ahead of the rain.

 

The grey skies and the threat of rain were like a theme in a movie score on this ride, even though real rain didn't, in fact, come.

I listed late; it might have been Friday afternoon before I actually got the listing for this one onto the calendar, and I didn't know who would come. I was out at a wedding most of yesterday, and there weren't many by the The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I left for the event. But by this morning I had about a dozen, and, with late signups and cancellations, we had a dozen riders at one point.

Because of the wedding yesterday, I didn't get much of a ride in (I had eighteen slow miles before we left), so I scheduled this to be a smidge longer than my usual rides: 42 miles, with a stop at Boro Bean. I was less than careful about my routing at RideWithGPS, so the route led us onto the D&R Canal Towpath (which I didn't want to do, so we stayed on Canal Road), and later, two riders said their devices led them onto Fairway Drive. I'll clean up the routing before I use the route again.

Three of my riders took advantage of my offer to meet on the route: Peter G met us a bit further along Canal Road than I expected, and Laura OLPH met us far above where I expected her to be (we'd had a "gotta go back and get something dropped" incident). The John W, who had registered late, rolled onto the group. (John later rolled off home, with dire predictions about how we were gonna get wet. That got some thoughts going and some discussions started.)

Some time ago (it doesn't look like I wrote a post about it), I cut a ride short for rain that didn't come, and I'm reluctant to do that again. One rider suggested shortening the route when we would arrive at Griggstown Road in Montgomery; another said at the break that there was rain in Bordentown. I made an early decision to shorten the route at Griggstown Road.

But then there were signs, if not of clearing, at least that heavy rain was not imminent. I made an announcement that I would continue on the original planned route, but there was an easy-to-follow cutoff that any of the riders could take when we were to turn left on Green Ave. I made the turn... and all of the riders followed. So on we went.

Two of the riders slowed as we proceeded; one decided to fall off the back and go at a slower pace, the other tried to keep up. I rode with him as the others went off to the end of the ride. There were a few droplets that did not even qualify as drizzle as we pulled into the lot. After thank-you's and goodbyes, I turned to ride home... and the rider who had dropped off the back was rolling along to go home himself! I felt better for having found him again.

And so we're back. Go take a look at the ride page; we brought it in at 15.4mph.