Goddamn Right it's a Beautiful Day

We're finally having spring weather! After weeks of yucky cold rain and snow, this weekend was finally lovely and sunny. The temperature has slowly been climbing day by day until today - it's almost 80° out.

Naturally, I had to take advantage of the loveliness so I jumped on my bike this morning to do a "serious" ride. After all, I really need to get back into shape if I'm going to ride the MS 150 in June and not die. So I set out to do a fairly easy ride from my place to the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon. It's about 27 miles all together, and the first ten miles are pretty much all uphill.

It was actually a really good ride. I am in better shape than I thought I would be. After all, I haven't done anything to keep in shape through the winter. But the hills (which are absolutely my weak point) weren't too bad. I think that all the dancing I've been doing probably helped. It's not much, but it certainly didn't hurt. Anyway, I was feeling good until I got to the top of the hills and turned south.

That's when it really hit me. The wind. A good strong 20 mph (or so) coming striaght at me. The stretch of the ride that goes south is usually a really nice bit. It's flat or gently downhill for a few miles and usually I can get going about 30 mph and maintain that just by peddling occasionally. It's a really nice run. Today, however, with the stupid wind, I was struggling to keep at 10-15 mph.

It seems kinda silly to talk about this in terms of speed, but it's the best way to illustrate what was going on. I have a cyclometer, so I can really quantify how much I was slowed down. Man, the wind really kicked my ass! Riding into a wind like that also really dries a person out. Since it's not that hot today, I would have expected to get through the whole ride with about half as much water as I ended up drinking.

Of course, the upside of a treacherous headwind is that it turns into a tailwind when you go the other way. My ride back was super easy. The wind practically blew me home.

I guess I didn't really make my ride sound all that fun. But believe me, it was. Even going into the wind, it was kinda nice. Just feels good to be back in the saddle. No, take that back, the saddle does not feel good at all. My butt hurts, I guess I have to get used to being on a bike seat for long periods of time again. Man.... But what I meant was that it felt really good to ride again. It's been a long off season, and yeah, I've gone on a few short rides this spring, but those hardly count. Plus today was really quite lovely. The sort of day that it's really a shame to be indoors.