ride to the shore on a windy day

Despite my generalized feelings of impending doom, I went along to Monmouth Battlefield Park at some ludicrous hour this morning (well, I was up, but no normal person would have been) for the start of Tom H's ride to Sandy Hook. The Excellent Wife (TEW) had been looking at the weather predictions, and had dire warnings about the wind (and the heat), but I ignored her advice and went anyway.

At the Monmouth Battlefield, the wind was already up at 8:15 or so; check out the flags.

It would get worse later.

But while I was worrying about that, up came Jack, who might have been on his first ride since a shimmy and crash on Federal Twist some weeks ago.

Tom, Laura, and Snakehead arrived, so we were five. I'm surprised there were no others; this ride often gets more takers, Perhaps people were concerned about the weather; if so, Rule 9.

Tom did the asperges ritual with the sanctus status pedis...

...while the rest of us expressed our awe, and recorded the proceedings.

And off we went. We had kind-of-a-tailwind for a while. We stopped at a Quik Chek in Atlantic Highlands, and refilled our water, already running low from the heat and wind.

Bikes pic!

As we approached Sandy Hook, we felt the wind getting worse, and the sand started grinding at us. We got to the beach, but we decided not to proceed up the bike path all the way. We got some pictures, and continued back, instead.

We had another stop somewhere near Rumson (not ideal, but there wasn't another good place), but the ride back was a slog. While we seldom had a real headwind, the sidewinds were strong (I couldn't hear much except wind noise), and there was traffic much of the way; we finally got out of the traffic (I think) between Little Silver and Shrewsbury. And it was hot; we went through most of our water.

But sometimes, the unpleasantness of the ride becomes a shared experience, and it was that way for me today. Despite my general anxiety, nothing bad happened (well, I DID have a flat about ten miles from the end, and I've got a creak that I think is spoke noise, but these are small potatoes), and Jack came out and did the ride. It was a great day, and I'm glad I went. I'm sorry you missed it.

Ride page here.