Blissful Riding

You know, there are those days when everything just clicks. The miles and meters fly by as you enjoy the warmth of the sun with the wind at your back. Today was not one of those days. Checking in at weather.com, I see that the afternoon forecast is for mostly cloudy skies, the rain showers predicted earlier for this afternoon now not anticipated until after midnight. This is good news for someone planning to bike at 4 p.m. So, I headed out for a ride up Bliss Road, this climb to be followed by another up OA before returning up FO. I was off at 4:10 p.m., ready for a couple of hours on the Trek.

All went as planned until just past the halfway point up Bliss. Then it started to rain. Not so hard, but rain nonetheless. Up at the top, the rain picked up as I rode to the weather station. It was there that I decided I would NOT continue on away from home; instead, I headed back down Bliss. The plan now, turn around and climb again. Maybe I could get in three or four climbs, yet stay relatively close to home in case the weather turned worse. But still, the forecast had been for mostly cloudy. Surely the rain was an aberration.

This time I made it about three quarters of the way up the hill before it started to rain again. By the time I reached the Alpine Inn, it was pouring. The road and my brakes were now certifiably wet and slick. I was cold. My socks were swimming in the small lakes that had formed in my shoes. It was clearly time to head for home. This meant dropping down into the pounding rain, losing body temperature with every foot of the descent. This was about as much mostly cloudy as I could take.

At home it was the dryer for the wet clothes, newspaper in the shoes and a warm shower for me. There are those days when everything just clicks. And then there was today.

My ride today was a mere 13.4 miles with just over 1600 feet of climbing. My total for the year is 1,032.8 miles (1,648.0 counting the miles on the trainer). Climbing has gone past the 58,000 foot mark. Progress. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go to weather.com ~ we have some issues to discuss.