Yesterday's forecast was for thunder/lightning in time for the ride home so I decided not to ride in. Guess what? The weather forecast was wrong (I hope you were sitting when I shared that incredulous information!!!
) and it would have been, not only a nice ride in to work but a beautiful one home (although it was quite breezy so headwinds would have been part of the ride home).
Today's forecast is for rain mid-day but not during the periods of my morning ride in and my afternoon ride home so I took a chance (we'll see how that works out).
I took my Kona Sutra loaded down with clothes and lunches for the rest of the week (plus the other pannier with rain gear and spare clothes in case I was soaked on the way in) so, all told, likely a 22.5-25kg/50-55lb bike. However, I decided to try a slightly different pedalling method where I put in at least a little bit of effort during the complete rotation of the crank (not heavy all the way round, just, at minimum, some pressure on the chain all the way round) and it might have been why, despite the breeze and heavy bike, I completed the 17.9km/11.1mi commute at an average speed of 26.1kph/16.2mph which is quite good for me as I normally can't go much above an average of 25kph/15.5mph unless I'm riding my Look racing bike so I'm really quite happy with that.
It was a warm 18C/64F that "Feels Like" 24C/75F and with a 94% relative humidity, I was really sweating when I arrived at work. I was wearing a Buff to try to prevent sweat from escaping from the front of my helmet onto my glasses or into my eyes and I think it worked but some did sneak by but I don't think I had the buff far enough forward onto my forehead.
Hopefully, today's rain will be done by the time I finish work as I have a 35km ride to my inlaw's place then to home after that: they are at the cottage (locally, we call them camps but they are not tenting) and they have a doctor's appointment sometime next week and it is only on the calendar at their home so one of us has to go there to check it.
Have a great day fellow cyclists!!