Getting soaked

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Long ride yesterday with Nick and wow. We left later then we planned because we decided to just watch the finish of the Tour on Mont Vontux. So it was 9:30 by the time we left. No clouds in the sky at all when we hit the road, so we thought we might be lucky. The planned ride was through Stratton, up Gold Camp Road to Old Stage then some fun single track to Jones downhill and finishing on Capt Jacks. For the entire climb up Gold Camp, nothing but sun and cloudless sky. It was nice - we met up with Erik, one of the men in Nick's class for the MSC races. That made the climb fun, listening to him and Nick talking. Erik took a different route after Old Stage and Nick and I continuted up. When we stopped to fill up our water bottles, a few sprinkles. Just before we dropped Jones, the sky opened. Thunder, lightning, rain and hail. A few of lightening strikes were a little close for comfort. We thought we might be able to hole up and wait it out. Twenty minutes later, we were soaked to the bone and it was still raining. Time to move on. The descent was treacherous because of the water and mud on the trail. Everything just was covered in dirt within minutes. But we got down without problems. Even with the weather, it was a good ride. I got three hours of good steady state climbing and then a nice technical descent. If we'd left at 7:00 like planned, we would not have had any weather issues. Today I'm heading up to Rampart Res for a long run. Hopefully the weather will hold!

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