hazy shade of winter old guys' ride

Erich evidently got an email from Mary F (who considers it unworthy to put on her bike shoes if she can't do a 100-mile day), asking if there was to be a "Ride to the Ride" today, because his response, sent to several (including  me), was that there would be (there was some inside-joke snarkiness as well, but it's not worth posting here). So I got to Etra Lake Park at 8:40 or so, to be ready to go for 9:10, to get to Byron Johnson Park in Allentown for the 10:00 start of Dennis W's regular Wednesday ride (what I refer to as the "Old Guy's Ride"). Erich and Mary accompanied me down to Allentown, where we found Al L (in the past, a regular on the "Ride to the Ride", but complaining of the temperature today; we gave him some teasing about that). We had a total of thirteen as we left the park, and I was trying not to be triskaidekaphobic... but then Dennis forgot his mirror, and I was afraid this was an omen of things to come.

Luckily (HAH!), Mike came along as we were waiting for Dennis and joined the group. His raising the number to fourteen is probably why we had such a good ride today.

Hrmph.

WE went on a few roads I don't remember doing before, and we went the other way on at least one I did remember. The route at this link includes the "Ride to the Ride" and the ride back, over most of the same route, and the route we did today, with a stop in Columbus. Al was right; it WAS a bit cold, and the grey skies didn't allow the sun to warm us. Despite the 50° forecast, it was late in the ride before I felt warm.

On the way down, Dennis had to stop a couple of times to adjust his saddle; he had adjusted the pitch (the angle between the nose and tail of the saddle) at home, and had not torqued up the adjustment bolt adequately to avoid having the saddle move when he was riding. He tried one adjustment, which was not right; a later one was good enough to get home, but I suspect he'll be wrenchin' on the seatpost today, before he gets on the bike again.

I wonder if we teased Al L too much about missing the "Ride to the Ride", because he decided to come back to Etra with us at the end (although he commonly does extra miles after the group rides; he had over 11,000 miles on the bike in 2012). this meant, of course, that he had to ride BACK to Allentown to get his car. As for me, I just loaded the bike in the car at Etra and came home, where I'm now laundering the sheets, and finishing the coding on this post.