Relative Something

Last week I posted little snippets that describe some aspects of my annual June bike/camping trip. Much about it is the same every year, in a general sense, but each trip has its special moments that go down as memories that stand apart. I will attempt to describe my adventures of this year’s Tour of Minnesota, looking back at it from the comfort of now being warm and dry.

It was a wet year. Here are some headlines for the week from my favorite weather blog, Updraft: “Warm front sets the stage for stormy period,” “Flooding rains drench parts of Minn.; more on the way,” “Severe threat unfolding tonight; tornado watch west,” “Epic flood threat and severe risk continue,” “Uncle! 2014 is wettest year on record so far.”

I have done this ride when there was no rain for the entire week. Other years we have been able to ride dry every day, and rain fell only at night. Often, there will be one or two days when we must endure the inevitably wet day. It was overcast on the Saturday that we started our ride from Jackson, MN, heading for Worthington. I didn’t put on a jacket because I tend to overheat when covered up. It didn’t exactly rain on that first leg, but you could feel a sprinkle of wind-blown wetness that was falling. The sky ahead conveyed the obviousness of the source.

I was thoroughly enjoying chatting with another rider about my new adventure with horses, as the wetness increased and our first rest stop loomed an unknown distance away. She stopped to put on rain gear, but I elected to push on. Real rain was just beginning to fall as I navigated my way beneath the pavilion. Everyone after me was riding in a soaking rain.

During our rest stop, the thunderstorm rolled over us in full force, unleashing a bolt of lightning and crash of thunder that elicited shrieks. We extended our stay under the roof at this rest stop for a bit longer. Ride leader, Bob Lincoln, was monitoring radar and knew there would be no ‘backside’ of this system. He held us in place until the first hint of a reduction in intensity, and then sent us toward our lunch stop.

There are portions of this year’s ride of which I will have no photos to offer. For much of the trip, my camera was bagged and buried in my trunk to keep it dry. We rode through a blustery downpour that continued to be peppered with startling bolts of lightning and cracks of thunder. At this point of soaking wet riding, you suck it up and just accept it. Once you get wet, you don’t need to worry about getting any wetter. You hope to get it over with, paying these dues in search of drier days ahead. Little did we know at the time…

Lunch was under another pavilion, but sitting in the breeze, soaking wet, people were getting chilled. They opened a school for us. There wasn’t as much lightning, but the ride from lunch to Worthington was still pretty wet. The wild weather had forced a change in venue from camping in the park to getting refuge in their school. As I led a small group in search of the new destination, we came upon the National Championship Windsurfing regatta and witnessed all the vendors that had been forced to close down their booths.

Following directions from locals, we pedaled into neighborhood roads that were flooded, forcing us to ad-lib alternate routes. It was only our first day, but by the time I settled into my sleeping bag, perched on the landing of a stairway in a dark hallway in the school, I felt like we had been battling for several.

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