Weathermen suck. If they are lucky they get the forecast right 50% of the time which is probably more luck than skill. Don't even get me started on the accuracy of long range forecasts which are a joke. Still when I'm planning a ride I look at the weather forecast anyway just in case it might be right. For this July 4th I decided to put together my own ride instead of doing the clubs All Paces ride because the rides are getting too large and unorganized and I wanted to do some different roads.
I was encouraged by the weather forecasts for the 4th because all of them said that any rain would be in the late afternoon. So I was a little mad at the weathermen when I woke up and saw dark clouds covering the sky. The radar shows approaching rain. In fact it showed rain over my house so I'm thinking I'm going to have to cancel the ride. Then I look out the window and it's not raining and the roads are dry. There's no rain so what do I do.
I get a call from Joe who wants to know whether the ride is on or not. I look at the radar again then look outside. The radar shows rain coming but it looks light and scattered. The roads are dry. I know I'll be pissed if I cancel the ride and then spend the morning looking out the window at dry roads that I could have been riding on. I tell Joe the ride is on. If it starts to rain we might get a little wet but it shouldn't be bad. This was the right decision because there was almost no rain and we ended up having a good ride. The moral of the story is that it is better to take a chance and get a little wet than to cancel a ride and be pissed if it doesn't rain.
I won't ride if it is definitely going to rain but I have become less likely to cancel a ride when there is only a chance of rain.
The ride started out of Etra park and the plan was to do a 50 loop to Farmingdale and back. I ended up with 8 people on the ride. The usual Hill Slug gang along with Herb and the Joes.
I had a nice surprised when Mike M brought out a cake and the group sang "Happy Birthday" to me. I'm not big on birthday celebrations but it was a really nice gesture from a group of people I really enjoy hanging around with.
From Etra we headed east taking the short way to Farmingdale. I wanted to get ahead of any rain coming hoping by the time we headed back it would be more scattered and we could pass through it quickly. The roads were really empty so riding was fun and we set a quick pace. We hit a few drops of rain here and there but it never really rained.
When we got to Farmingdale we tried to stop at the Bagel store but it was closed for the 4th so we ended up at the bakery.
On the way back from Farmingdale I took the scenic route around the Manasquan reservior. After we crossed Rt 9 we took Georgia Rd in to Turkey Swamp and kept cruising along at good pace. For the first time we actually saw two very large Turkeys at the end of Nomoco. I stopped to take a few pictures but none of them came out good.
From Turkey Swamp we headed through Millstone on Back Bone Hill and then back to the start. We ended up coming in at 17.2 mph and did just over 50 miles. Since the ride started at 8AM we were back by 11:30. It felt unusual to be done this early but it was a good way to spend my birthday.
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