Bad Chainring Karma Day

Today's ride with Laura OLPH had a number of memorable qualities to recommend it, not least of which was the route, a three-loop route up to Brookville & Mt Airy, then to Lambertville, then back to the start in Pennington. A few newbies along: Lauren & Peter, visiting from South Jersey (and Lauren said the laid-back Hill Slug style suited her), and Brenda, who frequents the flatlands, and who rode with us until she felt she wasn't havin' any fun any more, and she became the first of four to leave us. A dozen started and eight finished, a DNF rate ("Did not finish") which is unusually high for a Slugs ride, but it wouldn't be a Slugs ride without at least one dropout. (We say we don't drop people on purpose, and we don't... but sometimes folks leave us. Well, more than sometimes; usually.)

Along the way, both Laura and Chris had front-derailleur problems. Chris thinks his is just a bad adjustment, but Laura's defied our road-mechanic skills (although I admit I'm reluctant to manhandle a carbon frame with internal cabling). We managed to get her chain onto the middle ring of her triple, which is forgiving enough that she was able to get home on it... well, almost home; she split off by Hart's Cyclery so that her mechanic-wallah could have a look at the recalcitrant front control (which is where the problem seemed to lie). Laura was another of the four to split off the ride, leaving yours truly to lead the customers back to the parking lot. Leaving navigation to the perennially geographically-challenged author of this blog requires more desperation than sense, but it worked in this case (it helps that we were less than a mile from a starting point with which I am most familiar).
A fellow slug, Jeff, had been on two rides last year on which derailleurs died, but he was nowhere in evidence, so we couldn't place blame on him, even if he were invoking witchcraft.

Addendum 2/21/12: Subsequent correspondence with Laura indicates that the problem was a left shifter that was (deo gratias) still under warranty. I'm glad the problem was inside a shifter; those things are replace-don't-repair items, so I don't feel like I'm expected to be able to fix them. (You can't get parts for 'em, usually; you've gotta rip off & replace the whole assembly.)

We had hoped to stop at the Pure Energy Cycling and Java House... but it was closed. At mid-day. On a Saturday. With a poignant mixture of disappointment and incredulity, we repaired to another local coffee shop (I think Lambertville Trading) where I was able to feed my caffeine addiction and offload some toxic fluids. While stopped, I bought a cupcake from a collection of young urchinettes collecting for a local hospital; they said they were not affiliated with any Scouts or suchlike organization, but had just decided to do this. It either gives me hope for the generation that will support me in my decline, or it was an arrant fraud perpetrated by some soulless corporation or other... in either case, the abundance of cute worked on me like a drug.
The only bad thing about this ride is that I have a four-day weekend, and this will be the only opportunity I get to ride it it!