The Land Trust supports a farmer's market at the farm from late spring through mid-November, and the point of the rides was apparently to point out some of the land that the Trust was able to preserve... and other land they could not, because it is owned by developers who are biding their time until they can build more McMansions on the properties (that is, of course, an arrant slander; even I must admit that not more than about 60% of the properties being developed in these areas are McMansions).
The farmer's market is right on the circle where Route 12 in Flemington meets Route 523. I went early, sure that I was going to get lost, and I almost did; while the roof sign in the picture above is easily visible from the road, the driveway entrance is not. I went around the block (and blocks are big in comparatively-rural Flemington) and missed the driveway twice before I found a place to park; then, after I suited up and assembled the bike, I parked myself at the entrance so that the other riders would know where to turn.
Although the ride start was not ideal (it was difficult to get out into traffic from the circle, although it did have adequate parking and porta-potties), it was another lovely ride on another lovely day. Laura OLPH had two routes, and I suggested we take the less-challenging one, and I did not hear a complaint. So off we went on this route. Pretty through Readington & Stanton, and with a stop at Jerry's Brooklyn Grill in Whitehouse, where we were chattin' up the counter gal, who might buy a bike and come out with us when she's good and tired of indoor spinning sessions. Then, after the break, to some real hills, a view of the Round Valley Reservoir, followed by a grand downhill. Later, we got to go along a road that appears to have been abandoned, but it makes a great bikeway; if I weren't so geographically-challenged, I might be able to say more about it.
Eleven of us went: besides Laura and me, Ron, John D & Jane B (who was Jane C; she can't change one of her email addresses, so I have a bit of confusion there), Jack, sometime-photographer Ed C, Peter (who's been out on a few Slug rides), Bob (who came with us on the Bloomsbury Boogie of two weeks ago), and two new to me: Chris and Ted. Chris will be going on the Anchor House Ride this year. Ted does triathlons, and had a bag on his back to see how that worked on a ride - his verdict towards the end was that it was an idea that was better in the abstract than in the concrete.
Some of us missed a turn on that last spiffy downhill, and we had to be sure we collected all of our group of eleven, but we did; all of us completed at the Farmer's Market, where we saw Mike H's C+ ride come in behind us. Several visited the farmer's market; I saw some honey (which The Excellent Wife said was expensive) and some alpaca wool goods, which were not: I now own a pair of alpaca socks for winter rides (the vendor said they would be good for wicking sweat on summer rides, but they look too heavy to be comfortable in hot weather to me).
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