Windy Sunday

Victoria has been dubbed "The Garden City", partly because while the rest of Canada is languishing in winter, early March looks like this here:

But today, Victoria decided to compete for the "Windy City" moniker, rivaling perpetually blustery places such as Chicago and the Oregon Coast.

I had planned a ride with Michelle and Kris (and Michelle's sister Shaunna joined us, but I'm not sure if that is the correct spelling of her name...) on the "VMR" - which stands for Victoria-Mitchell Farm-Return. A nice, mostly flat cruise out through the farmlands of Saanich and Central Saanich. Our ride started uneventfully, as a pretty strong tailwind pushed us out towards Mitchell's. It got interesting as we turned around and headed back to the city.

The wind was pretty strong, and we decided to ride down to the ocean to check out how strong it really was. By the time we got to Dallas Road, we felt like we were pedalling into the eye of a hurricane. We stopped to take a couple of pictures (my phone doesn't really do the normally glassy conditions justice), and then fought the wind back to Kris & Michelle's. There was a stretch where we actually had to lean into the wind while riding along the waterfront. My glasses and jacket now have a nice layer of salt on them from the spray from the waves.

Jason and I are off to California in a couple of days. The plan is to do some riding in the sun. Hopefully! Wind I can handle, but I'm done with rain.