Sunday, October 05, 2008

Sunday Soaker

The weekend started on a promising note with a nice ride with the Brands group on Saturday. It was a cool start at around 48F, but there was no threat of rain and a light wind. About 10 of us started out on a shortened route so that the LBS guys could get back early for a busy sale day at the shop. Just straight up Round Swamp Rd. to Rt. 25 and back.

Four of us peeled off to do the LIE service road rollers that are part of the usual Brands route. Then I went for a solo loop through West Hills. It turned out to be a great riding day.

Today (Sunday) I was really looking forward to doing the Early Birds, but when I got up at 5:30AM the roads were wet from overnight rain. I check a couple of online radar maps and forecasts and things didn't look to promising. I decided that I would just stay close to home and do a solo ride.

I headed out at 7:45AM on the Trek, just overcast skies and wet roads. Drizzle started almost immediately, then the heavy rain hit just 3 or 4 miles in. I though a few times about turning back but I didn't want to waste a weekend ride. Besides, I was already soaked through, so I figured I'd stay reasonably warm as long as I kept riding.

I ended up doing the Brands route and West Hills, solo, on the Trek. First hour was in steady rain, very heavy at times. Then the rain blew out after about 20 miles, just at the turnaround point on the LIE. Probably would have ended up with the same result with the EB's but by doing the solo ride I avoided the long trip home and got to use the rain bike instead of the Specialized.

A little bummed not to do the EB's but glad to have pushed through the rain and get the miles. Hopefully better luck next weekend.

2 comments:

PyZahl said...

You did the right thing... even we did not got into too much or any heavy rain, as we cut back after that "incident"... but the heavy shower would have gotten us at the very end if we would have finished the route normally, as it was pouring as I came out of the KK at Manorville shortly after we returned early from the ride...

nickm said...

Yes rain was heavy for about one hour. I was glad to get home and get warm and dry after almost 3 hour ride being completely wet.

Sorry to hear about the crash on the EBs. Hope everyone will be okay. Last week at the EBs, someone was just talking about how dangerous that bridge is when wet (wet roads last week too, but we went north).