What a night!

Dave asked if I was going out to the Bike To Work Week planning committee kick-off meeting earlier today. It was scheduled to be in Westport. No, thanks. Upon further inspection, however, I noticed that they moved it to Waldo, an area I'm pretty familiar with, and not too far for a bike ride. So, I decided to skip my usual mile-pile group ride in exchange for something with a bit more purpose (okay, and more miles, too).

Against all better judgment, I couldn't resist riding home this evening. 60 degrees, and what I'd find out later was SW (straight-on headwind for the most part) wind at 23 MPH gusting 39 MPH. I am a man of many obscure words, but "grueling" is the only one that I can think of right now, and that's a gross understatement.

Finally arrived home at something like a 12 MPH pace average. Just ridiculous. I quickly Grab some grub. I didn't eat much. Mistake.

I Drove my bike (on the Explorer) a few miles to meet up with Dave. I got out too late to ride to the place I was going to meet him, so I drove part way there to make up the time.

We roughly took this route to get out there, but got turned around a few times and then couldn't find the library. The wind never let up at all. What a genuine pain. But, it was a fun ride, and good meeting the people interested in how they can help make Bike Week 2008 a huge success. 2008's incarnation of Bike Week WILL happen on the LAB recommended schedule. If even part of the brainstorming we did this evening comes to fruition, this should be the biggest, best turn-out to date. I won't make any promises or reveal anything yet, but it's obvious that there's a serious force behind this program in Kansas City.

The trip back was slow going. The wind had taken its toll on me all afternoon, and I didn't eat nearly enough for supper. I floated on the brink of Bonk for quite a while, but in the end, I made it back okay.

It was cool to meet Dave in person. We both bike commute, some of our motives behind commuting are the same. We both work information security in the financial industry. And that's just to name a few things. On the flip side, he's been riding all his life but is a relative newcomer to bike commuting in its current incarnation, whereas I'm a relatively new cyclist with more bike commuting experience -- mostly because that's more than 80% of my riding, though.

I am going to sleep really, really well tonight. I am torn the hell up.

Random Tunage:
ORM - Millenium [sic]
Crystal Method - Vapor Trail