One glove
Saturday started at 38 degrees, so I wore the good gloves: wool liners under the old leather pair whose stitching has given up on the thumbs. I took the river road north to the grain elevator and back, about 22 miles of flat blacktop with a gravel stretch in the middle where the county never finished paving.
At the elevator I stopped for coffee from the thermos and pulled off both gloves to hold the cup. I tucked them under the bungee on the rear rack, where I always put them. When I got home there was one glove. The left one was gone, and so was its liner.
Going back for it
I had lunch and then talked myself into it. A glove isn't worth twelve miles, but those gloves are, or at least they're worth a slow afternoon. I rode out again in the 40s, mostly in the small ring, scanning the shoulder like I'd lost a contact lens.
Riding that way shows you a lot. In six miles I counted three single work gloves, one child's mitten hung on a fence post by somebody kind, a socket wrench, and a whole unopened can of root beer. The ditch grass has gone the color of wet cardboard. The sumac is past its bright red and down to brown, and the cornfields on the east side are cut low enough that you can see the river through them for the first time since May.
I found the liner on the gravel stretch, flattened into a tire track. The leather glove I never found. Maybe it's on a fence post somewhere for me.
What I changed
- Gloves go in the handlebar bag now, not under the bungee. The bungee lets go on washboard gravel and I knew that.
- I put a spare pair of cheap knit gloves in the bag for good. They weigh nothing.
- When I can't find something on the bike, I check the rack, the bag and my jacket pockets before I decide it's lost. That part didn't help this time, but it's a good habit.
Total for the day was 34 miles to bring home one damp wool liner. I wore it on my left hand for the last few miles, with a bare right hand stuffed in my pocket whenever the road was straight. It felt about right for late October.