Don’t Judge Me

After yesterday’s long ride in the wind, I took a look at the weather forecast to see if there was any reprieve from the wind in my future. There wasn’t. At least, not today. As such, I decided to be a bit lazy and opted to make today a short day. I mean, I have no doubt that there are long, headwind-filled days still to come … so I figured, I’d try to minimize the impact of at least one of them (i.e., today). As I said, don’t judge me! (I do a good enough job of that for myself!)

With my plan for the day set, it didn’t take long for the wind to announce its presence. Well, it didn’t take long once I got on the road, anyway. With my planned short day I didn’t actually get onto my bike until 11:30 … which still left plenty of time for my shortened ride. And speaking of my ride, my goal for the day was a forested nature preserve – a mere 50 km away. I know, I know … that’s an embarrassingly short ride. Again, don’t judge me!

In the absence of a long cycling day, I had some extra time on my hands – time which I decided to fill with some drone practice. Admittedly, I wasn’t entirely sure if flying the drone in such windy conditions was a great idea but I figured there was only one way to find out. And find out I did – about halfway through my ride.

What I WANTED to do with the drone was have it follow and orbit me. The “following” part went okay and it certainly gave its best effort to orbit around me but the winds were just too strong. I think it would’ve worked (or at least worked better) had I been cycling with the wind – but that wasn’t today’s reality. Watching the drone try to orbit my moving bike reminded me of hang gliding in strong winds … very slow progress into the wind and then when you turn down wind … WHOOSH … you’d be at the other end of the field in no time.

In the end, the orbiting test was only minimally successful … but not successful enough to include a full orbit in the video above. On the upside, I did get at least a couple of shots that were moderately usable. And, it was a fun experiment.

With the drone once again stowed in my pannier, I resumed pedalling into the wind. But, with time still in my favour, I found time to enjoy a few of the cookies that Dave had sent along with me. And when I say “a few” I mean “all”. So good.

As for detailing my actual ride today, there really isn’t much to report. It was hillier than I expected but that’s mostly because my expectations were based on the flatness of the previous days. I was a bit out of breath at the top of one of the hills but all things considered I think I fared pretty well. I’m not ready for mountains yet but those are still more than a few days (maybe even weeks) away. As for the weather, the wind continued all afternoon. As did the sun. Fortunately, I was more liberal with the sunscreen today. Sadly, there was no sort of wind repellant – I could make a fortune from that.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, it looks like it will be my 2019 inaugural night in a tent. There likely also won’t be any internet access so the next update will likely be delayed.

Today’s (embarrassing) totals:
Distance: 52.18 km
Ride time: 2:49:16
Average speed: 18:49 km/h
Maximum speed: 43.32 km/h