First warm day in months, still need to be cognizant of your skill set

YES! Finally, a warmer day to ride. It has been cold over the last few months and I am getting tired of wearing all that extra gear. I want to stay warm, but man is all that extra weight a pain in the arse. So today was a very nice day for a ride.

Actually, watching the radar, I thought I had at least 15 minutes or so before the rain started on my way to work. Being President’s Day, I figured my 4 mile ride would actually only take about 6-8 minutes. But, as soon as I got the bike out the rain started to slowly creep in. I’m no stranger to getting wet, just try to avoid it on the way in to work as I don’t have a great way to get my clothes dry. And yes, I am a bit too lazy to carry an extra set of work clothes (dress slacks and button shirt). Oh well, let’s make this work. Got to work in great time, just arrived a little bit wetter than anticipated. No big deal, as I tend to wear a bit of extra gear to help mitigate some of that moisture problem.

But the best part of the day was on the way home after work! 60+ degrees, and just only mildly humid. The ground was wet, but just only slightly so (no puddles). The only problem I had, my stupidity. Yep, I got a little too excited to be out. Stopped off at the store on the way home, and as I headed out of the parking lot the light decided to start to turn to red. The only thing to do of course was to bwaap bwaap…. and off I went.

Mind you, the road is wet and the tires were a bit cold from sitting while in the store. Traction? What is that? It was a bit fun to spin the wheel on that hurried spat through the light, but it can also be a bit unnerving when you haven’t been on the bike as much in the last few months. No problem though, the bike is not that powerful so I was easily able to maintain composure.

But of course, I ended up going a bit faster than I should have been riding in the weather conditions on the road. Just as I started to take off from that light and pick up speed, I noticed that ALL of the cars in the only lane of travel were stopped. I slowly squeezed the hand brake and applied pressure to the rear and leaned slightly a bit forward and as level as I could… but both wheels just wanted to slide on that wet pavement. Thankfully, after watching tons of videos of “what not to do”, I was able to slightly release and reapply to get to a stop. Well behind the stopped vehicles in front of me.

This just goes to remind me, I am not a long time rider but rather fairly new. Yes I rode 20 years ago and have recently picked back up again over the last three, I still only have slightly over 12k miles under my belt. I learn quick, watching all the great youtube videos. But the reality is, I am still a Noob and should act as such. I need to keep remembering to ride within my skill set, and not get overly excited to be out on the road.