Dec 4th MONDAY rides

After my lovely little ride in the barely above freezing weather yesterday, i was emboldened (is that really a word?). We had to take a car to the mechanic to be fixed so i offered to take my bike and i would just ride home after work.
My mother said today would be warmer, a good day to ride. Well, she got the warmer right.. but she forgot to mention RAIN.
So I dressed this morning having in mind something I could wear home on a chilly dry day. hehehe. I did say dry.

At 10 the mechanic told me the car was already done (he just had to tighten a screw!) so I happened to notice at this point that the weather report was calling for light rain. GASP! and me without as much as a raincoat! Instead of waiting until 3pm for the rain to really settle in, I decided to go on my lunch break, I ran outside just to check and it wasn't raining. So I got on the bike in my nice lightweight lined wool slacks and winter coat (and helmet and fuzzy warm gloves and cap under the helmet)
and tried to beat the rain. I did. Until i got to the street, .2 miles from the door of my building.

Light rain, I thought, I can do this, no problem. By the time I had ridden .8 miles, it was a steady downpour. I can't believe I'm doing this! I'm supposed to be at work!

I joined the heavy industrial traffic in the georgetown neighborhood of Seattle,
where everything was getting QUITE wet and motorists were extremely aware and careful about me (for a change, it was great!)

I got to the shop, 2.5 miles from the Big B where I work, and I was completely wet. they always look at me like i'm crazy, so that was no big deal.

I paid for my car, put the bike on top of the car and jumped in after
drying the seat - it rained enough to drench the seat in those few moments.
I looked down at my slacks and they were completely wet. So I went home
and changed my slacks and my shoes!!

(and put my bike in the house and dried off my brooks leather saddle)

and sheepishly went back to work in a new outfit.

I did my usual 21 mile ride this morning. Weather was sunny (for a change!) and about 27 degreesF, and breezy. Well, once I got a good ways out, I realized it was actually very windy, and really quite cold.
I did complete my ride and I felt good about that, but my fingers and toes were painfully cold the whole second hour, and it was just not pleasant at all fighting frigid wind gusts the whole way. :( Despite the sun I was pretty cold. When I got home I found that the wind chill factor was 17 degrees! ....and that was if I was standing still! :( I don't think I would have had a problem if there had been no gusty winds.
As it gets colder I may soon have to shorten my 2 hour ride to 1 hour.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Winter has arrived here in Kentucky for at least the next few days or so. Hard to believe that last week it was in the low 70's - never know what is in store for you here in Kentucky. Sadly, I did not get to take advantage of that nice weather due to my bronchitis so all I could do is sit on my couch and dream about riding and enjoying the warm weather. Friday, the weather gods flipped the switch and sent the very cold air pouring into the Ohio Valley. So I'm back on my bike albeit in my living room. I got in 13 miles on my bike/trainer this evening and found myself longing for spring and beautiful roads in my community.

I didn't get out in time to do early miles - I was even late to work 'cause it just took extra time to get all the layers on (15 degrees)... and then this plastic hanging plant not hanging but sitting on my porch leaped up and the hanger part grabbed my derailleur on my way out of the house (I had the bike in the house adding the odd Christmas decoration to it) and held on tightly... took me 5 minutes to separate the two. Talk about a lame excuse for lateness!
I'm done work at six but have singing at 7... so I dashed out and rode 5 pretty darned hard laps around the campus at 1.4 miles each... 7 sweaty miles! Little longer than the 10K I'm planning on doing inthe indoor time trial on the 17th.
Then I did an extra lap after singing before I went home... could really feel it in the ol' legs and I remembered that unemployed summer when I very first started Riding A Lot and how tough the night club ride (even the "easy" level ones, and our easy levels are easy) was if I'd gone out for a morning 13 miles... and I remember how much good that did :) :) In December, even!!
Today it's gonna just be the 15 - lots of stuff going on. Hopefully Howard won't get out and do 70 again, but heck, it could just be another century Saturday then! (Don't tell Howard...)

Mimit - sounds like a washout!!! Hope you got warm and dry!!!