At 9:30 this morning I realized I could go biking which is a couple of hours earlier than I have been riding. Part of my motivation was the approaching cold front. There was a wind advisory going into effect at 10:00AM bringing the cold front. So I hurried to get ready and ended up leaving at 10:10. The sky was overcast but a check of the radar showed no rain in the area.

Planning a route took a few minutes as I got ready and I decided to go on what I call the “Oakhurst – Cumberland – Valley Ranch” route. My reasoning was I could get to the northern most point (Cumberland) in a short amount of time in case the wind arrived and there were several abort options if the wind and rain came. As it turned out when I got into Oakhurst on Mills Branch Drive headed to the west a gust of cold air hit me. Next a few sprinkles of rain fell. When I turned right onto Oakhurst Forest the wind kicked up again. At that point I decided I better change the route and go for home trying to beat the rain and wind. I took several streets to the US59 south bound service road with a stiff cooling tailwind. On the service road I raced to Northpark Drive. Normally I prefer to not ride on Northpark but this time of day I thought the traffic would be lighter and it was. I cut into Kings Mills subdivision to ride on some side streets parallel to Northpark to avoid some traffic. Back on Northpark I got a traffic break and made it to the trail along Northpark and on to home.

When I started the ride the temperature was 75 and by the time I got back at 11:19 it was down to 68.9. Walking through the house to our master bathroom I could light rain hitting the skylight. The wind was calm at the beginning but when I got home it was from the NNW at 21 mph with 26 mph gusts. The wind chill was noticeable and I was glad I wore a long sleeve jersey with my shorts.

The shortened ride was 16.02 miles and I averaged 15.2 mph. Tonight’s weather could reach the upper 30’s. Biking tomorrow might not happen.

[wppa type=”slide” album=”308″ size=”auto”][/wppa]

Link to RideWithGPS map and metrics.

[iframe http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/479928055 470px 570px]