Yesterday’s ride home from school was a little wet. Now in comparison to the ride we had a few weeks ago, it was much dryer. That torrential downpour I am not sure we will experience again anytime soon. When I left to go pick him up, it was just sprinkling. No big deal.
However, by the time he got out of school and he got to me and we had tied up his emergency poncho so it would not get caught in his bicycle tires or chain, it was raining a little bit harder. It was not hard, but it was a bit more than a sprinkle. Oh well, we were out and we were going to have to get home. His back pack was covered by his poncho and we had learned from the previous experience what to do with the poncho so we were good.
We learned that not only do you need to tie a knot at the waist to pull the poncho up tight around the waist under the backpack, thus getting rid of the excess poncho material that can potentially get caught in the tires and chain and also putting a nice closed plastic seal around the bottom of the backpack. You also need to tie a knot under both arms and at the neck to close up the gaping holes there because when Lance rode last time, he had a huge balloon from the wind going into the poncho. This helped solve that problem.
Let me emphasize that the poncho is not intended to keep the kid dry. The intention is to keep the backpack and all of its contents dry. It is a two mile ride and even a weather resistant or proofed backpack will start to leak in a heavy rain for the time it takes to ride home in it. The entire purpose of the poncho is to keep the backpack dry. It also helps keep the kid from freezing as well, but that is secondary to keeping the backpack dry.
I had on a windbreaker that has some water resistance to it. It was not raining that hard. I figured I would be fine. I had a spare poncho so I was not worried, but I also had the windbreaker. I just zipped it up all the way and we were on our way.
Then it started to rain heavier as we went. Why is that?
We made it home, wet. We were not soaked clean through like we were the last time, but we were clearly wet. At least our shoes were dry this morning unlike last time where they were still sopping wet the next morning.
We did not let a little bit of rain scare us off. This morning Lance was complaining about his bike being hard to pedal. After watching his tire go around and around for some distance, I told him to pump his brakes. It looked like his brakes were dragging. Of course he did not pump his brakes, he just applied generously, at which point I plowed right into the back of him. Yep rear end collision this morning. Fortunately, neither one of us were hurt in that experience and it has been a while since we have done that, but it just goes to show that when you say “pump your brakes” you better be prepared to come to a complete stop not just slow down a little. Hopefully his brakes will ease up a little after the adjustments I made after we got to the school and the ride home will be better or we will be making a quick run to the bike shop this afternoon because there was nothing else that was visibly wrong with the bike.
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