Apres Moi Le Deluge

Or rather, "autour de moi le deluge." 

No pics from this rain soaked affair, so a pic of the
post-ride beverage will just have to do.

First there were a few drops, next thing I'm on this long downhill descent and the skies open right as I am trying to make the light. After that it made no difference, within seconds it was too late for the rain jacket. My "dry" bike got really wet for the first time in about 5 years.

Can't say I didn't know it was going to rain, but I misread the radar -- I guess I must have failed to properly "reload" it when I got back home from Home Despot. 

Or maybe I fooled myself into not reloading it properly? In retrospect, if I'd seen rain coming I might not have ridden...and in retrospect, too, this was not a ride I would have wanted to "take a pass" on. 

I had no idea I could actually even enjoy a rain soaked ride. My last main memories of such involved some particularly nasty mandatory commutes in Portsmouth, U.K., in the latter years I used a bike often to speed up the trip from Portsmouth & Southsea station to school -- rain, rain and wind, or shine. And that included horizontal wind-driven rain.

The desire to ride today was strong. And it was assuaged.

But come a certain point, I decided that it was enough deluge for one day, and I  cut the ride short at about 6 miles. There's only so much I want to ride in a monsoon -- as cooling off as that can be.

Really had a lot of angst to burn today -- being the parent of an exceedingly argumentative teenager can drive you a bit nuts, or to new personal records on timed climbs or segments (PRs). Better the PRs, Finally busted the South Road loop PR that I set myself a challenge on a year ago.



Sometimes you just don't want to go back to a segment until you feel like you can accomplish it safely. This one involves safety, as the greater part of it is a long high-speed descent that involves several "risky" intersections, including one relatively blind left-hand 90-degree turn.  

Braking was making some odd rotational noises today. Need to put the bike in the stand and see if I can duplicate.

"Boomerang" — Astor Lane — is a blast of a climb and descent -- who knew this was even a segment?  On this sneaky climb you keep saying "OK just to the crest and then I'll turn back downhill." And you get to the crest, and there's another crest, and another crest and another crest. And then, when you finally to get to the crest, you see the bottom of the hill is just down there, so you might as well do the whole thing.

There is more, but it would be trespassing in a private driveway, so unwise trespassing at that.