electric boots with an iphone app

 

Dave H posted a club ride for today out of Skillman Park, with what RideWithGPS said was gonna be about 1600' of climb. A number of my favorite club members were registered, and I decided to go. 

The first other person at the start was Heddy.

Heddy had a new toy for the cold weather: battery-driven heated socks, connected to an app on her phone for controls and reporting on the state of the batteries (one for each leg). Another rider remembered Elton John's lyric from Bennie and the Jets:

She's got electric boots, a mohair suit,
Y'know I read it in a magazine...

And the others:

Dave hadn't apparently planned on a stop, but the route passes the Boro Bean in Hopewell, and the sense of the meeting was to have a stop there. 

Shortly after we started, we turned west onto Skillman Road to face the perpetual headwind, for which Laura OLPH took credit (if there's not a wind from the west on Skillman Road, then something dire is happening with the weather). Then we started the climb up Hollow Road towards Zion, and then further up on Lindbergh... and I got the suspicion that the reported 1600' of climb at RideWithGPS might be an underestimate. My device was already reporting 900', and it told me we had three more rated climbs (the GPS device has a function that rates climbs if they are long and steep enough. I regularly have more of them than fellow riders on their devices; I tell them that this is because my device is in "old man mode"). I remember complaining that I was too old be be doing climbs like this; Heddy later pointed out that I was saying this as I was passing her on an uphill. (Don't worry: Heddy passed me often enough that I won't get a swollen head.)

A few of us at the Boro Bean:

And between us and a few other riders there, there was a gorgeous chaos of bikes.

I noticed Dave saddling up as if to go, and others doing the same. We got started on the route again, but we'd left several behind who weren't ready to come out with us yet. They pointed out the problem when they caught up with us. It shouldn't happen, and it can be a problem with large groups. Edit:  I have been confronted about the way I originally wrote about this. I have removed the offending language.

On we went. Dave had set the route so we avoided some of the worst short, sharp shock hills and the worst traffic; I may use some of these roads on my future rides. We went the other way on Opossum, which means we went DOWN the hill that's so unpleasant when you go UP it, and we went the right way across the one-way bridge. Laura pointed out that it was more pleasant this way... but that way doesn't go the way I usually want to go!

Ghina, Stacey, and EZ mugging at the end:

Yeah, and remember that reported 1600' of climb? The ride page says it was actually over 2000'. RideWithGPS routing climb estimates may have the reliability of Tiktok influencers. Just sayin'.