road ride on a cold day

 

My announcement for today's ride included the following:

It's been too cold to ride, and it's going to be cold again... but I got out with some Freewheelers this week, and I missed it so, and then another member sounded disappointed when I wasn't gonna lead on Sunday, and I remembered a year ago another leader and I were talking about short, no-break rides for the pandemic...

Laura OLPH listed a trail ride (we had discussions about what to list, and who would go on which ride), but I decided to do a road ride - a 25-mile ride, with the only break to be at a porta-potty. My original listing ended:

As I write this, I have no idea if anybody is interested, and it sounds like a daft idea, even to me. Nonetheless, registration limited to 20. 

I was flabbergasted. At one point, sixteen people had signed up; even with a flurry of cancellations this morning, I had twelve registrants, and all of them showed. 

They were/are almost all much faster than I, and I had already decided to ride with the two who I thought would be at the back... but then the two of them were among the cancellations. As my ol' pal, Bobby Burns, wrote, "The best-laid schemes..."

We had a near-tragedy shortly after the start: we crossed a patch of ice that surprised all of us. One of our riders went down... but was back up again in an instant, and the only mishap he reported was the near-loss of his car keys (that were recovered). I made a bit of a pain-in-the-ass of myself with my repeated queries about any pain or other problems after the tumble, but he complained of nothing, and completed the ride at his usual speedy pace.

It stayed pretty cold. At one point, referring to our discussion that I needed to find a winter hobby, Peter P mentioned that it looked like I'd found one.

I had posted the route, but made a couple of changes to the mapped route. The picture at top was after a decision in Rocky Hill. Below, I had planned to pass the Montgomery Arboretum for a toilet stop, but the folks in front made a turn on Harlingen before we got there. I went on and enjoyed the toilet, then found the group waiting on Harlingen... and I decided to change the route to avoid the possibly-icy trail at Magill. 

Do you think they look properly penitent for riding ahead?

After that, they were a bit better-behaved, and allowed me to make believe, for at least a few miles, that I could actually keep up with 'em.

At the end, a few mentioned how glad they were to get out on a ride. I was glad, too.

Ride page. Despite changing the route, we still brought in about 25 miles (as I'd advertised), and despite cooking to keep up with 'em, my average came in at 15.3, within my plan for my "Lo-B" pace.