My new custom Atlanta Center Triathlon Team kit arrived last week. Creating the kit was a six month long ordeal. The team ultimately settled on images provided by Steve Ramsden of the
Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project (CBSAP). Comprised of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employees we wanted our kit to reflect this affiliation in some way. We toyed around with pictures of aircraft and air traffic control towers but none of them seemed to work out.
Then Steve stepped into the picture. He had a large assortment of images, many of which were in the correct file format. That's important. Eventually Steve reluctantly provided us with doctored up images of the sun and moon. I say "reluctantly" because apparently doctoring images is frounded upon in astronomical circles. But they were "doctored up" using portions of other real images. What harm could that be? In our case the image of the sun includes a number of solar flares. All the flares are real and were photographed. They just weren't all photographed at the same time. In the case of the image of the moon. During a normal solar eclipse the moon is a blacked out circle. It looks like a hole in the sky with the sun's corona all around. In our case, in place of the hole, Steve placed a real image of the moon with all its crates. Below the sun on the front and the moon on the back is a silhouette of the Atlanta skyline. The sleeves of the jersey have the NOAA logo on the left and the FAA logo on the right.
I setup an account with
Champion System and submitted the images and my ideas. After many variations we finally ending up with what you see below.
 |
| Cycling shorts and jersey |
 |
| Cycling shorts and jersey |
 |
| NOAA logo on the sleeve |
 |
| FAA logo on the sleeve |
 |
| Tri shorts and tri top |
 |
| Tri shorts and tri top |
 |
| The distance tri shorts have a small pocket on each leg |
 |
| The tri top also has a pocket on each side |
Well, that's about it. I can't wait to wear my new kit in a race. IMFL will probably be my first opportunity although I will wear it a few times when I train to break it in.
Pictures of the whole team are forthcoming.
Thanks for reading.
