McPhilly's: Squeezing in the Rides, Wind and Waves

October 3. The Island and city gang were getting their fill
of one of the best windsurfing days in recent memory.
PHOTO: SDomjan

Fortunately, the momentum from the summer of riding roads, water or dirt was powerful enough to keep me running, cycling and even windsurfing through what for 11 years has been the busiest time of year for me.

Here are a few pics from the rides and the wind/surf days.

WIND, COLD, LEFTOVER MYSTO

Why do any windsurfers also ride bikes? Same reason
as anyone else — there are many reasons. This is just one
small part of it. The iceing on the cake, as long as there's
no icing on the road.

My one day off this week ... one chance to sleep in a bit and have coffee and a snooze? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Apres Sail at CIB. Wind fading Storm passed,
and Hurricane Joaquin out of the picture -- the first
sun in days. Frank and Lenny in the background.

Why leave the warm and cozy confines and the promise of a cup of hot coffee in bed? Because yesterday the city and Island gang — and probably a few from elsewhere in the Tri-State (NY, CT, NJ) area — had just experienced, ripped up and savored the best wind and wave day of the year at Center Island Beach (CIB) or Democrat Point on the Fire Island Inlet, and I'd missed it. Newsmagazine command deadline performance at the office, no ifs ands or buts. "They would not call them deadlines if they weren't meant to be scary," is how the saying goes in publishing.

So, somehow, I did find a way to pry myself out of a warm cozy bed on Sunday morning — sleep and snooze deficit be darned — to head out into the cold, damp and windy morning.

This was the one day off this week—it was today or not at all. And the promise was maybe a little of the leftover "mysto" wraparound wave at CIB. Too. good. to. miss.

I'd been missing out. The Island gang had been tearing up
premium waves on the South Shore, and "Mysto" waves
at Center Island Beach.
PHOTO: JEFF SCHULTZ PHOTOGRAPHY

This windy day, was not premium, or even mediocre, cycling weather I was missing by any stretch of the imagination. Nope, this carried all the promise of solid, no-skunk top-notch wind and wave action. This was one of those days where the sheer windiness commanded me naught else but windsurfing. I might have wanted to do the two wheel thing, but with windsurfing at my disposal, this made a lot more sense.

KITCHEN SINK
Houston we have a problem. All the gear is still unloaded from the GrandWindavan's date with the Dodge service center.

An hour of rearranging, and re-loading everything back into the vehicle — 3 masts, 2 booms, 7 sails (yep that's too many!), 20 fins, 3 boards, 2 harnesses, and countless universal joints (UJs), mast bases, mast extensions, toolboxes with vital screws and screwdrivers, shims, wetsuits, drysuits, booties, gloves, hoods — and the garage to van two-step was done for fall.

It is nice being able to hood up, when it's not really that
cold. Water and wind combo was pretty chilly, but
definitely not dress-inside-the-van cold.

So what do we have — 4.7? 5.0? 5.3? 5.5? 5.7? pretty hard to tell with this wind. Guys on the water were on 4.7's and 5.0's but there were some caping holes in the wind field and it was anyone's guess.

5.0 to start ... nope, midway through the process, folks began to return from the water for larger sails. So 5.5. I was on the verge of taking a larger board -- and should have done.

At CIB, the walk from parking lot to shore is a P.I.T.A., so I persisted with my one-size fits all board, the 99-liter F2 Style 255.

But the rust was thick on my skills; harness lines and harness were woefully out of kilter, and I was soon re-learning past mistakes and reinventing the windsurfing wheel. This involved doing various impressions of objects and creatures found in the sea or on the shoreline: flounder, driftwood, human hermit crab dragging his sail-dwelling back up the beach.

Main Street. Several hours pre-Blood Moon.

Since the nerve damage in the neck, the left arm has been weakened about 15-20 percent, which is not good. I am working to strengthen it, but there is only so much of any strengthening exercise — pushups, etc., I can do before it goes back into spasm. So being able to hook efficiently within a few seconds in planing winds is essential for me these days.

BLOOD MOON SEASON CYCLING
Before the last storm we had a blood moon.

Well it took a few hours to turn ruddy. Here it is at 7 pm, a low hanging silver disc in the east.

Three hours later it was high in the Southeast sky -- a mesmerizingly eerie sight.

I don't know if it has anything to do with the moon or not but lately the cycling weather has been excellent. In daylight, not so much moonlight.

Why photos? I guess as a cyclist, the road surface is what we are intimate with — hopefully not too intimate — for 20, 30 minutes or an hour or so. Every gradient, bump, pothole, rut, gouge in the chip and seal, smooth piece of asphalt, careening hill, cracking twig, grinding gravel, tyre-popping acorn, fleeing squirrel, it all has meaning. And if there's marginal time outside of the intense concentration necessary to stay apprised of all the road hazards, noticing the scenery, the dwellings, the trees and occasional fauna, is a major plus.

OK ... time to fix those harness lines, and then back on the bike.