The second-most-miserable ride I’ve ever done
I had a choice yesterday – do two hours of over/unders on the turbo, or a group road with the VCGS lads. I’ve spent way too much time on the hamster wheel, so despite a somewhat dodgy forecast (“light rain, SE winds around 8 mph) I went for the real miles option.
Biking to the meeting point, the weather was bad – I guess a Scottish “light rain” is a bit different than a Texas one. I rode past the Duke of Wellington statue to check out the traffic cone situation, and was greeted by a “Euro” cone on the second day after Brexit (note: in the referendum, Scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU).
Five of us showed up – Calum peeled off fairly early on. Then Peter, John, Dan and I made up our own little Sufferfest “Flanders Weather Fest” ride.
I’d like to say “good ride” but that would be lying. It was cold wet and miserable! Temp never got higher than 4, and the rain – always cold – varied from “heavy” to “I can’t see shit”. The ride up the Crow Road (one of Scotland’s classic road climbs) was nice and warming, but the descent the other side – not so much. I was totally soaked through, despite multiple layers.
At the cafe stop midway I loaded up on coffee (x2), soup, and a fucking awesome fruit scone, but that still didn’t warm me up much.
Just as I pulled up to the house I realized my front tire was going flat. That was one little silver lining to the whole ride – if I had flatted earlier I probably would have just laid down in the road in a fetal position and cried.
Got inside, jumped in the shower and had fully body chillblains… Annoyingly, by the time I got out of the shower the weather was dry and the sun was even peeking out.
Finished the evening drinking a beer, watching Netflix, with a cat on my lap. That’s the way a Sunday should end.
