A rare second post,

but I feel the ride this afternoon deserves a write up.
It all started with the usual 3:30 meeting at das Haus. While waiting for Finn to pump up his tires, I said to Brandon "I hope it does not snow, at least not wet snow." A good foreshadow of things to come. We then rolled over to Carleton and picked up a few of them. It was then off to the course for some hard hills. Sean and I both stopped for a nature break, and the rest of the group picked it up I believe, but no worries, we caught back up after a few miles of riding into the ever increasing ESE wind. Soon after we got to the course and start going hard up the one of the longer hills. It was good, Finn put in a pull, then Sean got to the front and guttered us all, why exactly I am not entirely sure, but no point in complaining. From there the pace held, but as the wind got stronger as we came out of the trees it got harder. By the top I was tired and slowed, for I thought we were going to rest on the downhills. Nope...As we came down the hill before the uphill before the gravel, Sean got a flat. Some things happened that I won't bother mentioning, but my CO2 pump did not work, luckily there were some U guys who had decided to come ride the course, and while they were on their way back they came across us and Sean pumped his tire up a bit. At that point the weather was starting to get a bit crappy, the snow and wind were picking up. Sean went back in, and Brandon and I did another lap (Finn and the rest had already gone in). Right about then the snow started really picking up, not dry snow, but wet wet snow. However, we kept the pace fairly high going up the hills, on the hill again before the gravel I was pulling near the top, Brandon decided to attack. I was definitely not ready for that, so I had to do some chasing. I caught back soon enough and we traded pulls for a bit. By now I could hardly see through my glasses, and my legs were totally soaked. Near the Stop ahead sign I was pulling, and Brandon again attacked. Bad for me, mostly because I had just been pulling hard into a fierce cross wind, and secondly a long downhill with the wind was coming up. Being on my cross bike I spin out real easy. After cutting it close getting across the intersection I of course soon spun out. I was holding the same 20 meter gap the whole time though, as soon as the road started to level out I was able to pull right back up to him. We then kept the pace fairly high coming into town. I was planning on sprinting, but by the time we got to the townline I could not move my hands because my gloves were soaked and pretty much frozen. Sean was just coming out after switching bikes, "to see if we were still alive." Just barley! haha. So we just cruised back in getting ever colder.
All I have to say is thanks to Jan for his rain vest. Without wearing that today I would have been close to hypothermia I should think. It kept my core dry enough to keep producing heat.
Finally we got back to Olaf, I waited 10 minutes before showering, partly because I had to get multiple layers of soaked clothes off with numb/frozen hands...Hard stuff.
Then in the shower my skin was cold enough to make the water cold by the time it got to my feet (which stayed warm thank to neoprene)!
But that was the ride, pretty close to epic.