Rain Bike Riding

Although I hadn't heard the rain, the streets this morning were wet. Peering between the slats of the window blinds I searched for the little puddles that would give away the raindrops. They were smooth and still, so I decided to take a shot at a quick 20 miles. It looked like a day for the old Pennine, aka the Rain Bike. When streets are wet, fenders rule. It had been a while since I'd ridden that bike, so I had to first pump up the tires, and once on the road I had to stop to readjust one of the fenders so it wouldn't rub on the tire. Even so, I hit the levee at the usual time, but of course I was the only one there this morning.

The sky to the west didn't look so bad, and by the time I reached the bridge the bike path was dry. This was starting to look good! Well, when I turned around into a headwind to make the return trip I could see a lot of clouds moving in from the east. Sure enough, within a few miles a light rain started to fall. It never got much heavier than that, though, so I was pretty comfortable the whole way. That is, until a bee stung me on the inside of my upper thigh. I must have had twenty bee stings right about in that same place over the years, and despite my rubbing half a tube of cortisone cream on it, as I sit here at the office I can still feel it. I'm sure that if I dared to take a look right now there would be a four-inch diameter circle of inflammation by now. Damn. You know it's going to be a week and a half before it goes away, too. As I made my way back home from the levee I heard a little beep from my cellphone. There was a message from The Wife about half an hour earlier saying that it was pouring rain at the house and that she'd already gotten drenched while riding around Audubon Park. I guess my timing must have been pretty good, because I totally missed that little rainstorm.

So by the time I was ready to head off to work, the sky looked a little brighter. I had planned to pack in all of my clothes, but since the weather looked better I went ahead and wore my regular pants. When it started to rain as I passed the old Falstaff Brewery I was really starting to curse my bad luck, but then two blocks later the rain stopped, so I didn't get too wet. Looks like it'll be off-and-on rain all day today. Situation normal.