you would have hated it

I've been nagging Laura OLPH about setting a ride on River Road in Hunterdon County, along the tracks, between teh cliff and the river, since I went down it as part of the Anchor House Ride last summer. For today's ride, she and Jeff X Lippincott plotted a route that included that road, along with some excellent stuff (and intriguing road names: Gallows Hill? Wampum Buck?) in Pennsylvania.

It was a great ride, and you would have hated it.

The average was slow; we stopped a gazillion times to get pictures; we crossed the Delaware four times and had to walk the bikes each time; I left the house at something-after-7-this-morning, and didn't get back until something-after-3. Everything that anyone complains about on Laura's rides was included in this one. You probably wouldn't have liked the rest stop, either (although it had good coffee and a reasonably clean bathroom, which make it Zagat-rateable in my estimation!).

I loved this ride. Even though, somewhere at about 20 miles or so, I got caught going too slow, in too tall a gear, at the bottom of a hill, and had to get turned around to get up enough speed so I could gear down to get up the hill, I loved this ride. It had some grueling uphills, some ripping downhills, places where we were cookin' along at 17-or-so-mph, and places where we were just pokin' along. It had beautiful scenery, and beautiful towns and buildings I'd never seen before (and I'm much more likely to wax rhapsodic about the towns and buildings than about the farms and valleys). There were just four of us (Joe M filled out the quartet), and we kept together.

My head's been full of squirrels and cobwebs over job-related and family-related stuff recently (my widowed mother is moving to a senior living center, and, frankly, I'm sorry to see it). I needed a group ride today, and this was just the one. My thanks to Laura and Jeff for this lead.

But you would have hated it.

(Laura should have pictures soon; I'll happily steal some, as I did a couple of weeks ago.)