Well, this morning's ride was challenging as the winds were out of the southwest at 17 gusting to 28 mph. The direction meant that as I was going up the slight uphill I was not only fighting gravity but the wind too. I'm guessing based on my perceived effort that it cost me about 1 mph on the uphill. Of course you would hope that would mean an increase on the downhill, but it was more of a cross wind and blocked by houses and a wall. Here's the map from strava:
This morning's ride was also challenging due to an idiot in his little white car. On my first lap, at the end of the block, on the short street (Mercer see the little bump in the lower left on the map above), I noticed a car in the driveway of a house with a woman leaning in through the open passenger door. The car was running with the lights on. No big deal.
After I made the 2 turns and headed up Quarterhorse towards Pebble, I heard an engine racing and the whit car came flying by doing about 60 in the 35 mph zone. He passed me with a good bit of room so it was no big deal. he got to the stop sign and merely slow as he took the corner. When I finally made the corner and looked he was already approaching Durango (about 3/4 of a mile away) with his right signal on. He must have been flying down Pebble which has a 45 mph speed limit. I thought little more about it as I made my way around the rest of my loop.
As I got to the end of the block again, I saw the woman standing in the street looking away from me in the direction the car had traveled. As I didn't want to startle her, I moved towards the center of the street. As I was passing her, I heard an engine and saw headlights turning onto Westchester and come flying around the corner. I moved to the left side of the street, next to the parked cars and the car passed about a foot to my right. He probably wasn't even paying attention to what was in front of him. I'm glad I was defensive and had moved to the right or he would have run me down.
I shouted that people shouldn't drive if they were idiots, or something to that effect and kept going on my way. I had thought about stopping and letting the driver know just what an idiot he was, but figured he was likely drunk, it seeming like they were coming home from a late night since it was 4:20 in the morning. My common sense and discretion prevailed and I just kept riding, thinking to myself lots of nasty things I would like to say to the driver.
It figures that there were only 2 cars that passed me this morning on my ride and one of the two was a total idiot. Anyway, when I next passed the house the car was gone and there was no one outside. My guess was that they were dropping the woman off and needed to run to the store to get her something. Th irony is that I ride in the early morning to try and avoid the idiots on the road but it seems they still find a way to find me. :)
Other than that it was a good ride and I enjoyed myself.
So, get on your bike and ride!!!!!!!!
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