Temps were predicted to go up to 100° today (and I saw that on the car thermometer on the way home), but after missing group rides both days last weekend, and missing the all-paces ride on July 4 due to early morning rain, I was going on a group ride today if they were later to find my lifeless body on the road somewhere, like a suburban Tommy Simpson. Tom H had a ride planned for Burlington, but he was planning to shorten it due to the heat, and that's a long way to drive not to do a long ride, so I decided to do the B-rated ride out of Cranbury. Sometime-photographer Ed C thought he might go on the infamous "B+-that's-really-an-A" ride, but probably thought better of doing it in this heat, so he came on this ride, too, as did Dave H, Cliff H, and sixteen others (including y'r ob'd't servant).
I drove to Bagel Street Café in Plainsboro, then rode to the start point at Village Park in Cranbury along the route that Cliff showed me a few weeks ago (I wasn't sure I was going to have the energy to do it all in the afternoon, and I wanted the extra miles {it turns out I did the extra miles in the afternoon, too; see the whole route here [and doesn't that route look like an upside-down picture of an anteater sticking out its long, prehensile tongue to slurp up the Bagel Street Café?]}).
About 57 miles; the group ride was about 41. We got spread out, and eventually the folks for whom I was sweeping in the back got cut off from the main group. The main group was faster than I would have thought in the heat today... and, frankly, I was faster, and stronger, than I thought I would be. The route went by the infamous "Ptomaine Ptowers" rest stop in Clarksburg, and we stopped at Phil's, where I loaded up on liquids - I went through well over 96 oz. of water and juice today, and didn't have to use the bathroom until I got back home, which is a suggestion of how dehydrated I was (and the scale was kind when I got on it before I drank anything!).
Three of use who had fallen off the back were making our own way home when I ran over a rock and got the dread snakebite puncture. This was my first tire change in over a year, and, while Cliff was impressed with my effort, I'm sure that most of the other Freewheelers would have sent out for a pizza and gone to a movie by the time we were ready to ride again. Cliff stayed with me; the other rider went on (thanks, Cliff!).
When I got home, the tube was defective: I couldn't get the valve to release the air in it (I used a CO2 cartridge,and wanted to make sure I replaced the gas with real air... and the valve wouldn't release). Rather than be stuck on the road with a funky tube, I changed it, so now I've got a fresh tube, with real air, and two new tubes in the bag. While I had the bag open, I looked at the patch kit I was carrying, and it looked like it was fossilizing (what was going ON in there?), so I've got a new one of those, as well. I guess I'm grateful I didn't have to use that stuff until today, because it looks like I might have been stuck if I were depending on it! I guess I gotta check out the contents of that seat bag more often than once every eighteen months or so, huh?
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