45+ Miles On The Bike Was Our Goal...

...but didn't think we would be welcomed by a monsoon to start our early morning ride!

This past Monday morning Joann, Dee and I headed to BWW to do an early morning ride with a regular BWW group of riders starting at 5:15 AM. We planned to do the Urban Loop with them and then head out East to finish on the Van Meter loop to try to get in 45+ miles.

As I drove to BWW for the start of the ride, I noticed it starting to sprinkle a little. According to the radar, on my handy dandy I-phone, it looked like we might just get a little sprinkling for the start of our ride, but wasn't supposed to be get too crazy. Not many were gathering for the early ride this day, possibly because of the threat of rain. It ended up being the three of us and three other riders. One was a new rider, out of Chicago area, named Mike. After one last evaluation of the radar, along with the encouraging advise of Mr. Dave Mable, that we would only get the “tail” of the storm, we headed out to try and "Git-R-Done.” Joann, recovering from a broken collar bone, decided not to take any chances with the threat of slippery roads and opted out of the early ride. JoAnn, it was so nice to see you back on the bike so quickly after the accident. Great job!

We started out with the regular early group, but after about 2 miles ,decided that they really must have wanted to ride by themselves, because they started out really fast and it was just too dangerous with the heavy rains to go continue at that pace AND it was still dark out. At one stop light, our brakes weren't even working properly. So Dee, Mike and I let them break away and by this time the rain was really starting to come down. By the time we got to the Valley Junction area the rain was coming down so hard it was stinging our faces. We decided to not take any chances and pulled into an awning area to wait it out. I am so glad we did.

Once the rain subsided, we headed out again and Dee suggested that we just turn around and head back East to complete the Van Meter Loop instead of trying to finish the Urban Loop first. As we headed back east my enthusiasm to continue on was dwindling and I really just wanted to head back to Bike World West, get in my car, head home to take a nice hot shower and get the work day started. I'm glad that Dee encouraged us to continue on. We ended having an awesome ride, along with our new friend Mike! It turned out to be a beautiful morning and so our goal 45+ miles was complete!

Thanks Dee and our new friend Mike from Chicago! I couldn't have done it without you!