of livestock and lockups

Tom H's ride listing offered 20 (edit: 50)-60 miles over "flat to rolling terrain", and that sounded good to me. It apparently sounded good to Ken G, Martin G, Laura OLPH, and The Other Laurie, because we were all there ready to go at the start.

We headed out of Mercer Park East, and towards the Assunpink. It was a chatty ride. In the Assunpink we came upon what I thought might be a shepherd... but it was a dog breeder or trainer, with a pack of what looked to me like Golden Retrievers. None were on the leash, and all stayed int he pack (we DID stop and wait for 'em). A couple of the dogs turned with interest as we rolled away, but none barked or gave chase, and they were soon following their trainer witht he rest of the pack. I'm kicking myself that I didn't get pictures of 'em.

Somewhat later, we came across these guys:

I'm sure they're destined to be sirloins... but I couldn't help wondering how those wide horns would work as handlebars.

Tom had planned the stop at Charleston Coffee. He warned us that not all of his planned roads might have actual paving atop... and when we tried to turn off Brynmore onto Inman, we found he was right to be concerned; we didn't make the turn, and cut perhaps a mile and a half off the planned route. But we then got to the stop in good order.

There was a singer-guitarist doing songs from my college days.

That's gotta be a tough gig, doing Saturday morning at a coffee shop. Neither we nor the soccer families were paying much attention.

In an earlier post, I had saved some pictures of the excellent bike socks some of my riders were wearing. I noted that Laura and Laurie BOTH had good socks today:

That's it. I'm setting up a tag for "socks"; plan on seeing some sock postings on this blog.

 Early in the ride, Laura had some difficulty with the front derailleur (she was riding her bike Kermit, the Waterford frame); it got stuck on the big ring. The cable was loose, so that was not the problem; Laura figured some mung had gotten into the doings of the parallelogram during the rain last week. The derailleur then worked again for a while, then didn't... and on Nurko Road, it gave up and locked up the chain. Laura got herself pedaling again, but this is a bike that needs a visit to the spa. Laura indicates she'll take care of it this week.

Ride page.

And off goes Laura OLPH to get a rescue kitten tomorrow. She's driving to DC to get it handed off; the supplier is driving in from Virginia. I'm sure she'll post on her blog about it afterwards; don't you HAVE to know that story?