Saturday's ride, flat (really), is shaping up to be a long one. My first attempt at a route has us back at the East Picnic Area of Mercer County Park at 73* miles. We will have two rest stops, though......which I did, and the two of us headed off to Mercer East. When we got there, parking was overflowing; there was some kind of dog show/convention/rodeo going on (I don't know; I'm not a dog person). We met Jackie F and The Other Jim, and then John K drove in. The Other Jim had a nifty Cervelo on which he had only a few hundred miles (see the glamour shot below), and John K had tires the color of bubble gum on his blue and white Serotta (I guess the other one is the serious bike).
We'll start around 9:30 a.m. Extra-milers can add 14 by meeting me at my house for a 9:00 a.m. push-off.
Off we went. We did this route, which was not exactly what Laura intended -- the intended route was a bit shorter; we missed a few turns and had to go back, and we had to adjust the route at one point (as I'm writing this, Laura is emailing with comments about her intention and the route as it worked out). Instead of 74 miles (which was what the final planned route was), we did 78 with the crew (a little over 5% variation; is that within acceptable error?).
It was a beautiful day, though. We went over roads that the Ride for McBride and the century on the Freewheelers Event use. I remember Laura saying she hoped for this kind of weather on the Event Century; she's had bad weather karma (although I guess hers is no worse than anyone else's who did that ride!).
The first rest stop was to be at the Olde World Bakery near Pemberton. Shortly before that, The Other Jim broke a spoke on the drive side of his rear wheel. Now, this appears to be a fairly new wheel, and drive-side spoke breaks are less common than left-side breaks; I hope he can get warranty coverage. Because it was a Mavic wheel with their proprietary spoke nipples, none of us had the tool to re-true the wheel, so we opened the brake (the wheel was WAY out of true), and he limped along to the Bakery and called for a ride home; there are pictures below of him with the spoke and the open nipple.
The rest of us went on. At one point we missed a turn and had to pull over, I have a picture of Jackie and John bein' all friendly, and Laura puzzling out a route on her smartphone. The second stop was at the convenience store in Columbus (both of the stops are favorites of Dennis W and Team Social Security, the "old guy" weekday riders).
As we got close to home, two things happened: a headwind kicked up, and Laura realized she'd be close to 100 miles for the day by the end of the ride. We dropped off Jackie and John at the park, and Laura dropped hints about making it a century for the day, but I just didn't have it in me. She did, though, and emailed me a photo of her odometer with 100.0 for the day.
Pictures!
Above, a glamour shot of The Other Jim's Cervelo. Below, John arrives.
Below, at the Olde World Bakery. In the second one, The Other Jim holds the broken spoke.
Below, the empty nipple.
Bubble-gum pink tires!
Below, John & Jackie smile while Laura plots a route.
The bikes at the Columbus store:
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