Wishing for Daylight

The minute I awoke, I reached for the remote to check the radar. I'd pumped up the tires on the old Pennine - my antique rain bike with full fenders - the night before, just in case. The predicted 50% chance of rain hadn't been particularly helpful, so I figured I'd eliminate one more possible excuse in case it was raining. To be honest, I was kind of hoping there would be a light rain. This time of year I tend to be pretty lazy on the bike unless prodded, so I would have been quite content with a solo ride in the rain. As it turned out, though, there wasn't hardly any rain within radar range, so although it was overcast, grey and quite windy, wet roads were not going to be an issue today.

When I arrived, right on time at 6:15 am, there were just a couple of people there. I wondered if the wind and possibility of rain had scared everyone away. More likely, though, it was just the late sunrise and cloud-enhanced early morning darkness. Within a couple of minutes most of the others arrived and so we headed up the river with maybe ten riders and a nice little tailwind. It didn't take too long for the tailwind to push the speed up past 24 mph, with occasional surges into the 27 mph range. It was hard to tell for sure because it was quite dark for nearly the whole way out, which made for some very sketchy riding. I was hanging back about a bike length farther than normal, just to be on the safe side, the whole time clutching the handlebar and wishing for daylight. It wasn't helping that John's blinky tail light was aimed directly at my retinas the whole time, either. Just as we were approaching The Dip we started to feel just the slightest bit of misting rain, at which point everyone behind me quickly reached a consensus on turning around early. It really wasn't necessary, but the prospect of riding all the way back alone into that headwind made my decision to go with the herd rather easy.

The push back into the wind started out smoothly enough, but the numbers at the front kept dropping as we went. After a while gaps started to open as the yo-yo effect came into play. Situation normal.

Later, on my way to work, I decided to make a quick caffeine stop at Starbucks where I knew the Anniversary Blend would be on tap. Just before I got there I passed a parked car that had *two* boots on it. I don't know how many outstanding tickets you have to have to earn a double boot job from the NOPD, but it's got to cost a bundle of cash to get those suckers off. Somebody was going to be having a bad day for sure. Anyway, I like how the photo makes it look like a San Francisco street!