Weather...or Not

You know, sometimes you start out on a nice fresh new week with a plan, only to have it squashed by Mother Nature and that little part of life that does not involve the bike.  This was one of those weeks.  After last weekend's rather disappointing race performance, followed by Monday's long but easy holiday ride, I was back to the routine on Tuesday morning for the long levee ride.  My legs still felt inexplicably tired with some lingering soreness that I could attribute only to age-related recovery sluggishness. This aging thing is really a PITA!  So anyway, that was one decent 35 mile training ride.  I was looking forward to Wednesday when I usually have a chance to ride in the morning and then follow it up in the evening with the training race.  Well, having seen the weather forecast the night before, I got up early Wednesday morning and checked the radar on my phone before getting out of bed.  There was a lot of very bad-looking rain just west of the city.  For some reason my phone wasn't loading the animated weather map, but since the weather here this time of year is almost always moving from southwest to northeast I guessed it would be raining by sunrise and went back to sleep.  Of course it didn't actually rain and I could certainly have ridden.  I should know better.  The rest of the day was threatening weather but the worst of it was just barely bypassing the city to the north, so I was thinking I'd be able to ride after work.  Naturally, it rained after work, so Wednesday was a loss.

I drowned my sorrows with a couple of glasses of $2.99 wine that night.  Thursday morning I got up early out of habit and was all ready to get dressed to go out and meet the Thursday levee ride when I remembered I had to take The Wife to the hospital for a 7:45 am appointment to have the staples removed from her hip surgery.  Naturally, the weather was nice that morning.  The staple removal went fine and she was cleared to return to work next week, so that was nice.  I was thinking maybe I'd get out for a few miles after work.  Nope.  It rained again shortly after I got home, so that made two days off the bike.  I finished off that bottle of wine instead.  So this morning I didn't check the radar and went out around 6:30 under a cloudy sky, determined to get in some mileage.  I felt like I'd been off the bike for two weeks as I rode down Carrollton Avenue toward the lake.  It wasn't until I was past Causeway on the lake bike path that I finally started to loosen up a little bit.  I guess the tailwind didn't hurt either.  I decided I was going to ride all the way out to the western edge of Kenner where the bike path basically ends.  Once I passed the Casino at Williams Blvd. I noticed that the asphalt was getting more and more wet from a recent rain shower, and a little while later I started feeling some light drizzle falling.  I made it out to the end, turned around and had just gotten going again when the rain got a little heavier, but I guess it wasn't moving to the east much because a couple of miles later it was relatively dry again.  Anyway, I was glad to get in a couple of hours on the bike even through that will be just a drop in the bucket of missed miles this week.

The Tour de Louisiane is coming up next week and the handful of club members who help put it together are now in the "oh shit" stage.  We have a meeting this afternoon to see what has fallen through the cracks.  As usual, very few have pre-registered yet, so I sent out some reminders this morning.  It seems that every year it gets more and more expensive to put on a reasonably safe event and harder and harder to break even.  There were a few years back in the late 70s and probably even into the early 80s when I put about $300 out of my own pocket into the race, prizes were all merchandise from the bike shop, and that was about it.  Now we're talking about an event that requires $10-12k in cash, minimum, with a field size only a little bit larger.  On the plus side, it's been great working with the town of Covington where the criterium will be held.  They have made a nice poster for the race that they will be putting up around town, and the police department, fire department and mayor's office are very supportive of the event.  We had to make a little change to the crit course that will shorten the sprint and require us to move the finish line down a bit, but I think it should still work out OK for the field sizes we will have.

Off Sunday, Monday Off

It was good long weekend for riding, although we're now starting to wish for just a little bit of rain around here.  The temperatures are working their way into summer, and lots of riders are schlepping two or three bottles on routine two-hour training rides already.  The 3-day Memorial Day weekend offered a couple of nice twists.  On Sunday there was the Feliciana Road Race, a nice nearby race on good roads with some decent terrain and even some partial shade.  Then on Monday was the now-traditional Memorial Day ride where we  visit the Chalmette Battlefield, Metairie Cemetery, and the WWII museum.

The Saturday Giro was kind of interesting.  A number of riders were planning on racing the next day, so I was expecting things to be a little subdued.  The ride out to Venetian Isles, however, was really not particularly subdued, averaging around 26 mph for the most part. The return trip turned out to be much more civilized and was in general slow enough for conversation, at least at the back. I wasn't feeling terrible, but on the other hand I wasn't feeling great either.  By the time I got home I was beginning to realize that summer is here.  The jersey was wet, the glasses coated in sweat, and my single large water bottle empty.

I was glad to see a couple of New Orleans expatriates who have been living in Texas, Colorado, and now West Virginia, which is one of those states I'd probably have trouble picking out on a map. Traci and Gary have been very active racers in road, mountain bike and cyclocross for a long time and I was glad to see that they were both obviously in good shape.  Neither was having any trouble with the faster sections of the ride, and as usual Traci seemed always to be in a good position near the front of the group.

So Sunday morning I was feeling kind of off as I drove up to the race in St. Francisville with Brian Baum, arriving a little later than planned.  Brian, who hadn't pre-registered, had to talk his way into the race since for some reason they didn't want to register any race-day riders that late.  Anyway, he did manage to get his bib number for the Masters race.  Our field was about typical for this year, which is to say the combined 40+/55+ had only twenty. The 66-mile, 3-lap race wasn't likely to be very easy, however, considering the riders who were on the starting line.  I hadn't been feeling too sharp and probably should have done an easy ride instead of the Giro on Saturday, but that didn't stop me from accidentally rolling off the front with a couple other riders practically from the start. With most of the horsepower still back in the pack, I knew we wouldn't last long and wasn't putting much effort into the break.  I figured it would be a nice smooth warm-up and might shake something loose when the chase started.  We were out there for seven or eight miles at around 24 mph before a line of riders flashed past at about 28 mph.  I had to make a pretty significant effort to get up to speed there.  There were some attacks and a counter took Brian Baum and Kevin Landry off the front.  I smiled.  This looked like a good deal for Brian since few of the riders in the race knew him (he loves to time trial and can motor along forever) and Kevin had five teammates in the pack who would definitely not be pulling. Jerry Simon, who had only one or two teammates who could help, would have to work pretty hard if he wanted to close the gap.  Unlike some of the races earlier this year there were a few other riders willing to pitch in for chasing duties. I was feeling like crap and was pulling through only when the pace was a little slower, but in the back of my mind I was thinking that there were enough strong riders in the pack to have a chance of catching without forcing teammate Mark McMurry or me to kill ourselves.

That little dot at the back?  That would be I.

Unfortunately, they had already given the duo up the road way too much rope.  I know I heard they had 90 seconds at some point, probably with about 25 miles to go, and thinking they weren't going to be caught. We were only halfway through the second lap and Jerry was already getting frustrated with having to do so much work at the front and having so many riders sitting in.  At one point the pack split and I had to put my head down and motor at 30 mph for a while to regain contact, unfortunately bringing most of the rest of the group with me because the first group kind of eased up as I caught.  By then I was on the ropes.  We were about mid-way through the last lap when we saw Brian up the road by himself and I knew the group would catch him.  I had no clue how far up Kevin was, but we never saw him and once we caught Brian everything started slowing down as everyone decided to race for second place.  Brian was starting to cramp up and I wasn't feeling too good myself.  The last few miles have a couple of significant climbs, the last of which tops out about 300 meters from the finish.  I usually have a lot of trouble with those 300 meters, even under ideal conditions, and conditions for me were already starting to deteriorate.  One thing at which I really suck is the matched sprint.  Accelerating from zero to 30 is just not something I am built for.  Unfortunately, the end of this race was starting to look like it would be a 12-person drag race.  Of course there was an attack as we hit the last hill which is about a kilometer from the finish, and I didn't really have a ton of trouble with that, but then it slowed down - a lot - before the next attack.  I was already too far back and when that went it seemed like I just went backwards.  I really don't know why I had so little power at that point, but I just had nothing and most of the group started the sprint.  I pretty much stopped pedaling with 200 meters to go and rolled across the finish line in like 10th place.  It was kind of disappointing.

We had Monday off, and when I got up with surprisingly sore quads I immediately thought to myself, "You have been spending way too much time sitting in the draft and way too little time sprinting and climbing."  It wasn't exactly a revelation.  I rode out to Starbucks to meet a group that would then be riding to the French Quarter to meet up for the Memorial Day ride.  For reasons that are beyond me they departed almost an hour before we were supposed to meet downtown, despite the fact that it's a ten-minute ride to get there, so I rode halfway there with my still-hot Americano in one hand.  We finally got rolling a bit after 8:00 after a history lesson by Kenny, with occasional commentary by a local street person who was drinking out of an almost empty half-gallon bottle of Smirnoff.

We made our way out to the Chalmette Battlefield, came back to town and then out to Metairie Cemetery, and then back downtown to the WWII museum.  There we gathered outside as a 93-year old Marine from New Orleans told us all about his experiences during the war.  This guy, who still runs 3 miles every morning and works at the museum, was a Pearl Harbor when it was attacked (and shot down a Zero), and spent the rest of the war at practically every single battle in the Pacific. In the middle of all of that he came home on leave, met a girl at a dance, married her the next day, and shipped out again.  Then, after the war, rather than going home he was sent to a few other places, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Amazing guy. You would have guessed the guy was 65 years old, but whatever, he was one damned lucky soldier.  Later that evening I watched Pearl Harbor on TV.  Nice way to finish out Memorial Day weekend, even though it is only barely acknowledged as a holiday down here.

Long Days, Long Week

I am feeling pretty wiped out right now, but I'm not seeing any rest for the weary in the near future.  It all got busy last Thursday when The Wife and I showed up at Ochsner Hospital for 5:00 am, on her birthday, so she could have her hip replacement surgery.  I paid a bit over $2,000 to the hospital despite the fact that we have the most expensive insurance package that Tulane offers.  The surgery went really smoothly and surprisingly quickly.  I guess this sort of thing is pretty routine nowadays.  She was out of recovery and in a room on the 9th floor before noon, calling her office to check up on things there.  The original double room overlooked Jefferson Avenue to the north, which wasn't really worth opening the blinds for, but nobody else was there so it was fine, if a little cramped.  By Friday she was feeling quite good and hoping to go home, but they needed to get in some more PT and OT, so she didn't get out until Saturday morning.  She was in such good shape that I went out and did the Giro Ride on Saturday before heading over to the hospital.  I got there just as they were signing discharge paperwork.  I was surprised how little pain she was feeling and how easily she negotiated the fourteen steps up to the house. She was supposed to be under some restrictions as far as walking and bending were concerned, but by that afternoon she convinced me to drive her and her walker over to Barnes & Noble so she could look at Nooks.

Anyway, things were going pretty smoothly so on Sunday morning I went out and rode the Sunday Giro too.  That's not to say I had a lot of free time, however. Since last week I have of course had to pick up additional duties such as dog-walking and feeding, laundry service, meal preparation, grocery shopping, and nursing, some of which has been for our geriatric dog Cosmo for whom I have a veterinarian appointment this afternoon.  I am not entirely sure if he will be coming back from this one.

Tuesday Morning on the Levee.  The fog got worse as we went upriver.

Meanwhile, I missed a little race up in Alexandria last Sunday that was promoted by Ed who had just had an appeal hearing with USAC for some issues arising from his association with a club in Lafayette.  He is kind of an odd character, as are his races.  Anyway, I didn't lose any sleep over missing that race and was just glad that I had been able to get in a couple of good rides.  The rest of the week has been a series of long days.  I've been getting up at 5:30 every morning so I can deal with the dogs and stuff before riding, and I am really starting to miss that little bit of extra sack time.  Fortunately, I have been able to get in my usual morning rides.  I had planned on doing the lakefront training  race yesterday, but in the early afternoon The Wife called to tell me her leg has suddenly swollen up rather dramatically, so I rushed  home to make sure we weren't dealing with a DVT or something.  The doctor wasn't particularly concerned, so I eventually went back to the office, but then forgot completely about the training race until I left again around 5:45.  It would have been pretty tight anyway, so I guess it's just as well.  On Tuesday I met with the mayor's office folks and police department people about the Tour de Louisiane criterium that we'll be having there on June 8, which is sneaking up on me really quickly this year.  They wanted a change in the course to avoid going past a new hotel that will be having its first fully open weekend.  Then this morning they called and are worried about a popular brunch restaurant that is now on the altered route.  I've been holding off on finishing the Race Bible until I can make the new criterium map, so this is delaying things a bit.  I'm sure it will all work out fine, but until I know for sure which course we'll be using I can't make the map and I can't make a decision on where the finish line and officials will be.  Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to see some action on the Tulane Cycling space renovation work that was held up by the student activities people, so that has cost us three weeks delay so far and may cost us an extra five thousand dollars for a card-swipe system.  I am hoping there is a cheaper way around this but at any rate I now have to come up with a Risk & Safety Management Plan and Access Policy document.

There's a nice road race up in St. Francisville this Sunday that I am planning on riding. I'm just training through this one, since my schedule has been kind of screwy lately, but it should be fun anyway and it's only a two-hour drive, which is really nice.  With so much going on I don't feel like I am in race shape at all, but as I see it, that's no reason not to race!

Season of Change

The more things change, the more they stay the same. May is always a complicated month.  We sent Danielle back off to Olympia for the summer on Saturday.  As usual, things didn't quite go as planned.  Some bad weather was moving across the south on Friday evening, and some time before midnight she got an alert that her early morning flight had been "delayed" and rescheduled for something like 8:30 am.  That meant she would miss her connecting flight, and no help was forthcoming on what to do about that. Ordinarily a long layover might not be too big of a problem, but in her case she was flying with two small dogs in a bag under the seat and the travel time to bladder size ratio was way too high for comfort.  With no satisfactory resolution coming from the telephone ticket agents, we loaded the car with the bike case, borrowed from Bob and unprofessionally packed by me, a huge overweight bag, the dogs, etc. and went to the airport in time for the 8:30 flight.  Luckily we got a good ticket agent who got her set up on a later flight, so we checked the bags and went to breakfast at Morning Call in City Park. The streets were wet and it had been raining a bit so I wasn't feeling too bad about missing my Saturday training ride.

With exams at Tulane ending, it's furniture season in the neighborhood.  Students departing for good leave their thrift store and Walmart furniture out on the curb all over the place. Some of it I'm sure finds its way into the hands of the next generation of students.  Anyway, the general feel of the neighborhood changes a little bit this time of year, which is good since it substitutes for the change of seasons that we don't really have around here.  I ended up not riding at all on Saturday, so I was glad to see a big group and much improved weather for the Giro Ride on Sunday.  I don't really know what it was, but that Giro seemed particularly hard to me.  Granted there were a few critical sections where I had to dig really deep to close a gap or stay on a wheel at 30+ mph, but overall it didn't seem like it should have felt quite as hard as it did.  Anyway, it was a good ride and I got home with slightly sore quads.  The house was much quieter without the two little dogs! Later in the day I ripped the old 1986 Race Across Louisiana video and got it started uploading to youtube, which at my home wifi upload speed probably took ten hours. It kind of needed to be there for posterity, although I have heard that it was blocked for some people because of the music.  Still seems to work for me, though.  So on Thursday The Wife is having hip replacement surgery.  That will probably keep me pretty busy through the weekend and well into next week, so I'll miss the road race this weekend.  Hopefully things will go smoothly enough that I'll be able to get out for the Giro or part of the Giro or something on the weekend.

Things are getting busy here at work now and after a really slow week I suddenly have a whole list of projects.  Funny how it always seems to work that way.  I'm hoping they will be able to start work on the Tulane Cycling space here at University Square soon.  It's been held up for two weeks by Club Sports for no particular good reason.  Very frustrating.  We have been working on this for over two years now and the pace has been absolutely glacial, even by university standards.

Tough Morning

Levee ride group waiting for everyone to arrive

I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been up all night.  I'd been expecting a certain level of fatigue, but this seemed a bit more than that.  Wednesday I had gone out a little earlier than usual, thinking I might catch the WeMoRi somewhere along Wisner, but as it turned out I was a bit too early for that.  I headed down Robert E. Lee Blvd. to the west and picked up the bike path along the lake.  It was practically deserted, and with a nice little tailwind I ended up riding all the way out to the casino.  By the time I got back home I'd logged around 30 miles, a few miles more than I'd planned with some of it a little faster than I'd recommend, considering I was planning on riding the training race that evening.  Indeed, I rushed home from work and then out to the lakefront, catching the group right at the end of its warmup lap.  There was a pretty strong wind blowing from the southeast that was playing havoc with the paceline, such as it was.  Somewhere in the second half of the first lap I found myself near the back of an eschelon that was taking up both lanes and occasionally some of the oncoming lane.  I wasn't too comfortable with any of that, so I dropped off with plans to turn back early and catch the group as it was coming in the opposite direction.  That worked out OK, I guess.  Regardless, the combination of crosswind and fast pace made for a pretty hard ride, and by the time I got back to the house I guess I had 65 miles for the day.  The Wife was flying back from a meeting in New York and her flight was scheduled to arrive at 8:30, so I jumped into the shower thinking I had lots of time.  Then, when I checked the flight status, I saw that it was going to arrive about twenty minutes early, so I had to drop everything and rush out to the airport.  I was about five miles from there when she called to say they had landed, so by the time she had picked up her fifty pound suitcase I was already there.

So back to this morning.  My legs were a little sore, but more than that I just felt kind of run-down.  I didn't want to skip the long Thursday ride on the levee, especially since the forecast for Friday and Saturday was not looking particularly good, so I went out there anyway with a plan to stay in the draft as much as possible.  Although there was a pretty big group today, there was also a pretty strong wind.  It allowed for a fast pace on the way out, but the whole time I was just thinking how hard it was going to be on the way back.  Indeed, it was.  I have an early meeting tomorrow, and the forecast for the morning is calling for a 40-60% chance of rain, so I guess I'll have to play that by ear.

Flats and Flexibility

I was not surprised Monday morning to find my quads a little tired from last weekend.  Although my sprinting proved to be entirely ineffective as far as the finish order was concerned, it was apparently enough to do a little damage.  Clearly, I need to be doing more of this.  Anyway, I had already planned on an easy morning ride for Monday, and headed out toward the lakefront at 6:30.  I decided to take a left at Lakeshore Drive and ride to West End, with plans to then do a short circuit around City Park before returning home.  Somewhere along Filmore I felt the squishiness in my rear tire and contemplated my options.  It seemed like a slow leak, so I decided to see if I could make it over to the Starbucks on Harrison before it went completely flat. The lure of a cup of coffee and a comfortable chair to ease the task of fixing the flat was too much to resist. That all worked out nicely, and I ended up swapping out a few recovery ride miles for a nice recovery coffee break.  It was nice to have that kind of flexibility on this particular Monday morning.

Tuesday morning it was back to the routine as I rushed out to the levee to meet the 6:15 ride.  There was a pretty big turnout that included Luke who was in town from his new residence way out in the Utah territory.  Howard was there, seemingly locked into surge mode, but his pulls were fairly brief so everyone would just string out as he surged from the 24 mph consensus speed to around 27, and then it would slow down to about 22 before settling back to normal until his turn came around again.  At some point we picked up Mike W., and for reasons unknown I think he was having some kind of problem with, I guess, Howard on the ride back down the river where we picked up the two big guys.  Every time someone would pull off in front of him he would soft-pedal, which of course was causing some confusion and havoc for those farther back in the paceline. He said a few things to me as he came alongside that didn't really make sense to me - something about teaching them about teamwork of something.  I dunno, at least it was all pretty much a non-issue as far as the ride went except that it made the pace a bit more erratic than usual. Toward the end Howard and someone else kind of attacked, the rest of the group didn't respond, and Mike took off apparently in pursuit but eventually sat up before drifting back to the pack, only to launch his own sprint for a random sign post somewhere around the bridge.  I was feeling a little sluggish, but otherwise OK, all the while re-playing the weekend's races and coming to the unfortunate conclusion that I need to be doing considerably more intensity and considerably less eating of Easter candy.

Mississippi Gran Prix weekend

I rushed home from work early on Friday afternoon, threw some stuff into my bag, clamped the bike to the roof and took off to run a couple of errands before hitting the road for Brookhaven Mississippi for the annual Mississippi Gran Prix stage race.  A couple of minutes later I realized I'd forgotten my clip-on aero bars for the time trial and briefly considered the pointlessness of returning home for them.  I wasn't too far from home, though, so I backtracked to pick them up, and then suffered through school zones and early rush hour traffic before finally turning onto the relative calm of I-55 North.  It was only a 2-hour drive, and I wasn't racing until Saturday, but I wanted to help officiate the evening criterium for the Cat. 1/2/3 race and pick up my race numbers.  Surprisingly I arrived in plenty of time, enough in fact to run over to the local store and buy a broom to sweep a corner that looked a little sandy.  The race went off pretty well, and despite the darkness and incompatibility between the flicker rate of the lighting and the finish line camera, Ricky got everyone placed fairly quickly. Afterward I met up with a number of the club riders for a quick dinner at the little Italian place near the course.

Saturday morning Chris and I drove out to the road race course, about half an hour to the north. Although my back was feeling a lot better, I was still on Aleve, not really in shape, and going into this race with practically zero confidence.  This would be the first race of my 42nd or 43rd racing season and I was a little worried that my lower back would seize up the first time I tried to climb a hill.  I was also a little worried that I'd just flat out get dropped.  Basically, I was not feeling too sharp.  Fortunately, the race started out without too many fireworks and I soon realized that my back was not going to be that big of an issue.  In fact, I ended up spending a fair amount of time in the wind on the first lap of the three-lap 57-mile race.  Probably too much. A rider from the Acadiana team went off the front early and fortunately there were enough other riders to keep the other five Acadiana guys from controlling things too much.  The rest of us kept him hanging out there at about fifteen or thirty seconds for all of the first lap and much of the second lap until he was finally back in the smallish 17-rider field. A crash on the first lap had taken a couple of riders out of the mix.

About halfway around the loop on the second lap a gap opened up on a little climb when Mark and I were, frankly, way too far back.  Whoever was behind the gap never reacted and we hesitated for a moment thinking it might not be serious.  It was.  When they got to the top of the climb, one of them looked back, saw the gap, and someone up there put the hammer down. By the time we could do anything about it, it was really too late considering the fact that much of the group's horsepower was up the road in a 4-man break. Mark and I were practically the only ones without someone in the break, and neither of us would be able to motor across the rapidly expanding chasm. So now we were racing for 5th place, which didn't really do much for my already diminished level of enthusiasm.  With seven or eight miles to go the other Acadiana riders in our group started taking turns attacking.  I was already feeling pretty dead, so Mark had to cover almost all of them himself, which of course was their plan since he is a strong sprinter.  In the end, one of the Acadiana guys nipped Mark for 5th, while I struggled across the line in a disappointing 8th place.  I shouldn't really have been disappointed considering the circumstances, but, yeah, I kinda was.  I really had no sprint in my legs at all. We went over to Broma's Deli for lunch and then once I got the results and TT start list I uploaded those to the LAMBRA website.  That evening was the 3-mile TT that I've done a number of times before.  I was completely uninterested, however.  Given sufficient motivation I can usually scratch out a respectable TT even with the now commonplace TT bike and aero wheelset, but with four riders already uncatchable on GC and the knowledge that I'd probably lose time to three or four other riders in the TT, I just could not come up with a reason to suffer.  I would say I went out at about a 75% effort level, and even so I found myself wheezing for air within the first mile.  The combination of spring pollen and the exceptionally dry air were really playing havoc on my lungs.  When I got to the 1km to go mark I figured I may as well drop it down into a bigger gear and put in some effort.  The last 500 meters is uphill and I was too lazy to even shift to an appropriate gear, so I just trudged up it in a 53x13 or something.  It must have looked comical.  I think my cadence dropped to about 50.  Predictably, my time was 14th out of 15.  On the other hand, my legs and back felt fine!   The TT had almost been interrupted when some local redneck drove by and yelled at the officials about how it was a public road and we were blocking it off.  Naturally he called the sheriff's office and a little while later a deputy came by saying that they didn't know anything about the race.  The promoter, who was also warming up for his TT, explained that he had made all of the appropriate arrangements with the Sheriff, who had apparently forgotten to let the rest of his staff know about it. We had dinner at a local Chinese/Japanese place and then I waited for the CR to send me the official results which I got posted to the website around 10 pm.

The Sunday criterium is always fun for me because I like the course.  Mostly.  The one thing about this course that always kills me is the screaming fast downhill that comes right before a steep but short climb up to the finish.  For some reason I am always at my limit on the downhill whenever there is any pressure on at the front.  Anyway, Mark was in 5th place by a few seconds following the TT, with no hope of moving up since the break in the Road Race had put those four riders up by a good five minutes. As long as the guy behind him on GC didn't get any significant time bonuses, Mark would be safe.  Complicating things, however, was the fact that this race offers stage prizes in addition to GC prizes, and a decent placing for me would have at least salvaged something for the weekend.  For the most part, the race was not too fast.  A few of the riders were on the defense, I guess, so nothing was able to get very far.  There was a hot spot bonus at the mid-way point of this 60-minute race, which of course was what a number of riders were waiting for.  The bonuses ended up going to riders who had been in the RR break, so basically Mark was safe, but the sprint had strung things out considerably.  As the front group started to come back together I started telling them to keep the pace rolling because a few riders were off the back.  That effort got the front group down to 7 or 8 riders.  As we got closer to the final laps the tension increased and there were a couple of brief attacks that resulted in a little slow-down at the start of the last lap.  Then things started to bunch up on the back side a bit.  I was contemplating jumping just before the last turn that leads into the long downhill about 500m before the finish, but just as I got to the decision point for that Mark did exactly what I'd been thinking, attacking hard just to my right.  I was already to the right of most of the riders, although three or four were ahead of me to the left.  As soon as Mark jumped I soft-pedaled so that the rider to my left couldn't go with him.  The ones ahead of me, however, did react, although they were forced to kind of go the long way around the turn. I, of course, was immediately gapped as everyone hammered down the downhill at 38 mph.  I was absolutely going as hard as I could but wasn't making up much ground.  Mark got passed just before the finish and I rolled across in 6th place.  Surprisingly, that moved me up to 7th on GC.

So I came back home feeling a mixture of relief and frustration.  It hadn't been too bad of a race for me, and was in fact considerably better than I'd been expecting earlier in the week.  Even so, missing that break in the road race was really frustrating since I knew it was partly my own fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was also feeling kind of disappointed with the fact that I just didn't have any power in my legs for the sprints.  Sometimes, even though you fully expect things to go a certain way you're still a little disappointed when they actually do.

Our women's team was missing one of its riders because of an injury earlier in the week, and it looked like they had a pretty good race.  Mignon was only able to pull out a 10th place in the road race, which was a little surprising, but on the other hand Sherri hung in there for the criterium, which was her first.  Alison had a small crash in the road race and headed home after that, so they were really two riders short for the weekend.  

Final Straw

By all accounts it was a good weekend.  A solid Giro Ride on Saturday, followed by a Tulane Cycling party at the house, and then a nice club ride on the northshore on Sunday.  Earlier in the week when Mignon suggested a northshore ride, it sounded perfect.  I'd missed out on a little mileage and intensity that week because of the incident on the levee and crash on the lakefront, and with the Mississippi Gran Prix coming up the next week the timing was good.  We met up at Puccino's at 7 am and I drove across the lake with Tom, which of course meant half an hour of discussing university administration from the perspective of the liberal arts professor, which is frankly something I rarely get to do.  The sky was a bit overcast, but the air was warm, and as I'd been able to do for most of the week I rode in just shorts and a summer jersey.  I love the rides this time of year when there isn't that winter burden of making crucial wardrobe decisions and compromises.  We had over a dozen on hand as we headed off from the Lee Road school with a nice little tailwind at our backs.  My legs were a little tired from the prior day's Giro Ride, which had been surprisingly fast, and in consideration of the inevitable headwind on the return trip I was trying to keep my effort level under control for the first half of the ride.  Since it was a club ride with a mix of riders, we were stopping at all of the intersections to regroup, but there were a few who were already getting impatient by the time we were halfway 'round the traditional 65 mile route, and on that long stretch at the top of the course heading toward Sie Jenkins Road the group split pretty significantly.  Even so, I have to admit I was liking the effort level.  It was hard enough but not too hard and pretty much just what I felt I needed. I pushed it a bit on some of the climbs just to see where I was.  Eventually, of course, a few riders split off to take a shorter route and we turned more and more into the headwind.  As usual, those last four miles straight into the wind on a dead straight road was just a slog.  I got back to the car feeling pretty satisfied with a bit under 300 miles for the week and a plan for an easy recovery ride on Monday.

Well Monday arrived a little on the damp side.  It wasn't quite rain, but it wasn't quite dry.  I went out anyway with the plan to just spin the legs for an hour around Audubon Park where I wouldn't be tempted to go fast. I guess my lower back was feeling just a little stiff, but it wasn't anything I was really thinking about.  After a few circuits around the park the raindrops got a little heavier and so I bailed out a few minutes early for home.  No problem, since all I'd wanted to do was some no-effort spinning.  Back at the house I noticed the two big ice chests from Saturday's party.  They were of course still half-full of partially melted ice, so I decided it would be a good time to empty them out and let them dry. I don't remember them being particularly heavy, nor do I remember feeling any particular strain on my lower back, but a few minutes later when I bent over to wipe up some spilled water I could barely stand  up again.  I guess the combination of some big gear seated climbs on Sunday and the lugging around of tents and ice chests and such from Saturday had taken its toll and lifting those ice chests turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back, or in this case mine.  I took a couple of Aleve, but the back was bothering me the rest of the day anyway.  I skipped riding on Tuesday, and by the end of the day it was feeling better, but then last night I didn't sleep well because of it, so skipped riding this morning as well.  In an hour of so I'm going to ride out to the lakefront.  Sometimes these kinds of things don't seem to hurt when I'm riding and sometimes they do, but I think it'll still be better than sitting on the couch eating Easter candy.  If it hurts, I'll just take it easy.  We'll see.

Meanwhile, there's a little controversy brewing about Lakeshore Drive. The Orleans Levee District decided to open up Lakeshore Drive again to traffic on weekends.  For the past ten or fifteen years, it's been closed to eastbound traffic on weekends, but a group in the eastern part of the city decided it was a racist policy and so they voted to open it back up. For most of us it won't make a bit of difference since the guys who race are there mostly early in the morning or late in the evening on weekdays, when it was never closed anyway, or early in the morning on weekends before the general public is likely to start cruising up and down the street.  A local bicycle advocacy group got the ear of the levee district and presented a plan to turn half of the 4-lane road into a multi-use bike/pedestrian path full-time.  That would probably be more of a problem than a help for riders who train there in the mornings and evenings, and would likely kill the informal training races entirely.  Some signage along the route would be great, and a reduced speed limit even better, but the idea of groups of riders in training ride mode weaving through joggers and dog-walkers is frightening.

So I'm planning on going up to the Mississippi Gran Prix this weekend, one way or the other.  Depending on how this evening goes, it'll either be as a bike racer or an official.  I'd much prefer the former.

The Crashes

Not pretty, but it worked well enough.

Crashes are like flat tires.  They always seem to come in batches.  We've had a big batch of them this week.  Things started out pretty nicely on Monday.  The weather has been getting steadily warmer, the wind has been dropping down to normal, and there hasn't been any rain in the forecast all week.  I did a nice solo ride on Monday out to the Lakefront and Lake Trail, trying my best to take it easy.  Then on Tuesday I headed out early to meet the morning levee group.  Since the Wednesday Night Worlds have started up again on Lakeshore Drive, the Tuesday and Thursday ride pace has relaxed just a bit. I know I have been a little more reluctant than usual to blow my legs up on Tuesday morning, especially since I've been trying to do both a morning ride and the WNW on Wednesdays.  So anyway, the Tuesday ride was nice and smooth with the speed mostly in the 22-24 mph range.

Part of the aftermath on the lakefront Wednesday

We were about half-way back when Brian got on the front and just started towing the whole line of 15-20 riders at 25-26 mph.  He had been up there for a couple of miles, I guess, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a big dump truck veering off of River Road and flying up the road that crosses the levee. He was probably going 30 mph and there was no indication that he saw us approaching.  For a moment, before every started screaming "Truck!!!" I didn't think any of the riders saw him either.  Granted, it's difficult for someone driving up the levee to see what's coming at that particular spot, but anyway, there we were in a long paceline going around 27 mph when the screaming started.  This was a full-on panic stop.  Brian reacted a little late and skidded off to the left, landing in the grass.  Everyone else pretty much locked up brakes and hoped that friction would win out over momentum.  I was near the back and had a little more time to react, but as I was coming to a stop I heard Rick's tire explode.  He had locked up the wheel and worn right through both the tire and the Mr. Tuffy, and blown out the tube. The truck driver, and the supervisor, came over and talked with some of the riders as the rest of us gathered ourselves up out of the grass and Rich went to work on Rick's tire.  Judd had a big section of old tire to use as a boot, but even that wasn't big enough to keep the first tube from blowing right through the huge hole.  So I cut a piece of the blown tube and tied it around tire and rim to try and keep things together.  We still had about ten miles to go. We had to take the brake shoes off, of course, but luckily it held well enough to get back to the cars.

I thought for sure it was broken

So yesterday I went out to the training race after work, a bit late as usual, and caught the group somewhere on its first lap. I drifted to the back since I knew it would take me the rest of the lap to get warmed up.  The pace was around 26-27 mph mostly, and the group was pretty big, so I wasn't too uncomfortable as my old lungs tried to adjust to the increased effort.  We rounded the loop at Seabrook and were heading back east at a solid 27 mph when suddenly the whole front of the group exploded sending ten or twelve riders to the ground. For a moment it looked like I had nowhere to go and would end up plowing into a mountain of riders. Luckily, I slid to a stop up against the curb just in time to keep from plowing into the tangled pile of bikes and bodies, and even better, nobody rammed into me from behind.

Cracked downtube, ripped out bottle cage mount

VJ was on the ground, all scraped up, with his front tire blown completely off the rim, saying his back was hurt.  He was back on his feet pretty soon, however.  Riders were already calling for an ambulance and tending to their injured friends.  Noel was standing there holding his bike with the derailleur hanging by its cable and chain.  Someone had plowed into it from behind and snapped the hanger.  Looking around I saw the top of a saddle on the ground, its carbon rails completely missing.  A little while later I found John Thompson's Eddy Merckx missing its saddle and with a big crack in its down tube. He himself had likely suffered some broken ribs and possibly a punctured lung (haven't heard anything definite yet).  Brian Baum, who had crashed on the levee the day before, was feeling lucky because he had landed right on top of Brian Bourgeois, and although he might have whacked his head on the ground a bit was relatively uninjured.  His phone, on the other hand, had probably saved him some skin and serious bruising.  It was bent to the shape of his back, the screen was completely shattered, and the back side looked like it had been the victim of a belt-sander. The other Brian on the other hand had a cracked helmet and some road rash on his face and elsewhere.  Another rider was clearly going to need stitches between a couple of his fingers where there was a deep gash.

Noel's broken hanger

It was only a few minutes later that I noticed Woody lying on the concrete near the seawall holding his collarbone.  It looked like it was broken and he was looking more pissed off than in pain.  The road season is just about to really get going, and so this is precisely the worst possible time to be breaking bones.  As I learned a few minutes ago, it was just an AC joint separation, which will probably take at least as long to heal, but probably won't keep him off the bike as much.  Three riders had already raced off to get their cars, and a few minutes later we had all of the injured riders and their bikes en route to hospitals or homes.  By then it was about the time when the training race usually ends, so the rest of us rolled on down Lakeshore Drive and everyone split off to head home.  I think that was probably the biggest crash we've ever had out there, and that's going back about thirty years.  It sounds like there was just a little lull at the front, causing things to bunch up for a moment, and someone crossed wheels with someone else and it went downhill from there.

Brian's phone, bent to the shape of his back and shattered

Meanwhile, there's an appeal of a USAC disciplinary hearing later today involving a rider/race director/official and a La. club involving some questionable actions taken last year.  The rider in question has been sending stuff to all of the area email lists and including the USAC conference call number and code.  I have been trying to keep that traffic off of the LAMBRA email list since it is clearly inappropriate, especially since LAMBRA is affiliated with USAC.  It is a matter among USAC, the club, and the individual, and the last-minute effort to get other people in the region to interfere with the hearing does not seem like a wise move to me.  I haven't been directly involved, nor should I have been, so I guess I'll find out the final verdict tomorrow.  This is the most significant disciplinary thing we've had to deal with since the City Park thing back in the 80s.

Long Weekend

So on Friday I was feeling in need of an easy recovery ride, and since I was off from work I decided to tag along with a 9 am Tulane ride.  This turned out to be a nice ride except for the fact that it was at times faster than I would have liked.  The whole time I was hoping for a coffee shop stop. 

We rode down Elysian Fields to the French Quarter with the idea of getting coffee and beignets at Cafe' du Monde, but when we got there, there was a line halfway down the block, so we decided to try some place on Magazine Street which turned out to be pretty much of a bust with a long wait for lukewarm coffee.


I was expecting the Saturday Giro to have a good turnout and wasn't disappointed.  Once we hit Hayne Blvd. the guys at the front put the hammer down and didn't let up the rest of the ride.  That meant a couple of 5-mile stretches at 30 mph average speeds and a max speed of 39.  I wasn't feeling too sharp and never really saw the front, but it was a pretty good workout anyway. 

We all stopped at the ghost bike that is now on Chef Highway where the triathlete was killed and met up with the earlier 6:45 am riders, but once we started back things got really fast.  Fortunately we still had a fair number of riders despite losing half the group along the way.  Legs were pretty tired the rest of the day.

So Easter Sunday I did another Giro Ride with a slightly smaller group.  Things started out at a pretty easy pace, and although there were a few fast sections, it was a relatively civilized ride. The whole group actually stopped at a couple of red lights.  I think I'll try and take it easy on Monday.

Viento, Mucho Viento

Last weekend was the Tulane Cycling team's last collegiate road trip for the spring season. Early in the week prior to the aptly named "Velo del Viento" in Wichita Falls, Texas, we were looking at nine.  By Friday morning we were down to only six, of which only four were racing.  Having lost a couple of our best Cat. A and B riders to, of all things, schoolwork and research projects, we knew it would be impossible to maintain our slim lead in the Division 2 conference team championship.  We rolled out of New Orleans fairly late, as usual, thanks to some unanticipated errands that a couple of the riders decided to run after picking up the rental minivans.  Four of us ended up hanging around our house for well over an hour waiting for them.  Since it's a minimum ten-hour drive, that meant we wouldn't be arriving until way after midnight. The drive itself started out pretty smoothly, but then we got to Dallas. There were at least three possible routes through Dallas that would put us on the road up to Wichita Falls, but since it was already around 10:30 pm we decided to take the shortest, which went pretty much straight through the city.  After all, there shouldn't be much traffic by then, right?  Well, naturally there was some big accident and we ended up trapped on the interstate at a dead stop for at least half an hour.  Anyway, we finally arrived after midnight and after downloading and forwarding release forms for the NOBC's Sunday 2-Person Time Trial (registration closed Friday night) I got in maybe five hours of sleep before we were up and headed for the road race course about half an hour away.

This part of Texas is, at least to my mind, just one step from desert.  Everything is wind-swept dirt and rock with nothing but leafless four-foot high mesquite to break the relentless wind.  As windy as it normally is around there, on this day it was even worse and I knew it was going to be a sufferfest for the riders.  I had been volunteered to help with officiating and was assigned to follow the Cat. A race.  We arrived to find the MSU coach, Charlie, running registration pretty much single-handedly at a tiny card table on the side of the road.  It was too windy for an easy-up tent.  The first event was the team time trial.  In collegiate, that means anywhere from two to four riders per team. Naturally, everything was running half an hour late.  There was no start list and in fact no record yet of who was on which team.  Teams were to just show up at the start line.  So I grabbed the megaphone and took on the role of Whip, getting the teams lined  up according to category.  That went pretty well, except that, of course, none of the Cat. A teams wanted to be first so they were all in hiding until finally one stepped up.  Our only team was in the Women's Cat. C race, and they were pretty unprepared all-around so their time was nothing to write home about.

An hour or so later the road races started and so I jumped into the passenger seat of my assigned follow car, fortunately driven by someone who had done this before at Hotter n' Hell.  As expected, the minute the 16-rider Cat. A field hit the crosswind section things started to unravel. They had 8 laps to do on this unprotected 9.4 mi. course, most of it battling 30 mph crosswinds.  They were going fast, but a lot of damage was being done very early. By the end of the first lap 6 were already off the back. By then end of the second lap a break of 7 was off the front and the rest were just riding for the exercise.  We were constantly passing riders off the back from other races, and mid-way through the 4th lap we passed the 4-rider Women Cat. B/C break.  I was glad to see Danielle had made the break and figured she'd end up first or second in the C race.  She had been sick all week and hadn't even been on the bike for six days.  By then it was starting to get hot - hot and dry - and windy.  Very, very windy.  The A group was long out of sight of any of the other riders in their race and although they never slowed down a lot they were now riding smooth paceline with everyone sharing the work.  It was pretty boring in the follow car.  Then, at the start of Lap 6, the whole group stopped at someone's car, opened the trunk, and handed out drinks and food to everyone.  on the next lap a rider flatted and the rest of the group eased up until he caught.  Finally, halfway through the last lap there was some action when a rider attacked on the only significant hill, about four miles from the finish.  Despite the fact that there were three MSU riders in the break, they all hesitated and let him establish a good fifteen or twenty second gap. It looked like he might actually make it to the finish, and finally one of the MSU guys went to the front and took a long fast pull that put a couple of riders in serious trouble.  He pulled off and dropped off as his teammate took over the front and did the same thing.  That rider finally blew up, but by then it was just one MSU rider and one other rider left.  The finish line was only a mile away and the last MSU rider put his head down, dropped the other rider, and caught the solo break with about 500 meters to go - just enough time to sit in the draft and recover for a moment before winning the sprint.

When I check on how Danielle did I was shocked to learn that she hadn't finished.  She had gotten overheated and/or dehydrated and had to drop off the back when her heart rate wouldn't come down below about 210, and then she was so out of it that she rode off the road into some gravel and went down.  A follow car came by but she told them she was OK and would just ride in to the finish, but then she struggled with getting her chain back on and jammed it and ended up getting picked up by the next follow car.  In the Men's B and Men's D races, both Tulane riders abandoned, so Jamie in the Women's C race was the only one to finish.  It was a very disappointing day.

Back to regular riding...

Sunday's criterium was on a nice course on the MSU campus where they actually have a big statue of bike racers.  Danielle was pretty tired and beat up from Saturday but still finished 3rd, I think, in the C race (they were mixed with the B riders, so overall she finished 5th or 6th). I officiated along with three other officials for all of the races except the last, which was the A race. Anyway, although we packed up before the Cat. A race was over, by the time everyone was showered and fed it was around 2:30 pm.  Fortunately, the drive back, other than one big rainstorm, was smooth and fast, so we were back in New Orleans by around 1 am.  It was a long weekend during which I never got to ride a bike, although my bike did at least make the trip.  I had been hoping to squeeze in a couple of laps around the road course, but there really wasn't enough time to make it worthwhile.  It's Thursday and we still haven't seen actual final results of the race or, for that matter, of the conference points standings, which were a complete clusterF the last time I saw them, which was on Saturday.

So this week I have been trying to get back on track with training.  A cold front and high winds haven't been making that easy, but I have at least been putting in a few miles.  Yesterday I did a good solo morning ride and then rushed out to the lakefront after work for the training race, which was fun even though I was starting to feel rather tired.  This morning I went out to the long levee ride with slightly sore legs.  I felt OK, but not particularly good, especially on the way back into the wind.  Tonight I have to rush out to Baton Rouge to help officiate the track race there.

Wednesday Morning

We had lucked out on Tuesday and wrapped up the regular long levee ride a few hours ahead of the rain, the worst of which came through in the afternoon as part of a cool front. As a result, I was expecting it to be chilly and windy this morning.  It was, although the wind turned out to be the larger issue. It has become routine now for me to ride out to the lakefront and Lake Trail on Wednesday mornings.  Leaving around 6:30 am, there's now little need for lights if the sky is clear, and traffic on Carrollton Avenue is still relatively sluggish.  What wasn't sluggish today was the northwest wind.  I kept looking down at the computer, each time disappointed to see a speed of around 17 mph rather than 20.  Turning west and riding along the lakeshore bike path was no better but at least it was less stressful.  After finally turning around about 12 miles out I was glad to have a little tailwind, even if I still had to deal with the northerly crosswind vector.  It was generally one of those slow but difficult rides that barely nudge the fun meter. 

Coming back down Marconi I passed a little groups of teetering "Bike to Work Day" riders and watched the ever-suffering Tulane Crew team walking through the wet grass from their boat corral to the spot where they can climb over the canal floodwall.  It is such a shame that nobody ever gets to see them on the water, and even more of a shame that they don't have a better place to train. There are a lot of parallels between the rowing team and the cycling team - finding good training routes, getting equipment and people to far-away competitions, trying to keep up a challenging training program over the winter months and then squeezing long road trips in while still keeping up with classwork.

Riding from home to work an hour later it was a good ten degrees warmer.  Down on Lowerline Street I spotted a bluebird.  I almost never see those in the city.

Meanwhile, hotel and rental car reservations have been made for the Tulane Cycling road trip out to MSU in Wichita Springs, TX.  It is looking like we will be missing a couple of key riders, and that is likely to cost us the division 2 road championship this year, but these things happen with collegiate club sports.  On the plus side, the advance planning for this race seems to be a notch above some of the others. I was asked to help with officiating and of course foolishly agreed, so I probably won't get in much, or any, riding over the weekend.

Wet Without the Rain

I didn't think I'd be riding the Giro this morning.  The forecast offered little hope Saturday night, but of course I've lived here a long time and have learned to always take the forecast with more than a grain of salt.  When the alarm went off at 5:45, I first listened for the sound of car tires on wet pavement.  Hearing none, I checked the radar and, surprise, it looked fine. All the rain was far away from New Orleans.  The temperature was something like 68F, so I put on jersey and shorts and headed down to the basement.  Danielle was planning on coming out to take a shot at the Giro Ride.  Outside, it was damp and a little foggy but otherwise fine as we cruised up Carrollton and Wisner toward Starbucks.  As we passed the big clock on the Whitney bank on Harrison Avenue it read precisely 6:30 am.  We were right on time, but when we pulled into the Starbucks patio I was a little surprised to discover that we were the first ones there.  Maybe the forecast had scared everyone away?  Well, eventually a number of the regular riders filtered in, mostly a bit later than usual, and we rolled out at the usual 7:00. 

As we headed north on Marconi the fog got thicker, and the closer we got to the lake the worse it got. It never really got any better.  The group had to stop and walk over the steel grating atop the Seabrook bridge because it was so wet, and by the time we were halfway down Hayne Blvd. my clear glasses were fogged up so much that water was starting to drip from them.  Thanks to the smaller group, northeast headwind, and generally wet weather the pace never got out of hand and Danielle was doing fine hanging with the group.  Out on Hayne Blvd. the front half of the group set up a nice paceline and the rest, including us, tagged along in the crosswind, mostly up against the right edge of the road. At that point I rode up alongside and a bit ahead of Danielle to provide some shelter from the crosswind.  That turned out to be a nice little workout, actually, and fortunately the pace was pretty steady.  My plan was to have us turn around early because I knew it would get fast in the tailwind that was awaiting us on the return trip, so when the pace surged about a mile before Venetian Isles, we dropped off the back and turned around.  Motoring along at 23 or so with the tailwind was pretty smooth and I figured that if we could get most of the way to the Goodyear sprint before the pack caught us, the rest of the ride would be relatively smoothly.  The timing worked out quite well. A little break caught us just as they were ramping it up for the sprint, and so we went around the turn onto the service road with the group.  So for the first time in quite a while I logged something in the neighborhood of 300 miles for the week.  It's looking like next weekend's collegiate races at MSU will have me officiating a lot more than riding, but since that's the conference championship it'll probably be my last 10-hour road trip for a while.

Wind Again

Heading back from the Giro

Five forty-five in the morning and before I silence the alarm I reach for the phone to check the radar.  The forecast had not been reassuring, but it has also not been guaranteed.  The early morning radar looked good, with some rain far to the south and an hourly prediction that looked dry until at least 9 am.  The temperature was in the upper 60s, but it was cloudy, so I added a little base layer to my shorts and jersey, popped in my contacts, twisted on my Garmin, pulled on my shoes, and headed off for the Giro under a cloudy pre-dawn sky, the only thing keeping me going was that cup of hot coffee I was planning on getting at Starbucks.  A cool front had come though during the night and it was windy.  Really windy.  That cold front was supposed to be backing up right over us by mid-day, and with it would be a lot of rain.

The early arrivals for the Saturday Giro were already there when I rolled up at 6:35.  Although I was a few minutes later than usual, I'm rarely the first.  By 7 o'clock there was a good crowd on hand, and as we headed north toward the lakefront I knew the day's battle would be with the east northeast wind.  Out on Chef Highway we had a nice long rotating paceline into the wind most of the way out, but when Howard surged after I'd just come off the front and then a big hole opened up in the middle of the paceline I knew the cooperation was about over.  I went around and barely made it across but by then another gap was starting to open up ahead as we neared the Venetian Isles sprint.  I faded quickly and by the time I turned around half of the group had already turned back.

As I expected, it didn't take long for the pace to pick up as we made the turn that put the wind at our backs.  Over the next seven miles our average speed was a bit over 31 mph.  I don't think I saw the front once.  Once on the service road the call "Flat!" went out as Judd eased over to the curb and most of the group backed off and turned back to wait for him to put in a new tube.  The pace was a little easier most of the rest of the way, except of course for that stretch between the two bridges where it always seems to get really quick.  After regrouping on Lakeshore Drive, we turned down Marconi and Daniel said he needed to get to the veterinarian uptown in a hurry because of an emergency, so those of us headed that way didn't have the usual easy cool-down. 

As I rolled up to the door, it started to rain. 

Today was the Sunny King Criterium up in Anniston Alabama, and I knew a number of people who were racing.  Luckily it was being webcast live all day, so I got to watch the Cat. 3/4 women's race in which Mignon finished in the top ten, but missed the Junior 17-18 race where Robert made the podium.  I did, however, get to see Robert race again in the Cat. 3 race, and caught Adam in the Cat. 2 race.  After getting back from a visit to Tulane's CrawFest I was able to watch the recorded Master's race where I think Ed and Woody both must have been in the top dozen or so after Ed had been in a big breakaway that got caught on the bell lap.  Exciting stuff, even with the intermittent buffering problems.  Tomorrow is looking like non-stop rain, but who knows?  Maybe we'll luck out and squeeze in the Giro Ride.

Two Weeks' Worth

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy all-around, and at the moment I feel like I'm just barely treading water.  Two weekends of collegiate races, officiating, and training have made me really look forward to the upcoming weekend at home.

First off was the conveniently nearby LSU collegiate race.  As usual, I would be officiating for this one which meant rushing off to Baton Rouge during rush hour to make the start of Friday night registration.  Despite my best efforts, there were still a couple of mystery riders in the field, thanks to the "permanent race number" thing that always seems to cause problems.  This time there were riders who had one number on the start list but a different one on their jerseys. Add to that the usual riders who show up for registration and don't actually have collegiate licenses but tell me they've already raced twice in Texas collegiate races.  I just hand them the iPad and tell them to renew or buy their licenses on the spot.  Anyway, the road races went off pretty smoothly.  These races are on a nice rolling circuit near St. Francisville with parking on the property of one of the local riders.  After the race there was genuine jambalaya for all, which was a good thing because it wasn't hardly worth driving back to Baton Rouge despite the fact that the evening time trial was scheduled a good four hours after the end of the last road race.  So we basically just hung out on the property waiting for the TT to start.  Danielle made the break in the C race and finished 2nd, and then missed 1st in the TT by a mere 4 seconds after cruising past the finish line without realizing it and thinking it was actually farther down the road.

The time trial was, as usual, nice and easy, and once Ricky came back from the finish line we sat down on the roadside swatting mosquitoes and entered the times so we could post results before everyone left.  It's interesting that a lot of the collegiate riders don't stick around to check the results, although that's probably because they are often not available.  The forecast for Sunday was not looking good.

Well, Sunday morning was damp, foggy, and rainy for most of the races.  Fortunately, we were at least spared any really heavy stuff, and the slick roads resulted in only a few minor crashes.  By the time we were done, I was pretty cooked and happy to hitch a ride to a little after-race lunch at the home Ben Bradley's parents down in Plaquemine.  It was a long weekend, however, and I really hated the fact that I'd not thrown a leg over my bike all weekend.  Next up was a long road trip to Abilene.

So last weekend we had six riders make the trip with Kenny and me to Abilene for the Abilene Christian University race weekend.  This one started with a Saturday criterium and ended with a Sunday road race, but lacked the usual time trial or team time trial.  Because of classes, one rental minivan with me, Kenny, Danielle and Greg left around 2:00 pm while the other didn't hit the road for a couple more hours.  It was about a 10-hour drive, so do the math. I think we got there before midnight, but the other car didn't arrive until 2 or 3 am.  Races started the next morning around 8:00, and a cool front was coming through so it was pretty cold for the first ones. Since I had no officiating duties for this one, I could actually watch the races and, because they had included Alumni in the Cat. B race, Kenny and I rode with that group.  It was difficult to ride a criterium without really affecting the outcome.  Apparently we were actually allowed to work in this race, but it just didn't seem fair to do so.  I pulled a bit when the pace would slack off, and moved closer to the front now and then when it would get sketchy at the back.  It was actually a lot of fun and I felt good that I got in a little exercise.  Danielle ended up taking 2nd in her race.  The promoting club had made arrangements for us to eat at the university all-you-can-eat cafeteria for $5 each, which was awesome because this was a very high-class setup with everything from paninis and pizza to salad and ice cream.  That night we went out to a local Mexican restaurant, Abuelo's, which was also excellent, but before that we drove out to the road race to pre-ride the course. This was a good thing because it was a lot of unprotected chip-seal and a couple of the key turns were not clearly marked the next morning for the road races.

Sunday morning Kenny and I again started with the B group for their race which was around 40 miles in a strong wind that had the speeds ranging from 18 mph in the headwind to 34 mph in the tailwind.  The race started out kind of slow after a flurry of attacks and early on I decided against just sitting at the back.  Still, toward the end of the first of two laps the pack let a break of six or so roll off the front without much of a response.  A while later I found myself, quite by accident, off the front where I was soon joined by one of the collegiate riders.  There was already a pretty big gap to the pack which still included our only rider, but I figured there was little chance that the two of us would survive the headwind section, so I started trading pulls with the guy thinking it would help tire him a bit.  Surprisingly, when I looked back after we had started the 7 or 8 mile headwind stretch, I couldn't see the pack.  Then the follow car passed us and I though that the pack must have disintegrated, so I continued working with this rider as we pickup up another rider who had come out of the break that was now disappearing from view.  Oh well, at least I was getting a nice workout!  We were near the turn at the end of the headwind section when I sat up and looked back and was surprised to see a pack of riders just about 20 seconds back.  To the dismay of the other rider, I stopped pulling and we were soon caught with maybe five miles to go before the finish.  David ended up winning the pack sprint, so that was about the best possible outcome after he missed the break.  Danielle ended up winning her road race and Ben made the podium for his criterium finish, so we stayed for the awards that were, thankfully, done promptly after the finish of the last race.

We had time to run back to the hotel for showers, and then hit up the university cafeteria again before hitting the road for the long drive back to New Orleans.