Rain Bike Days

Yesterday and today were rain bike days for me. Although the forecast for both days was rather worse than reality, the decision to ride the old Pennine was an easy one. Tuesday morning at 5:45 am I peered through the Levelors and was surprised to find it wasn't raining. That was encouraging. I checked the weather radar right away. That was far less encouraging. I whispered to myself, "it looks like there's a little hole in the rain!" There was a good chance I could get in a few miles before the city would be overtaken by the green stuff, so I stuffed a rain jacket into my jersey pocket, pumped up the tires on the full-fender Pennine, flipped on the blinky lights and headed out to the levee. The air was cool but unsettled and you could tell that things were changing. There was nobody at the usual meeting spot, which didn't surprise me at all. Who would be crazy enough to go out on a morning like this when it was guaranteed to rain?

I would soon find out.

The first person I saw riding toward me was Howard. He turned around and asked, as if he was surprised, "Is this it?" I assured him it was, and told him I was just hoping to get in twenty miles without getting too wet and cold. So we rode on at a pretty easy pace for a few miles, and then Howard commented, "I think I feel raindrops." A little while later we met up with Mark G., and by then we were riding in a light drizzle that showed no sign of stopping. Still, it was pretty light and looked like it would stay that way, so I set my sights on a turnaround at the Pipes, which would give me my 20 miles and likely get me home before hypothermia set in. It never did rain very hard, but by the time I got home my feet and the fronts of my legs were feeling pretty cold. It rained most of the day - that cold, drippy kind of drizzle that chills you to the bone.

At 5 am this morning I could hear it raining pretty hard outside the bedroom window, but by the time I got up an hour later it had stopped and the radar was looking pretty good. The streets, however, were soaking wet. I knew that would keep most people off their bikes, but fortunately my rain bike's fenders would keep my feet and legs nice and dry, so I went out as usual. It was one of the loneliest rides I've ever had on the levee bike path. I probably saw four people the whole time, but by the time I was on my way back the asphalt was drying out and the sun was shining in my eyes, so it turned out to have been a good call. Granted, I never seem to get much of a workout on days like this, but I think it's still worthwhile to do these kinds of rides as long as you don't get too chilled. Right now the weather is much improved and the next couple of days should be windy and chilly, but definitely without rain.

So my nephew emailed me the other day looking for some information about my grandfather for a project he is doing at school. I dug out some old photos and stuff and spend a while with the scanner looking at an old diary and some old photos. It's nice that these things have survived the last hundred years or so. Reading my grandfather's brief diary that starts a couple of days before his wedding in 1922 and ends with his return from a honeymoon trip to California, I was kind of surprised that I had seen and visited most of the places he did. Here's a scan of a couple of pages of the diary recounting a train derailment approaching Colorado Springs and a couple of days of sightseeing before continuing on back to New Orleans. I don't think he ever got to take another extended trip like that and had to make do with reading National Geographic.