Over the previous days I’d ridden both my Rivendells and both my small wheeled bikes, each over 50 km. Today was time for the fifth bike in the quiver, and I selected the Wombat.
My reason for this selection was the optimistic forecast. Note, it had actually been quite nice for every ride so far – to the extent I was riding without a jacket and just my wool sweater for most rides! The Wombat is my only bike with no fenders at all, so I tried to save it for the day with the lowest risk of rain.
Boy, that did not work out.
The morning was quite nice, but as I rolled out front of my building with the Wombat, a little bit of rain had started to fall from the sky and it was ominously cloudy. What the heck? Well, I probably just needed to ride out from under this cloud, I figured.
I met with friends Rob and Karen at a park central to us where the rain was still relatively light, but the skies were grey in all directions. It was already the wettest day of the challenge so far despite my expectation of the opposite, and it was only going to get worse!
Rob and Karen peeled off in South Vancouver because it was really coming down, and they had no self-inflicted obligation to keep riding. I continued into Richmond, heading for the dyke along the water.
Garry Point (above) has a large sandy area at its center normally, but today it was a lake. A great day to be a duck! I warmed my hands in the bathroom (below) before setting off once again.
However, one very cool thing did happen. I noticed a nice looking backpack and a tripod ditched alongside the Richmond dyke with nobody nearby. I thought it strange, but kept going due to general misery at this point. Over 100m later I saw a photographer laying on his stomach in the bushes alongside the trail and my eye wandered to where his massive lens was pointed: a massive coyote walking along the driftwood. I stopped to get a potato photo once I was well clear of the scene so I wouldn’t interrupt: this is at full zoom on my Pixel 8, just good enough to tell what it is.
I hit about the 30km mark when I was finally pointed towards home, and up until this point I had been soaked through but comfortable. My hands became very cold over the next 10km; I simply didn’t prepare well for this level of wet. The climb into town solved that issue though, no doubt helped by the single speed.
In the end – 55 km so it counted. Sure wish I rode it any other day though.
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