97 miles, fair weather prima donna gets wet, and a chainsaw
Today was the local tour - our club had put it on in the past; this year it was run by the Y, with some help from the club, so we got to ride. The weather forecast was looking iffy all week, but it was dry in the morning, and my buddies teased me into committing to the 100. I needed to do 100 anyhow, hadn't done one yet this year.
Naturally it started raining just five or six miles beyond the split where the 100 mile route diverged from the metric. I thought about turning back, but decided that pressing on was better than not being able to live it down. :rolleyes:
My cadence sensor held out for a good 15 miles in rain that varied from light to heavy, then it drowned. Again. I don't know why Garmin can't make a waterproof cadence sensor - this has been an known issue with these ever since they first came out. They're good about sending replacements, but it's a PITA going without it.
Turned out the route was only 97.7 miles. :mad: I thought about taking an alternate route to get myself the extra distance... for about two seconds. :p If the weather had been nice I probably would've. As it was, no thanks. I got to the finish looking like a drowned rat. The sun came out (briefly) just as I arrived. :rolleyes:
Then I came home to find that the storm had brought a tree down across my lane (also we got very little rain here, which we desperately need). Luckily the tree missed the power lines - I don't know how. Also luckily, it isn't too terribly far from the house. So I left the car down there and lugged my bike and all my stuff back up to the house in three trips.
Unluckily, the batteries for the electric chainsaw weren't charged. I'm way too sleep-deprived, groggy and tired for it to be a good idea for me to try to figure out how to use the gas chainsaw, which I've never used. The rain's stopped for now, but it's dark and overcast even this early in the evening, it looks like we might get another round of rain.
I'm about *this* close to bagging it for the night, cracking a beer, and worrying about chainsaws in the morning.
Interesting, good, and a crash
We left for the Cape at 6:15 AM, to eat breakfast at one of our fav places before a 10 AM ride. All was well, good food and perfect weather. When we got to the start, we found out that this ride was a ride for BOTH of our clubs, because of scheduling issues and the original leader being out with back stuff. Now, club A, which we lead for has a different set of people in most cases. The leader was from this club, and we knew him. He leads many rides. Club B is known for hammering, but this ride was advertised as following the style of the specific sub group I ride with. We use "human arrows" to denote turns and you stay there until the sweep goes by... There was obviously an extremely wide range of riders. Some had bikes more useful for tooling around on the path. I was already nervous about riding in a beach area, but I knew most of this ride was on back roads. It was advertised as a tour of Dennis beaches.
So, all was well for about 10 miles. I was able to stick with the front group, even when the leader told us to go ahead on a long straight a way. The cars were mostly respectful. The scenery-- gorgeous. Then we came to a crowded area where there was a town fair. There was a stop sign and a huge truck was letting us turn left. For some reason, the woman (rider) ahead of me, decided, no, she would stop and let the truck go. Down I went. My foot was in the up position and I couldn't get unclipped. I knew it would happen. She didn't even say "sorry." I was furious. I spent the rest of a 36 mile ride with blood on my knee and getting stiffer by the minute. Thankfully, I had my leader supplies and washed it and applied antibiotic stuff.
Several people left the ride as they couldn't keep up. One woman told my DH to "get off of her wheel." She was pretty mean. This wasn't a paceline. The riding etiquette was horrible, no signals and the leader didn't announce that he needed a rider to stop to arrow soon enough. I stayed as close to the front as I could. On the second "go ahead if you want," I was maintaining 23 mph for about 2 miles, but a hill came and my DH went with the big boys. I was exhausted and stiff and had to slow down.
Lunch was at a great outdoor cafe overlooking Sesuit Harbor. The water was so green, it looked tropical. All in all, nice, but on the 1.5 mile ride back to the car, I was cranky; I dropped everyone except my DH and one other guy.
We went and had soft serve ice cream at the Kreme N' Kone (mmmm) and headed to the beach we used to go to with our kids.It was very windy, but we relaxed for an hour and headed home.
I am now drinking a beer and sitting with an ice pack on my knee.
