whoo-hoo! we had us some weather today. wind warning, rainfall warning, and they weren't kidding about the wind part at least. 55kph headwind, with gusting crosswinds up to 65 on my way in. the wind had been blowing all night, so the road was just littered with crud all the way in - twigs, leaves, small housepets . . . i gave up any expectation of a normal commute as soon as i got out of the house and just took the whole thing steadily and carefully, so it was extremely fun. mostly because it was at least 9 celsius and not raining yet, i suppose.

coming along the long flat approach to the bridge though, i saw something huge blow across all six lanes of traffic, just missing all of it, and fetch up against the road-facing side of the barrier about 50m ahead of me. when i got to it i discovered it was basically a chunk of the side of somebody's house: a ragged-edged sheet of vinyl siding about 4 feet long and at least 2 feet wide. that sobered me up a little, but also made me awfully glad i hadn't been out there in a car. on a bike you can at least see something coming and change course or stop, no? i turned it long-side down against the barrier so it wouldn't give the wind anything else to pick it up by and flip it onto the mup and went on a bit more cautiously. the warning was still on with an extra 10kph tacked onto it when i set out for home, but i can't say i noticed it much. the main feature of the ride home was the eerie quiet of having a wind like that at your back instead of your front.

overall, probably my coolest ride so far this year.