What was lost

Friday afternoon meant no soccer, no cross country, and no excuses to stretch out the commute. I rode the Bleriot again for said purposes and encountered a blustery afternoon, but with gorgeous temps and skies. As I head west I felt fortunate that the extremely stiff wind (gusts to 40mph) was straight in my face on the way out. Knowing so wet the whistle for a good effort to get downwind and let 'er rip. In and around the Shawnee Park area I decided to spend a brief moment solving, or at least attempting to solve a puzzle from last week's long Friday commute. Last week I slopped through the remnants of the Riverwalk Trail, which is now being reclaimed by the river unfortunately. On the far side, perhaps in Portland or along Lannam Park, I noticed that while my fancy Garmin Edge500 (an awesome product, btw) was still tabulating, my nice cateye mini was, in fact, incommunicado. Or inexistencio. Or just plain missing. Apparently it had fallen off somewhere in the bushwacking, and I didn't have the gumption to retrace 10 miles worth, especially through the muck. TWS strikes again! Right up there with the lost glasses from '09 or so.

So yesterday I determined to re-trace a small portion of the closed, muddy path, right along the golf course where I had to hurdle a few trees and barriers. After a slightly muddy run from Thursday's rain I finally came to the most likely spot, right next to a low-slung tree trunk that caused me to clamp down firm on both brake levers. I dismounted and almost immediately the first spot I looked there she lay, my Cateye mini ever so slightly covered with grime and leaves. It was sleeping in a slightly inconspicuous spot, but one I fear that would have swallowed the mech up in another week or so, perhaps with the next rain. I picked it up and threw it in my bag b/c my handlebar was already full of doo-dads and went on my way, hoping for that tailwind.

Once I turned onto Bank Street the effect was immediate. I immediately hit the 20mph mark and held that all along Bank Street through Portland, even hitting 24mph at some point. Once I turned onto Market I maintained the pace up until downtown where traffic slowed me. I was mired in bridgemania traffic for a while before dismounting, walking through the 2nd Street intersection and remounting on the other side. A stop by OYLC brought me a new Planet Bike Gas Tank (not even on their site yet!), one of the new top tube bags made perfectly for gravel grinders and adventure rides. From there it was directly home, although it might have been fun to catch a bit of the Halloween parade along Baxter. A fine afternoon, and for a change luck found me with respects to find lost things.

And the Bleriot did just fine, again.