CoVengeCation-2020; The REAL Venge Day Finally Arrives!

Dear God, thank you for spring and some time off!It was cold yesterday morning – cold because there wasn’t a cloud within a hundred miles of us – and it warmed up quick. Mrs. Bgddy and I rolled out yesterday morning around 11 and it was still a little nippy out, but the temp was climbing rapidly. We’d decided on headwind first and chose our route accordingly. My Venge was built for days like these and I rolled it out the door with a smile on my face.Within a mile I knew tightening the chainring bolts the day before did the trick to take out the little tick the bike had developed. And I think that was the last negative thing to enter my gray matter for the next two hours.I took the first twelve miles into the headwind, paying attention to keep the pace within a certain range of effort that would get us to tailwind, but not so fast that I’d burn my wife up getting there. It was a firm northwesterly wind but certainly not brutal – just 10-mph, but enough to require some wattage to the pedals to overcome it. We hit the tailwind 17 miles in and it was smooth sailing after that. The temp climbed from the mid-40’s to mid-50’s and a couple of miles after we hit that tailwind, I had to shed my vest. It was too perfect out.My wife and I laughed and played around, enjoying the Zombieland car-free roads… minus the zombies, of course (it wouldn’t be much of a vacation dodging zombies, now would it?). We stopped to take a couple of photos, one at a bridge we’d crossed over, and one at a City Limits sign to taunt my buddy, Mike with. Messing around killed our average pace but I didn’t care (and I know my wife didn’t care). It was a perfect April day – a rarity for the month, normally we get a perfect half day if we’re lucky. After our little photo session, we hit the road and headed home, letting the tailwind push us home. We pulled into the driveway with 37 glorious miles and smiles on our faces.I had to clean up in a hurry to pick my daughter up from work, and I picked up a Big Mac guilty pleasure lunch… but I called my buddy, Chuck in the meantime to find he hadn’t ridden yet. I asked if he wanted some company.Yep. It was too perfect a day. I went out for another twenty miles. CoVengeCation regulations demand one spend as much sunny time on the bike as is possible. I complied. Happily.Stay safe, my friends – and know that when I talk about riding with my buddy, Chuck, we go beyond the rules of social distancing to take wind speed and direction into account so we’re not “in each others air”. Riding with my wife, well, we draft each other everywhere we go… that’s a luxury we get living under the same roof.