Well, after a winter that has seen very little rain so far , Mother Nature decided to play a little catch up this weekend. Ok, make that a lot of catch up as Santa Rosa received nearly 6 inches of rain from Friday to Sunday. While there were a few downpours, it was mostly just a good steady rain.
I knew on Thursday my chances of riding were going to be slim. You don’t have to be a trained weather professional to understand the meaning of this picture. I decided to sleep in and when I woke up it was pouring. Since I couldn’t ride it seem like a good weekend to work on the book and I was able to finish chapter 12.
Around noon I was going a little stir crazy. Then I read on FB that a friend had run that morning. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s never raining too hard to run. I went for a quick 2.7 mile jaunt where I saw the local creek down the street was almost at flood level. This is when I realized just how much it had rained so far.
Finally, around 3:00 I gave up the ghost and spent an hour on the trainer. During my run I remember that I built out a set of wheels just for the rain. After my spin session, I took the steel frame Jamis off the trainer, swapped out the wheels, moved my gear back and basically got the bike ready to go for Sunday.
I woke early on Sunday and continue to spend time writing in my book. Later, Sherry and I went out to breakfast and did the weekly grocery shopping. It was raining but not too bad. Once again, around 1:00 I couldn’t take it anymore so put on a kit and a ton of raingear and headed out for a ride.
My plan was simple. Go for an easy 1-hour ride that stayed on bike paths as much as possible. I roll through town and make it the Prince Memorial Greenway. From there I plan on catching the Joe Rodota Trail. It didn’t happed that way. The Greenway goes under 2 roads, which puts the path close to Santa Rosa Creek. Both of these areas where flooded.
I powered through the first flooded section (BTW – full shoe booties don’t keep your feet drive if they are fully submerged) but I’m guessing the second one was nearly waist deep so I decided to find another way to connect with the Rodota Trail. This picture shows where I was planning to ride (yes, there is a bike path under all that water).
Once I was on the trail I began acting like a little kid. I rode through every puddle I could find. I mean, there’s no use riding in the rain if you’re trying to avoid the puddles. What kind of bullshit is that? In Sebastopol, I start thinking about where to go next but since I know there is flooding everywhere I decide to simply retrace my path back home.
The ride home was uneventful except for one really cool instance. There was woman walking her 2 small dogs on the trail. As I slowly rode by she pointed at me and said “You’re crazy!” with a smile on her face. I can tell you my smile was bigger since she has no idea how much I consider that a compliment.
Finally, I’m back home. Although I’m soaked I managed to stay warm so it’s all good. All-in-all it was 17.75 miles of pure fun. As of right now, the weather report for next weekend is once again calling for rain and I’m looking forward to doing it all over again.
Ciao!!!
