Desperate times call for desperate measures. Thus, I found myself in a light drizzle heading out to the levee early yesterday afternoon astride the trusty old rain bike, wearing the trusty old rain jacket. Meeting up with Mignon who was on her vintage mountain bike, we rode in the off-and-on rain out to The Dip, battling the 20-30 mph winds on the way back. Although the idea was to do an easy ride, the head and cross winds made that rather difficult, but even so, I was glad I'd ridden. It had been warm enough to make a two hour ride in the rain relatively enjoyable. By evening I was already thinking about what kind of ride I might be able to put together for Monday. I figured the weather would have to be better by then.
So this morning I flew down Carrollton toward the lake, pushed along by a strong south wind left over from the rapidly retreating Tropical Storm, arriving at the Starbucks to find ..... nobody there. Hmmm. Considering the fact that it was still extremely windy and the roads were quite wet, I hadn't been expecting many, but then I hadn't been expecting to be alone either. Fortunately, a few minutes later Tim, Woody, VJ, Daniel and Mignon arrived. A minute after they sat down it started to rain. We waited for a while, and then when it looked like it was ending we headed out. Of course, it immediately started raining again. The lake was quiet with the south wind as we rode down Lakeshore Drive. I thought that with only six riders, pouring rain, and 20 mph winds we'd be taking it kind of easy. As usual I was wrong. Tim and Daniel were making sure we didn't waste the day's ride by going slowly. By the time we on Chef Highway we were going 27-30 mph in a steady rain. My glasses were fogged up, but taking them off would have meant exposing my eyes to the wheelspray, and since I was mostly sucking wheels by then, there was a lot of it. With the combination of water spraying right into my face, foggy and dirty glasses, and rain, I really couldn't see much of what was in front of me. For all practical purposes I was just riding on blind faith, taking at least a little comfort in the knowledge that the other riders in our little group were all experienced and predictable riders. Somewhere along Hayne we'd lost Mignon, so we were down to five riders. Four and a half if you consider how many pulls I was skipping.
We weren't sure if we'd make it out to Venetian Isles since all reports were that the road was flooded out there. Indeed, when we came over the levee and through the open floodgate the road ahead looked like a lake, so we made a u-turn and headed back. We weren't halfway back before it became obvious that the wind had completely shifted and was now coming strongly out of the northwest. By then, although the rain had stopped, the wheelspray hadn't, and it was starting to feel cooler. I could feel road grit in my teeth, ears, and basically everywhere. The return trip down Hayne Blvd. got harder and harder as the wind became more and more gusty. Coming over the Casino bridge there were a couple of times when the wind almost took my front wheel right out from under me. I don't know what would have happened if I'd been riding deep aero rims, but when we crossed the Seabrook bridge a few minutes later I was careful to stay low and close to the right side barrier where there was at least a little protection from the wind. Looking down at the lake it was hard to believe it was the same lake we'd ridden along an hour or so earlier. The lake level had already been a few feet higher than normal because of the tropical storm, and now the wind had shifted around to the north, pushing all that water up against the seawall. When we came over the levee onto Lakeshore Drive at the bottom of the Seabrook bridge we found the road to already be flooded and had to detour back to Leon C. Simon.
It was a long, wet ride, and by the time I got home my legs were a little sore, I was soaked to the skin, hungry, and chilled. Not quite an "epic" ride, but close.
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