Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang (trans: After Darkness, Light Is Born)

I know it was a weird title for a post, but that's what happened this weekend. First of all, After Darkness, Light Is Born is a letter that was written by Kartini, an Indonesian woman born in late 1800's. It was about the move for women's emancipation. Anyway, the ride didn't have anything to do with women's emancipation. The only thing that came close to that was Sarah and me were the only two female cyclists on the Silk Sheet route this morning. Back to the title, in the past few days, the weather had been pretty rough. There were tornado touchdowns in several states and last night at 9.15PM, my eyes were glued on local channels. A tornado was passing Marietta and heading to Johns Creek. That was just 10-15 miles away from me. I was a little nervous. Thank God. It didn't touch down here in Atlanta. We still didn't know what the firm plan was for Sat morning. Plan A was to ride at Silk Sheets at 9AM. Plan B, if we had persistent rain, was to ride at Cadence Bikes. My butt was already protesting Plan B. Sitting on a trainer for over 3 hours was pretty painful. I had my share with Will's classes on Tuesday and Thursday for 1.5 hours each. I don't need more quality time with a trainer.

Long story short, I got a hold of Sarah. I think her childhood dream to be a meteorologist was fulfilled this morning. After reading the radar, she said it should be okay riding outside. We may get a little bit of rain but it wasn't going to pour. Susan was sticking to Plan C, which was riding in her basement by herself. Sarah and I wheeled down at 9.30AM. It was just a little cloudy, not a single drop. We were good to go. 0.5 mile from the start, this is what we found....

Raging river... well okay, it wasn't a river but the river was overflowed to the street. I asked her if there was a way to detour. Sarah just shook her head... so, we decided to cross carefully. She took the plunge first and I followed. After she got to the other end, she turned around and was laughing at me. As I was pedaling, the water was splashing up pretty high like a fountain. My right foot, because it was at the bottom, was soaked. Crap! It was going to be a cold ride. After that, the road was actually pretty dry. There were some puddles but it wasn't bad at all. We crossed South Fulton Highway, and we noticed that the sun came out and the sky was blue. It was really great.

Around mile 23, I shifted to the big gear and snapped... The shifter was up but I got stuck in the small gear. what's going on? I told Sarah and she said, oh that's your cable. It's busted. Nice! No wonder I had a problem shifting last week at Brookhaven. I thought it was because my chain was dirty so it was a little sticky. We still had 27 miles to go. I was a little mad but at least I could still shift the rear cassettes. It would really suck if it was the other way around. I've had the bike for almost 2 years and the cables had not been replaced. I guess it was time. We stopped at the gas station to pee. I was hungry and I had to eat something solid. I bought Nutter Butter. I've been wanting to try them during rides. It hit the spot.... so tasty. After the stop, I felt much better. I wasn't annoyed anymore with the busted cable.

We stopped at one point and took some pictures. Look at the blue sky in the background. Who knew we had a tornado watch the night before.

We had a little fun coming back. We had to cross the raging river again. This time, we took some pictures and videotaped them to show Susan what she missed.

When we got back to the parking lot, I was stopping and turning around at the same time. I unclipped my left foot but accidentally was leaning to the right. I went down. My right knee kissed the ground. I had long tights but I still managed to scrape my knee. Oh well.... a rookie mistake.