pickup ride: short, slow, sweet.

A flurry of emails went back and forth this week about the selection of rides in the Freewheeler's schedule: nothing seemed to interest the folks I usually ride with, and Ira, who leads the Saturday B-rated Cranbury ride, will be out for several weeks with an injury (although later developments suggest that Bob S will be his replacement, and that's a good thing). One suggested a longer ride out of Piscataway, another didn't want to travel that far or be gone that long; a few went to Fort Mott in South Jersey to ride with the Philly club (now THAT's a distance to go for a ride start!).

Cheryl invited a few of us to go on a ride from near her house to Lambertville via a less-traveled route. I knew her ride would be of a reasonable length (even though I am an admitted mileage junkie) and a comfortable pace, so I went with her. We did this route.

Cheryl and I met, then went out to pick up Theresa; her husband Mike rode with us for a while, but he's recuperating from an injury, and decided to go his own way so he wouldn't slow us down (although I think he wound up making better time than we, albeit probably on flatter roads). We went up Poor Farm, a road that seems to have variable pitch; some days it's MUCH harder than others. As we turned left onto the poorly-surfaced Harbourton-Woodsville road, the sky darkened (despite an earlier clear weather prediction) and we got the merest smattering of rain, just enough to remind us how bad the weather MIGHT have been. (The weather was hard to plan for: while I was warm enough at the start, I was overdressed by the time we got back; Theresa, on the other hand [who hates riding hot] was underdressed to start and added a layer after the break). We met Mike (he had ridden farther than we by that point) and changed the route slightly, and went down Rocktown-Lambertville & Quarry Street into Lambertville, to Lambertville Trading for coffee. (Quarry Street is a nifty downhill. How come I've never gone downhill on that road before?)

Then back up Quarry and Rocktown-Lambertville with Mike joining us for a while. We passed the Dinosaur/Snoopy rocks (where are they, again?) and back into Pennington, then onto Federal City, which I've only ever driven on (and not in this area); it was NEAT. There's a great open farm field which was beautiful (although I'll be it usually has a wicked wind; there was next-to-none today, though). Then back to the start.

Not a long ride, nor a fast one. But a pleasant day with people I like (and I'll be glad if/when Mike feels like he can keep up with us again).

And don't you think it's about time I got back to bicycle posts again?