Well commute number three has come and gone. Morning ride was unremarkable with the possible exception of the young gal who politely said hi to me as she blasted by on her mountain bike. Sigh, those were the days. Other thing of interest was seeing a late 80's Cannondale that looked original. Bike was in nice condition.
Ride home looked to be without rain, so I dumped the rain pants and headed out in the shorts. I hit the bridge feeling pretty strong, as soon as I hit the bridge the wind started and so did the rain. If there is a god, he has a cruel sense of humor. Even on the first day, I had climbed the uphill section at 10mph. Today I was fighting to hold 7mph. The gusts would cut me down to below 6mph. One gust dropped me below 5mph and I thought I might topple over as the second one hit me. I unclipped as I thought I might go down and stopped. The wind really blew for about another 30 seconds then let up enough for me to resume. It soon became apparent that I would succeed or fail standing, as I simply didnt have the horsepower to sit and grind up. 2/3rds up I promised myself I had given it a hell of an effort today and that I just needed to cross the bridge and call it. I crawled the rest the way up, churning the pedals at a slow walking speed while standing. I figured why not atleast look at the bottom of the next hill. Got there, smiled to myself as I thought "This is going to hurt a bit" and started up. The wind was just a breeze once off the bridge, so I crested the top with some effort. Nothing of interest after that, I dawdled home. 3 rides down, a lifetime to go. smile
Suprising how much stronger I was even after just two rides last week. Im pretty sure I would not have been able to make the top in this wind last week. For now Im sticking with 2 rides a week, totalling about 60 miles. A good start, and even if I just carry this amount of riding through till the spring, I think I will have a good base for a successful summer.