two in one

 This ride was a little weird.

In China Miéville's The City and The City, there are two cities that occupy the same space (sort of; they are at least deeply intertwined with each other), but the citizens of one have nothing to do with the citizens of the other - it's a criminal offense to have dealings with the other city, and each group of citizens have developed ways of not seeing the other. (Go check out the Wikipedia article.)

(I've not read widely of the work of Mr Miéville, and all of the works I've read have problems, but no matter - go read Miéville; even with the flaws, the stuff is terrific.)

This ride was kind of like the cities in that novel. Twelve came out: seven were among Tom's Insane Bike Posse regulars, and five were faster folks who decided this was the best club ride on offer today. And the five faster folks went off the front (waiting at most of the turns for the rest of us), while the Insane Bike Posse regulars rode at our own pace, chatting, complaining, and cracking wise as we usually do. 

Tom's 40-ish mile route (see the ride page) took us from Allentown down towards Fort Dix, and then to New Egypt where we stopped at the Charleston Coffee (forgive the lack of pics; it was cold, and I forgot). As with most of the rest of the ride, the faster folks had gotten there first and were getting coffee or whatever by the time we arrived. 

(At one point, it was pointed out to me that I was ahead of the faster folks, which I was, but on the way back we were fighting a headwind, and when the fast riders got tired of the parade pace at which I was riding into the wind, they pulled around and showed me what they could do. Ahem.)

So by the end of the ride, a few of us in the back traded pulls into the headwind and made sure we all got back to the start.

Y'know, if some faster riders wanted to lead rides at their own pace, youse wouldn't have to shiver at those intersections while you're waiting for us to show up. Just sayin'...