windy day with winter larry

No group ride yesterday; nothing caught my eye, so I did about 24 miles from home, up Coppermine and down Old Georgetown, then to the Main St Cafe to see if I could find any Major Taylor riders there (there were, but I didn't know them, so I came straight back). Afterwards, The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I went to the Czestochowa shrine in Doylestown to pick up a large-type Polish-language bible for the excellent parents-in-law, and then discussed the quality of the relationship (a monthly observance) and went out for dinner.

Today I got out with Laura OLPH; we met at the usual place to do a few extra miles before Winter Larry's ride. There were twelve of us, as well as two who hoped to do Marco's slower ride, but he was not there at the time we left; they stayed to wait for him.

Heavy winds were predicted, and Larry bowed to the forces of meteorology by picking a route that would have us going into the wind on the way out, so it would be at our back on our return. We wound up doing this route out to Rocky Hill. It's a good thing we did plan it that way; the wind was tough on the way out, and would have been worse if we were more tired. John and Jane D were with us, and did it on fixed-gear bikes, but they went off about the time we took the break. As we were there at the bagel shop on 206, the clouds were rollin' in and the sky darkenin' up, some of use were eager to get back. We voted to come straight back, and instead of riding all the way to Cranbury, then back into the wind to the cars, Laura and I dropped off as we passed where we were parked, allowing the others to go on - we still had an extra eight miles on the way in, so I don't feel mileage-deprived. (We did have some hot speeds coming back to Cranbury - you can see that there wasn't much elevation on this ride, so that top speed might have been from the tailwind in Rocky Hill.)

This was my first group ride on the new wheels. I don't notice a lot of difference from the previous wheels (which is good; I was afraid these would be notably worse!). I did notice that I had adjusted the front brakes wrong; there was a substantial rub that slowed me down until I opened the brake before Cranbury, and I did a quick on-the-road re-adjustment there, which made all the difference. I've also had a problem with the shifting hanging up, but I think that is a problem with the chain adjustment for the new hub, not the wheel itself. I'll keep playing with the setting until it's right. Then I'll probably keep playing with it some more, anyway, because I can never leave well enough alone when it comes to things velo.

I actually forgot to take many pics today; here's what I got: