picking my distance

 Laura OLPH has a number of rides she does every year, and one of them is her "pick your distance" Belmar century. If you leave from her start, it's 100 miles; she'll pick up riders at Mercer County Park, from where the ride is 85 miles; she'll then pass Etra Park, from which the ride is 68 miles. I don't do 100-mile rides these days*; 70 is about the most I like to do, so I wait for 'em to come in at Etra, and I proceed from there.

*The most compelling argument for me against doing hundred-milers came from Tom H, who said something along the lines of, "I've never been 80 miles into a ride, and said to myself, 'Y'know what I could really use right now? Another twenty miles' ". It continues to make sense to me.

Here we are meeting up at Etra Park:

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With the ride being about fifty miles one-way, Laura has sensibly planned rest stops at the quarter-way point in both directions. We picked up Tom H at the Jackson Minit Stop.

It was just the best day: not hot, clear, a slight breeze.

We pass the Manasquan Reservoir on the way out.

And the next thing you know, we're in Belmar.

One of our number is visiting from Germany, and decided we needed a picture of all of us at the shore. I didn't get a copy yet (it's on someone else's phone), but here we are, either assembling for the picture, or disintegrating afterwards:

And back. On the way back, we stop at a Dunkin Donuts on Monmouth Rd.

One of our number had a bit of a bonk on the way, so we were careful to keep the rider escorted (and pulled into the wind, when necessary). There may have been a car ride back to the rider's car, where they started, from Etra. I might have been involved. I might have been driving.

Ride page. Long, but a great day.

more like what i had in mind

 So after thinking about what I wanted to do about pace on my rides (because the pace has not been creeping up, it's been galloping), I posted this verbiage in the description:

Faster riders are welcome to go off the front; you can either wait at turns or not. I intend to ride within the stated pace range. Nobody dropped. This might work as a recovery or training ride. Let's see how this works.

I wound up with six: Jin A (new to me), Rickety, Eric H, Laura OLPH, John O (also new to me), and John W. 

 Eric contacted me during the week about a mechanical weirdness on his bike, so I brought the stand and tools. When Jin arrived, she had a brake bind, that turned out to be easily fixed; we popped her bike on the stand to make sure the fix would hold. When Eric came, it turned out his issue was not so easily managed - we'll make an appointment for some attention to his bike. (Ramblin' Wrench, to the rescue...)

We went on one of my regular routes (Laura's least favorite of them, and I'm not at all surprised).

Despite awful humidity, and some serious winds (and how can we have both wind and humidity?), we had a good ride; both of the new-to-me folks enjoyed it. We stopped at Thomas Sweet.

Laura warned us about getting too acclimated to the air-conditioning, but I'm not sorry for even one second that I spent inside!

Most important to me, we brought the ride in as the Low B that I intended: the ride page shows 15.3mph average.

Part of the success, I'm sure, is having a group who were interested in keeping to the pace. I'm eager to see how I do at maintaining this. As noted in the description, I intend this to be a recovery ride, or training for those who want to try the B pace. I'm glad I could keep to that today.

before the interment

 Tomorrow, Saturday, is the interment of The Excellent In-Laws, so, weather or no (and there is a threat of weather), I'm not gonna get a ride in. So today, I went out for the club Team Social Security ride out of Etra Park.

 Wait - that's Pat B! Was she rockin' excellent socks again? She sure was!

 I hung out in the back, and got to talk a bit to Andy A and Bobbi B, and Gen B. We brought it in just outside of B+ range.

Mike P led the group, at Al P's unavoidable suggestion, and did a good job for a first time outing. He led us to Stonebridge Bagels.

(Why is it that I have such a hard time getting a good picture of Terry? This was the least-worst of three attempts!)

It was a good ride; I'm glad I did it. I need to do the weekday rides more regularly; I don't know why I haven't done!

nice ride on a nice day

 When I woke this morning at 4:something, I decided to go on Al P's C+ ride out of Byron Johnson park in Allentown. Al complained that my early-morning registration came in just after he'd made a screenshot of the registrants.

It was a nice ride on a nice day.

There was one tire to be changed, which was competently done. And other than that, it was an unremarkable ride. 

Wee stopped at the Pemberton Wawa.

Some of the best days make for the least engaging blog posts.