Feel the Rain on Your Shins

Yesterday was a good day. Despite the fact that the weather forecast called for t-storms all day, the rain was almost cleared up by the time I got off work at 4 p.m. My plan is to leave work a little early every Tuesday until DST starts so that I can do my Tuesday LT intervals outside. It's just to hard to dial that effort on the trainer.

As a bonus, the temperature was in the upper 50's and I was so excited to be able to ditch the the shoe covers and lobster gloves for a while. I was even able to to wear shorts, even if it was with kneewarmers. Just letting out those four inches of exposed skin between my kneewarmers and socks was incredibly invigorating.

Mostly I was excited to debut my knew wool socks, pictured above. I have one pair of specially designated "winter" socks that come up to my calves and go under my tights and shoes covers, so I haven't had a chance to wear the knew VB socks since I got them a month or so ago. Whatever gets me rushing to home to jump on my bike, right?

For those of you who are wondering, YES I am one of those dorks that is in full team kit pretty much every ride. Besides the fact that we have such cute kits, it's mostly because as a large nationwide team with a focus on racer development, Velo Bella has the buying power to demand clothing with better fit, quality, and value than 90% of the what's offered by the women's cycling apparel industry in general. Since we able to order pretty much any type of cycling clothing, except for heavy winter tights, gloves, etc., it's just easier to buy all my warm-weather clothing through the team.

Now, if Louis Garneau would only add bib knickers to their custom line I'd be set. Not women's bib-knickers mind you; since if the cycling industry gives us our own bib-knickers then we might start wanting to vote and hold jobs outside the home. However, they did a fabulous job with the unisex skinsuits w/ women's chamois, so I think any custom knickers could be fitted to suit our needs.

I'm just kidding about the cycling industry, of course, but I just get pretty frustrated with what's available to women. I do desperately want a pair of bib-knickers, but I tried on a pair of Adam's, but they just did not work. Assos is the only company that makes them for women and I refuse to give them another cent of my money since they not only invented that stupid mono-bib thing (who the heck wants a big freakin' strap right across their sternum?), but now it's tainted many other clothing lines as well. I simply hope that Castelli maintains some since of reason, as they are my main source for non-team clothing. Everything I've ever purchased from them has been absolutely fabulous!

Okay, rant complete. I've been wanting to get that out for a while now.

Unfortanately, the warm temperatures continued to rise through the evening until it was 64 degrees at about 9:30 p.m. and a violent thunderstorm broke out and left us without electricity until 5 this morning. The temperatures are now falling and should be in the 30's again by my ride tonight. Oh well, at least my legs got one day in the sun, er, outdoors.