Larry promises this is the BEST ride in NJ visiting the towns of Little York, Bloomsbury, Milford, & Frenchtown. Ride along two beautiful rivers and cool forest road. Route designed to minimize the significant hills. Nobody left behind......but after yesterday, I wasn't sure I wanted significant hills (whatever they are), minimized or not, so I decided on Gary W's ride out of Etra. I wasn't sure until I actually got in the car whether I was going to add miles... but then, of course, I did. Several weeks ago, Laura OLPH had adjusted the route from Bagel Street in Plainsboro to Etra so that it missed the most dangerous intersection, and I used RideWithGPS.Com to re-create the route, and loaded it into the GPS so I could follow it this morning (yes, I really am that ditzy when it comes to navigation).
Mary F's C+ ride leaves from the same place at the same time, so I got to see a number of people I like, including Erich W, who either is or isn't feeling better in his bum hip; it was hard to get a clear answer out of him. There were to be 17 on Gary's ride, but two mutinied before we left and went with Mary, so we departed Etra with 15. One of the riders was on a carbon recumbent with 700 wheels (edit: that's the size, not the number of wheels, although a bike with that number of wheels is quite an image). I'd never seen such a thing and chatted with him about it' we got to talking about hardware, techniques, and so on.
We did this route (that, of course, includes my ride from Plainsboro to Etra and back). On the way through Jamesburg, I was SURE we were going to stop at Mendoker's... but we didn't; we went to the Wawa instead (where there are toilets, a convenience not to be despised). And on the way out of the Wawa, up behind us comes a young Asian fellow all fitted out in Specialized gear: kit, full-black-attack carbon bike, making us look like we were stopped for directions or something. He asked about the ride and the club, and seemed to recognize me, and I was sure I recognized him, but couldn't place him until about ten miles later (after he was long gone); he was the eponymous Kim of Kim's Bikes in New Brunswick. I need to go there and spend some money again!
Then back. The prevailing west wind in the Cranbury area was not in evidence today; instead, it seemed to come from the southeast, meaning that we were riding straight into it for some of the ride home. John D and I got up front and pulled (and probably pushed the pace) for a bit, until I noticed that we were getting too spread out, and I went back to try and pull some others. By this point, two others had left the ride, one from being tired, I'm sure, and the other was the person he'd come with (a stronger rider, but I like it that loyalty to his friend trumped completing the ride). At another point, Gary himself was complaining about the wind, but he found his legs again to lead us back through the bike path to the park.
And so back home. Sergei, who was a ride partner of mine when I first started this blog, was at the Memorial Day All-Paces ride and was out again today, we rode together for a bit while I told him about my GPS (before we went our separate ways back). Now I'm home, and it's time to put the laundry in the dryer and take care of other responsibilities to home and family. Life, as I so frequently say, is good.
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