Mule train

Off to Zube on a soggy Saturday morning. It was drizzling when I left home and started raining for real when I got to 290. Fortunately it had dried up by the time I reached Zube, and actually stayed dry all the way round.

I spotted Jason's bumble bee Camaro in the parking lot. He hasn't been on his bike since October, but I suspected (correctly!) that he hadn't lost much. Lee and Kevin soon appeared, and then Tyson (haven't seen him since the MS-150), and off we went. Kevin has a sexy new bike on order (http://wilier-usa.com/en/) that hasn't been delivered yet, but he's dangerous enough as it is on his old Cannondale.

It was Tyson's first outing with the Mules and he wondered how long we'd be out. Turned out he had a kick-boxing training session back in town at 11.00. What it is to be young and full of urine and acetic acid.

As ever it was windy, but for once it was out of the East, so we set off at a good clip, knowing we'd pay the price on the way back. I was wearing my new rain jacket to ward off the cold, and in the expectation of rain. Pretty soon I had a mini-Rain Forest going on.

The group fragmented on the way out but regrouped at the Exxon. I took the bold decision of removing my jacket, exposing my sweat-sodden Mules shirt to the elements. The others looked doubtful (it was still pretty cool) but I couldn't keep going with the jacket on. We headed back along Business 290 into the teeth of the wind and tried to get organised into a pace-line. Once we managed to corral Kevin (he kept accelerating when he took point, instead of keeping a constant pace) it went quite well and we shared the lead pretty efficiently all the way back. Go Mule Train!