nothing to prove

Laura OLPH's description of today's ride on the club website read,

It's October. We have nothing to prove. Let's go find some cows and coffee. We'll ride 45-ish miles with hills and average under 15 mph. Contact me for 6 extra miles. 

I considered the extra miles, and decided against it; a fellow Freewheeler had lent me an afghan, which was laundered and bundled in the car, and I hoped to see him today. But "nothing to prove" had me. I needed a ride with "nothing to prove".

When I got to the start at Twin Pines, the rider I'd hoped to return the afghan to wasn't there, but Jack H was rolling around the lot (having ridden in from home in Pennsylvania) and Tom H was unpacking and setting up. Soon Andrew A rode in, then Laura and Ricky.

Before we were about to leave, a young, frighteningly fit-looking fellow drove in and joined us. He turned out to be another Jim (shall we call him Young Jim? Trim Jim? James the Less*, perhaps?). He had a number sticker on his helmet from a triathlon in Atlantic City. Despite that, he turned out to be remarkably well-behaved, didn't show off by pushing he pace or riding off the front, and politely laughed at some of our jokes. Garrulous does not describe him. We hope he comes back for another ride.

*Talk to one of us of a certain age and a Catholic school upbringing if you want to know the background of this probably-too-obscure reference.

There was mist as we left the lot. We were sure it would clear up as the day went on. All the predictions were for a decent day.

The predictions were wrong. While I don't think we had actual rain, we were at least moist, and frequently sodden, for most of the ride.

And despite the "nothing to prove" nature advertised for this ride, we went up Woodens Lane, which rises over 250' in about a mile. I'll bet it's more fun in the other direction.

We stopped in at Michael's Wheelfine Imports, because Ricky and The Other Jim had never been there. Some of us were amused by the mess, but as Ricky was leaving, I could tell that visions of another steel bike were dancing in his head.

Then to Sergeantsville, where we came across another group of riders out on this wet day. "Who would be crazy enough to get out for a bike ride on a day like this?" I asked.

"You're lookin' at 'em," one of them answered.

The lens was wet when I took this, but I loved the moose on the bike:

We took a direct rout back, with a couple of tough climbs but fewer miles than originally planned; still, we came in with 44 soggy miles and 2600' of climb.

We got nothing to prove.