riding in the heat

Holy bananas, but it's been hot. Most of the week I stuck to the air-conditioned house and the air-conditioned job, but yesterday, I went out on a ride that the Freewheelers ride list said was to be about 50 miles, starting at 8:30. The ride leader had an attack of good sense, and emailed that she was shortening the ride and starting earlier; we did about 42 miles starting at 7:30, and, keeping to shady roads for most of the morning, we managed to have a good ride despite the heat. We went up Bonetown Road, with a steep climb and a terrible road surface (it's hard to get any speed up) on the way back. It took a bit longer to get home than my wife expected, and she was a bit disturbed; I'll plan to be a bit liberal with telling the time I intend to be back.

At night, went up to visit the in-laws, then took the nephews to the last of the Harry Potter movies. It's been a tradition that we take them, and now, as the last one is out, they are turning into the men they will be. It's sobering, and a reminder of time passing.

For today, I got an email forwarded from Laura, Our Lady of Perpetual Headwinds. Tom Hammell, author of Road Biking New Jersey, was doing a metric century today out of Burlington County. That sounded like fun; I've never been on those roads. Well, hot again, of course, so the ride went from a plan of 62 miles (10 km) to 57, to 54; we finally ended up with 52. The topography of Burlington is about like a sheet of paper that's been crumpled and smoothed: it's that flat. There are some things that look like hills, but they're not; it's more likely they're just gravitational anomalies, or something. Because it was flat, some of us got going fast, even in the heat; Laura pointed out that her average was over 17 mph; could we maintain that all the way? I took that as a challenge, and was part of a trio that cooked the road on the way back, and despite winds and the worst hills that the county could throw at us (oh, please), came in with an average of 17.0. And then I wrung about 1/2 cup of water out of my headband.

On the Anchor House Ride, riders are given a name tag to be worn, or carried on the back of the bike, any time we're out on the road. I had not taken mine off the back of my bike for yesterday's ride, and Laura, who has a labelmaker at home, said she was going to make a label for the bottom, so it would read:

JIM

BRITTAIN

IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO CUE SHEET

After some consideration, I think the label I would make for myself would say:

JIM

BRITTAIN

IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU'RE PROBABLY ALSO LOST.