joe's ride to the sea

Although Tom H had a ride scheduled for Schooley's Mountain for this weekend, with lots of climbing, early in the week Joe M sent out an email that he was leading a ride from Etra to Belmar. A couple of my friends, including Laura OLPH and Dave C were planning to go on that ride, and I got to thinking that I mostly like the club rides because of the people I ride with. Then Laura emailed that she wanted to do some extra miles, to make it an 80-something mile day in preparation for her plan to do the 100-mile ride at the Princeton Freewheelers Event next week, and so it was decided.

I met Laura behind Cliff H's office at some ridiculous hour this morning, and we rode to Etra to meet the others who were coming. Here's leader Joe and Laura:

Joe B had ridden in from Cranbury...

... and Mary F was getting her first few miles of the day:

So off we went.

(I still haven't got the photo thing down. Laura tells me Chris C can take pictures over his shoulder; I tried that, and here's about the only one that worked:)

(I hope you can see Laura's grin in that one.)

Dave C couldn't come, complaining of illness; I later chatted with Joe about determining how sick Dave was, so I know whether to send the "hope you get better" email, or the "hey, I changed my plans to go on this ride to see you, and you didn't even show up" email.

It was a great day. The heat of the past few weeks had broken, and the threat of rain was holding off until tomorrow. We did this route (link includes Laura's and my extra miles back from/to Plainsboro).

We went to the little mall that includes the Dunkin' Donuts and TR's in Belmar.

We spoke to the owner, who said that, despite Storm Sandy, it was being a pretty good year; evidently, the only thing that makes the difference is the weather: people come out when it's nice, and not when rain is predicted. Despite all the heat, last week was pretty good for him.

And Belmar is just a delight, a circus, even at 10:30 in the morning (which is about the time we were there). Young people trying to look older and more experienced than they are, older people trying to look like kids, lots of skin showing (some of which you wish weren't showing so much), planes trailing signs, parasailing, kites. We saw the beach, and came back.

On the way back, at one point we were chatty and bunched up , and a couple of pickups were stuck behind us; one, as he passed, shouted at us to get off the road. Remembering something I had posted to when this blog was new, I shouted back, "Purple Lampshade Asparagus!" I don't know what effect it had on the driver, but the five of us had a lot of fun with it.

And so back to Etra, and then Laura and I went back to Plainsboro. John B had planned to ride back with us part of the way, but it turned out he turned off fairly quickly. Laura had gotten a call that some mouse brains at her job had suffered ill effects; they were, in effect, cooked. Here's hoping that the fault lay with someone other than Laura.

Probably no group ride tomorrow; The Excellent Wife (TEW) insists that we've been together for nineteen years (I don't believe it myself). The anniversary of our first date is somewhere around this time of year, so we're off to the Washington Crossing Inn tomorrow to celebrate. She'll try to prove to me that we actually HAVE been together that long, and I'll continue to point out that all of my past relationships have fallen apart much sooner than that; how can this one have lasted that long?