Can the Weather forecast be trusted?
 

Since the last Blackberry Cobbler ride was last weekend, today I had planned to do a 100k that actually uses a lot of the same route as the BC ride. This is an annual "Polar Bear" ride that is an annual fundraiser for one of the local cycling clubs and last year over 500 riders signed up. I had planned to ride 15 miles from the house to the start and then ride back after riding with the group.

Well, the last couple days we have been getting high wind warnings for today. Winds are supposed to be 20-30 mph with gusts > 40 mph. I'm even getting pages from work warning of very high winds-in fact in one county not too far from here they are forecasting 60 mph winds.

My dilema is I'm sitting here and it's just 1 hour until ride time so it's time to make a decision. There is a little breeze (5+) but nothing significant. The weather forecast says it should be blowing around 15 mph arleady but it's not. But, I don't want to get out there on my own and find I'm 40 miles from my house and I have headwinds of 20-30 mph. Not only is it tiring, it can be very dangerous.

I guess I'll take the safe course and sit this one out but will be very irked if the forecasts and warnings across the bottom of the tv set turn out to have missed the mark.

Some of you folks don't seem to mind riding in the wind, but I'm just not sure this might be a little much.

Why not do some "close-in" "solo" shorter rides, all within a safe distance from your home. Perhaps exploring for another Cobbler place? That way, if things get bad, you can scoot home easily. At least, that is what I do when concerned about weather and distance from home.

You can still send your money or collect pledges for your charity.

Hope the weather report is right for me tomorrow-sun and temp of 45f. Won,t make any difference though as we'll be out on the Mud trails in the forest so rain would be a godsend to wash the bike off a bit. If warm enough we might even have breakfast outside instead of in front of the Log fire in the cafe.

Can you call anyone or perhaps a business that's in the area you'd be riding and get a "personal" weather report?

That's a good suggestion.

I made the decision not to do the ride and it was probably for the best. What would have been about the 1/2 way point, the winds really picked up and gusted 30-35 mph. I have not talked with anyone who did the ride but I'm sure it was pretty hard work just getting back to the start.

In addition, I wound up doing a conf call this morning with others I work with to talk about problems the winds might cause for my company. Tomorrow is supposed to be a better day so if I can just figure how to get out of a ski trip to the NC mountains I can get in a few miles over the weekend.