pickup ride, a gathering in lieu of a fall picnic, and the return of beaker

 

Some of us still aren't ready for group rides, so some of Tom H's pals went out on a pickup ride on Saturday. Earlier in the week, the Princeton Freewheeler Board decided to have a gathering at the Mercer East Picnic Area (we couldn't see our way clear to doing a full Fall Picnic, but we had the area reserved, so the Board decided to have an informal, socially-distant gathering). Tom decided to lead the ride from Mercer East, so that if anybody wanted to stay for the gathering, it would be convenient to do so.

Bernie's Bike Shop was doing a ride out of there at the same time.

We went down to the Russian church at Rova, which is a good ride, marred by the lack of a good place to stop. We've stopped at an antiques shop that has some food, but Tom found a deli that might have served better.

They must make their money from cigarettes and lottery tickets, because the aliments were slim pickin's. Here we are lookin' grim:

Ride page.

We got back to the Mercer East parking lot about 12:20, a bit early for the advertised 1pm start of the "in lieu of a Fall Picnic" gathering... and I was the only one who elected to stay. I got some good pictures, though; you can see the album on the Freewheelers Photos & Albums page. A few are below, as a sample.

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For today, I had hoped to lead a ride to a stop that Winter Larry had recommended, where 206 meets Harlingen Road... but it turns out they're closed on Sundays! So I modified the route slightly and set an earlier stop.

Dave H and Laura OLPH came out.

Readers of Laura's blog might remember that her Tomassini, Beaker, met an untimely demise at the bumper of a Princeton University maintenance vehicle. Well, the replacement has come... and it's just as gorgeous as its decedent.

(I loves me some pretty bikes. Heaven forbid I ever get one; it will die of neglect because I'll always be too afraid of dinging it up.)

We did this route, which I'll never do again the same way, partly because that stop isn't open on Sundays when I like to lead, and partly because that box in the north really wants to be done deosil instead of widdershins.

(In addition to pretty bikes, I also loves me some linguistic archaisms.)