stormy weather

It was nice when I left the house a little after 7:00 this morning. A little overcast, but the sun was peeking through the scattered clouds, and the temperature was around 70. I had the Tour de France recording at home and hoped to get a good few hours of riding in before relaxing the rest of the day.

Somewhere around mile 15 it was growing more cloudy, but still a little sun, so I kept riding. The worst that could come of it was I would get wet. I decided to make it a loop that would get me at least 30-35 miles and hope for the best. As I reached the furthest west point and headed north I would have traded my sunglasses for some night-vision goggles. 

I reviewed options in my head for the eventualities of lightning, hail, tornadoes, but none of those things came to pass. For the most part, the darkest clouds, and the rain they contained moved away from me as I rode. I made a circle around it as it happened. The only way I knew it had rained was by riding on wet roads as I neared home. But it never rained on me.

I ended up with 42 miles and only a minor mishap. The last few miles to home I took the bike path to avoid the busiest streets. I should have known better. I hit something on the wet blacktop and went down hard. The fall pushed the brake hood on the left side in, but my drive-train was safely facing up. my buddy, Pat, would say "money side up". I lost a little skin on my elbow, bruised my hip, but really not too bad. My new Pearl Izumi bib shorts came through almost unscathed. When I watched Lance crash later, I could really feel his pain.