Vermont in the Heat

It hit the low 90's last weekend and I decided to go for a ride in full gear. Crazy? Maybe, but I always look at extreme weather as a rider training opportunity. It's good to ride in different kinds of weather to improve skills and push yourself to see what you are capable of. Many riders do not like to ride in the rain, but I love it. The harder the rain the better. I once rode four hours up Vermont in heavy pouring rain to a rally and I discovered that I really like riding in the rain. So, last Saturday morning I met Marc and Valerie at one of our meeting places along US 2. They beat me there which is not the norm. When I got there, Marc was topping off his tank and we chatted for a bit. The first thing he said to me was "are we really doing this?" It was 7:00 am and kind of cool outside, but we all knew it was going to be a scorcher. We booked up to Vermont through some very nice roads in New York while the weather was decent. Our routine has been to basically ride north until lunch time, park it for lunch, and then head back south on a different route to get home. The whole time I chase Marc's blue K-rocket beemer (see picture). That's basically what we did on Saturday and I didn't really feel the heat until around 3:00. We did the hills and curves along VT 9 on the way back and that is one of my favorite roads in VT. Very smooth, but traffic held me back a bit. We ended the day in Chelsea where we met Les for a nice dinner at Ecco in East Boston.