first group ride of 2013

I didn't see Laura OLPH's post announcing the ride today until after I'd seen the weather forecast, which sounded cold... so I didn't know that she had already addressed my concern by pushing back the start time for an hour. Not that it made that much difference; it was perhaps a degree above freezing when we left, and we had to look out for ice on the road through the whole ride.  I added a layer (five, instead of my usual four), and was glad to have it most of the day... except for a few minutes when we left the rest stop and I was sweaty under my clothes, but you can be sure that passed quickly!

I had a bit of a hard time getting out of the house this morning. I was certainly up early enough; the earlier post today went up at 6:22 a.m., which means I had time to get up, make coffee, check the email and do the daily finances (I check my retirement accounts, credit cards, and bank accounts the morning after every workday... yes, I am that obsessive), and do some aimless web dabbling before I did that post, but I still barely got to Laura's on time to go. Once there, I met Chris C and Ed C, and the four of us rode to Pennington to pick up Peter, Linda, and Dave H for today's ride.

We did this route. I think Laura was making up some of it as she went, as it seemed a bit improvised (I had originally written "disorganized", but that's the wrong word), but I'm no one to complain (when it comes to routes, there are few more disorganized than I!). It included two of my favorite things: a ride on Alexauken Creek Road (beautiful, and not too hilly; it's like fifteen minutes of a vacation in the middle of my weekend), and a stop at Rojo's Coffee in Lambertville (good coffee, hipsters, people on laptops and other mobile devices - even in our bike gear, we get mostly ignored there). We stayed too long, and I was a bit stiff for the subsequent ride up the Quarry St/Rocktown-Lambertville Road hill, but if I can't complain, I'm probably not happy anyway.

Then back home. An intermittent shifting problem with the Yellow Maserati has apparently healed itself (or my fiddling with the cable tension and limit screws has finally worked). Perhaps tomorrow out with Winter Larry... or perhaps hang out with The Excellent Wife (TEW); her dad's ill, and she may want her hand held.