This was the Tucson Recumbent Cyclists planned Nostalgic Tuesday Night Ride. It was to be 35 miles. The thunderstorms rolled in ahead of time and it looked like we might have to cancel. However, the storms rolled through and it looked like the subsequent cells would pass by to the east. Therefore, 4 of us out of the original 8 who planned to go, decided to chance it and go ahead with the ride.
It started to rain as soon as we all got unloaded at the start point. But, we decided to forge ahead anyway. Geo had come from Marana, I had come from 20 minutes away, and I don't know how far Shawn came from. Randy rode his trike over from his place which is about 1/2 a mile away from the starting point.
It rained all the way to the Pizza place on University Blvd. That was about 8 1/2 miles into the ride. The route, whether we were on surface streets or the bike path, was filled with puddles of water and every so often there was the occasional bar of sand to traverse.
The sand was no problem for Randy and me, being on delta trikes. Shawn and Geo, however, were on two wheel recumbents.
I have no fenders on my trike, and neither does Randy. The water was thrown up from each of the three wheels. The water was warm so it wasn't too uncomfortable. I got used to the feeling of a strong spray of water being thrown up from my rear wheels onto each of my elbows and upper arm. At one point, I looked at the front of my jersey and there were several spots of mud. I guess that was from it being thrown up by the front wheel and running into it as it flew through the air.
We were moving at a pretty good clip most of the time, though there were a number of places we needed to slow down to be careful about what lay ahead - was the water too deep?
About the time we got to the Pizza joint, Randy had decided that it was not his kind of fun and that we would head back, turning the ride into a ride of 14 miles instead of the planned 34 miles. There weren't any objections.
About the time we go to the pizza place - not very good pizza, by the way - the rain stopped. There was no more rain for the rest of the ride, but we were all soaked already. Had the weather been like it was on the second half of our ride, we would have done the whole 34 miles.
At this temperature, the rain and being wet, is not too bad. I could have gone the whole 34 miles and been fine, though it would have needed to stop raining to be fun. Had I had fenders, it would have been oh! so much better.
The visibility in the dark wasn't the best and I had to turn up the light from Walking mode to the Low mode.
This was the first real ride I have done with my new tires - the Schwalbe Big Ben 55-406's. I LOVE these tires. They absorb so much of the bumps and roughness of the ride. I can also tell a big performance improvement compared to the old tires.
All in all, I enjoyed this ride. My clothes are all soaked, and I was concerned about getting my car seat wet, but I had fun and would do it again.