the limits of politeness, and many greetings

 I lost control of this one before it even started; there's an understanding that Princeton Free Wheeler ride leaders will limit rides to fifteen riders. I forgot to put in the limit, and before I knew it, I had twenty-two registrants. I had to turn someone away. A fellow leader set up his own ride to trail mine.

 Almost everybody on this one rides faster than the posted ride speed. I make sure that nobody rides alone, so I'm usually in the back by the end of the ride. The faster horses in attendance rode behind as we started... but, by the time we were four miles in, the fastest group broke off the front. At about seven miles, another group went out front (although this one mostly waited at turns).

So I decided the limits of politeness for this group ended at about seven miles.

No harm, of course; I was riding with two others who apparently wanted to ride the pace I did, and I had a good time with them. One of them, David G, is a neighbor at the new house into which we just moved; in view of the temperature range, he asked for a ride to the start, and intended to ride home on his own later. 

My performance has been unpredictable recently, but I was in good shape today (probably as a result of loading up on good food and empty calories at dinner last night, in celebration of mine and The Excellent Wife [TEW]'s 27^th wedding anniversary [and how on earth did it happen that I'm married for twenty-seven years?]).

We rolled over my usual roads, on a great day that was just a bit windy (you can see the route and my performance on my ride page). We stopped at that Sweet Gourmet in Montgomery/Skillman/Franklin or wherever it is.

(I'm refraining from posting some incredibly unflattering pictures here. They're really blackmail-worthy.)

After the stop, we started to get separated again, and one of the riders in the back got a flat. Rickety G and I stayed behind to offer suggestions and judgment, and it took a while for us to get going again, but get going we did... to come up on "Wireguy" Michael S in a van (he'd led another ride locally), taking David G back to the start; David had gotten a flat, and had had problems in the past getting his disk-brake wheel back into place, and didn't want to risk more. David asked me for a ride from the start back home in the car; he would wait at the end of the ride, only a few miles further on.

Also with them, though, was friend Bob N, with whom I've ridden a gazillion times. Bob's involved in some new project or other, and between his busy-ness and my move, I haven't seen him in far too long, so we rode together for a few.

When Bob turned off, the rider with the first flat, Rickety, and I put in some pretty fast pacing on the way back to the start (it was fast pacing for me, anyway, especially with thirty-plus miles just under my belt). I chatted with the rider with the flat about riding the rest of the way home on a repaired tire, and how I never trust them, and always feel relieved when I actually get back to the start without further incident.

Don't you feel like that, too?

in buffalo for the eclipse

 The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I have just moved to a new house... and two days after we moved, we were off to Buffalo for a long-planned trip to see the eclipse. It had been one of my wife's "bucket list" items, and I make a practice not to stand in the way of those.

It was great. I wrote the following to an acquaintance who lives in England:

==

Buffalo, NY was cloud covered most of the day, which worked reasonably well for viewing the eclipse. While we had the approved protective glasses, we only needed them for those few occasions when the clouds broke and what was left of the sun showed through. Instead, the clouds provided protection, and while they did sometimes completely block our view of the sun, more often the clouds we just enough so that we could see the eclipse happen without the need for protection.

Totality was scheduled for about 3:18pm local time, but occlusion of the sun started about an hour earlier. We went out to the street and stood where we would be able to see. Across the street, there was a bar where a number of customers had been preparing (ahem!); one was so prepared that he fell over backwards, but we later saw him up on the roof with the others. There was a festive atmosphere; we had three locals standing on the street with us sharing thoughts and politenesses, and later the excitement and giddiness.

It takes a LOT of occlusion to change the quality of the light locally, but as the sun got more and more covered, darkness came on. It wasn't the darkness of sunset - the colors were different, and it came on much more quickly. As totality approached, the darkness became more complete: streetlights came on, and we noticed cheering and shouts from other bars on this street. Even through the clouds, with totality we saw the irregular corona, and a bright spot towards the "bottom" of the sun that we later learned was a sun flare.

And then the light began to come back, and within about a half-hour, the light was back and we went on our way. My wife had made this a "bucket list" item, and was still excited and grinning at bedtime.

==

My wife got some video of the event:

 

We came back to a house full of unopened boxes, and we still can't find anything. Moving is crazy. But the eclipse was immense.

just what i wanted to do

Yeah, there haven't been a lot of ride updates. Weather hasn't cooperated, and when it has, real life has gotten in the way. The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I are moving from a town house in North Brunswick to an over-55 community in Monroe (it seems like a great move for us; we're excited, but it's stressful and time-consuming). And I went back to work as a favor to my old boss, who was great to me before I retired... but the job has eaten more of my schedule than I'd anticipated. 

So those are my excuses.

I had some time for a ride today... but my usual crew were doing a hilly ride, with the same route that I had such a bad time on in January. I'm not in the best shape I've ever been in (my weight's up, but I also find sometimes that I ride better when my weight's up, so who knows?), my performance is unreliable (sometimes I'm fast [for me], and sometimes I'm really not, and it's no fun to be the person who's falling off the back and making everybody wait)... and maybe I just don't really like hilly rides.

Several of my usual riding companions are going on a hilly trip late in the summer, and are training for that, and the scuttlebutt is that their rides are going to be increasingly hilly and demanding for the upcoming months. So maybe I'm looking for other rides.

But friend Tom H, who for various reasons isn't up for hilly rides either, reached out about a flatter ride with a friendly pace, and that sounded just the thing. Jack H decided to come, too.

Tom came up with a route from Etra Park that went 40 miles, over roads I don't usually ride on, that brought us close to my current town home in North Brunswick AND the new place (thanks, Tom; now I have some ideas on where to ride from the new home). Forty-ish miles, with only 1000' of climb or thereabouts. The wind was strong for some of it (notably in the last quarter; couldn't you have planned that better, Tom?), and we still came in at a pace in the mid-14's, which is reasonable for this guy who's pushin' 70 so hard it's starting to complain. It was just what I wanted to do.

We stopped at the James Brew, a coffee place in Jamesburg.

It's a shame it's so close to home; it's a pretty good stop. It's nothing on the Mendoker's that used to be in Jamesburg (the three storefronts they used to occupy are still empty (and they closed in, like, 2017, but we still remember them fondly), but this James Brew was friendly, with decent empty calories. I'm not the guy to ask about the quality of coffee (I really do like Dunkin' Donuts best, and that coffee is good, to me, that comes closest to DD), but I do intend to stop there again.

You can go check out the ride page.

(Sigh.) I gotta find some flat routes around here. I frequently say I can get lost in a bathroom, but I need to get some routes.

philly bike expo

 Between the demands of moving (to another part of the same county we live in now), failing fitness (I can't reliably ride at the rates, or for the distances, that I could even less than a year ago), and various weirdnesses with friends and associates that I won't elaborate on here, I've been anywhere from out-of-sorts to completely crazy for a few days (The Excellent Wife [TEW] and I suspect there might be a nickel's worth of a seasonal affective disorder in the cocktail). So when I mentioned that the Philly Bike Expo was this weekend, TEW insisted that I take a day and go. So I did.

I chose to go on the Sunday, because there was to be a presentation entitled Bikefitting for Cycling Literacy. I don't know much about bikefitting, and thought that would be the main topic... but it wasn't. The presenter was a Brooklyn bike fitter who's gender-non-binary, and makes a point of engaging people into cycling who are atypical for the endeavor - not just the LGBTQ+ folks, but women, short and tall people, heavier people, long- and short-waisted people... in fact, anybody who's not a white, heterosexual male over the age of 40. 

It was a great presentation. I teach the Basic Bike Maintenance course for the Princeton Adult School, and this presentation changed the way I will teach. I'm co-manager of the New Brunswick Bike Exchange, and this presentation will affect the way I deal with customers, neighbors, and volunteers. 

And I came to another realization. Most of the folks I ride with regularly, ride together almost all the time. When the club has all-paces rides, and people come together and and ride together who don't normally do so, these friends generally do their own thing. It is undoubtedly riskier to ride with comparative strangers. But first, we were all strangers once. And second, it is elitist to leave out newer riders from these in-groups. And third (and probably most important), I like to meet and ride with new people! I like to see new riders on those first few rides, when their skills and behaviors improve so dramatically. 

Similarly, I like the big ride-for-a-cause supported rides: I like seeing all the different riders and bikes (and different kinds of riders and bikes) that come out, and I like going places I wouldn't normally go, and I like the new rest stops, and even the (often terrible) provided lunches. There was a table flogging the American Cancer Society Philadelphia Bike-A-Thon, and it sounds like a great time.

I plan to do more of the biking I like. That was one of the gifts I got at the Bike Expo today.

There were also, of course, beautiful bikes.

...and beautiful parts:

Above, King Cage; they make hand-bent bottle cages in steel and titanium in a number of styles. Yes, cages can be had for $4, but they're not these. Below, the titanium dustpan they made, because they could.

Above, Silca. Once upon a time, they were known for expensive, but serviceable and repairable pumps and bike accessories. As far as I'm concerned, in 2024, they make jewelry: the stuff works, and it's beautiful, but it's ridiculously expensive for what it is. They've also taken the process of waxing chains, and made it complicated in an effort to make it easier.

Below, the Bike-A-Thon I referred to above.

I hooked a pocketful of stickers to decorate my workspace in the new garage, and bought a replacement for my Suzu Crane bell, with a tone and sustain that defies description. I got out cheap.

A good day.

change of plans

 Between going back to work, and the various hassles of selling one home and buying another, and some requests for bike work, it was Thursday night before I managed to post a ride for Sunday morning. I planned to start at the Claremont School in Franklin, and go to that nifty Italian Bakery in Raritan, over a route that crosses both the Blackwells Mills and Griggstown Causeways.

But The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I went out to Philadelphia yesterday, to go to Czerw's, and then to the Reading Terminal Market, and then to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a no-special-show-but-let's-go-anyway visit... and it rained the whole day, and then some. I knew the Griggstown Causeway would be flooded today, and I suspected the other might, as well.

So when we got home, I sent out an email to all of the ride registrants, and changed the listing. Instead of starting at the Claremont School, we'd start at Veteran's Park in Montgomery, although the route would still go by the Raritan Italian Bakery.

I had one cancellation... and no other news. And nobody was in the lot, when I arrived, 30 minutes prior to the ride start. Then, one by one, cars and bikes came in... until all fifteen of my registrants appeared for the ride.

It was windy to start, but a great day, with less traffic than I often have on these roads. And the weather was warm: where last week, the temps didn't get above about 35°F, we had about 45°F at the start, and about 64°F at the end. Many riders were complaining about being overdressed (including very truly yours, Plain Jim), and more than one stripped off layers, or rolled up leggings, or what have you.

At the stop:

So with moving, Claremont school wont be as convenient for me as riding a few minutes from my garage. I'll be much closer to Village Park in Cranbury, and even to Etra Park. But I still plan to lead some rides from this area... and maybe I need to plot some more routes from Veterans Park.

meet singles over 50?

 So this came up in one of my feeds: "Meet singles over fifty on Ourtime".

In that picture on the right... are they both single? Have they met somebody on Ourtime? Are they looking to meet someone else? Is the purpose of this website, uhh... not what I think it is?

I have so many questions.

some of 'em come out on cold days

 The thermometer showed 28°F when I left the house this morning to lead today's club ride. I don't generally go out if it's coder than that, and, since I know it was going to be cold, I chose a shorter, 30-mile loop, and didn't plan a rest stop.

And, as the photo attests, people actually thought this was a good enough idea that they showed up.

Partly because of the cold, I think, it wasn't a chatty ride I (I know a number of you faster folks are shaking your heads and saying, "If you're able to talk, you're not riding hard enough", but you guys would be miserable on my rides for more reasons that just that). Still, we were friendly, and mostly well-matched. 

We rolled down to Kingston, then back up to Rocky Hill on the other side of the river... and then up to Millstone and back. I started to bonk on the last bit: I'd underestimated the demands of this shorter ride on this cold day. On a 40-ish mile ride with a stop, I'm generally having some sugar and empty calories at about mile 25 or so. So having no stop for 30 miles, on this cold day, meant I should have caloried up... but I didn't think of that, until my misery made it clear that I'd made the mistake. (On the way home, I stopped at the bagel place, and put in the calories I should have done a couple hours before.)

Tuesday night, I start teaching my "Basic Bicycle Maintenance" class at the Princeton Adult School; we chatted a bit about that on the ride, and about my upcoming move to Monroe. My intention is to lead some rides from near there, and others from this Claremont School in Franklin Township location, as some people really like this start. But I doubt I'll hit my goal of 40 leads this year.

Go and check out the route.