Rain Bike Morning

It was a Rain Bike day

Tropical Storm Gordon is racing in our general direction, but all indications are that it's headed for the Gulf Coast well over a hundred miles east of the city, so (1) we aren't expecting any significant impact, and (2) naturally the city is taking the opportunity to have a day off. The weather around here has actually been pretty nice thus far, and if things go as expected we could end up with a nice refreshing north wind tomorrow. Of course, we will be getting some rain like we did early this morning, but Gordon is a pretty lopsided storm and at the moment it looks like almost all of the heavy rain in on the eastern side of the center.

This morning I stepped out the door promptly at 5:45 am. The street was dry until I closed the door behind me. Then, right on cue, it started to rain. I turned around, unlocked the door, and went back inside to peruse the weather radar. It didn't look bad at all, and I figured the rain would stop within half an hour, so I pulled the Rain Bike down and pumped up the tires (it hadn't been on the road in months) and waited. Sure enough, the rain stopped. The roads were wet, of course. The Rain Bike has full fenders and heavy tires with Mr. Tuffys inside, so riding on the wet streets isn't a problem at all. Going fast, however, is definitely a problem since the bike probably weighs in at 25 pounds or so, but I wasn't planning on going fast. After three back-to-back Giro Rides, I was more than happy to do a short and easy ride on the levee this morning, and while the ride turned out to be both short and easy, it didn't turn out to be entirely dry. I got rained on twice during the brief 20-something mile ride, but with the temperature around 80F it didn't matter a bit.

Meanwhile, Tulane decided to officially close at 4 pm today, but is expecting normal operations tomorrow. I'm not sure what difference it makes to close at 4 pm instead of 5 pm when nobody is expecting much of anything around here, but anyway, that's what's happening. Looking at the radar right now, around 3 pm, it looks like all of the real rain is going to be in the Mobile - Pensacola area. Maybe as far west as Biloxi. I'm sure the local TV weather forecasters are disappointed. Since this is the first significant threat we've seen all season, they had been covering it as if it was an impending disaster. Hopefully I'll be able to ride tomorrow morning. We'll see.