All Roads Lead to Clarksburg

When I first joined the Princeton Free Wheelers I did a lot of rides out of Cranbury. Even though there are many different routes you can do from Cranbury almost all of them end up with at stop at the Clarksburg Deli. The Clarksburg Deli is not the best Deli around but it has a great location that makes it a convenient place to stop.

I lead the HoneyDo ride out of Cranbury for a lot of years and know almost every rideable road in the area. I learn the roads from riding with Don, Norman and a few others. If you want a nice 40-45 mile flat to rolling ride this is a great area to ride in.

I don't lead many rides out of Cranbury any more. This is mainly because I have been adding more variety to my rides and exploring other areas. The size of the rides, out of Cranbury are also larger than I want lead. The B group can be 25 to 30 people which can make the ride very chaotic and hard to control.

I have seen a few emails recently complaining about pace and leadership of some the rides going out of Cranbury. Some of these are the usual argument about how to keep a B ride from becoming a B+ ride and dropping people who can't keep up or just want to do a "real B pace". These arguments are nothing new and part of the normal ebb and flow of a bike club.

Although there are some things a leader can do it can be hard sometimes to make everybody in the ride happy with the pace when you have a large group.

On thing that would help is if there were more ride leaders. This would give riders more options when deciding which leader to go with based on their ability. Of course people are fast to complain but slow to want to lead. Mostly their excuse is that they don't know the roads good enough. To take that argument away. I have just posted 3 of my favorite routes from Cranbury. You can find them on my ride sheet page for my book. These routes show some of the best rides around Cranbury and will give you a good start to understanding the roads in the area.

So if you don't like the size or pace of the rides going out of Cranbury stop complaining and do something about the problem by becoming a ride leader. It is good for the club and a can be a fun experience.

Quick side note:
I had not ridden past the Clarksburg Deli in a few weeks so after writing this post took a quick ride past it not to see the deli but because I heard the Clarksburg Inn burnt down. Here are some pictures of what the fire did. The fire department is next to the building so they got there quick but it must have spread fast because the entire inside is almost completely gutted even though the wall look mostly intact. It was a historic building that has been around for over 200 years so its too bad they will have to tear it down and build a new one.