early-season ride to belmar with tom h

Tom H's post about this ride, earlier this week, said that he would make a decision by 9pm Friday about whether the weather would force a reschedule of his ride to Belmar from today until tomorrow, but he changed the original post, so that by the time I checked it (at some ridiculous hour this morning), it said:

We got some rain overnight but that is over now. The roads are wet but are starting to dry so the ride is on. Its going to be a little messy riding on the wet roads but it should be a fun ride. It will give us a chance to see how the rebuilding of the boardwalk is going and how our favorite beach front hang out fared.

So we gathered at Etra for the 9:00 9:05 departure time (some of us were less-than-diligent about promptness). Thirteen of us went, and I'm impressed that I can actually remember: besides me and leader Tom H, there were Cheryl, Chris, Jeff X, Joe, John, Ken, Laura OLPH, Mark H, The Other Mark, Mary, and Mike.

Normally we go to Belmar later in the season, and the beach was empty except for a few surfers. Some of the streets are still closed after Sandy, and one of the places we frequently stop had just reopened (the adjacent Dunkin Donuts was closed, and looked like it was going to stay that way). Tom and Laura got some pictures of the reconstruction, to which I may link when I see 'em (Jeff X said he thought it was outside my artistic integrity not to get my own pictures, but I don't think he understands just how little effort I intend to put into this). The boardwalk is just being put together. Many of the toilets and service buildings on the beach side are gone; some are being rebuilt... and there are also signs of construction on the houses: new windows (with the tags still on), permits, and so on.

Wind was at our back much of the way there, and we had a pretty high speed (one said 15.6mph) when we stopped in Belmar. That wind, however, was a nemesis on the way back - someone (was it Tom?) quipped that it was like 30 miles of uphill all the way. (Mike missed it; he arranged for his wife to pick him up in Belmar and drive him home from there.)

It kind of is uphill all the way back; there is an overall downslope between inland and the shore, and there were no real hills, although there were enough grades for some of our number to justify both slowing down and complaining. We did this route. That, of course, includes a brief warm-up prior to the actual departure.

Laura said it wasn't a real Tom ride because we weren't making up songs about how much we hated him or how he was mistreating us. He did rip across Route 9 without stopping, but the light was with us. I think he might be sorry that we aren't slandering him, but the truth is that this was not that demanding of a ride.

Three stops: one at a benighted bagel place (with about four stale bagels and a half a Mr. Coffee pot of coffee), then at Belmar, then at a Dunkin Donuts about eight-ten miles from the end. At that point, John, Mary, and the two Marks decided to go on without stopping. So of the thirteen that left, we ended with eight - in that, it was like  Hill Slugs ride!

I hope to do another ride later in the season when the beach is more open and populated. I'm hoping to see how Belmar has rebuilt, and is successful after Sandy.