Another lucky weather day
My friend Marty is riding with me. The way the weather looked this morning though, I bet he was rethinking his decision to ride with me to Cedar City. Another friend of mine, Paul, rode with us yesterday and was plannig to come down to ride with us today, but decided against it after he woke up to about six inches of snow in his own front yard.
We hung around the hotel this morning waiting for the snow to stop. By 11:15, it had almost completely stopped snowing. The roads were still wet, but the snow had melted off. We decided to ride!
About as soon as we started riding, it started snowing again and the wind picked up from the south. The snow continued, but wasn’t accumulating on the road, until we made a long jog to the west. The further west we got, the clearer and drier everything seemed to be. The headwind continued though all day long.
Here’s a picture of Marty and me about two hours into the ride. By this point, it had stopped snowing and the roads were only barely wet, but it was still pretty cold.
About two hours into the ride I stopped to test the blood sugar. At that point I realized I had made a mistake in where I was carrying my meter. It was stored in a handlebar bag instead of a rear pocket on my jersey. So, the meter wouldn’t perform a test because it was too cold. Lesson learned: carry the meter in my jersey pocket. When it’s in my jersey pocket, it stays warm enough to do a test. I wanted to warm the meter up to do a test, but it was pretty cold standing around in the wind. We needed to get moving again. Not a problem, really, because I can usually feel a low blood sugar coming on. Highs are another matter, I usually can’t tell the symptoms when I’m riding.
We finished the ride by 4:30pm. By then, the sun was coming out and the wind was dying down. I was already looking forward to the next day’s ride.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:03 am
Pete–The weather can only get better for you as you go south and as Spring progresses. Maybe Pat can keep a record of miles covered each day. The photos look great.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:46 am
Hi Peter,
Is there any chance that a support person from Bayer could download your test results from your meter and put them on the web site at the end of every day? I would like to see how your blood sugar is doing with all the things that are going on during a days ride.
Your “cold meter” reminded me of the time I was skiing and riding up in the chair lift I decided to do a test and I had the meter balanced on my lap and I was trying to get a drop of blood from my cold fingers and nothing. Finally I did get a small drop but the meter said it was not enough. I tried a few more times and then when I did get a large drop the meter stopped working because it was too cold. That day at Stowe, VT the wind was blowing and the temperature was 8 degrees below zero. Thank goodness for meters today that use less than a microliter of sample. Now they need to make a meter that works in extreme cold.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:27 am
I’m with Bernie. The weather can only get better at this point! Keep it up. I was very impressed with your skills as an orator. You were really dynamic. Excellent presentation. Also, good web site.