Today I went out for a ride with an actual purpose. It’s starting to show signs of getting warm. Today’s high was 86 and it should be into the 90’s by the middle of the week. I just got Cycle Gear’s new catalogue and saw they had Motoboss cooling vests on sale (along with a five dollar off coupon). I thought since I live about five miles from hell, I’d pick one up to see how they work. Cycle Gear is only about 15 miles or so from my house, but it ended up being an interesting ride. Midway there, around Peoria and Reems roads, a water main, or something, broke. The road was flooded from Reems all the way down to Olive (about a mile) and than east on Olive almost to Litchfield Road (about another half mile). Reems slopes to the middle instead of to the shoulder so it was literally a river instead of a road. It was probably two feet deep in the middle. Olive has a normal slope so most the water flowed down the shoulder, except for a low spot where it collected in the road. This is where my ride got interesting. Before I got to the flooded section of Olive, luckily, a motorcyclist coming the other way signaled that something was up ahead, so I was looking out. About the time I came up to the flooding, here comes some knucklehead in an overgrown Chevy dually, doing about 45, and throwing a wall of water at least 10 feet high. Thankfully I saw him coming and stopped just short of the actual flooding, ‘cause I think I would have been thrown off my bike. I rode along the shallowest point I could find, which was still close to a foot deep (my foot pegs were submerged). After I got past this spot it was no big deal, on Reems I could ride close to the shoulder, where it was mostly dry and there were only a few cars driving at appropriate speeds for the conditions. Prudently I took a different route home.

Once I got to Cycle Gear they were very helpful and even soaked the vest for me so I could try it out on the ride home. I was surprised at how cold the vest actually got. I was wearing it under a black mesh jacket and it kept me quite cool. Amazingly enough when I took it off, my t-shirt felt damp but it wasn’t visibly wet. I’m waiting to see if it still will work when it hits 115+.

Happy Easter.