51st ride

I thank my friend Doug Franklin for suggesting a route home from work by way of Saline which enabled me to avoid riding on Michigan Ave. (US 12), which he judged to be "very dangerous" for riding after seeing that my maps of previous rides took me on a brief stretch of it. This pared half a mile off my ride, cutting it down from 14.2 to 13.7 miles, but it still made for a very good workout, and coupled with the morning's ride to work, gave me a daily total of 15.9 miles in 1 hour 33 minutes.

However, this savings in distance was more than made up for by the weather. This morning I was comfortable riding to work in short sleeves (though I don't know the exact temperature, but I suspect it was around 60°). But by the time I got out of work (at 1:00 today—this variable nature of my hours is one undesirable aspect of my job, though, under the circumstances, I realize I am fortunate to have a job at all, and grateful for it), the temperature had dropped precipitously (to 47°), the wind had picked up, and a light rain had begun. As I rode, it changed nature several times, so that I was alternately blessed with a fine mist and stung with small drops, all the while with my rear tire throwing up a spray that soaked my back. One nice feature was that, in contrast to my previous rides to Saline (into a headwind), I had a substantial tailwind today. But of course, the flip side of this was that the stretch back northward from Saline to Ann Arbor was quite difficult—and this was not a welcome challenge at a point in the ride when I was tired, cold, and thoroughly soaked. At any rate, once I pulled in to our complex, never was I so happy to see our home, and anticipate the prospect of getting warm and dry.