chocolate bunny ride

Every year, on the Saturday before Easter, Laura OLPH does a ride yclept the "Chocolate Bunny Ride". The route is one she set up before she got as strong as she is on the hills, so, while it's over 50 miles, it's that long because it goes into the Sourlands on the way out, then circles around them on the way back.

The route I recorded included our rides (Laura's and mine) to and from the ride. It was a total of 100km, even though I didn't record quite that much; I turned the computer on and off a little distance from her house.

Here are some of the ways you know it was a real Hill Slugs ride:

• Almost all of the fifteen riders who started already knew one another, and had been on Slug rides before. There were one or two newcomers.
• Despite the fact that Laura included the "we don't drop anybody" clause in her introductory speech, one rider rolled off before the halfway point. Three others took a shorter route home from the break (in Laura's defense, she had announced that she would have cue sheets for that route available).
• One of the newbies was one of the riders who took the shorter route.
• There was one point at which we had not one, but two U-turns to stay on the route.
• We had riders with a range if different abilities...
• Nonetheless, we caught up at intersections, and mostly stayed together. Those of us with competitive tendencies were mostly able to keep them under wraps. amicitia quam celeritate.

I'm sure I won't be able to remember all of the names: Cheryl, Ron S, Dave H, the Boys from The Hood in Pennsylvania (Little Joe, Dave C, and Shawn R) who brought the newbie Pat, John & Jane D, Mighty Mike, Peter, Bob... and one other (sorry!) [edit 3/31/13: the other is an occasional Slug named Joe]  joined Laura and me at Pennington. Shawn is a few weeks away from having a baby; we're glad his wife let him out, and we expect to see him again in about ten years!

It's called the Chocolate Bunny Ride because Laura gives chocolate bunnies to all the riders who finish. On her site, she had this picture of the bunnies for the extra-milers:

... but I assure you, none of the bunnies were large enough to need a scaffold to manage. I have the sweet-tooth of a four-year-old, and I was just that little bit disappointed. (OTOH, I've got about three or four pounds that I just haven't been able to lose, so perhaps Laura was doing me a favor.)