December Rain Day

Dramatic weather change as the cold front arrived

Man, the weather's been all over the place lately, at least around here.  I know I shouldn't be complaining.  After all, I was able to ride every day this week, except today. It's 11 degrees at noon in Chicago, and 31 in Olympia where I'll be next Thursday. Here it's more about the dramatic weather swings rather than the absolute temperature.  Sure, I could go out right now in the light rain and gusty wind and, properly attired, get in a good ride (and probably a couple of flat tires), but it'll be nice and dry tomorrow, and it's December, and I'm going to be off the bike for a whole week soon anyway, so why risk it? I think this morning, however, at least deserves mention.  I left home shortly after 6 am to ride out to Starbucks where the Giro starts. The temperature was a relatively balmy 61F with a light south wind.  I rode out in the dark wearing just my summer kit.  I'd checked the weather and they weren't predicting rain until around 10:30, so it seemed like getting in the Giro ride was a viable option. I walked into Starbucks, picked up a coffee, and when I walked out the door it was like I'd stepped through a portal into an alternate universe. Within minutes the wind shifted from southerly to northerly and from nearly calm to 30 mph gusts. As I hurried to finish my drink I could hear the canvas awning above me flapping wildly in the wind. A few minutes later as I stood up to leave I heard the raindrops. Fortunately, the rain was still very scattered and light, so I surfed the tailwinds back home, arriving still mostly dry.  The temperature must have fallen ten degrees in the interim. I felt like I should at least get some character points for trying.

Thursday morning on the lakefront

The prior week of riding included everything from warm wet streets and flat tires to cold and windy conditions. I think it hit 80 degrees a couple of days ago. Thursday morning's ride was another one of those crosswind days out on the lakefront that made for a long morning. Yesterday's Giro Ride was pretty nice.  The weather was still warm and the wind wasn't too bad. Although the streets were kind of wet because they were sweating from the humidity, there was a good turnout that kept the pace brisk but fairly consistent. Out on Chef highway we passed a few of the earlier SaMoRi group on the side of the road fixing a flat.  Then, on the way back, they turned around and got in with our group. It turned out they had had like four flats. The rest of their group was ahead of us, and a while later, on Hayne, we caught up with them, so we rode back in to Lakeshore Drive with an unusually large group.

Heading back on Hayne Blvd. with the Giro

Things at work have slowed to a crawl. Exams are over for most of the students and the response I get to most things lately has ended with "after the holidays." Dustin and some of the Tulane riders did a ride yesterday on some of the Rouge-Roubaix course, which was probably pretty nice except for the gravel, or because of the gravel, depending on your perspective.  Personally, I am not much of a fan of riding a road bike fast over loose gravel on unfamiliar roads. In fact, I have kind of a love-hate relationship with Rouge-Roubaix.  I don't know how many times I've ridden it.  Maybe five or six times.  One thing I am sure of, though, is that I've never finished it in any condition better than shattered. Those last twenty miles have always started as torture and ended as hell, even when I was in pretty good shape and placing respectably back around '05. For the past few years I've instead been officiating the race in consideration of my increasingly fragile bones and risk-aversion.

Anyway, thanks to the relative lag at work I'm ticking off items on my LAMBRA transition list, changing contacts on websites, paying the web hosting and insurance, and generally trying to put things in some sort of order so the new officers don't have anything urgent to deal with for a couple of months.

We'll be heading off to Olympia on Thursday for about a week. The warmest temperature in the forecast for that period is 48 degrees and the coldest 34 with the usual chance of rain for the Pacific northwest.  I'm not bringing a bike.  I'm kind of considering bringing shoes, pedals and riding clothes just in case an opportunity arises, but it probably won't be worth it under the circumstances. I'd practically need to bring a whole separate bag just for riding clothes, I think.