Monday, December 31, 2007
The Old Year---The New Year
Farewell 2007! To all our friends and readers out there, happiest and healthiest of New Year 2008! We hope you will be informed and entertained by KYScoast in the coming year. We look forward to your comments and we'll see you on the other side.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Please Speak to Us
We want everybody to know we welcome your comments on this blog, its subject matter and what interests you particularly. We realize we have regular readers and would love to have your feedback especially.
We are most interested in recording the experiences of those in our community who have fashioned a lifestyle (especially surfing) in this remote, young, non-urban community and either grown up in or raised a family here. The focus here is local surf culture. Our Outer Banks retrospective is long overdue. The cup of local characters overflows.
We'll begin featuring interviews with those we consider iconic surfing and cycling figures on this part of our coast early in 2008. We expect you'll recognize someone you've seen in the water or on the road over the years, but didn't know anything about. You'll most certainly see someone you already know. You may even be a part of their story. So enjoy our story being told and please join in.
We can begin our conversation by using the "comments" button found at the end of each blog entry. Or you may want to email us at skip.saunders@gmail.com. If you read a few of the blogs already posted, you can get an idea of the kind of stories we want to tell. It may be a defining moment in your surfing career, the moment you realized how important surfing (or road cycling) was to you in choosing a place to settle, or even what motivates you to keep at it.
We would love to hear from you. And thank you for visiting our blog site. Your feedback will help shape it.
We are most interested in recording the experiences of those in our community who have fashioned a lifestyle (especially surfing) in this remote, young, non-urban community and either grown up in or raised a family here. The focus here is local surf culture. Our Outer Banks retrospective is long overdue. The cup of local characters overflows.
We'll begin featuring interviews with those we consider iconic surfing and cycling figures on this part of our coast early in 2008. We expect you'll recognize someone you've seen in the water or on the road over the years, but didn't know anything about. You'll most certainly see someone you already know. You may even be a part of their story. So enjoy our story being told and please join in.
We can begin our conversation by using the "comments" button found at the end of each blog entry. Or you may want to email us at skip.saunders@gmail.com. If you read a few of the blogs already posted, you can get an idea of the kind of stories we want to tell. It may be a defining moment in your surfing career, the moment you realized how important surfing (or road cycling) was to you in choosing a place to settle, or even what motivates you to keep at it.
We would love to hear from you. And thank you for visiting our blog site. Your feedback will help shape it.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Thoughts Between Sets
It was another kamikaze. Again it looked like it was coming right at him straight out of the sun as he stood at his bridge station. His crew was firing everything at it that could shoot. Ack-ack, the mid air explosions from their anti-aircraft fire, pocked the sky around its target. The deafening din spiked into his skull. Everything he saw seemed to slow down as this one of Japan's Divine Wind came steady at him, as if standing at the center of the bull's eye.
There was nothing left he could do now that he had learned since becoming first an enlisted crewman turned officer, then captain of an LSM, an armor and marine carrying amphibious ship. This was the U.S gator navy, full-size ships which landed in the surf to deliver their deadly loads. This was the invasion of Okinawa after all, their first landing on Japanese soil---the enemy's homeland.
He could make out the Zero's markings now, crouching down into the false safety of the bridge's steel railing about to be gone forever.
The impact did not come. He could have reached up and touched the underside of the enemy aircraft as it passed over the bridge. He rose back up full of adrenaline and hope. The fighter cleared the ship's mast, circled tightly, and suddenly flopped down skimming across the ocean's swell crests shattering its prop and halting abruptly engulfed in spray, tail and fuselage settling back to the ocean surface. This enemy aviator had made a choice. The plane's canopy slid back as the pilot stood in his cockpit swinging one leg then the other out onto the plane's left wing. The aircraft would not float long in these seas.
Upon seeing this person who had risked an open ocean belly landing, when only seconds ago surely could have killed him and rained hell on his ship and its company, he felt a strange kinship despite the death and mayhem all around them both. He felt a responsibility to now help him. This after his Pearl Harbor, his Guadalcanal, his Saipan, his Iwo Jima, and on and on---all the young faces lost, some his friends, all the potential gone forever.
He ordered a rescue boat over the side to pick up this man who, in a moment had killed them all, and then given them back their lives. Around them still the chaos as the kamikazes screamed down and the ack-ack cracked the sky.
When they picked him up, he begged to see the ship's captain, this diminutive man-boy who did not look a warrior at all, but instead a schoolroom teacher. When brought to the bridge, he fell at the captain's feet, wrapped his arms around the captain's lower legs and, crying through tears of joy, thanked him in perfect English for saving his life.
The U.S. Navy captain with the Tidewater Virginia dialect and 9th grade education, was stunned to hear what this desperate Japanese aviator said next in clear American English, better English than himself, he thought.
He was in college at Harvard before the war and was called home to Japan as the war was about to begin. Things were beyond desperate in his country now. He had been given enough flight training to take off and fly the plane and only enough fuel to reach the U.S. Fleet off Okinawa. He had not wanted to die like this and especially for what his country had now become.
I squinted out through the early morning sun to the ground swell coming steadily at me only, it seemed, and thought about the day when I was fourteen, my Dad told me his story. He was the ship's captain that day, 26 years-old, about to turn twenty-seven, at the height of his young man's immortality. His enemy chose to live so my Father lived, so I live, and so do my children. It took a stranger to him from the other side of this world---one man's fear-filled decision balanced on a pin point to change so much. I'll never know him, but for his choice that day, I am grateful. Thankful for my life, I turned and paddled into the next wave.
There was nothing left he could do now that he had learned since becoming first an enlisted crewman turned officer, then captain of an LSM, an armor and marine carrying amphibious ship. This was the U.S gator navy, full-size ships which landed in the surf to deliver their deadly loads. This was the invasion of Okinawa after all, their first landing on Japanese soil---the enemy's homeland.
He could make out the Zero's markings now, crouching down into the false safety of the bridge's steel railing about to be gone forever.
The impact did not come. He could have reached up and touched the underside of the enemy aircraft as it passed over the bridge. He rose back up full of adrenaline and hope. The fighter cleared the ship's mast, circled tightly, and suddenly flopped down skimming across the ocean's swell crests shattering its prop and halting abruptly engulfed in spray, tail and fuselage settling back to the ocean surface. This enemy aviator had made a choice. The plane's canopy slid back as the pilot stood in his cockpit swinging one leg then the other out onto the plane's left wing. The aircraft would not float long in these seas.
Upon seeing this person who had risked an open ocean belly landing, when only seconds ago surely could have killed him and rained hell on his ship and its company, he felt a strange kinship despite the death and mayhem all around them both. He felt a responsibility to now help him. This after his Pearl Harbor, his Guadalcanal, his Saipan, his Iwo Jima, and on and on---all the young faces lost, some his friends, all the potential gone forever.
He ordered a rescue boat over the side to pick up this man who, in a moment had killed them all, and then given them back their lives. Around them still the chaos as the kamikazes screamed down and the ack-ack cracked the sky.
When they picked him up, he begged to see the ship's captain, this diminutive man-boy who did not look a warrior at all, but instead a schoolroom teacher. When brought to the bridge, he fell at the captain's feet, wrapped his arms around the captain's lower legs and, crying through tears of joy, thanked him in perfect English for saving his life.
The U.S. Navy captain with the Tidewater Virginia dialect and 9th grade education, was stunned to hear what this desperate Japanese aviator said next in clear American English, better English than himself, he thought.
He was in college at Harvard before the war and was called home to Japan as the war was about to begin. Things were beyond desperate in his country now. He had been given enough flight training to take off and fly the plane and only enough fuel to reach the U.S. Fleet off Okinawa. He had not wanted to die like this and especially for what his country had now become.
I squinted out through the early morning sun to the ground swell coming steadily at me only, it seemed, and thought about the day when I was fourteen, my Dad told me his story. He was the ship's captain that day, 26 years-old, about to turn twenty-seven, at the height of his young man's immortality. His enemy chose to live so my Father lived, so I live, and so do my children. It took a stranger to him from the other side of this world---one man's fear-filled decision balanced on a pin point to change so much. I'll never know him, but for his choice that day, I am grateful. Thankful for my life, I turned and paddled into the next wave.
Monday, December 24, 2007
The Perfect Day
Nineteen seventy-eight. My friend, Woody, and I stood on the small dune across from the original location of the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, Kill Devil Hills, looking seaward under a bright hot sun hung in a clear, blue sky. We had checked it in the morning---flat everywhere. We had a day off from waiting tables at A Restaurant By George, and I guess we hoped we could will something out there to be rideable. We just stood there saying nothing. I put my hands on top of each other on my head like a captured prisoner-of-war as sweat began to form on my brows and shoulders as we stared to the east.
It appeared to be the same as this morning until small lines showed on the horizon. We watched these waves from nowhere make what seemed a cautious approach to the beach, as there appeared none preceding them. We watched in silence seeming to both at once decide subconsciously that to speak might spook the potential magic before us.
The first wave presented a long upright face, shuddering and then feathering in a breath-light offshore breeze. It peaked, tossed itself outward into a curl and peeled off from the center, to the right and to the left. It just kept peeling off down the line, uniform and perfect on this perfect stage of sun and sky. Three or so waves followed this one in precisely the same manner.
It was difficult to judge their size as there was no one in the water. But it looked big enough. Without saying a word we trotted obediently back to the car to grab our boards. We waxed up and paddled out. We waited and waited and waited some more. Nothing. I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, one hand shielding from the glare, water dripping from my fingers and into my sight.
Here it came after almost forever:the next set of waves was showing way outside. As they moved across the sandbar we both made a pick and took off. As I took off on a beautiful left, I could see the sand bottom passing below. The wave was shoulder high at this point---just fine.
Woody and I harvested wave after wave from each set. We got into a kind of rhythm which had us getting to watch each other ride a wave as we paddled back out. This was total stoke. There were small tubes and clear, warm water, and wave upon wave.
I noticed someone standing on the dune watching us and could tell by the silhouette it was my brother Jamey. He shrugged his shoulders extending his arms out away from his sides as a way of saying, "Where's the surf?" I signaled back with one index finger extended upward saying, "Just wait a little bit," which he did. The next set arrived and Woody and I each took off, flying down wave faces, him right me left. I kicked out, looked back over my shoulder to see what Jamey thought, and saw only the sand his feet flicked into the air as he had turned to run back to get his board.
The three of us surfed this swell for another hour or so. The perfect swell vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Over. Gone.
My bet is most surfers have a memory like this of a perfect day. We had nothing to explain why there was excellent small surf for around and hour and a half out of the blue that day. But there was, we were there to get it, and I suppose I'll remember it forever for who I was with, the crowd I wasn't with, and the perfect conditions. These days are what make us who we are over our years in the water. They permanently imbue us with the hope and faith that we can attain this focus and camaraderie again. We all understand how mercurial and fleeting these types of conditions truly are. They are as temporary as the human shells in which we live our lives. But demand we get their best when we find it.
It appeared to be the same as this morning until small lines showed on the horizon. We watched these waves from nowhere make what seemed a cautious approach to the beach, as there appeared none preceding them. We watched in silence seeming to both at once decide subconsciously that to speak might spook the potential magic before us.
The first wave presented a long upright face, shuddering and then feathering in a breath-light offshore breeze. It peaked, tossed itself outward into a curl and peeled off from the center, to the right and to the left. It just kept peeling off down the line, uniform and perfect on this perfect stage of sun and sky. Three or so waves followed this one in precisely the same manner.
It was difficult to judge their size as there was no one in the water. But it looked big enough. Without saying a word we trotted obediently back to the car to grab our boards. We waxed up and paddled out. We waited and waited and waited some more. Nothing. I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, one hand shielding from the glare, water dripping from my fingers and into my sight.
Here it came after almost forever:the next set of waves was showing way outside. As they moved across the sandbar we both made a pick and took off. As I took off on a beautiful left, I could see the sand bottom passing below. The wave was shoulder high at this point---just fine.
Woody and I harvested wave after wave from each set. We got into a kind of rhythm which had us getting to watch each other ride a wave as we paddled back out. This was total stoke. There were small tubes and clear, warm water, and wave upon wave.
I noticed someone standing on the dune watching us and could tell by the silhouette it was my brother Jamey. He shrugged his shoulders extending his arms out away from his sides as a way of saying, "Where's the surf?" I signaled back with one index finger extended upward saying, "Just wait a little bit," which he did. The next set arrived and Woody and I each took off, flying down wave faces, him right me left. I kicked out, looked back over my shoulder to see what Jamey thought, and saw only the sand his feet flicked into the air as he had turned to run back to get his board.
The three of us surfed this swell for another hour or so. The perfect swell vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Over. Gone.
My bet is most surfers have a memory like this of a perfect day. We had nothing to explain why there was excellent small surf for around and hour and a half out of the blue that day. But there was, we were there to get it, and I suppose I'll remember it forever for who I was with, the crowd I wasn't with, and the perfect conditions. These days are what make us who we are over our years in the water. They permanently imbue us with the hope and faith that we can attain this focus and camaraderie again. We all understand how mercurial and fleeting these types of conditions truly are. They are as temporary as the human shells in which we live our lives. But demand we get their best when we find it.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Moving Sand Around
We do a lot of moving sand around on the Outer Banks. And when we're not moving it we seem to be thinking about moving it, or where we should move it.
We debate beach nourishment, rebuild dunes with dump truck-delivered sand and then re-plant it with sea oat sprigs and sand fence after storms (as done by the Town of Kitty Hawk), and push beach sand back into dunes by oceanfront homeowners (This is when oceanfront property owners replace dune sand lost to storms in front of their homes with sand on the beach pushed into a kind of dune by a bulldozer. Yes, this is a somewhat desperate act.) The various towns will even dump sand in the parking accesses' ramps to the beach to block the ocean overwash usually pushed into these parking areas and the beach road beyond by big storms, especially at high tide.
The sure result of all this is often new sand being fed into our beaches' sandbar system. The net effect is just as often improvement in how the sand bottom around these sandbars influences breaking waves. This is one of the things I entertain myself with during the winter as I scout various sandbars up and down our local coast.
Three years ago, the Comfort Inn in Nags Head sported sand added to the beach by property owners following the carnage of Hurricane Isabel. Sand was lost during the storm, so more sand was added back by people. During the time afterwards, the new sand was slowly chewed away and pulled down into the first slough between the beach and the first sandbar. You could look at the escarpment along the beach and clearly see where the sand had come from. This created a situation unlike any I've seen few times before along a beach dominated by sandbars. It created a beachbreak that stayed around for over two years. You could take off on a wave over the first sandbar there and ride it right to the dry sand along the beach, as there was no deep slough where the wave would stop breaking.
Also looks like the current and swell along the beaches created by Hurricane Noel at the beginning of November all but eliminated the prime sandbar that had stayed with us so long at First Street in Kill Devil Hills.
We'll see what the rest of this winter brings. The only constant, I suppose, is all the changes on the coast.
We debate beach nourishment, rebuild dunes with dump truck-delivered sand and then re-plant it with sea oat sprigs and sand fence after storms (as done by the Town of Kitty Hawk), and push beach sand back into dunes by oceanfront homeowners (This is when oceanfront property owners replace dune sand lost to storms in front of their homes with sand on the beach pushed into a kind of dune by a bulldozer. Yes, this is a somewhat desperate act.) The various towns will even dump sand in the parking accesses' ramps to the beach to block the ocean overwash usually pushed into these parking areas and the beach road beyond by big storms, especially at high tide.
The sure result of all this is often new sand being fed into our beaches' sandbar system. The net effect is just as often improvement in how the sand bottom around these sandbars influences breaking waves. This is one of the things I entertain myself with during the winter as I scout various sandbars up and down our local coast.
Three years ago, the Comfort Inn in Nags Head sported sand added to the beach by property owners following the carnage of Hurricane Isabel. Sand was lost during the storm, so more sand was added back by people. During the time afterwards, the new sand was slowly chewed away and pulled down into the first slough between the beach and the first sandbar. You could look at the escarpment along the beach and clearly see where the sand had come from. This created a situation unlike any I've seen few times before along a beach dominated by sandbars. It created a beachbreak that stayed around for over two years. You could take off on a wave over the first sandbar there and ride it right to the dry sand along the beach, as there was no deep slough where the wave would stop breaking.
Also looks like the current and swell along the beaches created by Hurricane Noel at the beginning of November all but eliminated the prime sandbar that had stayed with us so long at First Street in Kill Devil Hills.
We'll see what the rest of this winter brings. The only constant, I suppose, is all the changes on the coast.
Monday, December 17, 2007
My Road Cyclist/"Bike Path" Rant
The time has finally come for me to vent something that's been on my mind for a long time. This concerns road cyclists and car/truck drivers sharing the road on the Outer Banks. My experience is mostly related to roads from Ocean Hill to Coquina Beach, and Kill Devil Hills to Stumpy Point and Lake Mattamuskeet and all roads between.
When I moved here out of college in May of 1975, the rideable shoulder, or "bike path", was the 4-inch wide painted white stripe at the edge of the beach road (Va. Dare Trail). Right beside it was sand. I had left a major university where I rode my bike everywhere for virtually every reason. It was as much a part of my everyday life as starting a car and driving.
One day while riding on the beach road, on the white stripe, a tourist charter bus passed me at speed such that it touched my left elbow and made continuous contact with me down the entire side of the bus. I gave my bike to a friend preparing to go to college the following week.
Much has changed here since then, and not enough has changed. Large portions of the beach road now have shoulders 2-4 feet wide to the right of the white stripe. There are even residential neighborhoods whose roads connect along the sound in Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk. And there are what all of us living here year-round call the "bike paths", for example in South Nags Head and the Kitty Hawk Woods Road.
But at a time when there are more reasons than fitness and racing for us all to be riding bikes, I find there are many incidents regularly occurring on the roads of our community which will eventually result in someone's death. I've witnessed and even been involved in several of these incidents myself.
I was hit by a car while crossing Limulus Street in South Nags Head and while riding on the "bike path" in 2004: Contusions, concussion (even with a helmet), torn jersey, bent wheel rims, ambulance ride to emergency room.
I've had numerous drivers make vehicle maneuvers intended to provoke and intimidate a cyclist. I'm a builder here and I'm ashamed to say that almost without exception, virtually every one of these incidents was carried out by someone driving a pickup truck or van.
Road cyclists do pose a quirky looking culture to the outside eye. I do understand that. But the folks I ride, train, and race with are also drivers as well. We understand what dangers motor vehicles pose to a cyclist, as should all drivers. But both communities of road users could do a better job of sharing the road (please see "sharing the road"). I doubt either group will be giving up the road any time soon.
I believe that drivers are incensed by road cyclists' not using the nearby "bike paths" when they must pass us as we ride at the road's edge---their road. I know this because they often scream this at us when passing us on the road: "Get on the _____ing bike path!"
The "bike path" thing, I think is really at the heart of the local misunderstanding though. The devil is in the nomenclature (the use of words to describe) here. As I understand the role of these "bike paths", they are actually "multi-use paths", meaning they are for the use of everyone, from mothers pushing strollers to dog walkers with dogs on extended leashes, to slogging beach cruiser bicycles.
Road cycles are not meant for "multi-use paths". Road cycles are the bikes with the curled down handlebars and the riders hunched over, you know, with tights and helmet. These bikes are usually doing around 20-28 miles per hour with riders often wheel-to-wheel working in a paceline. These speeds are far too great for the multi-use paths and would pose a serious danger to the other users of the path. Because we are all drivers too, we understand how this looks to someone driving on our local roads. Why aren't they on the "bike path"? Because the road is the only place for road cycles, as it is one of the only places for motor vehicles. We must co-exist peacefully.
We do try to schedule our rides together when there is less traffic or on roads with more limited traffic exposure. We could certainly improve how we ride as a group with drivers around us on the road and we are working on that.
My hope is we can all get along on our local roads in the coming new year, and that no one is hurt, or even worse killed. I also hope more drivers find their way to a bicycle. It's a great way to see our community.
When I moved here out of college in May of 1975, the rideable shoulder, or "bike path", was the 4-inch wide painted white stripe at the edge of the beach road (Va. Dare Trail). Right beside it was sand. I had left a major university where I rode my bike everywhere for virtually every reason. It was as much a part of my everyday life as starting a car and driving.
One day while riding on the beach road, on the white stripe, a tourist charter bus passed me at speed such that it touched my left elbow and made continuous contact with me down the entire side of the bus. I gave my bike to a friend preparing to go to college the following week.
Much has changed here since then, and not enough has changed. Large portions of the beach road now have shoulders 2-4 feet wide to the right of the white stripe. There are even residential neighborhoods whose roads connect along the sound in Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk. And there are what all of us living here year-round call the "bike paths", for example in South Nags Head and the Kitty Hawk Woods Road.
But at a time when there are more reasons than fitness and racing for us all to be riding bikes, I find there are many incidents regularly occurring on the roads of our community which will eventually result in someone's death. I've witnessed and even been involved in several of these incidents myself.
I was hit by a car while crossing Limulus Street in South Nags Head and while riding on the "bike path" in 2004: Contusions, concussion (even with a helmet), torn jersey, bent wheel rims, ambulance ride to emergency room.
I've had numerous drivers make vehicle maneuvers intended to provoke and intimidate a cyclist. I'm a builder here and I'm ashamed to say that almost without exception, virtually every one of these incidents was carried out by someone driving a pickup truck or van.
Road cyclists do pose a quirky looking culture to the outside eye. I do understand that. But the folks I ride, train, and race with are also drivers as well. We understand what dangers motor vehicles pose to a cyclist, as should all drivers. But both communities of road users could do a better job of sharing the road (please see "sharing the road"). I doubt either group will be giving up the road any time soon.
I believe that drivers are incensed by road cyclists' not using the nearby "bike paths" when they must pass us as we ride at the road's edge---their road. I know this because they often scream this at us when passing us on the road: "Get on the _____ing bike path!"
The "bike path" thing, I think is really at the heart of the local misunderstanding though. The devil is in the nomenclature (the use of words to describe) here. As I understand the role of these "bike paths", they are actually "multi-use paths", meaning they are for the use of everyone, from mothers pushing strollers to dog walkers with dogs on extended leashes, to slogging beach cruiser bicycles.
Road cycles are not meant for "multi-use paths". Road cycles are the bikes with the curled down handlebars and the riders hunched over, you know, with tights and helmet. These bikes are usually doing around 20-28 miles per hour with riders often wheel-to-wheel working in a paceline. These speeds are far too great for the multi-use paths and would pose a serious danger to the other users of the path. Because we are all drivers too, we understand how this looks to someone driving on our local roads. Why aren't they on the "bike path"? Because the road is the only place for road cycles, as it is one of the only places for motor vehicles. We must co-exist peacefully.
We do try to schedule our rides together when there is less traffic or on roads with more limited traffic exposure. We could certainly improve how we ride as a group with drivers around us on the road and we are working on that.
My hope is we can all get along on our local roads in the coming new year, and that no one is hurt, or even worse killed. I also hope more drivers find their way to a bicycle. It's a great way to see our community.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Baptism, Part 2
(Editor's Note: Part 1 was published on this blog yesterday, Dec. 8th)
It was almost first light---Steve and me, fall 1970, "Road's End", Buxton, North Carolina---one eight of a mile south of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. "Road's End" was our name for a parking lot behind a huge oceanfront dune. A state highway sign had given us the name. It said: "Road Ends 3/10 mile".
This was one of our favorite spots featuring a great sandbar. The sandbar was fed by the erosion of the huge dune before it during the winter. You got there by turning left off Route 12 at the entrance to the National Seashore at Cape Point. You followed the road around a lily pad-covered freshwater pond to an intersection of two-lane paved roads: left went to the lighthouse and keeper's quarters, right to the campground, straight led to Road's End.
There was a slow-moving tropical storm several hundred miles offshore---an east coast wave machine. We thought it would be pretty big so we wanted to get there and get out before everybody else. We had no idea what was waiting over the dune.
It could be heard long before it could be seen. We climbed over the dune and looked at it, spread before us, vast and deafening. It was huge by anyone's standards---even the surf flicks. We felt small. We were eighteen years apiece. One guy was already out, a mere dot on the outside, maybe three sandbars out or more. Sunlight was fingering through the clouds lying heavy on the horizon. These were the biggest real waves we had ever seen. Nothing before was even close.
We waxed our boards. My heart beats were so close and fast it felt like there was a humming motor in my chest. The rich, pungent smell of salt air and sea life alive and formerly living laid heavy in the mist sprayed into the air by the surf. It gave us some comfort as it always did. We were already trained to associate that smell with the pure joy of wave riding.
There was no hesitation whether to go out. Our moment was here. We did have to time our sprints through the shorebreak (the waves breaking right on the beach) in order to get off the beach. It was quite large, 5-7 feet, thick overhead, and seemed to suck all the water off the beach as it reeled back and up before slamming the wet sand before it. I watched and waited and watched and waited some more. Then in an instant went straight out from where we were. Steve walked about 200 yards to the south where he thought he could paddle out faster in a rip (riptide). I always admired his independent way of taking on a good challenge. Surely we had one now. I also always coveted Steve's longer arms for better paddling. Steve stood about 6'2" and 160 pounds. I was smaller, about 5'11" and 145 pounds.
Rips are out-flowing channels of water whose flow seaward from inside the surf near the beach often cause a kind of slot in the waves where the waves aren't breaking as large or often. They can be easier places to paddle out, but can be fickle and sometimes undependable. They can also be a swimmer's nightmare, but for a surfer trying to get over the sandbar to the lineup, a best friend. At this time we were surfing before the widespread use of the surf leash. So having no leashes, we were surfers until we lost our boards when it became necessary to be a swimmer. We kept our eyes on surface conditions so that we would know where the riptides were at all times.
Riptides are caused by large waves carrying lots of water across the sandbars at low tide. The extra large amount of water floods in against the beach, forms a current between the sandbar and the beach, and flows parallel to the beach until it finds a deeper cut or a gap in the sandbars which let it back out to sea. In the meantime, more large waves ram even more water over the bars behind it.
Sometimes waves will cross the bar and crash face-to-face against waves rebounding off the beach causing backwash. A real wildcard situation if you are riding a wave in and your wave collides with a backwash wave. Surfers usually go airborne when that happens. Most of the time it's great fun to get tossed up and off a wave face like this. You really must give yourself up to the circumstances, I suppose. The ocean's a good teacher that way.
My board was a 7-2 (7'2" long) scarlet red Harbour, 19" wide, shaped by Randy Rarick---and of course, a single fin. We had no surf leashes, as I noted earlier, and would count on our ability to swim or our buddy if we were separated from our boards and in trouble.
To paddle out through large waves with boards like these, when confronted with a wave about to break on you or a rolling wall of whitewater about 5 to 6 feet thick, you grab your board's rails tightly and roll over upside down. This was called "turning turtle" during this era. Your board would now be bottom up at or near the water's surface, you beneath it, underwater waiting (not long) for the impact. When your beating was over (we'll talk more about the beating later), you would roll over almost weightless in bubbling whitewater afterwash, dragging you back toward the beach, and continue paddling in a sprint over the sandbar where the waves are breaking---the "impact zone". If your timing is unlucky, you can be pinned down over the bar while being hammered repeatedly by all the waves in the set. At the end of this punishment you are often just outside the shorebreak where you began.
Waves or ground swells, coming from a far off source like a tropical depression, storm, or hurricane (the best wave makers on our coast), travel to the beach in sets of waves of 3-4-5 or more, each with a signature amount of time between waves, time between sets, and size. How close the tropical system is to the beach, how fast it is moving, how low its atmospheric pressure is, and which direction it is moving, influence the wave quality followed by local influences at the beach itself, for instance wind speed and direction and, of course, the tide.
East coast surfers, like all surfers. know there are a multitude of conditions which must align before the surf gets really good. The hardcore surfers are always watching the weather forecasts, especially the marine wind forecasts and tides, and checking the actual conditions at the beach regularly during the day they expect the swell to hit. The anticipation in the surf community with the approach of one of these storms offshore is difficult to accurately capture in print. Anyone with work obligations is killing themselves to get things in place so they can surf when the swell hits. The excitement explodes when swells line up, stacked to the horizon, pressing toward an offshore wind.
Okay. We're paddling out.
When paddling out in surf like this, there is usually a relatively calmer area between the shore break and the waves breaking over the first sandbar. The first real proof of close proximity to the impact zone are rolling walls of foaming whitewater which come one after the other almost appearing to be stacked up in layers. As you get into the thick of this you instinctively paddle harder and faster, arm muscles burning, shoulders, back, and down to your toes, all lit up. Paddle, paddle, turn turtle, flip back over---paddle, paddle, paddle, turn turtle, flip back over, again and again, and again until you reach the point of futility and total muscle exhaustion. You always hope to make it through the exact place where the monsters slam the surface water over the sandbar without taking direct hits. Sometimes you're unlucky. Direct hits are punishing to the body and psyche. They break surfboards. Most surfers who have surfed in fairly large waves or larger, have depressions in their boards where their fingertips have crushed into the fiberglass when gripping their boards tightly while paddling out.
Eventually we both made it outside to the relative safety just beyond the place where the most waves seemed to be breaking over the second or third sandbar out. We were hundreds of yards apart by the time we got outside. The other guy we had seen in the water alone was farther out than us. It wasn't clear why he was so far outside. We three were the only ones out.
When the surf is this big, 15-foot wave faces and up, it is especially eerie to the average surfer to sit alone outside picking and choosing the right wave to ride. We didn't think so at the time, but we were average surfers I suppose. It's the sport itself that has a way of making you feel special as athletes and sportsmen.
It's extra difficult to position yourself near the breaking peak of a large wave (the optimum place to take off) when it breaks over a sand bottom because the bottom gets so stirred up as to become semi-liquid a few feet or more from the bottom, with huge quantities of sand suspended in the ocean water. This often makes the shape of the breaking waves less defined and consistent, and more or less uniform than the preceding wave. The peak shifts along the wave face until the wave breaks, unlike waves breaking over rock or reef in other parts of the world. Here waves break a lot closer to the same place time and again.
We were nervous. There were few waves breaking consistently and ridable. The ocean was steel gray seeming to cast a sinister snarl, threatening these boys now in its grip. Steve had broken his nose after turning turtle under a huge wave and getting smacked by his board.
We could see a number of people gathered on the beach. A few were park rangers we discovered later. We didn't know it at the time, but a newlywed couple from Pennsylvania had drowned earlier at the lighthouse and the rangers weren't letting anyone else into the water, including other surfers. I guess they were mostly watching us and we weren't much to watch because we were already plotting our escape back to the beach.
Steve took off on his first big wave, a huge right. It was about 7-9 feet overhead and nasty as I watched him disappear out of sight as he dropped in. He made the drop, rode to the wave shoulder, kicked out, turned quickly around and paddled for his life back out of the impact zone over the sandbar. I picked out another big right, made a big drop in a crouch, made a conservative bottom turn, streaked down the line, and kicked up, up the wave face and out. The speed of it all was incomprehensible. I wasn't sure whether I was going to make it back out unpunished, but was just brushed by the whitewater of a few large ones on the way back outside.
We looked at each other and it was clear that the joy wasn't with us in these conditions. This swell was out of control. Many waves were unmake-able, meaning you really couldn't ride the wave face without having it break on you or ahead of you. In either case, the ride was shortened in these conditions and the risk of a catastrophic wipeout and swim to the beach were great. Surfers call these "closeout" conditions. The looming question now became: how are we going to get back to the beach through the shorebreak?
Now, paddling to the beach through the shorebreak racing to the beach from behind you is even more tricky than charging out through it from the beach. Sometimes, most of the time when it's big, you must sit just outside the breaking waves and wait for enough of a lull to get far enough toward the beach to get your feet down on the sand. You lift your board up above the water, shoulder high at your side, and slog/sprint to dry sand.
We did make it safely back to the beach. We met at the base of the big dune where we had begun, laid our boards down, and looked back at what we had just left behind. As I remember, there wasn't much heroic proclaiming or verbalizing about what this meant for us in terms of our surfing resumes.
I'm sure every surfer has a feeling of gratification at having faced his first huge swell, and answered the call. This first big swell had left its stamp on us. It was our baptism. I knew I had come closer than ever to realizing my physical limits. I suppose that is what some young men must need to know about themselves. I was one I now knew.
It was almost first light---Steve and me, fall 1970, "Road's End", Buxton, North Carolina---one eight of a mile south of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. "Road's End" was our name for a parking lot behind a huge oceanfront dune. A state highway sign had given us the name. It said: "Road Ends 3/10 mile".
This was one of our favorite spots featuring a great sandbar. The sandbar was fed by the erosion of the huge dune before it during the winter. You got there by turning left off Route 12 at the entrance to the National Seashore at Cape Point. You followed the road around a lily pad-covered freshwater pond to an intersection of two-lane paved roads: left went to the lighthouse and keeper's quarters, right to the campground, straight led to Road's End.
There was a slow-moving tropical storm several hundred miles offshore---an east coast wave machine. We thought it would be pretty big so we wanted to get there and get out before everybody else. We had no idea what was waiting over the dune.
It could be heard long before it could be seen. We climbed over the dune and looked at it, spread before us, vast and deafening. It was huge by anyone's standards---even the surf flicks. We felt small. We were eighteen years apiece. One guy was already out, a mere dot on the outside, maybe three sandbars out or more. Sunlight was fingering through the clouds lying heavy on the horizon. These were the biggest real waves we had ever seen. Nothing before was even close.
We waxed our boards. My heart beats were so close and fast it felt like there was a humming motor in my chest. The rich, pungent smell of salt air and sea life alive and formerly living laid heavy in the mist sprayed into the air by the surf. It gave us some comfort as it always did. We were already trained to associate that smell with the pure joy of wave riding.
There was no hesitation whether to go out. Our moment was here. We did have to time our sprints through the shorebreak (the waves breaking right on the beach) in order to get off the beach. It was quite large, 5-7 feet, thick overhead, and seemed to suck all the water off the beach as it reeled back and up before slamming the wet sand before it. I watched and waited and watched and waited some more. Then in an instant went straight out from where we were. Steve walked about 200 yards to the south where he thought he could paddle out faster in a rip (riptide). I always admired his independent way of taking on a good challenge. Surely we had one now. I also always coveted Steve's longer arms for better paddling. Steve stood about 6'2" and 160 pounds. I was smaller, about 5'11" and 145 pounds.
Rips are out-flowing channels of water whose flow seaward from inside the surf near the beach often cause a kind of slot in the waves where the waves aren't breaking as large or often. They can be easier places to paddle out, but can be fickle and sometimes undependable. They can also be a swimmer's nightmare, but for a surfer trying to get over the sandbar to the lineup, a best friend. At this time we were surfing before the widespread use of the surf leash. So having no leashes, we were surfers until we lost our boards when it became necessary to be a swimmer. We kept our eyes on surface conditions so that we would know where the riptides were at all times.
Riptides are caused by large waves carrying lots of water across the sandbars at low tide. The extra large amount of water floods in against the beach, forms a current between the sandbar and the beach, and flows parallel to the beach until it finds a deeper cut or a gap in the sandbars which let it back out to sea. In the meantime, more large waves ram even more water over the bars behind it.
Sometimes waves will cross the bar and crash face-to-face against waves rebounding off the beach causing backwash. A real wildcard situation if you are riding a wave in and your wave collides with a backwash wave. Surfers usually go airborne when that happens. Most of the time it's great fun to get tossed up and off a wave face like this. You really must give yourself up to the circumstances, I suppose. The ocean's a good teacher that way.
My board was a 7-2 (7'2" long) scarlet red Harbour, 19" wide, shaped by Randy Rarick---and of course, a single fin. We had no surf leashes, as I noted earlier, and would count on our ability to swim or our buddy if we were separated from our boards and in trouble.
To paddle out through large waves with boards like these, when confronted with a wave about to break on you or a rolling wall of whitewater about 5 to 6 feet thick, you grab your board's rails tightly and roll over upside down. This was called "turning turtle" during this era. Your board would now be bottom up at or near the water's surface, you beneath it, underwater waiting (not long) for the impact. When your beating was over (we'll talk more about the beating later), you would roll over almost weightless in bubbling whitewater afterwash, dragging you back toward the beach, and continue paddling in a sprint over the sandbar where the waves are breaking---the "impact zone". If your timing is unlucky, you can be pinned down over the bar while being hammered repeatedly by all the waves in the set. At the end of this punishment you are often just outside the shorebreak where you began.
Waves or ground swells, coming from a far off source like a tropical depression, storm, or hurricane (the best wave makers on our coast), travel to the beach in sets of waves of 3-4-5 or more, each with a signature amount of time between waves, time between sets, and size. How close the tropical system is to the beach, how fast it is moving, how low its atmospheric pressure is, and which direction it is moving, influence the wave quality followed by local influences at the beach itself, for instance wind speed and direction and, of course, the tide.
East coast surfers, like all surfers. know there are a multitude of conditions which must align before the surf gets really good. The hardcore surfers are always watching the weather forecasts, especially the marine wind forecasts and tides, and checking the actual conditions at the beach regularly during the day they expect the swell to hit. The anticipation in the surf community with the approach of one of these storms offshore is difficult to accurately capture in print. Anyone with work obligations is killing themselves to get things in place so they can surf when the swell hits. The excitement explodes when swells line up, stacked to the horizon, pressing toward an offshore wind.
Okay. We're paddling out.
When paddling out in surf like this, there is usually a relatively calmer area between the shore break and the waves breaking over the first sandbar. The first real proof of close proximity to the impact zone are rolling walls of foaming whitewater which come one after the other almost appearing to be stacked up in layers. As you get into the thick of this you instinctively paddle harder and faster, arm muscles burning, shoulders, back, and down to your toes, all lit up. Paddle, paddle, turn turtle, flip back over---paddle, paddle, paddle, turn turtle, flip back over, again and again, and again until you reach the point of futility and total muscle exhaustion. You always hope to make it through the exact place where the monsters slam the surface water over the sandbar without taking direct hits. Sometimes you're unlucky. Direct hits are punishing to the body and psyche. They break surfboards. Most surfers who have surfed in fairly large waves or larger, have depressions in their boards where their fingertips have crushed into the fiberglass when gripping their boards tightly while paddling out.
Eventually we both made it outside to the relative safety just beyond the place where the most waves seemed to be breaking over the second or third sandbar out. We were hundreds of yards apart by the time we got outside. The other guy we had seen in the water alone was farther out than us. It wasn't clear why he was so far outside. We three were the only ones out.
When the surf is this big, 15-foot wave faces and up, it is especially eerie to the average surfer to sit alone outside picking and choosing the right wave to ride. We didn't think so at the time, but we were average surfers I suppose. It's the sport itself that has a way of making you feel special as athletes and sportsmen.
It's extra difficult to position yourself near the breaking peak of a large wave (the optimum place to take off) when it breaks over a sand bottom because the bottom gets so stirred up as to become semi-liquid a few feet or more from the bottom, with huge quantities of sand suspended in the ocean water. This often makes the shape of the breaking waves less defined and consistent, and more or less uniform than the preceding wave. The peak shifts along the wave face until the wave breaks, unlike waves breaking over rock or reef in other parts of the world. Here waves break a lot closer to the same place time and again.
We were nervous. There were few waves breaking consistently and ridable. The ocean was steel gray seeming to cast a sinister snarl, threatening these boys now in its grip. Steve had broken his nose after turning turtle under a huge wave and getting smacked by his board.
We could see a number of people gathered on the beach. A few were park rangers we discovered later. We didn't know it at the time, but a newlywed couple from Pennsylvania had drowned earlier at the lighthouse and the rangers weren't letting anyone else into the water, including other surfers. I guess they were mostly watching us and we weren't much to watch because we were already plotting our escape back to the beach.
Steve took off on his first big wave, a huge right. It was about 7-9 feet overhead and nasty as I watched him disappear out of sight as he dropped in. He made the drop, rode to the wave shoulder, kicked out, turned quickly around and paddled for his life back out of the impact zone over the sandbar. I picked out another big right, made a big drop in a crouch, made a conservative bottom turn, streaked down the line, and kicked up, up the wave face and out. The speed of it all was incomprehensible. I wasn't sure whether I was going to make it back out unpunished, but was just brushed by the whitewater of a few large ones on the way back outside.
We looked at each other and it was clear that the joy wasn't with us in these conditions. This swell was out of control. Many waves were unmake-able, meaning you really couldn't ride the wave face without having it break on you or ahead of you. In either case, the ride was shortened in these conditions and the risk of a catastrophic wipeout and swim to the beach were great. Surfers call these "closeout" conditions. The looming question now became: how are we going to get back to the beach through the shorebreak?
Now, paddling to the beach through the shorebreak racing to the beach from behind you is even more tricky than charging out through it from the beach. Sometimes, most of the time when it's big, you must sit just outside the breaking waves and wait for enough of a lull to get far enough toward the beach to get your feet down on the sand. You lift your board up above the water, shoulder high at your side, and slog/sprint to dry sand.
We did make it safely back to the beach. We met at the base of the big dune where we had begun, laid our boards down, and looked back at what we had just left behind. As I remember, there wasn't much heroic proclaiming or verbalizing about what this meant for us in terms of our surfing resumes.
I'm sure every surfer has a feeling of gratification at having faced his first huge swell, and answered the call. This first big swell had left its stamp on us. It was our baptism. I knew I had come closer than ever to realizing my physical limits. I suppose that is what some young men must need to know about themselves. I was one I now knew.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Big Waves, Part 1
Every surfer dreams of riding the big wave. I mean the really big wave. Now when we talk about big waves, we're seeing big wave surfers travel the world to challenge breaks like Teahupoo (Tahiti), Maverick's (Half Moon Bay, northern California), Todos Santos (Mexico), Jaws (Maui), and now, Surfer Magazine reports, Shipstern's Bluff, Ours, and Cyclops (all in Australia). Technology in marine weather forecasting, marine geology, and oceanography have now combined to predict the best time to be at a particular break any place in the world to catch epic conditions. Although sometimes still an email or phone call from an observant friend will do.
When surfers of this caliber take on waves like this, today it can easily be captured on film or DVD like no other era prior to this one. A big wave surfer's fantasies and nightmares can be laid before him and the world to see.
The known big-wave world we saw in the 196o's surf flicks featured Greg Noll, George Downing, Buzzy Trent, and Woody Brown riding monster swells in Hawaii at Makaha, Sunset Beach, and of course Waimea Bay on the north shore of Oahu.
These guys were taking off on racing mountains of seawater thrust at immovable reefs which in turn, tossed these 25'+ mountains and their riders toward the sky as the wave took form. Wipeouts were disastrous. We'd see a rider taking off on the wave's peak in a low crouch, gripping his board's rails (edges) trying to make the drop. Huge winds scouring up the wave face would lift his surfboard's nose into mid-air, heaving him up at first, then dumping him down the wave face and launching the board into a vertical spin some fifteen feet above the wave. We'd sit there aghast seeing ourselves on those waves.
We thought this was how we would learn how crazy it could be in big waves. You see we memorized these sensational wipeouts. We knew them well through the safety of the camera lens.
We did not yet know however the reality, that instant when a surfer gets one of three things at the point of takeoff in big surf: attempting the terrible drop and taking off down the wave face; pulling back behind the peak fast and hard enough so as not to be pulled over the "falls"; or being pulled over the "falls" to be pile-driven to the bottom by tons of water, hoping he gathered enough air to stay conscious until able to swim to the surface. At this point he must swim to the beach with other monsters bearing down from behind.
Was all this punishment worth it? If the thrill of riding smaller waves was any measure, without a doubt, we would find the worth. We all hoped our day would come. We did believe it would. Could we measure up? Everything we intended to do in the water until then was to ready us for our baptism.
Here on the East coast we saw the surf stars from Hawaii and California on surf flicks at special showings in the theaters of Virginia Beach in the 1960's. We strode into the theater with our buddies feeling like we were the core surfers on our piece of the coast---special---the real guys. We weren't I'm sure, but we felt that way and it felt good.
We'd look around the theater to see who was there. Were there any local big names like Bob Holland, of Smith and Holland Surf Shop, or Bob White, of Wave Riding Vehicles fame? There weren't many other names we knew for this was close to the birth of surfing and surf culture on our coast. In fact I was positive we wouldn't be surfing after say, age 30 because we didn't know hardly anyone older than us who surfed, except maybe Holland and White, but they owned surfing-related businesses.
I sat in the wash beside my best friend, Steve, at Croatan Beach south of Rudee Inlet in the late fall, 1969. I was seventeen. We were taking a break from surfing clean, but small waves. Steve and I shared the dream of riding big waves at exotic locations. We were the "Endless Summer" generation of surfers as well and Bud Brown's film was woven neatly into our dreams. This vision of traveling the world surfing seemed possible for us.
I carved the number "30" in the sand between us as the shallow wash receded. Steve asked, "What's that?" I told him that's about how old we'll be when we probably won't be able to surf anymore. The wash ran over the 30 and left two seventeen-year-olds sinking into the wash sand and thinking.
Could this be true? We didn't really know anyone much older than us who surfed, so maybe this theory held some truth. Maybe we would change that, but we never verbalized it. You have to understand how deep this subject ran in us and the urgency it bred. Yeah, we were boys worried about life as men with full time office jobs and Vietnam and riots off in the distance and our beloved sport even farther away.
When surfers of this caliber take on waves like this, today it can easily be captured on film or DVD like no other era prior to this one. A big wave surfer's fantasies and nightmares can be laid before him and the world to see.
The known big-wave world we saw in the 196o's surf flicks featured Greg Noll, George Downing, Buzzy Trent, and Woody Brown riding monster swells in Hawaii at Makaha, Sunset Beach, and of course Waimea Bay on the north shore of Oahu.
These guys were taking off on racing mountains of seawater thrust at immovable reefs which in turn, tossed these 25'+ mountains and their riders toward the sky as the wave took form. Wipeouts were disastrous. We'd see a rider taking off on the wave's peak in a low crouch, gripping his board's rails (edges) trying to make the drop. Huge winds scouring up the wave face would lift his surfboard's nose into mid-air, heaving him up at first, then dumping him down the wave face and launching the board into a vertical spin some fifteen feet above the wave. We'd sit there aghast seeing ourselves on those waves.
We thought this was how we would learn how crazy it could be in big waves. You see we memorized these sensational wipeouts. We knew them well through the safety of the camera lens.
We did not yet know however the reality, that instant when a surfer gets one of three things at the point of takeoff in big surf: attempting the terrible drop and taking off down the wave face; pulling back behind the peak fast and hard enough so as not to be pulled over the "falls"; or being pulled over the "falls" to be pile-driven to the bottom by tons of water, hoping he gathered enough air to stay conscious until able to swim to the surface. At this point he must swim to the beach with other monsters bearing down from behind.
Was all this punishment worth it? If the thrill of riding smaller waves was any measure, without a doubt, we would find the worth. We all hoped our day would come. We did believe it would. Could we measure up? Everything we intended to do in the water until then was to ready us for our baptism.
Here on the East coast we saw the surf stars from Hawaii and California on surf flicks at special showings in the theaters of Virginia Beach in the 1960's. We strode into the theater with our buddies feeling like we were the core surfers on our piece of the coast---special---the real guys. We weren't I'm sure, but we felt that way and it felt good.
We'd look around the theater to see who was there. Were there any local big names like Bob Holland, of Smith and Holland Surf Shop, or Bob White, of Wave Riding Vehicles fame? There weren't many other names we knew for this was close to the birth of surfing and surf culture on our coast. In fact I was positive we wouldn't be surfing after say, age 30 because we didn't know hardly anyone older than us who surfed, except maybe Holland and White, but they owned surfing-related businesses.
I sat in the wash beside my best friend, Steve, at Croatan Beach south of Rudee Inlet in the late fall, 1969. I was seventeen. We were taking a break from surfing clean, but small waves. Steve and I shared the dream of riding big waves at exotic locations. We were the "Endless Summer" generation of surfers as well and Bud Brown's film was woven neatly into our dreams. This vision of traveling the world surfing seemed possible for us.
I carved the number "30" in the sand between us as the shallow wash receded. Steve asked, "What's that?" I told him that's about how old we'll be when we probably won't be able to surf anymore. The wash ran over the 30 and left two seventeen-year-olds sinking into the wash sand and thinking.
Could this be true? We didn't really know anyone much older than us who surfed, so maybe this theory held some truth. Maybe we would change that, but we never verbalized it. You have to understand how deep this subject ran in us and the urgency it bred. Yeah, we were boys worried about life as men with full time office jobs and Vietnam and riots off in the distance and our beloved sport even farther away.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The After Swell Hangover, The Winter Cometh
Real winter for us loams just ahead. It's the first week of December when we typically get our first shock of cold weather here on the Outer Banks. For some our cold is not your cold, but ours is simply our very own reality---our cold. It's just as cold to us as yours is cold to you no matter the temperature, wind, and humidity. Right now high 30's to low 40's at night, north winds around 20+ mph, and ocean water temperature now plowing down into the mid and then low 50's. Winter of '05 boasted the coldest winter ocean temps I could remember in many years, reaching down to a shocking 36 degrees.
Wetsuit design and materials have never been better though and let the brave-hearted surf right through our winters nowadays. This is a far cry from my first attempt at surfing in winter water in a wetsuit.
I was sixteen in high school around 1968 in Virginia Beach. I had a friend who knew someone who had a wetsuit. So we visited to see if that guy would loan it to me. I tried it on and it seemed to fit well enough. The loan was on. My best friend Steve Hudkins had come up with one as well so we were set. We just needed worthy conditions.
It was February, it was snowing, and we knew there was a swell associated with the snow storm. We went directly to Croatan, a home break on the south side of Rudee Inlet. The sand bottom formed a simulated beach break there beside the rock jetty. It was our kind of wave.
The wetsuit I struggled into was 1/4" thick "sharkskin", a diver's suit. The wetsuit arms were so rigid, that they would hold my arms inside them out at 45-degree angles from my sides if I relaxed. There were thick boots. I felt very special and very rigged up. Gloves? No, but I had solved that with my Mom's Playtex dishwashing gloves taped at the wrists with black electrical tape. No hood, but I was ready.
We paddled out, just the two of us, in snow-glassy 4-5 foot faces, mostly lefts. Everything felt heavy and slow, because it was. I took off on my first wave, a left. I have no memory of riding the wave, just wiping out, struggling underwater to find the surface and feeling water so cold I lost orientation as to which way was up. No, I mean really lost my way! I swam hard to the surface and kept swimming about to burst holding my breath. I knew I was about to bust through the surface any second. And then the top of my head butted hard against the sand bottom.
When something like this happens---you can't see cause of the cold, you can't breathe cause of the cold water, and you lose your inner compass cause of the cold---there is a dialogue that starts up in your head between you and your soul. "Am I about to die?" asks your soul. Your answer is surprisingly cogent, articulate, logical, but at the same time completely panicked about the possibilty of dying because you were stupid or dying as pitiful testament to Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest. This is the adrenaline talking. Nonetheless the inner voices agree this is not the way you envisioned going out. So you get into the "do-whatever-it-takes" mode. You turn 180 degrees, push hard off the bottom and find your pathetic way out of the mess you're in.
Needless to say, I waited many years for wetsuit design and material technology to reach a point of safe functionality. And because I was becoming a young man, I walked out of the water that day with my immortality still intact (I had conquered) so that I could find myself in similar predicaments surfing in the 40 years to come.
Wetsuit design and materials have never been better though and let the brave-hearted surf right through our winters nowadays. This is a far cry from my first attempt at surfing in winter water in a wetsuit.
I was sixteen in high school around 1968 in Virginia Beach. I had a friend who knew someone who had a wetsuit. So we visited to see if that guy would loan it to me. I tried it on and it seemed to fit well enough. The loan was on. My best friend Steve Hudkins had come up with one as well so we were set. We just needed worthy conditions.
It was February, it was snowing, and we knew there was a swell associated with the snow storm. We went directly to Croatan, a home break on the south side of Rudee Inlet. The sand bottom formed a simulated beach break there beside the rock jetty. It was our kind of wave.
The wetsuit I struggled into was 1/4" thick "sharkskin", a diver's suit. The wetsuit arms were so rigid, that they would hold my arms inside them out at 45-degree angles from my sides if I relaxed. There were thick boots. I felt very special and very rigged up. Gloves? No, but I had solved that with my Mom's Playtex dishwashing gloves taped at the wrists with black electrical tape. No hood, but I was ready.
We paddled out, just the two of us, in snow-glassy 4-5 foot faces, mostly lefts. Everything felt heavy and slow, because it was. I took off on my first wave, a left. I have no memory of riding the wave, just wiping out, struggling underwater to find the surface and feeling water so cold I lost orientation as to which way was up. No, I mean really lost my way! I swam hard to the surface and kept swimming about to burst holding my breath. I knew I was about to bust through the surface any second. And then the top of my head butted hard against the sand bottom.
When something like this happens---you can't see cause of the cold, you can't breathe cause of the cold water, and you lose your inner compass cause of the cold---there is a dialogue that starts up in your head between you and your soul. "Am I about to die?" asks your soul. Your answer is surprisingly cogent, articulate, logical, but at the same time completely panicked about the possibilty of dying because you were stupid or dying as pitiful testament to Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest. This is the adrenaline talking. Nonetheless the inner voices agree this is not the way you envisioned going out. So you get into the "do-whatever-it-takes" mode. You turn 180 degrees, push hard off the bottom and find your pathetic way out of the mess you're in.
Needless to say, I waited many years for wetsuit design and material technology to reach a point of safe functionality. And because I was becoming a young man, I walked out of the water that day with my immortality still intact (I had conquered) so that I could find myself in similar predicaments surfing in the 40 years to come.
Friday, November 23, 2007
The Day After the 2007 Thanksgiving Day Swell
I awoke this morning knowing the end had really come. I was bone weary. I could feel the new cold air radiating around my piling supported house from inside its walls. The north wind was slashing through the pine trees outside. I knew what the ocean looked like in these conditions: raggy, pushed over fluid humps passing by the sand beach, racing south. The air temperature had plunged to around 40 degrees last night. The reality of the coming winter was in my face.
Yesterday was the triumphant 3rd day of the 2007 Thanksgiving swell that will not be soon lost to memory by any surfer on this part of the coast. Yesterday morning I raised from deep sleep ready to take a risk---a slow breakfast and prep for the day's waves. The cold front, I knew, was on it's way. But I wanted to surf both sides of low tide, with low tide being around noon. So I had a little waiting to do. I also knew I wouldn't last but so long out there, so my timing was critical. As a long-time east coast surfer, I knew I was risking ruination by the inevitable wind switch to north, but I took my time anyhow.
When I arrived at the beach access, there were places to park. I was surprised. When I climbed over the dune boardwalk, there were way fewer surfers in the water than yesterday. I guessed that it was less crowded because it was, after all, Thanksgiving and I suppose some guys were just too dog-tired to paddle back out again. I understood. As I have noted, we don't have larger swells like this stay around this long very often.
My guess is the typical east coast surfer would surf the first two days until crippled by the shock of such good waves for so long under such perfect conditions. This swell had a re-vitalizing effect though on many. It produced a symphony of wave and human energy until all was spent. It's demise marked a season's end in a way, and the beginning of new hope in us all for another opportunity just like it somewhere out in the future.
The wind was now a staked-out southwester about 15-25 mph. Small boat wake sized side-shore wavelets rolled across the face of each ridge of surf pushing across the bars. This surf was so fast and would curl up tight in the shallows over the sandbars inside. Big swift "C"-shaped faces offered a way long, liquid wave playground to every rider. Guys were paddling in multiple directions toward the next place their peak would emerge, others sitting waiting patiently, recovering from the hold-down on the inside. All trying to stay lined up on a particular oceanfront house where they had seen the last big set break. The next peak was their's.
I recognized the familiar slender silhouette of my almost 18 year-old son, Jack, as I squinted into the sun to the south. He said he had been out a little farther south for about 30 minutes. I watched him take off on a few long backside lefts which carried him way inside each wave. Finally he had had enough of fighting his way back out I suppose. I saw him trudging up the sand dune to the beach access stairs and then on to the parking area.
I saw so many great rides these three days by so many people I know or at least am acquaintances with. There was so much pure joy all around. A day of Thanksgiving to be sure. I left this day however, reassured this all can and will happen once again. I'll be sure to let you know.
Yesterday was the triumphant 3rd day of the 2007 Thanksgiving swell that will not be soon lost to memory by any surfer on this part of the coast. Yesterday morning I raised from deep sleep ready to take a risk---a slow breakfast and prep for the day's waves. The cold front, I knew, was on it's way. But I wanted to surf both sides of low tide, with low tide being around noon. So I had a little waiting to do. I also knew I wouldn't last but so long out there, so my timing was critical. As a long-time east coast surfer, I knew I was risking ruination by the inevitable wind switch to north, but I took my time anyhow.
When I arrived at the beach access, there were places to park. I was surprised. When I climbed over the dune boardwalk, there were way fewer surfers in the water than yesterday. I guessed that it was less crowded because it was, after all, Thanksgiving and I suppose some guys were just too dog-tired to paddle back out again. I understood. As I have noted, we don't have larger swells like this stay around this long very often.
My guess is the typical east coast surfer would surf the first two days until crippled by the shock of such good waves for so long under such perfect conditions. This swell had a re-vitalizing effect though on many. It produced a symphony of wave and human energy until all was spent. It's demise marked a season's end in a way, and the beginning of new hope in us all for another opportunity just like it somewhere out in the future.
The wind was now a staked-out southwester about 15-25 mph. Small boat wake sized side-shore wavelets rolled across the face of each ridge of surf pushing across the bars. This surf was so fast and would curl up tight in the shallows over the sandbars inside. Big swift "C"-shaped faces offered a way long, liquid wave playground to every rider. Guys were paddling in multiple directions toward the next place their peak would emerge, others sitting waiting patiently, recovering from the hold-down on the inside. All trying to stay lined up on a particular oceanfront house where they had seen the last big set break. The next peak was their's.
I recognized the familiar slender silhouette of my almost 18 year-old son, Jack, as I squinted into the sun to the south. He said he had been out a little farther south for about 30 minutes. I watched him take off on a few long backside lefts which carried him way inside each wave. Finally he had had enough of fighting his way back out I suppose. I saw him trudging up the sand dune to the beach access stairs and then on to the parking area.
I saw so many great rides these three days by so many people I know or at least am acquaintances with. There was so much pure joy all around. A day of Thanksgiving to be sure. I left this day however, reassured this all can and will happen once again. I'll be sure to let you know.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The 2007 Thanksgiving Day Swell
Today was the second day of the second consecutive year of the timely arrival of a Thanksgiving ground swell. Yesterday I surfed with only two other locals, both goofy-footers like myself: Phillip Stafford and Jerry Slayton. We were on a break in Nags Head. The sandbars there have been rearranged by the current and swell caused by the passing of Hurricane Noel. We adapted. The waves were shoulder high to about 1-2' overhead. The lefts were fine and why you would find 3 goofy-footers converging on the same end of this singular sandbar. Water temperature was around 58 degrees. I wore a 3-2 full suit with boots and was completely comfortable for the 2+ hours I was out.
Today I chose the social cauldron at one of my favorite Nags Head breaks and surfed with many friends, their sons, acquaintances, and assorted iconic local surf figures. Even Delbert was there, apparently abandoning his beloved First Street, evidence that the sandbar there may be less than satisfactory now since the passing of Noel.
Everybody was in a great mood. The surf was a rare 1-3' overhead with offshore SW breeze around 10 mph. The air temperature even pushed the mid seventies.
The lines just kept coming to the beach. The lefts were insane. At mid-tide coming in, there was a huge peak busting pretty far outside, fairly mellow though, not breaking top-to-bottom, but a very long right.
Two straight days of overhead swell with offshore wind is rare on this coast. Everybody was surfing till they needed to be dragged out face down on the sand. I savored every wave as if it was life itself ebbing away. You just don't know when you'll see these conditions again.
I look forward to Thanksgiving Day, tomorrow. The same conditions are forecast. A cold front, one of many to come, is forecast to blow in late tomorrow sometime. The wind will clock around to north and this beautiful, beautiful swell will melt like so many before it, into a raggy, side-shore chop. The ocean will transform itself once again as it will our focus.
Today I chose the social cauldron at one of my favorite Nags Head breaks and surfed with many friends, their sons, acquaintances, and assorted iconic local surf figures. Even Delbert was there, apparently abandoning his beloved First Street, evidence that the sandbar there may be less than satisfactory now since the passing of Noel.
Everybody was in a great mood. The surf was a rare 1-3' overhead with offshore SW breeze around 10 mph. The air temperature even pushed the mid seventies.
The lines just kept coming to the beach. The lefts were insane. At mid-tide coming in, there was a huge peak busting pretty far outside, fairly mellow though, not breaking top-to-bottom, but a very long right.
Two straight days of overhead swell with offshore wind is rare on this coast. Everybody was surfing till they needed to be dragged out face down on the sand. I savored every wave as if it was life itself ebbing away. You just don't know when you'll see these conditions again.
I look forward to Thanksgiving Day, tomorrow. The same conditions are forecast. A cold front, one of many to come, is forecast to blow in late tomorrow sometime. The wind will clock around to north and this beautiful, beautiful swell will melt like so many before it, into a raggy, side-shore chop. The ocean will transform itself once again as it will our focus.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Since Hurricane Noel and Why We Must Keep Wearing Leashes in Town
Much has streamed by the coast since we last talked, after Hurricane Noel's passing. Yeah, we got great waves the following Sunday and Monday. I had the most fun Monday morning surfing with old buddies, some whom I only see when I surf and only when I'm at certain sandbars. I like to visit different breaks from Kitty Hawk to Pea Island when there's a swell. I can see the locals I've surfed with here since 1975 and make sure I get to surf with them once in a while if I move around to various breaks during the year. Some of them are more habitual about where they like to surf than I am. So, for me, it's like dropping in at their home to visit from time to time.
We have a great surf community on the Outer Banks. It represents a healthy cross section of our local population and has since around 1976. That was the first time I could remember looking around the room at a public hearing considering the imposition of regulated surfing hours and restricted areas to surf here in Kill Devil Hills (KDH). It was to be modeled after Virginia Beach's laws, a city where I had grown up and had my taste of what it's like to sit on the beach and have to watch perfect small waves peel without surfers on them. The only place you could surf between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. was beside the Steel Pier at Rudee Inlet. There were so many surfers and people posing as surfers, you could've walked from board to board. It was ridiculous and no way to surf!
At the time (1976) in KDH there had been a hell of a swell in September and a bunch of locals, me included, descended on 2nd Street, which was one of the three best sandbars north of Oregon Inlet. Planter's Bank (near the original Gray's Department Store) and Domes (the geodesic domes comprising Robert Benson's home) in South Nags Head were the other two. People parked anywhere they could. Seems some parked in the right-of-way on the west side of the beach road and down 2nd Street boxing in the home of a current KDH commissioner. Apparently he didn't like this.
So word soon flew around town that KDH was considering restrictive surfing laws. Word also flew around that local surfers need to somehow organize. I knew this would be a monumental effort, cause most of us were living here to avoid organizations, restrictions, lifestyle congestion, and for this era, any semblance of conventional conformity. I suppose we were being motivated to a type of civic action, many for the first time.
This was the first time I could look around that public hearing room and see just who the surfing community was on this part of the Outer Banks. There were carpenters, waiters, as they were called then, masons, shop owners, club owners, musicians, pharmacists, mechanics, fishermen, and writers. There was Skip Jones, Robbie Snyder, Monty Leavel, Doug Miller, Dave Menaker, who didn't really surf but owned Soundside Folk and Ale House where we all watered down, listened to live music, and met to plan for the public hearings; also Bill Longworth, Brian Caton, Stuart "Panda" Taylor,and my brothers, Jamey and Craig Saunders. (If I left anyone out please let me hear from you.)
Many of us spoke directly to a local government for the first time. I was nervous but I was truly motivated as were many of my friends. The town commissioners listened to us. A deal was proposed: we would wear surf leashes from that day on all the time when surfing in the town. This deal eventually became law for KDH and all the towns. But we could still surf whenever and wherever we wanted. I'd say the surfing community gained it's identity here when this happened. I felt like I now had a place I could call home.
My wife and I have raised three children in KDH one mile from the high tide line. One was born in our home and can't imagine leaving the ocean to go to college, but I'm sure he'll learn how.
I still cringe when I see overly-tattooed young shredders shed their leashes in the towns. I remember the deal that was made back then. I pray they don't lose their boards and injure a tourist or child. Our freedom to ride waves hangs in the balance and in their hands.
We have a great surf community on the Outer Banks. It represents a healthy cross section of our local population and has since around 1976. That was the first time I could remember looking around the room at a public hearing considering the imposition of regulated surfing hours and restricted areas to surf here in Kill Devil Hills (KDH). It was to be modeled after Virginia Beach's laws, a city where I had grown up and had my taste of what it's like to sit on the beach and have to watch perfect small waves peel without surfers on them. The only place you could surf between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. was beside the Steel Pier at Rudee Inlet. There were so many surfers and people posing as surfers, you could've walked from board to board. It was ridiculous and no way to surf!
At the time (1976) in KDH there had been a hell of a swell in September and a bunch of locals, me included, descended on 2nd Street, which was one of the three best sandbars north of Oregon Inlet. Planter's Bank (near the original Gray's Department Store) and Domes (the geodesic domes comprising Robert Benson's home) in South Nags Head were the other two. People parked anywhere they could. Seems some parked in the right-of-way on the west side of the beach road and down 2nd Street boxing in the home of a current KDH commissioner. Apparently he didn't like this.
So word soon flew around town that KDH was considering restrictive surfing laws. Word also flew around that local surfers need to somehow organize. I knew this would be a monumental effort, cause most of us were living here to avoid organizations, restrictions, lifestyle congestion, and for this era, any semblance of conventional conformity. I suppose we were being motivated to a type of civic action, many for the first time.
This was the first time I could look around that public hearing room and see just who the surfing community was on this part of the Outer Banks. There were carpenters, waiters, as they were called then, masons, shop owners, club owners, musicians, pharmacists, mechanics, fishermen, and writers. There was Skip Jones, Robbie Snyder, Monty Leavel, Doug Miller, Dave Menaker, who didn't really surf but owned Soundside Folk and Ale House where we all watered down, listened to live music, and met to plan for the public hearings; also Bill Longworth, Brian Caton, Stuart "Panda" Taylor,and my brothers, Jamey and Craig Saunders. (If I left anyone out please let me hear from you.)
Many of us spoke directly to a local government for the first time. I was nervous but I was truly motivated as were many of my friends. The town commissioners listened to us. A deal was proposed: we would wear surf leashes from that day on all the time when surfing in the town. This deal eventually became law for KDH and all the towns. But we could still surf whenever and wherever we wanted. I'd say the surfing community gained it's identity here when this happened. I felt like I now had a place I could call home.
My wife and I have raised three children in KDH one mile from the high tide line. One was born in our home and can't imagine leaving the ocean to go to college, but I'm sure he'll learn how.
I still cringe when I see overly-tattooed young shredders shed their leashes in the towns. I remember the deal that was made back then. I pray they don't lose their boards and injure a tourist or child. Our freedom to ride waves hangs in the balance and in their hands.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Waiting for Noel's Legacy
Hurricane Noel has now raced off to the northeast of us toward Nova Scotia. I checked the surf this morning around 7:20 and the surf conditions were intense and heavy. The First Street beach access was edged with fairly deep beach sand and plenty of sargassum from the very early morning's high tide. The wind was offshore, northwest about 30 knots with higher gusts. The breaking waves were at least double overhead and with smoking crests shredded by the torching wind. The north current was clawing the beach and dunes re-built after Hurricane Isabel 3 years ago. All I could think about was how good the surf was gonna be tomorrow. The offshore wind was forecast to subside and stay offshore. It would take until tomorrow for the surf to clean up and line up nice, and we even might have some leftovers on Monday.
I just returned from a 25-mile tempo ride. I stopped at what's left of Kitty Hawk Pier to check the surf on the way home, back down the Beach Road. The pier was chopped off by Hurricane Isabel leaving only the pier house and a stub of the original pier. Since then the Hilton Garden Inn, chocked full of tourists, sits where families and surfers and fishermen used to park their vehicles to use the beaches nearby and the pier. I understand the economic forces at work here, but it's sad to see a sign standing at the pier ramp which warns "for use of hotel guests only". Many a local child learned to surf or fish there including my son whom I saw get his first true tube ride there when he was 11-years old.
The surf there this afternoon was quite heavy busting hard on the sand dunes around the foot of the pier ramp and tearing away at the foot of the dune a little more with each successive wave. The outside sets were monstrous forcing the pier pilings to tremble and vibrate like guitar strings as they filed to the beach.
Tomorrow should be the day and tomorrow afternoon the time.
I just returned from a 25-mile tempo ride. I stopped at what's left of Kitty Hawk Pier to check the surf on the way home, back down the Beach Road. The pier was chopped off by Hurricane Isabel leaving only the pier house and a stub of the original pier. Since then the Hilton Garden Inn, chocked full of tourists, sits where families and surfers and fishermen used to park their vehicles to use the beaches nearby and the pier. I understand the economic forces at work here, but it's sad to see a sign standing at the pier ramp which warns "for use of hotel guests only". Many a local child learned to surf or fish there including my son whom I saw get his first true tube ride there when he was 11-years old.
The surf there this afternoon was quite heavy busting hard on the sand dunes around the foot of the pier ramp and tearing away at the foot of the dune a little more with each successive wave. The outside sets were monstrous forcing the pier pilings to tremble and vibrate like guitar strings as they filed to the beach.
Tomorrow should be the day and tomorrow afternoon the time.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Blog Gap and The Tour de 'Peake
October 30, 2007
Greetings, it's been awhile blogettes and other blogees. My first bike racing season ended in mid-August. The season overall was extremely grueling, sometimes difficult to raise killer instincts in order to compete, and physically painful---I loved it! The moment-to-moment thrills were endless. I made new friends and, I suppose, opponents in the races which had many of the same riders from the Tidewater, Virginia area, my former stomping grounds and place where I grew up. I was always inspired by the riders on our team as they competed.
The day following my infamous cheeseburger-toting Tour de Port, I raced in the Tour de 'Peake in Chesapeake, Va. There were around 35 Cat 5 riders like myself. Two riders from my club, Ricky D. and Michael B. were with me. Again we lined up, me first, wheel on the start line, Ricky on my rear wheel, Michael on his. I noticed two riders lined up together on the far right, Cory and A.J. They were from different teams but I knew they were among the strongest I could pick out, and having them together on the start line told me something was up. Cory was on the line followed by A.J., and then A.J.'s whole team stretched out behind him.
I had no idea exactly what I was going to do but I sensed something was about to go bang over there on the outside. The race started. I let the riders to my right, also on the starting line, go forward creating a gap giving me a lane over to the right where Cory and A.J. launched away. I shot the gap, broke into A.J.'s team's line and accelerated like a crazy person to catch A.J.'s wheel. We had about 100 yards to the first lefthand turn (90 degrees, 2 lanes wide). We came out of the turn way fast in a streaking paceline! I had no idea at this point who was behind me or where my teammates were. I glanced down at my computer---30 then 31 mph! "Oh my god, we're in a break," I thought. "I hope other riders are hooked on to help keep this pace. I'll never last the whole race if it's just the three of us. Is the main field still attached to us?"
All I could do was stay tucked down out of the wind, drafting in A.J.'s slipstream as I watched Cory come off the front, slide down along our left side and to the rear of the paceline with it's unknown number of riders. A.J. leading, I would have to take my turn working at the front next. He peeled away on the back stretch right before the turn into the finishing straight. I led us back across the start/finishing line and could hear the race commentator say something about Kitty Hawk Cycling Club in the break.
We again rounded the first 90-degree corner, went about 300 yards and I slid off the front and began dropping back along the paceline's side. I counted riders anxiously as I progressed toward the sanctuary of the rear, where other riders were enjoying the labors of the riders leading them.
Ricky, my teammate, had made the break and was safely working in about the sixth position back. There were a total of 8 of us. Before the end of the race one rider would drop out of our lead group. The main field was quite distant behind us and no threat, the break distance having been created. Our group settled into a 27-29 mph tempo, which functioned well with the number we had and as long as everyone cooperated and took their turn working at the front.
I stayed in the rotation behind A.J.'s rear wheel. Several laps in I knew we were pressing the fitness level of this group as riders would immediately come off the front when it became their turn, or if they were the second rider, stay on the leader's wheel when he came off the front skipping their turn altogether. The cooperation among the riders began to stress, tension and even anger crossed riders' faces as they were pushed more quickly to the point. One paceline became two almost competing lines.
Grudgingly, riders fell back together realizing a group tantrum was only going to empower the riders following us in the main field, and maybe have them bridge up to us. So the unspoken decision being clearly, and convincingly concluded, we fell back upon our group fate to help each other to the bell lap where the gloves would come off and our primal, solo efforts would overtake all else as the only thing in the world that mattered.
I remember the bell ringing as we passed the reviewing stand. A.J. was at the line's head, me huddled on his rear wheel, other riders in the break behind us. A.J. rides for the Fat Frogs Racing Team out of Va. Beach. He is a big, powerful rider, maybe around 6'-2" and 240 pounds with one large eyeball tattoed on the back of each of his calves. I had noticed these and his raw power in time trials earlier in the season. He is a superb time trialist.
As we pushed hard around the back stretch still holding our paceline, I leaned forward and urged A.J. to push harder saying,"let's time trial 'em A.J." Meaning let's ride faster to keep the other riders back while trying to break any of the riders who may be suffering. Easy for me to say when I'm hiding behind his wheel out of the wind right? He answered back to me,"it's too far to the line yet Skip." So we kept up the pace pushing 30 mph again. I found out later, my teammate was on my wheel also enjoying his protected position.
The last 90-degree turn before the finish line was about 1000 yards from the line. Out of the turn we held our positions and stayed on our saddles for about 50 yards and then the race exploded. We all shifted to a higher gear, stood up, broke out of the line all at once groping for an open path to the finish. The sprint was on! Bike frames creaked and cogs and sprockets clacked and clicked. A.J. slowly pulled away from me. Ricky launched out from behind my rear wheel, streaking by me and then A.J.
I poured every cell of strength I could gather down through the pedals, the drive train and to the very rubber tire face engaging the road surface. I crossed the finish line at 33 mph having been passed by one rider on the left, one on the right, and finishing fifth. I had partially dislocated a rib during this race I guess during one of the big efforts. Didn't realize it until the adrenaline faded later. Ricky reached an impressive 37 mph as he took first place, A.J. in second.
I finished my first racing season with a seventh place at the Chesapeake Criterium and a DNF at the Statesville (N.C.) Criterium. Training time has been filled since then with surfing and tempo rides. Won't begin focused race training again until mid-November. Hope to blog you again soon. Let me hear from you sometime.
Greetings, it's been awhile blogettes and other blogees. My first bike racing season ended in mid-August. The season overall was extremely grueling, sometimes difficult to raise killer instincts in order to compete, and physically painful---I loved it! The moment-to-moment thrills were endless. I made new friends and, I suppose, opponents in the races which had many of the same riders from the Tidewater, Virginia area, my former stomping grounds and place where I grew up. I was always inspired by the riders on our team as they competed.
The day following my infamous cheeseburger-toting Tour de Port, I raced in the Tour de 'Peake in Chesapeake, Va. There were around 35 Cat 5 riders like myself. Two riders from my club, Ricky D. and Michael B. were with me. Again we lined up, me first, wheel on the start line, Ricky on my rear wheel, Michael on his. I noticed two riders lined up together on the far right, Cory and A.J. They were from different teams but I knew they were among the strongest I could pick out, and having them together on the start line told me something was up. Cory was on the line followed by A.J., and then A.J.'s whole team stretched out behind him.
I had no idea exactly what I was going to do but I sensed something was about to go bang over there on the outside. The race started. I let the riders to my right, also on the starting line, go forward creating a gap giving me a lane over to the right where Cory and A.J. launched away. I shot the gap, broke into A.J.'s team's line and accelerated like a crazy person to catch A.J.'s wheel. We had about 100 yards to the first lefthand turn (90 degrees, 2 lanes wide). We came out of the turn way fast in a streaking paceline! I had no idea at this point who was behind me or where my teammates were. I glanced down at my computer---30 then 31 mph! "Oh my god, we're in a break," I thought. "I hope other riders are hooked on to help keep this pace. I'll never last the whole race if it's just the three of us. Is the main field still attached to us?"
All I could do was stay tucked down out of the wind, drafting in A.J.'s slipstream as I watched Cory come off the front, slide down along our left side and to the rear of the paceline with it's unknown number of riders. A.J. leading, I would have to take my turn working at the front next. He peeled away on the back stretch right before the turn into the finishing straight. I led us back across the start/finishing line and could hear the race commentator say something about Kitty Hawk Cycling Club in the break.
We again rounded the first 90-degree corner, went about 300 yards and I slid off the front and began dropping back along the paceline's side. I counted riders anxiously as I progressed toward the sanctuary of the rear, where other riders were enjoying the labors of the riders leading them.
Ricky, my teammate, had made the break and was safely working in about the sixth position back. There were a total of 8 of us. Before the end of the race one rider would drop out of our lead group. The main field was quite distant behind us and no threat, the break distance having been created. Our group settled into a 27-29 mph tempo, which functioned well with the number we had and as long as everyone cooperated and took their turn working at the front.
I stayed in the rotation behind A.J.'s rear wheel. Several laps in I knew we were pressing the fitness level of this group as riders would immediately come off the front when it became their turn, or if they were the second rider, stay on the leader's wheel when he came off the front skipping their turn altogether. The cooperation among the riders began to stress, tension and even anger crossed riders' faces as they were pushed more quickly to the point. One paceline became two almost competing lines.
Grudgingly, riders fell back together realizing a group tantrum was only going to empower the riders following us in the main field, and maybe have them bridge up to us. So the unspoken decision being clearly, and convincingly concluded, we fell back upon our group fate to help each other to the bell lap where the gloves would come off and our primal, solo efforts would overtake all else as the only thing in the world that mattered.
I remember the bell ringing as we passed the reviewing stand. A.J. was at the line's head, me huddled on his rear wheel, other riders in the break behind us. A.J. rides for the Fat Frogs Racing Team out of Va. Beach. He is a big, powerful rider, maybe around 6'-2" and 240 pounds with one large eyeball tattoed on the back of each of his calves. I had noticed these and his raw power in time trials earlier in the season. He is a superb time trialist.
As we pushed hard around the back stretch still holding our paceline, I leaned forward and urged A.J. to push harder saying,"let's time trial 'em A.J." Meaning let's ride faster to keep the other riders back while trying to break any of the riders who may be suffering. Easy for me to say when I'm hiding behind his wheel out of the wind right? He answered back to me,"it's too far to the line yet Skip." So we kept up the pace pushing 30 mph again. I found out later, my teammate was on my wheel also enjoying his protected position.
The last 90-degree turn before the finish line was about 1000 yards from the line. Out of the turn we held our positions and stayed on our saddles for about 50 yards and then the race exploded. We all shifted to a higher gear, stood up, broke out of the line all at once groping for an open path to the finish. The sprint was on! Bike frames creaked and cogs and sprockets clacked and clicked. A.J. slowly pulled away from me. Ricky launched out from behind my rear wheel, streaking by me and then A.J.
I poured every cell of strength I could gather down through the pedals, the drive train and to the very rubber tire face engaging the road surface. I crossed the finish line at 33 mph having been passed by one rider on the left, one on the right, and finishing fifth. I had partially dislocated a rib during this race I guess during one of the big efforts. Didn't realize it until the adrenaline faded later. Ricky reached an impressive 37 mph as he took first place, A.J. in second.
I finished my first racing season with a seventh place at the Chesapeake Criterium and a DNF at the Statesville (N.C.) Criterium. Training time has been filled since then with surfing and tempo rides. Won't begin focused race training again until mid-November. Hope to blog you again soon. Let me hear from you sometime.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Preparing for a Bike Race-Tour De 'Port
Do not ever eat a cheeseburger before a bike race unless you intend not to be in the race. Yes, I made that mistake even recently. I carried an undigested cheeseburger with me across the finish line of a race that should have been much easier on me and was virtually crippled by it. That's one of the many reasons I'm a Category 5 racer. They may even have demoted me to Category 6A or B (this category does not exist) as punishment.
Real cyclists/athletes, and even me, have preparation that goes on all year leading to the racing season and which occurs during the hours preceding the race of the day. Last weekend I attempted 2 criteriums on consecutive days for the first time, the Tour De 'Port (Portsmouth) on Saturday, and the Tour De 'Peake (Chesapeake) on Sunday. Wasn't sure how much recovery I would need for a race the following day, but I wanted to test my fitness and see.
Oh yea, the cheeseburger---I ate it 2-1/2 hours before my start time at 'Port. That's plenty of time to digest it right? Ha! No!
When I arrive at a criterium, the first thing I want to do is register and get my bib. This is the number I'll wear during the race. Usually, like the other racers, I end up parking in an outlying parking lot or a parking garage. In Portsmouth, it was a parking garage on the perimeter of the race course and the TODI Music and Sidewalk Festival. I rode my bike over to the registration table and signed in and got my number.
There was a guy next door who was offering computer chips at no charge that we could mount on our chain stays. With them he could track our specific bikes through the race course and give the race officials our split times, average times,
and fastest laps, and verification of finishing order I suppose. About now everybody's feeling real special. Faster would've been better.
Two Cat 4 riders, Robert and Mark and one of the Cat 5 riders from our club, Mike B. are in the parking garage inside the race course perimeter. Ricky D. and I, both Cat 5's, are together in the other garage. Ricky and his friend Megan, arrive and Ricky registers. My cheeseburger and I return to our garage to warm up.
There is a race in progress led by two motorcycle cops every lap and we must carefully cross the course after the racers pass us. There is a bandstand with live music. Families walk the sidewalks along the race course, racers and their friends watch the race and mill nervously around. Most try to stand in shade to watch the race as it's low 90's and high humidity. Teams and clubs are grouped together along the course. Sidewalk cafe-goers are feasting in the heat planted at tables under trees along the way, some 50 yards upstream of the finish line.
Preparation: Warm-up is absolutely essential for me. I prefer a stationary trainer at the tailgate of my pickup. A cold Gatoraid beside me, a towel draped over my handlebars, an ipod with Jeff Beck's "You Had it Coming" screaming me out of my comfort zone. The stationary trainer is best for me for warming up in strange places because I can control the warm up tempo and how constant and steady it is. They say a long warmup is best for short, fast races, and shorter warmups are often best for long races, like road races maybe longer than 40 miles. The thinking on this seems to be that longer races usually begin slower and that warmup can take place largely during the first part of the race. Only the individual rider can decide what works best for him.
My warmup starts very slow and builds to the point where I'm doing one or two sprint intervals at the end. I'm trying to warn my body of what's about to happen to it.
I finish the warmup. I put things back in my truck, take my bike out of the trainer, fold the trainer, lay it in the truck bed, close the tailgate and rear window, lock it up. I'm concentrating real hard on all the little details now. My tires are pumped up rock hard just under 120 psi, the way I like to ride them. I have one gel and my glasses in my jersey pocket. I'll eat the gel at the starting line so it'll get in me during the race. The glasses are there so that I can inspect my bike closely after a crash. That way I'll know whether it can be ridden or not immediately, or whether an adjustment on the spot will do the job or not. The details have to be right. The tiniest thing missing or not right when your physical limits are being exposed can be excruciating.
To say an amateur racer has a special bond with their bike when they must count on it in a race would be an immense understatement. I am this way. I don't have an extra bike following me through a race or on the sideline of a criterium that I can snatch on the moment of mechanical breakdown or crash. It is just this one. It is everything.
The Category 4 race is right before our Cat 5 race today. I show at the sidewalk beside the course, stand near the finish line in time to see the last few laps.
The bell rings indicating the final lap. Minutes later I see riders rounding the monument at the end of the street, the setup for the sprint to the finish line. I squint into the sun, recognizing the body language of one of two riders who appear to be on the front. They're closer now. Is it Robert? No. Yes! He's hammering off the front, set up perfectly for the win. As he streaks toward the finish the peloton pour around the corner behind him chewing up the distance between them and to the finish beyond me. Other riders rocket up the edges of the course. A few pass my teammate right before the line. He finishes strong in sixth.
When you see a teammate finish like that, setting himself up so perfectly for a win, and you are at the start of your race with the same jersey, I must say it is a sure motivator. We have a moment to take a lap around the course while the Cat 4 riders recover. We come back around and stop, me with my front wheel squarely on the line. Ricky lines up on my wheel with Mike on his the way we usually start.
By this point in the season there are riders we know from the other clubs. I mean we know the ones to keep an eye on---the strong ones who will put the hammer down and are capable of winning. One such team has lined up on the outside. Their big time trialist will be marked closely. It seems I'm taking an adrenaline drip into my bloodstream by now. It's about nothing but the moment from here until the last pulse of energy drains away over the line at the finish.
As crits go, this one was relatively easy. Ricky and I rode as part of the front 10 riders the whole race. I didn't want to fight off attacks by solo riders racing up from behind (as did most of us), attempting to break away from the main field. It was too damn hot! So when we saw them coming up the outside from behind, me or someone else would yell "break" and the whole front group would stand up on pedals and surge as the lone rider or two would go by, gaining only about 15-20 yards on us before we would easily break them, and pull them humbly back into our scolding ranks.
The cheeseburger and I were hanging tough. I was seeing visions and even hearing it suggest once that we should abandon the race. Just where I want to be: me and my secret cheeseburger watching others finish the race. We finally heard the bell ring. Last lap now!
We approached the monument run-up to the finish line and the inevitable surge by the peloton. We wrapped the last corner fast. The cheeseburger and I couldn't muster much of a sprint. But Ricky was off the front giving it to them. He crossed first completely alone crushing the nearest rider with the bike lengths between them.
The cheeseburger and I finished 17th of 35 riders that day. It will be the only time I ever carry one through a bike race again.
Real cyclists/athletes, and even me, have preparation that goes on all year leading to the racing season and which occurs during the hours preceding the race of the day. Last weekend I attempted 2 criteriums on consecutive days for the first time, the Tour De 'Port (Portsmouth) on Saturday, and the Tour De 'Peake (Chesapeake) on Sunday. Wasn't sure how much recovery I would need for a race the following day, but I wanted to test my fitness and see.
Oh yea, the cheeseburger---I ate it 2-1/2 hours before my start time at 'Port. That's plenty of time to digest it right? Ha! No!
When I arrive at a criterium, the first thing I want to do is register and get my bib. This is the number I'll wear during the race. Usually, like the other racers, I end up parking in an outlying parking lot or a parking garage. In Portsmouth, it was a parking garage on the perimeter of the race course and the TODI Music and Sidewalk Festival. I rode my bike over to the registration table and signed in and got my number.
There was a guy next door who was offering computer chips at no charge that we could mount on our chain stays. With them he could track our specific bikes through the race course and give the race officials our split times, average times,
and fastest laps, and verification of finishing order I suppose. About now everybody's feeling real special. Faster would've been better.
Two Cat 4 riders, Robert and Mark and one of the Cat 5 riders from our club, Mike B. are in the parking garage inside the race course perimeter. Ricky D. and I, both Cat 5's, are together in the other garage. Ricky and his friend Megan, arrive and Ricky registers. My cheeseburger and I return to our garage to warm up.
There is a race in progress led by two motorcycle cops every lap and we must carefully cross the course after the racers pass us. There is a bandstand with live music. Families walk the sidewalks along the race course, racers and their friends watch the race and mill nervously around. Most try to stand in shade to watch the race as it's low 90's and high humidity. Teams and clubs are grouped together along the course. Sidewalk cafe-goers are feasting in the heat planted at tables under trees along the way, some 50 yards upstream of the finish line.
Preparation: Warm-up is absolutely essential for me. I prefer a stationary trainer at the tailgate of my pickup. A cold Gatoraid beside me, a towel draped over my handlebars, an ipod with Jeff Beck's "You Had it Coming" screaming me out of my comfort zone. The stationary trainer is best for me for warming up in strange places because I can control the warm up tempo and how constant and steady it is. They say a long warmup is best for short, fast races, and shorter warmups are often best for long races, like road races maybe longer than 40 miles. The thinking on this seems to be that longer races usually begin slower and that warmup can take place largely during the first part of the race. Only the individual rider can decide what works best for him.
My warmup starts very slow and builds to the point where I'm doing one or two sprint intervals at the end. I'm trying to warn my body of what's about to happen to it.
I finish the warmup. I put things back in my truck, take my bike out of the trainer, fold the trainer, lay it in the truck bed, close the tailgate and rear window, lock it up. I'm concentrating real hard on all the little details now. My tires are pumped up rock hard just under 120 psi, the way I like to ride them. I have one gel and my glasses in my jersey pocket. I'll eat the gel at the starting line so it'll get in me during the race. The glasses are there so that I can inspect my bike closely after a crash. That way I'll know whether it can be ridden or not immediately, or whether an adjustment on the spot will do the job or not. The details have to be right. The tiniest thing missing or not right when your physical limits are being exposed can be excruciating.
To say an amateur racer has a special bond with their bike when they must count on it in a race would be an immense understatement. I am this way. I don't have an extra bike following me through a race or on the sideline of a criterium that I can snatch on the moment of mechanical breakdown or crash. It is just this one. It is everything.
The Category 4 race is right before our Cat 5 race today. I show at the sidewalk beside the course, stand near the finish line in time to see the last few laps.
The bell rings indicating the final lap. Minutes later I see riders rounding the monument at the end of the street, the setup for the sprint to the finish line. I squint into the sun, recognizing the body language of one of two riders who appear to be on the front. They're closer now. Is it Robert? No. Yes! He's hammering off the front, set up perfectly for the win. As he streaks toward the finish the peloton pour around the corner behind him chewing up the distance between them and to the finish beyond me. Other riders rocket up the edges of the course. A few pass my teammate right before the line. He finishes strong in sixth.
When you see a teammate finish like that, setting himself up so perfectly for a win, and you are at the start of your race with the same jersey, I must say it is a sure motivator. We have a moment to take a lap around the course while the Cat 4 riders recover. We come back around and stop, me with my front wheel squarely on the line. Ricky lines up on my wheel with Mike on his the way we usually start.
By this point in the season there are riders we know from the other clubs. I mean we know the ones to keep an eye on---the strong ones who will put the hammer down and are capable of winning. One such team has lined up on the outside. Their big time trialist will be marked closely. It seems I'm taking an adrenaline drip into my bloodstream by now. It's about nothing but the moment from here until the last pulse of energy drains away over the line at the finish.
As crits go, this one was relatively easy. Ricky and I rode as part of the front 10 riders the whole race. I didn't want to fight off attacks by solo riders racing up from behind (as did most of us), attempting to break away from the main field. It was too damn hot! So when we saw them coming up the outside from behind, me or someone else would yell "break" and the whole front group would stand up on pedals and surge as the lone rider or two would go by, gaining only about 15-20 yards on us before we would easily break them, and pull them humbly back into our scolding ranks.
The cheeseburger and I were hanging tough. I was seeing visions and even hearing it suggest once that we should abandon the race. Just where I want to be: me and my secret cheeseburger watching others finish the race. We finally heard the bell ring. Last lap now!
We approached the monument run-up to the finish line and the inevitable surge by the peloton. We wrapped the last corner fast. The cheeseburger and I couldn't muster much of a sprint. But Ricky was off the front giving it to them. He crossed first completely alone crushing the nearest rider with the bike lengths between them.
The cheeseburger and I finished 17th of 35 riders that day. It will be the only time I ever carry one through a bike race again.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Update From the Coast
It's been quite awhile since my last post. I've had a busy Spring between my family, my work, cycle racing, and some surf. At this point in this, my first racing season, I have competed in 4 individual time trials and 4 criteriums. My results in terms of wins and placings are nothing much, but being there has been phenomenal and a privilege. I told one of my brothers I just don't know how we let this sport get past us with as much time as we spent on bikes on roads and trails when we were kids.
The 2007 Tour De France began yesterday with a Prologue Time Trial in London. I always look forward with huge anticipation to this Grand Tour. I realize it carries much baggage these days as do virtually all professional sports. But I still enjoy witnessing the enormity of effort by the riders, the team tactics and the incredible suffering it demands to win stages and finally win the overall race. After competing on a bicycle these past few races, I have some slight idea of what's going on as I watch one of the most nuanced sports I've ever been a part of, and one that is really not that fan friendly as far as watching live races, except maybe criteriums and track races. In the end though, I'd much prefer to race with amateurs than watch the pros. The amateurs, I'm sure, still hold the torch.
I'll check in again soon. Next weekend I'm in two crits: the Tour De 'Port and the Tour De 'Peake.
The 2007 Tour De France began yesterday with a Prologue Time Trial in London. I always look forward with huge anticipation to this Grand Tour. I realize it carries much baggage these days as do virtually all professional sports. But I still enjoy witnessing the enormity of effort by the riders, the team tactics and the incredible suffering it demands to win stages and finally win the overall race. After competing on a bicycle these past few races, I have some slight idea of what's going on as I watch one of the most nuanced sports I've ever been a part of, and one that is really not that fan friendly as far as watching live races, except maybe criteriums and track races. In the end though, I'd much prefer to race with amateurs than watch the pros. The amateurs, I'm sure, still hold the torch.
I'll check in again soon. Next weekend I'm in two crits: the Tour De 'Port and the Tour De 'Peake.
Monday, March 19, 2007
My First Crit
"Crit" is road cyclist-speak for criterium, a circuit race around a city block or two, usually involving a pack of riders. In this case 46 racers elbow-to-elbow, wheel-to-wheel, and horrifyingly sometimes pedal to spokes---high intensity, hard skids and slamdowns on asphalt, breath-stealing sprints out of corners. See in your mind a school of fish darting 90 degrees on an instant, synchronized, and mostly maintaining their positions relative to each other. When positions are not held, bad things can happen.
My mentors had coached me to try to stay in the front to avoid accidents, avoid passing on the inside (but not always), hold your line through the curves, protect your front wheel from contact, protect yourself from the wind especially earlier in the race to preserve your strength, and don't look back even if there is a crash. You see, I would witness a criterium for the first time from inside the race itself. Even I wasn't sure this was such a good idea. But the knucklehead in me kept saying, go ahead---do it, do it.
I was in the Category 3 race for Cat 5 men, Juniors and Women. This is really a race for novices although some of the racers had raced years before, as had a few of my friends from our cycling club. I felt I represented the Gilligans and Kramers who wanted to bike race.
Chip and Michael, two local bike shop owners from our beach towns, were in this race as well. It felt great having friends in the mix around me.
I had warmed up on a trainer for about 20 minutes, getting myself nice and slathered up. Then I transitioned over to the course, a block in the Greenbrier Industrial Park of Chesapeake, Va., a .6 mile loop. We would do 15 miles---25 laps. There was a start/finish line halfway down a straightaway with a 20 knot wind seeming to blow right down it in the clockwise direction of the race. (Funny thing about a race around a four sided city block: once the race begins, there seems to be a headwind on three sides. I couldn't understand it.)
The race name was Snowball Criterium #2. Snowball #1 had been postponed from February to April 29th due to impending foul weather which actually broke bad that day. All racers gathered with their bikes at the ready in mass before the starting line about 8-10 abreast, around 6 or 7 rows deep. There actually was a clean excitement in the air of perking endorphins and hope. I was positioned front and center at the starting line. My friends' advice like a mantra repeated in my subconscious, "stay near the front and avoid trouble".
When the promoter finished addressing us, we thanked him and his club for putting on a training race of this sort by applauding as a group. I liked that. Then to my shock, he casually stepped back to the curb saying,"Okay go ahead and start." That was the official, formal start to my first crit. I thought he was joking.
When I noticed the front wheels around me rolling forward, I suddenly realized, he wasn't joking---this was the starter's gun so-to-speak. I jolted into a sprint expecting everybody to pack around me on both sides, and 25 yards out in the front, by myself, I realized I was entering the first curve alone working into one of the three sides torched by headwind. Now what? No one was near me. So I broke the first rule and looked back. I figured,"Why not?" no one's in front of me so there's nothing to collide with. My glance back produced a snapshot of the peloton stretched into single file up to my rear wheel, every rider with teeth clenched readying to devour me it seemed. I steadied into a tempo cadence around 24 mph and happily let them by me on both sides as we finished the first lap so that I could find protection from wind and for the small traces left of my dignity.
I was soon engulfed in hunched over racers astride their beloved machines, spokes shredding the air into a million slices, wind jetting over my ears. This was a real race and it was intoxicating, a streaming, constant focus on nothing but this fast moment!
There was talking between riders. Teammates to each other, some urging others to hold their line in the curves. One big rider beside me reached out to my left forearm warning me to take it easy or I would blow myself up too soon before the finish. Timely advice. I was amazed at the courtesy and manner of this group of competitors. I expected a more cutthroat atmosphere, but astoundingly got the opposite. I relaxed and started concentrating on my position and whether I liked the tempo the position gave me. When I got boxed in, the pace usually slowed more than I liked. It was then I noticed the attacks would begin on both sides of the peloton, riders streaking forward along the edges of the course. So I would dig myself out of the middle and go around. The race was separating the slower riders from the stronger riders. Laps followed laps. We now were lapping riders and since they were much slower, represented dangers for the swiftly moving larger group approaching them from behind.
Racing through the curves with other riders close at hand was an exceptional thrill. As my bike rose upright out of each curve I would climb up on the pedals for the inevitable acceleration. The rear wheel bounced as I powered the pedals into the straight.
As we passed the start/finish line each lap, a tripod-mounted stand would indicate the number of laps left. I tried not to look at it as I raced seeing it only as a mental distraction to the immediate action around me, which was plenty.
As we rounded the first 90 degree corner, about the 8th or 9th lap, the close order intensity was finally too much for the Cat 5 riders. Red cones marked the left boundary of the lane we were to remain in after cornering on this side of the course. Nearest the corner, the cones gave us a wider lane as they were placed partially into the adjacent turn lane. About 30 yards down the street, the cones abruptly went from the middle of the adjacent lane back to the single lane width. Here is where the first crash occurred.
The big guy who had warned me to slow down earlier in the race was right beside me on the left. Another rider had gotten caught beside the wider cones near the corner and suddenly found himself outside the cones where they transitioned back to single lane width. He forced his way into the side of the peloton here jamming his rear derailleur into my neighbor's front spokes. Spokes blew out, his front wheel tacoed, and he instantly slammed down on his left side skidding as riders rode around and over him. I heard it but couldn't look down or back because of the reaction shuddering through the riders close around me. The rest of us kept on with the race.
To my shock, the crashed rider was walking with his bike over his shoulder seeming to be in okay enough condition when we came back around on the next lap.
The peloton seemed elastic as the pace quickened, elongating after the corner accelerations and compacting toward the corners somewhat. About lap 15 I believe, on the approach to the last turn before the straight to the finish line I was in the front group on the outside of about six or seven riders. I noticed a rider moving off the front. I wanted to get on his wheel. This, I thought, was my chance to move up so I began moving up the ranks on the outside, first beside Chip to my right, then almost astride the boy rider whose wheel he followed. About then, Chip pulled out of the slipstream of that rider's wheel and crept up between him and me. About 3 feet separated the boy rider from me, with Chip's front wheel moving up between us now in my peripheral vision. We were very close to the sweeping righthand turn to the start/finish line.
With a sudden abruptness completely inexplicable, the boy rider jerked his bike a few feet to the left jamming his left pedal fully into Chip's front wheel and spokes. The front wheel of the perfect, immaculate Independent Fabricators bike I had carefully lifted into my minivan only this morning exploded crushing Chip to the pavement beside and then instantly behind me. The boy rider recoiled to the right from the impact, then just as abruptly, veered hard and full to the left toward me, driving me off the course into the driveway of a parking lot. I worried about my friend on the pavement behind me as he and his new bike were run over by the following riders.
When I cleared the rear wheel of the boy rider, I now looked 40 yards up the course at the rear of the peloton. I was alone in the wind again in the blink of an eye, but in hottest pursuit. Would I have the strength to catch up?
As we entered the last two laps I was somewhere in the main field again still fighting my way back into it, hiding behind other riders momentarily for rest along the way. I had spotted Chip walking with his bike earlier and now had only the race on my mind again. The peloton had stretched out again, the pace really jetting up into the last lap. As we approached that same last sweeping turn before the finish I set my sights on a rider about 20 yards out in my front, got up on the pedals and accelerated hard to my target---gaining, gaining, gaining. He looked back and saw my attack and he was now up and responding picking up speed. Every cell in my body pushed toward this one goal: to overtake this one rider before the line.
I was beside him, lunged to the line. My first crit was done. I let go, relaxed, and dropped my head down resting my neck and watched the asphalt pass below my frame. That last rider was the number ten finisher. I was eleventh of 46. Michael, who had raced a smart, safe race, finished seventh with a great ride.
This would throw a new light on my training and club rides. The only thing that would make this more fun is if other riders from our club would race with us. I am hopeful.
Dismal Dash Time Trial is next.
My mentors had coached me to try to stay in the front to avoid accidents, avoid passing on the inside (but not always), hold your line through the curves, protect your front wheel from contact, protect yourself from the wind especially earlier in the race to preserve your strength, and don't look back even if there is a crash. You see, I would witness a criterium for the first time from inside the race itself. Even I wasn't sure this was such a good idea. But the knucklehead in me kept saying, go ahead---do it, do it.
I was in the Category 3 race for Cat 5 men, Juniors and Women. This is really a race for novices although some of the racers had raced years before, as had a few of my friends from our cycling club. I felt I represented the Gilligans and Kramers who wanted to bike race.
Chip and Michael, two local bike shop owners from our beach towns, were in this race as well. It felt great having friends in the mix around me.
I had warmed up on a trainer for about 20 minutes, getting myself nice and slathered up. Then I transitioned over to the course, a block in the Greenbrier Industrial Park of Chesapeake, Va., a .6 mile loop. We would do 15 miles---25 laps. There was a start/finish line halfway down a straightaway with a 20 knot wind seeming to blow right down it in the clockwise direction of the race. (Funny thing about a race around a four sided city block: once the race begins, there seems to be a headwind on three sides. I couldn't understand it.)
The race name was Snowball Criterium #2. Snowball #1 had been postponed from February to April 29th due to impending foul weather which actually broke bad that day. All racers gathered with their bikes at the ready in mass before the starting line about 8-10 abreast, around 6 or 7 rows deep. There actually was a clean excitement in the air of perking endorphins and hope. I was positioned front and center at the starting line. My friends' advice like a mantra repeated in my subconscious, "stay near the front and avoid trouble".
When the promoter finished addressing us, we thanked him and his club for putting on a training race of this sort by applauding as a group. I liked that. Then to my shock, he casually stepped back to the curb saying,"Okay go ahead and start." That was the official, formal start to my first crit. I thought he was joking.
When I noticed the front wheels around me rolling forward, I suddenly realized, he wasn't joking---this was the starter's gun so-to-speak. I jolted into a sprint expecting everybody to pack around me on both sides, and 25 yards out in the front, by myself, I realized I was entering the first curve alone working into one of the three sides torched by headwind. Now what? No one was near me. So I broke the first rule and looked back. I figured,"Why not?" no one's in front of me so there's nothing to collide with. My glance back produced a snapshot of the peloton stretched into single file up to my rear wheel, every rider with teeth clenched readying to devour me it seemed. I steadied into a tempo cadence around 24 mph and happily let them by me on both sides as we finished the first lap so that I could find protection from wind and for the small traces left of my dignity.
I was soon engulfed in hunched over racers astride their beloved machines, spokes shredding the air into a million slices, wind jetting over my ears. This was a real race and it was intoxicating, a streaming, constant focus on nothing but this fast moment!
There was talking between riders. Teammates to each other, some urging others to hold their line in the curves. One big rider beside me reached out to my left forearm warning me to take it easy or I would blow myself up too soon before the finish. Timely advice. I was amazed at the courtesy and manner of this group of competitors. I expected a more cutthroat atmosphere, but astoundingly got the opposite. I relaxed and started concentrating on my position and whether I liked the tempo the position gave me. When I got boxed in, the pace usually slowed more than I liked. It was then I noticed the attacks would begin on both sides of the peloton, riders streaking forward along the edges of the course. So I would dig myself out of the middle and go around. The race was separating the slower riders from the stronger riders. Laps followed laps. We now were lapping riders and since they were much slower, represented dangers for the swiftly moving larger group approaching them from behind.
Racing through the curves with other riders close at hand was an exceptional thrill. As my bike rose upright out of each curve I would climb up on the pedals for the inevitable acceleration. The rear wheel bounced as I powered the pedals into the straight.
As we passed the start/finish line each lap, a tripod-mounted stand would indicate the number of laps left. I tried not to look at it as I raced seeing it only as a mental distraction to the immediate action around me, which was plenty.
As we rounded the first 90 degree corner, about the 8th or 9th lap, the close order intensity was finally too much for the Cat 5 riders. Red cones marked the left boundary of the lane we were to remain in after cornering on this side of the course. Nearest the corner, the cones gave us a wider lane as they were placed partially into the adjacent turn lane. About 30 yards down the street, the cones abruptly went from the middle of the adjacent lane back to the single lane width. Here is where the first crash occurred.
The big guy who had warned me to slow down earlier in the race was right beside me on the left. Another rider had gotten caught beside the wider cones near the corner and suddenly found himself outside the cones where they transitioned back to single lane width. He forced his way into the side of the peloton here jamming his rear derailleur into my neighbor's front spokes. Spokes blew out, his front wheel tacoed, and he instantly slammed down on his left side skidding as riders rode around and over him. I heard it but couldn't look down or back because of the reaction shuddering through the riders close around me. The rest of us kept on with the race.
To my shock, the crashed rider was walking with his bike over his shoulder seeming to be in okay enough condition when we came back around on the next lap.
The peloton seemed elastic as the pace quickened, elongating after the corner accelerations and compacting toward the corners somewhat. About lap 15 I believe, on the approach to the last turn before the straight to the finish line I was in the front group on the outside of about six or seven riders. I noticed a rider moving off the front. I wanted to get on his wheel. This, I thought, was my chance to move up so I began moving up the ranks on the outside, first beside Chip to my right, then almost astride the boy rider whose wheel he followed. About then, Chip pulled out of the slipstream of that rider's wheel and crept up between him and me. About 3 feet separated the boy rider from me, with Chip's front wheel moving up between us now in my peripheral vision. We were very close to the sweeping righthand turn to the start/finish line.
With a sudden abruptness completely inexplicable, the boy rider jerked his bike a few feet to the left jamming his left pedal fully into Chip's front wheel and spokes. The front wheel of the perfect, immaculate Independent Fabricators bike I had carefully lifted into my minivan only this morning exploded crushing Chip to the pavement beside and then instantly behind me. The boy rider recoiled to the right from the impact, then just as abruptly, veered hard and full to the left toward me, driving me off the course into the driveway of a parking lot. I worried about my friend on the pavement behind me as he and his new bike were run over by the following riders.
When I cleared the rear wheel of the boy rider, I now looked 40 yards up the course at the rear of the peloton. I was alone in the wind again in the blink of an eye, but in hottest pursuit. Would I have the strength to catch up?
As we entered the last two laps I was somewhere in the main field again still fighting my way back into it, hiding behind other riders momentarily for rest along the way. I had spotted Chip walking with his bike earlier and now had only the race on my mind again. The peloton had stretched out again, the pace really jetting up into the last lap. As we approached that same last sweeping turn before the finish I set my sights on a rider about 20 yards out in my front, got up on the pedals and accelerated hard to my target---gaining, gaining, gaining. He looked back and saw my attack and he was now up and responding picking up speed. Every cell in my body pushed toward this one goal: to overtake this one rider before the line.
I was beside him, lunged to the line. My first crit was done. I let go, relaxed, and dropped my head down resting my neck and watched the asphalt pass below my frame. That last rider was the number ten finisher. I was eleventh of 46. Michael, who had raced a smart, safe race, finished seventh with a great ride.
This would throw a new light on my training and club rides. The only thing that would make this more fun is if other riders from our club would race with us. I am hopeful.
Dismal Dash Time Trial is next.
Monday, March 5, 2007
The Weekend's Club Ride
Our club rides seem to get better and better. Saturday nine of us did the Southern Shores---Woods Road---Bay Drive---Wright Memorial loop. We began as usual at the Marketplace at 9:30 a.m. in a chatty double paceline. The weather teased us with warm air and at once we all knew we had a chance to steal one from the heart of the winter. I hadn't thought much about it ahead of time, but one rider on a fixed gear bike had even anticipated a frisky tempo and so, changed his front sprocket for a larger one to give him a higher gear.
The pace picked up on Dogwood as we melted into a single paceline working at about 22 mph. Riders were taking pulls of around one minute as we approached the 158 Bypass light beside Kitty Hawk Elementary School. As we crossed the Bypass to the north end of Woods Road the tempo slid up to 23-24 mph with riders still taking 45 second to one minute pulls giving others a rest in the slipstream. By Kitty Hawk Village Road we were touching around 26 mph and working well together.
We toned it down as we transitioned from Moor Shores Road at the edge of Kitty Hawk Bay to Windgrass Court making our way up the hill to Bay Drive. Here we had the full effect of a 15 knot cross tailwind. This is where we sometimes break apart with some riders attacking and others chasing, and still others restraining themselves wisely out of deference to where they are personally with their own training season. Bay Drive turns into Canal Drive and crosses First Street where we relax back into a double paceline all the way to the monument.
This day we skipped hammering the monument hard as we usually have done wrapping only a few laps, and went over to the front parking lot of the First Flight High School to practice riding through the round-about and parking lot as a group in preparation for the criteriums coming up for some of us this month.
On Sunday only four of us chose to ride north to Corolla. A galling northwest wind was torched up well over 20 knots. This is the kind of coastal wind which makes you feel you are being steadily pushed into the asphalt as you drive into the teeth of the beast. It was Robert, Flo, Mark, and myself. Among this small group is a fairly divergent spectrum of conditioning. Robert and Flo are at the top end of this fitness spectrum, Mark at the other end for the time being as he was sitting on not having ridden enough lately due to illness. We were stoked he was with us. We all know this is one sure way to bring yourself back up to speed and Mark looked deadset in getting back to form directly.
We maintained a steady 20-21 mph for almost the entire 23 miles. This was an improvement for me over the 18.5 mph on the same route in the identical wind conditions two weeks before. Surely this was due to the teaming with stronger riders as I'm sure Robert and Flo were capping their effort somewhat in order to hold our little group together. As I told them, it was great fun being along. It's extremely gratifying to work that hard and even suffer with a group having the same goal.
I've heard this noted as something typically Anglo-Saxon---where the individuals involved in a group effort are more inclined to find reward in subordinating their personal goals to the goals of their team. I've read about this dynamic in reference to around-the-world sailboat racers where romantic/Latin cultures produce sailors who excel more in solo sailing races versus the more team or group successful Germans, Scandinavians, English, and Americans. Yes, I have an Anglo-Saxon ancestry and Norman further back. I guess I'm a soul in conflict at times. I'm sure my friends know this.
The road to Corolla was flat with a few long curves and unrelenting wind. I call the wind here the "mountains of the Outer Banks" to cyclists. I suppose like riding in the real mountains, a cyclist must experience our winds to really know what I mean. A rider is so exposed here to the fetch (open expanses over bodies of water where coastal winds gather much speed), there often is no place to hide.
The wind can also carry huge amounts of blowing sand and salt virtually across the whole island. So if you want to ride on a day when the wind is blowing onshore (from the ocean), then you are smart to ride on the soundside of the island. The finicky and faint of heart from out of town won't even ride their perfectly polished expensive bikes here because of these conditions. Not that I blame them. Those who live here and want to ride watch the wind direction closely in order to avoid as much as possible these conditions. But in the end, if you are super picky about your equipment, you can't ride here at all.
Cyclists are finicky about their equipment the same way sailors are. In fact some are finicky about your equipment. They can't seem to help it. The only difference is in sailing, a sailor can get pretty decent performance out of his boat even in races, even if he may not be in excellent physical conditioning. Not so on a bike. I've read that performance on a bike is influenced about 80 per cent by the fitness level of the rider, 20 percent by the bike. Yet both sailors and cyclists are quite compulsive over small tweaks they may be able to put on their setups to improve performance ever so slightly. This has always fascinated me. Many riders I know also have extensive experience owning and sailing yachts, windsurfers, or kiteboards. It's not quite the same people doing all of these sports, but sometimes I wonder.
We reached the turn-around at Ocean Hill, took a two minute break to pull out the gels, bananas, and Powerbars and then launched downwind for the return ride. When a cyclist finally turns his back on the torturing wind and spins pedals with a body having no windload on it, the relief raises feelings of boundless strength. It seems you must be careful here not to jump up too hard into this euphoria and build speed up to a comfortable tempo your mind knows you can maintain all the way home. We found 24 mph right away. We crept up to twenty-six. South through Ocean Sands and into Pine Island holding 26, pushing twenty-seven. When it was my turn to pull the other riders at the front I could still feel the wind in my face, a combination of our exceeding the tailwind's speed and turbulence, I suppose caused by houses and the scrub trees---live and pin oaks to the west of Route Twelve.
We touched 28 mph at some point just before re-entering Dare County. I could feel my quadriceps straining and burning some. My energy reserve I knew was dwindling. My last pull was shortened and I had to get off the front or I would have to drop. As I dropped by Robert I let him know it was fine with me if he and Flo wanted to kick in the afterburners and fly. He said he just wanted to finish hard to the top of the upcoming hill (immediately north of the Town of Duck). I tucked into the slipstream of Flo's rear wheel and hung on feeling the relief of being off the front.
Our speed was increasing now. I glanced at my computer and we were steady at 29 miles per hour and creeping up. I was entranced by the sight of the hill our goal in the distance and the growing hollowness in my quads. Could I make it. I focused on the spinning, steady black tire 8 inches from my front wheel. I pumped at a mad rate. I was bound to push myself here. I peeked upward as we crested the hill revealing two more rises beyond. The pace I thought would drop off started picking up. I didn't need to blow myself up this early in the season so I dropped and watched Robert and Flo burn onward over the next two rises. I steadied up at 22 mph keeping my eye on those two now in Duck. I could tell they were slowing so that Mark and I could catch up.
Robert rode back to my home in Kill Devil Hills with me where he turned around and rode back to Southern Shores alone. I finished with 61 miles earned through the mountains of the Outer Banks. This is our cycling world.
The pace picked up on Dogwood as we melted into a single paceline working at about 22 mph. Riders were taking pulls of around one minute as we approached the 158 Bypass light beside Kitty Hawk Elementary School. As we crossed the Bypass to the north end of Woods Road the tempo slid up to 23-24 mph with riders still taking 45 second to one minute pulls giving others a rest in the slipstream. By Kitty Hawk Village Road we were touching around 26 mph and working well together.
We toned it down as we transitioned from Moor Shores Road at the edge of Kitty Hawk Bay to Windgrass Court making our way up the hill to Bay Drive. Here we had the full effect of a 15 knot cross tailwind. This is where we sometimes break apart with some riders attacking and others chasing, and still others restraining themselves wisely out of deference to where they are personally with their own training season. Bay Drive turns into Canal Drive and crosses First Street where we relax back into a double paceline all the way to the monument.
This day we skipped hammering the monument hard as we usually have done wrapping only a few laps, and went over to the front parking lot of the First Flight High School to practice riding through the round-about and parking lot as a group in preparation for the criteriums coming up for some of us this month.
On Sunday only four of us chose to ride north to Corolla. A galling northwest wind was torched up well over 20 knots. This is the kind of coastal wind which makes you feel you are being steadily pushed into the asphalt as you drive into the teeth of the beast. It was Robert, Flo, Mark, and myself. Among this small group is a fairly divergent spectrum of conditioning. Robert and Flo are at the top end of this fitness spectrum, Mark at the other end for the time being as he was sitting on not having ridden enough lately due to illness. We were stoked he was with us. We all know this is one sure way to bring yourself back up to speed and Mark looked deadset in getting back to form directly.
We maintained a steady 20-21 mph for almost the entire 23 miles. This was an improvement for me over the 18.5 mph on the same route in the identical wind conditions two weeks before. Surely this was due to the teaming with stronger riders as I'm sure Robert and Flo were capping their effort somewhat in order to hold our little group together. As I told them, it was great fun being along. It's extremely gratifying to work that hard and even suffer with a group having the same goal.
I've heard this noted as something typically Anglo-Saxon---where the individuals involved in a group effort are more inclined to find reward in subordinating their personal goals to the goals of their team. I've read about this dynamic in reference to around-the-world sailboat racers where romantic/Latin cultures produce sailors who excel more in solo sailing races versus the more team or group successful Germans, Scandinavians, English, and Americans. Yes, I have an Anglo-Saxon ancestry and Norman further back. I guess I'm a soul in conflict at times. I'm sure my friends know this.
The road to Corolla was flat with a few long curves and unrelenting wind. I call the wind here the "mountains of the Outer Banks" to cyclists. I suppose like riding in the real mountains, a cyclist must experience our winds to really know what I mean. A rider is so exposed here to the fetch (open expanses over bodies of water where coastal winds gather much speed), there often is no place to hide.
The wind can also carry huge amounts of blowing sand and salt virtually across the whole island. So if you want to ride on a day when the wind is blowing onshore (from the ocean), then you are smart to ride on the soundside of the island. The finicky and faint of heart from out of town won't even ride their perfectly polished expensive bikes here because of these conditions. Not that I blame them. Those who live here and want to ride watch the wind direction closely in order to avoid as much as possible these conditions. But in the end, if you are super picky about your equipment, you can't ride here at all.
Cyclists are finicky about their equipment the same way sailors are. In fact some are finicky about your equipment. They can't seem to help it. The only difference is in sailing, a sailor can get pretty decent performance out of his boat even in races, even if he may not be in excellent physical conditioning. Not so on a bike. I've read that performance on a bike is influenced about 80 per cent by the fitness level of the rider, 20 percent by the bike. Yet both sailors and cyclists are quite compulsive over small tweaks they may be able to put on their setups to improve performance ever so slightly. This has always fascinated me. Many riders I know also have extensive experience owning and sailing yachts, windsurfers, or kiteboards. It's not quite the same people doing all of these sports, but sometimes I wonder.
We reached the turn-around at Ocean Hill, took a two minute break to pull out the gels, bananas, and Powerbars and then launched downwind for the return ride. When a cyclist finally turns his back on the torturing wind and spins pedals with a body having no windload on it, the relief raises feelings of boundless strength. It seems you must be careful here not to jump up too hard into this euphoria and build speed up to a comfortable tempo your mind knows you can maintain all the way home. We found 24 mph right away. We crept up to twenty-six. South through Ocean Sands and into Pine Island holding 26, pushing twenty-seven. When it was my turn to pull the other riders at the front I could still feel the wind in my face, a combination of our exceeding the tailwind's speed and turbulence, I suppose caused by houses and the scrub trees---live and pin oaks to the west of Route Twelve.
We touched 28 mph at some point just before re-entering Dare County. I could feel my quadriceps straining and burning some. My energy reserve I knew was dwindling. My last pull was shortened and I had to get off the front or I would have to drop. As I dropped by Robert I let him know it was fine with me if he and Flo wanted to kick in the afterburners and fly. He said he just wanted to finish hard to the top of the upcoming hill (immediately north of the Town of Duck). I tucked into the slipstream of Flo's rear wheel and hung on feeling the relief of being off the front.
Our speed was increasing now. I glanced at my computer and we were steady at 29 miles per hour and creeping up. I was entranced by the sight of the hill our goal in the distance and the growing hollowness in my quads. Could I make it. I focused on the spinning, steady black tire 8 inches from my front wheel. I pumped at a mad rate. I was bound to push myself here. I peeked upward as we crested the hill revealing two more rises beyond. The pace I thought would drop off started picking up. I didn't need to blow myself up this early in the season so I dropped and watched Robert and Flo burn onward over the next two rises. I steadied up at 22 mph keeping my eye on those two now in Duck. I could tell they were slowing so that Mark and I could catch up.
Robert rode back to my home in Kill Devil Hills with me where he turned around and rode back to Southern Shores alone. I finished with 61 miles earned through the mountains of the Outer Banks. This is our cycling world.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Back From Snowball Criterium #1
We just returned from the Snowball Criterium #1. The race wasn't held because of impending rain. Apparently the promoter wanted to be remembered for backing out of holding the event, instead of how they thought riders would feel if the event was held and they "had to ride" in the rain. I would only predict a break between the hardcore purest-type crit riders and the not-so-hardy other riders. I sense fear of injury lawsuits, but that's just me.
One of the guys I was with, who is experienced with this kind of road cycle racing, said he was shocked it would be postponed due to weather. According to him, a race like this is postponed or cancelled only due to unusually dangerous conditions, for instance sleet and ice on the road.
Anyhow, the four of us returned trying to get our psyches to relax having steeled ourselves for the race intensities into which we knew we were about to be immersed.
The re-scheduled race will be held at the same place in Chesapeake on Sunday, April 29th. I'll continue training, stay signed up for that crit, and look for time trials to enter.
For those of you who are not familiar with the different types of road cycle races, a criterium is an all-out road race on a closed circuit, usually around a few city blocks, anywhere from 15 to 25 miles long in total distance(ours would have been 15 miles). Riders, in this case fifty, make turns as sharp as 90-degrees, often making body contact with riders beside them, and sprinting out of the corners getting quickly back to race tempo. They are known for their speed,high intensity, and crashes. I am told criteriums are an American creation in road cycle racing. Sounds just like us doesn't it? Kind of like football or hockey at 25 to 30 miles-per-hour.
Will keep you posted on my first season of bike racing and offer more musings of a lifetime sports tourist.
One of the guys I was with, who is experienced with this kind of road cycle racing, said he was shocked it would be postponed due to weather. According to him, a race like this is postponed or cancelled only due to unusually dangerous conditions, for instance sleet and ice on the road.
Anyhow, the four of us returned trying to get our psyches to relax having steeled ourselves for the race intensities into which we knew we were about to be immersed.
The re-scheduled race will be held at the same place in Chesapeake on Sunday, April 29th. I'll continue training, stay signed up for that crit, and look for time trials to enter.
For those of you who are not familiar with the different types of road cycle races, a criterium is an all-out road race on a closed circuit, usually around a few city blocks, anywhere from 15 to 25 miles long in total distance(ours would have been 15 miles). Riders, in this case fifty, make turns as sharp as 90-degrees, often making body contact with riders beside them, and sprinting out of the corners getting quickly back to race tempo. They are known for their speed,high intensity, and crashes. I am told criteriums are an American creation in road cycle racing. Sounds just like us doesn't it? Kind of like football or hockey at 25 to 30 miles-per-hour.
Will keep you posted on my first season of bike racing and offer more musings of a lifetime sports tourist.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Today's Ride
Today we rode from Southern Shores to Ocean Hill into a 20+ knot northwest wind. From my home in Kill Devil Hills to Ocean Hill and back is 60 miles. It was fairly rough riding into a wind like that. The ride back however, was euphoric blazing along at 25-27 miles-per-hour. It's still base building time for me. I rode with two other club riders, one in his thirties and a new rider to our club, 21 years old and a former rider for the Ohio State Cycling team. His name is Rick. He is very strong.
Next week our club,GS Kitty Hawk/Kitty Hawk Cycling Club, will be represented for the first time in the Snowball Criterium #1 in Chesapeake, Virginia. Michael Gibson, Rick Devennish (the new rider), and myself will be in the C race as Category 5 racers. I have no delusions of grandeur for my own results never having even seen a criterium. I'll treat the race as a hard workout and an opportunity to learn. I look forward to it. I hope I can help our new cycling team have a rider win this event. Rick will have a reasonable chance to compete and it will be a thrill to see him race. I'll keep you posted on the race.
I still have about five more weeks of base building before readying myself for some spring time trials, where I have a higher comfort level. More later.
Next week our club,GS Kitty Hawk/Kitty Hawk Cycling Club, will be represented for the first time in the Snowball Criterium #1 in Chesapeake, Virginia. Michael Gibson, Rick Devennish (the new rider), and myself will be in the C race as Category 5 racers. I have no delusions of grandeur for my own results never having even seen a criterium. I'll treat the race as a hard workout and an opportunity to learn. I look forward to it. I hope I can help our new cycling team have a rider win this event. Rick will have a reasonable chance to compete and it will be a thrill to see him race. I'll keep you posted on the race.
I still have about five more weeks of base building before readying myself for some spring time trials, where I have a higher comfort level. More later.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Just watched Timmy Turner's surf film, Second Thoughts. Wanted to see if it would play on my notebook computer. It did thankfully. It's a film of three American surfers who travel to an island in Indonesia on the super cheap to find waves, camp out and surf.
They are dropped off on the island by locals who are asked to return for them in four weeks. Subsistence camping and epic barrels---rights and lefts---are the order of the film. Incredibly honest filming showing Timmy and his two buds deep in way overhead tubes as well as slam downs inside on the reef, stuff usually edited out or not shot by larger budget efforts. I'm impressed!
They filmed some of the best and clearest inside-the-barrel tail shots of surf boards tracking a wave face that I've ever seen: squash and round-pintails and their tail release tracks are there to view. After 42 years of surfing, I'm happy to see the spirit is still in good care and the pioneering for new waves continues. If you consider yourself a core surfer, you'll love Timmy's film.
It's real cold here now in the twenties with NW blowin' about 20 knots. Would love to travel to some warm waves now, but held back by obligations. Still dreaming about waves to come though, just around the corner here. Still road cycling and occasionally swimming indoors. Have entered my first criterium road race in Chesapeake February twenty-fifth. Should be interesting. More later.
They are dropped off on the island by locals who are asked to return for them in four weeks. Subsistence camping and epic barrels---rights and lefts---are the order of the film. Incredibly honest filming showing Timmy and his two buds deep in way overhead tubes as well as slam downs inside on the reef, stuff usually edited out or not shot by larger budget efforts. I'm impressed!
They filmed some of the best and clearest inside-the-barrel tail shots of surf boards tracking a wave face that I've ever seen: squash and round-pintails and their tail release tracks are there to view. After 42 years of surfing, I'm happy to see the spirit is still in good care and the pioneering for new waves continues. If you consider yourself a core surfer, you'll love Timmy's film.
It's real cold here now in the twenties with NW blowin' about 20 knots. Would love to travel to some warm waves now, but held back by obligations. Still dreaming about waves to come though, just around the corner here. Still road cycling and occasionally swimming indoors. Have entered my first criterium road race in Chesapeake February twenty-fifth. Should be interesting. More later.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
First post, Feb. 11, 2007
Is anyone out there? I am posting for the first time from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. It's sunny here today, about 50 degrees F., west wind around 15 mph, no ocean swell, ocean water temperature 46 degrees F.---a good day for a long bike ride, say around 50 miles. Can't surf now. So why not?
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