first of the last of the month...

The Excellent Wife (TEW) decided that she wanted to come along on some rides withe me, so I figured out a few routes that are shorter and less hilly than my usual rides. We did one last week, and, while the ride sort of took off without me, report was that the route would work for the kind of ride I had in mind - for people who'd like to ride the areas I usually lead in, but who aren't up to the Plain Jim pace (which, admittedly, has gotten faster than I expected).

I decided I'd do these on the last Sunday of the month. My listing for this one included this:

A little shorter, flatter, and slower than my usual rides; read the link at my blog (by the start address) for more info. 32 miles. If this works, I'll plan to do these on last Sundays of the month. Come on out if my regular rides sound like just a little too much for you. 

Well, evidently it sounded good to a number of folks: I had five pre-registrants (one of whom later emailed that she could not come) and eight to start.

(After about five miles, one decided it was not the thing for today and turned off; the rest continued at least as far as the rest stop.)

I made it clear that this was to be a casual ride; that people off the front ran the risk to getting Spragued*, and that we would cater to stop requests for all manner of purposes.

(*The practice, named for the late Don Sprague, of changing the route mid-ride to cut off the riders who are off the front. Chris Cook says he invented the practice, and says that we should call it "Cooking" the riders instead of "Spraguing" them, but club usage is club usage, and this blog is an adherent to the policy of DEscribing club language instead of PROscribing, as I think I've learned from Laura's husband Professor Jack, although I'm sure he would be happy to point out my many errata. Ahem.)

And cater to stops we did, for water, for catching breath, for a mechanical complaint (that turned out to be an easy fix; some water bottle cages can be easily tightened to grip the bottle so it doesn't rattle. Thanks, I think, to Dave S for the suggestion), for pictures:

While we did get spread out, we collected at all the turns and other stops. We stopped at the Montgomery Thomas Sweet (and now I think TEW is slightly less jealous of my regular junk-food habit).

(None of us look great in those pictures. In my defense, I can only plead that you should have seen the ones I've already deleted.)

After the stop, John W, Laura OLPH,* and Dr A went their separate ways; the rest of us took a somewhat circuitous route back to the start. TEW and I then took a side trip to get a few more miles in.

(*Yes, that is an Oxford comma. I make no apology and have no regrets.)

Which makes the ride page require a bit of explanation: It includes:

• My ride from home to get a bagel for breakfast;
• My ride from the bagel shop towards the start;
• My subsequent side trip when I figured I was going to be stupidly early;
• My ride to the start when I decided I wasn't actually going to be THAT early, and maybe I'd better get up to the start point;
• The ride itself (you knew I'd get to that eventually, didn't you?);
• The extra miles that TEW and I did; and
• My ride home.

The ride itself was about 32 miles. The average on the ride page, linked above, is a bit faster than the ride itself was (the page shows 13.5; I think we actually did about 13.2).

For next last-of-the-month, I plan to visit Boro Bean. In order to avoid hills, much of that route will be 518 out-and-back, which TEW tells me will be no problem to her. 

And out of that, I've gotten this blog post with lots of prolix verbiage and at least two digressions. It's been a great day.