OK so shoot me. I lost another one. Being a ride leader sometimes leads to some tough decisions. The first decision I had to make was when to ride. Saturday would be cloudy with a 50% chance of rain after 1pm but Sunday would be a perfect sunny day. I knew if I moved the ride a few people would be disappointed since they won't be able to make the ride because they were going to the PFW fall picnic.
After looking at the weather on late Friday I decided to move the ride to Sunday. I had gotten stuck in the rain a couple times this year and did not want another wet ride. We would also be on a few busy roads so I didn't want to chance riding is wet and low viability conditions.
As soon as I posted the news on my blog and sent out an email blast I had some people question the decision and some bloody biker went as far as to question if I had any bollacks.
The decision to ride on Sunday ended up being a good one. Although the weather forecast actually looked a lot better Saturday morning it did end up raining around 1pm which meant we would have been riding in a steady medium rain for at least an hour.
Sunday was a little cool but it was sunny and clear. I ended up with 9 people at the start. I had not expected that many but I guess the word got out through the blog.
The ride to Sandy Hook from battlefield park on Monmouth is a mostly flat ride and so it wasn't hard to keep the group together. Once there are more than 4 or 5 rides it is sometime hard to keep track of everybody. What I usually do with larger groups is just make sure the slowest person is still in my mirror.
The only time we really got strung out was the hills in Atlantic Highlands along the Navasink river. I was having a good day because the hills didn't feel as hard as they usually do. I stopped at my usual intersection after the last downhill section. When Dave pulled in I knew I had everybody so we continued on. About a mile later after a couple of turns somebody realized we had lost Barry. I sent everybody across the road to the Quick check while Ed and I went back to find Barry.
As I retraced our path I was hoping to see him coming towards us but none of the bikes passing were him. I went back to the bottom of the Navasink hill and when I haddn't found him decided to keep going back to the last place I saw him on the ride. If he was lost that was bad but if he had a mechanical problem or got hurt I wanted to make sure we didn't leave him behind.
After going back over the Navasink hill to the last place I saw him I felt a little better that he was not sitting on the side of the road broken down or hurt. The only logical explanation is that he was lost or decided to turn around. In either case the chances of finding him were very small so Ed and I headed back to the Quick check.
From there we continued on to Sandy Hook and took a ride around the bike paths. It was one of the clearest days that I have been to Sandy Hook so we had a good view of the NY skyline. We stopped at Gunnison beach this time to admire the view from one of the old gun turrets.
From there it was the usual way home over the Shrewsbury river and through Little Silver. I manage not to loose anybody else.
When we got back to the parking lot I saw that Barry's van was gone so I know that he made it back. He may be mad at me for dropping him but at least I know he was OK. He didn't have a cell phone so there was no way to contact him during the ride to find him. I did call his home number and left a message for him to call me but he never call back so I'm still not sure what happen to Barry.
9/20 - ***UPDATE I got a note from John this morning who talked to Barry during the week. It turns out Barry continued on the Navasink Road and didn't turn on to Locust like the rest of us did. When we went back to find him he was already past where we were looking for him. He did make it to Rt 36 and did see the Quick Check and did go to Sandy Hook and through Little Silver on the way home. The bottom line is Barry made it home safely and I need to do a better job keeping track of people on my ride
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