Tail Wind

Today's ride was a sheer joy. A bit chilly but nothing I wasn't already use to. The morning news reported northerly winds of 13 mph. Not as strong as yesterday but I welcomed the added push.

Sunrise was now before or nearly at the start of my ride. So I put my Jetlite headlamp and heavy battery in storage. I noticed my middle chain ring is now missing a tooth and another is worn wafer thin. This condition caused my chain to misalign and was the source of my clunky shifting. Manually putting the chain back on track is a short term solution to the problem. This and additional lube has remedied my drive train issues for now.

Heading east on Ardmore I saw a bicyclist way up ahead of me in motion as opposed to waiting for the long light at Sheridan. I hammered the pedals in an unsuccessful attempt to make the light. When I finally crossed I saw some road bikers making the turn around and heading south. I passed two older gentlemen and asked them how their ride up had been. One guy croaked that it was brutal. Up ahead I caught up to two younger and well outfitted bicyclists. I was reluctant to pass them because I didn't want to show them up in any way. But they were practically crawling and I had work to do. I said hello as I passed and anticipated them blowing by me down the road. But they never showed. Either they were too worn out from the ride north or they turned off somewhere nearby.

I was really moving this morning. In some stretches I got up to 25 mph. Around Belmont I caught sight of the bicyclist that I believed preceded me through Sheridan. Feeling pretty fresh I picked up the pace to reel him in. It took me until after the Oak Street curve to finally catch up. I said hello as I eased abreast and received an enthusiastic greeting in return. We then discussed how much we enjoyed the following winds compared to the day before. I found that Hugh is the president of his company and he tries to bike to work about as much as me. We shared the ride all the way to Roosevelt and Indiana where he headed south.

Continuing west with the sunshine at my back I almost felt like Curly on his horse in the opening scenes of Oklahoma!

Distance Traveled: 24.3 miles
Distance to date: 2505.5 miles
Price of gas: $3.16