A Day on the Bike…

I was in a foul mood.  Never mind why, just accept that I was mad at the world.  Little things annoyed me.  Irritable was my middle name.  I didn’t feel like going out for a ride.  And the weather, in a word, stank.  It was a bit too cool, and raining, and dark, and evil out.

The thing was, I was committed to doing a very challenging long ride.  I had a training schedule to meet.  So I geared up, grabbed the bike and headed out.

As I rolled out of the driveway and up the street, I was wet-cat miserable.  But I noticed that the rain was tapering.  At least a little bit.

By the time I’d left the town behind, the rain had stopped and there were blue patches showing through the clouds.  The temp actually dropped a bit, but the sun was beginning to shine.  I stopped briefly and shed the outer layer, rain shell and rain pants.  I Folded and stowed them on top of the Carradice bag.  (Lovely design, that bag.)  My clothing now matched the conditions perfectly, and I was enjoying being less encumbered.

I crested a long, but not very steep grinder and turned into the light breeze for the long descent.  I couldn’t help but smile.  This was nice.

The wind stayed light, and danced all around the compass, now behind, now to the side.  The clouds disappeared.  The wind picked up a bit, and it seemed the temp dropped a little more.  I worked a bit harder, and body heat balanced the increased cooling.

I was getting a bit hungry.  I’d noticed that at every stop, for an intersection, or a quick consult on navigation, I felt the chill.  I found my way to one of my lunch stops.  This was an old homesite, long abandoned and falling slowly to ruin.  But the site had a set of steps that descended from a raised yard to street level.  I’d stopped here before, resting and eating while seated on those steps.

On this day the wind direction was such that I was out of the wind and fully exposed to the sun on that old stone stair.  Comfortable.

It was time to turn toward home.  I had a lot of climbing to accomplish on the way.  Basically, there was a very large ridgeline between me and home.  The next fifteen miles would be generally uphill.  (Of course that meant that the last ten miles would be mostly down.)

As I began the climbing, I noted that the wind had settled and increased, but…   It was a tail wind!  The breeze helped me up every climb, urged me along each flat, and was blocked on each descent.

The sun was lowering as I moved into the last five miles of the ride.  Shadows were growing longer.  My legs had that “good tired” feeling.  I knew I’d been working, but was far from over-done.  As I approached the town and home, I found I was humming tunes I liked.  Somewhere, in the last few miles, without noticing it, I’d started singing.

“How was your ride?”  my wife asked as I came in.

“Perfect,”  I said,  “Just perfect.”