Turned out to be a warm day. Although it had rained a short bit before I got up today, by the time I was ready to do something all the roads looked dry. Of course I hadn't planned on a day road ride in hot weather so I sat a while pondering what I wanted to do. Radar maps showed most rain had passed although the forcast said there might be more later in the day. ( Yeah Right
). Decided to go get a haircut hoping by that time I'd maybe figure out a way to out fox Mother Nature.
Back at the house I perused the local Weather Underground stations to check on how much rain fell in the place I had planned to mountain bike. A history of the last week showed that the area in question had gotten more than an inch on Thursday, that I already knew about. I figured after three days it should be good to go but then I checked on how much fell today. The graph showed only 0.2". Now normally I wouldn't have let that amount of rain stop me but with the combined rain that fell on Thursday I figured it might have softened the trail surfaces again. ( drainage on this particular trail system is not particularly good, this I know from experience ) Damn!, I said to myself. "Looks like MN got her revenge". At that point is was a little too late to start the Patapsco ride I wanted to do earlier in the week. Could of done it but damn it was hot so I thought it better to wait for a better day. That left just my local area for a ride. Fully dark by this time it cooled a bit and turned out to be a fairly nice night for a ride although it was still warm.
On one particular short /steep hill ( on the same MUP I rode last night ) I hit the assist mode button to "normal" just to make it easier since it was hot. When I was almost to the top I powered down to "eco" mode and then suddenly I thought I had lost all assistance from the motor. Looking down at the module the module indicated "eco" mode. Damn, felt like I was pedaling a tank. I stopped to think on this and to be sure something wasn't wrong I rebooted the module. After that all seemed fine, eco mode seemed like eco mode. I realize now that this just might have been a mental faux pas on my part but I really am still not so sure. At the time I was still going up a slight hill and so I have my doubts. What I should have done was taken the damn BT ear buds out of my ears so I could hear if the motor was working or not. I'll remember that the next time this happens ( if it happens ).
Well MN nixed my mountain bike ride but I did get a nice local ride in. Still, MN was punishing me by blocking out the moon and shutting down most of the lightning bugs. Turned out though that I scored a victory because obviously she was tempting me to extend the ride, WHICH I may add, I almost did. Turned out to be a smart move "not to extend the ride". That was because Mother Nature planned to ambush me at the end of my ride. Of course I had no idea about that at the time. Turned out to be just dumb luck on my part not to extend the ride. That's because not more than ten minutes after I got home and had removed most of my cycling clothes I heard a big,
Ba'Boom outside. ( a very loud thunder clap ). I got up from my couch and pulled open the blinds. Just a torrid of rain falling outside! Now where in the hell did that come from! The weather radar before I left showed no storms anywhere near. I realized this was Mother Nature using one of her old tricks.. the sudden Pop-up storm. This type of storm is very common in this part of the country especially during the summer months. This is why I have to always carry rain gear.
Anyway, after I stared out the window in disbelief for a minute or two I suddenly remembered I wanted to test the rain gear...Wow! Now how could I have forgotten that! I quickly threw on my cycling clothes and put on the rain shorts I have and the rain jacket ( And with the hood under the helmet ). And of course the goggles that I treated with Rain-X. Boy did I feel like a jerk as I'm outside pedaling around my parking lot in the pouring rain. I'd of gone for a longer ride but had just finished a ride and so decided just to lap the parking lot a couple times. Got some strange looks from some folks who were in their cars waiting for the rain to stop. The good news; The rain gear work very well although I'm a little disappointed that the Rain-X I used on the goggles didn't seem to do too much to remove droplets from the front of the goggles. Still, the goggles were a vast improvement over just wearing my glasses. Considering how hard it was raining they did a fair job at letting me see where I was going.
I'm still worried of course that Mother Nature is not yet finished with me this week. (
) Tomorrow brings another day and another episode as the saga of the "Me vs. Mother Nature" battle continues.