Ride report: Tour de Paris (Paris, TX)

This past Saturday was the 24th annual Tour de Paris, one of my favorite rides each season. This year was especially notable because Turtle decided to take advantage of the relatively flat route and go for a personal best distance on the 30-mile route. I was signed up for my usual 100K but had promised myself to back off last year's 18.9 mph pace.

We rolled out of bed at 4am, got everything loaded and were on the road by 5:30. A number of my MS 150 teammates were going up for the ride, and we were looking forward to seeing them there. As fate would have it, we didn't really cross paths with most of them until after the ride; but that's the way these things go.

The people who run the Tour de Paris were enthusiastic and accommodating as always. This year they'd added a twist to the route, taking us through downtown Paris (“Second largest Paris in the world!” according to the mayor) before heading out on the main route. But once out on the route, the ride just didn't seem the same as in the previous couple years. The roads seemed rougher this year, not so much because of the size of the chipseal aggregate but because they seemed to have been battered by traffic. Much the route was like riding on a washboard, so that even on the flat I had to keep peddling to maintain my pace. Rest stops were not as well stocked as in years past, which I attribute to soaring fuel and grocery prices (this year's entry fee was unchanged from last year's). That's not a big deal to me, except that there wasn't a bottle of pickle juice in sight – bad news for guys like me, who benefit from the cramp-fighting properties of the stuff.

I rode the first 20 miles or so with Mrs. Strada before discreetly pulling off at a rest stop to… rest – but mostly as a diplomatic way to cut her loose so that I wouldn't be tempted to try keeping up with her brisk pace. By mile 50 or so, I was beginning to suspect I was in trouble. Despite my backing off the pace, I was probably using the same amount of energy as I had spent going fast, last year. And the heat was getting to me. When I pulled up to the 50-mile stop, I felt uncoordinated and lightheaded, and I had started feeling chills – all warning signs for heat exhaustion. I sat down under a canopy and doused myself with cold clothes being passed out by the volunteers. After a while, I felt good enough to get back on the bike; but the loop around the town square had added roughly 5 miles I really could have done without, at that point.

So, just like last year, I was in energy conservation mode: not worrying about my pace, spinning smaller gears, and coasting at any opportunity. Finally, after climbing more rolling hills than I remembered there being on the Paris route, I rolled into the parking lot and was surprised to see that Turtle's wheelchair was still cable locked to the rack for her handcycle. That meant she was still out on the route somewhere, but I was more worried about myself at that point. I was fried. After fumbling in my seat back for the car keys and trying to see past the spots to unlock the car, it took me half a dozen tries just to get my bike into its stand so I could collapse on the grass.

About that time, a pickup truck rolled up with Turtle in the passenger seat and her bike in the back. She had started to overheat at around mile 26 and, true to her promise not to make herself sick, had SAG'ed the rest of the way. The driver got out of the truck and was saying something to me about how I needed to unlock Turtle's wheelchair, take it to her, and get her bike out of the back of the truck. As if.

“She's got the key,” I told the SAG driver, somewhat curtly. “You're on your own.” I wasn't sure I had the strength to hold my head up, much less stand, lift my wife out of the truck, and set her on her chair without both of us ending in a heap on the sizzling pavement.

Turtle got unloaded, and the SAG driver helpfully put her bike on the rack. She thanked them cheerfully and then turned her attention to me. “Are you okay? Honey, you look like crap.”

Normally, I'd have had some snappy response, but not this time. In the first place, I knew she was right; in the second, I didn't have enough mental reserves to think of anything.

She wanted to get someone to help with my bike, but I insisted on taking care of it myself. Finally, with the bike secured and Turtle keeping a close eye on me, I shambled slowly toward the high school cafeteria where I knew there would be Sonic hamburgers, lots of bottled drinks, and air conditioning. And I recovered.

Not one of my more enjoyable experiences, I'm afraid – but certainly memorable. One of my MS 150 teammates said the sign in front of the school read 99 °F when he finished. Despite my vow to slow the heck down, I ended up with a 17.7 mph average for the 67+ miles. Turtle wasn't too disappointed about not finishing the 30 miles, partly because 26 miles was still a personal best for her (on the bike) and partly because she'd done it without making herself sick in the heat.

Unlike her idiot husband.

Offered reprieve, a concerned laborer exhales

At around 1pm today, I received an e-mail with an offer of employment. Same salary, slightly reduced job title.

I guess I didn't realize how unsure I really felt about my future, because I actually got choked up when the letter came.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support. Maybe I'll type aloud the name of my new employer, once I know how the company feels about this whole blogging thing. I've heard that some companies actually encourage it (but none I've ever worked for).

Populaire(ty) Non-Contest

After nearly a season's worth of encouragement from my friends and riding partners, The Stradas, I finally took my first taste of randonneuring. Granted, it was only a 100K (≅ 62.5 miles) “populaire” – next to nothing for these folks, many of whom hardly consider it worth getting out their bikes for fewer than 100 miles – but it gave me a sense of this type of riding.

We met in a school parking lot in the little town of Princeton, Texas. There, we signed our liability waivers and were each given a small, folded card printed with spaces to have initialed at each of the checkpoints along the route. To me, this seemed like a rather unnecessary bit of bookkeeping, but for the folks who are into this sort of ultra distance riding, the cards used to verify the miles they've ridden so they can earn points and win awards. At the end of the ride, each rider places his card in a freezer bag tucked under the wiper blade of the ride organizer's car so that he can award points – and also so that he has a head count of who made it back to the start.

For me, the ride was not unlike the training rides that I've done out around Celina with The Stradas. Unlike the pay rides, there were no huge crowds of inattentive cyclists to dodge and no racer wanna-bes. Instead there were laid-back ultra distance riders like RAAM veteran Mark Metcalfe who, despite his legendary status around these parts, was as accessible and nice as they come. For these riders, it's not about how fast they can go or how quickly they can ride the legs off the rest of the group. It's about pacing themselves, riding long, and enjoying the camaraderie and scenery along the way.

As recumbent numbers increase, some wedgie riders might start to feel surrounded; but the LSR folks don't seem to mind. (That's me on the far right, bringing up the rear as usual.)

I'm a long, long way from being strong enough for the kinds of distances these folks ride on a regular basis. Heck, I can't even figure out the differences between the types of rides, with names like “fleche”, “brevet”, “permanent”, and “audax”. It's all just so exotic and… well, French. But I'm glad I went out to get a little taste of what my friends are always on about.

P.S. – Some of you may be looking at the picture above and thinking, “See there? Those blasted bicyclists are always out there riding in the middle of the road when they're supposed to be single file.” True enough, but the picture you don't see is the one where the guy in the back has just hollered “Car back!” and the whole group immediately and smoothly merges back into a single line.

They like me! They really like me!

Okay, maybe that's overstating things just a bit, but I received an e-mail this morning from my manager that brightened my day. He says that I, along with the rest of my immediate project team, will not be among those to be laid off. I don't have any other details, since I've been off this week, trying to burn some floating holidays that I'll lose if I don't use them in a hurry. But knowing that I'm not about to become an unemployment statistic does a lot to settle my nerves.

Your prayers are working. Thank you.

()wn3d

I guess it's that time of year again. I learned last week that the company that acquired my employer a little over a year ago has itself been acquired. And all that that implies.

Right now, I'm enjoying the rudderless feeling that comes with not knowing whether or not I'm going to be one of the people who receives a job offer from the new owners. I guess I'm not overly concerned, since the buyer keeps saying, “expansion, not consolidation”; but I, along with my mortgage lender, will be a lot happier once I have an offer in hand. Meanwhile, it's like a ghost town around the office as many try to get in under the wire before the acquisition transaction closes and they lose unused vacation carried over from last year.

It's eerie.

The good news, assuming that I get an offer, is that our new owner is a much larger company employing tens of thousands of developers in lots of locations world wide. We're getting very little specific information from them yet, but from the provided FAQs and what we've been able to dig up by googling, it sounds like a positive change. Their dress code is relaxed, they're agreeable to employees working from home a couple days a week, and their medical plan is rumored to be much better than the one we have now. They state in their press release that they're planning to [*gasp*] pour money into our R&D right away, and they even provide educational reimbursement for courses applicable to our jobs. This in contrast to the current company, which was extremely frugal and whose CEO liked to brag that he knew nothing about software development.

I'm cautiously optimistic, although I said the same thing when we were bought this last time. Time will tell, but I have to get that letter offering me continued employment before I can stick around to find out. The letter that will tell me my fate is supposed to arrive around July 17. Fingers and prayer beads crossed.