Hard North Wind

The temperature dropped last night into the mid to low 40s, but compared to the strong, gusting North wind, it was nothing. Riding out to the lakefront to meet the Giro ride, I was struggling in a 39x17 and often managing only 14 mph as I rode straight into the wind. I knew it would be a hard ride today, no matter what.

The group was, not surprisingly, rather small for a nice sunny Saturday morning. The wind coming off the lake was strong enough to spray lake water onto the road here and there, and riding west in the crosswind my vererable old 36-spoke front wheel was getting tossed all over the place and riding a reasonably straight line required a lot of attention. The ride down Hayne was into a head/cross wind, and although the speed was rarely over 25 mph, a small group went off the front and by the end of Hayne, even that group had split. I ended up in a 4-man group unenthusiastically chasing the lead group all the way out to the turnaround. When I finally sat up to remove my skullcap and unDshirt, a gust of wind very nearly put me on the asphalt. My legs were hurting all day as often happens to me when the weather turns cooler, and today's ride was, at least for me, just plain hard the whole time. From the start I was looking forward to the tailwind that I'd get on my way back home from the lakefront.

I sure hope the wind dies down before tomorrow's northshore ride!