several mishaps

 

Wassily Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract art, and is noted for having set himself a number of tasks with artistic limitations, to see what he could do. One of these was for his painting Several Circles, in which he limited his shapes to circles and stuck to pure abstraction:

On the ride today, we did not set ourselves a task of having a number of mishaps... but that's what happened anyway (luckily, none was particularly memorable or dramatic).

One of the things that was NOT a mishap was a visit from Tony G, who had gone down hard on a ride that I did not write a post about. He's healing nicely for his age (if not as quickly as he'd like).

Tony is known for having a collection of bikes, and apparently people just leave bikes with him. He's donated some parts and bikes to the New Brunswick Bike Exchange, where I volunteer. Today he brought a Columbia three-speed mixte that's gonna clean up nice, among other things.

I'm looking forward to the day he brings out another of his more-than-a-dozen gorgeous Italian bikes for one of my rides.

I had eleven, then ten, then eight registered for today.

I had heard that Rosedale Road is open in Princeton, and that Bayberry was recently chipsealed, so I adjusted one of my routes to take the former and avoid the latter. Rosedale is still a good downhill from Elm/Great Road, but the circle at the bottom means you can't just use all your downward momentum to get up the hill on the other side (it's still far easier the way I went, than going the other way). And when we got around to see the end of Bayberry... well, the chipseal is still loose.

Before we got to Bayberry, however,Eric caught a flat.

Once he and Pete had gotten things running again, we proceeded to the stop. Another incident: 75% of us stopped at the Boro Bean; the remainder went on to the Brick Farm Market. I don't know if that was a missed communication, or a mutinous decision.

So after the Boro Bean, we stopped at the Brick to pick up our two riders-errant, and continued along the route, turning right on Hollow Road... where we were stopped by the train that was stalled in the railroad crossing, showing no sign of moving. For all I know, it might still be there.

Space here for the picture of the stopped train, that I forgot to take.

We turned around, and headed back down to 518... where Eric had another flat.

At this point, a number of the riders decided to proceed along; Peter, Chris, and I stayed. Pete found a piece of wire in the tire; he had earlier found a small gash that he thought was the sign of the problem, but the piece or wire was more likely, as Eric was able to finish the ride on a full tire.

With time running later than I expected, I cut the route a bit short and headed straight back to the start. Chris jokingly complained about being cheated out of two miles of route; I advised him that if he complained to the PFW Board, he might be able to get a partial refund of his free registration.

Ride page. Despite everything (including some fast riders), we brought it in within the advertised pace.