Grading this afternoon. Class prep this afternoon. A bike ride this afternoon. We are getting down to that time of year where any of these rides could be the last nice ride of the year. I hate this feeling.
There will be a few weeks of colder riding. I have some nice long pants and I’ll put plastic bags on my socks to keep out the wind. I have full-finger gloves and a parachute windbreaker. All of that buys me about 20 degrees of toleration. Also, it slows me down considerably. I’m not sure which of those two things is what ultimately drives me inside. Maybe we’ll find out this year! (Sigh.)
But not today. Today was beautiful, and I had a pleasant 30-miler. Here are some of the sights.
I wonder what this building is for:
Whatever it is, those water spigots seem pretty important in the design.
What’s really fun here is that when you get to this spot you’ve been going up a fast false flat, but right at the top, the little hill actually challenges you just a bit, unless you’re really turning over the pedals. And then you see this power station. And then it flattens out and points down just a tiny bit. Free power!
This is work on a 160-year-old steeple. It started this week. The church thinks it’ll be complete before the weekend. There are maybe 400 people in that community, I wonder what it was like in the 1860s. More horses and carriages, I’d guess.
And now a story about the wind. On my last road, headed home, I had a notable right-to-left crosswind. Coming up was a side road that is a .82 mile segment on Strava. So I turned right and rode into the headwind, so I could turn around at the other end and race down it with a tailwind. On the way up, I was riding into the sun, and saw this tree.
At the other end of the road I turned right, just to add on another mile or so, and see some more sights. Like this combine.
And that same combine in profile.
As I turned around and headed for that segment, that wind, which I’d ridden in for about 80 minutes, absolutely disappeared. So I was about 15 seconds off my best time on that segment, which was recorded 53 weeks ago. But, hey, I’m still supposed to be taking it easy. (Until Friday.)
Back at home, a lovely sunset was underway.
Click to embiggen.
This evening, more class prep, and other class stuff. Tomorrow, class!
