weekend rides

Well, if YOU had a picture like that, wouldn't you lead off with it?

Tom H had a ride listed for yesterday of almost 60 miles, and if I'd ridden to the start from home, it would have been well over 70...but weather predictions were iffy, and I had a ride listed for today, and I wasn't looking forward to the prospect of riding in the rain for miles if the rain were to come... so I blew it off and did my own ride early.

Tom had emailed back that maybe I could come out with 'em for a little bit, and I passed their start on the way back from my ride, and ride with 'em I did.

There was picturesque fog coming over the canal before they left, though...

My ride page shows my ride, and then the long tail off t the south and east is where I went along with them for the first few miles. When I got home, I improved upon the time by overhauling the bike's brakes. I'm gonna havta change out those venerable old Cane Creek no-longer-available SCR's one of these days, as rust is having its way, but I think I can get another year or two out of 'em.

For today, I had listed a little under 40 to the Boro Bean in Hopewell. I got to the start a bit early, and the mountain bikers, heading into the trails at Six Mile run, were out in force.

These guys treat their bikes like the tools they are, right?

The route I like to use goes through Princeton and then to Hopewell; it's a little inconvenient for some of The Usual Suspects who like to ride in from home and peel off after the break, but tough; that's the way it works for the break to come at a reasonable point in the ride.

Nonetheless, I started with ten, more than half of whom also rode in from home (as I did). The sign-in sheet is a testament to it; it's misshapen with sweat, and I had to send a list of names with it when I sent the scan. (I have no doubt Ken W, who tracks these things, could have figured things out, but why make his life any more difficult than it needs to be?)

I usually post my routes, so that people know what to expect (like the big hill in the middle of this one). Steve S noted that by the stop, I had deviated from the route twice. Well, that's a leader's prerogative, especially when he makes a mistake (in my defense, only one of the deviations in the first half was a mistake. And there were more deviations later. Just sayin').

At the Bean, we ran into other cyclists I know from the club, which gave me an excuse for bike pics, including that excellent 70's Gran Prix in this one:

And, of course, there were OUR bikes...

Ron A rides that jealousy-inspiring steel Hanford that's obscured by Gary W's Wilier in the picture above. With Laura on her multicolored Waterford, and Ricky on his purple Cinelli, I was consumed with pretty-bike envy. I may actually have to do something about this.

At the Boro Bean:

On the way back, Ricky spied the VW pickup you can barely see in the background of this picture, but it was too good not to try to catch as we were rolling by:

Ride page. Mine shows my rides from home and back, which were slow, but I think we really did bring this in at a low B pace.