At 5:00am The Weather Channel reported the temperature at 59°F (15°C) in Fort Lauderdale. Despite the fact that this tied the record low for this date, I got out of bed and went to the ride anyway. At 7:15am I was informed that the temperature was reported a little earlier as 57°F (14°C). Despite the fact that I did not have leg warmers, arm warmers nor a jacket, I decided to stay at the starting line for the 65 mile run which begins at 7:30am. The 30 mile ride starts at 8:00am. The wind was reported as NNW at 20mph. The ride starts by going North for 32.5 miles (approx 51km).

Before I go any further, it is necessary to point out that my usual ride is 35km (21.7mi) and I usually complete it at an average speed of 27km/h (17mph) in temperatures above 24°C (76°F) and little to no wind. What was I thinking? I was thinking, “This is going to be a fun challenge!”

I started thinking other things pretty quickly. At about 1.5km I started thinking that my lungs are filled with freezing air and the vapours of my breath are starting to solidify and expand within the tiniest airways and soon, I will not be able to make oxygen reach my red blood cells and death is near! Apparently, the less you are able to breathe, the less water vapours you are able to produce in your lungs. The result is that even as your lungs burn as it is being ripped apart by ever expanding icecubes and breathing becomes nearly impossible, death never comes because the icecubes melt, filling your lungs with fluids that get coughed up even as you are trying to make an effort to inhale.

Eventually, my muscles warmed up enough to produce enough body heat to prevent the lungs from freezing. That is, until we hit the first red light and stopped. What little moisture formed as a microscopic layer on the skin was enough to lower the body core temperature by about ten degrees (give or take) as the muscles stopped moving and the latent heat of vapourisation prevented them from easily doing so again.

Nevertheless, I moved on. Now there are other effects cold whether has on the human body. That effect lead me to eventually realise that most restaurants and several other places with publicly available restrooms are not open at 7:45am on Sundays. This despite the fact that I had used the men’s room in the Hotel before the ride. The first rest stop –about 25km (16mi) into the trip-- was a welcomed sight; a relief, so to speak. Of course that was several kilometers beyond the point of comfortable restraint. This was an experience repeated again between the first and second rest stops but I am getting ahead of myself.

I started out drafting behind other riders with whom I could, with effort, keep up. That is, before I took a corner where there was no building and a crosswind pushed me a little to the right, losing the draft. As hard as I tried, all I could do is watch the pack leave me behind. This was about six to ten kilometers (3-6miles) into the ride. This meant that my trip to the first reststop was much harder and much longer than I had anticipated. On the other hand, I did not anticipate 57°F weather and a 20mph headwind.

I did mention the headwind, right? First paragraph? A NNW wind blows from the NNW to the SSE and we were riding north to begin with so that is a headwind. Despite that, I trugded on. Occasionally, one will see what looked like a godsend. The road would have a wall or trees on one side of the road delineating a set of private lots and trees or a wall would be on the other side for exactly the same reason. “A windbreak!”

“No. A wind tunnel!” That’s right. The corridor just guides the wind directly at you and somehow amplifies the effect that you feel yourself being pulled backwards by a rope around the seatstay attached at the other end to a Hummer® heading south. And with all this, you are only thinking of the bathroom at the second rest stop that keeps you going on.

Well, I finally got to the second rest stop and after taking the pause that refreshes, realise that I did about 50km at an average speed of 26.6km/h and was quite surprised but pleased with myself. After all, it was further than my usual ride and into a headwind. A half banana and a couple sips of fluids later, I eagerly headed south. For one, I was looking forward to the tailwind. Secondly, the more I stood still, the colder I got.

Sure enough, there was fun to be had. The return ride was fantastically fun. I lead a draft for about 20km then followed the draft for the rest of the way. Finishing at 102km with an average of 27.7km/h, it was a great ride! I cannot wait to do this again.