Went to West Monroe yesterday for the Tour de Ouachita. Great training ride with plenty o' hills, more frequent than Rocky Mount and similar to a smoother Rouge-Roubaix race on some parts of the course!
Both LaS'port's Tim Perry and long-lost-son Keith Breaux showed up in their team kits (I was in neutral colors except for my LaS'port shorts), as did several of the S3 Racing team. Lisa Colvin would have ridden but she pulled some hip flexors while swimming a couple of days before and it was painful to raise her right leg (I told her she was just sckeered). A group of 10-12 of us took off about a half mile into the ride and soon we were flying at race pace through some of the rough roads with small gravel scattered about from recent road repairs. I hoped to hang on for the first hour since I had taken October off from the bike and this was only my sixth ride since the first of November. It was tough in the first hills but I was hanging on with the speeds fluctuating between 24 and 30 mph much of the time. After Tim took one of the initial pulls, it was Keith who spent a lot of time pushing the pace up front. He never wears gloves, and on these roads it showed his hands were way tougher than mine! I was happy in that I was making up any gaps that had appeared on the climbs and staying with the group. I want to be a better climber for next year.
On two successive hills, Tim and S3's Grant Dona fell off the pace, almost an 1/8th of a mile back. I was still in the group but starting to really feel worn out. I looked back at them and decided I could drop off and just ride with them...no need to kill myself from the effort so soon after riding again, I thought. Another rider had dropped way off and was of no concern. I waited for Tim and Grant, and soon they flew right by me! I caught up to them and realized they were trying to catch back up to the group! So we team-time-trialed it...I even took one or two pulls....and we ended up catching the pack!
Not more than a couple of seconds after we caught on, 12 miles in, my rear tire popped...I've had such bad luck this year...and I pulled over, watching the pack disappear around a tight downhill corner at 28 mph. I got off and found myself sucking air heavily, and that took me almost 3-4 minutes to overcome before I could work on the tire. Took a pee, changed the tire and continued on my merry way. This fast-paced ride was now a saddle-time-and-get-in-the-miles ride. Just as well, I wouldn't have been able to hang on much longer anyway. I was glad I had put my 25-tooth cogset on since the last few hills were pretty decent leg-breakers for this part of northeast Louisiana. All told, I got in 66 miles and some good hill workouts.
My '98 Dakota turned over 200,000 miles on this trip! It'll be ten years old next April. I got 265,000 miles on my old Datsun King-Cab (1980-1998). The miles came faster on my Dakota but it doesn't feel like I've driven that far. Of course, I have driven on sepaate trips to Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Los Angeles in it so maybe I have?
After the ride I went to the ULM-Grambling football game that afternoon. A very historic event with Grambling playing a predominantly white Louisiana school for only the second time in its history (Northwestern State was the other, in 1976 and the G-men winning 14-13). ULM's defense was the story in this game, holding the Tigers to minus 4 yards rushing and about 165 yards in total offense. We would win 28-14 although the gap should have been around 42-7 except for the mistakes our offense kept making. The other storyline from this game was the crowd: a record for Malone Stadium of 30,101 people...capacity crowd. Yeah, it was probably 2/3's Grambling fans but it was great to see the stadium so full of people. A great experience, for sure.
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