rain. wait... what?

I swear: I checked THREE weather sources before yesterday's ride: 1Weather (on the phone), the MSN Weather app, and The Weather 14 Days (the most pessimistic and likely to predict precipitation of the three), and ALL of them were saying, basically, "Yeah, go ahead and do the ride; ain't gonna rain today."

The Ramblin' Wrench Mobile Shop at the start location.

So it started to rain as I was driving to the start. When I got there, Dave H was waiting, and took out his phone and looked at the weather radar; we were in the middle of a cell that looked like it was gonna pass in about fifteen minutes. 

Soggy-lookin' setup huh?

Of my thirteen registrants, five were supposed to meet us along the route, and three of those texted me before the start to verify I hadn't cancelled. But it was only gonna rain fifteen more minutes, right?

I cut short my too-long pre-ride speech, and riders added warnings about riding on the wet shiny road paint and wet tar snakes. And off we went. 

And it just kept raining on us. Almost all the way until we got to Princeton.

I haven't done the ride to Princeton in a while, and hadn't used this particular route, with a real-estate tour of northern Princeton, in years, I warned people that going across Pretty Brook Road might be tough; the hills aren't high, but they're nasty.

And, of course, because I haven't done the route in a while, I took a wrong turn, and my friendly-but-insistent crew set me right. (I often say I can get lost in a bathroom; I can get lost in my living room if you rearrange the furniture.)

WE got across Pretty Brook OK, and turned up Carter, and then onto Crusher... and it rained on us the entire length of Crusher Road. I'm not ruling out the possibility that some rain god or other picked us out particularly for attention... perhaps because I had cancelled my Memorial Day ride because of threatened rain, which then did not materialize.

And then the sun came out. At the stop at Boro Bean:

Hrmph.

At the end, I had a mutiny, and the group decided to take a little shortcut back on Butler, rather than going back up to Suydam the way I'd planned. Oh, well. After the earlier wrong turn, who was I to complain?

Ride page.

actin' like a retired guy

 It's a shame those folks don't look like they're havin' any fun, right?

The club has a group of (mostly older and retired) riders who go out Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays when the weather allows. The Excellent Wife (TEW) has been most disappointed that I haven't been riding with 'em (I think she wants the vicarious experience), but between going back to work, volunteering, moving, and other requirements, I haven't been able to. 

Now, much of that stuff is out of the way (I still volunteer on Fridays, but that may change), and I got a chance to go on Linda H's ride yesterday. 

(Not all those folks went out with Linda; there was another ride, as well.)

It was another great day, and a good ride. One rider did go down, but showed no damage to himself, and wrenched the bike around until it was in rideable condition again (but the groaning of the bike was painful to hear!).

Club members will note that both Mike G and Ralph S-J are in the pictures. They've each had mishaps in the past year, and it's good to see them out again.

And while the faster folks had higher numbers, I rode in the back, and am not at all concerned about my performance; you can see on the ride page.

Retirement is good. I gotta do more of these.

visiting wrench at tour de south brunswick

 

That guy on the right looks a little sus, eh?

Every year, club members Bobbi B and Marty A do a community ride to benefit the South Brunswick Board of Ed, and this is the second year they've asked me to wrench for 'em. So I loaded up the Ramblin' Wrench Prius, and met 'em at the South Brunswick High School at 7am on this Sunday morning.

The rides range from 25 miles down to 4, which is nowhere near enough for an enthusiast to come out, but this ride is geared towards the families with schoolkids. And with that in mind, the bikes we see run the gamut from really top-end stuff, through mid-range specialty bikes, through good-quality big-box-store bikes, through older bikes that still have good miles left in 'em, to bikes that are barely rolling along... or AREN'T rolling, anymore. 

Friend Albert P came to help out. Most of what we're doing is basic bike checks, filling tires, and adjusting brakes and shifting. But some of 'em are demanding; we had a bike on which the fork was mounted backwards (and on which the cables needed to be rerouted); another where the original assembler had set the shifting too tight to hit the easiest gear; a bike where the galvanized shifter cables had fused to the housing (and are never gonna move again); a bike where the fluid disk brakes appeared to be empty (beyond our power to manage at this workstation)...

They're mostly NOT great bikes. What they are, though, are bikes that are plenty good for the people who ride them. The bikes get ridden around the neighborhood, or occasionally taken to a local bike path, and, with basic maintenance (tires, brakes, lube, occasional cleaning), these bikes will happily do that for decades. It's important never to talk down the bike that someone brings in (although I think it IS OK to be realistic about whether a bike is worth trying to salvage, or should likely just be replaced).

And the folks are so happy to be there, and have such fun, even if they do come back tired from what, for them, is a demanding ride.

Y'want some more pics?

Bobbi B among the constables. (If I had that many police around me, I'd need a medication adjustment.)

Above, Albert rolling a bike in for attention.

I didn't get pictures of the busiest times. But it was a lot of fun. I hope to do it again next year.

tom's best-day-of-the-year ride

 It was just a great day for a ride yesterday.

There's not a lot more to report than that. I got out on a club ride with Tom H, some of his Insane Bike Posse, and a few other club members. I was in good shape. Tom, who's had some health complaints, is clearly doing great. I got to ride with long-time friends, and people I wish were better friends. My bike felt great, like it had been recently serviced (it hasn't; was that just the effect of a newly-paraffined chain?), although I'm trying a new saddle about which I'm not really sure yet*, and the front brake is finally going to need some attention†.

*The new saddle is the Charge Spoon. In my quest to keep cycling affordable, I'm always trying new products to see if they can replace the often-expensive products common to road cyclists. Saddles are individual (one of my frequent refrains is "every posterior is different", although I frequently employ a different word when I'm speaking), and the ones I like best are all over $100, sometimes well over $100. The Charge Spoon is about $35, and has a bit of a swoop like the Selle SMP TRK I've had on the Yellow Maserati for a while. That Selle SMP TRK really wants to go on the gravel bike, and I wanted to try something else before I popped for the cash for the Selle SMP Extra or Well, both of which I'm confident would suit my purpose. The Charge Spoon also comes in the eye-catching and conversation-provoking Dazzle pattern, reminiscent of the Dazzle Camouflage pattern used on ships in the first World War. Those who know me well, know that this bit of historical minutiae would be irresistible for me. I'm still not sure the saddle is going to work, though.

†Starting with a crash in 2015, the front brake on the Yellow Maserati has been less and less reliable; I've finally gotten tot he point where I'm going to have to change out the aesthetically-pleasing but no-long-available Cane Creek SCR-3 rim brakes for some new ones. Cane Creek now makes the EE brakes, which are about $350-400 per brake, and I'm not doin' that. Also, the Yellow Maserati, as she is set up now, takes a medium-reach brake on the fork and a short-reach on the rear, so I had to get a set where both were available. Tektro came through again; I'll mount 'em today.

That was a long digression, wasn't it? Or maybe it was two digressions, you can argue that out separately.

Tom's route left from Mercer Park East (Mercer Park was exceptionally busy yesterday; parking was tough to find). Yo.u can see his route on the ride page. The elevation diagram shows a couple of long, slow hills in the first part of the ride, but I don't remember then as being demanding (and I'm so lost all the time, I'm sure I wasn't aware that we were heading into hills). Despite the range of abilities on this ride, we mostly stayed together (perhaps because at least one of the riders hadn't downloaded the route). There was a comfortable amount of chatter, and a bit of effort on the pace.

Tom's ride usually promises a closed road or bridge. There was a closed road promised in the photo above, but it didn't materialize. A bit later we had some milled road, but I don't think that counts.

We stopped at Woody's in Allentown.

As I write this, that top picture is now on the club home page. 

No ride for me today; instead, Ramblin' Wrench will be mechanic-in-residence at the Tour de South Brunswick, a community- and family-friendly ride. I love doing this; it doesn't make me any money (or get me any work), but I love seeing the families come out, and making their (sometimes barely-rideable) bikes work better.

tryin' to save some for tomorrow

 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.

proof

 

The certificate of completion for the UBI bike school came today.

As did the certificate for my Certified Bicycle Technician designation.

There may not be room in the house for The Excellent Wife (TEW), and me, and my ego.

back to normal

 Above, Len C, whom I haven't seen in far too long.

Today I got back to leading a ride for the Princeton Free Wheelers, my bike club. This is only my sixth lead for the year, and I'm not gonna make my goal of forty leads... but I plead busy-ness: selling and buying the house, moving, the trip to Buffalo for the eclipse, the bike mechanics class.

Nonetheless, I had fifteen for my ride, and would have had more had I not limited the group. I had four cancellations, and for each cancellation, I had another rider register within an hour.

I've moved to Monroe, and I had thought to start a ride from one of the start locations near there... but when I looked up rides from Cranbury, I went to the club route library on RideWithGPS. I didn't make an exhaustive search, but of the routes I saw that were the right distance, either I couldn't figure out where the stop was supposed to be, or it was clear that the stop was at a location I didn't want to use, either because we are no longer welcome there, or because they haven't updated their stock or cleaned their facilities in any year that has a 2 as the first digit.

So I decided another visit to Sweet Gourmet was in order, and that meant one of my familiar routes out of the Claremont School. As I noted, there were enough takers that I guess it was a good idea.

And while we did bring it in at the appropriate pace (as you can see on the ride page), we were a strong group (including me, which has not been the case this year). We went easy on the hills, but some of us were crankin' when we were able to do so. It was a fun ride on a great day.

At the Sweet Gourmet:

And I've apparently decided that even carbon fiber bikes can be beautiful.

Yeah, it surprised me, too.

So I'm going to look for some routes that start closer to my new home... but in the meantime, there is apparently some interest in continuing those rides from Franklin. Or something.