A Mixed Bag!!

Yesterday I didn't have to be at work until the afternoon, and so after a bunch of morning errands (a.k.a. stuff to do until the weather warms up a bit), I suited up and headed out into the wind, (really?) and a sky full of sunshine! It was blowing pretty steady at 20 MPH, with gusts at 28 MPH. Sigh.

When the wind blows like that, my new thing to do is to pretend I am riding up a climb. I know how far everything is now, and so if it's 8 miles in the wind, I'll imagine I'm climbing Kings Mountain---and if it's more than 8 miles into the wind, I choose West Alpine. As long as I don't try to go faster than I would up those two climbs, it is less annoying getting blown around on the flats. Mind control. And that climb combination used to be one of my favorite rides to do before work when I lived in Los Altos. Instead of the 3900' + of elevation gains, I get 3900+ wind velocity. And less time coasting...so more actual pedaling time.

Riding in the wind makes you tough anyway...and riding on the rolling flat prairie lands with that same wind at your back is absolutely priceless. Especially, when out of nowhere, you see a storm coming. These rolling flatlands offer great weather entertainment---But this cloud was blowing my way. And it wasn't a small cloud. The whole sky, on the Northwestern horizon was completely black, floor to ceiling. And I had at least planned my weather directions properly as I was heading East & Slightly South back into town.

KABOOOOM!! (grumble grumble grumble!) Boom! Thunder is cool as long as there is no lightening. The weather channel, if you go to the hour to hour display, was almost dead-on today. It had taken me longer than I had planned (probably because I was just tooling along in the wind so I wouldn't be annoyed by it), and so I was about 20 minutes into the hour that the showers would arrive. RATS! I didn't want to even hurry because the storm was so cool to watch. BUT, I was riding my Seven---no fenders, new Ksyriums, and didn't want to have to clean my bike before work. So, I put my nose down and pedaled in my 53x12 and let the wind push me home and aside from a few raindrops and few "running of a red lights later", I arrived home just in time to watch the storm pass from inside my house!

How cool is that? And I was just delighted when I got to work only to find out that in Marshall, The Bike Shop is CLOSED for Memorial Day---so Mike and I may go to do a little touring in South Dakota this weekend---! How about that?

Sydney wants to check her email now so I gotta go...she also brought home a friend from the field last night...a wood tick. Not very happy about this and it's not the first time she's done it. Yuk! Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!