That’s funny, I thought to myself as I cycled back from my latest excursion with the BNCC. The road ahead looks as though it’s going straight into a wall.
That’s even funnier, I thought, because that car up there is now driving straight into and up the side of that wall. And then I realised: it wasn’t particularly funny, and it wasn’t a wall, either. It was the side of a hill and that was the road was going straight up it. I had thought I would be okay because I’d chosen a route home that I’d been on before and I didn’t remember it having any really serious hills on it, which just goes to show that the passenger seat of a car is no place to choose a cycle route from.
But there was nothing for it, so I gritted my teeth and plugged forward until I hit the wall, and promptly ran out of gears. It was at that point, when I was going at a brisk 3mph, that it started to sleet. And then it thought about it for a while, and switched to hail.
Apart from the jolly tinkling noise it makes against your bell, there is no upside to hail when you’re on a bike. It stings, it’s cold, and it fills the road with tiny icy ball-bearings. I was ten miles from home.
Clearly, for the weather gods, revenge is a dish best served cold.
Very, very cold.
March 4, 2009 at 7:31 pm |
Reminds me of a visit to a client I did last summer (no hail). I’d driven the route several times, and decided that as it was a nice day, I’d ride. I knew it was about 35 miles each way, but as I said – a nice day. Like you, I discovered that when you’re outside a car, there are a whole lot more hills. It also turned out to be 38 miles each way. And hot as hell. So I felt distinctly odd when I got home.
March 5, 2009 at 2:49 am |
Ouch…hail is the one weather condition that I consider unridable. However when one is on the road home there is little you can do but to carry on.
Our temps took a dump all the way down to 14*f (-10*c)…that is about 35 degrees below normal! for this time of year. Then it had the audacity to snow. Glad we held off on getting the garden in this year, finally procrastination paid off. LOL
Aaron
March 5, 2009 at 8:19 am |
In my experience it gets in your ears too – and melts there; an odd sensation!
March 5, 2009 at 9:24 am |
Karl – did you make much sense when you got to the client? I’d probably just be babbling at that point
Aaron – in my experience, procrastination almost always pays off eventually. You just have to stick with it.
Nick – didn’t get that, fortunately. That would have taken horizontal hail, which the weather gods, for some reason, neglected to provide. No doubt they’re working on it…
March 5, 2009 at 8:02 pm |
At least you have hair on your head (actually I’m making a rash assumption there, perhaps you’re the new Sinéad O’Connor?) to cushion the blows from the hail. Even with a helmet on hail stings unbelievably on my chromed dome (heavy rain is also unwelcome for similar reasons)
March 5, 2009 at 9:55 pm |
Ah, that’s what the flat cap is for. As endorsed by Copenhagen Cycle chic
March 5, 2009 at 10:18 pm |
Unfortunately I see from my shame-yourself-to-keep-cycling-to-get-fit-you-fat-lummox spreadsheet that I’m still over 3km/h too fast to partake in their offering.
And I’d need a tammy like Russ Abbot’s to go over the helmet, which might lead to some amusing wind-related tales.
April 20, 2009 at 11:34 am |
[...] that I could withstand everything the weather gods could throw at me. I’d already been hailed and sleeted on in a particularly unpleasant manner, and we’d endured the hardest winter for a decade, and [...]