The parking lot at the start. If the roads had looked like that, my part of the ride would have been exceptionally short.
I haven't posted about a ride in a while. A little of that has been due to the cold and snow (this snow has been hanging around over three weeks. It's nearly unprecedented), but I have been on a ride since the last post. I'd planned to write it up the following day, but that night, my wife and I were in an auto collision.Nobody was hurt, and it was not our fault... but the other driver lied to the policeman, and the policeman wrote it up as the other driver's story. I've had depression, and some post-traumatic stress, over that.
So much so, that The Excellent Wife (TEW) of almost twenty-nine years, on this Valentine's Day, when she heard that Laura OLPH had posted a ride, told me I was going on the ride and we would remember Valentine's Day in some other way (we're working it out). It was to be only thirty miles, and only one demanding hill. And TEW was not to be argued with.
Still, I worried about being able to do it. Between the depression, some weight gain (I'm sure related to the depression), and winter out-of-shape-ness, I was afraid I'd be off the back. And there WAS all that snow. It has cleared off the roads in the lowlands here, but what would the roads look like up in the Sourlands, where we'd be riding?
You've seen the pics at the top of the post. We had about eight cars among the participants, and had to find places where we wouldn't a) get stuck in the ice, and b) present a barrier to someone else if they wanted to get out of the lot without our having to move our car. I decided that if the roads looked anything like that, I'd bail.
We were ten. Laura's blessedly short route was clear (mostly) of ice and snow (there was some melt-and-refreeze that we had to deal with). And the only demanding climb was the one at Stony Brook. We mostly stayed together until we didn't -- we can blame winter legs, and one rider on a fat-tire gravel bike. A rider was new to our group, and I volunteered to sweep, because that "Jim's gotta be a caretaker" thing dies hard, especially when I'm fighting off a bit of depression (have I mentioned that enough yet?)
We stopped at Boro Bean, after a bit of kerfuffle about the route. We weren't sure the Bean was open (it was)... and we had to get creative about putting the bikes up; nobody had been diligent about clearing the bike racks.
And, of course, nobody was sitting outside at Boro Bean, as the outdoor tables were still nearly seat-deep in snow.
And back. I'm glad I went: it turns out I'm in better physical shape than I thought I was, and it was a tonic to get out of the house, do something outdoors (that didn't have to do with moving snow or ice), and see people who I like and who like me.
But I'm so done with all this snow and ice. (I'm done with ICE, too, but that will be a blog post that doesn't get shared.)
