TUCA Camp Weekend

As always happens before a road trip, all sorts of complications at work and home started popping up by Thursday, and even by Friday morning I didn't know for sure when I'd be able to leave town. The roofer called in the morning and scheduled a 3 pm meeting to look at the leaking roof, so once that was locked in, I was pretty much committed to leave work by 2:30. By "leave work" I mean literally leaving a lot of work undone. Ergo, this week is going to be rough. Anyway, the roof is going to be upwards of $2,300.

It wasn't until around 4 pm that we started fighting our way out of New Orleans, but once we got past the city and onto I-55 things smoothed out, so we made it up to the cabins at Natchez State Park right in time for dinner, which had just been put together by the riders who'd gone up earlier in the day. This year it was a combined Tulane and LSU camp, so we had I think 14 or 15 riders on hand. Jamie had come in from Jackson, to which she recently relocated, to join us, which was nice since I got to have my own bed in a different cabin, which would prove to be invaluable Saturday night. The most amazing thing about the whole weekend, however, was the weather. Temperatures ranged from the upper 50s to mid-70s, with a clear sky on Saturday and partly cloudy sky on Sunday. Other than the 15 mph south wind, it was nearly perfect for riding.

So Saturday's ride actually worked out pretty nicely. Naturally, I went out over-dressed since it was still January and how can you not be wearing at least knee-warmers in January. I ended up with a lot of stuff crammed into my pockets.

It's always a challenge when there is such a wide range of abilities. We had a 60+ mile route mapped out, which included a mile or so of gravel, divided into basically two loops that met in the middle.  About halfway through the first loop we turned onto Church Road, which was that nasty chip-seal.  The group split right away, with plans to re-group at the end of the road. I guess the front of the group got there well over five minutes ahead of the end of the group, so we decided to route some riders a slightly shorter way to Natchez, while the others took the turn-off onto the gravel road and added a few miles.  Amazingly it worked out perfectly with the two groups meeting up at the entrance to the Natchez Trace within a few minutes of each other. A subsequent attempt to practice paceline riding was like trying to teach cats to team time trial, but anyway we arrived back at the cabins more or less together. Later that afternoon we went out on the grass and practiced some of the usual bike-handling skills and sprinting.

Saturday evening started out with dinner (more pasta of course), and then they started playing one of those group card games. That went on late into the night, although after a couple of glasses of wine I headed back to the quiet cabin.  I'd had a flat tire on the Saturday ride, and when I got back to the cabin I found it was nearly flat again, so I swapped out the tube with the other one I'd brought, checking the inside of the tire, but finding nothing. Well, that was the start of a lot of tire changing.

Sunday morning I didn't get very far before the tire went flat again.  I again ran my finger inside of the tire, pulled out a couple of very small bits of rock or glass that didn't seem significant, and put the slow-leak tube I'd taken out the night before in there. We rode into Natchez for coffee, after which one group headed straight back to the cabins while the other group took off on a longer loop to the southeast. Well, of course the tire went soft yet again. I nursed it along for a few more miles but finally had to stop and borrow a tube from Quentin.  The pace on this loop had been relatively brisk since it was just the faster riders, and so I was spending a fair amount of time hanging out at the back of the paceline thanks to the combination of low tire pressure and low leg power. It was fine, though. Eventually we turned onto State Park Road, which was full of rough pavement, holes, and fresh road repairs that consisted of asphalt with loose crushed rocks on top. As we turned into the park, about three miles from the cabin, I felt the tire going soft again. I thought I'd be able to make it all the way back, but after everyone passed me it just went completely flat and after squirming down a couple of downhills I called Danielle to come pick me up. Somewhere along the way I lost my CO2 inflater.

Unwilling Participant

I had started the week with the best of intentions. After my usual Monday ride on the river levee, I went out Tuesday morning to meet the group wearing almost summer clothes. The temperature was in the low 60s, and as often happens on a warm day in January, the ride along the lakefront was quite fast from start to end.  Out along the lake it remained pretty brisk with a light cross/tailwind that kept the speed in the 25 mph range. Like most, I was feeling pretty good and was even a little disappointed that the return trip from Kenner was relatively conversational.

That evening a front came through and it started raining heavily before I left work. I eventually left the bike there and got a ride home, only to find that the roof over the back room was leaking. We put a couple of ice chests under the leak since there was really nothing else to do. It's a section of flat roof that was once part of a back porch, with that old hot asphalt and gravel roofing.  I guess it's been there at least forty years through numerous hurricanes, and is the only part of the roof that wasn't replaced after Hurricane Katrina ten years ago. So although it had certainly stood the test of time, the timing was really bad. Property taxes are due and funds are depleted from the DisneyWorld trip. It always seems to work that way, though. Spend a bunch of money on one thing and it's almost a guarantee that some unexpected expense will pop up to make you regret it. We climbed up there yesterday evening to have a quick look to see if it was anything obvious, which of course it wasn't, so I'll have to track down a roofer today. At least there's no serious rain expected for a few days. That roof is so old and crudely put together, since it was just a porch roof, there's no telling what other problems will be uncovered.

So anyway, the forecast for Wednesday morning had been very bleak when I went to sleep the night before.  Like 90% chance of rain in the morning bleak. At some point in the early morning hours I woke up enough to realize that I didn't hear any rain.  Then, when the alarm went off I looked out the window to find the streets only a little bit wet, as if it  had stopped raining hours earlier.  The radar looked fine. The rain had moved through and was mostly south and southeast of the city, so I headed out to meet the WeMoRi. Of course it was colder - somewhere in the mid-40s - but that wasn't the real problem.  The real problem was the north wind.  I went out anyway, spinning a lower gear and riding more slowly than usual and figuring to meet the WeMoRi around Marconi and R.E. Lee rather than on Lakeshore Drive.  As I rode past Harrison on Marconi I saw two riders about to make the turn and realized they were riders who should have been in the WeMoRi group.  At first I thought maybe they had decided to avoid Lakeshore Drive because of the wind, but when they caught up to me I learned that they'd been the only ones who had shown up at all and had decided to just do a couple of laps around City Park. So, no WeMoRi but nice conversation to keep my mind off of the weather.  I ended up with 21 fairly easy miles, so really no "training." There would always be Thursday, though.

Well, I woke up Thursday morning, looked at the temperature still in the mid-40s, and felt a really strong urge to skip riding altogether. That happens every now and then in the winter.  It's like the cumulative effect of numerous cold and windy rides eventually tips the scales and my willingness to get out there dissipates. I got dressed anyway. When I stepped out the door and felt the wind I knew immediately I should have put something warmer than the single long-sleeve jersey over my arms. I briefly considered if that was an acceptable excuse to go back in side and get back in bed, but time was short and I went ahead and rode out to meet the group. From the start I was chilled and uncomfortable and just generally an unwilling participant in the morning ride.  Out on the lakefront the usual group came together and the pace ramped up to a reasonable level, but the crosswind was playing havoc on the paceline. As we came around the loop at the Armory I heard Daniel say, "OK now, everyone stay left so there won't be any draft."  The wind was coming off the lake from the right, and it would have been typical for the front of the group to not move all the way to the right to accommodate what was going to have to be a 15-rider eschelon. So a number of riders were in the left lane, off and on, scrapping for a little shelter as we headed back to the west. I was feeling particularly lousy and uncomfortable and was already considering cutting my ride short. Somewhere around Franklin Avenue a car when screaming past us way over in the oncoming traffic lane, hitting the gas to speed up when he saw an car coming at him from around the curve.  A moment later a pickup truck passed the group without leaving the left lane, basically trying to see how close he could come to us.  You know, that "I'm going to teach those guys a lesson with my big ol' manly pickup truck" thing.  Well, that pissed a lot of people off, and when they spotted the truck pulling in to park at one of the construction areas a bunch of guys decided to confront him.  I have a general rule of not getting confrontational with anyone bigger than myself while riding my bike, which basically includes almost everyone, so I rode on with a few others to avoid what I knew would be about a pointless an exercise as trying to talk reason to a sack of rocks. Even with the slower pace I was still feeling lousy, so at the end of Lakeshore Drive I decided to call it a day and rode back home with Scott and David.

Sixty Long Ones

Saturday's Giro turnout was pretty thin.

Saturday morning was, I guess, the coldest we'd had this winter. It was around 38F when I headed out -- not exactly arctic conditions temperature-wise.  The kicker, though, was the wind, which was still blowing in the 20-25 mph range from the north-northwest.  I figured the combination of cold and wind would keep a lot of the usual Giro riders in bed, at least until later in the day.  I was right.  I got to Starbucks around 6:30 as usual. There were no other bikes around. I got my coffee and sad down inside.  Fifteen minutes later I was still the only rider in sight and I started wondering if I would actually be the only rider to show up. Eventually, though, a few others arrived. Very few.  We headed out with seven riders, and it was still up in the air as to whether we'd be doing the full Giro route. After turning off of Hayne Blvd. Matt and the two Brians turned off to head back, leaving Taco, Adrian, Stephanie and me.  Taco went to the front, set his cruise control to something like 22.5 mph and stayed there.  Somewhere along Chef Highway I was sitting behind Adrian, who was on Taco's wheel. There was a patch of gravel and dirt in the right lane, so Taco eased over to the left. I was escheloned against the crosswind to Adrian's right and was surprised that he didn't follow Taco, but instead rode straight through the messy patch, slowing down as he did.  Stephanie went left and rode up to Taco's wheel. I was surprised when Adrian didn't speed up to get back up to Taco.  Then he suddenly stopped pedaling and swung right across the rumble strip and stopped, leaving me out in the wind and by then hopelessly far from Taco and Stephanie.  Apparently he was having some kind of wardrobe malfunction.  Anyway, I ended up riding solo the rest of the way out to the turnaround.  The ride back was, essentially, non-stop motorpacing behind Taco. He wasn't really killing it or anything, but for some reason I'd been feeling lousy since the start, so it was a very long ride for me. I guess maybe I was a little bonky by the time I got home, so I probably should have had something to eat. Anyway, despite sucking wheels for most of the 60 mile ride, I was pretty trashed.

So Saturday night was going to be even colder than Friday's had been. I was determined to do another Giro Ride anyway, even if I had to do it alone. Some time well after dinner I got a message from Woody suggesting a late 9 am start for the Giro.  I jumped on that immediately and sent messages about it out to both the NOBC email list and the NOBC Facebook group. It has always been a mystery to me why the Giro continues to start at 7 am all winter rather than pushing it back an hour like most places do.  Anyway, we had a pretty good group out there for the 9 am start. It was still a bit under 40 degrees, but the wind had died way down and the sun was out, so it was looking a lot better than Saturday.  There was just a handful of riders wanting to go hard today, and they pretty much rode off the front on Hayne Blvd. Behind, the group never really got a full paceline going.  There were maybe four or five willing to pull, but everyone else seemed content to sit in.  After the turnaround Taco and I rolled down the road a bit while the rest of the group stopped at the little tree to do whatever they do there. After a mile or two we looked back and could see a few people riding across to us from the pack, so when they caught we latched on. It was a nice smooth, fast group of five or six.  I took a few brief pulls when the speed wasn't too high, but wasn't bashful about sitting at the back when it got faster. As a result I had a really nice ride.  That morning I'd checked my tires and found that I'd ridden Saturday's ride with something like 50 psi. Maybe that had something to do with how lousy I'd felt. Anyway, in contrast to the day before, I felt great today. Go figure.

Wet Mornings

The weather around here has been all over the place lately. It rained much of Tuesday night, but when I got up Wednesday morning and saw the temperature in the upper 50s I got dressed, grabbed the bike, and stepped out the door, only to find that there was still a fine misty rain falling.  The streets were soaked, which was bad enough, but the combination of the cool temperature and wet streets was going to make the WeMoRi ride miserable, assuming anyone showed up at all. I stared out into the dark for a while watching the rain fall through the beam of my headlight and turned around. Before leaving for work I threw some riding clothes into my bag just in case I got desperate enough to ride the WattBike. After work I walked over to the Tulane cycling center, which is literally about 25 steps away from my office.  I'd seen Quentin there earlier. He's the rider who crashed last weekend when his pedal came out of the crankarm.  His face was looking a lot better and he was busy busting out a training session on the WattBike. After work there were a few people already there when I arrived. I put a pair of Keo pedals onto one of the bikes that didn't have pedals on it (these things move around from bike to bike constantly since we've got riders using everything from mountain bike cleats to Speedplay Zeros). I aimed a fan at my face and suffered through an hour or so. I have never gotten used to working out indoors. Even at my relatively easy effort level, I was dripping sweat within fifteen minutes, the saddle position didn't feel quite right, the pedals are too far apart, and the handlebar is too far out. The best I could do was a few minutes over an hour, and by then I was more than happy to head home since all I'd had at lunchtime were a couple of plain bagels.

This morning I got all excited when I saw the temperature in the low 60s.  I mean, it's December, right?  Then I walked past a window and saw the fog.  Although it hadn't rained for hours, the street was wet and the fog was thick. I put on arm and knee warmers along with an extra jersey as baselayer, since I knew I'd end up good and wet. I rode over to Nashville, but none of the usual group showed up, so I just continued on out to the lakefront. I had to wipe the fog from my glasses every few minutes, finally taking them off and stashing them in my pocket before I even made it to the lakefront.

Out on Lakeshore Drive there were a few people riding around looking for the group that didn't exist. Eventually everyone realized it and six or seven riders came together.  We did a good lap of Lakeshore Drive, but at the end a few, including myself, decided that the bike path along the lake would probably be soaking wet with runoff from the levee, so we did a short lap around City Park and called it a day. By then I was pretty wet just from the fog, and my feet were starting to get cold, so I'm glad I didn't venture out to the bike path where I probably would have had wheel spray in my face most of the time.

So I got a call yesterday morning from Frank Moak telling me that they were not going to be able to put on the Mississippi Grand Prix stage race this year. That puts a pretty big hole in the calendar for us. One of the other races has already moved to that weekend, since it was a prime date in April (that unfortunately conflicts with a collegiate race in Texas). The MSGP has been going on for 13 years and was basically a continuation of the Natchez Classic stage race that had been going on in nearby Natchez for many years before that.

Tonight we're expecting a tornado watch and heavy thunderstorms starting around 7 or 8 pm as a cold front comes through.  No telling yet if it will be as bad as they think - these things often swing just north of us. The rain should be over by 2 am, so it's likely the streets will dry out by morning, especially since the wind at 7 am is predicted to be blowing at 24 mph from the WNW and the temperature will be back down in to the mid-40s.  Should be interesting.

The 411 on the 911s

Despite the cold temperatures this weekend, there were a lot of people out on their bikes. I went out to the Saturday Giro Ride knowing I wouldn't be able to do the whole thing. We were having our annual LAMBRA business meeting immediately afterward, and I needed to get there a little early, pick up some refreshments, and run off some copies.

The Giro headed out into a mostly east wind, which kept the speed down a bit. I was feeling pretty good - even better after I turned around and had a nice little tailwind riding solo back home. When I got home I found that the wife had taken the car to the grocery store, which kind of threw a monkey wrench into my plans. I ended up taking Danielle's scooter to the meeting and having her drive over a bit later with some drinks and the LCCS team trophy.  The meeting went pretty well.  We decided to keep the organizational and voting structure the same for now, so no changes to the bylaws. We'll be doing some kind of grant program for event promoters in 2016, for which I need to write up some criteria and figure out how much we can afford. We'll also be buying some serious radios.  I need to go back and find the information on those. We had investigated that early last year but never acted on it.

TU Cycling team members and med students
checking out Quentin's x-ray

So anyway, since I turned around early on the Giro Ride, I missed the crash.  Apparently Quentin's pedal came out of the crankarm in the middle of the Venetian Isles sprint. He landed on his head and face, breaking his nose and also a finger, and probably suffering a mild concussion.  I guess the pedal had been working its way out for a while and when he stood up to sprint it ripped through the last few threads. Quentin's on the Tulane team. On the plus side, there were at least two Tulane medical students also on the ride who got a little extra trauma experience.

Sunday there was an NOBC group ride on the northshore. I opted to do that one instead of the Tulane ride up in Independence.  It was damned cold when we started at 8 am, and the hour and a half into the north wind didn't help, either. I was quite surprised to count nearly 30 riders as we started out. When I dropped back after taking a brief pull I thought to myself, "This mix of riders in a headwind could get a little sketchy."  Well, shortly after turning off of Tung Road onto Lee Road there was a surge at the front and some gaps started to open.  I was sitting on Mike Lew's wheel as he started closing the gap.  Just as we got really close, toward the bottom of a little downhill, we suddenly saw riders going down up at the front. I guess some wheels got overlapped as they bunched up on the downhill.

Heading north toward Enon at the top of the Firetower hill

Anyway, two guys went down pretty hard, one of them especially so. He had what looked like a pretty deep gash on his forehead and someone immediately called 911.  We were pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.  A few of us rode back to the top of the hill to alert any cars, since everyone was still in the middle of the road.  Within a few minutes a fire truck arrived, followed immediately by three Sheriff's cars, and then the ambulance.  So that was the second 911 call of the weekend. A few people headed back to get a car to come back and pick up the bike while a couple others stayed on the site until they arrived.  That brought the group down to about 15 riders. In general the pace was controlled, although someone attacked one of those longish climbs on the backside of the course which split the group for a little while.  I saw them go and thought to myself, "It's way too early for me to be doing that kind of stuff." Anyway with the long delay because of the crash, a couple of nature stops and a few regrouping stops, the 65 mile ride took an exceptionally long time. After the ride a bunch of us went to Chimes for lunch, but it was so crowed that we would have had to wait half an hour or so (and we were hungry) so we went to that Greek place instead. It was probably after 3 pm before I got home.

I've still got some lung congestion, and Sunday's long ride in the cold doesn't seem to have helped at all.  In fact, since I got back from that ride I've felt more lung congestion than I had earlier, so I'm hoping I didn't do any real damage.  We're doing a hopefully easy Tulane ride today at 10 am since it's MLK day and the university is closed. The sun is out, but it's still in the 40s.  Looks like it might get up to 52 by noon, so I guess that's not too bad, although wardrobe selection under these conditions is going to be a little tricky.

The Morning Flat

I pulled the bike down from its hook and it landed on the basement floor with a sound I know all too well.  The rear tire was flat as a pancake. I hate when that happens in the morning.  With no time to change tubes I swapped it out for a race wheel and Danielle and I headed out on the wet streets to meet the Tulane group for an easy coffee ride. A little front had moved through overnight, and judging by all the puddles in the road, the rain must have ended only a couple of hours earlier. On the plus side, the temperature was in the mid-50s.

We were heading north on Marconi under an overcast but brightening sky when I felt my front tire go flat. It was completely flat within a minute, but I nursed it the last could hundred yards to the corner at Robert E. Lee so I could stop and change it on the sidewalk. I sent the rest of the group ahead since it would easy to meet them on their way back down Lakeshore Drive. A quick swipe of the tire with my gloved hand immediately found the offending piece of sharp glass, so a few minutes later I was back on the road.

Coming back into town from the lake on Marconi, the traffic was pretty bad. Marconi is picking up all of the commuter traffic that used to take Wisner, and the corner where it meets the Harrison Avenue traffic is now getting awful. Just as we were approaching it and contemplating whether to try for the difficult left turn or stay in the right lane amidst the impatient rush hour drivers, Katie flatted. Nothing like freshly wet streets to guarantee a couple of flats!

We ended waiting out two light cycles to make the left onto Harrison and then cut through the park to Esplanade and, finally, Fair Grinds and a cup of coffee.

This afternoon the sun is out and I guess the temperature is near 70, but it's supposed to be back down to 50 by tomorrow morning, and then in the 40s for the weekend mornings. There's an NOBC northshore ride on Sunday that I'll probably do, although the Tulane crew is doing a ride that day up around Independence. Things are finally moving on the Tulane Cycling Classic race preparations, so that's good.  On Saturday I have the annual LAMBRA meeting. I hope people show up for it. Things have kind of been on autopilot for the last year or so and it's time for maybe some new enthusiastic officers.  We have to decide whether to make some changes in the bylaws to have an elected Board or stick with the status quo where the Board is composed of one representative from each member club.  It's not really a problem as it is, but I can see some possible issues down the road.

Easing Back In

Off the back, riding easy

It was around 40F Tuesday morning as I stepped out the door into the darkness. Thankfully, the wind was calm. Unfortunately my tail light wouldn't come on, but I was already running late so I took off to meet a few others at the end of Nashville for the ride out to the lakefront. I was wearing everything from shoe-covers to winter jacket, since I fully expected to be spending some time alone. I'm trying to ease back into training, and the cold weather and this lingering cough are definitely slowing the process.

Out at the lakefront I turned around a little early at West End, and was able to spin easily most of the way to Bayou St. John until the rest of the group caught up to me. There, we picked up some more riders and the pace started to rise, but it was clear that most of the group wasn't interested in going too hard that day.  Later, about halfway out along the bike path to the Kenner casino boat, I dropped off the back to give myself a few extra easy miles, turning around early, and then picking up the group again on the way back. I got back home a little cold but none the worse for wear, so - mission accomplished.

After breakfast and a shower I headed over to the local Volvo dealer to see about getting a replacement key for the car. They need you to show up in person with ID and registration in order to get a new key. Since it was going to take an hour and a half to get the car in there to program the new key, I walked down to The Bicycle Connection and hung out with Donald and VJ for a while. When I got back the told me that there was some kind of problem with the car and they couldn't get it to go into program mode, so they gave me a loaner and I went off to work.  Later that day they had it fixed.  The problem had been with their computer, not with the car.  The cost for a new key?  $360 without the metal "valet" key.  That hurt.

This morning I went out to meet the WeMoRi. The new route, necessitated by the closure of the Wisner Overpass, starts out with the same lap on Lakeshore Drive and continues to Robt. E. Lee and Wisner as before, but turns at Harrison to cut through the park to Marconi.  Then it's back to Lakeshore Drive for another full lap with a sprint at the end near Brisbi's.  The pace wasn't too fast, so I was pretty comfortable sitting near the back of the group, coughing occasionally and wiping my nose constantly, but otherwise OK.  It was just as cold as Tuesday had been, and I'd gone out without shoe covers, so my toes were pretty frosty by the time I got home, but not too bad. I guess a few more days to ease back into things and perhaps I'll be back to normal by the weekend.

Back in the Pack

Still not feeling quite back to normal, it was nonetheless time to get back on the bike. There's something to be said for taking some time off when you're obviously sick, but after nearly two weeks of mostly sitting on my ass I was feeling fat and soft and generally anxious, and I'd at least improved enough that it seemed a few miles on the bike probably wouldn't make things worse. After a cold front started coming through Saturday morning, along with a few hours of rain, the sky started to clear and by afternoon it was looking pretty nice.  The temperature hadn't started dropping yet, so around 3 pm I went out for an easy spin on the levee. The wind was already picking up, but it was still warm enough for the summer kit.  The river is pretty high, just about up to the base of the levee on the river side and well above the base on the other side. I rode out to the barricade near Moss Lane, and shortly after starting back ran into Kenny, so I turned around and rode with him for a little while.  He was kind of scouting out the route to the Spillway for a ride he'd organized on Sunday to watch them open the Spillway up. I was tentatively planning on doing a northshore ride with some Tulane and LSU riders to check out a possible course for the upcoming Tulane collegiate race.  This was good since watching them open the spillway was going to be like watching the grass grow in the dead of winter.  The spillway is pretty impressive once it's mostly open and the river water is rushing through on its way to the lake, but the actual process of opening it involves pulling up one huge wooden pin at a time. Anyway, Saturday's ride went well, although I was careful to take it easy since I'm still worried about hindering this excruciatingly slow recovery for the worst cold I've had in a long time.

Sunday's ride wasn't starting until the civilized hour of 10 am, which was good because even by then the temperature on the northshore was barely 45 degrees with a stiff northwest wind making it feel considerably colder. I intentionally overdressed, for what should by now be obvious reasons, as eight of us headed straight into the wind for the next hour and a half. For the first seven or eight miles it was just a single paceline with Dustin sitting on the front at something like 17 mph and complete silence behind while everyone came to terms with the cold. Fortunately for me the ride pace was generally easy, so I don't think I did too much lung damage. We found two or three possible locations for parking for the race, although actually tracking down the property owners may be a bit of a challenge considering how little time we have.

We ended up with 66 miles at 17.4 mph, so kind of classic zone 2, LSD, base training, or whatever you want to call it. I was happy enough that I didn't have to sprint up any hills and that I didn't get dropped. So after the ride I had my car key in my hand and went to start putting bike on the roof, so I put the key on the roof, where I promptly forgot about it.  The problem is that the Volvo was still detecting the key up there and, thinking I had the key in my pocket as usual, I started the car and we headed back home.  A minute later we heard an odd noise and I said, "What was that?" thinking at first that wheels or something in the back of the station wagon had shifted. Almost immediately, though, I remembered the key.  Shit.  I pulled over at the first place I could and four of us scoured the narrow road shoulder and ditch, walking up and down both sides, sadly without any luck. At least the car was still running despite a warning on the console about the missing key.  I guess it's going to cost me a few hundred dollars to replace that key, which sucks.

This morning the temperature was in the mid-30s and when I woke up with a headache I decided maybe it would be a good day to skip. I think tomorrow I'll finally be back to my normal routine, although it'll clearly be nearly as cold as this morning.

Eggshells

It's been nearly two weeks since I came down with this cold and it wasn't until yesterday that I started to feel almost normal. I ventured out, intentionally overdressed, to meet Andrew for an easy ride on the levee. The temperature was in the mid-50s, the streets were dry, the wind was low, and it was nice and humid. It think it was a good decision and I felt fine, although it was amazing how strange it felt when I first got on the bike. Clearly, though, it will be some time yet before things are back to normal. There's still some lung and head congestion, and then of course there's the fact that I haven't really been on the bike consistently for almost three weeks now. I think the last time I was off the bike this long was when I broke a collarbone. Come to think of it, I'd rather be recovering from than than from this cold.

This morning it was raining.  I probably would have ridden out to the Giro and done just part of it if the weather had cooperated, but riding in the rain right now would be a big mistake. I'll essentially be walking on eggshells, or maybe riding on them, for the next week or so.  I'm afraid to do anything hard because I don't want to risk pneumonia with my airways still compromised.  It's a balancing act.

By tomorrow morning this cold front will have pushed through and the temperatures will be in the 40s.  I'll probably go across the lake with a few of the Tulane guys to check out a possible new course for the race. It's scheduled for the last weekend in February and essentially nothing has been done yet, so it's going to be a big push. There's a nice 17 mile loop up north of Enon that seems perfect. There would be only 5 turns, and of those only two of those would have the riders going through stop signs. The looming problem, however, is where we can park all the cars, and therefore where the start/finish will be. Then of course there's the matter of tracking down land owners and getting permission. Anyway, I'm a little worried about jumping on the bike for a 65 mile ride in cold air and headwinds at this point, so I'll be trying to keep my efforts as much under control as I can.

Mile One

It's the third of January and, yeah, I'm still sick. The weather hasn't been very nice over the past week. I don't think I've seen the sun since last weekend. It seems like it's just been nothing but cold, damp and dreary - at least that's what it's looked like through the window.  I haven't been doing much of anything except sitting around watching television and taking cold medicines that don't seem to help very much.

So anyway, I decided to ride out to the Giro Ride this morning. I had absolutely no plan to ride it, of course, but I thought it might do me good to at least get on the bike for an hour or so.  It night not have been the wisest decision, considering the cold air and all, but I went anyway, wrapped up in my winter jacket and shoe-covers. The only question after that was whether I'd ride with the group down to the end of Lakeshore Drive, or just go straight back home from Starbucks. I went with the latter.

Even at the conversational pace along Lakeshore Drive I could feel the cold dry air tearing at my lungs, and by the time I got home I couldn't take a deep breath without reflexively coughing. It's a lot like what happens sometimes after a very long, hot road race when I get dehydrated. I'm hoping it will go away eventually and not progress to pneumonia or something. This morning on the way out to the lake from Starbucks we saw them setting up the start for the 109th annual Jackson Day Race at Marconi and Robert E. Lee.  I guess they had to move it from the usual location over by Wisner because of the overpass being closed.

So anyway, my first ride of 2016 was a couple of days late and a few miles short, but at least I broke the ice, so to speak. After I got home Candy and the neighbors found an obviously lost dog who is now in the neighbor's back yard. Hopefully we can find the owner.

Not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. It feels like I've missed my entire holiday vacation.

Under the Weather

I knew it was going to happen.  I caught a cold some time during our little Disneycation and for the past few days have been more miserable than someone standing in a 120 minute queue on a hot summer day for a ride down Space Mountain. There was a long list of things I wanted to do over the holidays, but it's looking like few of them will actually get done. In-between doses of cold medicine I was able to sit through the annual New Rules Webinar and Safe Sport Refresher courses, taking the brief tests afterward and presumably satisfying my official's license CEU requirements for next year. I also renewed my USAC rider and officials licenses and submitted the required background check information, and renewed my NOBC club membership, so at least all that's taken care of. My officials license is still showing up as "pended" due to a CEU requirement, but I'm assuming that's because everybody's on vacation.

On the new rules front, I was glad to see that they have finally changed the wording in the stage race rules so that the smaller stage races that don't use timing chips/cameras can specify how they will do pack timing.  We haven't ever complied with the older inflexible 1-second rule since it's neither feasible nor fair anyway. I'm way behind on a lot of LAMBRA stuff, and need to get some input on the annual meeting since we have some significant proposed revisions to the bylaws to consider and we are overdue for an election of officers. I kind of hate to have the meeting here since it would be a long trip for some people (i.e. they probably won't come). Guess I'll have to make some phone calls since email hasn't really gotten me much of a response.

Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here being alternately cold and hot, with a runny nose and scratchy throat, looking at the newly-arrived $3k+ property tax bill, the same gloomy sky we've had for the past couple of days, and the collection of potholes and patches outside the window that is supposed to be a city street. It's all a little depressing.

Happy Place?

There were a few things I knew from the outset.  It would be long and painful. I would be off the bike for nearly a week. It would be expensive, and I would probably end up sick.  I'm talking, of course, about a visit to the happiest place on earth, Disney World, and I was correct on all four counts.

We headed out from New Orleans for the long drive down to Orlando at around 6 am on a Monday morning. Meanwhile Danielle and Shannon were flying from Seattle to meet us there. I almost never make long drives on weekdays, and was a little surprised how easy it was. Even the notorious I-4 stretch was relatively sane as we approached Orlando at around 4:30 pm.

Just checking.....

This was the first time I'd been to Disney World since they started using RFID chips for everything. My little wristband held the key to our hotel room, our park admission, Fastpass reservations, etc.  We decided against linking our credit card to it, but that was also an option. Since Candy had bought the park "tickets" online through Orbitz when she'd arranged for the flights from and to Seattle, and then had added an extra day of room reservations at the last minute, things got a little confused and we had to get new wristbands after the first day, which involved multiple locations and multiple people, but it finally got done.  Our first day was actually at Universal Studios rather than a Disney park, although they are practically indistinguishable. The crowds weren't very bad, which I found surprising since I had been expecting the worst. Still, there were the usual long periods of standing in lines. Day two was mostly at Animal Kingdom, followed by Epcot, which was actually quite nice. We didn't really have much of a plan, but Danielle had downloaded the Disney App (which is pretty impressive) and gotten Fastpasses for some of the key attractions. I was amazed that the entire park had solid cellular, data, and even wireless connectivity, and I can't even begin to imagine how many point-of-sale transactions they are processing every minute. The behind the scenes data network infrastructure is always the most amazing part of Disney World to me.

We stopped to eat at the English pub, where I had a stout along with my hamburger and chips. The hit for four people was over $100, of course. We returned there for the fireworks show because there's a little patio area down behind the pub that's right on the water and is one of the best places to watch the fireworks show since few people know about it and even fewer can figure out how to get down there. All this time I'm thinking how the parks are less crowded than I'd expected, considering the holidays.

Spectacular as usual

Well, Christmas day we got up early and took the Disney bus (they run about 400 buses!) to the Magic Kingdom.  It was packed. I've been to Disneyworld a few times over the years, but this was the most crowded I'd ever seen it. After a couple of hours Danielle and Shannon bailed and went back to the hotel for a while while we soldiered on, waiting in some long lines since the only Fastpasses we had were for later in the evening. We ended up eating a dinner of hot dogs and fries, sitting on the sidewalk, waiting for one of the parades to start, where we met back up with Danielle and Shannon. We were able to knock out a couple of rides like Space Mountain with our Fastpasses before the big electric light parade started, which was nice but of course really, really crowded. Then we hit a few more rides before finally heading back to the hotel around 11 pm. We didn't stay for the midnight fireworks.  There was a fair amount of traffic for the drive back on Saturday, but it wasn't too bad and we were back home by 5 pm.  This morning I woke up with a sore throat.  I knew my chances of making it through the trip without getting sick were slim. Aside from the thousands of snotty-nosed kids running around the theme parks, Candy, with whom I'd spent about 18 hours in the car, had been working through a cold for the past week and Danielle was kind of sick on Friday. All I can do now is hope for the best, but at least the Christmas in Disneyworld trip is behind me.

The Long Sunday Giro

Pat threw out the suggestion that we do a long Sunday Giro Ride a few days ago. From home, the regular Giro Ride, like the one I did yesterday, works out to about 62 miles for me. The long Giro adds about 30 to that total. It didn't take me long to sign on to this ride, though. It's looking like I'll be off the bike for a week because of holiday travel, so it wasn't going to matter much if I had sore legs while sitting in the car on Monday. I just noticed that this is my 2,001st blog post, which I guess is some kind of milestone. Speaking of which, it's looking like I won't be making 12,000 miles this year. I've logged 11,665 this year and I guess I will add another hundred or two after I get back to town. Given the missed weekends in the early spring when I was travelling with the Tulane team, I think it will still be a respectable mileage total. I've logged somewhere between 11k and 13k each year for probably the last ten years, at least.

So this morning it was still pretty chilly - somewhere in the upper 40s I think - with a significant wind out of the east.  Knowing I'd be doing the long ride, and that the temperature would probably be near 60 by the time we got back, I dressed a bit less warmly than I might have otherwise.  It made the ride out to Starbucks kind of cold, but really not all that bad. There will be some much colder days to come, I'm sure. The ride out to Slidell seemed very controlled. I guess we had around 15 riders who made the long ride, and for most of the way it was just smooth rotating paceline into the wind. When we got to the gas station in Slidell where we always stop, I lifted the bike over a curb and when I put it down I heard a strange sound. The front wheel had a ton of play in it and I thought that the Mavic hub bearing locknut (I use the term loosely) had come loose. I borrowed a multi-tool and tried to tighten it, but it seemed tight, and when I put the wheel back on everything was normal.  I think that although the quick-release seemed locked down OK, it was somehow hung up on something. I'd taken the front wheel off the night before when I was cleaning the bike, so I must not have put it back on properly.  Kind of scary since that fork doesn't have lawyer tabs on it. It still seems like kind of a mystery, however. Very unusual.

The ride back into town got pretty fast. Faster than I thought it would, in fact. We were still working a paceline, but the closer we got to the city the more people started getting out of the rotation and sitting on the back. I was one of them. My legs had felt sore from the start, and by the time we were about 75 miles in, they were starting to be a problem. That's when I started looking for a little more shelter. Anyway, it was a pretty good ride, and although my legs were a bit achy at the end, I was glad I'd made it.

Drugs of Choice

Pulled on the long tights and threw on a wind vest this morning. There's still a strong wind blowing - it's been four days now - although it's shifted now to the east northeast, which, around here, means it's on its way out. It was 41 when I went out to meet the Giro Ride group at Starbucks, and all I could think about was the cup of hot coffee I was going to get when I arrived. Although I rarely have more than one cup a day, my brain clearly rewired itself long ago to tolerate nothing less. Earlier in the week we learned that Bobby Lea was suspended because of a positive drug test for noroxycodone, a metabolite of oxycodone. He's a track rider who was in the last Olympics, and while learning of a track rider failing a drug test isn't the most surprising thing I can think of, I was a little perplexed by the drug of choice in this case. Bobby promptly sent an explanation that he had taken Percocet because he was trying to sleep and didn't realize it would cause a positive drug test, which is a bit of a stretch for an athlete at that level, but I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, all I know is the only time I've been given prescriptions for narcotics like that has been for things like pulled wisdom teeth and broken bones. I suppose it helped me sleep under the circumstances.

Anyway, the Giro was kind of slow and grueling on the way out to the east, and after we got onto Chef Highway I found myself way at the back sitting on Daniel's wheel.  He was staying out the the rotating paceline and I was fine with that.  The way back, as expected, got pretty fast leading up to the Goodyear sign sprint and generally any time we got the full benefit of the tailwind.

Today, after getting a start on the LAMBRA website calendar page for 2016, which I'll be putting up tomorrow with or without some of the races that haven't gotten back to me yet, we went over to Martin Wine Cellar.   Candy had a gift card that got us enough to make it through the week.  Like coffee in the morning, my brain fully expects a glass, or two, of wine every evening.

In fact, it's getting to be that time now.....

Abbreviated

My ride this morning was a bit abbreviated. The cold front that came through overnight dumped a fair amount of rain, but looking out the window at 5:20 am I could see the streets were nearly dry.  I could also see the wind blowing the trees around. Surprisingly, the temperature was still a notch above 60F, so I headed out in shorts, jersey and arm-warmers, which was a good call. I hadn't checked the weather to see how strong the wind was blowing, and of course you never really feel it too much riding through the neighborhoods where it's blocked by houses. Even so, I knew it was going to be a very windy ride. Out at the end of Nashville Avenue I waited with Rick Aubry a few extra minutes hoping someone else would materialize. Didn't happen. So it was just the two of us riding straight into what turned out to be a gusty 15 mph wind blowing straight out of the north.  As we were slogging toward the lake at speeds in the 15 mph range I wondered if anyone would be there when we arrived. I knew the bike path along the lake out in Metairie and Kenner would probably still be wet from the levee runoff, and combined with the wind I wasn't surprised to find only a couple of people out on Lakeshore Drive.

We headed off for a lap anyway, with Jim setting the pace at the front and the rest of us trying to eschelon up against the curb. The gusty crosswind made it especially difficult to maintain a straight line, but the wind still made you want to tuck into the draft as tightly as possible. Fortunately the pace was moderate. When we came around the traffic circle at Elysian Fields we were surprised to find the far end kind of flooded. One of the storm drains there is apparently clogged up. I rode through about four inches of water as most of us eased up for a bit. Heading back along the lake there were a few sections where the waves were spraying water onto the road, and a few more where the right lane was full of water. By the time we got back to West End I was more than ready to head back home. My backside was soaked from the wheelspray and the crosswind wasn't making it any fun at all, so Rick and I headed back.

Since it was earlier than usual, I suggested we take Canal Blvd. rather than the circuitous route we usually take. I was curious to see if that might be a better route than Marconi and Harrison since that's where the detour traffic has been going since the Wisner bridge was closed.  Well, that didn't work out too well. Even though we were about 45 minutes earlier than usual, traffic on Canal Blvd. was heavier and faster than I expected. It seemed like most of the drivers were turning onto the interstate, but were already getting up to speed on Canal.

Guess we'll stick with Marconi.

Change and Adaptation

"Lakefront first or City Park first?"  The response to my query came at 4:43 am. "Lakeshore first ,....after that ...there was no consensus??!!!" It was the first WeMoRi since the Wisner bridge was closed and the flurry of mostly smart-ass emails in the preceding days had done little to settle the key question of how the route would adapt. Not having everyone on the same page for a fast group ride in the dark on city streets seemed like a recipe for disaster, but I went out anyway, meeting the group near Marconi and Lakeshore Drive. I really had no idea how the group's route would change, and apparently I wasn't alone.  As I soon came to realize, they were kind of making things up as they went along. We crossed Robert E. Lee and continued down Marconi, past Harrison and under the interstate, over the broken up concrete, finally making a U-turn, amid cacophonous warnings, just before City Park Avenue. From there it was all the way back to Lakeshore drive, then east around the fountain, and back to Marconi. At that point, any form of consensus that might have existed earlier apparently expired. Nobody had really thought through the rest of the ride, or perhaps they had all thought through it and arrived at different conclusions. A few people turned right. I waited for the rest of the group and the decision was to turn and take Wisner down to Harrison and then back around to Marconi, which worked out fine. As expected, there were a few cars backed up behind the group, which was already in cool-down mode, by the time we got to Marconi. I'm sure it will take a couple more weeks for the new route to stabilize.  Change is hard, especially when nobody's in charge.

The somewhat shorter route had me arriving at Starbucks few minutes earlier than usual where I was surprised to find the outdoor patio cleared of furniture and with a freshly applied new floor finish. I wonder if we'll see new furniture too once it's all put back together. Inside, I heard someone say, "Hey Randy" and looked over to see Pat Farrell. He had to run off right away so we didn't get to talk much, however. I stayed just long enough to finish my coffee, making it home well before the first pre-cold-front rain shower started. There's more rain in the forecast, especially for this afternoon, and then of course the temperature will drop again, but this morning I rode in just summer shorts and jersey. When it was time to head to work the rain had stopped but the streets were wet and, in consideration of the forecast, I took the car.

Recovering from CX

That little hour riding around the cyclocross course in Baton Rouge last Sunday is still with me. As always seems to be the case when I fall, one side of my neck is still sore to the touch. There's a dull off-and-on headache on once side of my head that is either from that or from sinus irritation. Then there are the other aches and pains that were related more to riding and running than falling, although for me that latter two are sometimes indistinguishable to the untrained eye.

This morning I was a little surprised to see the thermometer at 51F.  I thought the forecast had been for something more like 54, not that three degrees would have mattered much except psychologically. This morning we tried taking the Lafitte Greenway bike path from Jeff. Davis, since the Wisner overpass is now closed and we would need to find out way over to Marconi anyway. That was OK, although of course there was still the very rough stretch from City Park Avenue to the underpass. Out at the lake there was a pretty big group that came together, and still feeling kind of achy I quickly decided to just hang around at the back.

Right after the turnaround out in Kenner my phone rang. A phone call at that hour of the morning is never a good thing. By the time I got it out of my pocket it had already gone to voicemail, but I could see it had come from my father. I had to sit up and remove my glove in order to check the voicemail, and by the time I was finished with that the group was long gone. Fortunately, there was practically no wind, so I just rolled back into town at 19 mph or so. It was a pretty morning with the temperature in the low 50s, so it was kind of nice to be riding solo. I probably needed another recovery day anyway.

Traffic on Marconi coming back was much heavier than usual and of course there were now a lot of cars coming down Harrison Avenue from Wisner because of the detour, so making the left turn onto Harrison took quite a while and still didn't feel particularly safe. I think they have changed the light cycle too so that it stays red for Marconi longer than it used to.

When I came out of the park and crossed the bayou I was surprised to see the uptown group just ahead of me. They must have gotten tied up with traffic too, plus Brian had called me to see if I was OK since I'd disappeared out of the group at the lake.

It looks like the next cold front will be coming through during the day tomorrow.  The chance of rain starts going up at 7 am, so hopefully we'll get through the WeMoRi before it starts raining, but it doesn't look like it's for certain.

Season's End

The road season just seems to get longer and longer every year, even here in Louisiana. With collegiate races kicking off in late February and cyclocross into mid-late December, there's just a couple of months of generally uncomfortable weather in-between.

It was kind of a long and busy weekend for me. Friday night was the annual Psychiatry party down at the Westin, so dinner consisted mostly of sushi, crab cakes, and wine.  Mostly wine.  That made me a little slow to roll out of bed for the Giro Ride on Saturday morning, but at least it wasn't cold. In fact, the weather was warm and humid. The ride itself was nice, and the pace was mostly under control except for one stretch on Chef Highway on the way out.  We'd been rolling along at comfortable speeds in the general vicinity of 24-25 mph, when, for no apparent reason, things suddenly started to string out and the pace surged to around 29.  Katie and Sherri were ahead of me and I saw a gap starting to open as they struggled to find shelter in the crosswind, so I rode up there and got into the wind to try and pull them back, but by then the gap was getting too big for comfort. They never really got my wheel, so I put my head down and ramped it up to 31 or so but wasn't making much progress.  Looking back under my arm I could see a few people coming, and so I eased up for a moment to catch my breath, then latched onto them to make the bridge up to the rest of the group.

After the Giro, I headed over to Sears to get new tires for the car. There was a pretty good sale on Michelins, and since we are planning a drive to Orlando during the holidays I figured it was time to bite the bullet. So I drop off the car and wander over to the Clearview shopping mall to hang around for the expected hour and a half it was supposed to take. I get a call advising that the alignment was off and asking if I wanted them to do an alignment. I absolutely don't want the Sears folks trying to do an alignment on the Volvo. I only barely trust them to change the tires without forgetting to tighten all the lug nuts. Well, of course the car wasn't ready for over three hours, so I was already a little irritated when I went back over there and watched intently to make sure that they actually did tighten all the lug nuts. It took the very overweight guy three tries just to get one of the wheels properly aligned on the hub, and in general everyone there was operating in the kind of slow motion that would have made the Orleans Sewerage Board proud. Finally I pay the bill and get in the car and the freaking Check Engine light is on.  Obviously when they were doing their little courtesy check, otherwise known as hunting for other things to charge for, somebody had bumped a connector or left vacuum line or something open while the engine was running and the ECM had detected a fault somewhere. So I go get someone who comes over to the car and first tries to tell me that the Check Engine light just means I need an oil change. After explaining that I had not just fallen off of a turnip truck, he goes to Plan B and says it was on when I brought in it. I tell him not to give me that bullshit (I was tired and had been drinking way too much coffee) and to go find a real mechanic with a code reader.  So eventually this mechanic shows up and resets the code and tells me it is saying "O2S 1/2 Signal Stuck Lean," adding that he does not have a clue what that means.  Obviously it was an Oxygen sensor code, but any way it did not reappear, so I finally got back home four hours later. As I'm turning the corner at the house I get a call from the wife that she's finished with her conference, so I just kept going and picked her up from the hotel downtown. I still need to send in the stuff for the $70 rebate on the tires.  Naturally the website form wasn't working correctly and didn't allow me to select the Sears store where the tires were purchased, so I'll probably end up having to send it by mail. Maybe I'll see the gift card some time in March.

Saturday evening was Robin's annual Christmas party, so I headed over there around 7:00 for another meal of party food and red wine. I cut myself off after the third glass, but ended up staying until maybe 10:30. Fortunately, the cyclocross races don't start until 10:00 am and the last one of the season was just 90 minutes away in Baton Rouge.

Sunday morning I threw the old Pennine into the car, along with a bin full of officiating stuff, the computer and my bag. Somehow the weather gods had smiled on the final race of the Delta States Grand Prix of Cyclocross series.  Earlier in the week the forecast for that morning was worse than bleak -- bad enough that Wes was seriously considering postponing it until the next weekend. By Thursday evening, though, it was looking like the approaching cold front had slowed down and probably wouldn't make it to Baton Rouge until after most of the races had ended. As it turned out, we got the whole event done long before any bad weather came through.

So I officiated all of the earlier races, and since the weather was obviously going to hold off, and the temperature was warm, and the Cat. 1/2/3 field was small, I decided to leave the officiating to the other two officials and jump into the race at the back to get some exercise. The course was essentially all flat with a lot of back-and-forth on a big grassy field, one set of artificial barriers, a bit of loose gravel, a little run up some stairs, three short sections of very deep playground type sand, and a little mountain bike singletrack through the woods. It looked tame enough that I figured I should be able to do it without hurting myself.

A Coywolf.  Who knew?

So at the start I took my time clipping in as the rest of the field raced off toward the first set of barriers. When I got to those, I dismounted, ran over them, and then somehow completely missed the handlebar with one hand when remounting and crashed myself in the most inelegant manner possible, whacking my head on the ground in the process. No major damage, though, so I continued on at a moderate pace, looking back after each lap to see when the leaders would be lapping me so I wouldn't get in their way.  I waved them by as they came by (most lapped me twice).  So I was having a nice enough time, but was having a ton of trouble with the sand pits. They came immediately after a left turn from a short downhill at the top of some stairs, so I was never clipped back in early enough to get up enough speed to plow through the sand, which is really the only way to do that, especially with the super narrow cyclocross tires I have on the old Pennine road bike. So on the last lap I decide I'll just carry the bike down the hill and run through the sand, since it will probably be no slower than riding and getting bogged down at the end anyway.  Well, that didn't work out so well.  The bike started coming off my shoulder going down the hill and although I didn't fall, the bike basically did a big flip in the air and landed really hard. I ran through the sand, put the bike down, and it didn't roll. Somehow I'd whacked the rear wheel so hard it looked like a Pringle. I loosened the rear quick-release all the way and although the tire was still rubbing the inside of the chainstay on each revolution, it was at least rideable, so I limped in the last lap, finishing in my usual cyclocross slot, aka DFL. I guess A few spoke nipples must have stripped out.  I still haven't investigated it. Anyway, that was the last race on the calendar for me, and lots of other local riders,

this year.

When I got home I changed shirts, put on a hat to hide my helmet hair, and immediately went across the street to a little Latke Party at the neighbor's house for the third night of party food dinners. Then  I posted the DSGP results along with the lap times from CrossMgr. Finally took a shower around 11 pm.

This morning I was a little sore here and there from the fall, so I went out for an easy spin on the levee, taking some photos of what I was told is a Coywolf, which is a hybrid Coyote and Wolf, that I see all the time hanging around the stables where they have chickens and roosters. The cold front that finally came through New Orleans later in the night brought some rain and cooler temperatures, but nothing like the severe storms they had been predicting earlier in the week. There's a second cold front coming through in a few days, so it's looking like winter is finally almost here. Still haven't broken out the shoe-covers or winter jacket, though.

The Overpass

Since the early 70s I've been riding out to the lakefront by way of Carrollton Avenue or Jefferson Davis Parkway, eventually connecting to Wisner Boulevard which follows Bayou St. John along the eastern edge of City Park all the way out to the lake. Along the way is the Wisner Overpass, built I guess back in the 60s and named, like the boulevard of which it is part, for the Wisner family whose Foundation funded the original road. It originally served only to get traffic over the railroad tracks, but in the early 70s the new Interstate 610 was slipped underneath it as well. I've probably ridden across that overpass ten thousand times, and each time I've wondered if that would be the time I'd crash on one of the gaping gaps in the crumbling roadbed, or get hit by a car from behind and thrown over the 2-foot high decorative aluminum railing onto Interstate 610 or the railroad tracks below. For about a year after Katrina, a large section of that little railing was missing entirely, and although it would otherwise serve as little more than a fulcrum on one's way to certain death on the concrete below, the loss of that bit of psychological security was particularly unnerving. For at least the last 40 years the bridge has featured large gaps between the spans, which I assume had settled into their disconnected locations thanks to a somewhat inadequate foundation and the organic soil on which it was built. Anyway, it's always been a rather uncomfortable traverse but nonetheless the best and quickest option for getting out to Lakeshore Drive. The top of the Wisner Overpass has, for the past few years, served as the finish line for the highly coveted WeMoRi King of the Mountain sprint at around 6:45 am on Wednesdays.  Well, those days are likely over now. The bridge is scheduled for demolition and replacement, and the official start date for the traffic detours was today. So during the cool-down lap of yesterday's WeMoRi a few of us risked life and limb, stopping at the top of the still-open bridge, for a little group photo to commemorate the event. The new bridge isn't scheduled to be completed for a year and a half, which seems rather ridiculous to me, but I guess you get what you pay for.

Yesterday I went out to meet the WeMoRi, riding all the way out to Elysian Fields without seeing the group, then doing a loop around the fountain, and riding slowly back down Lakeshore Drive.  It wasn't until I was nearly at Marconi that I finally saw the approaching headlights. Apparently it was a slow morning. The pace remained relatively easy until we got close to the overpass where a few riders were intent on claiming the final WeMoRi KOM. Otherwise, the ride was a bit easier than usual.  I stopped for quite a while at Starbucks with Brian afterward.  Back at work, we had a special meeting with all of the Development office staff, precipitated by the announcement by our Senior VP that she would be resigning effective June 30. She's been at the university for at least 30 years.  That kind of comes on the heels of impending departures by our CFO who has likewise been here practically forever, and our Provost, along with who knows how many other senior staff members lured away by the current "voluntary separation" program aimed at reducing the deficit. I find it all rather troubling.

This morning I met up with the usual group, plus a new rider, Joost, who recently moved here from California and is originally from The Netherlands. The ride was fairly civilized and the weather was warm enough for shorts. We rode along the lake, which had barely a ripple in it, and out to the Metairie bike path, where a gap started to grow right in the middle of the group. As we approached Causeway my inner alarm bells started ringing as the gap reached the point at which closing it could present a problem.  I went to the front and closed it up at around 26 mph before any more damage could be done. I think that's where we lost Joost. Of course the pace picked up a bit along the lake but never got really out of hand, so it was basically just a typical Thursday morning group ride today.

The Long Giro and Drug Test Drama

It was still chilly Saturday morning when I rolled out to meet the Giro, but I went a little light on the clothing anyway.  The forecast was calling for clear skies and rising temperatures, and Jaden was calling for a Long Giro.  While the standard Giro Ride, plus the ride out and back to Starbucks, gets me around 60 miles from home, the Long Giro extends the ride out to Slidell and I get home with 93. Since I was planning on going  up to Jackson MS to help officiate cyclocross on Sunday, I figured I'd better make hay while the sun was shining on Saturday. The evening before, news had broken about a positive drug test at LAMBRA's age-graded road championship back in early September.  More on that later...

When we came down onto Hayne Blvd. the Giro Ride pace barely changed. Although there was a pretty decent east wind, I knew immediately what that really meant. It meant that most of the stronger riders were planning on doing the Long Giro. Once past the usual turnaround I looked around and took a headcount. We had over a dozen on hand, and soon things formed up into a nice paceline at a surprisingly moderate speed. When we arrived at the store stop in Slidell I was feeling pretty good, but I knew the speed would be higher with the tailwind on the way back.  It was, but fortunately things never got really out of hand, as it was clear that a few of the riders in the group were committed to a zone-2 kind of day. That had the unfortunate effect of disrupting the paceline a bit, but since the effort level wasn't too high it was not much of an issue.

We were at around 70 miles when I started to feel some soreness creeping into my legs, which was pretty normal. I got back home feeling pretty good for a 90+ mile day, which is to say I sat around with my legs up eating stuff for the next couple of hours.

On Sunday I drove up to Jackson/Ridgeland for the second day of the back-to-back cyclocross weekend up there, mainly to help officiate and get more familiar with CrossMgr, a cyclocross race results program I've been experimenting with.

That went pretty well, actually.  I'm impressed with the software. Using it in manual mode for any reasonably sized field makes things a little chaotic for the first lap when there are usually a few groups coming across together, but you can make corrections when there's a lull, so it's not too bad. The really neat thing, which is really more interesting from the riders' perspective than that of the officials, is the post-race analysis that it allows for.  Although the actual times are certainly not exactly accurate, they're pretty close, so you can get some interesting insight into how a race progressed.  I put links to some of the output on the DSGP-Ridgeland Results page. Click on a rider's number on one of the race results pages and you get a neat graphical comparison of that rider with the next one. It was particularly helpful for keeping track of lapped riders.  This particular course is at a facility with a mountain bike trail. It is a little bit of a mountain-bikey type of cyclocross course, and was very fast this year, but on the other hand it features some significant terrain.

Scott Kuppersmith

So, about that positive drug test.  Friday evening I started seeing Facebook posts pointing to a VeloNews article about a positive drug test at the LAMBRA Age-Graded Road Championship. I was a little surprised that USADA or USAC hadn't given me, as LAMBRA President, a little heads-up on that, but anyway it turned out that the rider who won the 40+ race tested positive for an anabolic steroid and, basically Ritalin. For the past few years, ever since the program was started at USAC, LAMBRA has been participating by paying something like $1,200, which USAC matches, for drug testing at one of our races. We send USADA a list of the major races on our calendar and they pick one at which to test three riders.

Kenny, Todd, Alex

This year it was the age-graded road race, probably because I sent in the paperwork and payment a little late and so I guess there wasn't enough time for them to schedule any of the earlier, and larger, races. So they showed up and tested the podium of the 40+ race.  That race had seen a breakaway that included Kenny Bellau and a rider that most of us don't know very well, Todd Hickman, who races mainly in Tennessee and belongs to a TN team since he lives way up in the northernmost end of Mississippi, which is basically a suburb of Memphis.  He shows up now and then at LAMBRA races, and had won the masters criterium championship in 2014.  After the race I was talking to Kenny and he was pretty surprised that he had been beaten in the final sprint finish.  Todd had apparently been doing the bulk of the work and Kenny was sure he must have been pretty tired from the effort.  Kenny just knew he'd be able to easily out-sprint the guy at the end, so he was shocked when they guy just came blazing past him in the last 200 meters of the race.  A year earlier I had been rather surprised that the guy had out-sprinted Mark McMurry and Kevin Landry in the LAMBRA master's criterium championship, since they are both formidable sprinters.  Anyway, the whole situation is both good and bad.  While I feel a little bit sorry for Todd, who by all accounts is a nice guy who got caught doing a bad thing, it is kind of a good thing that LAMBRA gets a little pat on the back for doing the drug testing in the first place.  Of course, I'd rather know that everybody tested negative, but then again, that kind of thing never makes the news, does it?