Where I live it’s always windy.

But yesterday was far worse.  Sustained winds were about 20 mph, with gusts up to 30.  Not the best day for biking.

But as Eddie Merckx was fond of saying, “Don’t be a big fat pansy.”  (Okay, actually I don’t know that The Cannibal ever said any such thing at all.  And if he did, it probably would’ve been in some Belgian dialect, with umlauts and other such things flying all over the place.)  So I got out and rode.

My friends, it was a short ride — 26 miles total — but it started with15 miles straight into the maw of that hellish wind.  They say the Belgians train for the mountains by going to the coast and riding into the wind.  And I can see how that would work, because I was going about the same speed I do going up mountains.  But when you go up a mountain, you get to see the result of the effort — a good view, usually.  I got to see more of the endless plains I’m surrounded by.

But I did get an honest-to-goodness 11 miles of almost pure tailwind going home.  Haven’t ridden that fast on the flats since my racing days.  It was a beautiful thing.