metric century with snakehead ed

There are a number of Freewheeler rides every weekend, but sometimes we go out and ride on our own. Snakehead Ed likes rides with just a few people, on which we can make up the itinerary as we go, depending how we feel.

Today's ride was one of those. We emailed a bit last night about possible rides and starts; at one point, Ed mentioned that an idea would need a 7am start; I think he was surprised when I said that was fine with me (I keep early hours). We finally agreed to at 8am start from Six-Mile/ Blackwells Mills, and we'd make it up from there as we'd go.

I stopped for my morning bagels, rode the five miles or so from home to the start, and then almost lost that part of the ride data due to my inexperience with this new computer; this link shows that part of the ride, and I only link to it because I want credit for my metric century for the day. I'm stupidly proud of this ride, after yesterday's hills; a moderately hilly ride at a good pace (for me).

We did make it up as we went. I didn't want to do the dirt downhill on Dutchtown-Zion, so we didn't go that way (although we did return that way, but it's much less terrifying as an uphill). Somewhere up there, we met a fellow on what Ed recognized as a bamboo bike.

He's an engineering professor at Princeton,and one of his students started this company, Boo Bikes; it's one of the original frames. They've since decided to use carbon seat tubes on some frames, and the rider was telling us it gets a little flexy on high-speed descents - he seemed fine with it, but it was a deal-breaker for Ed.

Ed started telling me about a gravel-ish bike he's having made, with lovely paint, disk brakes, and Di2. I was worried about the paint chipping, but it seems like Ed's looking forward to it.

On to Rojo's...

... where I wasn't ready for coffee, but they had local-product apple juice (Ed had coffee).

After Rojo's, we did the Franklin climb, which rewards you with this view (the picture doesn't do it justice)...

... and which, IM never very HO, is way less painful than the long, dragulous pedals we usually take to get to the ridge. We took a fairly straight route home, but we decided to avoid 518 (we wound up retracing our steps much of the way).

On the way back, I had a clunk in the pedals. It was worrisome to me, until I remembered that I've had this with this hub in the past; it just requires two 5mm Allen wrenches to tighten the two ends of the hub. So another reason to do maintenance on the bike when I got home! I'm still suffering from the work craziness I mentioned in yesterday's post, but wrenching was helpful.