Round Valley and Great Weather

It has been a couple of weeks since I posted a message, even though I have had a couple of spectacular bike rides. Besides riding, my weekends have been filled with working on some map updates for my book. Eight months after submitting the final manuscript I finally got assigned an editor at Falcon press and the book is moving forward again. I spent about 35 hours total getting the maps in the right format. The book is now getting copy edited. I also got a firm date of when the book will be published (April 14 2009). It's even listed on amazon now. Check it out

Although working on the book is eating up most of my spare time I have not cut back on my riding especially with the perfect weather that we have been having.

On Aug 16th I tagged alone on the first part of a hilly ride in and around Round Valley. We started in Kingston by the canal and headed to Round Valley. I left the group after going through the reservoir. I thought they were going to do some real hills but they ended up taking it easy. The weather was perfect. Mid 70s low humidity and clear. The last few times I have been past Round Valley I could barely see the other side of the reservoir. This time I could see for miles. I ended up with a some good pictures. Even though I left the group to keep the ride short on the way back I keep adding a few miles here and there so I could keep enjoying the good weather and nice views. I ended up with almost 70 miles and still felt great at the end. It was one of the more enjoyable rides of the year.

On Aug 23 it was another picture perfect day. I didn't have any ride planned but sent out some email and put together an ad hoc ride out of Bordentown. After the hills last week I wanted a mostly flat ride so we headed down to the Pine Barrens and back. I combine parts of my Medford Lakes, Pine Barren and Basic Training ride from the book to come up with a nice 68 mile ride. The weather was great, the roads were quiet and I had a good group of people. It was as close to a perfect ride as you can get. We also stopped again at the bakery just south of Smithville which is a great stop. This stop made up for our first stop at a Wawa where the clientele were a mix of long hair pony tail monster truck guys and fat tattoo ladies.

The perfect weather of the past couple of week can't last much longer I know that it will be only a matter of time before the sky starts rain frogs or I end up having to ride through some thunder snow storms(again) but I will continue to enjoy the good weather while it lasts.