There are a few four-letter words in the cycling lexicon that are better left unsaid in normal conversation. The first is the dreaded F-word and the second is the W-word - both four letter words but equally ugly to a rider. I've been lucky recently with the F-word (f=flat for the uninitiated) recently. No glass, no nails and none of those nasty sssssssss sounds while I'm riding along. However, the last couple of days the W-word has been much in my world...again, for the uninitiated, W = wind. Yesterday I would swear that there was some evil force watching my route and every time I turned and changed directions the wind changed and continued to blow directly into my face. I did a relatively short ride of 35 miles but the wind was in my face for at least 20. Would be good training if I were headed to Texas...Made me want to warn all my cross-country colleagues but I didn't - they will make their own discoveries just as we did. Today was a little less intense but I had chosen a hilly route and so every time I hit the wind it seemed like it was combined with a 12% grade. In fact I did a much longer route and much climbing today but on the way home the last ten miles is flat and even directly into the wind it was a piece of cake. And as evidenced by the two photos today was a truly beautiful day - dogwoods, flowering fruit trees all in bloom combined with a perfectly blue sky and temps in the high sixties are pretty hard to beat.
The W-word stopped us yesterday completely. it is not good for ship either. Even though it was a big paddle boat, the coast guard wouldn't let us sail. This was in the usually calm SE Texas.
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