ride for july 19 2020

I'd rather go to Sourland Coffee... but they're not doing food yet, and no place to sit. So we'll do a 40-ish mile loop that passes the Boro Bean.

This is, of course, a Princeton Freewheelers club ride, subject to club rules and COVID-19 special rules. Wear your masks when stopped. Everybody's got a different idea of what's safe and appropriate; wherever you are on that scale, be careful for the person that's one notch more concerned than you are.

Start at 8:30 at the Claremont School, 175 Claremont Road in Franklin. There's parking for a gazillion cars and a porta-potty out back (at least, there has been for weeks). We'll be passing the Griggstown Canal Road Firehouse about fifteen minutes after that, so we can pick you up there.  (Or we can pick you up anywhere along the route; that's been working for a couple folks.)

If you pre-register, and I have your numbers in my list, you won't have to sign the sheet; if I don't have your cell and emergency numbers, email 'em to me (my email is visible to members on the ride listing page) and I'll put 'em on the ride sheet.

Limited to ten including me. Route here.

What am I forgetting?

unpopular opinion

At the last Princeton Freewheelers board meeting, I came out hard against having the Event. My arguments are these:

• It's a LOT of financial risk for what has turned out to be little financial gain the last few times we've had it.We put up the money, and, f it rains or is poorly attended, we're on the hook for that money.
• One reason given for the event is that it generates new members. But I spoke to the person in charge of memberships, and there has never been a year when, in the two months after the Event, there has been a noticeable increase in membership.
• This was not one of my arguments, but it is nonetheless true: the Event demands a LOT of volunteers at a time when membership is dropping. From over a thousand members a few years ago, we're down to about six hundred. Of these, a much smaller number are "regulars", and maybe a few dozen can be counted on to volunteer and keep the club running.

I was (and I guess, am still) alone in my opinion. One board member appears not to have heard my point about the lack of membership increase, and spoke about how if I wanted to see membership decline to nothing, ending the Event was the way to do it. Well, membership is declining, even though we are having the Event, and there is still no sign of membership increase after it.

One thing of which I was not aware is that much of the expense in the past came from meals that we prepaid for and would not use if people did not come out for the Event. But for the Event two summers ago, we changed that, and we only pay for meals actually taken. So the financial risk is reduced.

What I had not counted on, though, is that club members, apparently, LOVE the Event. It was clear from the way board members spoke that some of them did, and they spoke about the way other members react to it, and the faces of joy these board members had seen at the Event.

I hold by my statements above: the Event is not a great way to make money, and it is not a source of members (and it is a burden to the volunteers who take it on). If those reasons are why we do it, they do not work. But we apparently don't hold the Event for those reasons; we hold it for tradition and because people love it.

I still don't like it. But enough other people do that the club will continue it. And since this is my club, I will do what I can to support this club decision.

back to thomas sweet

When I went to bed last night, I had five signed up for my ride; when I got up today, I had ten.


I've started this "alternate start location" that seems to be working. While most of my riders start at the school, some choose to pick up the ride farther along... and, since many ride in, they also drop off when it's convenient. I find it works for me and for them.

One of my signers-up sent word he'd not be there, another had let me know he'd pick us up "somewhere". So we started with eight: usual suspects Andrew A, Martin G, Laura OLPH, and Bob N (and me, of course), and new-to-me Alan M, Chris K, and Ed W.

We did a modification of one of my usual routes, stopping at the newly-reopened Thomas Sweet in Montgomery (open for take-out, no toilets available). Still, I want them to survive, so I felt a responsibility to support 'em. A few of my riders indulged me.

Before the stop, Ed begged off, saying it was a great day and he wanted to get in more miles than we were doing (and likely faster than we were doing them). I also had to stop; The Excellent Wife (TEW) had had some drama at the local Pep Boys, and the beep of a text indicated there was some news (it turned out to be a happy conclusion).

When we got to Thomas Sweet, Dave H was there.

Chris K, in the Star Trek jersey above, chatted about his wife's wanting a trike; evidently she's had trouble on  two-wheel bikes and IS NOT INTERESTED in trying again. I can't blame her; I have similar-but-different topics on which I have firmly-held opinions that I am not interested in going back and revisiting.

After the break, Bob N had a flat (at the same location where Ken G had had one a few weeks ago - hmmm...), and bade us go on; then another two riders had a minor collision, but the only injury seemed to be that a brifter was knocked out of alignment, and a touch with a #4 Allen wrench soon saw to that (yes, I do carry a number of Allen wrenches, in addition to a multi-tool, and a few tubes, and a pump, and CO₂ cartridges, and tire boots...). Laura had gone off; soon Dave did, too. The rest of us brought it back to the Claremont school.

Ride page. Mostly, a good day.

ride for july 12

When I looked at the weather for Sunday, it was iffy, so I wasn't going to post anything... but now it looks sunny-but-windy, so let's try to get a ride in.

My Thomas Sweet in Montgomery is open for drinks and some other stuff, so I want to stop there. They probably will NOT have toilets open. We'll manage.

Route to look something like this.

Start at 8:30 from Claremont School, 175 Claremont Road, Franklin. There's been a reasonably-clean porta-potty in back for weeks.

We'll be passing the Blackwells Mills lot about 15-20 minutes later, if you want to meet us there.

Usual Plain Jim Lo-B pace (Prem's doin' a B+ out of Cranbury if you want a faster one).

Princeton Freewheelers club ride. Usual rules and COVID-19 special rules apply.

Limited to ten; signup required (I know the web magic to do it, so there).

Hope to see some of youse.

'nother saddle that didn't work

I'm never satisfied with saddles.

On both my bikes, I've got Selle Anatomica saddles (see this post); they have the "ass-hammock" design that I like. The saddles have leather covers, which has the best balance of soft and hard that I've found. But leather saddles need to be kept from getting drenched, where artificial materials do not.

Deep in this post, you'll see I tried a Selle Anatomica with the rubber cover. I had hoped it would be essentially the leather saddle, but weather-resistant. It's probably weather-resistant, but it's not a replacement for the leather saddle; the rubber cover is much harder than the leather, so I bought a leather cover and put it on.

So now I cover the saddles when a ride might include a drenching. But I keep looking for saddles that have the flex I like, but might not need as much attention.

In my researches, I came across this Spyder Saddle. It flexes, based on the mesh-y design of the cover. The original is about $80 (down from $140, and you're supposed to replace it every year).

Hrmph.

But, it's Chinese, and one of the truths of the world is that Chinese technology will have knock-offs. The most common for this saddle is the "Vertu", which is available for about $4-5 shipped from China, which means it will take about four months to get here, plus some extra for the COVID-19 crisis. Or you can get one shipped from a USA location for about $14 (still a cheap date). Which is what I did. (That's what's in the picture above.)

It looks like a torture device with all those cutouts, but that's what provides the flex (reviews have said that it chews up your shorts, too). I popped it on the Krakow Monster, and did a short ride around the neighborhood.

The ride was short because the saddle isn't very good for me. There is some flex, but it's about as much as the rubber Selle Anatomica cover, which is far less flex than I want.

Well, for $14, it was worth a try. And it might be OK for you.

If you want it, I'll let it go for $10. It's got about 250' of mileage on it.

accretion and attrition ride, a personal statement with limited meaning, and some other news

When you have a picture like that, you pretty much have to lead off with it.

I got some complaints from my Usual Suspects who ride in to my ride starts that the Claremont School, where I've been starting, is just not convenient to ride to. But I'm reluctant to start at Blackwells Mills/Six Mile, where I used to start, because it's packed with people going on the multi-terrain trail. It's hard to find parking there.

I came up with a possible solution: I'd still start at Claremond School... but I knew I'd either be passing Blackwells Mills/Six Mile (if we were going in that direction) or the Griggstown Firehouse on Canal Road (in the other direction), and we could pick up riders-in at one of those spots.

It worked well. Bill B and Lynne W drove to Claremont School, as did Madhu A, and Bob N rode there.

Dave H and Laura OLPH rode to the Griggstown Firehouse... but got there early, and met us on the road  between there and the school. But it would have worked.

And then, taking it further than I intended, Eddie H met us in Kingston, even further along the route.

With the relaxation of the sign-in rules, there was not a bit of bump of interruption as we proceeded. I like this. This can work.

Because of the heat (and the fact that this was my third ride in as many days), the pace was a bit low, but I got no complaints about the pace from my riders. (Laura complained of back pain, and rolled off home when we got to Princeton, but that's a different issue.) We went down to Princeton, across the hills of Pretty Brook, up Bayberry and then Moores Mill/Mount Rose, and to the Boro Bean... where we met Judy M's ride.

Bike pics! (It's been a while since I posted any of these...)

The excellent Martin G got this pic of me...

...and I asked Dave H to get some of me in this jersey:

And there's a story in that, for this Independence Day, COVID-19, Black-Lives-Matter weekend (in a very small way). I bought the frame for the bike I rode today, the Krakow Monster, from Kim's in New Brunswick. At the time I was buying there frequently, and they gave me good discounts; I bought their jersey (shown above) to support 'em. A person, best described as one of the "basket of deplorables" that Hilary Clinton spoke about in 2016, asked me if I wanted to wear this jersey after all the sexual assaults (he used a different term) that were going on in New Brunswick. I asked what that had to do with my purchase, and he just repeated his remarks. I've had little to do with him since... and I've decided that if that kind of problem was going on (or is), all the more reason to spend money at that shop and in that neighborhood. I'm proud to wear this jersey.

</rant>

After the Bean, Dave H left for home, and then Eddie H did.

But there are two pieces of important news: the first is that the Boro Bean is open for take out, AND will let you use the toilet.

The second is this: Lynne W tells me that she and Bill B are getting married. Hooray!

And, except for linking to the ride page, I think that's where I want to end this post.

lies, damn lies, statistics, and...

It's been variously attributed, but I heard it was Benjamin Disraeli who said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics". I think we were climbing another hill on Stamets, several hills after Tom H had promised that it was all downhill to the stop from wherever we had been, when I thought of this, and decided Mr Disraeli had never heard the promises of ride leaders, or he would have added a fourth.

Tom calls us his Insane Bike Posse, because we KNOW he misrepresents climbs, rides over closed roads and bridges, and sends us through various other inconveniences... and we keep coming back to his rides, anyway.

We left from the CVS in Lambertville.

... and started heading up into the hills. It was foggy and humid; every time we stopped, my glasses and mirror would fog up.

It took well over an hour for the fog to burn off... but the humidity remained, and it got hot.

We took a stop in Frenchtown.

As did all the other people who have been emptying the bike shops, apparently.

I saw this family riding their assorted bikes. We loved the camo-design tires on the BMX.

The Bridge Cafe was open and selling through a window. Porta-potties were available across Bridge Street.

And back. After a gazillion feet of climb, we decided to blow off one last bit, and impeded the traffic on Route 29 between the Prallsville Mills (which was rockin'! What's up there today?) and Lambertville. We were almost back before I noted Laura OLPH's most excellent socks:

Zebras! Don't you think you need some zebra socks?

In other news, I discovered my beloved Thomas Sweet in Montgomery has reopened. No toilets available yet, and serve-and-go only, but they're there. Oh, frabjous day!

in lieu of an all-paces ride...

The Princeton Freewheelers board decided that an All-Paces ride for today was just not a great idea... but it felt like club members wanted to come out anyway, because a LOT of folks signed up for the Friday "Team Social Security" ride out of Etra Park today.

I out all the pictures into an album that's available on the Freewheelers website (look for the album titled, "in lieu of an All-Paces Ride"). A few of my favorites:

The Excellent Wife (TEW) came, so it counts as a date!

Al P had the exceptionally sensible idea of breaking the ride up into smaller groups, with separate leaders, all of whom would be doing the same route, but leaving at different times. We started with a group of seven; picked up two, lost one, picked up some more, and ended with ten. We did this route.

We had a couple of first-time group riders on this ride, so I made a point of sweeping in case they needed me (I'm pretty sure they didn't!). And I had a discussion with Al P about a particularly difficult tire change; I correctly guessed that part of the problem was that the tire in question was a Continental (they're always more difficult to change); I didn't guess that the other part of the problem was the extra-deep hooks on the tubeless-ready rim. Al had to cut the tire off the rim, and I'm not surprised for a minute.

I'm eagerly awaiting the day I can joint Team Social Security on a more regular basis (I hope to retire in one year, four months, and 28 days as I write this). Are you jealous?

(Seriously, go check out the photo album. Hints on seeing the pictures are at the top of the linked page.)