New Record Speed

On the way home from work on Tuesday a started to get pelted with raindrops, so instead of keeping my "looking at the scenery" pace I decided to speed it up. I was pedaling like crazy and noticed that my cadence was at about 100 rpms. I was really surprised when my speedometer read 29.2mph though. I was so close to 30mph that I had to go for it. I kept spinning and spinning hovering around 29.8mph and then finally 30! As soon as I reached 30mph I coasted down to 20mph just to catch my breath. I must have been faster than the clouds though, because I didn't see any rain the rest of the ride home.

Riding In The Rain

Yesterday, I was not quite so lucky. The weather here this past week has been strange. In the morning the sky is relatively clear and by quitting time it's overcast with rain clouds. Well, yesterday about 4 o'clock the clouds unleashed their fury and it started raining pretty hard. After about 15 minutes the rain had stopped and the sun was peeking through the clouds. By the time I left work, it seemed that the weather would stay nice. I only got about two miles a way and boom -- The water came down and I was drenched. It actually wasn't too bad. The air was warm and the water refreshing. What I didn't like was the wind that accompanied the rain carrying it sideways into my face. It was nice to know that my travel bag on the back is waterproof and nothing got wet.

Exploring Benjamin

I've been leaving about a half hour earlier in the mornings which lets me go another 5-7 miles, so I've started exploring all the back roads in the country. I started out by going down all the roads in Benjamin and then Lake Shore. Today I rode through Palmyra, which is a really small community between Spanish Fork and Lake Shore. It's cool to see all the old barns and tractors.

Dogs

One thing that I noticed when I started commuting on my bike is that all the dogs in the various neighborhoods bark at me. If they are lucky, they'll even come around and chase me. Well, since I've been riding the trike I am a lot lower to the ground. Now when the dogs come out they look a lot bigger and are right at my hieght. They'll start chasing me and I'm afraid that they'll bite my arm. So, far I've found that the best way to deal with the dogs is to pedal faster. When they do come close to me I'll actually steer towards them like I'm going to run them over. They'll usually back off at that point.