1 down, 2 to go

Got the road bike back on Saturday (looking fine!) but couldn't ride until Sunday noon, by which time the wind had picked up nicely, to what felt like half a gale. As my buddy Ian said, it looked like windsurfing weather, not cycling, but I went out anyway. Dale was golfing so I was a lone wolf. I rode the Bear Creek-Terry Hershey loop, starting out northbound on Eldridge with the wind at my back. The Barker-Cypress section was a bit ugly - traffic and dead into the wind - but George Bush was OK, especially the part along Barker-Clodine. The north side of the dam was a bit of a slog (it always is) and of course the east side was murder - straight into the wind, no buildings or trees for shelter. After that, Terry Hershey was a walk in the park - almost literally as there was a lot of foot traffic. The most memorable part of the ride was right at the end - coming up to cross Wilcrest I couldn't decide if there was a big enough gap in the traffic, and left it too late to get my shoe unclipped from the pedal. Down I went on the side of the road, scraping my knee and elbow and putting a big dent in my pride. When I got the clipless pedals, the man at REI told me that I would fall off like this three times before I learned how to use the pedals. Two more to go -