The Cookie to Speed Ratio

I was able to get in a few rides in between Christmas and New Years. This is important because of all the extra food consumed during the Christmas festivities. I felt a little slower on the rides and attributed it to the extra cookies and chocolate that I have been consuming.

Last Wednesday I got Laura, Chris and Ken to join me on a canal ride from Washington Crossing. We went down the PA side. I wanted to head a little south of Morrisville and look for possible places to park as I want to do a ride all the way down to Bristol and that is too far south to do it from Washington Crossing.

It was a sunny day and around 40 degrees so it was not a problem staying warm. When we got down to Morrisville the trail got a little sketchy and we had to make a quick detour over a ditch and through a parking lot to get across Bridge street. The plan was to head south for 3 or 4 miles before turning around. Instead we ran into construction about a mile later.

It looks like they are building a tunnel through a hill. We then turned around and headed back. We crossed over the Trenton Makes bridge and headed back the NJ side. We ended up with just over 20 miles.

On Saturday I posted a ride out of Cranbury. It was 50 degrees and sunny so I expected a big crowd like I had last weekend. I only got 4 people to join, Jim, Ricky, Larry and Eric. There was a good stiff wind coming out of the west so I plan a north south route to stay out of the wind as much as possible.

For most of the way out we only had a cross wind or a good tail wind. As we wound our way through the Assunpink there seemed to be a lot of hunters in the woods searching for their New Years Eve dinner.

On the way towards Allentown we had a few wind in faces stretches and I knew there would be a few more after the stop.

We stopped at Woody's for our break and found a cool aero-recumbant on the side walk.

We all ogled over it. We also talked to the owner who had ridden to Allentown from the shore. Of course one of my question is how good was it into a head wind. He said head winds didn't affect it too much because it was low and had low wind resistance. It was a trike and weighed 65 pounds so its not climbing any hills.

It was only 16 miles back to Cranbury but we had two long stretches into the wind. I sucked a wheel as much as I could during these stretches as Eric, Jim, and Ricky seemed to have more left in the tank than I did.

Once we got back to Cranbury I put out some cookies so I could fatten up these fuckers. That way they would not only block the wind better but be easier to keep up with.

I'm thinking of instituting a new policy at the end of the ride that will require all riders to eat a certain amount of cookies or chocolate at the end of a ride based on how far ahead of me and/or how much faster they make it up the hills. I will call this new stat the Cookie to Speed Ratio. So if you come on my rides and push the pace I will increase you waist line according.

Laura, Jack and I did make in down to Bristol on a New Years eve day ride, as the picture up top shows. You can read the details here. Its not the most scenic ride but it was nice to see another another part of the trail. The town of Bristol looks interesting so it might make a good ride in the summer.