Hard to put my finger on why this morning’s ride seemed a lot more fun than most, and more the way I remember from the past. Pretty big group, as you can see in the photo. Weather? Not like a few days ago, so dressed up in leg warmers and light base layers, but not bad either. My only concern was that I’d forgotten to use my asthma inhaler before the ride but it really didn’t seem to make much difference. Yes, I sounded a bit worse, kind of a wheezy sound at the bottom of each breath, but I felt pretty good.

The group stayed together on the climb up Kings, with the exception of Kevin J, who’d had to take a brief stop for relief near Huddart, and I rode a bit behind the main group so I could keep an eye on him and make sure he was doing OK. We came across Brandon, who’d left a few minutes earlier than us, just past the park; he had intentions of trying to hold our pace for a while, but that’s tough to do when you’re carrying a backpack with work clothes on a bike that’s a good deal heavier than the rest of us were riding.

Everyone stayed together the rest of the ride, at a good but not deadly pace. The sort of thing that I could really get used to. And I can especially get used to completely dry roads on descents! No worries about sliding on tar stripes, nor holding back impatient cars behind. Life is good on days like today. There will be many more.