Hinting at Winter

Getting ready for the Swamp Otter Classic races to begin.

It was a week of sorting through the winter kit drawer and making those always-difficult pre-dawn wardrobe decisions when the temperature out the door is in the low 50s but you know it will warm up quickly once the sun rises. It's also the time of year when I want to buy more warm fuzzy stuff. Otherwise, the usual weekday rides were pretty normal with good-sized groups and no drama. Late in the week I got to try out a couple of new things. I'd gotten a couple more pairs of wool socks from DeFeet. These are 6" high, which for me is just about an inch or two below the bottom of bib knickers. The weather cooperated nicely by providing a couple of mornings for which they were fairly well-suited. I think I'm fairly well-stocked on other winter gear, and I have a team long-sleeve jersey that should be arriving in a week or so, so I'm feeling pretty well prepared for winter, at least as far as cycling clothing goes. Of course the larger challenge is mental. On the plus side, the time change back to Standard Time has been nice. At the moment it's only really dark until about 6 am, and by 6:30 you don't really need lights. Naturally that will gradually change and we'll be back in the dark in a month, but it will be nice while it lasts.

Stopping at the museum in City Park after the Friendly Friday ride.

So the other new thing this week was a new tail light. The Daughter send me the new Garmin Varia that pairs with the 520 computer and alerts me to traffic approaching from behind while at the same time changing to a brighter flash. I guess it must work because nobody has run into me yet. This new model has "peloton mode" which is a less bright mode for night group riding. I really can't tell if it's sufficiently dim or not, or what it does when a car approaches, since of course I can't actually see it. I almost feel like I should mount it backwards on my handlebar for a couple of rides so I can see exactly what it's doing! Being higher than my usual light, it just barely fits on the seatpost beneath my small saddle bag. In the city it isn't all that useful since there are almost always cars approaching from behind, but early in the morning I found it helpful for letting me know it was OK to move out of the bike lane to avoid potholes and other bike lane debris without having to look behind me. I expect it will be most helpful for rides out in the country where traffic is less frequent but travelling much more rapidly. I guess it's about time to think about the northshore winter ride series again. Anyway, I tried it out Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and found it at least quite interesting. I haven't experimented with setting the light mode from my Edge yet, but apparently that is possible and would be much easier than reaching back to push buttons on the Varia itself while trying to remember how many time to push to get to the desired mode. 

Yesterday I skipped riding so I could officiate the Swamp Otter Classic cyclocross race. Turnout was OK, if not spectacular, but the weather was great. The forecast had been calling for upper 40s at sunrise, so despite the 10:00 am start time of the first race I was expecting to be cold. I arrived about an hour and a half before the start, so had lots of time to cart equipment from my car across a little bridge to the area along the 40 Arpent Canal where the race is held. This year they had added some out-and-back gravel segments to the usual cyclocross course, extending the lap distance to something over two miles. That worked out great for me because it meant that there was only one lapped rider all day, which greatly simplified getting the results straight. Also, the sun was out, the wind was light, and it was so warm I had to take off the base layer I was wearing. 

Next weekend we'll finally have an actual LAMBRA meeting up in Ridgeland after the Saturday cyclocross races. We've been slowly trying to get the 2022 season on track and will have to figure out how to manage things without most of the revenue we had been getting from USAC in the past. Under the new scenario, LAMBRA gets something like $0.20 per rider day and nothing for racing licenses, so even with a good year of events and participation that will work out to maybe $1k per year rather than $3k. In addition, we have to make our own championship medals since USAC doesn't provide those any more - for the first time since I've been racing, actually. We recently spend about $600 for medals, although of course have a fair number still available. We also haven't collected any club dues or per-rider surcharges since 2019 so we'll need to work out what we want to do going in to 2022 and whether we want to have the LCCS points series, award LCCS and championship jerseys, etc.