10 degrees down

Air temperature, that is!

I knew I needed to take advantage of the sunshine earlier in the week because the weather forecast called for a very rainy day today. In fact, I figured that my weekend would be short one riding day - but luckily I was wrong.

Each day was ten degrees cooler than the previous day when I headed out of the door on my bike. Well almost each day... you'll forgive me a tiny exaggeration, right?

During the week, my rides were all after work with a start time right around 5PM. On Wednesday, I headed out in shorts and a short-sleeved jersey to take advantage of the warmth, temperature in the lower 70s. Thursday I added knee warmers and a wind vest to be sure I was comfortable in the lower 60s. Friday? The temperature was in the lower 50s, so I changed to a warmer shirt - a Patagonia R.5 pullover covered by a wind breaker. And Saturday was a slightly cooler version of Friday, just 5 degrees cooler this time. It was a relatively good riding day. Not a bad week overall, but with each day being a good 10 degrees cooler than the previous day I was beginning to think that the season is working into autumn instead of spring!

There was a forecast of steady rain for today, so I assumed that any outdoor exercise would be by foot. I heard the rain overnight. The roads were still wet this morning, and the sky was very gray - but there appeared to be no immediate threat of the predicted rain. What to do... It was cool and windy, but the roads dried out so I headed out for a short ride. I didn't trust the weather wizard, so I headed out on a ride of several short loops. Ride, ride, loop again... Oh! What was that? Someone is throwing water at me. Someone? Perhaps the weather wizard is trying to tell me something. I cut my last loop a bit short and headed directly for home. I was lucky today. Just ten short minutes after I rolled my bike into the house, the skies opened up. Rain.