recovery & reconnoiter

After yesterday's ride, Laura OLPH had a route planned that was gonna go right by my usual rides, and she said she'd be there about 9:45am today. Well, the meeting place (at the parking area for the D&R towpath, on the Kingston-Rocky Hill Road below 518) was to close to go direct, so I plotted out a 20-mile route from home to there (it's about ten miles direct) including a couple of roads I might want to add to the rides I lead for the bike club. I left a smidge early, and wound up a bit faster than I expected, so before stopping at the parking area, I huffed and puffed my way up Coppermine Road (with the extra-heavy monstercross bike, the Krakow Monster) and whizzed down Old Georgetown, about doubling the overall climb for the rest of the ride.

I waited at the stop, and saw a rider coming up Kingston-Rocky Hill Road. I turned out to be Jack H. Shortly thereafter, we saw Laura.

WE chatted for a bit (Laura's got an idea for a long ride that might be social-distancing-friendly), and then they went off to roll up towards Manville (Jack thought better of it and changed direction after a bit). I decided to ride through the grounds of the old State Village for Epileptics in Montgomery.

I like to come down from the north to Route 518 in that area, and then go to the Thomas Sweet on 206 in Montgomery. There's a stream that runs parallel to 518, and it means there's a dip in the rod and a subsequent climb. I've tried a few ways to find a less-worse way to do it, and I thought maybe if we went out to 601 in Skillman, maybe it would be better, and we could go out through the old hospital grounds and come back on 518. It depended what that stretch of 601 looks like.

It looks like this:

Yeah, there's still that dip and the climb on the other side. I was doing it in reverse today, so I turned around to do the climb, and... nope. Especially with the extra traffic on 601, that's not a great alternative.

Oh, well.

At that point, I had about 27 miles in. I figured without too much stretch, I could get 40 in for a 100-mile weekend, and I had a little more exploration I wanted to do of those roads in Millstone and Montgomery. I came back down Canal Road, and met Laura AGAIN - she asked how my alternative route had worked out, and I replied with an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable to register my disappointment.

(After I got home, I found out that The Excellent Wife [TEW], on her bike trip today, had also met Laura on the road. I swear, neither of these later meetings were planned.)

From there, home by the usual route. I wound up with 45 miles, making this the first 100-mile weekend of the year. Here's hoping for more!