Following Their Lead

I lead four rides in September and two of those were actually official PFW rides. I don't mine leading but I thought I would give some others a chance to lead. The first weekend in Oct I went on Laura's ride from Twin Pines. We did this route to Sergeantsville Even though there was no rain in the forecast it ended up misting and semi raining during most of the ride.

During the ride Jack was telling me of some roads he wanted to do in the area and I told him I was taking the day off on Wednesday so let's do a ride. I asked him to just send me the roads he want to do and I would put a route together. After a few email exchanges Jack decided he would lead the ride. We started in the middle of Ewing and did some urban riding as Jack took us through the neighborhood he grew up in while telling us stories of him riding his Stingray bike. Since this was the first time any of us (Me, Jim, and Ricky) could remember Jack leading we gave him a lot of shit about the route and leading in general because that is what we do. (The hard part of leading is not creating the route but dealing with all the jerks on the ride.) During the ride we decided we were Jack's Jerks since every ride leader needs a name for the people that follow them.

We eventually ended up on the normal roads out of Pennington and made our way over Goat Hill into Lambertville. Here is the route we did. Instead of stopping in Lambertville we stopped in Ringos at the Carousel Deli. The bathroom is a little dirty but they have a good outdoor porch to sit on and decent food and drinks so its not a bad place to stop in this area.

We had 30 miles by the time we got to the stop. Jack didn't really have a clue how much longer the ride would be but guessed in might be close to 60. Jack didn't really plan the route he was old school and just had a piece of paper with hand written direction on it.

From the stop we ended up heading over the Sourlands and back towards Pennington. Jack tried to take a slightly different way back to Pennington that involved two perilous crossing of Rt 31 but because of a road closed we ended riding on 518 for a while and then going back the normal way.

There was a little more urban riding involved to get back to our starting point in Ewing but nothing dangerous. We ended up with 57 miles and I was a little tired at the end especially since it was 85 and humid. It was a different type of ride and not a bad route. I may follow Jack if he decides to lead again.

This Saturday was a rain out. I was suppose to head down to the shore to meet my wife for lunch but decided to do Jum's ride on Sunday instead. The temperature had taken a nose dive over the last couple of days so when I started from Rocky Hill to get a few more miles it was 45 degrees. As I drove up to Rocky Hill I saw Pete and Andrew riding on Canal Rd so I told them to wait for me and the three of us ended up riding to Blackwell Mills together.

Jim's lead his usual ride at a slow B pace with a stop at the Bagel place on 206. It was a nice relaxing ride although I wished it would have warmed up a little more than it did as I was cold after the stop.

Laura, I and Ricky broke off a the Griggstown causeway and I decided to do Coppermine to get another hill in. Ricky decided not to do the hill and Laura took off at the top to head home and maybe get in a metric. . By the time I got back I ended up with just over 43 miles.

I will be with the Philadelphia bike club next weekend for their trip to to Gettysburg so I may not end up leading any rides this month but that is okay as long as I can follow other people on interesting rides.