Fun & Fitness over 50

Now I remember what I wanted to talk about Sunday's ride. The wind.

There was a pretty hefty wind that night. In fact, we had some humungus rain earlier in the day. I guess the storm was worse than I thought. On the ride, I saw one big tree down inside somebody's roof!

So yeah, it was windy. A big front came through. Turning it from hot to cool. I was talking on the phone on Friday to some guy from Dallas and he asked me what the weather was like up here in upstate NY. I said hot, 83 degrees. He laughed and said that ain't hot!

Anyhow, it got real cool after the front came through. I didn't check but it felt like it was in the 60s.

I rode one of my usual routes, a loop. Because of the wind I rode reverse my usual direction which traverses Meads Lane which has a western exposure. When it's windy, the wind is usually from the west so if you ride Meads from south-east to north-west, as I usually do, you get the wind in the face. I hate that. One of the things I forgot to say about today's ride is that I had a headwind. Riding into the wind makes me angry for some reason. Especially if I'm trying to do a hard workout or make good speed or something. As I've said before, it's personal. It's as if the wind has a will and it's opposing you. Just when you're thinking it's bad ... it gets worse! GRRRR!!!

In any event, it was a successful strategy and I had a nice tailwind all the way down Meads. As usually happens when you have a tailwind you don't even notice it because you don't feel it. You're going along with it. I forgot all about the wind and only realized it in retrospect. My normal mode when I'm going east on Meads is to slam it and get my speed as high as I can for as long as I can. It's hard work. This time I daydreamed my way down Meads and couldn't even remember riding it except for the hairpin turn down Van Dyke at the end. I didn't even notice my speed and couldn't have cared less. It was too pleasant!

Now that's a good tailwind! You won't hear me complain about that.