Morning Ride Complications

A quick glance at the thermometer had me searching through the bike drawer for a long-sleeved jersey and knickers this morning. I figured it was a bit much, but knew I'd be chilled on the ride out to the lakefront without the fleecy comfort of those items. After waiting a few extra minutes for Brian, who didn't show up until we were out at the lakefront, we headed north in to a moderate headwind to meet the group. We were a bit late, but things went normally for the out-and-back on Lakeshore Drive, which is to say it started slow and ended fast.  I remarked to someone that perhaps there were a few people who were trying to make up for yesterday's rained-out WeMoRi.

Anyway, the ride out on the lakefront bike path to Kenner was pretty messy. There was still a lot of water on the path that was draining down from the levee, so every once in a while I'd get a face full of wheel spray. At least I wasn't worried about my headset getting water in it.  I'd finally pulled it apart last night and found the bottom race and bearings to be just completely rusted and trashed.  I cleaned them up as best I could, applied a liberal coating of grease, put it all back together, and fired off an email to Marc at the bike shop asking him to go ahead and order me a replacement. Trying to figure out which headset works for which bike nowadays is really difficult, so I figured I'd leave it to the experts this time.

So after a pretty fast ride out to the casino, we turned back toward town, still with a pretty good crosswind of course, but nobody seemed interested in pushing the pace much.  I guess we were halfway back when Will, who had been right in front of me, suddenly sat up and dropped back.  I looked down to see he had a flat rear tire. Everyone stopped, but it took forever for him to get that Continental tire back onto the Mavic rim, and as soon as he put the wheel back on the bike everyone started rolling out.  Problem was, his chain and derailleur were all jacked up, probably because he'd put the bike upside-down to take the wheel out. So one little group is rolling off ahead of a smaller group and we're chatting and soft-pedaling expecting Rich and him to catch up. Finally I look back and they are like half a mile back down the road and stopped. I figured the tire had gone flat again, but anyway we just continued out to Causeway where I stopped to wait.

As if the wheel spray in my face and up my ass, and the interminable tire change weren't enough, on the way back we had to detour from out usual route through the park because a film crew had taken over the main road and the circle around the art museum.  By the time I got home I was about half an hour behind schedule.  On the plus side, I got a new pair of mountain bike shoes today.  My old ones had literally come apart at the seams at the last cyclocross race, and when I found these on closeout, in my size, with an additional 20% off plus free shipping, I just couldn't resist. Perhaps I'll get to try them out this weekend at the cyclocross race up in Natchez.

The Next Front

It's 8 am on a Wednesday and it's been raining for hours.  The next cold front is moving through the area that will bring morning temperatures down into the 50s and upper 40s through the weekend. So rather than riding, I've been sitting around drinking coffee, eating more than I actually need, and watching the morning news shows. On the plus side, I guess that gives me a little time to catch up on the blog.

November started off with a cyclocross race just across the river in New Orleans. À propos to the event, it rained all morning, turning the course into a sloppy, muddy, partially flooded, fire-ant infested quagmire. Naturally, the riders loved it. I was signed up to help with officiating, along with a few others, and had brought my bike just for fun. After wading around in the water and mud for a while I slipped out in-between races to ride a lap around the course, largely out of curiosity but also to decide if I really wanted to spend an hour riding it in the Cat. 1/2/3 race, for which I was entirely unqualified. Although I was able to stay mostly upright, it was quite clear that my legs would not long survive pushing my low gear of 42x27 through the mud for an hour. The one lap I did, however, was reasonably satisfying. It turned out to be good that I decided not to race. When I took off my mountain bike shoes I discovered that the sole had pulled halfway off from the rest of the shoe. I took it as a sign.

The next weekend was the annual Varsity to Varsity ride that the LSU collegiate team hosts. I offered to drive a few of the Tulane riders up to Baton Rouge, after which I drove back to New Orleans, met up with another Tulane rider, and started riding upriver to meet the group somewhere along its 104+ mile route. Out around Ormond we ran into Steve, who turned around to join us.  We ended up a bit past Reserve by the time we met the group, so that turned into a 90-mile day, which was perfect.

Last Thursday I rode out with the usual 5:45 am group toward the lakefront. It was warm and humid and we were fully expecting to get in the usual morning ride before the next front came through.

Saturday Giro Paceline

Well, right when we got to Lakeshore Drive the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in literally 30 seconds and a 30+ mph wind swept across the lake as it started to rain.  We rolled along to the west debating what to do until everything to the west just turned to an opaque grey as if a big curtain had dropped. It was pouring rain at West End, so we quickly turned around, nearly getting blown right off the road in the process.  The rest of the group bailed out on Marconi, but I continued on Lakeshore Drive to look for Danielle who had turned east when we'd hit Lakeshore drive. I rode out almost to Elysian Fields, by which time I should have seen her coming toward me, so I stopped and tried, unsuccessfully, to call her.  Touch screens do not work well in the rain!  I figured she had turned back earlier and was already on her way home, so I headed home myself. The crosswind on Lakeshore Drive was scary strong, and riding over the Bayou St. John bridge was pretty much a white-knuckle affair.  As it turned out, I'd just missed Danielle who had bailed out at Elysian Fields or Franklin, stopped at a Burger King to try and call, and then headed home.  I got home shortly before she did. Anyway, it was a dramatic morning.

Coming over the firetower hill, heading north toward Enon

Last Sunday I ventured across the lake for a nice ride in the country.  The weather by then was nearly perfect and the pace was moderate, so it turned into a really good ride for this time of year. By yesterday morning it was already clear that the weather was going to go downhill by evening and there were already warnings about high winds and serious rain for that evening.  The morning ride featured a strong southeast wind but temperatures still rather warm.  Nobody seemed willing to ride at the front into the wind and I ended up riding out ahead of the group all the way past the turnaround at Seabrook. I eased up as the tailwind took effect and prepared to latch onto the group that I knew would be going 30 mph when it caught.  Everyone stayed together past Causeway on the bike path until someone let a little gap open as we went over the Suburban Canal bridge.  After rounding the two curves following the bridge a few of us took off in pursuit to try and make the bridge up to the front group that was probably 10-15 seconds ahead. I took a pretty hard pull at 30 mph and closed a lot of the gap, but then whoever was behind me basically attacked. I barely got his wheel when he went past at 33 mph, but then I blew up just about 50 meters before catching the group. So close!  I waited for a couple others to catch me and we ended up with a nice 3-person paceline the rest of the way out. Naturally, the ride back was into a nice headwind.  Brian spent most of the distance sitting at the front pulling everyone at a steady 20 mph with me on his wheel and Joe coming around to take a pull now and then.

Looks like the rain is finally ending.  Time to go to work.

Intermission

Back in the day, and I mean way back in the day, there was something called the "off-season." Sure, there were rumors of riders up in the northeast racing in the cold and mud, but for the most part they were entirely unconfirmed. By the end of October everyone was riding slower and shorter and spending time catching up on long-neglected chores, or studies, or bike maintenance. It was time to re-grease the bottom bracket and headset, patch the pile of flat tubulars, and pull out the long-sleeve wool jerseys and long tights.

Those days are gone.

What was once the off-season is now the scant one or two weeks between the last road race and the first cyclocross race.  Sometimes less.  So this weekend was, as close as I can tell, it. After a nice Friday coffee ride with some of the Tulane riders, I got up Saturday morning in the dark to ride out to the Giro Ride. If I'd been able to see the sky in the pre-dawn darkness I'd have seen nothing but clouds. The hurricane that had plowed into the west coast of Mexico was now an area of rain half the size of Texas inching its way toward Louisiana.  Things were not looking good for Sunday, so I had stuck a packet of HammerGel in my pocket with the idea of maybe putting in a few extra miles afterward.

The typical group was on hand for the 7 am roll-out under a dark, cloudy sky, and one of the guys, surveying the roster, remarked that it would probably be a fast ride.  But it wasn't. Not that it was exactly a casual pace, but it was definitely one of the smoothest, most steady rides of the year.  It seemed that almost everyone was on the same page. Indeed, I had the feeling that the weekend was a kind of intermission for everyone - a time to throttle back a bit between road and cyclocross seasons.  Now, I'm quite sure that most of the riders in attendance had no plans whatsoever of racing cyclocross, but it was just that all of the necessary cues had come together on the same weekend.  There were no nearby races, there were no nearby charity rides, it was the last and darkest weekend of daylight savings time, and it was cloudy and breezy.  For a change I made a few intentional efforts rather than merely attempting to respond to the efforts of the guys on the front.

So as the Giro was winding down along Lakeshore Drive I mentioned I was thinking about doing a few extra miles on the lake trail bike path. When everyone else turned off at Marconi, Ben, Jaden, Grayson and I continued on.  I was thinking we'd ride out to Kenner and turn around, but once we got out there we decided to do the ride around the back of the airport to the river bike path and come back into town that way. That particular route involves a couple of little quirks. One is the gate at the pumping station near I-10 which was closed. That required a bit of a detour in order to get past I-10.  The second thing about the route is that the road around the back of the airport, right at the end of the east-west runway, is gravel.  Fortunately it was in pretty good shape since we haven't had much rain around here in weeks.  Once we got to the river we checked out the levee bike path, but was still closed, so we rode down Jefferson Highway all the way in to Moss Street where we could finally get back on the bike path.  By that point I Grayson was starting to struggle a bit and I figured he was probably about to bonk, but since we only had about six or seven miles to go I didn't say anything.  Well, a little while later Jaden looked back and couldn't see Grayson.  We turned back and found him sitting on the side of the levee.  Jaden gave him something to eat and he told us he's just ride back in easy, so we cruised the last few miles.

Ready for 'Cross

Well, as predicted, it started raining around 3 am this morning and probably won't stop for the next day - or two. With 88 miles yesterday I decided to take a rest day today. Of course, that didn't involve actual "rest."  After a couple cups of coffee I ended up heading down to the basement to transform the Pennine from "rain bike" to "cyclocross bike."  It's a very retro version of a not-quite correct cyclocross bike, but for the kind of cyclocross riding I'm likely to do it will suffice.  First, I removed the fenders. Then I rescued the clincher cyclocross wheels from the corner where they've been all summer and put the on the bike. Since they are 700C and my regular wheels for that bike are old 27" I then had to readjust the brakes. Since I have an antique 5-speed freewheel on the cyclocross wheel that is something like a 15-27, I then had to remove the antique Simplex derailleur and replace it with an equally antique Suntour long-cage derailleur. That completed the transformation, such as it is.

Next, I finally decided to re-wire the light fixture in the hallway that has a bad socket that's been sputtering lately and trying to burn down the house, so I headed over to the hardware store in the rain to pick up three new light sockets so I could re-wire the whole thing, which of course involved a little creativity since they didn't have exactly the kind of socket I needed. That's about when I got the email that my bank account was overdrafted.  Turns out the last couple of deposits I'd made went into my savings account instead of my checking account.

In the middle of all of this, the damned swipe-card door lock on the Tulane cycling center isn't working AGAIN.  Since I'm the only one on this side of Lake Pontchartrain with the key, and since the lousy rainy weather had everyone wanting to put in some time on the WattBikes, there were a few text messages and emails going around and a couple of people coming over to pick up or return the key.  This whole thing with the door lock has been very frustrating.  Kind of like the situation I had with my AT&T Internet.  They are trying the same "fixes" over and over again and expecting a different result each time, which of course isn't happening.  Something's broken but I don't know enough about how the thing works to guess whether it's the lock itself, the wireless connection to the server, or the underlying data that the lock needs in order to know which ID cards are valid for that room.  I guess we're going to have to exhaust every other possibility, more than once, before actually replacing the lock or figuring out what the real problem is.

While You Were Riding

I hated to miss three days of riding, especially this time of year, but duty called. Arriving via shuttle with Andy Hollinger of Texas in Colorado Springs on Friday afternoon, with a clear blue sky and temperatures in the 60s, my first thought was, "I wish I had my bike."  Alas, I was travelling light and really wouldn't have any time to ride anyway.

In keeping with the "breath of fresh air" mentality currently driving things at USA Cycling since the arrival of the new CEO, this year's annual meeting of the Local Associations was combined with the Race Director's meeting and was held mostly at the Marriott hotel near USAC headquarters.  Although I do miss the years when we met at the USOC, I must admit that the amenities at the hotel certainly made for a very nice meeting. There had been meetings all day on Friday that were focused on Mountain Bike, which of course I missed, but at least I was there in time for the open bar and dinner at USAC headquarters that evening. I wish I could remember all of the names of the people I meet at these meetings.  Perhaps I should invest in a body camera? Anyway, we started out at 8 am Saturday for a full day of sessions, the first of which was an overview of new directions by the new CEO Derek Bouchard-Hall. One thing that really separates this particular CEO from his predecessors is that he has a legitimate road racing background (on top of an impressive business one) that includes everything from Cat. 5 to Paris-Roubaix, Gent-Wevelgem and the 2000 Olympics. Notably, he commented during the meeting that all the time he was racing he was basically unaware of the army of people, mostly volunteers, that kept the whole U.S. bike racing thing going.

I have a lot of scribbled notes from the meeting, which I think was about the best one we've had yet. In no particular order, here are the things that I thought particularly significant:

Overall take-away:  There is presently a lot of enthusiasm and, dare I say, excitement at USAC. Nonetheless, USAC and in particular the Board will have to make some hard decisions about policies for 2016. Funding priorities will shift, probably gradually, a bit away from elite athletics and more toward membership. Despite claiming around 70,000 members, racing licenses are down 1-2%, events are down 3-5%, and the number of Racer-days is down about 20%.

Finances: USAC has been bleeding for the past couple of  years and will certainly not be able to reverse that trend during the 2016 year. The current annual run rate loss is around $1M. On the plus side, however, there is a very healthy reserve in place that will allow for a strong balance sheet, so dramatic cuts will not be necessary right now and there is some time to make changes aimed at increasing revenue and decreasing losses. A couple of the key points regarding budget and costs are:  (1) the attempt to make National Championships self-funding has clearly failed. The national championships lose about $700k annually. (2) The elite athletics program, which should be funded almost entirely through the USAC Development Foundation, the USOC, and other sources, lost $1.4 million. It will take some time to unwind some of that (i.e. contracts, houses in Italy and Belgium, etc.), but clearly the goal is to minimize the amount of membership revenue that is subsidizing the elite athletics programs. Even so, our successes internationally have been mainly in women's road racing and BMX, and we basically don't even try to compete in track. Unlike other countries, USAC doesn't get any government support for its national teams. (3) The membership programs (licenses, event permits, etc.) actually generates about $800k in "profit."

Policy Changes:  Derek is clearly very interested in expanding anti-doping, women's cycling, safety, and advocacy.  Those are all things that have generated a lot of feedback from the membership.

Organizational Changes: There will be a Membership Director position for which they are currently recruiting.  The entire IT system will be completely re-built with the help of an external consultant. They expect this to be substantially done by the end of 2016. There are real efforts to work more closely with organizations like USABMX and ATRA. Another goal is to make national championships self-funded within two years. As we've all seen, USAC is trying to increase its relevance to non-traditional events like fondos, charity rides, etc.

Possibilities:  Some things that might happen in 2016 include making the Race Director certification optional until it can be improved, reducing the cost of 1-day licenses or providing rebates to promoters for them (if it doesn't impact annual license sales too much), doubling anti-doping testing and removing the Local Association funding requirement.

Insurance: The take-home message here is that we have one of the best insurance advisors in the country (Willis Global Sports Services) working with USAC *for free* (he has strong personal connections to racing) to make sure we get the best coverage at the lowest cost and have solid risk management policies in place. USAC currently charges $3.60 per rider per day for races.  The actual cost works out to about $3.40. Bike racing averages 2.5 deaths per year at USAC events and the average claim that the insurance company pays is $635,000, with the largest $4.25 million.  Since 2004, USAC's cost for insurance has been around $6M, but the insurance companies have paid out more like $16 million. For the record, rider surcharges cover the general liability event coverage while license fees cover the excess medical rider accident coverage.

Marketing: This brief session was focused mainly on the really large races like Joe Martin and Cross-Reno so some of it just didn't apply to local events, but there were a few take-aways for me:  Partnering with a marketing firm as a sponsor can work well.  Holding a raffle with the sponsor's information printed on the back of the tickets can work. Making a big inforgraphic for an event can work. Expanding the podium to the top 5 or 7 riders is appreciated.

Local Association Agreements: USAC is relaxing much of the documentation requirements for the local associations. In the past we had to submit financial statements, tax returns, etc.  Now we will  just need to provide them upon request, going back three years.

Fees: As usual there was a ton of discussion about the various fees and also as usual there was little consensus.  Most people would like a lower 1-day license fee, especially if it would allow them to build it into the registration fee so that the Cat. 5s are paying the same entry fees as everyone else, even if the promoter is not making much per entry.

Race Director Certification: The requirement that people be certified Race Directors in order to get event permits has been pretty much a failure. USAC is looking for an advisory committee for the RD program.  Certification will probably not be required for 2016.

Tools:  Check out the UCI "Road Races Organizer's Guide."  It is very comprehensive and basically tells you how to run the Tour de France.  USAC will try to provide more demographic data for the Local Associations and promoters.

Women:  There was a short panel on women's racing that mostly covered some current successful programs like littlebellas.com and betibikebash.com.  The bottom line is that we need a woman to step up and take ownership of promoting women's racing.

Racing Rules:  Yeah, that wasn't covered at all. USAC just announced the new Technical Director, Chuck Hodge.  The Sport Committees are meeting this week in Colorado Springs, so I guess we won't hear anything solid about rule changes for a little while yet.

Rocktoberfesting

This morning's ride on the lakefront was pretty nice.

Rocktoberfest is a late-season local criterium that's been held off-and-on since 1999. It had been started by the Lakeshore Cycling Club, and later adopted by the NOBC after that club dissolved. Until this year, the last time it was held was 2009. So how is it that it happened in 2015?  Well, it all started with a call from Eric at Eastbank Cyclery. For a couple of years we'd been kicking around the idea of holding a criterium at The Esplanade, a shopping mall out on the western edge of the metro area, in the city of Kenner. This particular mall has a "ring road" around the parking lot, and has always looked like it would be a good place for a race. The mall itself had been struggling for at least a decade, and recently the city of Kenner, and the parish economic development group had kind of taken it on as a project. Eric knew some folks on the city council and gave me a call way back around March or April and I told him we could probably resurrect Rocktoberfest.

We had funny Octoberfest hats that wouldn't
stay on in the wind.

So next thing I know we're meeting with the mall and council member and JEDCO folks and as far as they're concerned it's a "go."  Of course, nobody is offering to put up any actual money, and although I'm not saying it out loud, I know from experience that an October race is unlikely to garner huge participation. I suggested a few things to make it more attractive to the local community, like having beer, music, perhaps a swap meet, etc., but also made it clear that I was not a festival promoter and could really handle only the bike race part. So months later I line up the USAC event permit, and then find out that we also need to get a permit from the city, and another from the mall, and special language for the insurance certificate, and two police officers, etc. We've also included a pretty big prizelist in hopes of drawing in some riders. The bottom line is that we need about $2,000 cash just to have any chance of breaking even. One of the club members somehow found us the sponsorship, and in fact put up half of it himself.  Meanwhile, as the event date is approaching I'm detecting some actual interest locally, so as long as the weather isn't miserable, I'm feeling OK about participation.

We ended up with around 70 entries, which was around what I'd expected. Really, though, there should have been more like 125 just from the local people.  Here we are putting on a safe criterium right in town with a low entry fee and large prizelist and I could probably name 25 people who "train" every day but didn't come out to race. I don't really get it. How many Giro Rides can you do?

Anyway, since we had Ricky and Mark officiating in addition to myself, I went ahead and rode the Masters race. Since I cut the toe pad or whatever that thing was that Bont had glued to the front of my shoes off, I clipped in without incident for a change. Despite the small field, the race was fairly fast.  Rob was launching attacks and then for some reason getting pulled back. Meanwhile, I was really liking the course.  It was an L-shaped course with a long sweeping stretch into the start/finish, marred only by a brisk north wind. Starting the last lap I was in a pretty good position but spent a little time in the wind before the last turn and when I hit the headwind I pretty much just sat up rather than start the 500-meter drag race to the line. Still had a lot of fun, though. There are some photos here.

The event went off smoothly, so other than the kind of low turnout, it was quite successful.  If we can find someone who can put on a little festival inside the course next year we could really have something. Especially if there's beer.

Back at home I'd been suffering for months with increasingly flaky internet service, and the week before the race it had gotten completely out of hand. Over the course of the past two months I think I'd had six service calls.  AT&T was very responsive every time, but the technicians were having a hard time wrapping their collective heads around what I kept telling them, which was that there was a problem somewhere outside with the line. Before the last service visit on Tuesday they had replaced the modem three times, replaced the wire from the modem to the wall jack, replaced the wall jack, replaced the wire from the wall jack to the NID (in our case, conveniently located in the basement), replaced the wire from the NID to the pole outside the house, and replaced the connection box on the wire next to the pole. Every time, they would take a shot at replacing something else, then plug into the NID and announce "it's not the modem, it's a line problem."  Anyway, on Tuesday the same guy showed up who had spent a few hours with us on earlier visits.  First, he replaced the modem again (we now have the top of the line modem, BTW) then sat there running diagnostics and shaking his  head. Finally he said that he was going to get them to switch us over to an entirely different wire pair because the one we were on must be defective.  No kidding??  A couple of hours later I got a call saying they had made the switch and the modem looked like it was working fine.  I went home that evening cautiously optimistic. Indeed, the internet connection has been solid as a rock for the past two days, so I am starting to feel a lot better about the whole thing.  I really didn't want to have to switch everything over to Cox but I was about at the end of my rope.  The entire experience had started to feel more like a science experiment, however, and I just couldn't let it drop without finding out the answers.

Once Again to Dahlonega

Last weekend was our annual road trip up to Dahlonega for the Six Gap Century.  This year I went up with four of the Tulane riders, and with two minivans everyone had lots of space for a change. After meeting up at 6:30 am at the Tulane Cycling Center, we hit the road a bit after 7 am.

I was driving up with Charlotte.  Ben S., Andrew and Quentin were in the other van.  Almost immediately I lost track of the other van, only to find out later that they had decided to stop and get coffee and gas without telling us. We thought we'd stop for lunch at Firehouse Subs around Auburn, and although we did, we got stuck in football game traffic so we told the other van, which was a good fifteen minutes behind us, not to try. Anyway, we finally regrouped up in Dahlonega where we registered and watched the last half of the Cat. 1/2 Women's race. There was a 3-person break until one of them crashed right next to us coming out of the circle, leaving a 2-up sprint between Debbie Milne, who is 46 this year, and Megan Heath, who is a 16 year old rider with Frazier. This time age and treachery failed to win out over youth and skill, but it was close! So after watching the first part of the Pro/1/2 race (Michael Mcbrien of Team LaS'port took 2nd) we filled up on Mexican food at Pueblos and headed back south to our hotel about half an hour away.

After a particularly bad night's sleep we were up pretty early with the goal of getting to the parking lot an hour ahead of time. Unfortunately we ended up leaving a little late and by the time we got there the main lot was full, but we found a nice spot along the little road leading to the football stadium (for future reference, there's a bathroom there!). Preparations were a bit rushed, and as I discovered about an hour later I failed to put the bottle of HammerGel I'd prepared into my pocket.  Luckily I had already put two gel packs in there as backup, so at least I had something.

We rolled down close to the front of the rapidly growing crowd where we found Steve and Pat, and waited for the start.  There had been a light mist falling all night and the roads were all fairly wet and the sky cloudy, but at least it wasn't actually raining. I had my arm-warmers on to take the chill off of the first hour or so.  The start this year was pretty conservative all the way to the first Gap, which isn't actually one of the "Six." As usual, that one was fairly steady and I was pleased to find that all seven of us were still basically together. Andrew rolled off the front on the first of the main climbs (I think), and Pat rolled off the back, but the rest of us stayed more or less together all the way to the top of Hogpen.

This was the first time I've ridden this with a heart rate monitor, and I actually found it to be helpful.  Go figure. On the first long climb I found that my comfort zone was right around 88% of max. I was OK up to about 91% for short periods, but 88%, which is around 165 bpm, felt very sustainable, so I decided to make that my limit. This proved to be effective at keeping me out of the red, and as a result there were only a couple of times when my speed dropped down close to Garmin auto-pause territory. Granted, the arbitrary limit probably cost me a few minutes, but in general I felt considerably more comfortable and controlled on the climbs than usual. I ended up with an average heart rate for the whole ride of 150 and a max of 174, so kept it under control and really never pushed it to the limit.

So I had been considering stopping at one of the rest stops to re-stock on calories, but as I came over the top of Unicoi or Hogpen there was someone holding out half of a banana, so I grabbed it and stuck it into my pocket before the road plunged downward.  The downhills were mostly wet this year, and between that, a couple of slower riders ahead of me, and a car on the Wolfpen descent, my downhill speeds were definitely slower than usual, maxing out at only 48 mph.

Climbing - slid all the way back on the saddle

The Hogpen climb was notable especially for the fact that we rode up into the mountain mist (aka clouds) about halfway up, which was pretty cool.  Amazingly, everyone was pretty much still together at Hogpen, where Ben and Quentin stopped for refreshments, but I kept on going. I think Steve was already a minute or two ahead of me by then. He always does those long climbs a couple of minutes faster than I. Ben broke a spoke near the top of Wolfpen Gap and ended up having to get a ride in the sag wagon from there. After Wolfpen I was pretty much on my own and definitely feeling the miles and climbing. I stopped briefly at one of the rest stops where I filled a bottle with Coke (it was delicious) and picked up a little Payday bar in case I bonked. My quads were tired, but most of all, though, my neck was killing me from the downhills. My back was relatively good despite all of the seated climbing I was doing, and I have to credit my Bont shoes for keeping my right foot more comfortable than it's ever been on this ride.

Post-ride pasta and salad at the school cafeteria

As usual, I latched onto a couple of guys who came past me on the last ten mile stretch.  We traded pulls for a few miles, and then with maybe four miles to go a larger group came by, so we stayed with them to the finish. I ended up with an official time of 6:11:39, which was significantly slower than usual (ride time was about 6:10), which was 79th overall and 11th in the 55+ age group. Andrew ended up finishing at 5:56:01, placing him 53rd overall and 9th in his age group. Quentin came in at 6:28:47, at 106th place.  Steve's time is still missing from the results, but he should have been a few minutes ahead of me. Charlotte rode the shorter 5-Gap ride, finishing in 4:51:45, which was 23rd overall, 7th in her age group.

The ride back was the usual drag, with light rain all the way from Montgomery home. The drive was helped by caffeine and the fact that the rental van had satellite radio, but hindered by a drawn-out search in Mobile for a gas station that would take the university's fleet gas card, and then by some significant rain all along I-10 from Mobile. It was a pretty good trip, however, and by Tuesday most of the soreness had worn off and I was back to the regular training routine.

September Already

September always seems complicated. After getting through our Age-graded road races I looked at my calendar and wondered how it is that everything seems to crash together around the end of September and beginning of October. Right now I've got Rocktoberfest weighing  heavily on my mind. We haven't done a road race in October in a while, and I am hoping there are enough riders out there to make it a decent race. In years past, I wouldn't be worried, but nowadays we have track races coming up, the Six Gap Century, promotions already beginning for the cyclocross season, the MS Tour, and a few other charity rides, plus the usual Fall season festivals to further complicate the landscape. As always this time of year, cash is short as well. At work, I'm expecting it to get really busy for me starting tomorrow as a couple of projects that have been stalled are now finally moving again.

All that were left from the big Saturday group. Spend a lot of time chasing TT bikes.

So last weekend the weather was unusually good.  A cool front finally made it through and after a cloudy Saturday morning we had a spectacular low-humidity weekend with temperatures largely in the 70s. On Saturday I decided to make the trip across the lake for one of the northshore rides, and was quite surprised to find maybe forty people there. Starting at Abita Springs we headed north toward Enon, taking Old Military Road up to Highway 40.  I don't think I'd ridden Old Military since it was repaved last year and riding it was really a trip down memory lane. Back in the 70s and 80s we had tons of road races that started and finished on Old Military at Pat O'Brien Road, including the Tour de Louisiane. In fact, the very first time I was thrust into the race organizer/official/promoter role for the Tour the road races started there. About mid-way through the road races a big thunderstorm moved in, bringing with it lots of horizontal rain and lightning. Officiating back then was basically me, a clipboard, and a mechanical stopwatch. Well, with a couple of laps still to go, this thunderstorm hits and soaks everything. We had no pop-up shelters, rain gear, cameras, computers, or even plastic bags. Then, with the pack just a few miles down the road we find out that one of the corners is totally flooded. I made a quick decision to finish the race and sent people running up the course to try and communicate that to the packs so they would hopefully sprint for an early finish and not drown at the next intersection.  Well, they all finished, but we couldn't write down times or race numbers because all the paper was soaked.  I scratched some of it into the wet paper anyway. The next morning we had a riders meeting and worked out the road race results by consensus. Such was road racing in the old days.

Tour de La Women, Pat O'brien Rd, at Old Military
with me in the background, around 1980 or so.

Anyway, I was surprised to find that, riding down that road, I remembered every little hill and every little curve and found myself looking for the old oak tree that I always used as a landmark about a mile before the finish. The weather got better and better, and the group smaller and smaller as we rode last Saturday. There were a few triathlon bikes in the mix and they and a couple others were keeping the pace brisk enough that I guess riders were starting to come off the back by the time we were on Fairhaven Road. Of the forty or so that started with us, I think we had about eight by the time we got to the turnaround on Lee Road.  We never saw any of the others again, so perhaps they did a different loop or turned back so early that they were gone by the time we got back. Anyway, it was a nice ride and I was glad I'd made the drive. I was feeling the need for a little terrain and scenery, and doing two back-to-back Giro Rides again didn't seem like much fun. Besides, with Candy in Baton Rouge for the weekend and Danielle at a wedding in Idaho, it didn't matter one bit when I left home or when I got back.

Sunday's weather was really, really nice, except for the wind which was significant.  There were a few other things going on that morning - the Pensacola stage race, an MS Tour training ride, etc., and I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised to find a particularly small group rolling out from Starbucks for the Sunday Giro. As it turned out, the ride was pretty fast despite the skeleton crew, and with the prior day's ride in the rolling  hills still in my legs, by the time I got back home I was already planning an easy recovery ride for today.

Masters and Young Grasshoppers and the Internet

Last Sunday was the LAMBRA Age-Graded Championship road race, just a couple of hours away near St. Francisville. This is on a popular course that we've been racing on for at least three decades, and although it is not what you'd call an "easy" 22-mile loop, it strikes a nice balance between dead-flat and intimidating. The NOBC had a decent enough turnout, particularly for the women. I would be riding a 44 mile race with the combined 55+/60+ group. There was a time not too long ago when I would have felt that 44 miles didn't even constitute a legitimate road race distance. Those times, however, are gone. In fact, given my recent racing history I was rather concerned about getting dropped right out of the pack if things got out of hand.

Jen and Ed and parents, mentoring

With a field of only ten, and two groups not necessarily all racing against each other, things can get out of hand pretty quickly, so from the start I was trying to stay up front. The big attack I was expecting on the hill a few miles after the start didn't materialize, and then VJ stationed himself on the front and just towed everybody for at least five miles at a steady 24-25 mph pace. I'd bet he spent at least half of the entire race on the front. The last four or five miles of this loop feature a bunch of short little hills and lots of curves that make for good attacking conditions. I found myself maybe third wheel, over on the right, when Mike Lew launched an attack up the left side, pulling a few riders behind him. The problem was that those riders kind of eased up when they got even with the front of the pack, so this big gap opened up suddenly and had no place to go. I saw Butch just ahead and to the left hesitate for a moment and then jump to close the gap as the rest of the riders pretty much just sat there, trapping me. By the time I realized the extent of the danger and was finally able to jump myself, the gap was ten to fifteen seconds, I guess. I made a big effort at 28-32 mph trying to make the bridge up to them, and got about three-quarters of the way before I blew up and had to wait to be reabsorbed by the remnant of the group. A couple of miles later Mark McMurry started launching little attacks that I was covering reasonably, but not easily. A few miles after the start of the second lap, where the longer hills are, he attacked again and we separated from the pack. It was immediately clear that Mark was way stronger than I, but I was trying to take short pulls whenever I could to at least justify my presence.

The rest of the lap was basically a 2-man team time trial, except that Mark was doing about 75% of the work at the front while I was sometimes struggling to stay on his wheel. We had long ago lost sight of the 2-man break up the road, and glancing back around ten miles from the finish I couldn't see the rest of the field either. Mark was in the 55+ race while I was in the 60+ race, and likewise the lead break had one rider each, so I don't think either break actually sprinted for the finish. In fact, a mile or so from the finish we decided to see how close we could make the finish so they'd have to use the camera and rolled across the line at about fifteen miles per hour!

Anyway, it is always a fun event and I was pleased to have survived another one. A little while after we finished, the NOBC-packed 40+ women's field came through with Mignon taking the bunch sprint (her first ever). So I ended up 2nd in the 60+, followed by new teammate Will Backstrom, while Rick Selby took 3rd in the 55+ race. There was a little bunch of 10-14 year old Juniors this year, which was a nice development thanks to Jen and Ed Novak's tri/road team. Ed, by the way, finished 12th in the TT at Masters Nationals in Utah about an hour ago.

In the 40+ race Kenny Bellau was in a long break that started with three and finished with just himself and Todd Hickman.  Todd had been apparently pulling like a locomotive for much of the 60 miles they'd been away, and Kenny was confident that he'd be too wasted to mount much of a sprint, so he confidently took the lead over the last kilometer. He was, however, sadly mistaken. Todd launched early and blew past him 100 meters before the line like he was standing still. Todd lives way up in northern Mississippi, practically in a suburb of Memphis, so he does most of his racing up in Tennessee and was apparently a little bit of a mystery to some of the local guys. In fact, Kenny thought he lived in Tennessee and therefore that he would be skipped over for the LAMBRA gold medal, but when I checked I realized that he actually did live in Mississippi.

The Tulane riders are all back in town and riding the local group rides lately, so it's been nice to have a few more young grasshoppers to liven things up. Riding back from the Giro last Saturday we had quite a few with us for the ride home. Speaking of the Tulane team, Tulane's club sports folks have apparently decided that they should be made to suffer like all the other club sports despite the fact that they have a willing and able advisor (me) with a corporate travel card. They don't want to allow me to use my travel card, and instead want they to have to use their personal credit cards for car/van rental, fill out travel expense reports ON PAPER, submit them through Club Sports, wait for Club Sports to send them to Student Activities, who then requests reimbursement via CHECKS that I guess go out in the MAIL.  Brilliant. Instead of a single online expense report done by a single person, we'll process three separate expense reports, tie up student credit for two or three weeks, and do things the way we did in the 80s.

The great western wall

Since we were off for Labor Day, an email went out about a "holiday" Giro Ride. Danielle and I rode out to Starbucks where we eventually found just a few more riders. We ended up doing a lap of Lakeshore Drive, where we picked up a few others, and then went all the way out to the Great Western Wall of Kenner, which we followed past the end of the airport runway, partially on gravel roads, to the levee, which was closed off for the next phase of construction. We rode Jefferson Highway in to River Ridge where we finally could get back onto the bike path. It was a very nice Labor Day ride, actually.

Yesterday I made my way downtown via both car and bike to a short film segment for a new TV show called Lost and Found where they surprise people who have lost things by finding or replacing what they lost. In this case, it was our own Kenny Bellau, who was completely surprised as far as I could tell, and they presented him with a replacement for his mom's old Okeefe & Merrit stove that had been lost in Hurricane Katrina. It should air some time in November, we're told.

That same morning I'd been stuck at home with AT&T trying to get my flaky internet connection problem fixed.  Over the weekend it had gone from bad, where it had been for almost a year, to useless, cutting in and out every few minutes. It was impossible to get anything done, so I finally broke down and resolved myself to another visit by the service folks. Having learned from prior experience, I went first to the online technical service chat, quickly typing in my problem along with my cellphone number and name. As I expected, the connection soon went down and they called me up on my phone, which was exactly what I'd wanted. Anyway they scheduled someone to come the next morning at 8:30 and indeed that's when the guy showed up. I immediately explained to him that on a prior service visit they had replaced the house wiring with nice new twisted pair and tested everything inside and that I therefore expected the problem to lie somewhere out there amongst the 60 year old telephone wires threaded through the oak trees. After testing the connection box down in the basement he apparently agreed and unlike previous service people got the ladder out and climbed  up to test the connection at the drop. He then drove off to test another connection farther up the line, only to return and tell me that there was definitely a line problem (it was cutting in and out for him too) but that it was in a box that he didn't have access to and he'd have to put in a service ticket. Although my hopes weren't very high, when I got home that evening and checked the log I found that it hadn't gone down since 2 pm. A while later I go a text that the problem had been resolved. Amazingly, everything had been rock-stable since then, which is a huge, huge improvement. Let's hope it stays that way this time!

Summer Heat, Katrina Week

Lost horizon on the lakefront.

Late August is always tough around here. It goes without saying that it's hot and humid most of the time, and there always seem to be a bunch of big expenses to drain what little funds are in the bank account. Just to add to the annual convergence of problems, there is always, always, a problem with the bike. You see, by this time of the year I've dripped literally gallons of salty, nasty sweat from stem to seatpost and inorganic chemistry being what it is, things just stop working right.

One of the WPA-constructed bridges in City Park

At the moment, the only thing working well on the Bianchi is the front brake.  Both shifters and/or their cables are now sufficiently gunked up, corroded, or generally worn out that downshifts happen only reluctantly. I've sprayed lubricant in there a few times with only minimal effect, and I know I need to unwrap the bars, which are probably pretty corroded underneath the tape, clean everything up, replace all of the cables, and install a new chain. That all takes time and money, though, and I'm already trying to save for a new pair of blue jeans. Just yesterday I had to put a bunch of team clothing on a credit card to beat the ordering deadline just so I won't clash with my teammates on winter training rides.

Last Sunday was the LAMBRA Time Trial Championship that, fortunately for my increasingly fragile ego, I was officiating rather than riding.  We had a great turnout of 100 riders, and although the morning heat got to a few, there were some good performances, including another women's 40 km TT record, which now stands at 58:43. The best the men could do was a 53:29, well shy of last year's record of 52:17. The rider who set that record had the misfortune of flatting this year, however. Boyd managed to hit a stray water bottle somewhere out on the course and crashed heavily. He limped back and actually finished, then got someone to take him to the ER for x-rays and a CAT scan. Fortunately, there were no broken bones or concussion. Boyd crashed dramatically back in the early 70s up in Baton Rouge, back when guys raced without helmets sometimes. That time he hit his head and had an impact seizure, but the hospital basically sent him home that afternoon. Luckily his wife or girlfriend was a nurse and they went straight to Ochsner. A couple of hours later he was having brain surgery to stop the bleeding. Anyway, things went pretty well and we had lots of volunteers on hand, so it was definitely a success. Otherwise, I've just been doing the usual training ride routine that, up until last weekend, was made even more difficult by the increase in the number of time trial bikes on hand. Glad that's over!

Erica, where ya goin'?

So there's been a deluge of media coverage lately as we approach the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on August 29, which will be Saturday. The hurricane had hit early on a Monday morning.  I'd evacuated early on that Sunday morning. The last thing I wrote on my blog before leaving was, "I think this is going to be bad."  The media coverage has brought a lot of attention to Kenny, which I guess he's OK with. The fact of the matter is that some people who were actually here, and even some who had evacuated but lost everything, don't necessarily relish dredging up all of those memories. Anyway, there was a really good report on Kenny's experiences in the Washington Post. Definitely worth seeing. Tulane has a big exhibit set up at the LBC that I haven't had a chance to see yet, and who knows what the city is planning. I'll kind of be happy when it's all over with, but I still go back to the end of August and beginning of September of 2005 on this blog to re-read my posts there. This was the last day back in '05 when my blog didn't mention the hurricane. Instead, I was writing about the morning levee ride and the reports from Kenny and the Herring team who were at the Tour of Guyana. Kenny and Realdo didn't know it yet, but they wouldn't be flying back into New Orleans the next Monday. At the moment, there's Erica churning out in the Atlantic, and the forecasters seem particularly uncertain about where it will be next week.

Drafting and Dropping

Team TT Start

The past couple of weeks have been a little more than just hot and humid. You know those morning rides where sweat is already dripping onto your top tube and into your glasses before the sun gets above the horizon? Those rides where you get home absolutely soaked in sweat and walk into the freezing cold air-conditioned house that's really only at 75F, down a quart of whatever cold liquid comes first to hand, and then you shower and the sweat washing down from your hair stings your eyes and the bottom of the tub is covered with a fine black grit that the water washed from the fronts of your legs? It's been like that. Every day.

So a couple of weekends ago we had the LAMBRA Team TT championship over around Vacherie, LA, which is on the south side of the Mississippi River, not far from New Orleans, where it runs mainly east to west. We've had the TTT there for a few years now, using a nicely paved highway for the 30 mile event. I was riding with teammates Pat, Steve and Rick this year, and Steve had brought along a Zipp 440/880 wheelset for me to use. Although I was the only one not on a TT bike, the combination of those wheels, my clip-on aero bars, and my TT helmet probably got me pretty close anyway.  There was a light to moderate wind blowing and we figured we'd have a mile or two of tailwind before the road turned and it became more of a crosswind. As it turned out, the wind wasn't nearly as much of a factor as I'd expected. We started out smoothly, determined not to overcook ourselves until everyone was settled in. Steve and I were the shortest riders, Pat the tallest. I think this comparison of Pat's heart rate data with mine kind of tells the whole story.

You can see how I would take my pulls at around 170 bpm, dropping down when I was back in the draft to around 145 in the beginning when we were taking longer pulls, or 155-160 later in the ride when we were taking shorter pulls and had more of a headwind. Pat, on the other hand, was getting barely any recovery at all with a heart rate consistently in the 175-185 range. Huge difference. I felt pretty good the whole time. Maybe, just maybe, there might be something to this whole "aero" wheel thing. Pat, on the other hand, suffered the whole time. Anyway, we posted a respectable time at an average speed of 26.2 mph, which still put us last in the 40+ category. Meanwhile out on that same hot ribbon of asphalt through the sugarcane fields, the Palmer Cycling team was head-down, drooling, killing it on the way to setting a new course record with an average speed of over 30 mph.  Our max speed had been 30.2 mph.

Thibodaux Criterium (Shannon Atkinson photo)

The next day was a criterium in Thibodaux on a very tight 8-corner course. For the second or third time this year I fumbled badly clipping my left foot in and was basically off the back by the first turn. With a number of the Palmer Cycling masters, plus the Acadiana guys, the first few laps were, unfortunately for me, very fast. I was in chase mode for most of the first lap, finally getting up to the tail end of the long strung-out group and hoping for a little chance to recover, but I was not to be so lucky. The last rider in the line was taking the corners way too slowly and opening gaps on every one. There were few opportunities for me to move up past him, and I was still so gassed from chasing that I wasn't willing to try anyway. Then he started to blow up and motioned me to come around, but of course by then there was a huge gap in front of us, so I was in full-on chase mode again for half a lap. I was completely toasted when I finally got close, and the pace still hadn't eased as I came into one of the turns a little too hot and had to tap the brakes.

Packing up (Shannon Atkinson photo)

Well, that was it.  That little gap was just more than I was willing to deal with, so I backed off and figured I'd let myself recover, get lapped, and sit on the back of the group.  That worked out fine, so at least I got my exercise even if my placing was DFL. It was pretty frustrating, actually, since I really liked the course and was feeling quite good despite the prior day's team time trial effort, but I just can't do those back-to-back maximum efforts any more without a lot of recovery time in-between.

After a fairly solid week of riding, I headed out to the Saturday Giro with Danielle who was back in town. There was a pretty big group, and omniously a number of TT bikes, but even so, I was surprised to see a small group already fifteen seconds ahead of us as we were rolling out on Lakeshore Drive. That part is usually neutral, but that day we were barly keeping up at 23 mph and ended up chasing to bring it all back together.  There was a pretty strong tailwind, so I knew things would get even faster, but once we hit Hayne Blvd. I got stuck behind someone who let a big gap open. By the time I finally went around, it was too late.  I think I hit 34 mph trying to close the gap, but it was clearly not working, so I got together with a couple of riders who had come off the front group and we took the Bullard short-cut, meeting back up with the group on Chef Highway.  The return trip had a pretty strong headwind, but the pace stayed pretty fast anyway, so by the time I got home I felt like I'd been ridden hard and put up wet.

Hazy Tuesday morning out on the lakefront bike path

Sunday's Giro was smaller but the tailwind and the TT bikes made the pace really fast on Hayne Blvd. I was sitting in what I thought was the front group and breathing hard at 31 mph when I decided I'd had enough and pulled over to drop back to the pack.  When I looked back, however, all I saw was empty road. I think some riders  had taken the Bullard short-cut, and maybe some others had turned back or were so far behind I couldn't see them, but whatever the reason I was on my own. I eventually caught up with Adrian, and then Rich caught us after having taken the short-cut, so we had a nice little paceline down Chef Highway until we turned around near the far end to merge back into the group. It was another long, hot ride. I spent a couple of hours out in the sun cutting down a little tree on the fenceline when I got home.

This week's morning rides have been fairly tame for some reason. I rode out on the river levee bike path on Monday, meeting up with Mignon for some of it, and then the Tuesday morning ride was fairly steady for a change. This morning's WeMoRi was missing a few of the usual breakaway artists, so when I met up with it everyone was still together and the pace never got all that terribly fast.

Visitor Cyclists

The Tuesday morning ride heads out on Lakeshore Drive in New Orleans

As the contact email for the NOBC and LAMBRA websites, among others, I get my share of emails and messages asking about riding in New Orleans.  Many of those come from visitors who are coming to town for conferences, holidays, or other occasions. I usually send them pretty detailed information about where to ride, when the groups rides are, and whatever other information I think they will need to survive cycling in New Orleans. If someone is asking specifically about group training rides I usually look them up on the USAC website to see if they have any race results and to see what license category they have. Recently I lent a bike to a rider from Indiana who was here to visit family. It turned out she had ridden the Little Indy 500, of Breaking Away fame, and her coach was Tom Saccone, who used to race around here. Small world. Right about the same time I was contacted by a medical student in town for a month to do a rotation in dermatology at Tulane. She's been riding my old Cervelo, broken shifters and all. Then, last week someone was trying to find a bike for a girl who was going to be in town to ride the Rapha Women's 100 ride, so she ended up with my Orbea. It's unusual for me to lend bikes to people, but that's because so few of them are short enough for a 50 cm frame.  Anyway, hopefully both bikes will find their way back to me soon.

This week has been pretty routine riding, made just a tad more difficult by the gradually increasing 5:30 am darkness and my closely linked difficulty getting out of bed in the dark. There were a few glorious weeks there when I didn't need to strap the headlight to the bike, but those days are gone now, and it'll just be getting darker and darker until the time change.

Yesterday we met up with a rider, Brian, from Dallas, who is in town for a conference.  He had contacted me earlier asking about group rides, so I sent him a bunch of information, including the Strava data for some recent rides to make sure he knew what he was getting himself into. Anyway, he turned out to be a perfectly stable and capable rider, plus the Tuesday ride wasn't particularly fast, so that worked out nicely all-around.

For some reason I was up earlier than usual this morning, so I decided to try and make it out to the lakefront in time to catch the start of the WeMoRi that leaves at 5:45. My timing worked out pretty well and I merged into the group around Canal Blvd. as it was just getting going. There was a pretty good tailwind from the west on the way out on Lakeshore Drive, but I was still surprised when I saw Woody go flying past the group just after we crossed Bayou St. John. A few riders went with him, so a little breakaway developed. I was equally surprised that the riders at the front of the group barely reacted to the rapidly growing gap. I mean, rule #1 in a tailwind is "don't let gaps open." After the Seabrook loop we turned into the headwind and another little group rode off the front as the rest of the group seemed to slow down even more. Clearly I should have made the effort to go with the second group, but I was fully expecting the other riders to pick up the pace, which didn't happpen. So anyway, the rest of the ride was nice and steady, if not particularly strenuous.

This weekend is a Team Time Trial and a Criterium down around Thibodaux. I have no idea if I'm riding the TTT since it depends on how many riders can be put together to make the necessary 4-rider teams.  Missing a time trial is really not a problem for me nowadays. Although there was a time when I could bolt on some aero bars and still be competitive, I think those days are gone. Almost everyone seems to have a dedicated TT bike while I'm still trying to figure out how I could afford a set of wheels that were built this century.