Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Blowin' in the wind


Well, it looks like I'm the first of (hopefully) several new contributors to this blog. I live in Austin, TX and have a friend in San Antonio. Your average motorist would most likely just hop on IH-35 for about an hour and a half if they wanted to go and visit said friend. But why spend all that time looking at Car Dealerships and Outlet malls when you could spend several hours bonding with your bike and enjoying a much more scenic view? Normally, I don't have a good answer to that question. Saturday however, the answer was 20 mph head winds (gusting up to 30mph).

I'm busy grad student and although I ride at least a bit nearly every day, I just don't have time for big rides every weekend. Obviously, I didn't want all my planning to be for naught. So, Saturday morning I just decided to start riding and see how far I made it. I figured the worst that would happen was that I'd find I hadn't gotten very far after a few hours of getting a good work out and then I could turn around and let the wind blow me home.

I don't even think I was riding at half my normal pace. I called my friend after about 25-30 miles to let him I was turning around. It turned out he had his parents’ minivan and he offered to pick me up somewhere if I needed. Since I was no longer risking complete exhaustion even further from home I decided to keep going. Coming out of San Marcos I met a racer named Nick who graciously let me draft him most of the way to New Braunfels. About 30 miles from my destination I decided the wind was just too much and called in for a ride.

Sunday, I made it about 15-20 miles (with a great tail wind!) before this happened:

I don't know how well you can see, but suffice it to say that wheel is nowhere near true. My options were now: ride without breaks or be slowed way down (and I'm sure at least wear out the pad). I called my friend, and it actually turned out he was leaving for Austin (something came up at the last minute) and I ended up getting another ride.

Some rides just weren't meant to be...

On a lighter note, I never got stranded anywhere and always had options other than get picked up (turn around, and ride with just the back break). Using a bike for transportation does require some more flexibility than other forms of transportation, but it does work.

Needless to say, it’ll be awhile before I plan to make it 83 miles straight into that kind of wind.

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