wet and wild

"it was the best of rides. it was the worst of rides." - the gears of wrath

i was awakened by the shrill tones of my ems pager at 4:45am, fifteen minutes before i had planned to get up for my ride. since i was up and i wasn't on call, i got dressed and headed out the door.

the weather radar did not show any rain, but it was raining. a light misty mess greeted me as i rode out to the highway and turned east. the damp surface road glistened as the beam of my redneck headlight hit it. (well, that's not quite true. my attempt to make the light stable pointed it off toward the tops of the trees on the opposite side of the road. a bit more tweaking and i'll get it right.)

the ride itself was enjoyable enough. yeah, i was wet, but i was riding. my only complaint was the folks going the opposite direction who thought it was helpful to leave their brights on. high-beam headlights in your eyes make it hard to see the edge of the road. thankfully, i didn't end up in the ditch while trying to spot the road through the brilliant light.

there was a bit of a scary moment once. i was adjusting the position of my headlight about seven miles out of town and accidently hit the off button. i couldn't see anything but the vague impression of a white line to my left. i slowed gradually and then when i was sure i was ready to stop, clicked out. i was going faster than i thought and nearly fell over. i fumbled around and found the switch. light! and i was off again. riding as if nothing had happened. hope that kind of thing doesn't become a regular occurrence. (20.10 miles @ 16.3mph)