The weather was a bit sketchy today -- I was watching the giant green blob on the radar covering Connecticut all afternoon, keeping my fingers crossed and hoping it wouldn't creep up into our neck of the woods. As ride time approached, it did a little creeping, but it was moving slowly enough that it seemed like we would mostly be clear.

The questionable conditions kept many of the regulars away, but intrepid riders Jerome, Kavi, and Rachel joined Ari and me for our Hatfield loop. During the pre-ride discussion in the parking lot, it started raining lightly, causing me to pull out my phone and take another look at the radar, where the green blob was still slowly creeping northward. It still seemed like it was moving pretty slowly, though, so we decided to give it a shot.

I was questioning this decision as we pushed north on King Street in increasingly heavy rain, and came close to pulling the plug, but another couple miles further north brought gradually diminishing precipitation, and a bit of a tailwind, until it was almost dry by the time we got to Cronin Hill Road. We settled into a nice paceline rotation as we moved south through Hatfield, with the group working well together. The rain started up again as we moved further south, but never really got beyond a sprinkle on our way home.

We rolled back into Sheldon Field at a near-record 6:45 PM after a very speedy ride of around 15 mph. I told the group that we would have to do some laps around the parking lot to eat up the rest of our allotted ride time, but nobody seemed interested in joining me for that.

Next week we're back to our Easthampton loop, come out and join us if you're up for the challenge of the giant Park Hill Road climb!