Weather by Betsy

When you are on a bicycle every day for 2 months, what the weather is or is going to be takes on rather major importance.  I learned this when riding across the U.S. in 2005.  I have written about having to carry our bicycles through flooded country roads and having to push our bicycles on foot for fear of being blown over the side of the cliff which runs beside the highway on Needle’s Eye Pass.  Or how about the day we rode 95 miles--the last 5 miles a climb straight up a mountain to McDonald Observatory with temperatures hovering around 100; the hardest ride of the entire trip.  Weather is everything in situations like that. 

Oh, and by the way, never try riding or hiking over a mountain pass even if there is the slightest threat of lightning.  VERY DANGEROUS!  Especially those high Colorado passes.  Plan to do the pass sometime before noon.  Unless you like having your hair stand up on end, which it will, trust me.

The subject of weather reminds me of the very first long-distance cycling trip I ever took.

This was in 1982.  The cycling equipment and comfort clothes we take for granted today were unknown then, at least unknown to my daughter, her boy friend, and me.

The three of us set out on a fine summer day in western NY state.  We would cycle along the rural roads of western NY state and into Pennsylvania and the Alleghany mountains.   We wore no helmets--also unknown to us--and carried only day packs as we would overnight in motels in the small towns we rode through.  This was a fairly well planned trip which would take us back to our starting point in about 1 week.  Plans were well laid out except for rain gear.  We just didn’t plan on having inclement weather. 

Well, we didn’t have inclement weather until the last 2 days of the trip.  And my, did it rain!  And it would not let up.  For protection against the elements we had in our joint possession 3 large size garbage bags.  That was it.  We thought we could wait it out but we all had deadlines and did not have the flexibility of waiting for another weather system to replace the current wet one.   We were no where near a town large enough to have a store that might have some decent cycling rain gear.  So we headed out in our garbage bags.   That gear was worse than inadequate.  I don’t mind being wet, but I don’t like being cold.  And before long I was just that.  I’m not sure about Lynne and Dave.  I was too cold to ask.  Let’s just get home, I thought.  The rain never did let up.  Fortunately we did get home soon after the cold crept in so there were no dire consequences to that.  So except for the last day, it was a wonderful trip.  The vision of the three drenched garbage bags riding into town still gives us a good laugh.

© 7 July 2013

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.