I met imdeanna today. She's a tough cookie. She hooked up with a group of us to do a no drop ride not far from her home. She showed up with her new Trek (very sexy bike) and her DH. She didn't have time to get SPD's before the ride, so she did the whole thing with platform pedals and runners.

It was blowing wind like craaaaaaaaa-zeeeeeee. We started out east with the wind at our backs. At 5 miles I asked how she was doing, she was good... she looked good and we continued. At 10 miles we had to decide if it was time for her to turn back. She said she was good, she looked good and it really seemed like the best idea would be to complete the loop. You see... we live in The Gorge. The land of very strong winds. It's not windsurfing and kiteboarding mecca for no reason. We (the group) had to make a judgement call. Do we turn around and fight the wind for 10 miles on a downhill that would not help us at all or continue around the loop, climb the big hill and have at least some help coming down into the wind?

Deanna started to flag a little just before we hit the big hill. She managed to get up it and was very smart about taking breaks off of her bike and eating enough. She got up the hill (a total of about 900 feet climbing) and held out to get back home.

In total: 25 miles.

The amazing part... this was Deanna's first ride on a road bike ever, her first time out for any significant exercise in years!!

This is our ride.

I'm really impressed.

Hopefully she doesn't hate me in the morning.