Y'see, all week, the weather prediction had been for sunny weather on Saturday and rain on Sunday, then cloudy Saturday and rain on Sunday. Then the late Friday night prediction was for rain later on Saturday, and I thought we might get away with it... but I was willing to defer to Laura.
Instead, the two of us rode ten miles to the ride start, where we met Alan, Ricky, and Peter:
...and we departed on her planned-52-mile route around the Round Valley Reservoir.
We got a drip of rain on the way up to the reservoir, but I thought they could use it; the end of the boat launch is still nowhere near the water.
At that point, Andrew, who had other plans, left us. We remaining four continued the clockwise-around-the-reservoir route Laura had planned.
(By the way, it was Earth Day, and we saw a number of folks, like these, cleaning up various spots.)
From the reservoir, we repaired to Jerry's Brooklyn in Whitehouse Station (which I had unjustly maligned in an earlier post), where we got good treatment, and were visited by bad weather.
We stayed there for a while until the rain let up a bit, and then proceeded. Much of the way got muddy, parts of it dramatically so; the jersey I wore yesterday will never be the same. The rain came and went - as I've heard, we got more in the Sourlands than we did here in the Brunswicks, where I make my abode.
With the wet, I got cold... cold enough that I didn't take a picture of the bridge that was out at South Branch onto Pleasant Run. We added a few miles getting around that.
The we had a discussion about routes, and changed up... and added a few more miles. So my plan of "just over 70" wound up as "just under 80". Although I did better than I had thought (I had energy the whole way; no "hitting the wall" this time), I was beat at the end of the ride, and still tired this morning when I got up. I cleaned the worst of the mud and grime off the bike this morning (I need to remember to brush my shoes...)
Luckily, I only had fourteen miles planned for today. That's the distance between home and the location of the Bike Maintenance Station that the New Brunswick Bike Exchange sets up at the New Brunswick Ciclovia, the first of which for this year was today. The city closes about three miles of road to car traffic, and folks come out on bikes (mostly families with young kids, but also others: aging hippies, tribes of adolescents, Rutgers students, young local professionals). Most of the bikes we see just need inflations or new tubes, although I did a number of adjustments of various sorts.
I claim tiredness in only getting three pictures:
Below, Annie, who went to the March for Science in NYC yesterday while I was wasting energy. I relieved her when I came on.
Below, in the hat, Ben T. He's always that sunny, as far as I can tell. He was there all day, and I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
Late in the day, Sr Francisco, mechanic at Kim's, rolled by; they had a stand but only worked on about three bikes. I assure you, we outdid that. (Later, a sweet girl on an English three-speed had to put up with my incompetence when her valve cut while I was filling her tire; after replacing the tube, I had a bit of trouble adjusting her English three-speed... but I got it right.)
So fourteen miles, and three hours on my feet working on bikes and packing up the tent, tables, and tools. I've had it. I'm glad I'm going to work tomorrow where I can relax.
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