Due to our geographical position on this particular planet, Minnesota is always in a state of transition. It is either getting hotter or getting cold. The wind may be increasing or calming down. If the sun is shining, it’s surely only temporary. Rain, this year, has been around every corner.
At a bigger level, the seasons are always part of the events of the day. This is due to their brief nature. The four seasons of the year truly fit within the discreet three months that they are allocated.
Thus, cycling in late August is bittersweet. Even though fall cycling is incredible in Minnesota (dry, cool, and calm conditions abound), the late summer truly marks a beginning to an end. This is most obvious from the long shadows I cast on the road during an after work ride. It reminds me that afterwork riding will be a very difficult thing to accomplish. Not due to the falling temperatures, but mostly due to the shortening of the days and the accompanying lack of sunlight.
Following last weekend’s Tour de Prairie Lakes event, I stayed off the bike for nearly a week. Even though the event wasn’t a huge athletic endeavor, it was the primary cycling goal for me this year. I now have no target to ride for and am simply motivated by the joy of an individual ride. Thus, taking a few days off this week didn’t bring about any guilty feelings.
With a little 12 mph wind from the NW, the early stages of the ride were more of a struggle than they should have been. Even though I often talk about the desire to have the first leg of a ride into the wind (so the return trip home is easier), it doesn’t ignore the fact that I still need to ride into a headwind.
Riding into the wind is just a fact on a bike (that’s why I have 20 assorted gear options) – but it is always more of a mental drain than a physical one. There is nothing more defeating than to put in a hard pull, only to have the wind roar up and remind you that it can stop all that hard work in an instant and increase the pain factor with little notice.
Independent of the wind conditions, Friday’s ride was a good one. I originally headed out at a really slow pace, as I didn’t care to push hard and wanted to enjoy some miles outdoors. But, as I got going, my pace increased and I was back to the old pushes. I don’t have the reserves available this year that I did in 2010, but there is still something satisfying about powering up a big hill and hitting your physical limit right at the crest.
Just like the hill – where the other side is the gentle downward slope to the bottom – I have crested the top of the cycling season and am ready to coast downward through the last few months.
