Emotions, not facts

Last weekend was a good one on the bike....got in about 140 miles all told, mostly saddle time and away from the racing guys. Nothing against them but sometimes I want a change of pace, place, and face to keep things fresh. I got to put in some pretty hard efforts during the rides, hand out some advice, and just enjoy some East Texas scenery on the Sunday ride to Jefferson. Saturday I made the attempt to do the ride to Natchitoches but weather conditions were not the best, plenty of wind and some rain, and we got in about 60 miles, more or less. Jonnene did her longest ride since she's been in the States, around 46 miles before she had to take the sag vehicle in for the remainder of the distance. She rode very well but the endurance isn't there yet.

My friend, Paul, is in town to help me out with a photo shoot for Blackwell. We were out on the Bossier parkway around 10 pm last night to shoot pics of their 50mm and 100mm wheels, using the asphalt for background and the night to bring out the glare of the flash for this harsh look I wanted. It got a little chilly but I think we got what I wanted. This particular ad will be in the June issue of Triathlete magazine and I think it's a good one....full page featuring Kate Major who won the Ford Ironman Triathlon in California last weekend. She had the fastest women's bike split using Blackwell wheels so that needs to be promoted.

Yesterday I expressed an opinion on the LAMBRA egroup about an unusually high entry fee for the time trial stage of a race being held in Alexandria on June 2-3. It's an omnium race, points-based, not time-based, and they're allowing entry in individual stages. My problem was that the costs of each stage on that basis was $30 each across the board versus $55 for the overall registration. However, the time trial is only 3.1 miles long and I had/have a real problem with paying that much for something I'll finish in less than 7 minutes! I can't do the Sunday criterium stage (have to be back in Shreveport) so my options can be to pay $60 in individual fees for the road race and time trial, or pay $55 for the overall fee and skip the crit. Besides my complaint about the fee for the TT, the organizers are shorting themselves with that fee schedule depending on how a rider in my situation handles it. The time trial should have a $20 entry fee attached to it, that's the right way to handle it. Unfortunately, I'm getting the bum's rush from a few folks who are actually defending that $30 entry fee. I was even accused of being emotional and not fact-based on the issue. Yeah? I'm waiting to hear the facts from the other side, and it's easy to get a little pissed when you're being told that you're emotional about something when you're aren't. I'm sticking to my position that the higher entry fee is dumb unless someone convinces me otherwise. Somehow I don't think that's going to happen.