TOPWLH opens, street closes

TOPWLH requested that her bicycle be prepared for Saturday as she wishes to resume riding.  I did only the minimum, pumping the tires but I suspect I should also probably lube the chain.  In any case pumping the tires was sufficient to get her onto the road today.  If the chain ends up requiring something additional there is a whole summer to get to that.  She also appears to need new bar tape.

It has gotten too hot too fast here.  Yesterday and today were sufficiently oppressive to induce consideration of air conditioning.  I actually clicked it on once this afternoon just to hear that reassuring start up but then opened the doors and windows instead.  Too hot too fast leads to turbulent weather and our share today was a 70 percent chance of rain.

It was mostly sunny, hot and muggy and noon but we started out anyway despite the 70 percent warning.  We had to, her Bianchi was ready and it wasn't actually raining.  We had progressed fewer than two miles when I pulled into the driveway of the State Fair for an examination of the sky.  A cloud had rolled across the sky and we were no longer riding in the sun.  I pointed to one cloud mass and then another and pronounced that those were both rain and they were coming our way.

We circled part way into the Fairgrounds still nominally outbound but I could feel the air changing.  We turned back for home.

We didn't go directly home as it wasn't actually raining yet.  We rode on lots of neighborhood streets within a couple of miles of home as TOPWLH got her first look of the year at a lot more of the neighborhood than you can observe while walking.

I was surprised to find that this road has now been completely de-paved.

That's our street up on the other side of the county highway/main street at the end of our block.  There has been a lot of sewer work going on over there but complete removal of the pavement caught me by surprise.  That street is now clearly closed to road bicycles although I am sure mountain bikers, comfort bikers and cycle-cross could all probably still have a go.

I ride road and I count on that street a lot for the various getting back home with the mileage I want loops.  That means that this is a problem.

Something will work itself out.

She was the first to actually feel a raindrop but that's as it should be, she was riding behind me, therefore to my west and slightly south for a weather system approaching from the southwest.  I took her word for it and immediately turned back and pretty much immediately also felt the misty beginnings.

We got in 8 miles, the last half mile or so in conditions which had proceeded beyond misty to unmistakable rain, light rain, but rain.  Even so, 8 miles is probably an OK first ride.

I sat in the house for a while with my costume still on and eventually a brightening of the sky convinced me to try again.  I got an additional 2 miles for a total of 10 before a restarting of the weather event drove me back to my garage just barely ahead of the onset of the heavy stuff.

Sometimes a short ride is the only ride you are going to get, today was one of those days.