In Which the Wind Sucks

It was a warm and windy outlook when I arrived at Woori Yallock. Since I had not been able to get out on the bike for 3 weeks I was not exactly looking forward to the prospect of fighting my way into an evil head wind. Not long after leaving I was joined on the trail by Steve Warburton and we rode side by side into the teeth of the strengthening gale. The only problem is that Steve is about 15 years younger and a good 40 kg lighter than me and hence is not at all troubled by such factors as a 40 knot head wind. While I puffed and huffed he calmy rode along as if he was enjoying a relaxing ride in the park.

We continued in such a lopsided fashion until we reached the final climb up to Mt Evelyn, at which time Steve could resist the temptation no longer and disappeared up the hill and into the distance. This finally gave me an excuse to drop the pace even further and make my way sedately to the summit. Since it was well ahead of schdule at least I did not have to worry about the time.

When I arrived at COGS there were already some of the usual crew chatting and waiting for the ride to start. There were also about 30 or so young teenagers, obviously out on a school ride. At first glance I though the Ghostriders had been inundated by a rush of new, young and attractive members, but soon realised that it was only the old saggy, grey tops that were part of our group.

When the appointed 1 pm finally rolled around we had a smaller group than usual and were able to maintain a brisk pace all the way to Woori Yallock, where we arrived about 4 minutes ahead of schedule. Following a short rest and drinks break I announced that, since it was the first Thursday of the month we would all be continuing up to Warburton for lunch at the Valley Bakery. I probably should have also reminded everyone that this was not an excuse to race because it did not take long for the pace to increase to an extent that had the peloton seperated into two groups.

Although the wind was still blowing strongly at least it was not always in our faces and sometimes even provided a welcome rear boost along the way. Eventually we all arrived at Warburton and settled down for a nice afternoon lunch in the sunshine.

Not long after I sat down to enjoy my sausage roll (which was one of the freshest and nicest tasting that I have had for some time) a sudden gust of wind appeared from nowhere, sending the umbrellas and tables rocking. My helmet and gloves were lifted into the air as if in the power of a mighty tornedo. Fortunately the disturbance only lasted a few seconds, but when I tried to retrieve my gear, one glove had disappeared completely. I had previously only known wind to blow, but this time it really sucked.

For the next five minutes we wandered the surrounds of the cafe looking for the missing glove, but without success. I even climbed out on to the roof to see if it had got caught in the gutter. No luck. I have heard of cosmic worm holes before, but always though that they only started in the region of distant black holes in space. I never dreamed that such a wormhole might exist in Warburton. And yet the glove had apparently departed from our known universe and was apparently on its way to somewhere else in the cosmos and maybe somewhen else in time.

Just as I was having visions of some weird looking alien in a distant galaxy trying to figure out where this mysterious amalgam of lycra and elastic had appeared from, than Steve gave a shout of triumph. He had solved the mystery of the disappearing glove. In hindsight it was all so clear. The wind had apparently lifted one of the umbrella stands off the ground at the same instant that the glove had been carried underneath. When the stand fell back to earth the glove was left trapped beneath it!

With my glove thus saved from cosmic oblivion we were all able to resume our ride unscathed by the storm. We all made it safely back to our cars before the predicted late storm arrived.

It was only a few days later that I read in the news about thousands of people in Norway witnessing what appeared to be a massive cosmic vortex opening in the skies. Strange but true. It would have been even stranger if they had reported a rain of left handed cycling gloves falling out of the sky.