The Art of Racing Into The Rain
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It's called a "louring sky". I've always called it a "lowering sky" but the wisdom of the Internet says the 13th century term is "louring". Pronounced "lowering". Either way itnwas a clear warning that things were about to get wet as I started down the driveway for a very fast 8 mile ride around the block. Literally, around the block. There are no shortcuts or adjoining streets. It is 8 miles from start to finish whether you like it or not.
I was not expecting rain when I got on my bike. I stopped to check the radar app and figured if I hurried I'd be fine.
Famous last words.
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1 mile down the road I stopped for this shot. The clear skies beyond the louring skies lured me into continuing the ride rather than doing the sensible thing ...which was turning around and fleeing back home. After all, the storm was at my back and I was headed away from it. For the first half of the ride, that is.
Midway, as the roads began to loop around to head back, I looked up with increasing concern that, rather than the storm moving away, it was expanding to the point where I was now headed straight at a gray curtain obscuring the entire countryside. The first drops began to fall. My lack of foresight resulting in me forgetting my jacket and being out in just a pathetic lightweight t-shirt and short shorts and flip-flops meant I had been too much of a temptation for the weather gods to resist. Rather like washing a car and hoping it doesn't rain. That gray curtain blocking out the countryside said only one thing, as did the rising wind, suddenly fierce enough to start shaking and bending the trees around me, causing a cascade of pre-autumn leaves to be ripped from branches and swirl in swift agitated circles through the air down to the road under my feet. I was doomed.
I stopped and quickly packed anything electronic into the gallon plastic bag I always keep in my panniers. I put my head down, put my sandled feet on the pedals, and raced directly into the gray curtain standing between me and home.
The light sprinkle almost immediately turned into a downpour. The rain hit my bare arms with the sting of ice pellets, soaking my shirt, my shorts, my hair, my underwear, my helmet, and the road. The gravel road turned into a muddy morass within seconds, and the raindrops on my sports glasses obscured my view to the point where I had to feel my bike's front tire to know if I was getting sucked into deep mud because I couldn't see the road. Water poured off my helmet and soaked my gloves as if I'd dunked them into a filled bucket. There was no escape from that downpour unless I took shelter under a tree and waited it out. I did try that for a few seconds, but I'm not the most patient person in the world and home was only a few miles away. What's a little more rain when one is already soaked to the skin? And cold.
A mile further, and a slight bend in my direction of travel moved the gray curtain to my right. The weather gods, having had their laugh at my expense, signaled a truce in a very dramatic way across the entire sky. I got off my bike, wringing out my soaking wet gloves after I took them off, retrieved my phone from the safety of the plastic bag, and snapped this shot.
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The horses in the fields seemed quite nonchalant about their wet coats as they continued to graze under the arc a beautiful double rainbow. Somewhere beyond those trees was a pot of gold. Maybe two.
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I hadn't been sure that my phone had taken these shots since I was shaking from the cold and a light "after the storm" rain was still falling which was getting touch screen wetter by the second the longer I kept my phone in my hand. So I snapped these shots, shoved my phone back into the safe depths of the panniers, wrung out my gloves once again, and took off the final 2 miles towards home. The weather gods still had one last laugh as they turned the temps down into jacket wearing territory. It was the toughest 2 miles I'd ever ridden. Cold, drenched, and shivering while dodging water filled potholes, rivers of water cascading down and across the gravel roads with trees shaking their rain soaked leaves overhead as I hurried along counting the seconds in my race homeward.
The final half mile from home I suddenly felt warmth on my shoulder. I glanced up through the trees, peering out of my rain fogged sunglasses to see that the sun had come out, illuminating a sopping wet landscape as the sheets of rain raced away in the opposite direction.
I rolled up my driveway under the most innocent of skies draped in the most impressive baby blue.
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A warm apology, albeit late in the game, but still graciously acknowledged.
It did take me another hour to warm up, tho. By then it was raining again.
... Don't fall down...
