When rain is not the issue?

Well, when there's a 20 mph wind along with it of course!

I rode Salem Bicycle Club's "Peach of a Century" today.

The weather forecast called for a 90% chance of rain this morning and a peek out the window and a look at the radar image confirmed that the bike of choice today would be the rain bike. (more robust drive train, full fenders with buddy flaps)

My brother-in-law Dave and I rode together today, and there were about 10 other members of the social bike club there as well along with quite a few folks I've met through cycling over the years.

We got registered for the ride and pedaled off on the full century route, and directly into a 20 mph wind. It's fair enough to say that most of us have ridden into winds of this intensity before, but it doesn't make it any more fun! It was a long slog of about 20 miles into this wind before we made the turn on this somewhat circular course and the wind quartered out of our face.

Now we had rain to add to the fun. I stopped and put my goretex raincoat on, knowing that with the reasonably warm temperatures over heating was a likely outcome. I opened all the vent zippers to help with that issue.

The middle of the route is hilly. We climbed 4000 feet in the one hundred miles, most of it in the middle 35 miles. The rain lasted a couple of hours at varying intensities. It was wet but not cold. The last 30 miles or so we had winds ranging from sideways to directly in our face. After the morning's wind battle, the hilly mid section of the course, and now back into headwinds it turned out to be a tougher ride than expected. I've done The Peach a half dozen times, this was the hardest.

Part of my issue was heat. I knew I was getting hot but only had 15 miles to go. I unzipped as much as I could and just planned to pedal it out. Bad decision. By the time I rolled slowly across the finish my bike clothes were just soaked with sweat.

Oh well, call it training! (and as odd as it seems, call it fun!)

..........road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total
Today.......100..............0.............0..........0.........100
Jan.........474..............0............21..........7.........502
Feb.........530..............0.............0..........0.........530
March.......502..............0.............0..........0.........502
April.......524..............0.............0..........0.........524
May........1003..............0.............0..........0........1003
June.......1016..............0............10..........0........1026
July.......1148..............0.............0..........0........1148
August.....1049..............0.............0..........0........1049
Sept........924..............0............50..........0.........974
YTD........7076..............0............87..........7........7260