BurbleChaz

Melbourne was assailed by a flock of squalls this afternoon. From our flat we had grandstand views of them as they dumped torrential rain on the suburbs.

For reasons that remain unclear to me, I took my bike out. Five minutes out I ran into one. On the plus side, there was no hail and no lightning. There was quite enough freezing cold rain, though. I should have turned round then, but commonsense was still absent. Cold, wet and miserable, I perservered.

Unusually, today's howling gale was from the north. I caught another roadie at Port Melbourne, and strolled past at about 23mph with a honking great tailwind. From there to St Kilda was less than eight minutes. The ride back, into a 20-knot headwind and blinding, freezing rain was, well, character-building.

I got cold and wet. You get a sunset. You have to pretend you like it.

Two minutes later, I was soaked.