The rain was ostensibly supposed to stop sometime around midnight, allowing the pavement to slowly dry over the course of the next few hours. Instead, it turned out to be a nonstop late night of mother nature emptying her tear ducts over Tokyo. When I awoke at 4am to check the weather situation, I looked out the window only to see the rain continuing to beat down the neighborhood. With that, I headed back to sleep and decided to wait it out a bit, all to no avail.
The rain has since stopped, and the birds are out singing in the fresh yet slightly humid but comfortable air. The ground is still visibly wet, which means it is even worse along the cycling route. There are a number of areas along the route where there is standing water thanks to imperfections and dips in the road. Without the sun to soak up the water, this means an almost obstacle course-like ride to avoid getting drenched in nasty rain water.
I prefer to ride early so I can avoid all the older folks taking slow morning walks, the children slowly riding their bicycles to baseball, soccer, or rugby practice, and the much faster yet considerate cyclists who ride out in groups and completely forget spacial awareness. People understandably are completely oblivious to cyclists along the Tamagawa cycling road, and end up walking in front of speeding bicycles, walk their dogs so they almost get run over, and children playing in the grass lining the road only the suddenly jump in the middle of oncoming traffic.
While it is nice to get out on the tarmac, it is usually substantially frustrating due to the constant starts and stops, never able to hold a decent pace for very long, like driving on the freeway during Los Angeles rush hour. Although it is not stop-and-go, I find myself not capable of really enjoying rides with so many people along the Tamagawa cycling road. Maybe I need to find an alternative route for times like these?
Rain continues to be in the forecast for today, so I am going to watch the sky like a hawk. If there is an opportunity to get out for a ride, even if it is just 20k, I am going to take up the offer. I do not want to end the week at 122.3k of my 180k goal – I need to at least hit the goal, and if I can somehow add in another 20k then I want to do it and hit that 200k milestone for the week. This is only doable if the weather cooperates!
Since I cannot yet get out to ride, I thought I would share some pictures from my Morning Meditative Ride from one year ago. I had a nice 64k ride on what appeared to have been an absolutely beautiful Saturday morning.
My route on this ride was to head downstream for a short bit before crossing the Tamagawa, and then heading upstream to my standard ending spot. I paused for a moment to hit the bathroom and hydrate, and then got back on the bike – at this point I was riding the Domane – and rode the 25k back home under the bright blue skies, next to the lovely warm blue water.
It is a shame today the weather is so drastically different. Considering it is rainy season this is no surprise, even if it is somewhat disappointing. If the weather starts to cooperate before the day gets too late then I will try to head out for a ride. I am not optimistic this will happen, but one can only hope.
