Ride with Cheff

Cheffery and I met at the Allamuchy school last night for a road ride around Great Meadows. "Great Meadows" is a fertile valley with sod farms throughout, there are some nice views from the ridges. I pull up to the school and there is Cheff slumped over his steering wheel sleeping, ok I exaggerated a bit. He says there is a storm coming and asks whether we should wait it out. I say I don't have time to wait it out. Besides, I'm bringing my rain cape, it rarely rains when I bring it, mostly when I forget it. So, I got the "rain cape mojo" working for me. We roll out and Cheff comments out trying out his new equipment, a new Pearl Izumi "rain" coat/vest. It seems like he is always trying out new equipment. We went hiking a couple of years ago and he tried out his "water-resistant" North Face shirt. It wasn't water-resistant but maybe water absorbent.

Knowing there is a storm coming I altered the route a bit. I decided to shorten it, we rode down the "near" side of the valley and around the ridge to the climbs. We get to the end of the valley and are heading towards the climbs and Cheff takes his vest off and says, "It looks like we are going to miss the storm. I guess I'll try this vest another time." Now we are jinxed! This is the guy that commented on our hookey day about Derek flatting and two seconds later Derek flats, his mojo is strong. I'm not sure my "rain-cape mojo" can compete with a Cheffery jinx! This could get ugly...

As we're climbing up the first climb we start to hear thunder and see lightning. The skys don't look too bad going up. Maybe we won't get caught out in the rain? We make it to the top and the skys open up and it starts to dump on us! Just in time for the descent! Talk about a "blinding" descent! It was so blinding that I made a wrong turn down a hill and we had to climb back up! At least it wasn't really dumping on us like it was. We get to the last climb and it looks like a steep one from the maps, and it was a doosey, not that long but STEEP.

All in all it was a great ride. I'm going to do the loop again. Hopefully without the rain. I guess my "rain-cape mojo" can't compete with the Cheffery jinx! At least he didn't say anything about a flat tire!