after the march snow ride

Yesterday's snows led to a flurry of emails among some of the Hill Slugs and Cranbury riders. Dave H asked if Ira was planning to lead the usual Saturday Cranbury ride (he wasn't), and then some other suggestions got made; Dave suggested starting at the Canal towpath parking lot near 518 (I took some ribbing for a mistype when I asked if it was near Route 18; D'OH!), and we agreed to see what today looked like.

Well, this morning looked like sunny and dry roads, and I suggested a 10am start. Ed C went off to ride with the Palis/Harnett billygoats (well, what you would call someone who's the opposite of a Hill Slug? I've ridden with 'em -- once -- and they're FAST on the hills). Laura OLPH was off protecting our environment, and we didn't hear from a couple others.

So it was Dave H and I. I left a smidge early for my pre-ride bagels, and met Dave. I rode to the start from home, so this route includes my rides there and back.

I'm a hopeless navigator, so there's a lot of "up one side and down the other", and a bit of up-and-back-on-the-same-road (see that bit at the top where we did the route through Colonial Park), but Dave didn't complain; I think he was as glad to be out for a ride as I was.We were a good match; we each pulled for a while, and where I work hard when I'm riding alone and ease up on the group rides, he likes the group rides because he will pull harder when he's out with other people. He was able to show me a bit of a route change that added some distance (and some variety) to a ride I've done, and was able to tell me about another change -- if I can get the route together, I might lead a ride around Princeton/Montgomery (so that we haven't ALWAYS got to drive to the ride start).

So now the bike clothes are in the dryer and I'm thinking about some lunch. I hope to do Winter Larry's ride tomorrow, and, since afternoon family obligations rule out the afternoon additional miles, I'm already plotting a "park and ride to breakfast" trip. We'll see.