Traffic, Heat and Weather, the new experiences.

Hello everyone.

So not a huge amount of stuff to talk about over the last several weeks.  It has been so crazy hot here that riding the bike has just been a quick trip deal, and add in the evening storms and I have been letting it sit more than I want.

However, I did manage to get out on a few longer trips to experience some new things.

Several weeks ago I made the 40 mile round trip to my bank on the weekend and this took me over into the much more congested roads and traffic.  Was good to get used to having far more cars around and many of those zooming around like crazed idiots!  Was also a very hot day (temps over 100) so got to experience a long ride in jacket, helmet and gloves during that heat.  Not exactly pleasant, but was not horrible either.

Made it over and back without any serious problems, and only a few times where a car made me feel a bit unsettled, but keeping close watch on traffic around me pays off in knowing what people are trying to do or appear to be doing and being ready to react helps quite a bit.

Just this past weekend I did a longer ride to a friends place for a quick visit.  85 mile round trip, again on the weekend with temps over 100 in all the gear.  After spending an hour with my friend, went to head home and the sky had gotten very ugly looking over in my part of the city!

Just a few miles after leaving my friends place, I was hit by very high blasts of wind with quite a bit of dust/debris in it (typical monsoon storm intro here).  I was heading into the wind, so just had to slow a bit and was fine, but then my route took me in another direction where the wind became a crosswind on my right side.  It was probably blowing around 35-40 mph for several miles and was interesting to find the right balance of speed and body adjustment to keep from being blown over or into the next lane.  Thankfully it was only a cross wind for about 5 miles, then was back to blowing into my face.  Still was a bit crazy at times with odd bursts from odd directions due to surrounding terrain or structures.  It finally calmed down to a light wind and things were good, only now the sky was getting much darker.

Shortly after the wind died down the light rain started.  At first just a few hits a second, but then it became a steady light rain, enough to get the road wet and even pool a bit in the low spots.  It also made my legs and arms pretty wet and kept a steady tap tap tap on the helmet visor, but never was bad enough to impair vision thankfully.  The rain lasted about 10 miles or so, on a mostly 2 lane road that went straight along and had lots of small dips and puddles, but nothing horrible.

Once the rain stopped, then the next 15 miles of trip were just on the wet roads, a few which were very wet, some washes still having a light run of water across them (less than an inch deep, but still moving) and a few spots where it had moved sand/dirt out into the roadway as well.  It finally dried up during the last 2 miles so that only a few spots on the road were wet.

Lots of new experiences, and managed to survive them :)

Hopefully in another month or so, things will cool down enough I can start taking some longer trips on the weekends, and then we can start having some actual adventures and interesting things to talk about instead LOL.

Till the next time.
Chris