got back to Lakeshore Drive I found that Steve and Pat had parked down at the end of Williams Blvd and would be riding back there along the Lake Trail, so I decided to join them and a few other riders who were also going that way. We stopped at the gas station on Harrison Avenue to refuel since it was getting pretty hot by then.  I bought a huge bottle of Powerade and still had quite a bit left to drink after filling my big water bottle.There was a light tailwind that made the ride along the water feel easy, but I knew it would be a long ride back once everyone else went home and I turned around into the headwind. By then I had around 70 miles on the odometer so I just settled into a nice long 18 mph pace for most of the way back along the lake, arriving back home with 80.7 miles. In a rather bizarre coincidence, that was exactly the same mileage that Steve ended up with that day. Back at home I spent a couple of hours refueling before venturing out into the heat again to trim hedges. We have had a fairly consistent pattern of rain showers around here for the past couple of weeks, so everything green is growing at full speed, as are the insects. It is feeling pretty subtropical, as it should.  Of course with that comes the annual hurricane season so we're all starting to pay a little more attention to the tropical weather.  Somehow I carried my camera around all weekend but never once took it out to take a photo, so I made a point of taking a few pictures as I rode around the park this morning.  It was darker than it looks in the photos, so the little camera was using too slow of shutter speed to accommodate my blazing speed of 15 mph.

This morning I felt like I needed a nice easy recovery spin. I've been pretty close to 300 miles per week for the past three weeks, and although it's been mostly group rides and has included a fair share of easy miles, it's a lot of saddle time nonetheless.  I rode up St. Charles Avenue early in the morning, returning down Prytania and Magazine to do a few easy laps around Audubon Park before heading home through Tulane's campus. Yesterday I broke down and signed up for the new AT&T internet and phone bundle since my current setup at home dates back to late 2005. Although I kind of hate giving up that direct phone line, the cost of the home phone was getting way out of line with how much we use it, and the internet connection was getting more and more flaky. The downside is that I guess I'll be spending Wednesday morning with some service person at home getting it all switched over which will likely involve moving furniture around to uncover long-hidden phone outlets. I'm still stuck with basic cable from Cox, but perhaps once the new AT&T becomes available, which will probably be pretty soon, they will offer another deal to get me to switch over. We'll see. I would probably be just as happy with an antenna and Hulu.

East Meets West - Coming Together

A rare cool front came through earlier this week, and although the morning temperature has still been around 80F, the drop in humidity has everyone prematurely thinking about Fall.  Of course, we are still a very long and hot way from Fall around here, but the sensation of having sweat actually evaporate from my skin has been a welcome relief, however temporary.

The Tuesday/Thursday morning levee ride group, which has been recently disrupted and effectively evicted from its usual route because of the Corps of Engineers' work along the river, is finally starting to come back together as people figure out how and when and where they can meet up out on the lakefront.  For those of us coming from uptown it has meant an earlier 5:45 am start and a twenty minute trek through town, punctuated by a few stop lights on the way out and considerably more on the way back.  We have been hitting Lakeshore Drive right around 6:10, and then heading west to meet up with the Metairie/Kenner group that is heading east.  This morning there were a couple of people waiting around West End where the eastbound group meets the westbound group.  By the time we were all together heading back east on Lakeshore drive the group was probably up to a dozen or so.  The Strava Activity Playback shows it nicely, at least for those riders in the group who upload their rides to Strava.  The best thing about the playback is that you can figure out when the various groups pass key locations, which makes it a lot easier for everyone to eventually come together.

Any opportunity for a nap

This morning the weather was great with just a light breeze and still a noticeable remnant of the cool front. As we rode through City Park we spotted one of the Coyotes that have been living there and occasionally picking off pet dogs.  We had a nice long paceline going on the Lake Trail, both coming and going, so in many ways it was like being back on the river levee since there were a lot of the same riders.

Tomorrow we'll be meeting up at 6:30 at the Reily Center for the Friday Tulane coffee ride.  This is getting to be kind of a standard easy Friday ride out to the lakefront and back with a stop at Fair Grinds. This was one of the very first dedicated coffee shops that I came across back in the 80s, although it might have had a different name back then.  The current name is a play on "Fair Gounds" which is what the nearby horse racing track, and location of the Jazz Fest, is called.    A few of the Tulane riders are back in town, and there are a couple of new ones as well, so I hope a few of them can make it.  This will be the last free weekend for a while since the whole month of August is packed with LAMBRA races, most of which involve championships of one sort or another.

Rolling and Bowling

The Sunday Giro Meeting

Things have been rolling along pretty much on auto-pilot lately, which has actually been kind of a nice break from the usual chaos.  On Friday my office had a "Staff Retreat" in an apartment at the Lower Pontalba Building on Jackson Square. I'm sure these sorts of things are helpful for a lot of people, but personally they always seem a bit contrived.  I'm pretty sure The Baroness would never have tolerated such a thing. Afterward we headed over to Fulton Alley for some bowling and adult beverages. I have never been much of a bowler and in this case I was rather worried about my right shoulder which has never fully recovered from that crash that broke my collarbone.  As it turned out, it was only moderately painful, which unfortunately eliminated the only credible excuse I could come up with.  The net result of this unfettered, lopsided and unfamiliar activity was some moderate soreness and a pulled muscle somewhere on the inside of my leg that bugged me for the next three or four days.  It was probably a good thing that it rained Saturday morning so I didn't do the Giro Ride.

The Sunday Giro was good, with a pretty good turnout and relatively nice weather.  My memory of the ride itself is pretty much a total blank except that we had a new rider in the group who had recently moved here.  She is doing a Fellowship at LSUHSC in trauma and turned out to be a good rider with some solid abilities and track experience.

Since I knew it would be raining that morning I send out an email to see if anyone wanted to try out the WattBikes at the Tulane Cycling training center we've been putting together.  A number of people showed up and I ended up spending most of the day there, although I never actually did anything you could call "training."  I had wanted to see if we could set up a group ride on the WattBike software so that it would display everyone's data together on the big monitor, but the borrowed USB ANT+ dongle didn't seem to be cooperating.  I went ahead an ordered one for myself, which arrived yesterday, so I tried it out earlier today just to see if it worked.  It looks like it will work pretty well, although we definitely need to buy a cheap laptop to keep at the center for this sort of thing. Speaking of Tulane Cycling, we have been getting  a few inquiries lately from incoming students, which is great to see.  Hopefully we can hit the ground running this year and the training center will help keep some of the new riders from dropping out of sight once it starts getting cold and dark this winter.  It should be interesting.

So this week has been pretty standard, except for the fact that I rode out to the lake on Tuesday and Thursday instead of driving out to ride on the river levee.  On Tuesday, three of us met on Carrollton at Fontainbleau at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am, which unfortunately is likely to be the status quo for a while.  The reason is that we were meeting another small group, some of which were also exiles from the river levee rides, that was coming from Metairie.  The plan was to meet up somewhere on Lakeshore Drive or on the Lake Trail bike path.  That worked out pretty well, although we decided on the way back to change our route a bit so we could be sure to meet them on Lakeshore Drive in order to skip having to ride that extra bit on Robt. E. Lee.  We tried it again this morning and met the Metairie group right at the west end of Lakeshore Drive at about 6:10 I guess, which was perfect timing. We had a good 42 mile ride and I got home just a bit before 8:00, so this plan should work OK until the levee is finished, if I live that long.

Stuff you see around a university

On Wednesday I again rode out to meet the WeMoRi.  I am finding it really hard jumping into that ride and going from 18 mph to 30 mph all of a sudden.  It takes me half of the lap around City Park to recover from that.  Anyway, it's still a better workout than I'd likely do my myself. Since they ride so early I have to leave home at 5:45, and as a result I'm on my way back home a lot earlier than usual.  This time I decided to stop at Starbucks on the way back, which was nice.  I can see that becoming a regular stop for me on Wednesdays if I keep doing this.  Once it starts getting darker in the morning I may have to re-think my options, however. Tomorrow I'm meeting Ben at 6:15 for an easy coffee ride out to the lakefront.  We are planning on meeting up with a new medical student who just moved to town from Colorado and seems susceptible to being talked into doing some collegiate racing.

At some point recently we finally got notification that the NOBC's 501(c)3 status had been re-instated by the IRS.  That took a couple of years to happen after we lost it because nobody knew we were supposed to start sending in tax returns a few years back.  Luckily we have an ex-president who is a CPA and was able to deal with them for us.

Midsummer Lull, Another Fatality

As often happens in July, there is a bit of a lull in the racing scene around here as both riders and promoters take a little break from the summer heat. My usual morning routine is also in a state of flux as we all try to figure out what and when and where we can best replicate the levee training rides that have been a fixture for over ten years now.

So last weekend, after a fairly routine and not particularly fast Giro Ride on Saturday, I headed across the lake Sunday morning for a club training ride.  We would be starting half an hour earlier than the more traditional 8:00 am in deference to the expected temperature, although as it turned out the morning temperature was a bit less oppressive than usual.  The turnout for this 65 mile ride was pretty thin, which I guess I'll attribute to riders either taking an easy weekend or taking the opportunity to do their own rides with small groups.  Anyway, we had a really nice ride that was mostly at a moderate but steady pace.  Back at the Lee Road Junior High parking lot I stopped to take pictures of the fledgling barn swallows nesting under the shelter in front of the school.

The bike path on the levee was supposed to be closed by Tuesday, although as far as I know it is still open.  River Road, however, is definitely closed where the pipes are being put underneath it.  I've reluctantly decided to give up driving out to Harahan in order to ride on the bike path in the morning.  It is just eating up too much ride time.  So on Tuesday I met a couple of other riders on Carrollton near S. Claiborne to ride out to the lakefront and put in a few miles on the Lake Trail bike path.  Unfortunately I had to turn back early because of a morning meeting.  On Wednesday I rode out to meet the WeMoRi again, rather fortunately missing the part along Lakeshore Drive in a crosswind that shattered much of the group.

On Thursday a few of us met up at Fontainbleau and Carrollton for another trip out to the lakefront bike path.  We left early, around 5:45 am, in order to meet up with another group that was riding from the west.  We met them right at the start of the bike path, where we turned around to do a lap of Lakeshore Drive before heading back to the bike path and riding that all the way out to the Casino at Williams Blvd.  It all worked out pretty well, although next time we'll probably just go straight to Lakeshore Drive and catch the Metairie group there.  I got back home just a bit after 8 am with 40-odd miles, which was similar to what we were doing on the river levee, so that was good.

On Thursday afternoon I learned about a cyclist fatality that happened downtown at St. Claude and Elysian Fields.  A rider who had been riding normally in the bike lane was crushed by the rear wheels of a tractor-trailer that took a right turn in front of him.  Let me just take a moment to reinforce the advice I always give to riders.  Never, ever let yourself get between a truck and the curb anywhere near an intersection.  This is one of the most common ways that riders are killed in metro areas.  In this case, there was a separate right turn lane that the truck did not take, which probably made the cyclist think that the truck was continuing straight and that it was OK to be momentarily between the truck and the curb.  However, the truck then turned right past the turn lane and the cyclist was trapped and caught by the sweep of the rear wheels.  One of the local guys who is closely involved with Plan B was right behind the truck and saw the whole thing and took photos immediately afterward.  I felt I should blur out the more disturbing part of the photo before posting it here, but on the other hand I thought it important that people see the outcome of this sort of thing.  The truck driver was not charged with anything at the time.  Very sad, and very disturbing for those of us who spend a lot of time riding in the city.  Naturally everyone wants to point fingers at who was at fault, and it is certainly clear that the truck driver deserves a large share of blame for being so negligent and careless, even if it might have been difficult for him to see the cyclist in his mirrors.  He was, in fact, crossing a bike lane at a place where nobody would have expected him to be turning.

Farther Upriver

I drove out to the Thursday levee ride early this morning.  There had been signs advising that River Road would be closed today about a mile farther upriver from where we've been starting lately and there was a good chance that the bike path would also be closed at that point.  They are getting ready to run some big drainage pipes under River Road and then across the levee there, and a closure of both River Road and the bike path is imminent.  Once that happens, my options will be severely limited.  Riding around the construction site will not be particularly convenient and as it stands now I'm about at the end of my rope anyway.  The drive time right now is costing me around half an hour of precious morning ride time, not to mention the hassle of loading the bike in and out of the car, changing shoes, etc.  I think I'll probably be riding out toward the lake every day soon.  It would be nice if we could get a group together that could ride out from someplace uptown at the relatively reasonable hour of 6:15 or 6:30.

So anyway, today's ride was fairly steady except when Robert and maybe Mark would surge at the front.  We are still enjoying slightly lower morning temperatures than normal for this time of year, which is to say it hasn't been above 80F. It doesn't last long, but it's nice while it does. With little to no wind today, the group stayed together despite the occasional surges, and the steady speed meant I was hearing that irritating creak starting to reappear down around my bottom bracket.  I can only surmise, based on the copious amount of grease I slathered around the bearings a couple of weeks ago, that it may be coming from the interface between the bottom bracket shell and the pressed-in BB30 bearing housings.  I really don't want to have to pull those, and it's been suggested that a liberal application of WD-40 might be worth a try, but in the meantime I'm just trying to ignore it.  We're hoping to get a northshore ride together for Sunday since there's nothing really on the race calendar until August.

On the Tulane Cycling front, getting the last little things wrapped up has been kind of like pulling teeth.  I need keys for three of the interior doors.  I've explained that to the architect months ago, the facilities services guys a month ago, and the locksmith a couple of weeks ago.  Today I get an email from the locksmith saying there are five interior doors and he doesn't have keys for any of them.  No kidding. So I go through the explanation again.  Keys for the three doors on the left.  Shouldn't this be a simple thing for a locksmith?  Then I'm trying to order twenty stack chairs.  The place from which I want to order them just drops them off from the back of the truck.  That wouldn't be too much of a problem except there's not an obvious place to do that at University Square, which used to be a small shopping center.  So I ask Purchasing if I can have them delivered to them and then transported over here.  I get a response that depends on the kind of truck they will be delivered from.  If I knew the answer to that question I wouldn't have had to ask in the first place. The signage for the door is on indefinite hold because the computer that they use to control the machine that makes the signs apparently got replaced with one that requires upgraded software that they don't have yet. Two steps forward, one step back.  Situation normal.

One little ray of light lately was the news that we finally got the NOBC's 501(c)3 tax-exempt status re-instated by the IRS after having it revoked because nobody was submitting tax returns when they started requiring that a few years ago for organizations with under $25k/year in revenue.  The tax return for us doesn't even include any financial information.  It's just like saying, "yeah, were're still  here and still not bringing in more than $25k per year."

Wheel-Surfing in Cajun Country

I was looking forward to the annual Vuelta d' Acadiana over in Lafayette last weekend.  For a change, I wouldn't have any officiating or promoting responsibilities and could just be a bike racer.  Well, almost.  I did need to get the LAMBRA race clock and generator over there in time for registration, and since I couldn't leave until Saturday morning that meant a 4 am wake-up in order to be on the road arount 4:30.  Turnout from the club was going to be a little low.  The women's team had four riders registered, but there were only two of us in the master's race and Steve was only a possibility for the Cat. 4 race.

The first stage was a 3.8 mile time trial on a new course. The night before I'd decided to snap on the larger of the two fairings that fit onto the back of my Giro time trial helmet.  This generally termed "grasping at straws."  Riding a regular road bike with just clip-on aero bars and a TT helmet doesn't provide a lot of confidence when you're standing there in line between guys with expensive time trial bikes, especially when you're not exactly in top shape anyway.  So the first thing I discovered was that the fairing made it nearly impossible to lift my head enough to see where I was going.  The second thing I discovered was that I felt faster when I wasn't looking where I was going.  So I did the TT mostly looking at the white line on the edge of the road. I'd been expecting the headwind to be a major factor, but it turned out to be only a minor issue.  I got a good start, rolled it up to about 25 mph, and wasn't really willing to push it much past that.  Since this was a points-based omnium I'd need to be in the top ten to get any points, and I didn't really think that was very likely.  I placed 13th with an average speed of 25.0, but on the plus side, it hadn't taken much out of me and I felt kind of good about it despite the relatively slow time.

The second stage on Saturday was the criterium, which was just around the corner from the hotel where I was staying with Bob and the women's team.  We stopped for lunch, checked into the hotel, and I went over to the criterium course to set up the club's tent.  Since it was still quite early, I got a spot under a tree right across from the finish line.  The women's race was one of the first.  Within a lap or two the race was already coming apart with Stephanie Smith and Amy Floyd hammering off the front and Mignon and Mary stuck in-between them and the disintegrating pack.  Pretty quickly, Stephanie dropped Amy and Mignon and Mary got together.  Behind them, Sherri and another rider got together.  Stephanie then proceeded to lap everyone except Amy.  Migon finished 4th and Sherri 5th with Roberta 7th and Alison 8th. 

The Masters field was once again rather small with only 16 riders on the line. There were about six riders from Texas, so I figured the Acadiana team would have a harder time than usual. I quickly saw that there were a number of guys who were willing and able to chase down the breaks, so I figured my best (probably only) bet was to surf wheels at the back and plan on a pack sprint.  The Acadiana guys were still working the front and there were two breaks that looked like they might stick, but fortunately everything was pulled back as we neared the end of the 50 minute race.  With three laps to go I decided to get back into the race and worked my way up to second or third wheel with two laps to go.  Things got a little shuffled at the beginning of the bell lap and I was maybe sixth wheel coming into the final turn. Although I couldn't quite come around the guy in 3rd before the line, I was happy to feel my sprint legs starting to come around. The average speed was a bit over 24 mph with the sprint topping out at 34.2. You can watch the video of the whole criterium, but you won't see all that much of me in it!

Sunday was a 50-mile, 3-lap road race on the same course we've used for the past few years.  The points for my 4th place in the criterium had me around 7th, I think, in the omnium.  I thought that the road race would probably go down sort of like the criterium had and that if a break went off the front it would be more because they were really fast than because they had a lot of teammates blocking in the pack.  Even better, Kenny had decided to do the Masters road race rather than the Cat. 1/2/3 race.  I knew he wouldn't sit around while a break rolled off the front.  So once again my convenient strategy was to surf wheels at the back and roll the dice on another pack finish.  The first lap, and especially the second lap, were actually pretty fast with a number of attacks. The last really serious attempt at a break came just after the feed zone and the right-hand turn where I crashed two years ago.  That attack very nearly did the trick, but fortunately there were enough riders willing to work that it was reeled in.  After that one I think the Acadiana guys figured a pack sprint was inevitable and the pace eased up a bit. All this time I had been way at the back of the pack. When we got to the feed zone about three miles from the finish things started to get a little messy as everybody wanted to get up near the front.  I should have been a little more assertive here but I never got close enough to the front before the sprint started.  I had relatively fresh legs but ended up kind of stuck in traffic without ever really standing up and sprinting.  So I ended up 7th in the Road Race and 7th overall.  Not great, but it was a fun weekend anyway and it did provide a bit of a confidence boost after my disappointing result at the Harbor Master race.

Riding, Rainstorms, and Rest

The WeMoRi Gossip Lap

The weather around here has been occasionally dramatic lately.  After Sunday's race some big thunderstorms rolled through, causing lots of street flooding and some power outages.  We had to abort an attempt to feed the cat we've been taking care of (the one that belongs to the doctor who is still in the hospital after heart bypass surgery) because the streets were too flooded.  We ended up stranded on some relatively high ground (we're talking inches here, not feet) for about 45 minutes until we could even get back to the house.  It's been kind of hit-and-miss like that all week.  On Wednesday I went out to meet the early morning WeMoRi group, knowing that the prospects for the remainder of the day were entirely up in the air.  I met the group right at Lakeshore Drive, so got in about ten miles of reasonably fast riding for the first lap around City Park.  Their second lap is always done at gossip pace.  Sometime I think the main attraction of that particular group ride is actually the gossip rather than the training.  Anyway, there was more rain that afternoon so I didn't even try to go out to the lakefront.  The rain had stopped, but it was clearly just a lull because the city was entirely surrounded by rain, some of it pretty heavy.  By 7:30 it was storming again, complete with more minor street flooding.  Kenny had gone out toward Kenner, gotten a flat just as the sky opened up, couldn't get the flat fixed, rode I don't know how many miles in the rain on a flat, and finally called for extraction.  Last night is stormed again for a couple of hours.  More is predicted for this afternoon, for whatever that's worth.

Lisa Colvin, one of the LAMBRA officials and coaches who had been in Europe getting her UCI coaching certification, was airlifted from Monroe to New Orleans last night.  She caught some virus while over there and it has developed into myocarditis, so it's fairly serious. She's over at Ochsner's CCU, probably along with Fred whose cat we've been taking care of.  Lane, her husband and also a LAMBRA official and our event permit approver, drove down in the middle of the night.  I guess he got in around 2 am or so.

I was glad to see no rain nearby this morning.  We had a very small group for the Thursday levee ride, but at least we got in the full ride, mostly at a steady 23 mph pace except for the time I spent fixing the flat tire I got when I rolled through a patch of gravel or something.  Even though I didn't get to do the training race yesterday evening I am still feeling like I need a rest.  Last night we got an email from a Tulane faculty member who is about to leave for a new job in Santiago, Chile.  He did some track racing in college and grad school at Northwestern and is giving the Tulane cycling team some nice equipment that he doesn't want to take with him. It includes a couple of very nice track frames, a road bike, and a mountain bike, in addition to some miscellaneous parts.  Perfect timing, since we are planning to get the WattBikes unpacked and set up in the cycling center over the weekend.

Jack of All Trades, HarborMaster of None

Last Sunday was the Harbor Master Criterium. This was a first-year event held in New Orleans, mainly in the parking lot of the casino boat that used to be docked at the South Shore Marina.  I was to help officiate along with Ricky who came down from Monroe and Tim from River Ridge, but I was also hoping to jump into the Masters race so the day wouldn't be a total loss riding-wise.  The course was a tight, curvy, 0.6 mile affair, the details of which had remained somewhat of a mystery until a few days before the actual race day.  The Semi-Tough club had spent a lot of time on Saturday clearing away all of the sand and debris that had accumulated, as one would expect, on a parking lot that had been closed off for years.

My preparation for the actual race, and by that I mean my participation therein, not the officiating part, had been pretty bad.  On Sunday morning I loaded up the car with various officiating-type things - tent, generator, flags, banners, clipboards, computer, etc. - and then almost as an afterthought clamped the bike to the roof, threw shorts and jersey into my bag, and headed out to the lake.  The forecast was promising a hot day on the asphalt with only a slight chance of rain.  This was good since there were a couple of places on the course that involved riding over painted asphalt that had been part of the entrance to the old casino.  Pre-registration had been pretty slim, but I had a feeling that there would be a lot of race-day entries.  That often happens for a one-day race in a metro area with a minimal late-registration fee.  I was right, and over half of the day's entries came on race day.  Ricky and I hustled around setting up the finish line and registration computer, and pretty soon I was plugging entries into the laptop as fast as I could.

The early races went off pretty well, and I was glad to see that the tight, short course wasn't causing a lot of problems.  One of the women crashed and broke a collarbone, but I don't know the circumstances. Otherwise there were hardly any crashes of note unless you count Daniel who crashed in the last turn before the finish sprint because he inexplicably decided it would be a good time to fiddle with his computer.  He ended up walking across the finish line.

Racing a crit from the back is hard.

The Masters were up after the Women's race and since the latter was pretty easy to score I was able to head over to the car as soon as they were done to change and get the bike ready.  I even got to take maybe three warm-up laps around the course. Although it usually takes me half an hour before I feel truly warmed up nowadays, this was a good thing because the first few laps of the race were full gas.  It wasn't too long before a little break rode off the front, but by then I was already struggling near the ever-dwindling back of the pack, too busy closing gaps and sprinting out of every turn to worry about what was happening at the front.  Things settled down eventually for the middle part of the 40-minute race and I was finally able to recover a bit.  Another attack split the pack, so I ended up in I guess the third group with eight or nine riders already way up the road.  It was a good workout but I have to say that trying to be a Jack of All Trades, switching between officiating and racing and then back to officiating, doesn't really allow one to master either.  Still, it was better than nothing and the other two officials were more than capable of handling things without me.

The Cat. 1/2 race was pretty fast and interesting despite a small 12-rider field.  When it became obvious that a 3-rider break was going to lap the field, which by then had dwindled to maybe five or six, I asked out loud if the riders in the pack would be able to work with the riders in the break.  I knew the answer to that one, but wanted everyone to be thinking about that. A couple of laps later, when the two groups had merged, Stephen, who had been in the break yelled something about pack riders working for their teammates who had been in the break.  He didn't think they could.  Of course, they can.  The only restriction on that sort of thing involves riders who have been *dropped by the field,* and in this case those weren't riders who had been dropped by the field, they *were* the field.  Granted it was a very small field, but it was the biggest group on the road.  Anyway, it was all worked out and Stephen won anyway.  All-in-all they did a great job with the event.  The course was much better than I thought it would be, they had food trucks out there and beer and stuff like that, so everyone had a great time and we're hoping we'll be able to do this again next year.

Old Portage, New Routine

I almost made it out to the lakefront in time for the start of the Wednesday training race.  Almost.  I guess I missed just the first half-lap, but at least my timing was otherwise pretty convenient.  As I approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle I could see them coming toward me, so I just looped around and merged smoothly into the front part of the group.  For the next three and a half laps we averaged 26+ mph, topping out at 35.1.  It wasn't particularly windy, so the group remained mostly intact for most of the ride.  For a change I felt pretty good, despite having ridden the WeMoRi that morning, but got shuffled too far toward the back when things ramped up for the final sprint.  As usual, the ride back from the training race felt cool and refreshing as I was finally producing less sweat than was evaporating.  It was probably still around 84F, but it felt great anyway.

So on Thursday I drove *way* out on River Road once again, parking on Plantation Ave. to meet the levee ride.  I guess this will be the new routine for a while. Despite the fact that we keep getting pushed farther and farther away by the Corps of Engineers' contractor, the group size is still holding pretty steady.  Rich and a couple others are still riding out and back on River Road, although that has not been without it's own controversy. The ride was pretty nice although I was definitely starting to feel the effects of Wednesday's rides by the time we were heading back.



Lakeshore Drive, heading east

This morning I was happily looking forward to an easy recovery ride.  I left home nice and early, around 6 am (Isn't it nice to have light at 6am?  That's what I like about summer the most!) and headed toward the lakefront via Jeff. Davis, following the old portage along Bayou St. John, and finally crossing over to Wisner.  There were some big classic summer clouds lurking around this morning, which helped block the sun and kept it from heating  up too fast.  Way off to the east I could see a little rain shower.  Even with a bit of tailwind, I don't think I was going more than 15 mph along Lakeshore Drive as I rode east to the Seabrook loop and headed back.  Around Franklin Ave. I saw Ben, Jaden and Kevin going the other way so I made a quick U-turn to meet up with them.  I knew they'd be stopping for coffee on Esplanade, which had been my plan regardless. I guess that increased my speed by a couple of mph, but on the other hand I spent pretty much the whole time on Kevin's wheel. I guess I'll do the Giro tomorrow, and then on Sunday I'll be helping with officiating at the Harbor Master Criterium, and jumping into the Masters race, probably with little or no warm-up.  We'll see how that goes!

So the Tulane Cycling Center setup is still moving along - two steps forward, one step back.  The WattBikes that are stuck over at Receiving should get delivered to the suite next Wednesday and the big video monitor should get installed on Friday. Some time around there we should get the doors re-keyed and at that point I'll probably move a bunch of the team stuff that's been in my basement over there.  Looking forward to that!

Barricades and Bike Noises

I've been back into the "new" routine this week, although not without a few little modifications.  After a much-needed recovery ride on Monday I drove out to meet the Tuesday levee ride for the 6:15 am start.  The Corps recently put up a barricade/gate on the levee bike path a bit upriver from the Huey P. Long bridge, so now I have to drive another half-mile to park on Plantation on the side of the PraxAir shop.  On the plus side, it's on the west side of the building and hence in the shade when I return.  The Tuesday ride was fairly uneventful, averaging twenty-two and a half mph and never getting much over 28.  I wasn't feeling too frisky, so it seemed quite a sufficient workout from my perspective. Since I've been on home-health duty for a cat down on Tchoupitoulas Street my morning routine has been a bit more rushed and I've mostly been taking the car rather than riding, mainly so I'm not too late, and sweaty, getting to work.

WeMoRi - City Park Avenue.
Apparently I didn't get the memo about the photographer.

So my new Wednesday morning routine involves rolling out from home at 5:45 to ride out to the lakefront to meet the WeMoRi ride, which also starts at 5:45.  For now it's light enough that I just use a rear blinky light on the way out, and I could probably get away without that.  Of course that won't last very long, and when this hemisphere starts tilting more I may be re-thinking that particular ride.  Anyway, I made good time on the way out there and was all the way out by the "swim hole" on Lakeshore Drive before I saw the group coming.  There were a few guys off the front who I didn't try to go after, but then a few more came by in chase mode so I latched onto one of them at around 28 mph.  The front group eased up a little later and everything came back together.  Things eventually ramped up to 31 mph for the lead-up to the overpass where there is apparently a sprint.  Then there's another sprint halfway down City Park Avenue where Woody came past the whole group on the left about 3 mph faster than the 30 mph we were already going. The last sprint was just before getting back to Robt. E. Lee Blvd., and that one topped out at about 31 mph.  I haven't really been contesting these little sprints but I'm starting to figure out that a number of riders seem to focus on those.  Anyway, it was a nice ride back home with 30 miles in the log and then a rush to clean up and get to work.  I guess I'll drive out to the levee ride again tomorrow, but I am really hating all this driving in the morning.  It beats getting run over by impatient morning commuters and truck drivers on River Road, but riding out to the levee in the morning used to be so relaxing and took only five minutes.

For the past few weeks, ever since I changed out the headset bearings on the Bianchi, I've been getting this pop or crack sound kind of randomly when I stand or put a lot of pressure on the pedals. Since it started immediately after I'd done the headset work I assumed it must be that the bearing wasn't seating well, so I twice removed, cleaned and replaced it.  It didn't go away, so Monday evening I turned the bike upside down so it was resting on the saddle and rear wheel, and put my weight on the pedal.  Yep, the problem is with the bottom bracket or crankset (which nowadays are basically the same thing).  I haven't had time yet, but I guess I'll have to take that apart and clean it all up.  Hopefully the bearings aren't a pile of rust like they were the last time, which was less than a year ago.  Never had these problems in the old days!

Today the surplus furniture (a couple of desks, a work bench, a bookcase, and a few old desk chairs) got moved into the Tulane Cycling Center suite as planned.  Then, around mid-afternoon, I got a call from the Receiving Department saying that the driver of the semi who was delivering the WattBikes (about 800 pounds worth) didn't find anyone at the suite, and was at Receiving.  I doubt he really checked for anyone since I had a note and my card taped to the door, but anyway he wasn't going to move the bikes into the room anyway, apparently, despite the fact that the company we bought them from asked for all kinds of information about loading ramps, hallway widths, etc., and I had sent them all of that information plus photographs and my contact information.  So apparently the driver just dropped off the pallet at Receiving, which is about a mile down the road, and now Receiving will have to get a work order for Facilities Management to deliver them to the suite here at University Square.  When, I don't know, but at least they are getting closer. Two steps forward, one step back.....

The Week After

By all accounts, the 43rd Tour de Louisiane went off quite well, which is to say nobody went to the hospital and nobody was arrested.  Turnout for the Cat. 5 and Masters races was, in a word, disturbing.  The racing, however, was great, the results timely, and the after-race photo albums numerous.  As usual, I headed across the lake around mid-afternoon on Friday, allowing plenty of time to check in to the Hampton Inn before driving over to The Spokesman to set up for Friday night registration.  In the interest of minimizing race-morning chaos, we keep pre-registration and number pickup open until 10 pm Friday night.  This has worked out quite well, actually.  Nowadays, we don't get very many riders who haven't pre-registered online, but having 50-70% of them pick up their numbers on Friday means there won't be long lines at the registration table Saturday morning.  Indeed, thanks in no small part on the smaller than usual turnout, race morning registration was smooth and relaxed, and we got the first race off pretty much on time.  Robin had already gone around the course putting up signs, patching asphalt, sweeping corners.  The road races went pretty well.  A fairly large break in the Cat. 1/2/3 race got a good gap early in the race and then split in the final few miles, yielding five riders with a couple of minutes on the rest of the field.  By the time road races were over it was getting pretty hot, but the cold watermelon that Robin had for the riders helped cool things down.  We got the RR results taken care of right there on the side of the road and then stopped at McDonalds on the way back to grab cool off in the a/c, get a bite to eat, and upload the results and TT start list to the website.

The Mayor leads out the Cat. 1/2/3 race.

The Time Trial, as usual, went smoothly so I had the results up on the website before Ricky and I had dinner.

So Sunday was the big criterium in downtown Covington.  We were all set up and ready to go for the 7:30 am start of the first race, but waited another twenty minutes for the police to tow away a couple of cars that were on the course.  It was a good thing, too, because one of them was on the outside of the last turn, right where the Masters race would later have a big crash.  The criteirums were a lot of fun to watch, and once Erich Mattei arrived to start his colorful announcing it got even better. The NOBC women rode well and got Sherri on the podium just one second ahead of teammate Mignon.

There were two crashes of note on Sunday. The first was on the last turn before the finish of the Master's race.  I don't know exactly what happened.  I saw the race coming around the corner a couple of blocks away and then they all suddenly disappeared to the outside.  A few riders were ahead of it and a few got around it, but a bunch of them ended up on the ground.  Since it was close to the finish they all got pack time anyway and most came through it OK.  The Cat. 5 race was won handily by teammate Taco de Vries who should be upgrading shortly.  Much later, in the Cat. 1/2/3 race, there was a crash on the back side of the course that took a couple of riders out of the race.  In that race there was another early break.  This one included only a couple of the riders who had been in the RR break the day before.  The break ended up with a big gap on the field, although not enough to make up for the gap in the road race.

The Cat. 1/2/3 Break

Michael McBrien, who had been the last rider to bridge up to the break, was working hard for his teammate Stephen Mire who was leading on GC, when he flatted with maybe five laps to go.  Free laps had ended, so he rode the flat for at least five laps, losing about a minute but amazingly managing to finish about twenty seconds up on the pack.  Post-race publicity was great this year with articles and photos in a couple of newspapers.  For the Cat. 1/2/3 criterium the Mayor had come out on his bike and we had him lead the first lap.  When he pulled off, I blew the whistle and the race started.  It worked out great and there were some great photos.  It was interesting that, thanks to making the break in the criterium, Frank Moak ended up 2nd on GC.  Frank is 54. Stephen Mire, who won, is 26 and Evan East, who was 3rd, is 17. By the time I got home and unloaded the car and uploaded the final results on Sunday afternoon I was pretty much wasted.

Bike Path Problems

So I guess we lost only a little money this year rather than a lot.  Anyway, I didn't make it out on the bike on Monday, so by Tuesday I was more than ready to get back in the routine.  We had a good group up on the levee for the long Tuesday ride.  Things split a couple of times and there was just a small group in front toward the end.  At one point I saw something on the edge of the bike path and initially thought it looked like a tire retread that you see on the side of the interstate all the time.  Then I thought, "There aren't any trucks on the levee!"  As we got closer I recognized it as the tail of an alligator but we were going too fast for me to get the camera out.  Then, as we got to the end of the ride we found that while we'd been out riding the levee construction contractor had put up a fence across the bike path right before the parking area.  We still able to get to the cars without riding on River Road, but it was at any rate not a good sign for future levee rides.  On Wednesday I want out early and got in a good morning ride out to the lake trail bike path, and then followed that up with a somewhat late ride out to the lakefront training race.  I missed the first lap, but was really happy to find a big group.  I really enjoyed the three laps I was able to get in before returning home.  One of the psychiatrists who had been on Tulane's faculty, and had just separated from his wife and moved into an apartment down on Tchoupitoulas Street three days ago was in the hospital waiting for an unplanned quadruple bypass, and I had been volunteered to stick his diabetic cat twice a day.  The cat does not enjoy this process any more than I, and I have the scars to prove it.  Hopefully we can get a little help with this task since I suspect it will be quite a while before the cat's owner will be able to handle it again.  I went out early on Thursday for a long ride out to the lake rather than deal with driving out to the river levee where, as it turned out, they had moved the fence even farther upriver since Tuesday.

Big Giro Ride Group

So after a nice and somewhat wet Friday coffee ride I was looking forward to the Saturday Giro.  The weather was pretty nice that morning with hardly any wind and slightly lower than normal humidity.  Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought it would be a good day for the Giro.  Leaving Starbucks I counted forty riders, so I guess we must have ended up with at least fifty.  As soon as we hit Hayne Blvd. the pace ramped up and pretty much stayed there.  On Chef Highway I though maybe I should go up to the front and take a few pulls, but when I looked up the road all I saw was a three block long single file line of riders going 30 mph and I knew it wasn't going to happen.  As it turned out we averaged 28.5 mph for the 16 mile outbound stretch.  It took a few miles for everyone to recover from that on the way back but of course it eventually ramped up into the high 20s soon enough, so despite the fact that I practically never saw the front, I felt like I got a great workout.  This morning's Giro was a little less dramatic speed-wise.  After the turnaround the group was being particularly sluggish and I just rolled off the front at like 22 mph, soon being joined by a couple of other riders.  We were just doing a nice smooth rotation awaiting the inevitable catch by the rest of the group but then we caught VJ who was on his TT bike.  We did one more rotation and then VJ just sat on the front and motored at 24-25 mph for miles and miles. A couple of guys finally caught us at the end of the service road and eventually things mostly came back together on Hayne.

So the Tour is mostly wrapped up for another year and I somehow got in a good 270 mile week.  I have a pile of things still backlogged at work and at home but hopefully I can get most of those taken care of during the week.  There's a super-tight criterium in New Orleans next weekend and so that should be interesting.

Ready as We'll Be

I guess we're about as ready as we'll be for this weekend's Tour de Louisiane.  The road race course has been painted and marked and Robin was out there today patching some of the little holes in the asphalt.  Jason went out and marked the TT course with mile markers, and the police and Mayor are all lined up for Sunday's criterium.  In general I think we're in pretty good shape.  The only thing that is worrying me is the relatively lackluster pre-registration list.  I mean, where are the Cat. 5s and Masters?  A couple of years ago we were filling up the 50-rider Cat. 5 fields and the Masters had one of the largest fields.  This year the Cat. 1/2/3 field is looking pretty good, and the Cat. 4 field is looking OK, but overall, registrations are down quite a bit.  We're not alone, of course.  Most of the other races seem to be seeing the same thing. I can't really explain it, but it is certainly frustrating.  Every year it gets more and more expensive to put on a race with adequate police, volunteers, and challenging courses, so entry fees become more and more important.  For this race we absorb the online registration surcharge, which for a $65 entry fee is $3.60 (over 5%).  Some of the more vocal riders are always pushing for separate fields for various categories and/or age groups, but the field sizes we're getting aren't doing anything to encourage promoters to move in that direction.  Anyway, it's the same amount of work to put on a stage race with 100 riders as it is to put on a stage race with 300, and I'm gearing up for that weekend of work, at least psychologically.  On the plus side, the weather forecast looks fine with only a slight chance of rain for the weekend.  Not having to deal with huge summer thunderstorms makes this whole process go a lot more smoothly.  Anyway, I'll be officiating along with Ricky and we'll have a number of moto-refs for the Road Race since there will be five groups out on the course at once.

Front of the WeMoRi group on the Wisner overpass  - the easy lap

Wednesday morning I was up a little early so I left home around 5:45, which is about when the WeMoRi starts out by the lake.  That ride does a lap of Lakeshore Drive, around 10 miles, before turning off onto Marconi to ride two laps around the park.  It's about eight miles from my house to Lakeshore Drive.  I've figured out that if I leave around 5:45 I can easily catch the group at the lake near Marconi.  This works out pretty well.  I was almost to Lakeshore Drive on Marconi when I saw Woody, Jaden and a couple others come flying around the corner.  I knew they must be off the front of the group, and maybe twenty seconds later I saw the group so I turned around and merged into it.  They weren't going particularly hard, which was fine since I wasn't really fully warmed up anyway.  The WeMoRi group likes to hammer down Wisner, sprint for some random spot on City Park Avenue, hammer down Marconi, and then do a slightly modified second lap at a conversational pace.

TUCA Cycling Center

Actually, for this group, I would have to call it a gossip pace. Anyway, I was glad to get in a few fast miles and still be back home relatively early since I had some Tour de La stuff to attend to before work.  This morning I drove out to the Thursday levee ride at 6:15.  The Corps of Engineers is beginning to put up the fencing upriver of the Jefferson Playground in preparation for the next section of levee they will be tearing up.  Once that happens, riding on the river levee is going to become impractical for me.  Big Richard called the Levee District and said, "the contractor will pave the first 10k ft section (the stables) once completed. It appears about 2k ft needs to be raised before they reach the stables."  That's about the best we can expect, I guess.  At any rate, it looks like I will be riding out to the lakefront pretty much every day in a week or two.  Hopefully they will get the Jefferson Davis bridge work finished by then so I can avoid Carrollton and add a couple of miles.

Bike Storage Room

Meanwhile, it's been a frustrating week at work, mostly waiting for other people to get back to me so I can move ahead on a couple of things.  One little bright spot, however, was when Facilities Management showed up the other day to start working on the Tulane cycling club's space.  The bike storage room and little locker room are now ready to go, the WattBikes are on order (I hope), and I'm awaiting a call from Facilities on delivering the surplus furniture that we have on 'hold' over in storage.  The big video screen is supposed to be installed by a subcontractor and I haven't heard anything about when that will happen, but I assume it will be pretty soon.  I never got a reply to my most recent email to Card Services about the card-swipe system that we need to install, but The Daughter has written up a draft risk management/safety policy that I probably won't look at until next week.  At least things are moving along.  Once I can get the locksmith in here to make us some real keys I can move a bunch of stuff out of my basement into the storage room of what I am calling the Tulane Cycling Center.  We still need to get a number of things, like workstands, tools, etc., but that will be relatively easy.  I think.

Tour Course

Those clouds looked a lot worse than this photo would imply!

I was up early Saturday morning with plenty of time to get ready for the Saturday Giro Ride.  All suited-up, bike in hand, I opened the basement door just in time to see the rain start.  Another day off the bike looking out the window at wet streets. On Sunday we were planning a recon ride on the Tour de La road race loop.  After meeting at 6:30 or so we made the drive across the lake and up to cucumber corner.  I put a can of neon green marking paint in my bottle cage, force-fit an actual water bottle in the seat tube cage (small frames don't accommodate large water bottles very well) and we headed toward the road course up near Stoney Point.  We met the loop at its last turn where I was surprised to find that a number of the cracks and holes in the pavement had been marked with orange paint.  I remarked that there must have been a recent ride around there.  Since we started out on the final stretch of the race loop, the first thing we came to was the old 1 km mark.  I was glad to be able to actually find it and jumped off the bike to re-paint it.  We rolled past the start/finish and then again noticed that the corner had more orange paint.  I stopped to freshen up one of the arrows, but since this is Turn #1 and is about 100 meters from the start/finish it doesn't really need to be marked.  Four or five miles later, as we approached Turn #2, I could see Robin's truck parked at the corner and Robin standing there with a paint can!  I stopped to freshen one of the arrows, but since Robin was already going around the course marking everything I just stopped briefly at the key spots and freshened up one or two of the markings rather than all of them.  The course was in pretty good shape this year and didn't need any sweeping, although there were a few spots on the smaller roads where the asphalt was starting to crack up.  I stopped to mark the three or four spots where there was enough of an edge to maybe cause a pinch-flat.  Overall, though, the 16 mile loop is pretty smooth, partially shaded, and deceptively challenging.  I used up the last of the paint on the final turn, stashed the can where I could pick it up later, and we started our second lap.  While the first lap had been nice and easy since I was stopping every few miles, the second lap got faster after we all re-grouped at the start/finish.  I guess we did about a lap and a half at a pretty good pace, splitting the group a couple of times so that by the end there were just four of us left.  We mostly re-grouped at the last turn and rode down to the start/finish before coming to the consensus that one more lap wasn't going to happen.  Sixty miles on that course is usually quite sufficient, actually, if one or two laps are done at a significant effort level.  Although there are only a couple of hills that you might call "climbs," this course is all up and down, offering virtually no flat sections for recovery or gap-closing.  Any time there are a couple of guys pushing the pace, the course seems to suddenly go from easy to hard.  So anyway, between Robin and me we got the course very well marked for next Saturday's road races, and after a stop at Starbucks we headed for the Causeway.

Now normally, when I have bikes on the roof of the Volvo, I can go through the 7 ft height sensor fast enough to not trip it and I get charged only the regular $3 rather than the $6 intended for trucks.  This time, I again went through undetected and the screen showed $3.00 as usual.  Then the damned toll-taker manually changed it to $6.  Really?  Of course, sitting there blocking traffic in order to argue with a toll booth operator is a pointless exercise, but I am seriously contemplating a letter to Carlton Dufrechou at the Causeway Commission about this ridiculous extra toll for having fifty pounds of bicycles on the roof instead of inside the car.  I know it's been brought up before on a number of occasions but I had always assumed that the toll-takers weren't able to change the toll and had to collect whatever was indicated.  Now I know that isn't the case and if they wanted to, they could set a policy of allowing rooftop bicycles through at the regular automobile rate.

Knowing I'd be missing a whole weekend of riding because of officiating the Tour I did a slightly longer and harder ride on Monday than my usual recovery ride.  This morning we did the regular long levee ride under some impressive clouds, and I was happy to have made it back home well before any of the rain started.  On the way to work I dropped off the Tour de La Race Bibles for printing.  They end up costing almost $2 each for 175 of them, and that's including my staff discount at the Tulane FedEx/Kinko location.  Meanwhile, pre-registrations are just starting to trickle in.  Although I am certainly guilty of waiting until the last minute to register for races myself, it sure is stressful when you see only a couple dozen riders registered less than a week before the race.  The Tour is probably the best deal around since we absorb the whole online registration fee, but maybe I overestimate the general public's ability to figure that out.  We also forgo the usual T-shirts and water bottles, instead putting the money into police, portable toilets, officials and moto-refs, and prizes.  Crazy, I know.   So I was looking at the 1974 article from Competitive Cyclist about the Tour de Louisiana and thinking about the guys who ended up finishing in the top places.  It's amazing how many of them are still racing and/or involved in racing.  These were the top 5 that year.

1. Tom Officer:  Three podiums at this year's Masters Nationals.
2. John Howard:  Need I say more about John Howard?  He has his own Wikipedia page.  Cycling Hall of Fame, Olympics, Ironman, etc., etc.
3. Dell Blundell:  Recently started up the Dino Riders South facebook page.
4. Mike Neal:  Cycling Hall of Fame, Olympics, national coach.  
5. David Ware:  National Champion.