Long time no ride

I've been neglecting this blog, mostly because I've been neglecting my road bike. Poor Paris hadn't seen the great outdoors for over two weeks. I was determined to change that tonight. I spent the entire day holed up in Muddy Waters working diligently on my focus group transcription, knowing that at the end of it all I would reward myself with a nice long ride on Paris. It had been hot out, but beautiful and sunny when I arrived at the coffee shop. At some point, in the four hours I was there, the weather gods decided to mess with me. As I left for home, it started to drizzle. It stopped by the time I arrived. I checked the hourly weather forecast... 50% chance of thunderstorms. Hmm... I looked outside and saw nothing but dark gray overhead, but a whole lot of light gray to the west. And the weather here always moves from west to east. Hmm... So I checked two other weather sites. They both agreed that it was only a 40% chance of showers for the next two hours (probably use the same satellite data). I decided to believe the majority and get myself all kitted up to ride.

It was still dry and the wind had died down when I walked out to the garage. As I was putting on my helmet and gloves, I heard the first raindrops. By the time I had my shoes on, the rain was coming down pretty seriously. I stood in the garage and contemplated my options. Give up? Or get wet? I chose to get wet, and boy did I ever. It poured, and thundered, and lightninged for the first 30 minutes of my ride. I kept looking ahead at the lighter gray skies in front of me, hoping that I would catch them or they would catch me before my willpower gave out. I did, or they did, doesn't matter which. The end result was a very wet start to a mostly dry 35 mile ride through the rolling countryside. Just right for getting back into the groove of things.

Oh, and as soon as I got home, it started to thunder, lightning, and pour down rain again. I guess the weather gods have a sense of humor.