This post sponsored by Ramblin' Wrench, bringing bicycle maintenance to you. Ramblin' Wrench is , of course, me; I met Herb C early at the ride start to give his rear derailleur a quick adjustment, and to talk about how we could raise his riding position a bit. Herb is apparently excessively happy with my work, and promises to write me testimonials, or something. If you are local and need maintenance, or even just a deep-cleaning-and-detailing*, send me an email. Special prices to Princeton FreeWheeler members or for bulk orders.
*Eddie L showed off his ultrasonic cleaner to me a while ago, and I was so smitten I got one myself, which should be delivered soon. So that gunky rear cluster and jockey wheels might not need to be gunky any more. Just sayin'. (I got it as a reward to myself after painting the garage. The garage was an awful job that I didn't want to do, and hated every minute of, but even though it kills me to admit it, it looks far better now and is much more pleasant to work in. I didn't want to do it; TEW wanted me to, so we compromised and I painted the garage. Now I'm glad I did, but do me a favor and don't tell her.)
The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I like to ride together on the Club events and All-Paces rides, so I post slower rides for those events. A couple of years ago, a few of the riders who came along on those rides suggested they might like to come along with me, so, for a while, I got in the habit of posting a slower, C+-rated ride on the last Sunday of the month. Last year, I wasn't getting takers, so I stopped the practice, but I started again this year, and there seems to be interest.
More pics of Anthony's lovely Marinoni below.
More of that nifty Marinoni Anthony G brought along:
Wait; is that a Canadian Maple Leaf near that bottom bracket? Yes; apparently Marinoni decided he could do well in Canada building bikes. The bike is a lovely thing. If I had yonks of garage space (and more money), I'd have a collection of beauties like this.
Heddy B also has a bike worthy of note:
It's a lovely Specialized DI2 something-or-other, "murdered out" in all black (although in the direct sun, there are dichroic hints of green and purple that don't come out in the photos). She's impressed that the Garmin picked up the DI2 system, and they now communicate, so she can see the current gearing on the Garmin. Neat! I wish her gazillions of happy miles on it. ("Because you love it" is a great reason to buy a bike, if you're not spending the mortgage money on it.)
Wait - we also did a ride today! (You knew I'd eventually get to that, didn't you?) I said earlier in this post that there seems to be interest: I had 13 registrants and one who signed in at the start, even though I didn't post the listing until late Friday.
We did the same route I did last time. One rider saw that we'd actually come in at a C+ pace, and decided it was safe to come along (and then he was ahead of me almost the whole way!) There were only a couple for whom I had some worry about the pace, but the worry was certainly misplaced; I reviewed riders' condition at every stop and several times while we were riding, and everybody was (apparently) keeping up and doing fine, so I have no qualms about the speed on the ride page.
Besides, club president Mike V was along, and didn't bring up any concerns about the pace. (We were having too much fun slandering members who weren't present*.)
*You're less likely to get slandered if you come along.
We stopped at the Blawenburg Bistro...
... where I ran into sometimes-rider Chris K, who talked about how he has gotten so busy and isn't riding much, and is concerned about his condition (Hrmph! Maybe he'll be slow enough that the rest of us can keep up with him!), and where it appears that the Bistro is thriving.
I hope so. TEW and I don't have a great record with favorite coffee-and-junk date places. (And thanks to the riders who contributed to the retirement funds of the Bistro staff by purchasing coffee and bake-y stuff.)
So I'll plan on doing another slower ride at the end of June. Maybe you'll come out?
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