Saturday's Eventful Ride

On Saturday I was able to get a decent ride in with a few intrusting events. Brian Hopkins (aka brownie) and John came up to ride with Rich and I. Brian who rides for AG3R, brought his new cross bike up and took that on the ride instead of his road. We started in front of the shop and ended getting to the hub parking lot; it seemed that Brian’s cassette needed to be adjusted so we had to turn around. After that was resolved, we started off on the 3 man loop. The ride was supposed to be someone light, but that thought lasted about a mile or two. We really started to get moving and were all pulling decent speeds. I remember looking down at my computer and seeing a 29-32 speed for a long stretch. While we were still moving we passed his house on a nice flat and a little white dog started to run towards us. I instantly thought of that video of the cyclist running into that dog during a race and collapsing his fork and front tire. Now this dog was not nearly as large, but the thing was moving like a bike seeking missile. Luckily the dog decided to slam on the breaks before being turned into bike kill. The ride pace was decreased a little bit after we realized that the pace was a bit on the fast side. About an hour in we started to notice this lingering black cloud and we seemed to be headed right into it. I didn’t think much of it figured it would hold on the rain. About ten minutes after that we road straight into a downpour. The water was coming down so heaving I could hardly see through my glasses. The worst part about the rain is getting pelted with the rain from your front tire and from the rear tire of the rider in front of you. The rain lasted a good ten minutes and when we finally road out it was clear again. The remainder of the ride was peaceful and some of the trees are starting to change colors. We ended up with a decent 35 mile ride with a decent average speed.