The club has an all-paces set of rides set for tomorrow. Some members don't like the all-paces, because they'll be riding with people with whom they're not familiar and may be surprised by riding styles, but I like them, because I get to see club members I don't see on the rides I lead or go on. And I feel a responsibility to the club to lead on these all-paces days.
But so many of them are Mondays, which means if I ride the weekend, I might go into this ride with two riding days just before... and the all-paces might be a tired day. I looked at the rides for yesterday (Saturday), and all of the ones I'd usually go on, were demanding for distance, or climb, or both, So I satisfied myself with a flat 30-miler, riding to two favorite start locations near the new home, Village Park in Cranbury, and Etra Lake Park in one of the Windsors (I can never remember which one, and I'm too lazy to look it up now).
For today, I pulled out one of my shortest, flattest routes, thinking I'd take it at a reasonable pace, and still have some left for tomorrow. I posted the ride, and it filled up.
I started out with the best of intentions... but then I got caught up. All of the riders in this group are strong, and, even though I made a point of falling to the back and riding with the slower folks, the slower folks were riding at a clip faster than the posted pace. I didn't check the average pace at all until we were about twelve or fourteen miles in, and we were over 15mph, outside the posted range.
We came around to River Road near South Branch, and I started seeing detour signs. I thought I'd have to either change up the route or go over some closed roads a la Tom H, but the bit we needed to ride on was wide open. By the time we got to that Italian Bakery in Raritan, we were averaging over 15.5 mph. Nobody was falling off the back; everybody was keeping up and carryin' on.
And back. In the past, there's been traffic on Roycefield that's a bit scary, but it was light today. We stayed together after the stop until some of us got stuck at a light at Amwell Road... but we got back together in Millstone. (The Sunrise in Millstone is open Sundays for the summer, if anybody goes...)
On Canal Road, I looked at my pace, and listened to my complaining legs, and slowed down to a more regal pace, allowing the rest of the ride to pull ahead. One of the riders waited for me, and we solved humanity's problems and the mysteries of human relationship as we rolled to the end.
I still wound up with a 15.3mph average. So much for savin' some for the ride tomorrow.
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