piano riding is harder than it sounds...

Today i went for a "piano" ride. A super mega slow (aka piano pace) ride is not always a breeze when attempted in Marin County - just above the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. Our summers are so brutal here that even though we never ever get rain we do get wind storms that regularly hit speeds in upwards of 60mph (100kph). When riding directly into winds like this, it's quite the challenge to keep the heart rate low. Heck, it's hard to keep the bike upright!

It's a really bizarre feeling to be riding in one direction spinning my ass off while maintaining a heart rate of 65-75pbm, only to turn the corner into a headwind and watch the heartrate jump to 125-130 while riding as easily as possible, barely turning the pedals!

Today I got off easy. I landed in the backseat of some guy's convertible while waiting for a stop sign. The poor guy was innocently stopped beside me as the wind scooped me up and dropped me in his car. After another thirty minutes of riding sideways, holding tight to the bars to make sure i stay out of the bushes aligning the bike path, I narrowly missed a falling tree. It crashed hard right in front of me and blocked the whole path. I felt like i was in one of those cheesy SUV commercials where the SUV is shown to narrowly avoid all these potential disasters including the random mountain biker that jumps in his path.

I really hope tomorrow is a bit less breezy because i will be heading over to the coast via highway 1 which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. If I am blown off my bike, it may be a long way to the ground if i'm blown off the cliff!