Training Ride In The Wind

Today was one of those days that it would have been much better to stay home and stay out of the wind and cold weather. The Midwest is still getting cold, raw weather. This morning it was in the mid-40's and the wind was coming out of the northwest at 20+ mph, which made the windchill about 7-9 degrees cooler than the actual temp.

It was going to be the first ride where all 5 of the Colorado riders were going to be together (Jim, Dave, and Bob from Muscatine, Steve from Blue Grass and myself). We met at 8:30 at the elementary school in Blue Grass. Steve's wife, Gina called me a little before eight to tell me that Steve was not going to make it. His daughter-in-law in Kansas City had a baby and he was heading down there to be with them.

Our goal was to head north on Y-40 through Walcott and Dixon and then on Y4E northwest to Wheatland. It was a miserable ride to say the least. Bob, who has ridden for many years told me that it had to be one of the hardest rides he has been on due to the heavy wind. Since the wind was coming out of the northwest and we were mostly going north, we couldn't get any draft from the person in front so we were all exposed to the wind all morning.

After taking a short break at the Phillip's 66 station in Wheatland we began the tailwind portion of our ride and it was truly enjoyable and made up for the first half of our ride. We ended up with 49.5 miles for the day and with the wind and hills we felt like we got in some serious training for our Colorado ride which is coming up in only 6 short weeks.This picture was taken in Walcott on the return trip at Casey's. Bob is on the left, Dave in the middle and Jim on the right. Notice the donut sign. After seeing it Bob brought to our attention that he might have some donuts to snack on when he gets home.