Okay, I've been on hiatus see. On the lamb. Gored by a change of situation, work, and play.
The economy has me wrapped up and pinned down not unlike many out there in the blogosphere I suppose. But we're making the best of it.
I took a new job October first---well an additional job. If you've looked at my profile you may have noticed I'm a builder (and carpenter) of custom homes on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Our company name is Outer Banks Homes, Inc. We've been building here for just about 30 years. This is where I learned to build in fact. Our work has always included remodeling and repairs and now our schedule is filled by these type projects.
Several new home projects are circling in orbit around us but seem to have much inertia to overcome before we could begin construction. You know the owners have other properties to sell, etc. So the scale of our jobs are smaller in dollar volume and scope now, their approaching rhythm slower with gaps between starts.
So I received an offer to teach Construction Technology at our new high school, First Flight High, one mile from the Atlantic Ocean and about 1000 yards from the site of the Wright Brothers' first powered aircraft flight at Kill Devil Hill. The original teacher walked out after only 5 days. Wonder why? Yeah I did too, but I took the position anyway. With a sagging, maybe even sinking local building economy, it seemed I could handle both work obligations. Yes we continue to remodel, and now I am part lion tamer part teacher. There'll be more on this later. You'll be entertained as I have a degree, but not a teaching degree. I'm making it up as I go.
You see I have a B.A. in English literature along with my years experience as a carpenter/builder. These kids have had a head-on collision with the strangest animal they could ever imagine. Consequently they are required to learn to build and communicate concentrating on the written word. Educators call this teaching across disciplines and it has immense value.
This is translated to this particular audience in this way: "Unless you want to be someone else's "boy" in whatever you choose to do the rest of your life, you must learn to communicate effectively. You must have the ability to recognize and use the appropriate voice in whatever context you find yourself." Many of them are getting it. I'll let you know how it goes though. The challenges are larger than one teacher. Of this I am certain.
So now I have two jobs. Don't get me wrong, this is a happy misery as I have two kids in college. I'm happy to find additional work bike-riding distance from home. But until I'm more sure of the teacher side of myself, this has put a crimp on surfing and just playing in general. The coastal adventure continues. Christmas is almost here again. Meanwhile a chest to head-high glassy wave breaks on the local bars in 52-degrees of salty wetness. More later.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Playing Catch Up, Big Surf This Fall
The world keeps turning and time keeps carrying us all along whether we want to go or not. Time is the bus we all ride together. We're about to push into November. We've had a very good Fall surf season so far, marked by two huge northeast swells. Each was driven to our beaches by pressure gradients---high pressure systems tracking offshore north of us and low pressure systems rolling along their usual route right over us and into the ocean where both rub against each other, while spinning toward each other and working together to fire off a blistering northeast wind and huge swells.
The first of these swells we covered on the September 25th blog entry. The second occurred last weekend. The surfed was carved into clean lines by a soft westerly wind by last Tuesday morning. It offered hulking, A-frame peaks, double overhead with lots of lefts. There was happiness throughout the land as all Dare County's surf subjects played joyfully together on her coast.
By this morning the water temperature at many of the piers, the Duck Research Pier, Avalon Pier, Nags Head Pier and the Hatteras Island Pier all reported water in the low to mid sixties. That wouldn't be significant if this were late Summer or early Fall, but at this point it portends an unstoppable trend toward the painfully cold water of Winter. So we cling to every moment we get in a lesser wetsuit. We savor the flexibility and lightness of what we wear now in contrast to what we soon must wear to ride waves in the coming months.
Such is the changing of the seasons here. It's not in the leaves or even so much in the air. It's felt mostly by what you must wear in the water, and what a hot shower means to blood circulation and the euphoria we feel after a session, especially in an outside shower at home. There's nothing like it. It's our Outer Banks spa.
The first of these swells we covered on the September 25th blog entry. The second occurred last weekend. The surfed was carved into clean lines by a soft westerly wind by last Tuesday morning. It offered hulking, A-frame peaks, double overhead with lots of lefts. There was happiness throughout the land as all Dare County's surf subjects played joyfully together on her coast.
By this morning the water temperature at many of the piers, the Duck Research Pier, Avalon Pier, Nags Head Pier and the Hatteras Island Pier all reported water in the low to mid sixties. That wouldn't be significant if this were late Summer or early Fall, but at this point it portends an unstoppable trend toward the painfully cold water of Winter. So we cling to every moment we get in a lesser wetsuit. We savor the flexibility and lightness of what we wear now in contrast to what we soon must wear to ride waves in the coming months.
Such is the changing of the seasons here. It's not in the leaves or even so much in the air. It's felt mostly by what you must wear in the water, and what a hot shower means to blood circulation and the euphoria we feel after a session, especially in an outside shower at home. There's nothing like it. It's our Outer Banks spa.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
A Classic Fall Uncelebrated Swell
Chest to shoulder high, glassy bowls wrapped around the head of a riptide offering lefts and rights to good friends who don't know each other's names. This evening I savored these conditions between 5 and 6:30 p.m. mostly with other surfers I didn't even know.
The sun slowly descended behind some wood framed, multi-story, time share type buildings thankfully in silhouette. It was an eternity between sets, maybe even 15+ minutes. This time given let me notice the many colors on the ocean's surface---of course shades of gray, but yellows and greens with a boiling riptide perking wavelets through a wavy, mirrored surface.
I felt cradled in this atmosphere highlighted by the smiles of happy strangers now showing up in wetsuits. How truly wealthy can one soul be to have all this---clean, rideable waves in clean water with others under the same spell of wonder?
The sun slowly descended behind some wood framed, multi-story, time share type buildings thankfully in silhouette. It was an eternity between sets, maybe even 15+ minutes. This time given let me notice the many colors on the ocean's surface---of course shades of gray, but yellows and greens with a boiling riptide perking wavelets through a wavy, mirrored surface.
I felt cradled in this atmosphere highlighted by the smiles of happy strangers now showing up in wetsuits. How truly wealthy can one soul be to have all this---clean, rideable waves in clean water with others under the same spell of wonder?
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Hurricane Kyle Followup
The surf was pretty big here this morning---up to 4 feet overhead on the morning sets, smaller as the tide went out and the day wore on. High tide was 7-something, the wind light offshore (west-northwest). We looked at it in Kill Devil Hills, then went up the Beach Road to Kitty Hawk. We entered through a huge shorebreak around 10:45 a.m.
Some of you may have read a previous post featuring my whining about the poor condition of our local sandbars. Swells have shown over them this Summer and early Fall, but nowhere seems to break like it used to.
Richard and I stood in a group of long time local elders at 9:15 a.m. as we all came to unanimous agreement on this subject. We also concluded that today's surf was too big to make a swift judgment on the present condition of our sandbars since last week's northeaster---too soon for that. We laughed at two other of our kind hesitating to make the sprint through the shorebreak south of us down the beach. Today it was breaking 3 bars outside. We would need evidence of waves breaking on say, the first or second bar to really know if our sandbars were back again. This is where we usually surf our typical head to 2 feet overhead Fall waves. We'll get to that sometime soon I'm sure. You see, this is the local marine geology learning cauldron. This is where real learning takes place.
However being an East Coast surfer, you learned, like no other surfers on the planet how to be wrong in your predictions and projections about what It will be like tomorrow or the next day after. Shifting sandbars and unpredictable storm tracks, speeds, and intensities help us here too. So....
Today, contrary to my predictions in yesterday's post, we surfed a very large, deep sucking out ground swell with an acute north angle. We paddled out, just the two of us, and surfed glassy conditions on a pitching, huge bowl beside a developing riptide, alone for about an hour. So much for my prediction that the Kyle swell wouldn't reach us till tomorrow or tomorrow night. What do Right Coast surfers know anyhow, huh?
Some of you may have read a previous post featuring my whining about the poor condition of our local sandbars. Swells have shown over them this Summer and early Fall, but nowhere seems to break like it used to.
Richard and I stood in a group of long time local elders at 9:15 a.m. as we all came to unanimous agreement on this subject. We also concluded that today's surf was too big to make a swift judgment on the present condition of our sandbars since last week's northeaster---too soon for that. We laughed at two other of our kind hesitating to make the sprint through the shorebreak south of us down the beach. Today it was breaking 3 bars outside. We would need evidence of waves breaking on say, the first or second bar to really know if our sandbars were back again. This is where we usually surf our typical head to 2 feet overhead Fall waves. We'll get to that sometime soon I'm sure. You see, this is the local marine geology learning cauldron. This is where real learning takes place.
However being an East Coast surfer, you learned, like no other surfers on the planet how to be wrong in your predictions and projections about what It will be like tomorrow or the next day after. Shifting sandbars and unpredictable storm tracks, speeds, and intensities help us here too. So....
Today, contrary to my predictions in yesterday's post, we surfed a very large, deep sucking out ground swell with an acute north angle. We paddled out, just the two of us, and surfed glassy conditions on a pitching, huge bowl beside a developing riptide, alone for about an hour. So much for my prediction that the Kyle swell wouldn't reach us till tomorrow or tomorrow night. What do Right Coast surfers know anyhow, huh?
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Hurricane Kyle: How a Hurricane Can Pass You with No Wake (Swell)
Just back from visiting my son at the Barton College Parents' Weekend. Had a good visit, but we all were worried the wind would switch west to line up a meaty northeast windswell created by a 4-day northeaster last week. It's not a good thing to be landlocked 3 hours inland when great surf is born. However early morning calls to local allies told us the wind was still onshore and the waves were "humpy, bumpy, and lumpy". So we could relax and enjoy our day. We may get our offshore conditions tomorrow.
But the real reason I felt compelled to post tonight is the astounding speed Hurricane (almost tropical storm) Kyle is passing our coast apparently with Maine in it's crosshairs. Watching these storms for a lifetime has taught me when they move fast like this one---24 miles per hour---they leave virtually no swell on the adjacent coasts. Hurricane Bell did this in 1976 coming up under the hook of Cape Hatteras and then abruptly pinging to the northeast and then almost straight north at about 16 miles per hour. It was a fairly powerful storm with 110 mph winds wrapped around it's eye. It left behind a strong, double overhead swell crashing our sandbars for a mere few hours. Then just as suddenly, no swell at all.
But Kyle at 24 mph and even on our side of Bermuda? At this time it is a low- rent storm with winds a measly 75+ mph. When a Hurricane moves this swiftly as well, it tows its resulting swell like a fast moving boat wake, not spreading out until the storm is long past. We might not see any surf here from Kyle until late Monday or later when it crashes into New England or Maine. I'll be watching this closely and let you know what happens here at the home breaks.
In the meantime, we should have some fun waves here tomorrow when the wind switches. I'll let you know.
But the real reason I felt compelled to post tonight is the astounding speed Hurricane (almost tropical storm) Kyle is passing our coast apparently with Maine in it's crosshairs. Watching these storms for a lifetime has taught me when they move fast like this one---24 miles per hour---they leave virtually no swell on the adjacent coasts. Hurricane Bell did this in 1976 coming up under the hook of Cape Hatteras and then abruptly pinging to the northeast and then almost straight north at about 16 miles per hour. It was a fairly powerful storm with 110 mph winds wrapped around it's eye. It left behind a strong, double overhead swell crashing our sandbars for a mere few hours. Then just as suddenly, no swell at all.
But Kyle at 24 mph and even on our side of Bermuda? At this time it is a low- rent storm with winds a measly 75+ mph. When a Hurricane moves this swiftly as well, it tows its resulting swell like a fast moving boat wake, not spreading out until the storm is long past. We might not see any surf here from Kyle until late Monday or later when it crashes into New England or Maine. I'll be watching this closely and let you know what happens here at the home breaks.
In the meantime, we should have some fun waves here tomorrow when the wind switches. I'll let you know.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Just What Our Sandbars Need
Today it blew 30 to 40 knots and is still blowing very hard with gusts up to 50 knots here on the coast. We're caught between two pressure gradients---a classic setup---a high pressure system bringing in cooler air (low 70's day, mid to high 60's night)from the northwest and a low to the southeast both spinning against one another and firing up the present northeaster. Rain should develop into the recipe tomorrow sometime.
There's a considerable size overhead northeast swell that should have no problem whatsoever re-shuffling and re-shaping our town sandbars. They were in such dire need of re-work as none of the classic local bars have been working lately.
The towns, knowing this was about to happen, scrambled to dump and push sand up into the east ends of the beach access parking areas. Many of these are no more than a strip of blacktop extending perpendicular from the Beach Road to the dune line, usually around 100 yards long, and providing parallel parking along both their edges and a way in and out in the center.
I drove my loaded and then empty cargo van across the sound on the Currituck Orville Wright Bridge today and was radically rocked by this northeaster, the van shuddering and bucking the big gusts all the way back to the island.
Will keep you posted on the quality of our sandbars following this latest wind event. Here's to the ever changing Outer Banks land and marine-scapes.
There's a considerable size overhead northeast swell that should have no problem whatsoever re-shuffling and re-shaping our town sandbars. They were in such dire need of re-work as none of the classic local bars have been working lately.
The towns, knowing this was about to happen, scrambled to dump and push sand up into the east ends of the beach access parking areas. Many of these are no more than a strip of blacktop extending perpendicular from the Beach Road to the dune line, usually around 100 yards long, and providing parallel parking along both their edges and a way in and out in the center.
I drove my loaded and then empty cargo van across the sound on the Currituck Orville Wright Bridge today and was radically rocked by this northeaster, the van shuddering and bucking the big gusts all the way back to the island.
Will keep you posted on the quality of our sandbars following this latest wind event. Here's to the ever changing Outer Banks land and marine-scapes.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Surf Update and Lance Conjecture
There were good waves in Rodanthe yesterday. Richard called early in the morning to say he was headed down to Hatteras Island. I chose work for the day. He called around 4 p.m. as I was coming home on the Beach Road. He said it was worth the trip down there as he'd had a good 3-hour session. Said it was ledgie and head high with a lot of barrels to be had. Did I already say I chose work?
On Lance coming back I guess first of all, everybody thinks it's a natural that He would rejoin Johan Bruyneel and the Astana team. I thought the same until pondering the whole thing once again driving home from work today. I see Armstrong as extremely calculating about every move he makes. I've read about his scales and the weighing of all food portions he ate in the off-seasons while he was still harvesting Tours. I can't imagine him announcing his return to the world cycling stage without having already clenched a place to compete.
One of the team bosses who are quoted in Velo News today on Armstrong's return to pro road racing, is playing possum, and I believe already knows Armstrong will be joining his team.
I believe Bob Stapleton's Team Columbia is just as likely a place for Lance to land, maybe even more so, than Team Astana. There he could race once again with his long- time accomplice, George Hincapie. With Bruyneel's new book out this summer recounting how he had a very large part in Armstrong's Tour successes, I don't think anything could be more satisfying to Armstrong than to win a comeback tour "on his own" at 37 years-old without Bruyneel, but with Hincapie on an American team, with transparent proof of his having raced "clean". With these odds, Lance has found a new L'Alpe d'Huez summit finish, a new mountain to climb.
I see Armstrong creating turmoil inside an Astana team boasting two G.C. men in Contador and Liepheimer, whereas Team Columbia's Kim Kirchen, although a strong classics rider, is not the stellar G.C. contender that this team could put on the podium in Paris. Lance would more than fit the bill.
Maybe Bob Stapleton knows more than he would have us think.
On Lance coming back I guess first of all, everybody thinks it's a natural that He would rejoin Johan Bruyneel and the Astana team. I thought the same until pondering the whole thing once again driving home from work today. I see Armstrong as extremely calculating about every move he makes. I've read about his scales and the weighing of all food portions he ate in the off-seasons while he was still harvesting Tours. I can't imagine him announcing his return to the world cycling stage without having already clenched a place to compete.
One of the team bosses who are quoted in Velo News today on Armstrong's return to pro road racing, is playing possum, and I believe already knows Armstrong will be joining his team.
I believe Bob Stapleton's Team Columbia is just as likely a place for Lance to land, maybe even more so, than Team Astana. There he could race once again with his long- time accomplice, George Hincapie. With Bruyneel's new book out this summer recounting how he had a very large part in Armstrong's Tour successes, I don't think anything could be more satisfying to Armstrong than to win a comeback tour "on his own" at 37 years-old without Bruyneel, but with Hincapie on an American team, with transparent proof of his having raced "clean". With these odds, Lance has found a new L'Alpe d'Huez summit finish, a new mountain to climb.
I see Armstrong creating turmoil inside an Astana team boasting two G.C. men in Contador and Liepheimer, whereas Team Columbia's Kim Kirchen, although a strong classics rider, is not the stellar G.C. contender that this team could put on the podium in Paris. Lance would more than fit the bill.
Maybe Bob Stapleton knows more than he would have us think.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Lance Armstrong Planning a Comeback
Lance Armstrong, now 37 years old, is planning to make a professional road racing comeback according to sources quoted by Velo News and Cycling News. They're talking about Lance signing with Team Astana to reunite with team director Johan Bruyneel and former Team Discovery director Dirk Demol, who has just signed on with Astana for the 2009 road season. Lance reportedly will race for no salary or bonuses.
Apparently rumors were flying wildly at the Eurobike trade show this summer. Neal Rogers of Velo News reports that Vanity Fair will feature an exclusive article in its next issue laying out the details of the coming road racing season and Lance's comeback.
Races Armstrong is said to be participating in are, Paris-Nice, the Dauphine Libere, the Amgen Tour of California, the Tour of Georgia, and the Tour De France.
If this turns out to be true, what a year it will be in professional cycling. I believe the domestic cycling ranks will be transfixed by this all season. I also see this as good for amateur cycling in the U.S. True champions, like Armstrong, are too often never able to see that they might not be champions still. The thought of his attempted comeback may inspire nonetheless. The cauldron he is about to enter, I think, will surely be more competitive now, maybe none more than the Astana team he is reportedly about to join featuring Levi Liepheimer and Alberto Contador both holding the one and two positions in the Vuelta a Espana respectively as of yesterday.
George Hincapie (Team Columbia) says he knows nothing about the Lance comeback. If he doesn't know now, he will know soon for sure. Keep your eyes and ears on him. He is one of Lance's closest friends and former teammates. Should be interesting if true in the 2009 road season.
Apparently rumors were flying wildly at the Eurobike trade show this summer. Neal Rogers of Velo News reports that Vanity Fair will feature an exclusive article in its next issue laying out the details of the coming road racing season and Lance's comeback.
Races Armstrong is said to be participating in are, Paris-Nice, the Dauphine Libere, the Amgen Tour of California, the Tour of Georgia, and the Tour De France.
If this turns out to be true, what a year it will be in professional cycling. I believe the domestic cycling ranks will be transfixed by this all season. I also see this as good for amateur cycling in the U.S. True champions, like Armstrong, are too often never able to see that they might not be champions still. The thought of his attempted comeback may inspire nonetheless. The cauldron he is about to enter, I think, will surely be more competitive now, maybe none more than the Astana team he is reportedly about to join featuring Levi Liepheimer and Alberto Contador both holding the one and two positions in the Vuelta a Espana respectively as of yesterday.
George Hincapie (Team Columbia) says he knows nothing about the Lance comeback. If he doesn't know now, he will know soon for sure. Keep your eyes and ears on him. He is one of Lance's closest friends and former teammates. Should be interesting if true in the 2009 road season.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Tropical Storm Hanna
Tropical Storm Hanna passed behind us early this morning to the west about 70 miles. It was in a rush moving 22 mph. I'm sure the coastal plain region of North Carolina got drowned by rain. Tropical storms carry so much rain, as if they are a moving funnel spilling all the rain in the heavens over the earth.
The rain cleared out here about mid morning leaving behind only pulsing southerly gusts up to around 50+ miles per hour. I scouted the oceanfront at First Street and watched as the south wind scoured the beaches. The south current along the beach was weaker than I expected. The swell had a pronounced south angle and was only about what looked like a little overhead outside.
Surf tomorrow? The wind will dictate it all. One forecast I saw earlier has a light onshore wind tomorrow, slowly building as the day stretches into the afternoon. We'll see.
The rain cleared out here about mid morning leaving behind only pulsing southerly gusts up to around 50+ miles per hour. I scouted the oceanfront at First Street and watched as the south wind scoured the beaches. The south current along the beach was weaker than I expected. The swell had a pronounced south angle and was only about what looked like a little overhead outside.
Surf tomorrow? The wind will dictate it all. One forecast I saw earlier has a light onshore wind tomorrow, slowly building as the day stretches into the afternoon. We'll see.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Return to Hatteras Island
Yesterday Robbie Snyder said it best: "this is like a surf trip out of country where, instead, you never have to get on a plane, and the surf is as good as anywhere you've ever been." It was this way again today. This is the Outer Banks in the Fall.
Today we returned to Hatteras Island with the feel of confidence that it would be a repeat of yesterday. The buoys were actually reading around a 1-1/2' larger swell than yesterday. The wind was predicted to remain light and variable westerly.
At first light my internal conflict between work obligations and the draw of rare excellent surf began. I even emailed a close out-of-town friend that I couldn't surf today because I needed to get some things done at work. But my accomplice, Richard called, told me where he was headed and that he'd meet me there, etc. What the heck...this is the very reason I've sacrificed so much to live here. This moment defines it all.
I picked up wax for us both at Stop-and-Shop, checked our hometown break for comparison, and took off south. I once again passed the S-Turns Barnum and Bailey show for the cameras and stopped at a well-known locals break for a check. There were two peaks. A vortex of surfers were knotted up on the primary sandbar. The secondary bar was covered by a sprinkling of riders to the north. The numbers looked bad. I saddled up and headed to the spot we surfed yesterday.
When I came over the dune a ground swell set was pushing through. The sun's glint off the wave faces looked worthy of any surf mag. Yeah, the glamor shot in the unglamorous spot under the radar. I prefer it like that.
The swell direction was now north and opened-ended lefts were everywhere I looked---a goofyfooter's heaven. It would be a good day for me.
Surfers were scattered across peaks spread some 600 yards along the beach. Again I had friends from town in the water, always a welcome sight here, some 30 miles south. Again the surf was around the same size as yesterday with ground swell sets and open lefts. Robbie and I rode a left bowl snapping over a bar with a rip starting up on its south end. If you were caught inside on a set today, the best call was to go to the beach and walk around to the rip and paddle back out from there.
It was a great morning for us. I had ten quality waves in 120 minutes. On most takeoffs it was tail-and-rail only in contact with the wave face. Bait fish were all around. A stingray leaped 6 feet out of the water only 25 feet away from another guy and I. The aloha spirit and many smiles were with all.
When we left the water we knew it would be a while before we would see these conditions again. The forecast for tomorrow is for increasing cloudiness, increasing onshore wind, and plenty of rain as Tropical Storm (now) Hanna moves up and inland behind us (to the west). There will be more good surf fairly soon I'm sure. Will check back later.
Today we returned to Hatteras Island with the feel of confidence that it would be a repeat of yesterday. The buoys were actually reading around a 1-1/2' larger swell than yesterday. The wind was predicted to remain light and variable westerly.
At first light my internal conflict between work obligations and the draw of rare excellent surf began. I even emailed a close out-of-town friend that I couldn't surf today because I needed to get some things done at work. But my accomplice, Richard called, told me where he was headed and that he'd meet me there, etc. What the heck...this is the very reason I've sacrificed so much to live here. This moment defines it all.
I picked up wax for us both at Stop-and-Shop, checked our hometown break for comparison, and took off south. I once again passed the S-Turns Barnum and Bailey show for the cameras and stopped at a well-known locals break for a check. There were two peaks. A vortex of surfers were knotted up on the primary sandbar. The secondary bar was covered by a sprinkling of riders to the north. The numbers looked bad. I saddled up and headed to the spot we surfed yesterday.
When I came over the dune a ground swell set was pushing through. The sun's glint off the wave faces looked worthy of any surf mag. Yeah, the glamor shot in the unglamorous spot under the radar. I prefer it like that.
The swell direction was now north and opened-ended lefts were everywhere I looked---a goofyfooter's heaven. It would be a good day for me.
Surfers were scattered across peaks spread some 600 yards along the beach. Again I had friends from town in the water, always a welcome sight here, some 30 miles south. Again the surf was around the same size as yesterday with ground swell sets and open lefts. Robbie and I rode a left bowl snapping over a bar with a rip starting up on its south end. If you were caught inside on a set today, the best call was to go to the beach and walk around to the rip and paddle back out from there.
It was a great morning for us. I had ten quality waves in 120 minutes. On most takeoffs it was tail-and-rail only in contact with the wave face. Bait fish were all around. A stingray leaped 6 feet out of the water only 25 feet away from another guy and I. The aloha spirit and many smiles were with all.
When we left the water we knew it would be a while before we would see these conditions again. The forecast for tomorrow is for increasing cloudiness, increasing onshore wind, and plenty of rain as Tropical Storm (now) Hanna moves up and inland behind us (to the west). There will be more good surf fairly soon I'm sure. Will check back later.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The Fall Swell is Upon Us
Today we left town for Hatteras Island fairly early, around 7 a.m., expecting very good surf. We weren't disappointed. Driving past the S-Turns circus, we searched for the lesser known breaks known amongst locals both north and south of Oregon Inlet.
The tide was nearly topped off high, the wind was 10-12 mph from the west-southwest, and the seawater temperature was about 80 degrees. We found a good sandbar and noticed the south current was running hard between the wash and the first sandbar, about 5+ knots. A friend pointed south to an area cordoned off by the National Park Service to protect endangered turtle eggs and endangered shore bird eggs and chicks as the place to paddle out---about 350 yards south of the place we wanted to be when we finally reached the peak outside.
The surf was consistently chest to head high. But there were deep very impressive, south ground swell sets coming through around 2+ feet overhead every 25 minutes or so. All the tropics are boiling now with 3 named storms all lined up: Hurricane Hanna, Hurricane Ike, and Tropical Storm Josephine. I make the connection to them for the long 25 minute period between these ground swell sets.
This morning we surfed for 2-1/2 hours with friends we've seen year-in and year-out for the last twenty-five, every time there's surf. They are as much a part of the context we are in here as the island landscape or seeing rideable waves lit by the sun's Fall angle.
We return to these breaks tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it goes.
The tide was nearly topped off high, the wind was 10-12 mph from the west-southwest, and the seawater temperature was about 80 degrees. We found a good sandbar and noticed the south current was running hard between the wash and the first sandbar, about 5+ knots. A friend pointed south to an area cordoned off by the National Park Service to protect endangered turtle eggs and endangered shore bird eggs and chicks as the place to paddle out---about 350 yards south of the place we wanted to be when we finally reached the peak outside.
The surf was consistently chest to head high. But there were deep very impressive, south ground swell sets coming through around 2+ feet overhead every 25 minutes or so. All the tropics are boiling now with 3 named storms all lined up: Hurricane Hanna, Hurricane Ike, and Tropical Storm Josephine. I make the connection to them for the long 25 minute period between these ground swell sets.
This morning we surfed for 2-1/2 hours with friends we've seen year-in and year-out for the last twenty-five, every time there's surf. They are as much a part of the context we are in here as the island landscape or seeing rideable waves lit by the sun's Fall angle.
We return to these breaks tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it goes.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The Page Valley Road Race and How I Was Sacrificed for the Latest Surf
Well it's finally happening. The tropics are boiling up storms and hurricanes. Our first official Fall swell came through last Monday. Me? I was in the mountains of Virginia at the Page Valley Road (bicycle)Race near Luray. This was my first Cat 4 road race---in the mountains. Climbs at race speed, some 12 to 20 per cent I guess. My surfing buddies loved me when I returned my having fulfilled the role of sacrifice for legitimate waves head high and larger, clean faces and time for multiple cutbacks, so they told me. Telling me about it was one of their favorite parts second only to the surf itself that day.
It was all about Hatteras Island as the sandbars here in the towns seem non-productive right now. What we need, I suppose, is a real ass-kicker to blow in here and re-shuffle the sand for what I know is coming. How quickly and often things change here, the bottom, the weather, everything, are the reasons the Outer Banks keep your attention, keep your interest. The context is never boring.
Ah yes, the great myth of whom will be sacrificed for the next session. There always seems to be someone to thank for their absence. This never changes.
The bike race had been planned for quite a while. This is something you just don't do here in the Fall swell window. So I'll be avoiding traveling off the beaches as much as possible from here on. The policy now is sit on it till it hatches. I'll probably avoid all travels until after Thanksgiving.
The Page Valley Race was still however, very worth it. It featured as much suffering as any road racing cyclist could possibly want. Climbs which put you on your largest cog, your smallest chainring, standing over your pedals at 9 mph close to spitting up a lung---a situation many road cyclists only dream about.
Around 87 riders were registered in the Cat 4 race. Fifteen mysteriously never started, 12 abandoned the race, and 60 "finished". The range of strength and talent in the field seemed wide. The race was set to include 5 laps around a 10-mile circuit. The promoter reduced the race to 4 laps due to the excessive heat. Of the 60 finishing the race, 27 finished all 4 laps. Some were pulled out at the finish line after completing only 2 laps as they were falling so far behind. Some were pulled out after 3 laps (me) for the same reason.
The finish line was at the top of one of the steepest climbs. I was sure I could've completed all the laps. But let's just say---as I "summited" and the official walked toward my passing bike (yes I was riding slow enough for him to walk)informing me I was done but that he would still "place" me in the standings---I didn't have my happy face on. I didn't hesitate to retire though. For a moment, I even relished the thought of curling up into a fetal position, sucking my thumb, and trying to imagine who else I could blame for my being here this day. Only a momentary thought though. I quickly regained my tough-guy pose along with the other thirty or so guys lining the road at the finish, all either deep in oxygen debt or recovered enough to stand and nervously laugh about our predicament.
After about 15 to 20 minutes of waiting, here came the 4-lap finishers---the real warriors, including Robert, one of the other two riders from our team whom I traveled with up there. Apparently he was fourth wheel going into the last turn at the foot of the final climb and beginning an attack, when suddenly the tubular tire on his rear wheel came off the rim sending him abruptly into a ditch, still upright on the bike. He got the tire back on and still managed to finish 25th of the last 27 riders.
What's more, out of a major display of respect, Jacob Tremblay, the presumed BAR winner for Cat 4 in Virginia and among the lead riders at the time, turned around off the front and returned to check that Robert was okay. They finished together at the rear of the finishing field of riders. I'm happy to say sportsmanship is still alive in cycling at the amateur level.
We expect waves in the next day or two. I'll keep you updated.
It was all about Hatteras Island as the sandbars here in the towns seem non-productive right now. What we need, I suppose, is a real ass-kicker to blow in here and re-shuffle the sand for what I know is coming. How quickly and often things change here, the bottom, the weather, everything, are the reasons the Outer Banks keep your attention, keep your interest. The context is never boring.
Ah yes, the great myth of whom will be sacrificed for the next session. There always seems to be someone to thank for their absence. This never changes.
The bike race had been planned for quite a while. This is something you just don't do here in the Fall swell window. So I'll be avoiding traveling off the beaches as much as possible from here on. The policy now is sit on it till it hatches. I'll probably avoid all travels until after Thanksgiving.
The Page Valley Race was still however, very worth it. It featured as much suffering as any road racing cyclist could possibly want. Climbs which put you on your largest cog, your smallest chainring, standing over your pedals at 9 mph close to spitting up a lung---a situation many road cyclists only dream about.
Around 87 riders were registered in the Cat 4 race. Fifteen mysteriously never started, 12 abandoned the race, and 60 "finished". The range of strength and talent in the field seemed wide. The race was set to include 5 laps around a 10-mile circuit. The promoter reduced the race to 4 laps due to the excessive heat. Of the 60 finishing the race, 27 finished all 4 laps. Some were pulled out at the finish line after completing only 2 laps as they were falling so far behind. Some were pulled out after 3 laps (me) for the same reason.
The finish line was at the top of one of the steepest climbs. I was sure I could've completed all the laps. But let's just say---as I "summited" and the official walked toward my passing bike (yes I was riding slow enough for him to walk)informing me I was done but that he would still "place" me in the standings---I didn't have my happy face on. I didn't hesitate to retire though. For a moment, I even relished the thought of curling up into a fetal position, sucking my thumb, and trying to imagine who else I could blame for my being here this day. Only a momentary thought though. I quickly regained my tough-guy pose along with the other thirty or so guys lining the road at the finish, all either deep in oxygen debt or recovered enough to stand and nervously laugh about our predicament.
After about 15 to 20 minutes of waiting, here came the 4-lap finishers---the real warriors, including Robert, one of the other two riders from our team whom I traveled with up there. Apparently he was fourth wheel going into the last turn at the foot of the final climb and beginning an attack, when suddenly the tubular tire on his rear wheel came off the rim sending him abruptly into a ditch, still upright on the bike. He got the tire back on and still managed to finish 25th of the last 27 riders.
What's more, out of a major display of respect, Jacob Tremblay, the presumed BAR winner for Cat 4 in Virginia and among the lead riders at the time, turned around off the front and returned to check that Robert was okay. They finished together at the rear of the finishing field of riders. I'm happy to say sportsmanship is still alive in cycling at the amateur level.
We expect waves in the next day or two. I'll keep you updated.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
What the Beach Road Says About Us---Time to Connect the Dots
Those of you who have read this blog know that I am a road cyclist and surfer of some years. Almost daily I ride and train on what locals here call the Beach Road. Officially it's Virginia Dare Trail, named for the first English child born in the New World, tragically a member of the Lost Colony.
I try not to ride on the Beach Road during the middle to later hours of the day because of the car traffic and the growing, huge numbers of tourists, and I guess locals, walking, jogging, cycling, crossing to the beach, and just generally promenading. I do love to ride there though when the traffic is sparse. I can ride along on an uninterrupted, steady state ride and see the ocean, check our local sandbars for surf. It's really special.
I've noticed in the last four or five years on the Beach Road that the numbers of people exercising in some form is steadily increasing. It's nothing but impressive. There has also been more and more talk about obesity in our society, especially in children and the general ill effects for all of a sedentary lifestyle devoid of activity. Maybe this show of activity on the Beach Road is the public's reaction.
Let me clear up one thing with you right now though. I'm not on a crusade for health here. My road cycling and fitness escapades are self-serving and intended to prop up my fitness so that I can continue to surf at age fifty-six. Surfing is a big part of what maintains my happiness. The physical and spiritual benefits are too numerous to get into and would probably sound cliche. Suffice it to say, if you surf, you understand.
Let's get back to connecting the dots. My generation was the so-called Hippie Generation, the Flower Power Generation, the Counter Culture Generation. We went off to the college higher learning experience replete with ten-speed road bikes and attitudes which carried a first line distrust for any idea handed down from the "Establishment". Gas prices went through the ceiling for the first time in the early Seventies with gas shortages to boot. When we did drive many of us drove small light cars which sipped gas. My VW Beetle comes to mind. But we rode our bikes EVERYWHERE. There was however, at the time, a nobility in the poverty of functional daily living. Flash forward to now...
This same generation and it's children are the beneficiaries of a prosperity and gain of wealth like no U.S. generation before us has ever known. Many, many are still driving gas-hogging SUV's and bemoaning the $4.00 a gallon price at the fuel pump. These same people are cheering the possibilities of new offshore oil drilling, and cheering the temporary drops in the price of gasoline. I'm sure that if the price of gas remains high enough long enough, the great minds of science and industry in this country will answer resoundingly with viable alternatives.
The longer we delay this important work the greater the pain will be for every single person who enjoys the freedom of driving a vehicle anywhere they please years from now after paying the almost high enough price of gas. If you think $4.00 a gallon crimps your personal pursuit of happiness now, just support the status quo and watch what happens. This and worse environmental implications hang like a noose around our collective necks ever tightening as we fly into the future. Will it take market dynamics and market dynamics alone to finally teach our spoiled, hardheaded vehicle-driving population that this is where it's headed?
The oil producing countries will keep prices just low enough so that our U.S. research and industrial engine doesn't fully engage. Their approach is founded upon the belief that the U.S. population is fat, lazy and are no longer capable of the profound pain and sacrifice it would take to become more self-sufficient again. The pain and sacrifice to which I refer was demonstrated by our parents' generation during the Great Depression, World War II, and the Korean War. It would take the real resolve of every one of us to bull our country out of our present predicament without the market making leadership easy. Can we do it?
Meanwhile our global ecosystem is being trashed by the continued use and addiction to fossil fuel. The obesity-ridden children I referred to above are my generation's children and grandchildren. Maybe we're turning the corner on health somewhat as witnessed by the growing numbers exercising on our 25-mile long Beach Road. I am very encouraged by what I see there now. The Beach Road is actually slammed with physical activity that was never there at this level in years past. It is my local metric revealing whether we, as a nation are getting it. What people do has much more to say than what they say. I still see huge numbers of big fuel-guzzling vehicles on the Beach Road.
But on the side of progress made, I see many new fuel efficient vehicles too...hybrids, flex-fuel vehicles, and many, many more motor scooters for local transportation. One local bicycle shop in Kill Devil Hills rented motor scooters last tourist season. At the end of the season they sold all the used scooters. This year they could get no new scooters because of the overwhelming demand for them on the national market. This is good. We are reducing consumption, finding other ways to get around.
The national strategic oil reserve shockingly though, is good for only about three months oil supply. Think about what that means in leverage to any foreign oil producers who care to put us in a vice over some international issue. Scary thought huh?
We still can't seem to connect the dots on transportation especially local daily transportation which serve our daily needs. Our community planning must begin to support a local pedestrian and cycling lifestyle immediately. I direct you to a website I found which is becoming a clearinghouse for such efforts called World Carfree Network. There you will see another metric for our national awareness on these issues.
I look for signals in the media as well. Advertising is a great indicator of what we as a nation are thinking on a subject and, as if holding a mirror, what the corporations in this country anticipate our posture and positions to be on an issue. There's the T. Boone Pickens ad on TV, there's the very revealing Autozone (auto parts store) ad shown on Versus during the Tour De France of all places, with the scenario of a boy riding his bike who finds an old, giant American gas-hogging car with a note on the windshield, "If you can fix it, it's yours." The kid goes back and forth between working on the car and of course, the Autozone store getting parts and advice until the car finally runs. The narrator victoriously proclaims in the end that the boy will always be able to depend on his local Autozone, but at least he won't have to ride his bike there anymore.
Now this ad speaks volumes. One begs the question, how cash-starved is Versus that they wouldn't filter out an ad like that for a bike-friendly audience watching the Tour. But more importantly here, Autozone's ignorance to the context we are living in, astounds and scares the hell out of me. They like the oil producing nations are betting that the American public just doesn't get it.
Right now I'm shaking my head in disgust. I pray that you are too.
I try not to ride on the Beach Road during the middle to later hours of the day because of the car traffic and the growing, huge numbers of tourists, and I guess locals, walking, jogging, cycling, crossing to the beach, and just generally promenading. I do love to ride there though when the traffic is sparse. I can ride along on an uninterrupted, steady state ride and see the ocean, check our local sandbars for surf. It's really special.
I've noticed in the last four or five years on the Beach Road that the numbers of people exercising in some form is steadily increasing. It's nothing but impressive. There has also been more and more talk about obesity in our society, especially in children and the general ill effects for all of a sedentary lifestyle devoid of activity. Maybe this show of activity on the Beach Road is the public's reaction.
Let me clear up one thing with you right now though. I'm not on a crusade for health here. My road cycling and fitness escapades are self-serving and intended to prop up my fitness so that I can continue to surf at age fifty-six. Surfing is a big part of what maintains my happiness. The physical and spiritual benefits are too numerous to get into and would probably sound cliche. Suffice it to say, if you surf, you understand.
Let's get back to connecting the dots. My generation was the so-called Hippie Generation, the Flower Power Generation, the Counter Culture Generation. We went off to the college higher learning experience replete with ten-speed road bikes and attitudes which carried a first line distrust for any idea handed down from the "Establishment". Gas prices went through the ceiling for the first time in the early Seventies with gas shortages to boot. When we did drive many of us drove small light cars which sipped gas. My VW Beetle comes to mind. But we rode our bikes EVERYWHERE. There was however, at the time, a nobility in the poverty of functional daily living. Flash forward to now...
This same generation and it's children are the beneficiaries of a prosperity and gain of wealth like no U.S. generation before us has ever known. Many, many are still driving gas-hogging SUV's and bemoaning the $4.00 a gallon price at the fuel pump. These same people are cheering the possibilities of new offshore oil drilling, and cheering the temporary drops in the price of gasoline. I'm sure that if the price of gas remains high enough long enough, the great minds of science and industry in this country will answer resoundingly with viable alternatives.
The longer we delay this important work the greater the pain will be for every single person who enjoys the freedom of driving a vehicle anywhere they please years from now after paying the almost high enough price of gas. If you think $4.00 a gallon crimps your personal pursuit of happiness now, just support the status quo and watch what happens. This and worse environmental implications hang like a noose around our collective necks ever tightening as we fly into the future. Will it take market dynamics and market dynamics alone to finally teach our spoiled, hardheaded vehicle-driving population that this is where it's headed?
The oil producing countries will keep prices just low enough so that our U.S. research and industrial engine doesn't fully engage. Their approach is founded upon the belief that the U.S. population is fat, lazy and are no longer capable of the profound pain and sacrifice it would take to become more self-sufficient again. The pain and sacrifice to which I refer was demonstrated by our parents' generation during the Great Depression, World War II, and the Korean War. It would take the real resolve of every one of us to bull our country out of our present predicament without the market making leadership easy. Can we do it?
Meanwhile our global ecosystem is being trashed by the continued use and addiction to fossil fuel. The obesity-ridden children I referred to above are my generation's children and grandchildren. Maybe we're turning the corner on health somewhat as witnessed by the growing numbers exercising on our 25-mile long Beach Road. I am very encouraged by what I see there now. The Beach Road is actually slammed with physical activity that was never there at this level in years past. It is my local metric revealing whether we, as a nation are getting it. What people do has much more to say than what they say. I still see huge numbers of big fuel-guzzling vehicles on the Beach Road.
But on the side of progress made, I see many new fuel efficient vehicles too...hybrids, flex-fuel vehicles, and many, many more motor scooters for local transportation. One local bicycle shop in Kill Devil Hills rented motor scooters last tourist season. At the end of the season they sold all the used scooters. This year they could get no new scooters because of the overwhelming demand for them on the national market. This is good. We are reducing consumption, finding other ways to get around.
The national strategic oil reserve shockingly though, is good for only about three months oil supply. Think about what that means in leverage to any foreign oil producers who care to put us in a vice over some international issue. Scary thought huh?
We still can't seem to connect the dots on transportation especially local daily transportation which serve our daily needs. Our community planning must begin to support a local pedestrian and cycling lifestyle immediately. I direct you to a website I found which is becoming a clearinghouse for such efforts called World Carfree Network. There you will see another metric for our national awareness on these issues.
I look for signals in the media as well. Advertising is a great indicator of what we as a nation are thinking on a subject and, as if holding a mirror, what the corporations in this country anticipate our posture and positions to be on an issue. There's the T. Boone Pickens ad on TV, there's the very revealing Autozone (auto parts store) ad shown on Versus during the Tour De France of all places, with the scenario of a boy riding his bike who finds an old, giant American gas-hogging car with a note on the windshield, "If you can fix it, it's yours." The kid goes back and forth between working on the car and of course, the Autozone store getting parts and advice until the car finally runs. The narrator victoriously proclaims in the end that the boy will always be able to depend on his local Autozone, but at least he won't have to ride his bike there anymore.
Now this ad speaks volumes. One begs the question, how cash-starved is Versus that they wouldn't filter out an ad like that for a bike-friendly audience watching the Tour. But more importantly here, Autozone's ignorance to the context we are living in, astounds and scares the hell out of me. They like the oil producing nations are betting that the American public just doesn't get it.
Right now I'm shaking my head in disgust. I pray that you are too.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Update From the Beaches and The Chesapeake Criterium
The wheel of time slowly turns. The familiar autumn slant of sunlight leads my memory to past epic surf. The many years flow together and become one atmosphere, one great big luscious feeling representing all those waves ridden.
The ocean water temperature is pushing 80 degrees. Various water brothers talk now of free diving and spearfishing on the shipwrecks littering our local sandbars. The ocean is flat, clear and the wind is light and easterly. This is what our local islandscape, the context in which we live, is like just before the first real swell comes. So as we wait, we do other things in order to be ready.
Last Saturday I raced in my first race as a Category 4 bike racer. I had had two weeks preceding this race of careful, recovery-type training rides due to persistent groin and ligament strain. I believe this is attributed to lack of weight training in support of the racing season following hernia surgery. Lifting just hurt the scar tissue too much. So I just rode miles and put in time on the bike. I kept the intensity dialed down. I didn't really feel prepared, but resolved to ride in the Chesapeake Criterium anyway.
I rode up with my friend Robert. You could say I'm an entry level Cat 4 racer. He's ready to upgrade to Cat 3, but has decided to finish the season as a Cat Four. So for the first time we got to ride as teammates in a race.
Robert has done nothing less than lead many new local riders into the sport, and in some cases like mine, encouraged a few long time riders to enter criteriums and road races. He has led by putting in a Herculean effort himself to improve his fitness and skills for great racing results. I'll post a blog in the future characterizing the kind of unfailing devotion and commitment this takes in cycling as an amateur racer.
We were to meet one of our team's boy wonders, Ricky, 24 years-old, whom we knew would be armed with a murderous sprint finish. We also knew he was not happy with his results in the recent Piedmont Triad Omnium in the North Carolina foothills. Ricky is a natural sprinter. He would come to race. If he was in any kind of good position in the last 300 meters to the finish line, he'd be in the money when it was over. I'm always hoping I'm close enough to see it at the end. I raced with him when we both were in Cat 5 together. He kept winning so he moved right up to Cat 4 leaving me to slave through all 10 required races in order to also move up.
I lined up on the start line. Ricky tapped my rear wheel with his front to let me know he was behind me. As we started, I let a few riders find the front of the peloton before I fell in close behind, intending to hide from the wind more than I usually do. Robert had lined up on the start line to my right. The rider on the front set the pace which settled in around 25+ mph. I was watching for a break but there was none. I rotated to the front and took a short pull. I was determined to ride in the top ten, the safest place to be in a race, keeping the majority of the other riders behind me as much as possible.
We had been told by the referees at the outset the race would be 40 minutes. They said they would time our beginning laps then put up the number 13 on the lap board so we could watch the laps count down from there to the final lap. As the leaders cross the start/finish line on the final lap, cycling tradition has a bell ringing (like a cowbell)to signal the riders.
The race announcer could be heard briefly as we passed the finish line each time complaining about the slow pace of the race saying,"when will these riders pick up the pace and really begin racing?" Then a four dollar prime (pronounced preem)was announced the next time we passed by. Four dollars to the next rider to lead across the line on the next lap. We were being demeaned. I never did learn who won that prize. We weren't impressed.
I worked hard to hold a position near the front which had much more to do with bike handling skills and maneuvering than speed and strength. Our average speed at the race's end was only around 26.4 mph. But it's the movement in, around, and among the other racers that is the real intensity in the main part of the race. It's intoxicating.
If the pace sagged coming out of a corner, the leaders would be passed on the right and/or the left all at once. Riders would stream by like river current. I would be left having to pick my way back up to the lead group again after sinking backward until I couldn't tolerate my new position.
A rider went off the front of the pack and pulled out about 20 yards away. So I came out of the lead group and bridged up to him, covering the potential break. He signaled me to pull through and help stay away from the pack. I refused and stayed on his wheel. I was really just enjoying a safer place to ride and rest out of the wind.
We crossed the line, the bell rang and the last lap began. I was about 7th wheel from the front. We turned into the back stretch and ran up to around 28+ mph. I jumped over to the righthand gutter, climbed up the side of the leaders and launched off the front. I separated from the others only briefly as I struggled into the wind. I peeked behind to see the others closing on my rear wheel. Swiftly, the last corner before the finishing straight neared. I leaned hard into the turn holding my speed up. As I straightened my line, the riders behind me exploded across the road and up the sides in a maddening, furious sprint to the line. Among them were my teammates Ricky and Robert.
Robert had found the wheel of a friendly rider we knew from another team. When that rider got up to sprint, he put a watt loaded pedal-stroke down and his chain came off suddenly dropping him on his top bar. He managed to keep his bike up, but Robert had lost much of his sprint momentum, skidded and then all at once started his sprint again.
Ricky, waiting for no one, shot by me on the left and finished third. Robert ended with an eighth place. I finished safely 18th in a field of thirty-nine. It was a worthwhile race. Today I learned I could ride in Cat Four. There's nothing like riding with able teammates.
The ocean water temperature is pushing 80 degrees. Various water brothers talk now of free diving and spearfishing on the shipwrecks littering our local sandbars. The ocean is flat, clear and the wind is light and easterly. This is what our local islandscape, the context in which we live, is like just before the first real swell comes. So as we wait, we do other things in order to be ready.
Last Saturday I raced in my first race as a Category 4 bike racer. I had had two weeks preceding this race of careful, recovery-type training rides due to persistent groin and ligament strain. I believe this is attributed to lack of weight training in support of the racing season following hernia surgery. Lifting just hurt the scar tissue too much. So I just rode miles and put in time on the bike. I kept the intensity dialed down. I didn't really feel prepared, but resolved to ride in the Chesapeake Criterium anyway.
I rode up with my friend Robert. You could say I'm an entry level Cat 4 racer. He's ready to upgrade to Cat 3, but has decided to finish the season as a Cat Four. So for the first time we got to ride as teammates in a race.
Robert has done nothing less than lead many new local riders into the sport, and in some cases like mine, encouraged a few long time riders to enter criteriums and road races. He has led by putting in a Herculean effort himself to improve his fitness and skills for great racing results. I'll post a blog in the future characterizing the kind of unfailing devotion and commitment this takes in cycling as an amateur racer.
We were to meet one of our team's boy wonders, Ricky, 24 years-old, whom we knew would be armed with a murderous sprint finish. We also knew he was not happy with his results in the recent Piedmont Triad Omnium in the North Carolina foothills. Ricky is a natural sprinter. He would come to race. If he was in any kind of good position in the last 300 meters to the finish line, he'd be in the money when it was over. I'm always hoping I'm close enough to see it at the end. I raced with him when we both were in Cat 5 together. He kept winning so he moved right up to Cat 4 leaving me to slave through all 10 required races in order to also move up.
I lined up on the start line. Ricky tapped my rear wheel with his front to let me know he was behind me. As we started, I let a few riders find the front of the peloton before I fell in close behind, intending to hide from the wind more than I usually do. Robert had lined up on the start line to my right. The rider on the front set the pace which settled in around 25+ mph. I was watching for a break but there was none. I rotated to the front and took a short pull. I was determined to ride in the top ten, the safest place to be in a race, keeping the majority of the other riders behind me as much as possible.
We had been told by the referees at the outset the race would be 40 minutes. They said they would time our beginning laps then put up the number 13 on the lap board so we could watch the laps count down from there to the final lap. As the leaders cross the start/finish line on the final lap, cycling tradition has a bell ringing (like a cowbell)to signal the riders.
The race announcer could be heard briefly as we passed the finish line each time complaining about the slow pace of the race saying,"when will these riders pick up the pace and really begin racing?" Then a four dollar prime (pronounced preem)was announced the next time we passed by. Four dollars to the next rider to lead across the line on the next lap. We were being demeaned. I never did learn who won that prize. We weren't impressed.
I worked hard to hold a position near the front which had much more to do with bike handling skills and maneuvering than speed and strength. Our average speed at the race's end was only around 26.4 mph. But it's the movement in, around, and among the other racers that is the real intensity in the main part of the race. It's intoxicating.
If the pace sagged coming out of a corner, the leaders would be passed on the right and/or the left all at once. Riders would stream by like river current. I would be left having to pick my way back up to the lead group again after sinking backward until I couldn't tolerate my new position.
A rider went off the front of the pack and pulled out about 20 yards away. So I came out of the lead group and bridged up to him, covering the potential break. He signaled me to pull through and help stay away from the pack. I refused and stayed on his wheel. I was really just enjoying a safer place to ride and rest out of the wind.
We crossed the line, the bell rang and the last lap began. I was about 7th wheel from the front. We turned into the back stretch and ran up to around 28+ mph. I jumped over to the righthand gutter, climbed up the side of the leaders and launched off the front. I separated from the others only briefly as I struggled into the wind. I peeked behind to see the others closing on my rear wheel. Swiftly, the last corner before the finishing straight neared. I leaned hard into the turn holding my speed up. As I straightened my line, the riders behind me exploded across the road and up the sides in a maddening, furious sprint to the line. Among them were my teammates Ricky and Robert.
Robert had found the wheel of a friendly rider we knew from another team. When that rider got up to sprint, he put a watt loaded pedal-stroke down and his chain came off suddenly dropping him on his top bar. He managed to keep his bike up, but Robert had lost much of his sprint momentum, skidded and then all at once started his sprint again.
Ricky, waiting for no one, shot by me on the left and finished third. Robert ended with an eighth place. I finished safely 18th in a field of thirty-nine. It was a worthwhile race. Today I learned I could ride in Cat Four. There's nothing like riding with able teammates.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Message in a Bottle
To Whomever Finds This Bottle,
We're waiting. We've been waiting...for weeks now. Yes we're fully enveloped in the doldrums. But we keep waiting and waiting for it to happen. We squint into the sun, watch the horizon in this crushing heat for days and days for something to ride. The Bermuda High has locked its teeth down and its southwester, a flamethrower, blows searing hot.
Waiting for something to go off in the tropics. If you find this bottle please say a prayer for us. We can make it through yet another doldrum flat spell. By now we've got to be close to the swell window. It's maybe a week or ten days away. I've examined my past logs and am encouraged, hopeful. It's almost time.
Until the first swell comes, we'll work, snorkel, ride our bikes hard, swim, sail, and even rest up. Until it gets here we will endure. You will hear from us again when the first real Fall swell comes. It will be our salvation, our sustenance, future tall tales. God help us arrive.
We're waiting. We've been waiting...for weeks now. Yes we're fully enveloped in the doldrums. But we keep waiting and waiting for it to happen. We squint into the sun, watch the horizon in this crushing heat for days and days for something to ride. The Bermuda High has locked its teeth down and its southwester, a flamethrower, blows searing hot.
Waiting for something to go off in the tropics. If you find this bottle please say a prayer for us. We can make it through yet another doldrum flat spell. By now we've got to be close to the swell window. It's maybe a week or ten days away. I've examined my past logs and am encouraged, hopeful. It's almost time.
Until the first swell comes, we'll work, snorkel, ride our bikes hard, swim, sail, and even rest up. Until it gets here we will endure. You will hear from us again when the first real Fall swell comes. It will be our salvation, our sustenance, future tall tales. God help us arrive.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Riding in Groups and Pacelines---Avoiding the Big Crash
(Editor's Note: It's been some time since we've posted here. Thank you to those readers who have been patient and continue to visit and read this blog. To say this writer has been distracted lately would be huge understatement. There's been road race training, work, family, keeping my vigil for the tropics to kick off the fall surfing season, and road racing. I have stories. Anyway, back to telling them.)
When we last met, we had unveiled "Anatomy of a Road Bike Crash". Here is the cause of the crash that morning on Kitty Hawk Woods Road. I had just come off a pull on the front of an eight-rider paceline moving between 27 and 28 mph. Not long after I moved into the 6th position, the number four rider, having fallen away from the wheel of the third, surged forward and toward the lost rear edge of the wheel just ahead. He was towing four riders right behind I being one. Evidently as his wheel arrived right behind the wheel of the rider before him, that rider's rear wheel jerked backward, that rider responding to something before him. Rider four's front wheel touched that rear wheel, unbalancing him, touching wheels a second time---the undoing laid waste.
I need to say first that I don't consider myself the big expert on group riding safety. But I do think it's a good idea to pass along some of what I saw and some ideas about safer riding arising out of this unfortunate crash.
I do know sometimes triathletes and others who join group rides comprised of road cyclists, will often complain about the group road cyclists' overbearing vigilance and finicky, picky attention to how others ride. They will cry about the protocols and etiquette involved in group rides.
After witnessing the carnage wrought by mistakes and some inexperience intersecting on a group ride, I clearly understand why experienced roadies will do all in their power to insure a safer ride. It's only about safety. The difficult part is everybody out there has a different way of getting the desired result. It's trying at best to reconcile safety into a group with way diverse experience riding as such.
First something about role modeling on group rides. In a group of mixed skills, in my opinion, time trial bikes and clip-on aerobars have no place at all. Here's the deal: yes experienced riders can ride a paceline in an aero position as in a team time trial. Several things make this unsafe in a mixed group. In road cycling, the strongest-fastest get not just the attention of the other less skilled/fit riders, but more than that, they are role models whether they want that mantle or not. It's one of the laws of the pack.
The other riders drink in every detail about why these alpha riders are successful in the sport: bike brand, frame composition and geometry, drive train manufacturer, wheels, body position, shoes, helmet, saddle, everything. Because many are male, we all have too much of what Jerry Seinfeld has noted is an internal posture telling us that in a group of athletes all up to the same sport, "it's alright for me to take risks and use the most advanced equipment because I'm THE MAN." Get it? So less experienced riders show up with TT bikes and aerobars hoping they'll make them faster too. Because surely it's alright for them---they're one of the main guys too.
Everything the stronger riders do is being watched closely. Some of them are undoubtedly the strongest and more experienced and safer riders and know how to get it across to others. They are superb role models. Others are dangerous because they are so strong and get the attention, but they're not safe riders in a group. I don't have answers for this dilemma. But if you ride in a group, you must be aware of these dynamics.
There are some things I've learned from my experience in fast moving pacelines at home and in races, and also techniques my local mentors have taught me which I'd like to share.
If you really want to learn quickly and especially the really good stuff, then create an atmosphere that allows the more experienced, safe riders to teach you. Ask questions and don't be defensive if they become critical of something you do that looks scary to them. My advice is to carefully consider what's being said and why. Allow learning and teaching to occur. For some adults, I think this is a stretch. The benefits to you as a safe road cyclist are immense.
Obviously, if you get gapped like the number four rider in our crash, use caution in moving back in behind the rider before you. If you are in a paceline with a following rider and you desire to pedal standing, there is a safe way to transition from pedaling while seated to standing. All at once, as your right foot/pedal is moving to the 10-11 o'clock position on the chainring (sprocket), put your weight over that foot and climb up to a standing position as the pedal goes up and over the top of the chainring. This will maintain constant pressure on the bike's drivetrain and keep your rear wheel from stuttering backward seemingly toward the front wheel of the rider behind. He'll really appreciate it.
Ride on the drops (lower part of the handlebars) with a rider in front of you only if you have a high degree of confidence in that rider's bike handling skills. Otherwise ride with your hands positioned near the brake hoods. Braking in a paceline with a following rider however is only a last resort.
Ride with your front wheel slightly offset to one side or the other of the rear wheel of the rider before you. Always be looking for an escape route should a crash occur in your front. Know whether to exit to the right, off the road if the terrain allows, or as a second choice, to the left. This choice is a dangerous one though in the U.S. as this could put you into motor vehicle traffic.
Try to maintain a view of the paceline beyond the rider before you. This can give you a valuable second or more to react to something bad happening up the line. At the same time maintain a safe distance from the wheel you are following. Above all maintain your focus.
I'm sure there is much more to making it safe. But this can be a starting point for you. Don't let bad things happen on the road and enjoy the ride.
When we last met, we had unveiled "Anatomy of a Road Bike Crash". Here is the cause of the crash that morning on Kitty Hawk Woods Road. I had just come off a pull on the front of an eight-rider paceline moving between 27 and 28 mph. Not long after I moved into the 6th position, the number four rider, having fallen away from the wheel of the third, surged forward and toward the lost rear edge of the wheel just ahead. He was towing four riders right behind I being one. Evidently as his wheel arrived right behind the wheel of the rider before him, that rider's rear wheel jerked backward, that rider responding to something before him. Rider four's front wheel touched that rear wheel, unbalancing him, touching wheels a second time---the undoing laid waste.
I need to say first that I don't consider myself the big expert on group riding safety. But I do think it's a good idea to pass along some of what I saw and some ideas about safer riding arising out of this unfortunate crash.
I do know sometimes triathletes and others who join group rides comprised of road cyclists, will often complain about the group road cyclists' overbearing vigilance and finicky, picky attention to how others ride. They will cry about the protocols and etiquette involved in group rides.
After witnessing the carnage wrought by mistakes and some inexperience intersecting on a group ride, I clearly understand why experienced roadies will do all in their power to insure a safer ride. It's only about safety. The difficult part is everybody out there has a different way of getting the desired result. It's trying at best to reconcile safety into a group with way diverse experience riding as such.
First something about role modeling on group rides. In a group of mixed skills, in my opinion, time trial bikes and clip-on aerobars have no place at all. Here's the deal: yes experienced riders can ride a paceline in an aero position as in a team time trial. Several things make this unsafe in a mixed group. In road cycling, the strongest-fastest get not just the attention of the other less skilled/fit riders, but more than that, they are role models whether they want that mantle or not. It's one of the laws of the pack.
The other riders drink in every detail about why these alpha riders are successful in the sport: bike brand, frame composition and geometry, drive train manufacturer, wheels, body position, shoes, helmet, saddle, everything. Because many are male, we all have too much of what Jerry Seinfeld has noted is an internal posture telling us that in a group of athletes all up to the same sport, "it's alright for me to take risks and use the most advanced equipment because I'm THE MAN." Get it? So less experienced riders show up with TT bikes and aerobars hoping they'll make them faster too. Because surely it's alright for them---they're one of the main guys too.
Everything the stronger riders do is being watched closely. Some of them are undoubtedly the strongest and more experienced and safer riders and know how to get it across to others. They are superb role models. Others are dangerous because they are so strong and get the attention, but they're not safe riders in a group. I don't have answers for this dilemma. But if you ride in a group, you must be aware of these dynamics.
There are some things I've learned from my experience in fast moving pacelines at home and in races, and also techniques my local mentors have taught me which I'd like to share.
If you really want to learn quickly and especially the really good stuff, then create an atmosphere that allows the more experienced, safe riders to teach you. Ask questions and don't be defensive if they become critical of something you do that looks scary to them. My advice is to carefully consider what's being said and why. Allow learning and teaching to occur. For some adults, I think this is a stretch. The benefits to you as a safe road cyclist are immense.
Obviously, if you get gapped like the number four rider in our crash, use caution in moving back in behind the rider before you. If you are in a paceline with a following rider and you desire to pedal standing, there is a safe way to transition from pedaling while seated to standing. All at once, as your right foot/pedal is moving to the 10-11 o'clock position on the chainring (sprocket), put your weight over that foot and climb up to a standing position as the pedal goes up and over the top of the chainring. This will maintain constant pressure on the bike's drivetrain and keep your rear wheel from stuttering backward seemingly toward the front wheel of the rider behind. He'll really appreciate it.
Ride on the drops (lower part of the handlebars) with a rider in front of you only if you have a high degree of confidence in that rider's bike handling skills. Otherwise ride with your hands positioned near the brake hoods. Braking in a paceline with a following rider however is only a last resort.
Ride with your front wheel slightly offset to one side or the other of the rear wheel of the rider before you. Always be looking for an escape route should a crash occur in your front. Know whether to exit to the right, off the road if the terrain allows, or as a second choice, to the left. This choice is a dangerous one though in the U.S. as this could put you into motor vehicle traffic.
Try to maintain a view of the paceline beyond the rider before you. This can give you a valuable second or more to react to something bad happening up the line. At the same time maintain a safe distance from the wheel you are following. Above all maintain your focus.
I'm sure there is much more to making it safe. But this can be a starting point for you. Don't let bad things happen on the road and enjoy the ride.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Anatomy of a Road Bike Crash
My eyes were clinched tightly shut. There was silence. I laid on the warm asphalt on my right side. I moved my fingers, toes then my hands and feet until I felt it was safe to move my body. Still lying where I had landed, I looked back where I had just come tumbling out of a 4-man bike crash. This was the worst I'd ever seen, let alone been involved. The next thing I saw transformed into one of those lifetime snapshots you carry in your head for all time.
I was part of an early morning group ride, about 15 riders, which started in Southern Shores, warmed up progressing south on the Beach Road, then worked its way over to roads on the soundside and back north to Kitty Hawk. The ride starts at 5:30 a.m. I met the group riding toward it on the Beach Road as I live 7 miles south of their starting point. The spectrum of road experience and bike handling skills was diverse in the group which assembled that day. Many riders are quite fit and able to carry on pretty vigorous efforts.
Upon completion of the warmup, the group organized into a paceline (single file, wheel to wheel)and began the real work. The morning was beautiful with the sun reaching just above the Atlantic horizon. It felt as though it was ours and ours alone to view as we rolled down a virtually empty Beach Road. The ocean was mirror glassy and flat.
The typical ride goes like this: Sprint markers are embedded along the route, the first of which is the Nags Head Inn. The north end of Bay Drive is next, and the last sprint finishes before the light at the north end of Kitty Hawk Woods Road.
As we approach sprint markers, lifting the tempo all the while, the stronger riders vie for front position and all at once, one attacks launching a sprint toward the next mark. The paceline stretches at first and then riders explode across the road each tracing his own lane to the finish mark. The first riders across sit up and pedal a slow cadence until the group re-forms. Then everybody's off again, the paceline running around 25-26 mph between sprints.
Upon reaching the lead-up to the Woods Road sprint the group divides with the strongest riders now riding lead in their own group. Newly formed groups follow behind at whatever pace they can maintain.
I moved to the front of the lead group to take my turn pulling on Kitty Hawk Village Road and turned the corner onto Woods Road. We were cruising at 25+ mph. One quarter mile further I came off the front as a few riders wanting more speed passed to my left. As I dropped back seven places, I heard Matt coaxing me back into the paceline while opening a space. I sidled safely in ahead of Matt and behind Mark. We were between 27 and 28 mph now and steady.
The riders in front of Mark were in this order: Roger, Chip, Art, Joe and Robert (at the front). Fortunately this day we had two doctors in our group.
I was watching the line of riders' heads and shoulders while peering over Mark's right shoulder. Occasionally I looked at the proximity of my front wheel to Mark's rear wheel, maintaining a safe distance but staying in his slipstream.
The familiar sound of spokes cutting the morning air was in my ears. Riders' heads and bodies were moving in an unscripted, wiggling choreography all the while working to stay rail steady on the bikes.
In one long, long instant Roger (Mark was between us) dropped straight down gone from my view, his head and body twisting to the left. Mark reacted by steering left and catching Roger's now tumbling bike and going down himself. Roger and his bike were now before me as I jambed on my brakes. Matt streaked by on the right plowing into the helpless Roger still sliding on his back, his bike laying over him.
Having no place to veer, I rode my skidding bike into the tangled mess of downed riders and bikes. I can clearly remember attempting to miss my friends as they lay there. My front wheel stuck hard on something and then the inevitable came. I went over my handlebars tucking my head, turning one shoulder to the ground hoping to roll while kicking out of my pedals. I ended the super spill pretty far down the road by myself. All of this in one long, long instant. Roger was one of the two doctors in our group this day.
I was afraid to look back at them that morning. These were special people in the life of a man. We come together only for this hard work---a loose team, growing closer in whatever precision we can muster each day on our road bikes.
I got up as Mark was getting up also. We went to Roger and saw he was unconscious. Matt was on the street edge holding his head and moaning. I ran to my bike seat bag, grabbed my cell phone, cut it on and literally pleaded with the phone to find the "Network" it was searching for before making itself available. I called 911.
The front part of our group was arriving in our midst. Robert ran back up the traffic lane in which we had crashed in order to direct oncoming vehicles around us. The rear group began to arrive. Two riders bent over Roger attending to him as best they could. I directed some to take off their jerseys and cover him lest he go into shock. I had the 911 operator in my ear asking tedious questions. I gave her our location. As I spoke I can remember the absolute awe and bewilderment in the other riders' faces as they took in the scene.
A couple came running to us from a nearby home offering pillows and blankets. I could hear sirens, one coming from each end of the road. I soon realized Art, the other doctor on the ride, was one of the two attending to Roger. As the 911 operator began asking me medical questions about Roger I passed the phone to Art so that he could communicate the medical situation. I didn't know whether I helped or hindered by doing that.
We helped pull Matt and his bike off the road. The other riders filled in around us picking up bikes and parts and taking them off the road. A paramedic was at my side offering alcohol soaked cotton swaths to clean the blood off my right leg and arm, all standard road rash, my only injuries. Mark had the same injuries. Matt had a concussion.
Roger was seriously hurt, a breath away from life changing injury or death. He spent that night in a hospital intensive care unit. His injuries? Four broken ribs, broken scapula, brain hemorrhage, severe concussion and a severe hip bruise causing him to loose 3 units of blood internally.
When the ambulances left us there that morning, we weren't sure if one of our group would live. Everyone went home. I got on my bike and rode south and the long rest of my day. Since this group ride we all have had much to think about---mostly how to be safer and even why we do what we do.
This post will be followed by my own discussion of group road cycling safety in the next post. Also I'll reveal why this accident occurred having now spoken to the riders involved including Roger. In the meantime, if you are an experienced cyclist, I would love to hear your comments relative to improving safety with such a diverse group riding together. If you prefer to respond off line my email is skip.saunders@gmail.com. I welcome your take.
I was part of an early morning group ride, about 15 riders, which started in Southern Shores, warmed up progressing south on the Beach Road, then worked its way over to roads on the soundside and back north to Kitty Hawk. The ride starts at 5:30 a.m. I met the group riding toward it on the Beach Road as I live 7 miles south of their starting point. The spectrum of road experience and bike handling skills was diverse in the group which assembled that day. Many riders are quite fit and able to carry on pretty vigorous efforts.
Upon completion of the warmup, the group organized into a paceline (single file, wheel to wheel)and began the real work. The morning was beautiful with the sun reaching just above the Atlantic horizon. It felt as though it was ours and ours alone to view as we rolled down a virtually empty Beach Road. The ocean was mirror glassy and flat.
The typical ride goes like this: Sprint markers are embedded along the route, the first of which is the Nags Head Inn. The north end of Bay Drive is next, and the last sprint finishes before the light at the north end of Kitty Hawk Woods Road.
As we approach sprint markers, lifting the tempo all the while, the stronger riders vie for front position and all at once, one attacks launching a sprint toward the next mark. The paceline stretches at first and then riders explode across the road each tracing his own lane to the finish mark. The first riders across sit up and pedal a slow cadence until the group re-forms. Then everybody's off again, the paceline running around 25-26 mph between sprints.
Upon reaching the lead-up to the Woods Road sprint the group divides with the strongest riders now riding lead in their own group. Newly formed groups follow behind at whatever pace they can maintain.
I moved to the front of the lead group to take my turn pulling on Kitty Hawk Village Road and turned the corner onto Woods Road. We were cruising at 25+ mph. One quarter mile further I came off the front as a few riders wanting more speed passed to my left. As I dropped back seven places, I heard Matt coaxing me back into the paceline while opening a space. I sidled safely in ahead of Matt and behind Mark. We were between 27 and 28 mph now and steady.
The riders in front of Mark were in this order: Roger, Chip, Art, Joe and Robert (at the front). Fortunately this day we had two doctors in our group.
I was watching the line of riders' heads and shoulders while peering over Mark's right shoulder. Occasionally I looked at the proximity of my front wheel to Mark's rear wheel, maintaining a safe distance but staying in his slipstream.
The familiar sound of spokes cutting the morning air was in my ears. Riders' heads and bodies were moving in an unscripted, wiggling choreography all the while working to stay rail steady on the bikes.
In one long, long instant Roger (Mark was between us) dropped straight down gone from my view, his head and body twisting to the left. Mark reacted by steering left and catching Roger's now tumbling bike and going down himself. Roger and his bike were now before me as I jambed on my brakes. Matt streaked by on the right plowing into the helpless Roger still sliding on his back, his bike laying over him.
Having no place to veer, I rode my skidding bike into the tangled mess of downed riders and bikes. I can clearly remember attempting to miss my friends as they lay there. My front wheel stuck hard on something and then the inevitable came. I went over my handlebars tucking my head, turning one shoulder to the ground hoping to roll while kicking out of my pedals. I ended the super spill pretty far down the road by myself. All of this in one long, long instant. Roger was one of the two doctors in our group this day.
I was afraid to look back at them that morning. These were special people in the life of a man. We come together only for this hard work---a loose team, growing closer in whatever precision we can muster each day on our road bikes.
I got up as Mark was getting up also. We went to Roger and saw he was unconscious. Matt was on the street edge holding his head and moaning. I ran to my bike seat bag, grabbed my cell phone, cut it on and literally pleaded with the phone to find the "Network" it was searching for before making itself available. I called 911.
The front part of our group was arriving in our midst. Robert ran back up the traffic lane in which we had crashed in order to direct oncoming vehicles around us. The rear group began to arrive. Two riders bent over Roger attending to him as best they could. I directed some to take off their jerseys and cover him lest he go into shock. I had the 911 operator in my ear asking tedious questions. I gave her our location. As I spoke I can remember the absolute awe and bewilderment in the other riders' faces as they took in the scene.
A couple came running to us from a nearby home offering pillows and blankets. I could hear sirens, one coming from each end of the road. I soon realized Art, the other doctor on the ride, was one of the two attending to Roger. As the 911 operator began asking me medical questions about Roger I passed the phone to Art so that he could communicate the medical situation. I didn't know whether I helped or hindered by doing that.
We helped pull Matt and his bike off the road. The other riders filled in around us picking up bikes and parts and taking them off the road. A paramedic was at my side offering alcohol soaked cotton swaths to clean the blood off my right leg and arm, all standard road rash, my only injuries. Mark had the same injuries. Matt had a concussion.
Roger was seriously hurt, a breath away from life changing injury or death. He spent that night in a hospital intensive care unit. His injuries? Four broken ribs, broken scapula, brain hemorrhage, severe concussion and a severe hip bruise causing him to loose 3 units of blood internally.
When the ambulances left us there that morning, we weren't sure if one of our group would live. Everyone went home. I got on my bike and rode south and the long rest of my day. Since this group ride we all have had much to think about---mostly how to be safer and even why we do what we do.
This post will be followed by my own discussion of group road cycling safety in the next post. Also I'll reveal why this accident occurred having now spoken to the riders involved including Roger. In the meantime, if you are an experienced cyclist, I would love to hear your comments relative to improving safety with such a diverse group riding together. If you prefer to respond off line my email is skip.saunders@gmail.com. I welcome your take.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Long Beach Island, New Jersey---A Ride to Remember
So here we are in the North Shore Inn, one block from the Jersey "shore" (they don't call it the "beach" up here)on Long Beach Island, near Barnegat Inlet. I came up here last year kicking and screaming with my son for his skimboard contest. I had no interest in coming to the beaches in New Jersey. After a lifetime of hearing crummy stuff about the place, I was shocked at how beautiful and well cared for the beaches and the tiny beach towns were when I finally arrived. So here we are again.
I brought my trusty Trek road bike for this trip however and went out for a 30-mile tempo ride this morning. As I was readying for the ride, I spied a guy flying by on the road out front of the North Shore Inn on a hand cycle. I know, what's that? I didn't know that's what it's called either. It's a type of tricycle (high-performance wheelchair) for handicapped athletes operated by turning chain-drive sprockets with each hand and arm. It's frame is triangular in shape with it's rider snug between two approximately 20-24-inch wheels, their top edges leaning inboard toward the rider. A single front wheel, about the size of a standard road bike, projects out in front of the rider held by an aluminum, steel, or carbon fiber fork.
A racing wheelchair, on the other hand, has a smaller front wheel out front about 32 inches. It is held by a straight rod and fork extending forward from the rider's seated position and can be constructed of the same materials found on any road bike.
As I entered the road, I saw a police car, its blue lights ablaze, beside a roadside roped-off area. Adjacent to this was a tent and a gathering of people near what appeared to be a finish line. I was riding along in a race course for a wheelchair race. I looked behind to see racing wheelchairs closing fast.
I moved over toward a group of wheelchair racers who had just finished the 5-mile course. I rolled over to a dark-haired, smiling racer clad in a yellow Cannondale jersey, who introduced himself as Shannon. He had come from Washington, D.C. for the race. He was a 30-year old double leg amputee, the stubs of his legs and his lower body, wore black cycling shorts.
I introduced myself and told him I was very unfamiliar with his ride, so he showed me around and told me some about these special vehicles. His was not a hand-cycle, but a racing wheelchair. The frames were fairly similar, both somewhat triangular, but the means of propulsion were quite different. He said he has a hand-cycle, but prefers to race in the chair. It's his speed machine.
The racing chair is driven with the riders' hands and arms pumping in a vertical motion, with his mitted hands driving the wheels' forward edges downward by contact with a rubber coated ring attached to the outer face of the wheels. This repeated motion has the rider bent over at the waist and face downward toward the road for virtually the entire race. Today's race was a mass start race. Drafting was allowed and is effective with these machines as it is with racing bicycles.
Shannon said his chair, made by Top End, is custom fitted to his body and cost about $5500. Cannondale made chairs for some years but has gotten out of it. Most chairs cost between $3600 and $6500. They even sport deep dish carbon fiber wheels (as his did) and disc wheels, the type used by road cyclists in time trials.
"I wasn't real happy with my results today. I was up real late drinking with a buddy in Atlantic City last night," Shannon confessed. "He came up here with me from D.C. so we sorta stuck together last night. There aren't many out-of-town athletes in this race. These guys are mostly locals," he went on. "I'm from around here so it's kinda nice to come back here for a race like this.
"Well who do you train with at home?" I wanted to know.
Shannon: "The only person I train with around D.C. is an Olympic Parathlete. But I can't really keep up with him. He's super strong. I mean he's a real Olympian. But it's great to have the opportunity to work and learn from someone of that caliber."
As for his training, Shannon said he trains at about 13 to 15 miles per hour. He does long rides of 8 to 10 miles and does intervals to improve his speed. He talks about his training with the same precision of a dedicated road racing cyclist.
As Shannon said this, another rider pulled up wearing a red jersey looking a bit surly and well worn from the road race. "This guy won the race today," Shannon explained. "We're gonna ride back now." Seated inches above the road, he reached up and shook my hand. I also shook the hand of the race winner and wished them both good health and great racing. They took off south down the road intent upon catching up to their racing buddies who now had a head start on them.
They were off in the same direction I was going so I started off as well. I passed the group of them, and as I went by I looked down upon flat backs, faces inches to the road, elbows pumping up and down with a furious rage.
I had an especially good ride today.
I brought my trusty Trek road bike for this trip however and went out for a 30-mile tempo ride this morning. As I was readying for the ride, I spied a guy flying by on the road out front of the North Shore Inn on a hand cycle. I know, what's that? I didn't know that's what it's called either. It's a type of tricycle (high-performance wheelchair) for handicapped athletes operated by turning chain-drive sprockets with each hand and arm. It's frame is triangular in shape with it's rider snug between two approximately 20-24-inch wheels, their top edges leaning inboard toward the rider. A single front wheel, about the size of a standard road bike, projects out in front of the rider held by an aluminum, steel, or carbon fiber fork.
A racing wheelchair, on the other hand, has a smaller front wheel out front about 32 inches. It is held by a straight rod and fork extending forward from the rider's seated position and can be constructed of the same materials found on any road bike.
As I entered the road, I saw a police car, its blue lights ablaze, beside a roadside roped-off area. Adjacent to this was a tent and a gathering of people near what appeared to be a finish line. I was riding along in a race course for a wheelchair race. I looked behind to see racing wheelchairs closing fast.
I moved over toward a group of wheelchair racers who had just finished the 5-mile course. I rolled over to a dark-haired, smiling racer clad in a yellow Cannondale jersey, who introduced himself as Shannon. He had come from Washington, D.C. for the race. He was a 30-year old double leg amputee, the stubs of his legs and his lower body, wore black cycling shorts.
I introduced myself and told him I was very unfamiliar with his ride, so he showed me around and told me some about these special vehicles. His was not a hand-cycle, but a racing wheelchair. The frames were fairly similar, both somewhat triangular, but the means of propulsion were quite different. He said he has a hand-cycle, but prefers to race in the chair. It's his speed machine.
The racing chair is driven with the riders' hands and arms pumping in a vertical motion, with his mitted hands driving the wheels' forward edges downward by contact with a rubber coated ring attached to the outer face of the wheels. This repeated motion has the rider bent over at the waist and face downward toward the road for virtually the entire race. Today's race was a mass start race. Drafting was allowed and is effective with these machines as it is with racing bicycles.
Shannon said his chair, made by Top End, is custom fitted to his body and cost about $5500. Cannondale made chairs for some years but has gotten out of it. Most chairs cost between $3600 and $6500. They even sport deep dish carbon fiber wheels (as his did) and disc wheels, the type used by road cyclists in time trials.
"I wasn't real happy with my results today. I was up real late drinking with a buddy in Atlantic City last night," Shannon confessed. "He came up here with me from D.C. so we sorta stuck together last night. There aren't many out-of-town athletes in this race. These guys are mostly locals," he went on. "I'm from around here so it's kinda nice to come back here for a race like this.
"Well who do you train with at home?" I wanted to know.
Shannon: "The only person I train with around D.C. is an Olympic Parathlete. But I can't really keep up with him. He's super strong. I mean he's a real Olympian. But it's great to have the opportunity to work and learn from someone of that caliber."
As for his training, Shannon said he trains at about 13 to 15 miles per hour. He does long rides of 8 to 10 miles and does intervals to improve his speed. He talks about his training with the same precision of a dedicated road racing cyclist.
As Shannon said this, another rider pulled up wearing a red jersey looking a bit surly and well worn from the road race. "This guy won the race today," Shannon explained. "We're gonna ride back now." Seated inches above the road, he reached up and shook my hand. I also shook the hand of the race winner and wished them both good health and great racing. They took off south down the road intent upon catching up to their racing buddies who now had a head start on them.
They were off in the same direction I was going so I started off as well. I passed the group of them, and as I went by I looked down upon flat backs, faces inches to the road, elbows pumping up and down with a furious rage.
I had an especially good ride today.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
My Cycling "How Hot it Was" Story and Other Goings On
Hey y'all. It's been awhile. Locally we're into the transitional period between the late, mind-blowing epic winter/spring swells, and the summer doldrums. The tourists are filling in now and taking the upper hand everywhere over us locals---the roads, restaurants, of course the hotels, the grocery stores, and all the entertainment businesses. We still have 'em though when it comes to the beaches and ocean, thankfully.
The wind is southerly about 18 mph and we've been enveloped in smoke all day from the wildfire covering over 63 thousand acres in Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Refuge in Hyde County, North Carolina, about 45 miles southwest of Kill Devil Hills. It was started by a lightening strike and is feeding on the marsh peat billowing enough smoke to been seen on NWS national radar. One local woman reportedly saw so many black bears passing through her yard escaping the fire, she said she was afraid to go to her mailbox by the road. We need a soaking rain in a big way.
There's also another fire in Virginia to the north-northwest of us in the Great Dismal Swamp, allegedly started by logging equipment. So we have smoke here on the Right Coast too although so far not too many buildings have been destroyed.
The surf here now is small and locally dependent on the tide and of course the wind. The water temperature is between 70-76 degrees Fahrenheit. We're tropical again and it's so fine. However as I've said before, we're pointed into the doldrums, so for me bike road racing is the thing.
So far, in this late-start season for me (due to recent surgery), I've raced in one duathlon relay (the 25 mile bike leg), two criteriums held at the Virginia Beach Sportsplex, and one time trial, my favorite, the Peter Teeuwen Memorial Omnium in Chesapeake, Va. That particular race that day gets my award for the highest air temperature in which I've ever raced, an astounding 104 degrees F. with humidity around 90 per cent. One of the guys in our Kitty Hawk Cycling Club, Robert Netsch, raced that day and also won the previous day's Va. State Criterium Championship the day before in 107 degrees, a new record for that calendar day in Chesapeake.
Everybody's got "how hot it was" stories, so here's mine. I sat with Robert and a few riders from other clubs he knew under a canopy tent one of them brought. We warmed up on our trainers there and waited our turn to ride the time trial. It was demoralizing just sitting there waiting in the suffocating heat. As each rider returned to our pitiful oasis, he would dismount, shake his head, sigh, and babble something about how poor his time was.
It was my turn now. Riders start from the start line every 60 seconds in this time trial. As I moved into the line, fifth rider from the line, my handlebar tape started uncoiling in my hands, as the heat had melted the tape holding it in a tight wrap around the bars. I tried to quickly tie it, but nothing worked. I flew back to the tent in a panic asking everybody there if they had any kind of tape in their vehicle. One rider did and I followed him to his truck, made a quick repair with some electrical tape, and rushed to the line. Thanks Dave, for the assist!
I took my place at the start line and thanked the official for being there to start us in such absurd heat. I looked down at my two water bottles, enough I thought, to carry me through the 23-mile time trial. I knew it would be close, but felt pretty confident I could make it through.
I looked out on the wafting waves of intense heat rising from the road before me, the first 6-mile stretch. I saw the previous rider's image fade into a distorted figure seeming to melt bike and all into the scorching asphalt. This was profound heat---the kind that can create doubts and second thoughts if you choose to let it in.
My cycling mentors have always told me not to go out too hard on a time trial because the adrenaline surge at the start can have a rider find a speed he would never be able to hold for the whole distance. You must know your own ability and limits. If not, you redline, you bonk, and the lactic acid build-up in your muscles snuffs out your ability to carry the full race distance.
I started, stood on the pedals, and sprinted up to my tempo speed. I dropped down to my saddle and settled in. I was riding on borrowed Zipp wheels, 404's on the front and 808's on the rear. These are carbon fiber, deep-dish wheels like the pros use. For me, this was like Cinderella wearing the golden slippers. They are worth the same amount as my bike in dollars. They were generously loaned by Chip Cowan from Outer Banks Cycle in Kill Devil Hills. Thanks Chipper! I'm sure though, he was entertained to see a rider like me with such high performance gear. You know, one of those "what's wrong with this picture?" kinda deals for the local riders who know me.
So back to the heated time trial. I'm one mile out settling into my steady state tempo. The Zipp wheels are making me feel like Superman plus I was sure I looked pretty cool too. I'm already thirsty so I pull up a water bottle and take a short gulp. I lower the bottle to the top of the bottle cage, blink, and now I'm watching the same full bottle spinning on it's side across the burning asphalt to the far side of the other lane. I turned forward and wondered whether I should go back and get it, start crying, abandon the race, or listen to the inner voice reminding me I can make it on one bottle because I was after all, as immortal and invincible as I'd always been. The heat is only another obstacle standing in the way of my growing cycling credentials. Can't this inner voice shut up just once?
So now the plan was make sure I had half a bottle left halfway through. Water rations no less. I passed riders walking who had abandoned the race. One carried a shoe in his hand. I reached the halfway mark with my half bottle. I poured a little of the almost scalding fluid over my helmet and the back of my neck, shot a little in my mouth in celebration. This heat was demeaning.
The Chesapeake Ruritan Club is the registration building for the time trial. The time trial begins and ends in front of it. It is a white stucco building which can be seen straight down the last say, mile and a half of the course. It is little more than a shimmering white gable end looking as though the road leads right into its side from my distant view. Mostly open fields frame my view of it on both road edges. But there it was heat-distorted ahead finally in my sight. I was now seeing in its simple form the end of my self-imposed torture. I was sure there were people cooling off in the shade with cold drinks in their grip near that building. I was also sure I wanted to be one of them as quickly as possible. I somehow quickened my tempo, relishing the coming euphoria of ending this sublime suffering. I passed several of the riders whom had started before me.
I saw visions of every sort, from fantasy to Dante's Hell as I crossed the finish line, I'm sure speaking in tongues. I was one and a half minutes slower than the same time trial on the same date last year. I was nonetheless alive and on the correct side of the grass, sitting in the shade, under the tent among friends, feeling how superb a freezing cold bottle of water can feel poured over my head after riding in such conditions.
Tomorrow I'll ride in the Farm Bureau Langley Speedway Criterium in Hampton, Virginia. The predicted temperature is a freezing 86 degrees F.
More later. Keep riding........something.
The wind is southerly about 18 mph and we've been enveloped in smoke all day from the wildfire covering over 63 thousand acres in Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Refuge in Hyde County, North Carolina, about 45 miles southwest of Kill Devil Hills. It was started by a lightening strike and is feeding on the marsh peat billowing enough smoke to been seen on NWS national radar. One local woman reportedly saw so many black bears passing through her yard escaping the fire, she said she was afraid to go to her mailbox by the road. We need a soaking rain in a big way.
There's also another fire in Virginia to the north-northwest of us in the Great Dismal Swamp, allegedly started by logging equipment. So we have smoke here on the Right Coast too although so far not too many buildings have been destroyed.
The surf here now is small and locally dependent on the tide and of course the wind. The water temperature is between 70-76 degrees Fahrenheit. We're tropical again and it's so fine. However as I've said before, we're pointed into the doldrums, so for me bike road racing is the thing.
So far, in this late-start season for me (due to recent surgery), I've raced in one duathlon relay (the 25 mile bike leg), two criteriums held at the Virginia Beach Sportsplex, and one time trial, my favorite, the Peter Teeuwen Memorial Omnium in Chesapeake, Va. That particular race that day gets my award for the highest air temperature in which I've ever raced, an astounding 104 degrees F. with humidity around 90 per cent. One of the guys in our Kitty Hawk Cycling Club, Robert Netsch, raced that day and also won the previous day's Va. State Criterium Championship the day before in 107 degrees, a new record for that calendar day in Chesapeake.
Everybody's got "how hot it was" stories, so here's mine. I sat with Robert and a few riders from other clubs he knew under a canopy tent one of them brought. We warmed up on our trainers there and waited our turn to ride the time trial. It was demoralizing just sitting there waiting in the suffocating heat. As each rider returned to our pitiful oasis, he would dismount, shake his head, sigh, and babble something about how poor his time was.
It was my turn now. Riders start from the start line every 60 seconds in this time trial. As I moved into the line, fifth rider from the line, my handlebar tape started uncoiling in my hands, as the heat had melted the tape holding it in a tight wrap around the bars. I tried to quickly tie it, but nothing worked. I flew back to the tent in a panic asking everybody there if they had any kind of tape in their vehicle. One rider did and I followed him to his truck, made a quick repair with some electrical tape, and rushed to the line. Thanks Dave, for the assist!
I took my place at the start line and thanked the official for being there to start us in such absurd heat. I looked down at my two water bottles, enough I thought, to carry me through the 23-mile time trial. I knew it would be close, but felt pretty confident I could make it through.
I looked out on the wafting waves of intense heat rising from the road before me, the first 6-mile stretch. I saw the previous rider's image fade into a distorted figure seeming to melt bike and all into the scorching asphalt. This was profound heat---the kind that can create doubts and second thoughts if you choose to let it in.
My cycling mentors have always told me not to go out too hard on a time trial because the adrenaline surge at the start can have a rider find a speed he would never be able to hold for the whole distance. You must know your own ability and limits. If not, you redline, you bonk, and the lactic acid build-up in your muscles snuffs out your ability to carry the full race distance.
I started, stood on the pedals, and sprinted up to my tempo speed. I dropped down to my saddle and settled in. I was riding on borrowed Zipp wheels, 404's on the front and 808's on the rear. These are carbon fiber, deep-dish wheels like the pros use. For me, this was like Cinderella wearing the golden slippers. They are worth the same amount as my bike in dollars. They were generously loaned by Chip Cowan from Outer Banks Cycle in Kill Devil Hills. Thanks Chipper! I'm sure though, he was entertained to see a rider like me with such high performance gear. You know, one of those "what's wrong with this picture?" kinda deals for the local riders who know me.
So back to the heated time trial. I'm one mile out settling into my steady state tempo. The Zipp wheels are making me feel like Superman plus I was sure I looked pretty cool too. I'm already thirsty so I pull up a water bottle and take a short gulp. I lower the bottle to the top of the bottle cage, blink, and now I'm watching the same full bottle spinning on it's side across the burning asphalt to the far side of the other lane. I turned forward and wondered whether I should go back and get it, start crying, abandon the race, or listen to the inner voice reminding me I can make it on one bottle because I was after all, as immortal and invincible as I'd always been. The heat is only another obstacle standing in the way of my growing cycling credentials. Can't this inner voice shut up just once?
So now the plan was make sure I had half a bottle left halfway through. Water rations no less. I passed riders walking who had abandoned the race. One carried a shoe in his hand. I reached the halfway mark with my half bottle. I poured a little of the almost scalding fluid over my helmet and the back of my neck, shot a little in my mouth in celebration. This heat was demeaning.
The Chesapeake Ruritan Club is the registration building for the time trial. The time trial begins and ends in front of it. It is a white stucco building which can be seen straight down the last say, mile and a half of the course. It is little more than a shimmering white gable end looking as though the road leads right into its side from my distant view. Mostly open fields frame my view of it on both road edges. But there it was heat-distorted ahead finally in my sight. I was now seeing in its simple form the end of my self-imposed torture. I was sure there were people cooling off in the shade with cold drinks in their grip near that building. I was also sure I wanted to be one of them as quickly as possible. I somehow quickened my tempo, relishing the coming euphoria of ending this sublime suffering. I passed several of the riders whom had started before me.
I saw visions of every sort, from fantasy to Dante's Hell as I crossed the finish line, I'm sure speaking in tongues. I was one and a half minutes slower than the same time trial on the same date last year. I was nonetheless alive and on the correct side of the grass, sitting in the shade, under the tent among friends, feeling how superb a freezing cold bottle of water can feel poured over my head after riding in such conditions.
Tomorrow I'll ride in the Farm Bureau Langley Speedway Criterium in Hampton, Virginia. The predicted temperature is a freezing 86 degrees F.
More later. Keep riding........something.
Monday, June 2, 2008
A Surfing Winter-Spring Like No Other
I've surfed this coast for 40-some years. This winter-spring is by far one of the most memorable for the virtually constant profusion of regular, sizable swell. Seems like every 10-14 days another low pressure system was coiling up into a tight fist while swinging offshore to kick back epic local conditions. Even the water temperature cooperated somewhat, falling only as far down as the mid-forties (degrees Fahrenheit that is). Two winters ago, the ocean water temperature plummeted to 36 degrees, the coldest I can remember here in my lifetime.
What's more, so much of the action is now being recorded in photographs and video and published on the internet. Mickey McCarthy's dogged pursuit of the local action is without peers in my book. I point you to SURFKDH.COM as evidence. Nice work Mick!
For many, many years what happened during the really world class swells was left behind only in the memories of those who were here so long ago: surfers like Don Bennett, Stuart "Panda" Taylor, Scott Busbey, and Jimbo Brothers to name a few of the many who shredded the Outer Banks without fanfare, acclaim, or audience.
The photographic proof pours forth now for all to see. What many of us knew for so long in this spot so far from the more dense surfing population cauldrons of California and Florida, that the Outer Banks juices up real good now, just like it did back then but without the crowds.
We're pointing toward the mid summer doldrums now. I suppose it's a good time to reflect a little on recent swells past. Anticipation will soon build for the tropical storm season looming just ahead. Look out...
What's more, so much of the action is now being recorded in photographs and video and published on the internet. Mickey McCarthy's dogged pursuit of the local action is without peers in my book. I point you to SURFKDH.COM as evidence. Nice work Mick!
For many, many years what happened during the really world class swells was left behind only in the memories of those who were here so long ago: surfers like Don Bennett, Stuart "Panda" Taylor, Scott Busbey, and Jimbo Brothers to name a few of the many who shredded the Outer Banks without fanfare, acclaim, or audience.
The photographic proof pours forth now for all to see. What many of us knew for so long in this spot so far from the more dense surfing population cauldrons of California and Florida, that the Outer Banks juices up real good now, just like it did back then but without the crowds.
We're pointing toward the mid summer doldrums now. I suppose it's a good time to reflect a little on recent swells past. Anticipation will soon build for the tropical storm season looming just ahead. Look out...
Sunday, June 1, 2008
A Kind Word at the Right Time
I've been making a fitness and cycling comeback beginning last winter and, at this moment, I'm just a little bit below where I left off last December when I had hernia surgery. But this is not a story of some heroic, epic effort I made in order to return to bike racing. No, those stories are found in the realm of cancer patients, injured war veterans returning from combat, and thousands who fight off the effects of other more serious diseases day in and day out their whole lives.
My story is of small note. But what happened has had huge influence on my slow, often grudging progress so far this year. I'm not a great cyclist or athlete. I do love riding bikes fast and the competition of racing---strength on strength, pure and primal, painful and purging---euphoric even. It's too easy it seems, to stay tucked safely away in our comfortable routines. Bike racing and all the intensity it pours over us, lets us step out of our safe place in this world regularly much the way one does when very young, and each day brings such rejuvenation and revelation.
In order to do what we do in this crazy, fast endurance sport, we must train obsessively. Some weeks I'm not sure I'm on or off the bike at the moment. Every week we pour over our planners to insure there is time for the right kind of ride we need at the time: group throwdowns, long steady-state tempo, sprint intervals, weight room, spin class, you name it. Many times the superfluous things which come up on the calendar get plowed over like last year's leftover crop. We read articles, blogs, books on everything from the latest technical equipment to fitness and training. Where is the next race? What do I need to do to upgrade my license? How strong will my opponents be in the next race?
But the one thing that rises above all, that seems to drive me forward without faltering, continues to nurture the cause and helps me see that I too can do it, is a kind word at the right time from those around in the midst of these same kinds of big physical efforts. Only they know what it feels like, what it takes to be there, the preparation, the dangers, and what payoff one carries home in the end.
During the past six months, as I've worked hard to get back in it, I've had friends and racing teammates encourage me, compliment my work, and even carry me through by pulling for me when the going was too much for my fitness level on that day's ride. I didn't know there was something even better to this sport. I've been surrounded with support during this time. I am a grateful man. Nothing makes me faster or stronger on a bike.
My story is of small note. But what happened has had huge influence on my slow, often grudging progress so far this year. I'm not a great cyclist or athlete. I do love riding bikes fast and the competition of racing---strength on strength, pure and primal, painful and purging---euphoric even. It's too easy it seems, to stay tucked safely away in our comfortable routines. Bike racing and all the intensity it pours over us, lets us step out of our safe place in this world regularly much the way one does when very young, and each day brings such rejuvenation and revelation.
In order to do what we do in this crazy, fast endurance sport, we must train obsessively. Some weeks I'm not sure I'm on or off the bike at the moment. Every week we pour over our planners to insure there is time for the right kind of ride we need at the time: group throwdowns, long steady-state tempo, sprint intervals, weight room, spin class, you name it. Many times the superfluous things which come up on the calendar get plowed over like last year's leftover crop. We read articles, blogs, books on everything from the latest technical equipment to fitness and training. Where is the next race? What do I need to do to upgrade my license? How strong will my opponents be in the next race?
But the one thing that rises above all, that seems to drive me forward without faltering, continues to nurture the cause and helps me see that I too can do it, is a kind word at the right time from those around in the midst of these same kinds of big physical efforts. Only they know what it feels like, what it takes to be there, the preparation, the dangers, and what payoff one carries home in the end.
During the past six months, as I've worked hard to get back in it, I've had friends and racing teammates encourage me, compliment my work, and even carry me through by pulling for me when the going was too much for my fitness level on that day's ride. I didn't know there was something even better to this sport. I've been surrounded with support during this time. I am a grateful man. Nothing makes me faster or stronger on a bike.
Monday, May 26, 2008
The Etiquette of Cycling
There's a certain etiquette and decorum in every sport. These unwritten protocols and unofficial rules make up the very essence of the cultures within each sport. Learning how to navigate this stuff, to me, is a significant part of the challenge of cycling on deceptively simple looking group rides all the way to road races and criteriums.
It seems because the sport of road cycling is still so arcane and strange to most Americans, there doesn't appear to be much written about just what the norms are out there on the road, and not just between motor vehicle drivers and cyclists, but (and especially) among cyclists themselves. So much seems to depend upon who's in the group and their level of experience. Each sets its own unspoken parameters. Being only a Cat 5 racer myself (about to upgrade to Category 4) I often can't recognize the nuance all around me all the time especially on group rides where experience levels mix. Most of us will defer to what the more experienced riders/racers have to say about situations. That is, of course, unless one of them is out of line. Then you're left only with your own internal compass of what is fair to others.
So here's what happened. Yesterday on our group ride conflict occurred between experienced riders---an out-of-towner with fairly high level race credentials versus a few of our riders of the same caliber. Some in the group, like myself, were at least semi-oblivious to what occurred.
We were working in a paceline at a tempo of around 27 mph. Everyone working to the front, taking their pull in the wind, falling off to the rear and continuing to rotate forward as successive riders peeled off the front. I noticed one of our riders fall off the front and the out-of-towner, who was on his wheel, stayed on his wheel as they both drifted to the rear of the paceline. There were about eight of us so this put me and others on the front again sooner. I really didn't hardly notice what he had done, nor did I care. I like getting the work up front. That's the purpose of these rides to me.
I figured he was just trying to stay on with us as he might be racing the next day or wanted an easy workout and was going to "sit on". "Sitting on" or "sitting in" means riding in the pack (peloton) or back in the paceline protected and out of the wind where there is about 30 per cent less workload. If a rider is "sitting on", it means he apparently has no intention of coming to the front to work in the wind for the group. Most experienced riders will tolerate this, no problem. But what happened next, his attack, riding away from the group, demanded an answer from the group and an atonement from the offending out-of-town rider, or outright expulsion by the group by laying down a crushing speed. A single rider often cannot maintain the speed organized riders can lay down after the effort required to attack and then stay away from the group like he had. What I witnessed next was a sort of rare primal justice served.
I had just completed a fairly long second pull down Woods Road in Kitty Hawk. We approached Twiford Road, a righthand turn. As we started into the turn, the out-of towner came out of the paceline from behind and attacked the group. "Attacking", for those unfamiliar with the lexicon of bike racing, means sprinting out front and away from the main group. You'll hear this talk many times in the sports coverage of the Tour De France, for instance, and any races for that matter.
The rider took the speed up to 29 mph or so. Suddenly one of our stronger riders followed him out. I was trying to increase speed and stay on his wheel. We turned left onto Kitty Hawk Village Road and all hell broke out on the road.
The out-of-town guy and our guy were away from the group now about 30 yards. Another one of the guys in our re-forming paceline was second wheel and growling at the frontman to ride faster and faster. The frontman fell away. Our speed went up to 31 mph. We clawed back up to the two leaders and fell in on their wheels. The out-of towner cooled out and drifted to the rear. I never saw him again.
Our strong chaser said he had ridden with that rider and the group the previous day and he had done the same thing---not worked for the group, and then attacked the fatigued group by riding away showing off his strength so to speak. He exacerbated the situation beforehand by bragging about how, in this type of "down" economy, he doesn't have to work as he is a real estate investor. This is not the time or place to put that out to others who may not have the same fortunes. Verdict: our group does not like riders who avoid work and then later, make a display of their (rested) strength on group rides where all have put in their work except him. Those who transgress shall pay.
In a race however, everything changes. We'll talk about that later I'm sure. Thanks for reading. Keep riding (cause there's no surf here right now).
It seems because the sport of road cycling is still so arcane and strange to most Americans, there doesn't appear to be much written about just what the norms are out there on the road, and not just between motor vehicle drivers and cyclists, but (and especially) among cyclists themselves. So much seems to depend upon who's in the group and their level of experience. Each sets its own unspoken parameters. Being only a Cat 5 racer myself (about to upgrade to Category 4) I often can't recognize the nuance all around me all the time especially on group rides where experience levels mix. Most of us will defer to what the more experienced riders/racers have to say about situations. That is, of course, unless one of them is out of line. Then you're left only with your own internal compass of what is fair to others.
So here's what happened. Yesterday on our group ride conflict occurred between experienced riders---an out-of-towner with fairly high level race credentials versus a few of our riders of the same caliber. Some in the group, like myself, were at least semi-oblivious to what occurred.
We were working in a paceline at a tempo of around 27 mph. Everyone working to the front, taking their pull in the wind, falling off to the rear and continuing to rotate forward as successive riders peeled off the front. I noticed one of our riders fall off the front and the out-of-towner, who was on his wheel, stayed on his wheel as they both drifted to the rear of the paceline. There were about eight of us so this put me and others on the front again sooner. I really didn't hardly notice what he had done, nor did I care. I like getting the work up front. That's the purpose of these rides to me.
I figured he was just trying to stay on with us as he might be racing the next day or wanted an easy workout and was going to "sit on". "Sitting on" or "sitting in" means riding in the pack (peloton) or back in the paceline protected and out of the wind where there is about 30 per cent less workload. If a rider is "sitting on", it means he apparently has no intention of coming to the front to work in the wind for the group. Most experienced riders will tolerate this, no problem. But what happened next, his attack, riding away from the group, demanded an answer from the group and an atonement from the offending out-of-town rider, or outright expulsion by the group by laying down a crushing speed. A single rider often cannot maintain the speed organized riders can lay down after the effort required to attack and then stay away from the group like he had. What I witnessed next was a sort of rare primal justice served.
I had just completed a fairly long second pull down Woods Road in Kitty Hawk. We approached Twiford Road, a righthand turn. As we started into the turn, the out-of towner came out of the paceline from behind and attacked the group. "Attacking", for those unfamiliar with the lexicon of bike racing, means sprinting out front and away from the main group. You'll hear this talk many times in the sports coverage of the Tour De France, for instance, and any races for that matter.
The rider took the speed up to 29 mph or so. Suddenly one of our stronger riders followed him out. I was trying to increase speed and stay on his wheel. We turned left onto Kitty Hawk Village Road and all hell broke out on the road.
The out-of-town guy and our guy were away from the group now about 30 yards. Another one of the guys in our re-forming paceline was second wheel and growling at the frontman to ride faster and faster. The frontman fell away. Our speed went up to 31 mph. We clawed back up to the two leaders and fell in on their wheels. The out-of towner cooled out and drifted to the rear. I never saw him again.
Our strong chaser said he had ridden with that rider and the group the previous day and he had done the same thing---not worked for the group, and then attacked the fatigued group by riding away showing off his strength so to speak. He exacerbated the situation beforehand by bragging about how, in this type of "down" economy, he doesn't have to work as he is a real estate investor. This is not the time or place to put that out to others who may not have the same fortunes. Verdict: our group does not like riders who avoid work and then later, make a display of their (rested) strength on group rides where all have put in their work except him. Those who transgress shall pay.
In a race however, everything changes. We'll talk about that later I'm sure. Thanks for reading. Keep riding (cause there's no surf here right now).
Saturday, May 3, 2008
A Real Man, De-Pantsed by the Surf
Alright, this is directed to all you real men, real surfers, real watermen out there. I once stood proudly among your ranks---strong, unaffected, immortal, a genius even. "You shoulda' been here fifteen minutes ago," you'd proclaim. "It was a lot bigger and the wind was still offshore. You really missed it." You just knew you were the man.
I had this shell cracked wide open two particular times and countless other times. (I'm sure you've had your dose as well. Confessions can be left in the "Comments" section following this blog post. We'd love to hear your story.) I wasn't and still am not the untouchable shredder I may have thought I was from time to time those years ago. Yeah there were specific rides memorable for a lifetime. I've talked about this with a few friends before.
That night after the tube ride of the year, you can close your eyes as your head touches the pillow, and play it back, crystal clear, moment-to-moment as if it were all happening again. It's all there: everything you saw and even heard from the takeoff into the barrel, and the kickout over the wave back, both arms raised to the sky, body clenched. Seems all our efforts in our sport aim at havin' some of that, again and again.
But then there are all the other things that happen---the ones that bring us down from our self-anointed lofty platitudes. I thought wives and girlfriends were the only agents put on earth to pop our bubbles of self-impressiveness, just to watch us fly around the room and land deflated. The surf can do it too---to us all.
Years ago, about 1978, I was surfing in South Nags Head at Domes. My girlfriend sat on the beach reading and sometimes watching us surf. I took a very clean little chest-high right from the first sandbar all the way to the reform inside over the first slough. (I'm goofy-foot, so I was backside to the wave face.)It then wound up spinning itself into an intense little barrel at the shorebreak. I couldn't resist riding all the way to dry sand. I got a bit too high in the wave face. My inside rail lifted, spinning my board up with the tube. As I fell off the tail, the surfboard's (single) fin cut my boardshorts from the leg seam to the waistband in the back, leaving my whole ass completely exposed. I sure knew how to impress the women on the beach and anybody else who got an eye full. I hobbled in humility back to the truck, clutching the fabric together for the benefit of my fellow men and women of course.
A few years before that, around 1973 in Kaneohe, Hawaii, was a similar impressive moment in my surfer's resume. This incident revealed the deepest depths of my modesty possibly residing one notch above resisting death even. I was surfing at North Beach on the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station, a spot I loved to surf as it filtered out the crowds by it being on base.
The surf was solid 12-foot+ faces with stepladder sets every so often. I got caught inside by one of these sets and paddled swiftly outside all the while knowing I was done. The whole horizon seemed to lift up and transform into a wave face. I took off my leash as the wave marking me homed in on the very spot I paddled. As I slid into the water beside my board, pushing it away all in one fluid movement, I saw the wave's nasty-thick lip pitch up and then out. It would land directly on me.
I dove downward when the impact came. In one micro-instant my whole body shuddered and my white Kanvas By Katin's came unsnapped and untied. I don't know what happens in your mind in such a micro-instant, but in mine, as I felt the boardshorts blow down my legs, I actually had the presence of mind to think, "If I lose them, I must return to the beach without my board and with only my manhood before me." All this passed through my brain as my boardshorts flashed from my waist to my ankles, at which point I spread my legs thus holding my pants at my ankles so as not to lose them. I might die. But I would not die naked.
I came to the surface eventually, pulling my boardshorts up and re-securing them as I broke the water's surface gasping for air. Miraculously, my board floated right behind my head. I pulled myself back up, continued paddling outside to the lineup, and re-took my rightful place among the other overly dignified immortals surfing that day. I was shaken up, glad I had saved my britches, but still not finished pondering why I had while under such duress. I love our sport. Get more waves.
I had this shell cracked wide open two particular times and countless other times. (I'm sure you've had your dose as well. Confessions can be left in the "Comments" section following this blog post. We'd love to hear your story.) I wasn't and still am not the untouchable shredder I may have thought I was from time to time those years ago. Yeah there were specific rides memorable for a lifetime. I've talked about this with a few friends before.
That night after the tube ride of the year, you can close your eyes as your head touches the pillow, and play it back, crystal clear, moment-to-moment as if it were all happening again. It's all there: everything you saw and even heard from the takeoff into the barrel, and the kickout over the wave back, both arms raised to the sky, body clenched. Seems all our efforts in our sport aim at havin' some of that, again and again.
But then there are all the other things that happen---the ones that bring us down from our self-anointed lofty platitudes. I thought wives and girlfriends were the only agents put on earth to pop our bubbles of self-impressiveness, just to watch us fly around the room and land deflated. The surf can do it too---to us all.
Years ago, about 1978, I was surfing in South Nags Head at Domes. My girlfriend sat on the beach reading and sometimes watching us surf. I took a very clean little chest-high right from the first sandbar all the way to the reform inside over the first slough. (I'm goofy-foot, so I was backside to the wave face.)It then wound up spinning itself into an intense little barrel at the shorebreak. I couldn't resist riding all the way to dry sand. I got a bit too high in the wave face. My inside rail lifted, spinning my board up with the tube. As I fell off the tail, the surfboard's (single) fin cut my boardshorts from the leg seam to the waistband in the back, leaving my whole ass completely exposed. I sure knew how to impress the women on the beach and anybody else who got an eye full. I hobbled in humility back to the truck, clutching the fabric together for the benefit of my fellow men and women of course.
A few years before that, around 1973 in Kaneohe, Hawaii, was a similar impressive moment in my surfer's resume. This incident revealed the deepest depths of my modesty possibly residing one notch above resisting death even. I was surfing at North Beach on the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station, a spot I loved to surf as it filtered out the crowds by it being on base.
The surf was solid 12-foot+ faces with stepladder sets every so often. I got caught inside by one of these sets and paddled swiftly outside all the while knowing I was done. The whole horizon seemed to lift up and transform into a wave face. I took off my leash as the wave marking me homed in on the very spot I paddled. As I slid into the water beside my board, pushing it away all in one fluid movement, I saw the wave's nasty-thick lip pitch up and then out. It would land directly on me.
I dove downward when the impact came. In one micro-instant my whole body shuddered and my white Kanvas By Katin's came unsnapped and untied. I don't know what happens in your mind in such a micro-instant, but in mine, as I felt the boardshorts blow down my legs, I actually had the presence of mind to think, "If I lose them, I must return to the beach without my board and with only my manhood before me." All this passed through my brain as my boardshorts flashed from my waist to my ankles, at which point I spread my legs thus holding my pants at my ankles so as not to lose them. I might die. But I would not die naked.
I came to the surface eventually, pulling my boardshorts up and re-securing them as I broke the water's surface gasping for air. Miraculously, my board floated right behind my head. I pulled myself back up, continued paddling outside to the lineup, and re-took my rightful place among the other overly dignified immortals surfing that day. I was shaken up, glad I had saved my britches, but still not finished pondering why I had while under such duress. I love our sport. Get more waves.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
What I Saw Today on the Way to Work
I really love to drive the Beach Road when I travel to and from work, or simply from place to place up and down the coast on work errands. I can keep my eye on the surf conditions. But today I saw a succession of things which underscored what it's come to now, especially for those living on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk, say between Old Station (Black Pelican) and Kitty Hawk Pier. It reminded me of my childhood on the beach.
Many of you have heard us talk about moving sand around before in this blog. So let me set the mood before I describe what I saw.
Remember when you were a kid building a sandcastle on the beach at the very edge of the wet tide line? We usually started by building a mound dug from a small trench or moat in a semi-circle around it, the future castle replete with drip-sand towers. This was something worth protecting and defending from the ocean's ravages. On the ocean side of the moat we would then build a seawall from sand dug from the first moat and another moat to the ocean side of this new sand wall.
All the while the ocean wash would occasionally roll up over some or all of our new structures built ever so close to the water in the tidal zone. We would quickly repair our sandcastle and if the tide was outgoing, find we could then embellish the castle with more elaborate detail. However if the tide was incoming, we would call for our friends' and work furiously together to stop the onslaught, digging the moats deeper and the sand seawalls taller. And despite our best efforts, the ocean would roll right through anything we built. As little children, this is how we learned not to build our sandcastles in the tidal zone, unless we chose this conflict with the ocean. And if we did, we always knew we were doomed to its overwhelming power.
What I saw today as I drove along the stretch north of Old Station after a high tide, were quite a few Bobcats (the mini front-end loader/bulldozer-type equipment) parked or hard at work around oceanfront homes, a bulldozer, a contractor with dump trucks delivering sand to a particularly endangered section of Beach Road sand dune, and people with shovels helping defend both the Beach Road and homes along the way. I thought of my childhood learning where to build our sandcastles.
Of course this is way over-simplified. When most of these homes and the Kitty Hawk Beach Road were built, the beach stretched before them was far wider, with the pack sand (sand wet or dry depending on the tide)in the tidal influence far to the east. Now the pack sand is beneath many of these homes and on even a garden variety-type northeaster like the one we just had---a measly 20-knot blow---ocean overwash reaches the homes on the west side of the Beach Road.
But the bustle of activity and the call for help to defend what had been built years before, is identical to what I felt as a child protecting my very own sandcastle. So when it blows hard northeast here this time of year, the TV newscasters run down from the Tidewater area of Virginia and the Greenville area of North Carolina and train their cameras on the modest old homes along this stretch hoping to capture sensational live shots of the ocean taking homes from their piling perches.
The ocean forms escarpments in the new sand trucked in along the frontal dune. That sand is in turn, dragged seaward to help form new sandbars and many times better surf breaks. Or the sand is simply transported south toward Oregon Inlet and is deposited at other sandbars. Our mission is to find the new breaks and do our solemn duty to insure its waves are ridden. I shall do my part, I promise...more later. Keep at it.
Many of you have heard us talk about moving sand around before in this blog. So let me set the mood before I describe what I saw.
Remember when you were a kid building a sandcastle on the beach at the very edge of the wet tide line? We usually started by building a mound dug from a small trench or moat in a semi-circle around it, the future castle replete with drip-sand towers. This was something worth protecting and defending from the ocean's ravages. On the ocean side of the moat we would then build a seawall from sand dug from the first moat and another moat to the ocean side of this new sand wall.
All the while the ocean wash would occasionally roll up over some or all of our new structures built ever so close to the water in the tidal zone. We would quickly repair our sandcastle and if the tide was outgoing, find we could then embellish the castle with more elaborate detail. However if the tide was incoming, we would call for our friends' and work furiously together to stop the onslaught, digging the moats deeper and the sand seawalls taller. And despite our best efforts, the ocean would roll right through anything we built. As little children, this is how we learned not to build our sandcastles in the tidal zone, unless we chose this conflict with the ocean. And if we did, we always knew we were doomed to its overwhelming power.
What I saw today as I drove along the stretch north of Old Station after a high tide, were quite a few Bobcats (the mini front-end loader/bulldozer-type equipment) parked or hard at work around oceanfront homes, a bulldozer, a contractor with dump trucks delivering sand to a particularly endangered section of Beach Road sand dune, and people with shovels helping defend both the Beach Road and homes along the way. I thought of my childhood learning where to build our sandcastles.
Of course this is way over-simplified. When most of these homes and the Kitty Hawk Beach Road were built, the beach stretched before them was far wider, with the pack sand (sand wet or dry depending on the tide)in the tidal influence far to the east. Now the pack sand is beneath many of these homes and on even a garden variety-type northeaster like the one we just had---a measly 20-knot blow---ocean overwash reaches the homes on the west side of the Beach Road.
But the bustle of activity and the call for help to defend what had been built years before, is identical to what I felt as a child protecting my very own sandcastle. So when it blows hard northeast here this time of year, the TV newscasters run down from the Tidewater area of Virginia and the Greenville area of North Carolina and train their cameras on the modest old homes along this stretch hoping to capture sensational live shots of the ocean taking homes from their piling perches.
The ocean forms escarpments in the new sand trucked in along the frontal dune. That sand is in turn, dragged seaward to help form new sandbars and many times better surf breaks. Or the sand is simply transported south toward Oregon Inlet and is deposited at other sandbars. Our mission is to find the new breaks and do our solemn duty to insure its waves are ridden. I shall do my part, I promise...more later. Keep at it.
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Month of Maypril on Our Coast
Welcome to the half-way point in our coast's month of Maypril...the cruelest month of all. It's actually more than a month because it won't let us go until about the 10th day of the month we used to call May. At that time we are jolted from 52-degree air to 95-degree air with 95-percent humidity.
Maypril is the nastiest season on our coast because it loves to mess with our hope and expectations about great weather "just around the corner". Most normal people think of this as the Spring season. The harsh weather is about to dissolve gradually away into glorious, clear and temperate air somewhere we hear.
But alas, there is no gradual progression to such soothing caresses by airy breezes. In fact, forecasters here can relax during Maypril. They need only predict wind direction. Almost every day here the Maypril wind blows in excess of 20-25 knots and often gale force. Wave upon wave of low pressure systems grind off the continent as the days roll past. Northeasters blow up about every week. And yeah, that's salt water ponding on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and South Nags Head. (So drive your new SUV through it fool, just like the car commercials on TV. Then take it home and wonder why it's rusting away.)
Carry one of every kind of clothing you own with you every day---from shorts and tee shirts to winter insulated coveralls, from board shorts to 4-3mm full wetsuit with booties, gloves, and hood. You can sample any type of weather here during this hybrid month.
The beauty in it though, is having a head-high to overhead swell every week for the past 4 weeks. That's right Maypril, give us the left hook and then your right jab. Give the dolphins their wave playground and pound the sand on the bars into molecules. Show us your passion. Then pull us all through your keyhole into the sweltering summer lull. Maypril on our coast, is the cruelest month of all.
Maypril is the nastiest season on our coast because it loves to mess with our hope and expectations about great weather "just around the corner". Most normal people think of this as the Spring season. The harsh weather is about to dissolve gradually away into glorious, clear and temperate air somewhere we hear.
But alas, there is no gradual progression to such soothing caresses by airy breezes. In fact, forecasters here can relax during Maypril. They need only predict wind direction. Almost every day here the Maypril wind blows in excess of 20-25 knots and often gale force. Wave upon wave of low pressure systems grind off the continent as the days roll past. Northeasters blow up about every week. And yeah, that's salt water ponding on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and South Nags Head. (So drive your new SUV through it fool, just like the car commercials on TV. Then take it home and wonder why it's rusting away.)
Carry one of every kind of clothing you own with you every day---from shorts and tee shirts to winter insulated coveralls, from board shorts to 4-3mm full wetsuit with booties, gloves, and hood. You can sample any type of weather here during this hybrid month.
The beauty in it though, is having a head-high to overhead swell every week for the past 4 weeks. That's right Maypril, give us the left hook and then your right jab. Give the dolphins their wave playground and pound the sand on the bars into molecules. Show us your passion. Then pull us all through your keyhole into the sweltering summer lull. Maypril on our coast, is the cruelest month of all.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Street Cred of Hurricane Forecasting
Alright, here we go again...Dr. William Gray of the University of Colorado has done it once more. He and his esteemed team at the esteemed university located in the country's middle waist have once again published their annual forecast for the year's hurricane season. How many named storms, how many hurricanes, how many major storms...you know. This event always entertains me and the carpenters I work with daily. This prediction from the people who can't really predict with any certainty, the path of one of these storms when its spinning itself up right off our coast.
Show us your "cone of probability". Tell us where you think the "eye will come ashore" one more time as it rolls over our coast.
Does the good doctor really expect us to base our annual, long range planning on these storm forecasts? What should we be doing with this impossibly unreliable information? Come on, one of you heavyweight, meteorologist, atmospheric sciences expert readers please weigh in here, help us. I welcome your comments. What good is this type of forecasting? Maybe the Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction and its major insurance corporation supporters would like us to have this hurricane talk ringing in our ears as much as possible so we'll find value in the thousands we pay in each year on our flood and windstorm policies.
With the attention this gets from the media each year, these are our suggestions as ways to improve/capitalize on this annual pronouncement. Let's make it more of a media-sensational event, more festive.
First, we think Dr. Gray should stand before a microphone reading from a scroll or some similar dignified manuscript wearing a spandex suit emblazoned with his sponsors' name across his chest, replete with cap and maybe a cape (see a professional cyclist's racing kit)as he makes his grand, yearly pronouncement. You know, each year the university could sell the sponsorship of this momentous event kinda like naming rights for an arena or stadium. It all demands a fitting circus atmosphere. Attendants could be seen dressed in foul weather oilskins and Gumby-like survival suits in the background on stage.
To be completely honest, I believe forecasts like this are just one of the things that help mislead the uninformed inhabitants on the coast into believing someone really does have the ability through technology or whatever, to predict these storms. This is just one of many things that have happened in the past 20 years which give some a false sense of security in their newer structurally improved homes. This came as a result of Hurricane Hugo hitting the Charleston, South Carolina area with its whopping 21'+ storm surge and Andrew following in southern Florida in the early '90's with its record dollar value of damage. And then there was Katrina..."Brownie you're doin' a helluva job."
Some won't evacuate now because they're sure their home can withstand the carnage. Some of the new structural building code requirements born in the wake of these storms did raise the price of all homes somewhat, but had particular effect on the price of entry level homes in these high wind zone regions mostly east of Interstate Ninety-five. I believe the inverse effect is that some are left behind in newly substandard construction, not being able to afford one of these new home fortresses.
The science Dr. Gray is attempting to advance holds great potential to save lives and infrastructure some time in the future there is no doubt. But the forecasting track record in general where these storms are concerned tells us maybe he should cool out until near-term forecasting has more accuracy. However, he may as well make a visual circus of it for now if he must persist. Let's have some tabloid fun!
In the meantime, we'd like the University of Colorado and the rest of the U.S. to take a look at our lunchtime-developed, Outer Banks of North Carolina snow forecast for the nation's mid-section for next winter...
Show us your "cone of probability". Tell us where you think the "eye will come ashore" one more time as it rolls over our coast.
Does the good doctor really expect us to base our annual, long range planning on these storm forecasts? What should we be doing with this impossibly unreliable information? Come on, one of you heavyweight, meteorologist, atmospheric sciences expert readers please weigh in here, help us. I welcome your comments. What good is this type of forecasting? Maybe the Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction and its major insurance corporation supporters would like us to have this hurricane talk ringing in our ears as much as possible so we'll find value in the thousands we pay in each year on our flood and windstorm policies.
With the attention this gets from the media each year, these are our suggestions as ways to improve/capitalize on this annual pronouncement. Let's make it more of a media-sensational event, more festive.
First, we think Dr. Gray should stand before a microphone reading from a scroll or some similar dignified manuscript wearing a spandex suit emblazoned with his sponsors' name across his chest, replete with cap and maybe a cape (see a professional cyclist's racing kit)as he makes his grand, yearly pronouncement. You know, each year the university could sell the sponsorship of this momentous event kinda like naming rights for an arena or stadium. It all demands a fitting circus atmosphere. Attendants could be seen dressed in foul weather oilskins and Gumby-like survival suits in the background on stage.
To be completely honest, I believe forecasts like this are just one of the things that help mislead the uninformed inhabitants on the coast into believing someone really does have the ability through technology or whatever, to predict these storms. This is just one of many things that have happened in the past 20 years which give some a false sense of security in their newer structurally improved homes. This came as a result of Hurricane Hugo hitting the Charleston, South Carolina area with its whopping 21'+ storm surge and Andrew following in southern Florida in the early '90's with its record dollar value of damage. And then there was Katrina..."Brownie you're doin' a helluva job."
Some won't evacuate now because they're sure their home can withstand the carnage. Some of the new structural building code requirements born in the wake of these storms did raise the price of all homes somewhat, but had particular effect on the price of entry level homes in these high wind zone regions mostly east of Interstate Ninety-five. I believe the inverse effect is that some are left behind in newly substandard construction, not being able to afford one of these new home fortresses.
The science Dr. Gray is attempting to advance holds great potential to save lives and infrastructure some time in the future there is no doubt. But the forecasting track record in general where these storms are concerned tells us maybe he should cool out until near-term forecasting has more accuracy. However, he may as well make a visual circus of it for now if he must persist. Let's have some tabloid fun!
In the meantime, we'd like the University of Colorado and the rest of the U.S. to take a look at our lunchtime-developed, Outer Banks of North Carolina snow forecast for the nation's mid-section for next winter...
Sunday, March 30, 2008
How Crowded Was It---How Crowded Is It?
I live one mile by road, from the Atlantic Ocean's high tide line in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. Lately I'm reminded more than ever of the effects of the sheer numbers of people congregating, living on the coast. Don't worry I'm not about to lament how it used to be. I do have a fairly long retrospective given my age, but I just want to talk mostly about what it's like here on the coast now.
We live in a remote coastal region of the U.S. East Coast on a barrier island, 75 miles from the nearest urban center. I've lived on this part of the coast 28 years and along this part my whole life except a few years in Hawaii, Greenville, N.C., and Washington, D.C. This place offers the most naturally dynamic environment with surf, I've ever seen. Ocean, marine geology and weather systems cavort and romp across the landscape with impunity. When people are added to the recipe controversies spring up in succession. Here's the latest.
A few months ago two environmental groups, The National Audubon Society and The Defenders of Wildlife, employing the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed suit against the National Park Service (paraphrasing here) demanding an injunction to stop off-road vehicle (ORV) access and use of beaches in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore until such time as the Park Service establishes rules limiting beach use by such vehicles. Their apparent intentions are to protect endangered species, for instance piping plovers and sea turtles which nest on the beaches in the Seashore.
(Editor's Note: For you firebrands out there, I'm not expert on the law in this area, nor trying to show off my understanding of the background political nuance on this issue, nor taking sides. If you desire what I consider keen local political perspective and insight, I refer you to three excellent local blogs: View From the Ridge, Outer Banks Republic, and Island Free Press (Ocracoke Island.)
I truly understand the ORV users'(of which I am one) desires to drive on the beaches. I'm familiar with all the arguments supporting continued use. I drive on the beach once in-a-while to access surf breaks and I used to surf fish quite a bit till it got so crowded. I am familiar with the rallying cries: "My family's been driving on these beaches since I was a child", "This is how I make my living (dory fishing)", "I love picnicking on the beach", "I've surf fished in tournaments down there for over 30 years"...and so on. I truly respect all of these folks' experiences.
We're at a critical point on our barrier islands now. I believe planning decisions now must be more slowly transitional toward larger strategic goals in how ever increasing population here will have to live and behave. All the signs are there, however they keep jumping up one at a time. Here are a few examples.
In one of my earlier posts ("Since Hurricane Noel and Why We Must Keep Wearing Leashes in Town", Friday, November 16, 2007) I told the story how a deal to mandate the use of surf leases was made in Kill Devil Hills years ago in order to keep swimmers safe from loose surfboards. To surfers, the deal also helped avoid restrictions requiring surfing only in specific areas or only during certain hours of the day. The "deal" still holds. But there are other signs of too many of us here as well. It doesn't help that we all are somehow imbued with an overwhelming sense of entitlement about having it our way whatever "it" may be: personal right to drive on the beaches or economic right to profit from others doing so.
Now that much of the oceanfront is developed in the towns, we're naturally trying to come up with ways to protect our investments and tax base. The oceanfront development approach used to be, "build light structures which can be lifted and moved back from the encroaching ocean." It has now become, use giant sandbags, proposed beach sand re-nourishment, and any other man-made structures to arrest the erosion and migration of sand to protect our tax base.
Other little day-to-day behaviors have had to change too. Many locals are now walking their dogs on leases, following behind them with bags to pick up their excrement in a responsible effort to avoid fecal coliform pollution of estuaries and canals from runoff---too many people, too many dogs. (I have one too and love him.) There are so many of us here now that it's come to this, to reiterate---we're carrying bags of dog poop around behind our animals. Doesn't this say something to someone about the local demographics and where it's going?
So now it's vehicles on the beach, many vehicles brought by their many owners...many, many vehicles and many, many owners. Arguably the most beautiful, pristine beaches in the nation, now replete with traffic and parking lots just above the tideline. The convenience of having all your stuff at hand on the beach is not lost on me. As I said before, I'm out there too.
But here is another way I reacted to having my truck on the beach with me once. Years ago my wife and I were on Ocracoke Island for a few days and decided to drive down on the beach and relax. We parked tailgate to the ocean, pulled out beach chairs and set up. Other ORVs pulled up and parked near us as the day went on. They kept coming. It dawned on us we could have nearly the same atmosphere if we took our ORV and beach chairs out to our little, local, shopping plaza parking lot and sat in the sun (except for the ocean, of course)---vehicles all around us.
We didn't come here to sit oceanside in a parking lot of oil and hydraulic-dripping vehicles. There's this personal desire by all people to use the ORV advantage to get right where you want to go (because with these vehicles we can), however for us there was also the undeniable conflict with the natural setting exacerbated by the arrival of more ORVs.
I understand the economic, tourism benefits of vehicle access to these beaches. I really do. I just wonder if there might be a way the multitude of ORV users can see through a different lens how this is transforming our beaches, and how each of us is a part of this process. Only then will we all be able to come together to affect a solution that may temper the intensifying use, lest we trample and destroy the very thing we all love so much albeit in different ways.
If the transition is a soft one toward a different approach to beach access, I truly believe the local economies will adapt and ultimately benefit from this change. But not until we all see ourselves desiring the same end result---beautiful beaches with more room for more people and wildlife, but maybe a little less room for traffic and parking lots and ORV clusters. Consider the ultimate lesson our barrier islands teach us---the only constant is change, so adapt.
I don't know, if it's too late. Bold lines have been drawn in the sand now. Both sides stand in stark opposition to the other. And I don't believe it's just about endangered animal species anymore...maybe we're just as endangered by ourselves. There's just too, too many of us.
We live in a remote coastal region of the U.S. East Coast on a barrier island, 75 miles from the nearest urban center. I've lived on this part of the coast 28 years and along this part my whole life except a few years in Hawaii, Greenville, N.C., and Washington, D.C. This place offers the most naturally dynamic environment with surf, I've ever seen. Ocean, marine geology and weather systems cavort and romp across the landscape with impunity. When people are added to the recipe controversies spring up in succession. Here's the latest.
A few months ago two environmental groups, The National Audubon Society and The Defenders of Wildlife, employing the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed suit against the National Park Service (paraphrasing here) demanding an injunction to stop off-road vehicle (ORV) access and use of beaches in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore until such time as the Park Service establishes rules limiting beach use by such vehicles. Their apparent intentions are to protect endangered species, for instance piping plovers and sea turtles which nest on the beaches in the Seashore.
(Editor's Note: For you firebrands out there, I'm not expert on the law in this area, nor trying to show off my understanding of the background political nuance on this issue, nor taking sides. If you desire what I consider keen local political perspective and insight, I refer you to three excellent local blogs: View From the Ridge, Outer Banks Republic, and Island Free Press (Ocracoke Island.)
I truly understand the ORV users'(of which I am one) desires to drive on the beaches. I'm familiar with all the arguments supporting continued use. I drive on the beach once in-a-while to access surf breaks and I used to surf fish quite a bit till it got so crowded. I am familiar with the rallying cries: "My family's been driving on these beaches since I was a child", "This is how I make my living (dory fishing)", "I love picnicking on the beach", "I've surf fished in tournaments down there for over 30 years"...and so on. I truly respect all of these folks' experiences.
We're at a critical point on our barrier islands now. I believe planning decisions now must be more slowly transitional toward larger strategic goals in how ever increasing population here will have to live and behave. All the signs are there, however they keep jumping up one at a time. Here are a few examples.
In one of my earlier posts ("Since Hurricane Noel and Why We Must Keep Wearing Leashes in Town", Friday, November 16, 2007) I told the story how a deal to mandate the use of surf leases was made in Kill Devil Hills years ago in order to keep swimmers safe from loose surfboards. To surfers, the deal also helped avoid restrictions requiring surfing only in specific areas or only during certain hours of the day. The "deal" still holds. But there are other signs of too many of us here as well. It doesn't help that we all are somehow imbued with an overwhelming sense of entitlement about having it our way whatever "it" may be: personal right to drive on the beaches or economic right to profit from others doing so.
Now that much of the oceanfront is developed in the towns, we're naturally trying to come up with ways to protect our investments and tax base. The oceanfront development approach used to be, "build light structures which can be lifted and moved back from the encroaching ocean." It has now become, use giant sandbags, proposed beach sand re-nourishment, and any other man-made structures to arrest the erosion and migration of sand to protect our tax base.
Other little day-to-day behaviors have had to change too. Many locals are now walking their dogs on leases, following behind them with bags to pick up their excrement in a responsible effort to avoid fecal coliform pollution of estuaries and canals from runoff---too many people, too many dogs. (I have one too and love him.) There are so many of us here now that it's come to this, to reiterate---we're carrying bags of dog poop around behind our animals. Doesn't this say something to someone about the local demographics and where it's going?
So now it's vehicles on the beach, many vehicles brought by their many owners...many, many vehicles and many, many owners. Arguably the most beautiful, pristine beaches in the nation, now replete with traffic and parking lots just above the tideline. The convenience of having all your stuff at hand on the beach is not lost on me. As I said before, I'm out there too.
But here is another way I reacted to having my truck on the beach with me once. Years ago my wife and I were on Ocracoke Island for a few days and decided to drive down on the beach and relax. We parked tailgate to the ocean, pulled out beach chairs and set up. Other ORVs pulled up and parked near us as the day went on. They kept coming. It dawned on us we could have nearly the same atmosphere if we took our ORV and beach chairs out to our little, local, shopping plaza parking lot and sat in the sun (except for the ocean, of course)---vehicles all around us.
We didn't come here to sit oceanside in a parking lot of oil and hydraulic-dripping vehicles. There's this personal desire by all people to use the ORV advantage to get right where you want to go (because with these vehicles we can), however for us there was also the undeniable conflict with the natural setting exacerbated by the arrival of more ORVs.
I understand the economic, tourism benefits of vehicle access to these beaches. I really do. I just wonder if there might be a way the multitude of ORV users can see through a different lens how this is transforming our beaches, and how each of us is a part of this process. Only then will we all be able to come together to affect a solution that may temper the intensifying use, lest we trample and destroy the very thing we all love so much albeit in different ways.
If the transition is a soft one toward a different approach to beach access, I truly believe the local economies will adapt and ultimately benefit from this change. But not until we all see ourselves desiring the same end result---beautiful beaches with more room for more people and wildlife, but maybe a little less room for traffic and parking lots and ORV clusters. Consider the ultimate lesson our barrier islands teach us---the only constant is change, so adapt.
I don't know, if it's too late. Bold lines have been drawn in the sand now. Both sides stand in stark opposition to the other. And I don't believe it's just about endangered animal species anymore...maybe we're just as endangered by ourselves. There's just too, too many of us.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Big Swell Arrives
I think the last post I was predicting a kickback swell from the northeast generated by an intensifying low moving offshore last Saturday night. I thought the surf would get right Sunday night or Monday morning. The swell was there (although smaller)but the wind was down the beach from the north-northeast and then from the south. Finally Tuesday night the wind twisted hard into the southwest, brought 77 degree air, and lined up a mammoth northeast swell topping out around double overhead. The wind tore at the wave faces at a solid 25+ knots and finally clicked around straight offshore (west) before nightfall.
Going to work on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk this morning there was ocean overwash on the road in numerous places from the earlier high tide. Years ago we learned to creep slowly through any standing water on the Beach Road during a big swell after high tide cause it's salt water. I suppose there are some who visit here in their city SUV's who don't understand this, so they blow through the water, sand, and debris as if they're doin' a commercial for a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The rust applauds them later I'm sure.
I was in Southern Shores oceanfront most of the day. Many closeouts seen most of the time. The report I got from First Street, KDH was about the same around dusk. Of course, some guys were trying it on for size, and size it had plenty of.
Water's still hanging around 50-51 degrees. We'll get there yet warm water. Watch SurfKDH.com for Micky's photos of this swell. He'll be on it as always.
The Easter tourists are pouring into town now. Will check back in later.
Going to work on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk this morning there was ocean overwash on the road in numerous places from the earlier high tide. Years ago we learned to creep slowly through any standing water on the Beach Road during a big swell after high tide cause it's salt water. I suppose there are some who visit here in their city SUV's who don't understand this, so they blow through the water, sand, and debris as if they're doin' a commercial for a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The rust applauds them later I'm sure.
I was in Southern Shores oceanfront most of the day. Many closeouts seen most of the time. The report I got from First Street, KDH was about the same around dusk. Of course, some guys were trying it on for size, and size it had plenty of.
Water's still hanging around 50-51 degrees. We'll get there yet warm water. Watch SurfKDH.com for Micky's photos of this swell. He'll be on it as always.
The Easter tourists are pouring into town now. Will check back in later.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Change is in the Air
Water temperatures...Duck Pier 51 degrees, Oregon Inlet (the inlet at the north end of Hatteras Island) 59 degrees. An explosive looking low pressure system is coiling up like an apostrophe just inland from our coast right now. Light rain, lightning, and thunder own the night sky outside. This storm just wreaked havoc down in Georgia and maybe we're next. Tornado Watch all along the coast. Change is in the air. Expecting possible gale force wind from the northeast later tonight.
Some houses in Kitty Hawk and South Nags Head are perched on pilings over the hard pack sand within the high tide's reach on a normal day. Once again some will be gone by the time summer arrives. This is life on a sand barrier island---a grudging, grinding slow attrition of all that is man made. Some plan on this constant process, some don't. Some adapt to it, some rail and whine. The process is bigger and older than us all.
New sandbars will be shaped in new places or places where we surfed long ago as the tide lines slowly shove us all west with all our opinions and ideas and politics as to "what to do about it". This is far and away the most dynamic place I've ever lived. It's changing face is the most constant thing we possess but can never wholly own.
Hopin' for offshore wind tomorrow night or Monday morning and the possible kickback northeast swell. Open long lefts baby, yeah. We'll see.
Some houses in Kitty Hawk and South Nags Head are perched on pilings over the hard pack sand within the high tide's reach on a normal day. Once again some will be gone by the time summer arrives. This is life on a sand barrier island---a grudging, grinding slow attrition of all that is man made. Some plan on this constant process, some don't. Some adapt to it, some rail and whine. The process is bigger and older than us all.
New sandbars will be shaped in new places or places where we surfed long ago as the tide lines slowly shove us all west with all our opinions and ideas and politics as to "what to do about it". This is far and away the most dynamic place I've ever lived. It's changing face is the most constant thing we possess but can never wholly own.
Hopin' for offshore wind tomorrow night or Monday morning and the possible kickback northeast swell. Open long lefts baby, yeah. We'll see.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Sites of Interest
I like to share cool sites I come across with you all as many of you share them with me. Today I have one new and one local site tried and true. They both will interest surfers or anyone with a profound love of the ocean.
Okay look to the right and notice "Oceanus Magazine" under ONLINE MAGAZINES WE LIKE. It's published online by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute In Massachusetts. This is an extremely well done publication with a myriad of Ocean related articles written to the layman reader as well as those of you with a keener understanding of ocean science, its lifeforms and geology.
First I must compliment any publication which emphasizes online publication. There's no waste of trees/paper in order to pass along current information. Maybe this is the way it should be. You think? I can't quote you the supporting numbers, but the logic goes something like this: How many trees would be saved, how much cleaner would the air be in the world, if we didn't produce so much paper in order to pass along our thoughts, simply to communicate ideas and knowledge? Do you think it would be a better way, I mean with the technology to do this in our hands now? Hmmmm...
I found articles as diverse as these. One covering the undersea search for John Paul Jones' sunken American Revolutionary War ship, the Bonhomme Richard, sunk off the British coast in 1779 after capturing the H.M.S. Seraphis.
I also found an article covering how pesticide runoff may be causing a decline in shellfish in developed countries due to the disruption of hormonal function in arthropods. You see, crustaceans and insect pests are both arthropods. So the intended disruption of the reproductive cycle in insect crop pests or even mosquitoes aren't the only ones being disrupted apparently. Shrimp, blue crabs, and lobster are being affected by the pesticide running off into the rivers, sounds, and ocean. I had heard of nitrogen-rich rainwater (from fertilizer) running into rivers feeding the Chesapeake Bay depleting oxygen causing fish kills and decline in oyster population. But I had never read a clear accounting of how pesticides affect marine life.
This is great reading cause these things affect me directly. I love eating shellfish! Thanks to "Oceanus", I get the picture. Anyway, check for yourself.
Another fine local site I visit regularly is SurfKDH.com featuring the photography of local photog, Micky McCarthy. (By the way, for you out of town readers, KDH is what we call the town of Kill Devil Hills, N.C.) In fact, Mick covers the swell we just had this week on Wednesday with some great shots of S-Turns in Rodanthe. I'll have local links up soon for you, so enjoy.
Okay look to the right and notice "Oceanus Magazine" under ONLINE MAGAZINES WE LIKE. It's published online by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute In Massachusetts. This is an extremely well done publication with a myriad of Ocean related articles written to the layman reader as well as those of you with a keener understanding of ocean science, its lifeforms and geology.
First I must compliment any publication which emphasizes online publication. There's no waste of trees/paper in order to pass along current information. Maybe this is the way it should be. You think? I can't quote you the supporting numbers, but the logic goes something like this: How many trees would be saved, how much cleaner would the air be in the world, if we didn't produce so much paper in order to pass along our thoughts, simply to communicate ideas and knowledge? Do you think it would be a better way, I mean with the technology to do this in our hands now? Hmmmm...
I found articles as diverse as these. One covering the undersea search for John Paul Jones' sunken American Revolutionary War ship, the Bonhomme Richard, sunk off the British coast in 1779 after capturing the H.M.S. Seraphis.
I also found an article covering how pesticide runoff may be causing a decline in shellfish in developed countries due to the disruption of hormonal function in arthropods. You see, crustaceans and insect pests are both arthropods. So the intended disruption of the reproductive cycle in insect crop pests or even mosquitoes aren't the only ones being disrupted apparently. Shrimp, blue crabs, and lobster are being affected by the pesticide running off into the rivers, sounds, and ocean. I had heard of nitrogen-rich rainwater (from fertilizer) running into rivers feeding the Chesapeake Bay depleting oxygen causing fish kills and decline in oyster population. But I had never read a clear accounting of how pesticides affect marine life.
This is great reading cause these things affect me directly. I love eating shellfish! Thanks to "Oceanus", I get the picture. Anyway, check for yourself.
Another fine local site I visit regularly is SurfKDH.com featuring the photography of local photog, Micky McCarthy. (By the way, for you out of town readers, KDH is what we call the town of Kill Devil Hills, N.C.) In fact, Mick covers the swell we just had this week on Wednesday with some great shots of S-Turns in Rodanthe. I'll have local links up soon for you, so enjoy.
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