thanksgiving friday ride

 The Excellent Wife (TEW) was agitating for days to ride with Team Social Security, the group of mostly retired Princeton Freewheeler members who ride together several times each week, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, so we agreed to make a date of it; she would ride with the slower group and I with the faster.

The rides are labeled as "C" and "C+", but these seem to be suggestions more than rules, as TEW came back with a pace higher than the posted range (although she did not have any problem keeping up). Experience has proven that the groups get spread out, and nobody gets dropped.

Thanksgiving Friday is a day off for many of us, and the day was predicted warmer than usual. I thought the number of riders in the lot at the start was large.

I went out with Eddie L's group, and we had 17 to start. (He broke it into two groups; Bill B led the second.)

 

Terry there, is gonna be the background of the PFW web page for a while.

We planned to go to Battlefield Orchard, but as I was rolling up with the folks from the back, the faster folks were rolling back indicating it was closed. Instead, we visited the nearby Wemrock Orchard store, where one of our number bought cinnamon doughnuts for all. (The last thing I need on the day after Thanksgiving is a cinnamon doughnut. Do you think that stopped me?)

Leaving the Wemrock Orchard is challenging: you have your choice of an exit that's easy for a bike to roll out of, but that dumps you into the busy, turning traffic... or you can go out the back way, where there is a sandy, steep driveway that better sense tells you to walk up. We did the latter.

On the way back, some of our number were off the front and missed a turn, so we got separated. A bit later, one of them, Rama K, got separated from them, and found us again. He and I had some fun doing a paceline back to the start at Etra Park.

Ride page.

TEW enjoyed her ride, too. She likes the folks who come for these rides, and wishes for more opportunities to ride with 'em. (I do, too... and I hope to have such opportunities in less than a year, when I expect to be joining the ranks of the retired.) 

I hope to get another ride or two in this weekend; I'm gonna have to work off these leftovers.