The plan: the normal 8am ride with the boys. Last ride of winter – Super moon – high tide ride with the boys! We had hopes of seeing a monster high tide that would lap up at the creek trail.
Since most rides these days are “weather permitting”, we weren’t going to go if it was raining. We’ve got caught in a couple of down pours before and its no fun.
Woke up this morning, looked out the window, the backyard was wet but it wasn’t raining. First thing I did was check the CBS5 hi-def doppler. Things did not look promising. Doppler showed no rain over Fremont but some green and yellow cells lingering over the bay. Looked like the yellow cells were heading our way, but it also looked like we could “thread the needle” and dodge the rain. Either way, I sent the following text at 7:19 am : hi def doppler shows more rain coming. ride later this afternoon maybe. Unless you want to go for it.
So Vandy is at spring training so I know he’s out.
Joe Camello wisely texts back : no its going to come down pretty good. take a picture.tempted but will pay for it according to forecast.
Now John Downing, the man I consider the more “sane” one of the group, shot back: No wind. I wanna. You?
Here is where I could have suggested we wait until later or cancel all together. Instead I text:
OK!!!!
The ride out was actually kind of nice. Our goal was to make it to the end of the trail, check out the tide, and high tail it back home. Somewhere past mile marker nine going out to the bay, John says, “hey we’re flying!” Sure enough, we had a great tailwind pushing us out. When you ride with the wind, sometimes you get in the “vortex” where, the wind is blowing like crazy, but its eerily calm and quiet. Because for a certain time, you match the same speed and direction of the wind. Its very cool. The last little bend before the end of the trail turned the tail wind into a cross wind, and we knew that it would be a long haul home. But still, no rain!
We took a very quick break at the end of the trail. Saw snow in the hills behind Mission Peak and white caps blowing in the old salt pond. Oh, and not- so- high a high tide. After a couple of quick pictures it was back in the saddle for the long peddle home. A mile into our ride back, the head wind was brutal, and the rain started to come down. Hard. We made a quick decision to bail on the creek trail and take the short cut home. Through Coyote Hills, over to Ardenwood farm, and up and over the freeway to Cabrillo. It was raining so much and the wind was blowing so hard that we took a 15 minute refuge in the doorway of the Coyote Hills visitor center. It was weird because both John and I were already soaked from head to toe. My legs were red like a lobster. But in that doorway of the visitor center, out of the wind and rain, It felt warm! Almost good. That’s how frigging cold I was!! Another look at the hi-def doppler (this time on my droid) showed that the storm was passing. We waited another five minutes and sure enough the rain stopped. It was still a cold and windy five miles back to the house, and another mile or so further for John Downing. But at least it wasn’t raining! Needless to say it was one of the more memorable rides in recent memory, and after a nice long hot tub soak and shower, it really didn’t seem that bad at all!!
Note- the pictures above were taken BEFORE the rains came.
