Yikes! Talk about wind…

We got to ride together this morning.  Since it was just the two of us we didn’t have a pre-defined start time, so we just took our time getting out on the road.  The good part about this is that we got to have a very relaxing morning.  The bad part is that typically if there’s going to be any wind at all, it’s usually not nearly as stiff early in the morning, and then it picks up as the day goes on.  So remember that post I put up earlier about how it’s all about the wind?  Well that was never as evident as on a day like today.  On the way out we were riding into the teeth of about a 15 mph sustained wind, with gusts to 20+.  Dang.  That’ll slow ya down.

But, since it was just the two of us, we could just keep whatever pace we wanted.  We went slow when the wind went fast, and we went a little faster when the wind went a little slower.  (It was this deal we worked out…)  So it was kind of a cool ride because we just rode out to a Barnies coffee place, stopped, sat at an outside table, had something to drink, turned around, and came back home.  34 miles.  We had a great time! 

I’ve always said that this is one of the things I really like about cycling—it’s not the same old thing ride after ride.  Sometimes you want to go out and you want to ride hard and even race a little.  (We don’t do serious racing—just a fun kind of racing where we’ll sprint certain sections of the road where we know there isn’t any traffic.)  And then other days you might want to just keep a nice relaxing pace.  Sometimes you go long, sometimes short, sometimes you drive to the ride and ride roads you’re not ordinarily on, and other times you ride out from the house.  Sometimes you’re in a big group, sometimes you’re by yourself.  And every time you get to do something different.

And the ride home was especially fun.  Even though wind swirls, and it wasn’t always at our back on the way home, it was at least at our back on one of our favorite roads.  So it was a fun, easy, side-by-side 19 mph (or 20 if we wanted to pedal) all the way down this country road out in the middle of nowhere, with zero traffic.  Nuthin’ mo’ betta!