Last Saturday’s ride was wet. Also plagued by flats, three of them, and I forgot to charge my electronic shifting so I spent the last 25 km in a single gear.
Luckily the shifters are designed to dump you into a nice middle of the road gear before giving out completely.
The ride was, however, completely redeemed by the wonderful company of Joh and Sarah. I love riding with Joh and Sarah.
Here we are!
Anyway, during the ride I got to thinking about cyclists and lies. Not the lies we tell non cyclists but rather the lies we tell ourselves.
The lies cyclists tell are rather notorious. See The lies cyclists tell in Canadian Cycling Magazine.
Here’s some that seem relevant to today’s ride:
The ride must start at 9
Reasoned completely a priori thusly. There’s an early start and a later start for bike rally rides. Long rides start early. It must be 9 and 10 am because that makes sense. So this is 103 km so we need to be there at 9. Except no. It’s 8 and 9 am. We need to be there at 8. It’s a half hour drive to the start. Whee! Zoom!
We’ll be back by noon
Every single group of cyclists has someone along who believes this. It doesn’t matter how far we’re riding or when we leave, we’ll be back by noon. Except it’s 103 km. At the sweeping pace that’s 5 hours riding. Plus stops for lunch etc. Leaving at 830 after the last rider. That’s never seen noon, as my father might say. More like mid-afternoon. More like 3 pm when everything is said and done.
It won’t rain on us
Yes there’s rain in the radar, all day, everywhere, but it’ll miss us. We won’t get wet. It felt good to say that, to think it. But it wasn’t true.
The wind will turn in our favour
We have a wicked wonderful tailwind on the trip out. I scored a bunch of personal bests on Strava segments I’d ridden before. None of it was my doing. Thank you wind. Sarah said she thought, or hoped, that the wind might turn and follow us home. But it never does. Or rather it only ever does if you have a headwind on the way out. Then the wind might turn and give you a headwind both ways.
Anyway, really it was a pretty good ride. Wind and rain and mechanical issues aside.
You can sponsor me in the bike rally here: https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/mobile/mobilePersonalPage.aspx?registrationID=3654465
Hahaha! We’ll be back by noon is the lie I tell non-cyclists… 😉