Fall Cyclocross and Collegiate

Last Sunday the LSU folks up the river put on a Louisiana collegiate ride day up around St. Francisville. The weather around here has been pretty spectacular lately, especially if you are willing to put up with a little wind, and so turnout for the ride was surprisingly good. Just a couple of years ago a similar effort drew maybe ten riders.

This year, Tulane alone brought about ten and when we arrived at the start I was a little shocked to find what looked like a sufficient crowd for a local race. I counted at least forty riders as we rolled out. The route was set up so that we did a first loop of around 40 miles, and then a second loop of about thirty. For the first part we regrouped a number of times since there were a few riders who were pretty new to it, but in general it went remarkably smoothly. I guess about half of the group stopped after the first loop while the remainder stopped for a few minutes and then took off on the second loop. I had only a rough idea of where we were going, myself, but the pace wasn't super fast or anything and so I was hanging out near the back most of the time looking at the scenery, which was actually pretty great. Down here in southern Louisiana we are just beginning to get the first hints of fall.  There are a few leaves falling from the trees and the mornings are getting a little cooler, but suffice it to say I have yet to go in search of my knee-warmers.

So anyway, we were probably a good 60 miles into our 73 mile ride when the asphalt gave way to gravel and a couple of the guys at the front kind of put the hammer down. I lagged behind both because I wanted to keep track of anyone who came off the back and because it was too much effort to get my eyes to focus on the road at speeds above 15 mph or so.

As I looked at the front of the group riding off into the distance I thought to myself, "someone is going to either crash or flat."  A couple of miles later I came up on Jaden on the side of the road just before a little bridge as the rest of the group was circling back. He had broken a spoke in his 16-spoke Shimano front wheel.  He had also flatted his rear wheel.  We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere on an unpaved road and we had to walk to the bridge just to get cellphone reception. We took out the brake shoes and loosened up a couple of spokes to the point where the wobble was just barely clearing the fork blades, changed the tube, and debated the wisdom of trying to ride it out. After a few pedal strokes he decided to call for extraction, so the rest of us continued on. A mile or two later, on another gravel road, Ben Spain flatted his rear wheel.  We stopped and fixed it, rode another mile, and he flatted his front wheel. Basically, those last ten miles cost us about half an hour. Nonetheless, it was a great ride.

The rest of this week was just routine training, largely in the dark, with a missed day yesterday because of a work-related day of meetings with someone from PCORI. It went pretty well, but of course it's a fair deal of work and stress dealing with everything from posters to catering to trips to the airport.

This Sunday will be the first race of the cyclocross series so I will be heading up to Baton Rouge early to officiate that and maybe ride a couple of laps just for the exercise. Meanwhile, it sounds like my Bianchi made it back from wherever the folks at Bicycle World sent it to get the brake cable stops fixed. We're trying out a 5.5cm stem on Danielle's CAAD-10 this week. It's only a 10-degree, so it raises the bar more than I'd like but it seems to be a lot better on her neck because of the shorter reach so we may stick with that for a while.  Perhaps I can find some 36 cm bars with a deeper drop.

Chilled Out

City Park Stables along Marconi

Rode out to the WeMoRi this morning with Quentin and Brendan wearing arm-warmers. It was perhaps a bit cooler than yesterday morning but much, much less windy.  We made good time and arrived at Lakeshore Drive perhaps a couple of minutes early, so we rode east all the way to the base of the Bayou St. John bridge before spotting a couple of headlights coming the other way. I strained in the dark to see who it was and when I realized it was Brian Baum and Daniel we made a quick U-turn fully expecting to be quickly absorbed by a thundering pack. Instead, another two riders went by with the pack still missing so we latched onto them. They were cruising pretty well, but it was by no means a super-hard chase effort, and of course I was still expecting to get absorbed by the pack at any minute. We rounded the corner onto Marconi and then onto Robt. E. Lee, and the pack was still nowhere to be found. Daniel (I think it was Daniel? or was it Jaden?) sat up and got in with us but as we turned onto Wisner Brian was still way off in the distance. Our little group was rolling at a pretty good clip, but it wasn't a chase by any means. We eased up along City Park Avenue and after turning onto Marconi I looked back and could see the group nearing the corner, so other than Brian we were all back together for most of the way down Marconi. The second lap around the park was a little faster than usual, which is to say it was faster than 15 mph. -- still easy enough for conversation. It turns out that someone had flatted on Lakeshore Drive, which explained the long wait for the main group. Afterward, Quentin and Brendan decided to do a few more miles while I headed straight for Starbucks for a cup of coffee. Although I didn't stay all that long, by the time I got back on the bike I was feeling pretty chilled. The air was still quite cool and dry, and I was still rather sweaty from the earlier effort. As I turned into City Park I came up on Quentin and Brendan on their way back, so I guess the timing worked out pretty well.

The Wind and the Will

I pushed the "Start" button on the Garmin, turned on the headlight, and as I clicked my right cleat into the pedal I told Danielle, "Some people aren't going to show up today." A cold front came through last night and although the temperature was still around 60F, the 20 mph northwest wind had convinced me to dig out the arm-warmers anyway. When we got to the meeting spot at the end of Nashville Avenue it was deserted. Two riders arrived but none of the usual regulars were there, and we finally rolled out a few minutes late after a final look down the road for headlights. The wind didn't really hit us until we turned onto Lakeshore Drive heading west. That's when I shifted to the small ring and our speed dropped from 20 mph to 14. Down at West End we picked up a couple of riders, but most of the Metairie/Kenner crew never materialized. We turned around and started down Lakeshore Drive with a 20+ mph wind at our backs, quickly picking up Woody and Judd. Soon we were cruising east at 28 mph with hardly any wind on our faces. Judd sat at the front for a few miles while I contemplated what would come after the turnaround at Seabrook. It was not going to be pretty. The ride back to the west on Lakeshore Drive probably averaged 17 mph, at best, and as we neared the end Woody rode up alongside and said they were going to opt for a lap around the park rather than another ten miles fighting the headwind on the bike path. There was just no will to suffer any more that morning.  We turned around, enjoyed the tailwind down to Wisner, and started the City Park loop. Since there was a significant northern component to the wind direction, we were rolling pretty easily and it was clear that the training momentum had dissipated for the morning. I somehow rolled a few bike lengths off the front and just after passing Esplanade I heard a whistle behind me.  Judd and Woody (all that were left by then) had turned into the park.  So I just continued to City Park Avenue and made the loop down Marconi and Robert E. Lee without ever meeting up with them again. By the end I was seven or eight miles short for the day, but not particularly tired since we'd really only gone hard for that one lap of Lakeshore Drive. Other than the wind, the day has been beautiful. Tomorrow morning should be in the upper 50s, but at least the wind should be back down to single digits by then.

So after years of using just a simple blinking headlight, I've finally had to start using something that will actually illuminate the road.  All of this early morning riding on city streets has made such a thing a necessity. Danielle got me a Light & Motion Urban 350.  This headlight has three brightness settings and one semi-flashing setting and a rechargeable battery. Most mornings right now it's on the brightest setting for at least forty minutes, so even if I remember to dim it and turn it off appropriately, the battery will run down after a couple of long rides. I sure do miss riding in daylight!

At the Track

Saturday's Giro Ride seemed strangely civilized. The turnout was pretty good, the wind was light to nonexistent, the temperature about normal, the humidity, well, the humidity was impressive. For some reason, however, there wasn't much will up at the front to sustain the pain for very long. The Daughter had taken the Volvo out to Jacksonville to meet a friend and see a concert, and since I had to officiate our track championship in Baton Rouge I had rented a tiny little Chevrolet for the weekend. I'd picked it up on Friday, parked it at the house, and then ridden the bike to work. When I got home there was a little dent in the door that hadn't been there before. On the plus side, the city had finally come out, after repeated requests and one photo on my part, and cut the grass on a little triangular section of median that they had been ignoring all summer. On the minus side, they were probably the ones who had dented the door since they had shown up with a big mower on a trailer and various other pieces of equipment. So I wasn't in a good mood Saturday morning. Fortunately, as I was sitting at Starbucks drinking my coffee and complaining about it, Woody gave me the name of a friend of his who does paintless dent repair, which by the way is a pretty amazing process. Near the end of the ride Woody flatted just before the Seabrook bridge and a few of us stopped to help out, which generally consists of offering suggestions on how to change a flat better or faster or more elegantly.

So that afternoon I headed out to Baton Rouge, got stuck in traffic for a while over the spillway, officiated a few races, and was back home by 8 pm. I was back on the road Sunday morning by 6:30 to basically repeat the process, except that the traffic jam was on the way back rather than the way out.

So Danielle got her new Cannondale CAAD 10 on Thursday. Mike Lew, who has known her since she was a baby and who has recently opened a bike shop in Hammond made us a sweet deal on a CAAD 10 Force women's edition in the smallest size they make, which is a 44cm. Even so, that put the handlebars rather high and far away for someone barely 4'10" so we threw away the headset top cap and put on a Slam Your Stem top cap, along with a negative slope 7 cm stem, which involved some creative cable re-routing. The saddle position is fine and the handlebars, although about 2 cm farther out than before and perhaps a bit higher as well, should work OK. We could always to with a tiny 5 m stem or even a downhill stem, although the shorter reach would come at the expense of a higher handlbar.

Life is a compromise.

Tuesday in the Dark

The lovely weather we enjoyed over the weekend is rapidly becoming nothing more than a fond memory. By the time we were ready to head back home from the lakefront Ray's shoes were dripping sweat with each pedal stroke. Granted, Ray could probably be the poster child for hyperhidrosis, but he nonetheless serves as a valid and easily referenced indicator of relative humidity. It is by no means as hot as it might be, however, and in the pre-dawn hour when the Tuesday ride started it was still feeling rather comfortable. As we work our way through town toward the lakefront the group sometimes gets split up a bit. Even 18 mph can seem pretty fast in the dark when you can't quite see what you're riding over, or into. This morning we were rolling along at a pretty good clip and between the overpass and the stoplights and the darkness along Jefferson Davis Parkway some big gaps opened up about which the front of the group didn't know, so we had a general regroupment somewhere around City Park.

By the time we were halfway down Lakeshore Drive the group had picked up a bunch of riders and I guess we were up to around twenty for a while. It was still plenty dark, but not too dark to see that Woody was pushing the pace and Brian Baum was in full complicity. Every once in a while they would ease up a bit, gaps would close, and then Woody would accelerate again. It was definitely a workout, and one that continued pretty much all the way out to Kenner. We got a little break after the turnaround for a bit but soon enough it was all strung out in a long line. Luckily there was practically no wind this morning so I don't think we lost anyone, not even Eddie C who had jumped into the paceline on his mountain bike. Then, right at the end of the lake trail bike path, at the top of the levee, Brian punctured and we had a little siesta amidst all of the Bucktown seafood restaurants.

The ride back, as always, is more commute than training, and the group got split a couple of times when everyone didn't make it through the stop lights together. I got back home sweaty and tired. Situation normal.

Wind and Warmers

Every fall there's that day. That fateful, foreboding day. The first day you feel the need to pull on the arm-warmers. That day was today.

The cold front had moved through Friday night and by Saturday morning there was a strong north wind and the air was cool and dry. It wasn't quite cold enough for arm-warmers, but I did stick an extra layer under my jersey to take the chill off as I rode slowly into the wind to meet the Giro Ride. I wondered what the turnout would be like. The annual MS Tour was this weekend, and we are in-between road season and cyclocross season, so I figured we'd be missing a few. Well despite all of that, the turnout seemed almost normal, Despite the rather brutal wind, the ride was surprisingly fast on the way out. Danielle had gone out to meet the Saturday ride that leaves 15 minutes earlier, and I was surprised to see her riding back alone down Chef Highway as we were heading out. Her neck has been hurting her since Six Gap and she had decided to back off before it got too bad. Anyway, the return trip was relatively slow so we never caught the early group. Other than the wind, though, the weather was perfect for riding.

By Sunday morning the wind had died down quite a bit, but the temperature was down to about 60F, so I dug out my arm-warmers before hitting the road. I arrived at Starbucks a bit before 6:30 and wasn't too surprised that I was the first one there. A number of the regular riders had decided to do a Century Ride over near Gulfport, so that, combined with the second day of the MS Tour, would take a bunch of riders out of the Giro mix. Even so, when I walked back out of Starbucks after getting my coffee I was surprised to be still alone. It wasn't until 6:45 before a few more riders showed up, so I knew we'd have a small group today. We rolled out from Starbucks with maybe seven or eight riders. Fortunately we picked up a number more along Lakeshore Drive, so by the time we came down the overpass onto Hayne Blvd. the group had grown to a respectable size. There seemed to be a general consensus to keep the pace smooth and steady today, and about half of the group spent a lot of time in a nice double paceline. The weather was practically perfect today and I had little inclination to suffer and was quite content with the consensus pace of the day.

Later that morning I rode over to meet the Tulane Sunday social ride. I think we had about ten riders for that ride. We decided to brave River Road in order to do a ride on the levee bike path. Fortunately, traffic was pretty light and there were only a couple of impatient drivers willing to risk everyone's life in order to save themselves a couple of minutes. The temperature had warmed up to the mid-70s, so the arm-warmers stayed at home for this ride. We did almost 30 miles at an average speed of 15 mph, stopping at Breads on Oak on the way back. This was the first time in at least two months I'd ridden on the levee bike path.

Six More Gaps

It was a week before the annual Six Gap Century and I was starting to get a little worried. We had about twelve Tulane riders (well, I'm including Kenny and me) interested in going and the weather forecast was calling for rain. Only a few of those going really had enough miles in their legs for such a long and difficult ride, and the idea of them careening down slippery unfamiliar downhills was a little frightening. Fortunately, as the week wore on the forecast improved and my stress level abated a bit. During that time Kenny strained his back and another rider dropped out because of school, so we were down to eleven.

On Friday I left the office a few minutes early and we met up at the local Enterprise car rental place to pick up three minivans. The plan was to head out around 7:30 am so we would arrive in time to sign in and pick up our numbers, watch some of the criterium, and eat dinner at the local Mexican restaurant in Dahlonega. Most of the riders ended up having a bit of a party the night before we left about which I fortunately know little. While they were doing that I put together a couple more fork-mount sliders so we would have some for the third van.

Saturday morning we learned that David had crashed on the streetcar tracks somewhere and put a gash in the heel of his hand that required stitches, so we were down to ten riders -- still a pretty good group. The drive up to Dahlonega went really smoothly and we got there in plenty of time. After we picked up packets I watched Debbie Milne win the women's criterium again and then walked a couple of blocks to the restaurant to get on the list for a table for ten and about half an hour later we were seated. So basically everything on Saturday went according to plan.

Six Gap actually offers both the full Six Gap Century at 104 miles, and a shorter Three Gap ride at around 55. This was good since the shorter ride with two big climbs was quite enough for a few of the riders. Although the 3-Gap riders are supposed to start an hour after the 6-Gap riders, I think we all started together.

It was cool but not cold at the start this year, despite the overcast sky, and I wore just my summer kit plus a little wind protector under my jersey. We got down to the start 15 or 20 minutes early and blended into the masses a few rows behind the "sub-6-hour" section that they reserve for riders who finished the prior year under that threshold. For a change, I wasn't cold as I waited for the start. I guess the temperature at the start was around 63F which is about perfect for this sort of thing. I had one little bottle of HammerGel, an emergency powerbar, and my phone in my pockets and two full water bottles on the bike. I was riding my old Orbea since the Bianchi is still out getting its cable stops fixed, so I had both the Garmin and the old Campi computer on the handlebar.  Redundant systems. I zeroed the Campi computer and started the Garmin and waited in the middle of the sea of riders. Next to us were Steve J. and Pat F. Ben B., Ben S., Danielle, Grayson, Graeme and the rest of the Tulane crew all started together, kind of walking the bikes as the crowd inched toward the start line. I think I finally clipped in just before crossing the timing mat.

The front part of the group this year was relatively calm this year, but I could tell right away that Ben B. wanted to get closer to the front. Soon a few of us were following him in the left lane moving up closer and closer to the front. You have to understand that, in the case of Six Gap, close to the front means being within the lead 100 or do. Danielle was right there with us for most of the first ten miles or so before the first long climb. Looking up ahead I was a little surprised that there didn't seem to be a group off the front.

So my plan this year was a little different from prior years. I had decided to try and keep the pain level down on the climbs and was open to the idea of stopping at a rest stop, which I'd never done before except to wait for an ambulance. The first couple of climbs went pretty well and I rode up them at my own pace, spinning a 39x25, keeping the 27 in reserve for later when I knew I'd need it.

By the time I crested the first "gap" Ben and Graeme were up ahead somewhere. Ben Spain and Steve were nearby, with Ben up the road a bit and Steve dropping back a bit. Things got split up a bit on Jack's Gap, but I was happy that I had company around me the whole time. As usual, the long climb up Hogpen featured a few miles of tortured climbing at 5 mph in the 39x27. Up at the top I saw Ben S and Graeme at the rest stop, but I didn't want to stop yet so I continued on, hitting 50 or so on the downhill. Somewhere on the flatter section between Hogpen and Wolfpen Steve caught up to me and a small group I had latched onto, but once we started up the Wolfpen climb he rode up ahead. Graeme was riding with a low gear of 39x23 and was very unsure about whether he was going to be able to make it up the next climb, but he rode away from me as I slowly spun and stood and spun and stood and spun my way up Wolfpen. By then my lower back was killing me and my right foot was screaming. On the plus side, all of the standing was giving my neck and upper back enough relief that those areas didn't hurt any more than usual.I stopped for a few minutes at the top of Wolfpen where Steve had also stopped to fill a water bottle. Steve would later pass me on the next climb.

So I finally made it over the last climb, Woody's Gap, flew down the downhill picking up one other rider toward the bottom as we came around the sharp hairpin turn. As usual it was looking like I'd be finishing at somewhere around 6 hours. Fortunately, the rider I was with was working with me and helping keep my speed up, and when a pair of faster riders came around us we both latched onto their wheels. Those two riders got us going a little faster but it wasn't looking like I'd make it to the finish in under 6 hours. The last ten miles or so were really fun. The rider I'd come down Woody's Gap with dropped off, but the other two were basically riding a team time trial with me mostly hanging on the back and just taking an occasional pull. Thanks to their help I ended up finishing at 6:01:43, so considering the fact that I'd stopped for water, that time was right in line with my usual times for this ride. Steve finished at 6:00:35. By the time I finished, Ben had already been there for over half an hour. He'd finished at 5:32:18, which was 26th overall.

So Ben Bradley was 6th in the 34-and-under KOM competition, 2nd in the 25-29 age group, and  26th overall. Steve was 107th (18th in the 50-54 group), I was 111th (first in the 60-64 group) , Ben Spain 172nd. Graeme finished at 6:18:55 with Ben. Meanwhile, Danielle was 8th in the 3-Gap KOM competition. I'm not sure where she finished overall since they don't have those results up on the website yet. They were using disposable chip timing, so there a long list of about 400 riders on the "Missing Splits" page.

We finally rolled out of Dahlonega in a light drizzle for the long drive home. That 9 hour drive feels really long after a day with a 5 am wake-up and 6-hour ride in the mountains. We got into New Orleans around 1 am, which was right when we had expected. I was basically worthless at work on Monday, of course.

Solid Month, Ten Long Years

The weather gods have been smiling on my riding schedule lately with the rather unexpected result that I haven't missed a day in over four weeks. During that time I have logged three consecutive 300+ mile weeks and a total of 1,284 miles, without even leaving the city. What does that mean?  Well, nothing really. A pretty large share of those miles would hardly be considered training unless simply sitting on the bike and moving your legs counts. The past couple of days have been pretty great since a cold front came through bringing lots of wind but much, much drier air. It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

Even so, it's pretty unusual to have such a long unbroken streak of rides that hasn't been interrupted by weather or other incursions. Perhaps the fact that I've been forced to ride earlier in the morning since the river levee bike path was torn up has something to do with it. Since we'll be heading up to Dahlonega this weekend for the annual pilgrimage to the Six Gap Century I will at least have a break on Saturday. It's about a 9-hour drive, so it's doubtful I'll get on the bike that day, which is probably a good thing. Last year I started that 104-mile ride with sore legs. This will the sixth year I've done the ride - well fifth if you don't count the year I fell halfway through an broke my collarbone. I'm going up with a bunch of Tulane riders in three rented minivans.  Should be interesting. Some are doing just the 3-Gap ride, which will no doubt be quite challenging enough.

While I'm on the subject of history, it's been ten years since I started this blog, and although Facebook and other forms of electronic communication have definitely cut into posting frequency I've accumulated 1,930 posts since then. I often go back to review old posts and race reports in order to find information about a particular race, or which year it was when something happened. When you've been racing for forty-plus years the races and courses tend to blend together a bit, so it's nice to have a log to which to refer now and then.

So this year I'll be riding Six Gap on my old aluminum/carbon Orbea that I bought from Gina Voci back at the end of 2007 (yes, I had to look back in my blog to see when it had been). That bike has lots of battle scars from lots of races and lots and lots of miles but it's still going strong even if the rear shifter is so worn that it doesn't really "click" when shifting sometimes, and often hesitates to shift at all.

The Bianchi had to get shipped back to wherever the bike ship ships them in order to get its brake cable stops re-riveted back on. A few weeks ago my right shifter had gotten so gunked up from a summer of sweat and rain and dirt that the rear brake cable was hanging up. I replaced the rear section of housing which accomplished nothing, so I had to take it off and push out the brake lever pin to clean it up since that's what was causing the problem. In the process I discovered that one of the two tiny aluminum rivets on each of the top tube cable stops had broken. Making the repair without the appropriate tool small enough to get into the front part of the triangle on my 50cm frame would have been kind of sketchy, so the shop called the Bianchi folks who said to send it back. Anyway, I was certainly not going to risk having one of the brake cable stops let go halfway down one of the 50 mph descents at Six Gap. On the plus side, I still had my 12-27 10-speed cassette. On the minus side, I'd just bought an 11-speed 11-27 cassette. Meanwhile, I ordered a 44cm Cannondale Caad 10 women's edition for Danielle though Mike Lew who recently opened a new bike shop up in Hammond. Mike had fixed me up with my Campi Record Cervelo Prodigy way back in -- I don't know when since it was before my blog. Anyway, it won't arrive for a few weeks since it's one of the new ones, but it was a great deal and has a short enough head tube that I think we can do a reasonable job of fitting it to a 4'10" rider once we deal with the ridiculous headset top cap and track down a teeny tiny stem.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty routine riding, Lots of medium paced group rides, a few blazing fast Giro Rides, but no trips to the northshore or anything. The Tulane Cycling training center has been seeing more and more use lately, which is great, and yesterday I received some autographed jerseys from one of our main sponsors who is involved with Six-day racing in England. One of them is Jason Kenny's from the Rotterdam Six Day 2013. He is reigning Olympic sprint champion in both individual and team sprint. It's particularly interesting because he crashed in it so the back and collar are all ripped up and it is stained both with his blood and paint from the blue band.  Very cool. It still smells of sweat. Others are from Chris Hoy, Bauke Mollema (Tour de France), and Gregory Baugé from Rotterdam Six Day 2013, when he was reigning world champion. He's the Frenchman who got silver in individual and team sprint at London 2012 Olympics. So we have the full podium from the sprint in London in 2012!  Now we just need to get them framed!

Transitioning - Last Local Road Race Weekend

Thursday morning on the lake heading back east from the casino

It looked pretty good on paper. The LAMBRA Criterium Championship in Baton Rouge on Saturday, followed by the LAMBRA Age-Graded Road Championship (plus a few other non-championship age groups) on Sunday in St. Francisville. As the weekend approached, however, the weather forecast was looking bad - 80% chance of rain both days. I figured I'd be racing in the rain. On Wednesday or Thursday the criterium promoter, Dustin, called to talk about cancelling the criterium. There were two corners on the course around the state capitol building that were known to be slick - really slick - when wet. Instead, we decided to use a shortened course that avoided those corners. That took the lap distance down to around six-tenths of a mile and left us with a relatively non-technical criterium, but at this late date in the season re-scheduling was not really a viable option. So when Danielle and I left for Baton Rouge early Saturday morning I was happy to find a relatively clear morning sky. The Masters and Women were two of the first three races on the schedule and so hope for a dry criterium was building. As we neared Baton Rouge the sky became more overcast but was still looking OK. We set up the big NOBC tent, planted the flag, and I pinned on my number for the Master's race.

Rain starting to fall in the Women's race

The 40+/55+ race had a smallish field of 13 or so. No doubt many riders had written the race off because of the weather forecast. We were only a few laps into the race when the field split with a break of five riders up the road. Mark was in there, and I felt he had a good chance for the win on this course, so I didn't take the brief opportunity I had to make the bridge up to them.

With three laps to go I could see the break closing in on us from behind, but then there was a surge and on the next lap they gave us the bell. One rider attacked with me right on his wheel, but  halfway through the lap he hesitated and two riders started coming around on the left. I latched onto the second wheel just moments before the sprint started and it was looking pretty good until I inexplicably drifted a little wide on the curve just before the finish line and lost just enough momentum that I couldn't get past one of them in time. That placed me 7th overall, 2nd in the 55+. Mark attacked the break early on the last lap and almost made it to the line, taking 2nd overall and 1st in the 55+.

Final laps in the deluge

The Juniors raced next, and then as the Women started to warm up the rain started to come down. At first it was fairly light, but unfortunately our alternate course featured the exact same slick old concrete in turn #1 that had caused us to re-route the race in the first place. When one of the women went down there during warmup I knew it wasn't going to be good and warned Danielle to be extra careful there. The women's race started and by about the second lap they were all riding alone, which was probably a good thing. I went over to turn 1 to take some photos and realized that there was some nice concrete on the outside of the turn, so I yelled at our riders to stay wide on turn 1, which I guess helped. With three laps to go the sky just opened up and a serious thunderstorm started, so they shortened the race a bit and got them all safely finished - Danielle finished 3rd. Moments later the rain and wind got even worse. The tent next to us actually broke and the expensive LAMBRA finish line camera was sent crashing to the concrete. A little later they decided to cancel the remaining races as there was no sign the weather would improve any time soon. The LAMBRA camera luckily survived but the big expensive tripod was seriously damaged, the printer got soaked with rain, and the ethernet cable to the camera got broken. We waited a while for the rain to ease up a bit and threw all the wet stuff into the car and headed back to New Orleans. Oh well......

So by Sunday the weather was looking a whole lot better. I picked up Brian B and we made the two-hour drive up to St. Francisville. Turnout for the age-graded road races was pretty good. Brian would be riding the 40+ race and I'd be in the 55+/60+ race. Our little 44 mile race had, somewhat surprisingly, 17 riders, I think. Mark had an outside chance of moving into the lead in the 55+ LCCS points standings, but it would only be possible if Stan somehow placed well below him in the race, which was pretty unlikely. In fact, Stan was well aware of the situation and as far as I could tell was not going to be giving Mark any rope. The race started out fast. There was a little bridge a mile or so from the start that had some of those lengthwise seams on it. The officials warned us about them at the start. Well, we're flying down the downhill toward that bridge at 35 mph with me about 4th or 5th wheel when one of the guys ahead of me rides straight into the crack, wobbles enough that I'm ready for a big crash, then luckily pops out. We cross the bridge and then I hear a crash behind me. I didn't need to look to know what had happened. That one resulted in a concussion and broken collarbone.

There wasn't any time to worry about the crash, however, because Mark was attacking pretty much every hill on the first of the two laps. That made for a pretty punchy first lap with an average speed of around 24 mph that included a number of really fast sections. Most of the field survived, but by the time we started the second lap it was clear that the surges had done some damage. I guess we were five miles or so into the second lap when Butch pushed it a bit going up one of the hills with me on his wheel. It wasn't an attack, really, and as we came over the top he pulled over and gave me the elbow. I didn't think there was any reason to pull through, assuming that the whole group was on my wheel, so I just followed his wheel. Then he looked back, looked over at me and said, "Randy, they're lettin' us go." I glanced back to find an inexplicably large gap and as I pulled through I said to Butch, "Why are they doing that?" Anyway, I figured this might put some pressure on the riders who had been sitting in while Mark had been attacking so the two of us started rotating at a moderate speed on the assumption we'd be pulled back within a mile or so. Well, a few miles later the gap was still holding steady and I was starting to wonder what was going on back there. As it turns out, Mike Lew had been attacking the field repeatedly. Finally, he broke free and a little while later I hear a wheel coming up from behind pretty fast. It was just Mike, and the rest of the field was still a good thirty seconds back. Butch and I had been about ready to pack it in, but when Mike rolled up going three mph faster he said, "Come on, boys!" so we latched on. Well, that was about the last we saw of the field. I learned later that Mark had cramped up pretty badly and dropped off the back. Meanwhile, the three of us were just doing this nice team time trial. Now, had I been feeling a little more aggressive I should have started attacking the hills over the final seven miles, but frankly I was having a hard time getting motivated about that. Unless we were caught, which was looking more and more unlikely, Mike would win the 40+ race and Butch and I would be sprinting it out for 1st and 2nd in the 60+ race. With three miles to go Butch started taking easier and easier pulls, and then, after Mike had taken his pull and swung off, Butch didn't come through. Mike looked over for a moment and then just went back to the front and pulled the last three miles of the race with Butch on his wheel and me on Butch's. When Butch jumped at the 200 meter mark I did too but then I went to shift to a bigger gear and it dropped all the way down to the 11.  We weren't going nearly fast enough for an 11, but it was too late to do anything about it. My cadence dropped momentarily to about 70 and I stood on the pedals trying to get them going again, but the finish was coming up fast and I never got past Butch's handlebars before the line. A little later Brian sprinted out of the lead break in the 40+ race to take a well-deserved 3rd as Ed Novak eeked out the win amidst loud animal noises by about a thousanth of a second.

Age of the Dinosaurs, Rocky Mount and the TT Championships

The Saturday Giro

Things are busy around here lately. The LAMBRA race calendar for August is pretty full, mostly with championship races. The students started returning to the neighborhood around Tulane a couple of weeks ago, and Danielle arrived from Olympia last week. Most classes started today. I like this time of year when things are busy around the university area and there are lots of students and other folks out and about. It's been busy at work as well, so between work and LAMBRA and Tulane Cycling and racing and training there hasn't been a whole lot of spare energy.

So two weekends ago I headed up to Shreveport, or to be exact Bossier City, early on a Friday afternoon. It's a 5+ hour drive and I wanted to get to the bike shop in time to pick up race numbers so I wouldn't have to do that in the morning. Rocky Mount is one of my favorite races and this year they switched it from Omnium format to Stage Race format, but it wasn't quite that simple. You see, we were using the first stage, the road race, as the LAMBRA Road Championship. We had done that last year when it was an omnium. on the face of it, since the RR was the first stage, it shouldn't have presented a problem. As it turned out, however, there was some dissension in the ranks concerning the awarding of LCCS points. I had planned to just score the category races as omniums rather than stage races since some riders were planning on riding only the first stage because that was the road championship for the skill-based races/categories. After I scored the whole event that way and put it up on the web I got some feedback from riders who had decided to skip the event on the assumption that it would be scored as a stage race. Since only the top two stage races count toward the annual LCCS rankings, that was not an unreasonable decision for riders who had already had high placings in two stage races. So I ended up re-scoring the whole thing as a stage race and then also awarding road race points to those riders who had registered only for the road race.

Anyway, to get back to the racing, I was signed up for the 55+ race along with teammate Mark McMurry. Mark was getting dangerously close to the top of the 55+ LCCS ranking so although he often rides Cat. 1/2/3 or 40+, he had decided to race with the dinosaurs instead. The field was pretty small, which was not unexpected, and the road race started out pretty slow. The long 30 mile course has a couple of significant hills on it and so I wasn't too surprised when Shreveport rider and TT specialist Tim P attacked the first big one. I was right there on his wheel all the way up the hill and then, thinking the pack was right behind me, I made the crucial mistake of easing up over the top. By the time I realized  how big the gap was it was too late and he was gone and I was stuck in the middle. The unresponsive pack turned out to be the theme for the weekend. There was virtually no attempt to chase him down and soon he was out of sight with the pack meandering along at a slow speed with only an occasional and brief acceleration. With about ten miles left to go Mark put a little pressure on going up one of the hills, glanced back to see that he had a gap, and decided to go for it. I was sitting at the front and just tooled along at like 20 mph, amazed that nobody was attacking. There were a few little surges, but basically they were content to let me sit on the front at 20 mph while Mark rode off into the distance. So of course Tim won, Mark came second, and then the pack finally arrived 3+ minutes later. The generally uphill sprint was fun and I should have won it, but I inexplicably eased up just before the finish line, not realizing there was someone coming up fast on my left. I'm still kicking myself for that one.

Tulane Cycling Friday Coffee Ride

The 5 mi. TT was held a few hours later from the same location and featured a fast (40-45 mph - some hit 49) downhill followed by a hairpin turn, a mile or so of light fast tailwind, and then a rather brutal mile of climbing back up to the finish. I kind of screwed up by coming around a right-hand turn in a huge gear and deciding not to shift for the steep little uphill right after it. I totally bogged down coming over the top and had to ease up a bit to recover. Even so I wasn't too displeased with my effort, which of course dropped me down to like 5th on GC as usual. The next morning was the criterium which is on a pretty nice parking lot course around a small community college. I was prepared for a hard ride but it didn't really turn out that way. Tim, who had won both the road race and time trial, had dropped out - he doesn't like criteriums with a passion - so Mark was now in the lead on GC with a pretty decent gap. From the start I led out a moderately fast lap, after which Mark came through, saw an unexpected gap with me still sitting on the front, and took off. Again, there was virtually no chase as I sat on the front going slow and watching Mark ride away from us. At the rate we were going I knew he would lap us, and when I heard the motorcycle coming up from behind wondered what would happen next. Well, Mark just kind of blew past the group through the technical section of the course and so I jumped hard to catch his wheel along with a couple others. I was hoping to split the pack here, but half a lap later I glanced back and it was all back together so I just let Mark ride off the front again, not that he needed to. Again, they just let him go, and again I didn't win the pack sprint. Somehow, however, thanks to Tim dropping out and some time bonuses I ended up in 3rd place, so between the two of us we easily covered our hotel room, which constitutes a successful weekend any way you look at it.

So last week was fairly routine rides except that Danielle came along on a couple of them. The LAMBRA TT championship was on Sunday and I was officiating. Given my usual TT performances I wasn't too disappointed about not being able to ride this one, and was able to enjoy the Saturday Giro Ride without worrying about having tired legs for Sunday. The TT went pretty smoothly, and despite the hot and humid conditions Jaden set a new course/LAMBRA 40km record of 52:17, while Stephanie set a new women's record of 59:28. It must have been ten years since we've had a woman go significantly under an hour, so I was really happy to see that.

Reflecting on the TT results afterward, and looking at the times of some of the younger riders compared to those of the old guys who have been dominating many of the time trials for a long, long time, I thought to myself, "The age of the dinosaurs is drawing to a close."  It has been a long time coming, but I am truly glad to see these younger riders kicking ass. We had one casualty in the TT when Tim Doiron failed to notice some random recumbent rider who I guess had gotten on the TT course around the boat launch halfway back from the turnaround. He tried to swerve around at the last minute but caught the left side of the trike and went down hard putting a deep gash in his jaw and upper lip that required stitches. Later, after the TT championships, we had the Louisiana Senior Olympic Games time trial on the same course. I was a little worried about the older guys being out there for 40km on such a hot day. Two of them apparently turned around early, thinking they had gotten to the turnaround that was actually about five miles farther down the road. I have no idea how they got that wrong since over eighty riders ahead of them had gotten it right.

View from the Back

Me, Mark, Paul, and Mike

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

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

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

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

Sunrise Season

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

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

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

(Giro)²

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

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

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

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

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

East Meets West - Coming Together

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

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

Any opportunity for a nap

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

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

Rolling and Bowling

The Sunday Giro Meeting

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

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

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

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

Stuff you see around a university

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

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