Up in the Attic

Old Medals

The other day I found myself up in the attic looking for any old New Orleans Bicycle Club newsletters that might still be up there (and not all eaten up by roaches). Responding to a Facebook thread that involved an old race photo and lots of old washed-up bike racers, I'd decided to make a listing of all of the old race results I could find. I got a good start on it, but obviously was missing a whole lot. What I found, unsurprisingly, was that my record-keeping habits deteriorated dramatically around 1984 when my daughter was born, and didn't really ever recover until the mid-90s when I started stashing things on the NOBC website. Somewhere I know I have a bunch of floppy discs containing club newsletters written in WordStar for CP/M, and probably some written with Word for the early PCs. I haven't even started that search, and even if I find the discs, the problem of actually being able to read what's on them might be essentially impossible to solve. When we moved into our house back around 1989 Danielle was still very young and we were pretty pre-occupied with that and work and everything, so a lot of stuff just got stashed in the attic and basement.  Most of the basement stuff got thrown out after it was flooded during Katrina. Anyway, the "old race results" document will be a long-term project, I think, but I'll probably put what I have up on the NOBC website soon anyway.

Anyway, while I was up in the attic I found a bunch of old swimming medals inside a 1970 pewter mug inscribed with "Junior-Senior Prom, 1970." I was amazed by the condition of those 47 year old medals. Although the ribbons were in bad shape, the medals themselves were still shiny. It's practically impossible to find medals of that quality any more, but at the time these were just run of the mill medals handed out to hundreds of age-group swimmers at AAU and local country club swim meets. Interestingly, a few of them had been inscribed on the back by my father with dates and times.

I also came across an old leader's jersey from the Chimneyville Classic race that was held in Jackson MS some time around 1985 or so. I remember it because Candy was still racing and I recall having to leave the time trial to rush out and pick up diapers for Danielle. I think that was the race where the time trial was along the I-55 service road south of town and where Mike Lew overcooked the turn onto the service road, went through the ditch, came up onto the shoulder of the Interstate, crossed back over to the service road and turned in one of the fastest times anyway. Candy bought one of the extra leader's jerseys after the race.

All this officiating stuff for me really started as a way to avoid
having to actually race time trials.

Next weekend is the LAMBRA championship individual time trial over on the LaPlace course. Although I still don't know who we will have for turnaround marshals for the three turnarounds (there are 10k, 20k and 40k races, depending on age and category), most everything else seems to be in place except that I need to get the LAMBRA generator and maybe stopwatches that are currently in Baton Rouge. The weather forecast, for once, is looking pretty decent for Sunday with moderate temperatures, no chance of rain, and very light winds. There's a criterium over in Mobile AL on Saturday but I have a feeling I'll be uncomfortable about making the trip over there the day before I have to officiate and "race direct" the time trial. Turnout for the TT is probably going to be pretty good. There are about 60 pre-registered so far and it's only Tuesday, so I'm figuring on 100-120 riders.

So I mentioned the other day that I'd installed a new chain at about 3,200 miles or so. I think it was probably the third chain for that cassette and not surprisingly the new chain skipped pretty badly on the 12 and 13 or maybe 13 and 14 tooth cogs that I use a lot. I hate it when that happens. I put the cassette from my race wheel on for now but of course I'll have to start looking around for a new cassette. A good price for a Campi cassette is in the $100-120 range lately, which is a lot, especially considering the surprise "additional millage" bill that showed up from the assessor's office the other day.  Apparently we voted to increase our property taxes to throw more money at our completely incompetent Sewerage and Water Board. Between that and the prior week's hit for income taxes, I'm pretty broke once again. Anyway, I'm considering getting a Miche cassette for the training wheel rather than an official Campi one. They're about half the price and twice the weight, but I've used them before for Six Gap when I needed the lower gears and didn't want to pay for a Campi cassette that I'd probably use for 104 miles each year. They seem to work pretty well if you don't mind the extra weight, plus it's possible (but not easy) to buy just the worn-out cogs when needed.