a blustery day in may

Today's shadow. The wind blew all the clouds away.

 So I guess if we can get a crowd for a ride on a fine spring day in January, then, COVID-19 or no, it is only poetic justice (or something) that I ride alone on a day in mid-May where there was almost frost overnight, and it wasn't yet 40F at the time I left the house for the ride.

Welcome to spring in central Jersey.

I've been out in weather worse than this, and weekends are riding time (especially considering that The Excellent Wife [TEW]was up taking care of her 90-year-old mother last night and today, and I'm alone in the house), so I hopped on the bike after an early online WW meeting (on Zoom, of course). I wasn't sure how far, or where, I'd go; I wanted to see how demanding Aeolus, keeper of the winds, was going to be.

Aeolus gave a bag of all the winds to Odysseus, but I didn't have such luck; I had to deal with the winds out of captivity, so I decided to keep the ride down to about 30 miles (but I included a climb of Coppermine Road, which goes up about 300' in .8 of a mile). On the way, I passed the lot at Six Mile/Blackwells Mills, where one of the most popular mountain bike trails begins.

I wasn't surprised it wasn't open. When last I passed, last week, the lot was full with cars, and folks were not adhering to social distancing rules.

Neither was the road at Colonial Park open.

It's been weeks since I was there (and I didn't write about it when I went), but I remember riding on the park road, and being nervous about the number of people in the park and how close they were one to the other. I'd seen online that the park road was to be closed, and I wanted to see for myself. I think keeping the road closed was a wise decision on the part of the county administrators... although, with the reputation of Somerset County as a Republican stronghold, there may be some pushback from the voters.

Ride page linked here. Check out the elevation profile at the bottom; I had no idea that the top of the hill at Coppermine was so much higher than (for example) my house, where I started and finished.