Today was the first day temps were expected to be near 60° for the year, and you could tell; we started Winter Larry's ride with fifteen people today, including two newbies who had never been on a Freewheeler ride before.
Among the others were some fast folks whom I haven't seen in months, and they were ready to go; we started off fast right out of Cranbury, and some of our number were struggling to keep up with the pace set by the group. One rider, complaining of tired legs and a skipping cogset, dropped off before we had goone ten miles (he was noticeably lagging from the start). Another decided to maintain her own pace, within the range rating for the ride.
(By the way, at least two people have mentioned not understanding the references I make in some of these posts, and being surprised when I said that I usually link to definitions/explanations. Text that looks like "within the range of the ride" in the previous paragraph is a link. In most browsers, it's a different color; in some, it may also be underlined. I set my links so they open in a new tab or window, so you can come back here if you want to. Or not.)
Well before the break in New Egypt, we had split into a faster and a slower group, and there was a difference: one of the faster riders had an average of 16.1, and I, mostly with the slower group, had an average of 15.3 when we got back to Cranbury.
The route (that's a link, too), which includes my 8-mile ride-to-the-ride after my customary bagel, and my 4-mile ride back to the car, went into the wind on the way down, and the wind was at our backs on the way back (unusual for Larry's rides). We were probably faster on the way back than on the way there.
I'm not going to attempt to list all the names; I'm sure I'll forget many. I was glad to see people I haven't seen in months, and some others I've been seeing regularly. For you two new guys, we're not usually that fast (see this ride, and this one)... but, now that I check it out, sometimes we are. More or less.
Oh, well.
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