APP-arently right
2019 Outdoor Season: Ride #41
The Route: YIKES!
The Miles: 11.0
The Time: n/a
The Ave. Speed: n/a
The Weather:
Sunny to end of the world
75
Wind, 10-30 mph!
Season Total Miles: 899
Once in a while I guess the machines get it right, and I mean REALLY right.
My TV meteorologist friends will enjoy this post because it is all about the weather.
With my wife out of town in Pittsburgh for two days, I decided to do some head-clearing LSD today on a nice sunny day. I would have the time.
LSD=Long Slow Distance riding. Heck, since yesterday was my 61st birthday I even had thoughts of trying 61 miles today since rain yesterday kept me from even trying the old tradition for cyclists of riding your age on your b-day.
Here's the funny part of this, what turned out to be the shortest ride of the year, not the longest. At about 11 a.m. I checked the Google weather app on my phone. It showed sun and 75. It showed sun for noon. It showed sun for 1:00. It showed sun for 3:00. But randomly it showed rain at the 2:00 o'clock hour. Nowhere else, just at two.
I remember even joking with my neighbor while walking my dog before heading out that it must have been a misprint.
Quick lunch for fuel and then off into the sunshine I rode, nice and easy and battling a steady 10-15 headwind as I headed to the west out of town.
Sunny and 75, just like the app said it would be at 1:00.
After about five miles into the young ride and while swearing under my breath at all the headwind knocking me down, I looked straight ahead to the west and saw a dark line in the sky.
This always is puzzling because at the time you are riding in bright sunshine, but out in the countryside you can see pretty far ahead and it looked black out there, like some weather was blowing in.
At first I ignored it and kept going, but as I inched closer that line looked all too familiar to a guy who knows a thing or two about weather. Those weren't just some false alarm, don't- worry-about-it dark clouds. That was a real line of weather blowing in.
I made a decision to scrap my plans for a nice long ride and turn around, not wanting to get caught in a thunderstorm while out surrounded by nothing more than corn fields and trees.
Now it became a race against the wind. But I used the wind to my advantage because it was now at my back heading home. On this same stretch riding out I was fighting to go 10 mph into the wind. Now I was noodling at 22 mph, riding like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. On a mission to beat that storm home, I kept my head down and my feet dancing.
As I crossed the water on the Friendship Trail Bridge I noticed a lot of people with their eyes to the sky, looking intently on what I could only imagine was the horror behind me that I was trying to beat out.
Off the bridge with a left turn I grabbed a look.
YIKES.
Hello darkness my old friend, along with a few low-hanging clouds that looked like baby twisters! I wanted to stop to capture a picture of it all, but there was no time for that, as just then I heard the thunder and saw lightning.
Like a bat out of hell I hit it even harder now for the final blocks, pulling into my driveway just in time to snap the picture you see here with this post. And that was nothing. That was the good part of the leading edge.
I looked down at my watch as the wind kicked up to gusts over 30 mph and the rain began.
1:50 p.m.
Are you kidding me?!
The APP was right!
And get this.
As I type this post up now at 2:30 the sun is coming back out.
Just that quickly it's over, just like the app said it would be.
Now I feel foolish. I should have waited and just left for the ride later, post-rain. I should have trusted the app?
I guess I could go out now again, but a nap sounds even better to me at this point.