Winter is officially here now so we won't have many weekends, in the next few months when we will be able to get out on the road. When I saw that this Saturday's would have temperatures hovering in the mid 40s I decided to list a ride out of MCP. Although the temperature was in the mid 40s, the wind was 20 mph+ from the west. Because of the wind I decided to head across Rt 1 instead of getting blown around in the open fields to the east. You can see the actual route we took here.
I had a couple of new roads I want to explore and thought this would be a good time to do it since I didn't expect many people on ride. I was wrong about that as I got my usual people along with some of the normal Cranbury B riders. We were 12 in total as we started off into the wind. The first new road was really a trail, the Trolley Line Trail. This trail goes from Penn-Lyle Rd to Rabbit Hill Rd. This gives me another way to get to Plainsboro from MCP. The trail was a well paved smooth trail. The trail goes through West Windsor Community part where it splits up into a couple of different loops. It took me a few loops to get back on the right path. There was a little grumbling from the group to get back to the roads but I eventually got them back on the fucking road.
We then went through Plainsboro on our way to the canal in Rocky Hill. With all the rain we had I was a little concerned that there would be some flooding by the canal but there was only a few puddle on the road.
Our stop was the Bagel Barn on 206.I have been here a lot over the last few months because of attending some of Jim's ride. Its a good place to stop but I was a little cold when we started the ride again. I didn't take the normal way back. Because of that and a gear problem one of the guys on the ride headed back on his own. The group headed west on 518 then down Cherry Hill Rd. There was a little more climbing than I had promised in the ride description but most people know not to trust me anyway.
We then made our way through the backside of Princeton on Terhune Rd to Snowden which is one of the less crowded roads through town. Getting across Rt 1 is always a problem. My preferred crossing are New Rd, College Rd, or Alexander Rd. I chose none of the above and instead crossed a Harrison. While it is true that Harrison does actually cross Rt 1 that doesn't mean you can't use it to do so. Let me explain.
The driveway to the old Sarnoff labs is just across Rt 1 from Harrison. If you are willing to go around a locked gate which is usually a requirement for one of my rides then you can get across Rt 1. I had actually done this a few weeks ago with Steve and wanted to come back with my regular crew to show them the abandon toxic dump Sarnoff had become. This is where TV was created and the place of a lot of leading edge research was done. Now most of it is go and only a few buildings are used. There is some environmental clean up going on so I didn't want to hang around the place to long.
From Sarnoff we headed to and under the train station. This was the last little surprise I had to the group as I led them down the ramp and through the tunnel of the Princeton train station. I use to do this when commuting to work. Its the easiest and safest way to get to the back roads of West Windsor and back to MCP. I try to continually find slightly different ways to do the same routes and doing some slightly different and sometimes stupid things. This, I hope, make the rides a little more fun even though that draws some complaints.
After dropping the group back at the park I headed home. Laura and Ricky followed me part of the way as they had also road in. By the time I got home I had just over 52 miles. I hadn't ridden on the road in three weeks so I was a bit sort but am glad for the miles as my wife has been baking cookies for the holidays and it I needed some exercise to work them off.
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