Mansfield Almost Metric

After a few weeks in the hills I decided to take a brake and do something flat. Florida Flatlander Cheryl was in town so I thought a flat metric would be something she might join us for. The regulars Jim and Laura had other commitments but I got a good turnout. Ricky, Chris Cheryl, Joe, Andrew and Sergey join me in Mansfield for the ride.

I had a few routes mapped out so that I could change the distance depending on how hot it got during the ride. The forecast was Sunny with temperatures reaching 90 degrees so there was a possibility that we could approach death march territory. At the start of the ride the weather wasn't too bad. It was in the low 70s and the moderate humidity.

One of the reasons that I like to start the pineland rides from Mansfield is that it lets me get a little deeper into the pinelands and get to some different roads. The ride went through Jobstown then skimmed Fort Dix before going through the lovely town of Browns Mill. (Here is a link to the route). We didn't stop at the Wawa as it was too early in the ride.

We made our usually stop for water at the ranger station in Lebanon State forest before continuing on to Nixon's . Sergey got a flat on Sooy Rd so he pulled into a driveway to make a fix. This in the pinelands so it is very rural and not the most upscale community. Most of the houses here are small homes in need of some maintenance. However when the Range Rover pulled in to the driveway we were in we realized that there is at least one upscale home in this area. (No sure why someone with money would live in this area)

At our stop in Nixon's Chris realized he had a slow leak so he had to change his tubular tire during the break, It was getting warm but wasn't oppressive so we decided to do the longer route. We had not pushed the pace and I had kept to the shade was much as possible so most of us were feeling good. It helped that we had a tail wind pushing us home.

We had to make the usual detour at Smithville to get around the bridge out but otherwise it was an easy ride back to Mansfield. We came in at 60 miles. I could have added a couple miles at the end to make it a real metric but I've never seen the point of adding miles to a ride just to reach a certain mileage goal.

This was a nice long flat ride and a nice break from the hills. I got some emails from Laura about a road in Morris county she wants to try so I suspect we will be doing some more rides in the hills in the next few weeks.