Flash in the Fog

Because of the unusually rainy weather we've been having, I've lately gotten in the habit of checking the radar before even getting out of bed. Since the weather has been warm, the problem hasn't really been so much the "riding on wet roads" part as it's been the task of cleaning up the mess it makes of the bike. Last night I was scraping dried-up worms off of the rear brake and seat tube in an effort to render the bike presentable. So I was relieved to see that the roads were reasonable well dried out this morning as I rode over to meet the group on the levee. The excitement of finally having a nice, clean morning ride began to evaporate, however, as I neared the river and noticed the increasing amount of fog. As often happens this time of year, the only place there was significant fog was along the river. Aside from the visibility problem it presents, especially in the 6:15 a.m. pre-dawn darkness, riding through this kind of fog turns the leading edges of the bike into a virtual dirt collector. I took a flash photo (above) as we started out just to see what it would look like. It's neat how the water droplets in the air create those interesting "orbs." Either that, or there were a lot of ghosts out this morning!

So I rolled up to the meeting spot right on time, but the only other person there was Mignon. As I approached, we both said in unison, "Where is everybody?" I guess the culprit is just the escalating lateness of the sunrise, because a couple of minutes later everyone started to arrive and we finally set out about five minutes later than usual. For the first ten miles or so the fog remained pretty thick and Max remained on the front. At least that eliminated the need for people to rotate off the front until visibility improved. Then, somewhere out past the airport, he picked up the pace a bit. I was sitting third wheel at the time and as both the pace and crosswind began to pick up, I heard someone say something behind. It took a moment for me to safely look back, but when I did, I saw a big gap. Thinking that perhaps someone had flatted, I eased up, and after a little while the two in front did as well. I really don't quite know what happened there, but although most of the group came back together, I think a couple of people got gapped off the back. With Mark G. kind of pushing the pace, we had a fairly good ride out to the turnaround.

The ride back had some tailwind sections, so the pace quickly jumped up to 25 mph or so with occasional surges up to 27 or 29 when Mark would hit the front. Those surges split the pack a couple of times along the way.

On the local front, the President is in town right now for a quick publicity visit. Some people are all excited as if he's a rock star, and others seem to be pissed off because he isn't staying very long. (He actually extended his time in the city in response to that.) Personally, I don't really think it matters whether he's physically here for one hour or four hours. If he wanted to have some serious discussions rather than just photo opportunities and speech time, a couple of days would be a good start and that ain't happening for sure.