Rain, Leaves, and Limbs

This Mornings ride started out with lower 60's, perfect for short, bright shirt and a light jacket. Leaving the truck, I heard thunder in the distance. Started to see lighting shortly there after. I am not a big fan of riding in thunder storms as a bike does not provide any additional protection from lighting strikes. Still I was in the ride, and I would finish the ride, must be something about the addiction.

Made it all the way to Leawood Park before the rain caught me. Luckily, it was just light sprinkles, actually felt good. Just after climbing the College blvd hill West of Mission road, the sprinkles stopped. The road was not quite wet and I treated it with respect. Took my short cut through the business area, and hooked back up with Null. I have been riding on Null in stead of taking the pedestrian bridge, but I do keep my distance from the side as, the bridge is only about 2 feet tall. Respect the bridge...

Shortly after jumping off of Null back on the trail it occured to me that I had been fighting the wind coming down Null. Wind has been something I have not had to deal with for the most part as I ride the trail for 90 % of the commute. But with the flood plain work, and other detours, I have found myself on the road more. This will not be someting I look forward to once the weather drops below 45.

Now comes the rant. After crossing under Lamar, I'm crusing down the trail and see the trail blocked ahead of me with what appears to be a fallen tree. Well the mix of rain, wet leave, and clipping along around 15 mph, I was able to get stopped before hitting the branches, but did so so quickly I was not able to get unclipped. Yep that's right time slowed as I found myself SLOWLY falling to my right. Managed to only have a small scrape on my need and some road rash on my right arm. (Or so I thought.) Considering the other things that could have happend, I felt that I came out pretty good. Uppon close inspection, this was NOT a fallen tree. Someone had intentionaly moved 4 medium size braches across the trail. URRRGGGGG

Now I'm all for pranks, but this could have resulted in a serious injury. What if I had been really hammering, I would not have been able to slow down enough to miss these limbs. I would have flipped. I mean this is not a prank, this is an intentional act to cause injury. Oh yeah, about 20 feet up the trail a 18 inch section of tree trunk was also laying across the trail. I took the time to remove both obsticales, to prevent someone else from experiencing my fate.

I move on and find that I can't get my right foot to clip into the pedal. I bike to the next lighted area and look at the pedal. The clip mechanism is gone. I'll have to change to the platforms when I get home. I was planning on doing this once it gets a little colder, replacing the sandles with shoes for warmer tootsies, but I would have liked to been able to decide when to swap out the pedal.

I finished the ride slip sliding around, not being able to get a good footing on the pedal. And to finsh, I got poured on for the last mile as the skys openned up and dumped their bounty.

Sure hope the ride home is less of a battle.
sj