45-mile solo, and laura makes up the miles

Yesterday I tried out this route, which may be a route I lead near my birthday (I'll be 60 in the spring). All the hills are in the first half, but it goes by three good stops: the Main St Cafe, the bagel place on 206 in Rocky Hill that we keep forgetting about, and the Better World Cafe.

Last night I got an email from Laura OLPH, saying she was 53 miles away from matching her mileage from last year; would add some miles to the Cranbury B ride so she could make it up? Well, who could resist such an invitation, especially in view of the fact that it was supposed to be about 50F by midday? So I got up and out early enough to make it to Plainsboro for 9... and scraped ice off the car before I got in. The ice was misleading; I wore far too much warm clothing, and ended up carrying my gloves, my neck gaiter, and my warm hat by the end of the ride. This route shows our trip from Plainsboro to Cranbury, then the ride Jud H led down to Phil's and back, and then our trip back to Plainsboro (in typical Plain Jim fashion, I just retraced the route back; I can get lost in a closet with the door open).

Thirteen of use started with Jud, and, since I didn't know them all, I offered to sweep. One was a newbie and had a hard time keeping up, but I kept an eye on him (as did a couple of others) until, after the break wen he was near home, he decided to leave (at about the same place, another had a flat and decided to go straight home after, so we ended with eleven).

At the same time we left, a C+ ride with Ira S was leaving; we saw them at Phil's when we got there. They got into some of the pictures below. At the start:

On the road:

With Ira's ride, at Phil's: