with a barbed harpoon

Friend Ed C has been away, or busy, almost all summer, so when I got an email from him about doing a ride today (on one of my no-longer-Wednesdays-now-it's-every-other-Fridays-off), I quickly responded. We agreed to about 40 miles, from somewhere around here, and decided to do a route he set up that leaves from Colonial Park in Franklin and goes to Peacock's at the foot of Lindbergh Rd in the Sourlands.

He sent me the link to this route, and I dutifully put it into Mr. Garmin, my (less than) trusty GPS... but what with one thing and another, we wound up doing this route instead. As you can see, I was about three miles in before I turned the GPS on, so the times and such are a bit off.

I didn't bring a camera because it was just to be the two of us, but I should have done, because it was a pretty day, with autumn coming on and the trees turning (despite 86° when I got back to the car!). Ed got some pictures, and I hope to post or link to a few when I see them.

Partly because of the pictures, we lost the route for a bit; I was circling, and Mr. Garmin lost the way, so we adjusted the route to avoid a big climb. We came to the end of Rainbow Hill Road to go to Peacock's... and neither of us could remember which way to turn! We guessed, and guessed correctly. (Good thing; I hadn't had my morning bagel; I scarfed down half a sandwich at Peacock's.)

I don't remember where along the trip we were, but we got to talking about a comment Laura OLPH made on the Sourland Spectacular ride a few weeks ago. Laura is as anti-Strava (a record-keeping site for cyclists) as you can get. She evidently remarked during some discussion or other, "Firetruck Strava in the ass" (she used a different word that has some similar spelling patterns). Now, even excepting the question of what it means for an amorphous online "community" like Strava to have an ass, this raises important questions, such as: what if Strava likes it? Which led Ed to improve on Laura's invocation: to wit, "Firetruck Strava in the ass with a barbed harpoon". It is not inconceivable that FSITAWABH will reappear in these posts.