Riding in the rain like a wet rat.

The word for today is rain - what was I thinking?  or was I thinking?  I had planned meeting the husband of a friend of Emily's today for a ride, as he is a cyclist and is here for 8 months or so.   The weather did not look good, and the forecast was for rain, so we communicated and put off the ride until tomorrow morning when the weather is supposed to be fine.  I had it in my head to ride, though, and the skies looked ok at the moment, so I thought, what the heck, give it a try.  By the time I was downstair and suited up, ready for rain, it had started a pretty steady light rain.  Actually, quite nice for climbing, but I put the coat and hat on immediately.  As I was climbing Via Bolognese, it actually looked pretty good toward Montefanna, so I thought, that sounds like a nice tour.  By the time I was in Pratolino, it was pouring pretty good, and I could not even see Montefanna.  Time for plan C.

I got over to Vetta alle Croce, and it looked ok, but threatening in many directions, so I picked the fastest, most direct way down.  I really kept the speed under control, as with everything quite wet, the breaking is slower and the roads are slick.  Around 1/2 way down, before Caldine, the skies really opened up and it truly poured for around 5 minutes.  I was pretty well outfitted for rain, but it was raining hard enough that I had to be careful not to get too much rain in my mouth or nose just from riding.  Kind of fun, really, as home is only around 15 to 20 minutes away.  I hung in there and the rain stopped around 10 minutes from home.  I got in relatively cold and very wet on the outside, but my gear performed well, and I was fine.  Let's hope for good weather tomorrow morning.  Short ride today as it turned out - 17.5 miles (28.5 km) in 1:29 for an average speed of 11.8 mph (19.0 kph) with 1900 vertical feet (579 meters) or climbing.  17,520 km for the year with 2480 left for 20k.  Ciao.

No pictures - it was wet enough that I did not even think about getting the camera out of my pocket.  Tomorrow.   Kept to low intensity, which was kind of nice.  It seems to work to simply gear down one or two gears to keep the intensity low.  One climb today is around 10 to 15% for a kilometer or two, and that was the closest I was to going anaerobic.