It was fun going to bed Monday night, knowing that it was going to be raining pretty hard for our ride. I was looking forward to waking up to the sound of rain and wind during the night, but didn’t happen. But when I woke up it was at least raining, not hard, but raining. And as is usually the case for our first real rain ride, it took us quite a bit of extra time getting ready, so yes, if you didn’t see us at 7:45am at the start, it’s because we didn’t arrive until almost 8.

But you also didn’t see us because… nobody else was out there this morning. This was the rarest of rain rides, the first time in ages we didn’t see a single other silly person out on a bike. It ended up being even shorter than usual; we climbed Kings, nothing else, because I had no power, no zip, nothing at all to climb with. And the rain was not constant, so you didn’t even have the “epic” nature to spur you on. Kevin was feeling much better, despite not having ridden Sunday.

This was also the first ride in enough rain that my electrically-heated gloves completely soaked through, but thankfully continued to work. Good excuse for finally washing them.

Thursday it’s supposed to be wet again, but not as much as Tuesday. We’ll see!

Still not sure what to make of these one-wheeled things; first time I saw one was, not sure, 5 to 10 years ago at the Tour de France. Today was the first time I’ve been passed by one on a local ride though!

For some reason I felt really good when I got up this morning, as if I’d gotten enough sleep. Maybe I had? Didn’t bother to test myself until after the ride (still Covid positive); maybe that helped. Kevin wasn’t feeling quite as good, still complaining about his hip after Sunday’s ride, where he insists I told him to go to the front and hammer.

It’s funny to think that we’d be ok with a 38 minute time, but that’s a minute or two faster than the prior two efforts, neither of which took the longer route through the park. I was in trouble through the park, but recovered well on Kings and was able to play around just a little bit. Not much. It took a while to feel comfortable at anything above 200 watts, which is really sad! But it felt really good that we were doing the full ride, not bailing on the West Old LaHonda section.

I’d like to say that West Old LaHonda was wonderful and welcoming, but no, it just felt difficult. And no rabbits out today! Guess they actually do hibernate. Funny that I can’t even remember what the view of the coast looked like, as we were proccupied with a couple of large birds that were just hitting the breeze, flying effortlessly into the distance. No wings flapping. Wish I could ride a bike like that!

Post-ride weight is now back down to 163, just two pounds above normal and 5 pounds below what I weighed after my two week, non-cycling vacation that I returned from 10 days ago.