repeat/no repeat ride with ken g

Tom Hamill was leading a flat 100km around the pine barrens today, on which most of my friends were going... but Ken G was leading what I thought was one of his last Sunday rides today*; and he's turned into kind of a friend; and even though he can cook me, he doesn't (although it's a challenge keeping up), and some other stuff you don't get to know about was goin' on... so I went to Pennington for Ken's ride. I had high hopes after last week's ride; it was a good group and well-matched.

But only two of that group showed up today (other than Ken): me and the fellow below in the Cofidis jersey, whose name I misremember (so much for repeaters from last week!). I suppose it's one of the risks of a new ride: people aren't used to it, and it's hard to get regulars. We had six up to the break at the usual stop in Hopewell (the route started out as one we've done the other times I went out on this ride; due to road surface issues, we didn't do the Carter/Crusher loop, and went back to Hopewell a different way after the break). At the break, one fellow who had done mostly flat rides begged off and asked for a short route back; two others (including John, who has the nifty old Serrotta in the last picture) claimed time pressures and left the ride at the same spot, more or less. So the three finishers were the three from last week... and we did the second part of the ride faster than the first, adding about a half-mile per hour to the average.

(*It turns out Ken is planning to lead through September. He may divide his rides into faster groups on Saturdays and slower on Wednesday nights... I'm trepidacious about keeping up if he does that; he can cook me now - what happens if he gets a faster crowd? )

Route and rate info are here. We did that nifty, terrifying descent on Hopewell-Amwell again, and I got my top speed up by a miler per hour. Then up out of Hopewell past the dinosaur... at which point, I nearly bonked; a couple of miles from the end, Ken asked if we wanted another hill, and I said I didn't have it in me. We got back, and I met the eponymous Ross Hart of Hart's Cyclery (and spent a little money). The fellow who'd had the trouble on the hills was still there, and we had a short discussion about bike hardware and fit (do I ever have a short discussion about these things?).

Pic's below:

(I like that picture above more than I have any right to do.)

Lug porn! A better pic of the bike in the pic above, with lugged-steel Serotta frame and nifty old Campagnolo parts, including that enclosed brake - later discontinued because, while it did keep sand and bugs out of the brake doings, it's heavy. Pretty nonetheless, though: