Bike Club

Well...Mother Nature sure is chuckling at us mortals (specifically ME) this weekend. It started raining for us Thursday afternoon literally as I was driving to the start point of my Thursday mtb ride. It wasn't forecast to rain until late in the evening...but Mother Nature is good at blowing predictions out of the water. I believe she takes special pleasure in doing that.

And then...yep...the weekend forecast: rain rain rain. Not huge torrential rains that would actually do drought stricken California some good. Nope...just drizzly 'keep everything wet and muddy' type rains off and on throughout the weekend. And then Monday it's supposed to be clear. Of course. Mother Nature knows my work schedule.

And even though the forecast called for rain starting in the morning on Saturday and going on and off all the way thru Sunday, I figured I'd call an audible on it and see what things look like Saturday morning. Sure enough, I get up to dry roads. Looks good to me I figured...whatever rain is headed our way I can beat. That was my thought.

So with that mindset, I didn't prepare for rain. AT ALL. I took off wearing my bibs, a short-sleeve jersey, and arm warmers. That was the extent of my 'cold weather' gear...arm warmers. Oh, and wool socks, but I always wear wool socks, so that doesn't even count.

And so...I get to the half-way point of my intended ride (the top of  Tepesquet Canyon) and thought smugly to myself "yep...I beat the rain...now I'm half-way and still dry". Ate my banana and started descending, and almost right away there were tiny sprinkles in my face. Much like when you get a pre-cramp 'twang' in a leg muscle telling you a full-blown-epic-cramp is imminent...I knew it foretold of bad things to come. Our 'normal' winds here (about 345 days a year) blow from the north...but our quite rare storm winds come from the south. As I descended SOUTH the wind was in my face coming up the canyon, carrying with it the smell of lots of moisture.

By the time I was at the half-way point of the descent it was no longer just sprinkles...it was full-on rain. The roads had passed being 'damp' or 'wet' a few miles back, and were now standing water with the rain blocking my visibility to a few hundred yards at best (also my photo-chromatic sunglasses were being pelted with rain, not helping the view one bit). I didn't even have a wind-vest with me, let-alone on. I was S.O.A.K.E.D. My feet were squishing around in my shoes, rain was running down my body and I could feel the water being flung up my back from the rear tire, and spraying my calves/thighs from the front. I peeked at the temperature on my Garmin...it had dropped from 63 to 56 in the span of about 10 minutes. To say I was COLD would be a huge understatement. My toes were totally numb, fingers too.

I thought about stopping to call Jeannie for a 'bailout' ride home...but kept descending hoping as I got to the bottom and turned west I might ride out of it. I did. As I crossed Santa Maria Mesa (at as high a speed as I could hold, just trying to get some body heat going after the 10 mile descent) the road got dryer and dryer. Then the road got wetter and wetter...but I didn't hit any new rain..just some more sprinkles...I think I had caught the tail-end of the next system moving thru and was quite thankful. I wasn't drying out any, but I wasn't getting any colder, and also the temp had picked back up a few degrees and was now just over 60.

I made it home uneventfully, setting a PR (Personal Record) on the Clark climb (again, just trying to keep my body heat up by riding as hard as I could). When I got to the top of the Clark climb I knew I was basically done with the 'hard stuff'. It was all downhill (or very nearly so) from there. I hit over 40mph hammering the Clark descent into Orcutt as hard as I could hold, knowing I'm now less than 10 minutes from a HOT SHOWER. As I was nearing home after what was going to be a nearly 50 mile road ride, I couldn't help but laugh at myself, and realized that I forgot the Bike Club rule.

You see, there is only 1 rule in Bike Club: "you can't beat the rain".

Even after the "Godzilla El Nino" winter we 'sort of'' just had, we are STILL in our 100 year drought. Our reservoirs are almost empty, and our groundwater supply is at historic lows. But hey...it's all about ME, and knowing the rains this weekend will likely be the last we see for quite some time. Long enough away that I will most likely once-AGAIN forget the rule of Bike Club next time I try to beat the rain. Why do I always do that? It must be some genetic abnormality that I refuse to accept the forecast and steadfastly deny it will rain on me, and thus go out totally unprepared.

So...here I will work on my mantra: repeat after me over and over: YOU CAN'T BEAT THE RAIN. YOU CAN'T BEAT THE RAIN. YOU CAN'T BEAT THE RAIN.

Got it.

Until next time anyway.

And GO FABIAN...ride like the WIND in the Hell of the North tomorrow!

Cheers!