Round Valley

It has been too hot to do long or hilly rides for the past few weeks. I have wanted to do a ride around Round Valley for a while and when Saturday's weather was only going to be hot instead of oppressive I decided to list a ride for there.

Of course there was a chance of rain forecast but as Saturday came the chance of rain was less and confined to the late afternoon. I had the semi normal people show up for my ride Laura, Ricky, Jim, Jack and a couple irregulars Serge and the other Jeff X. Jim and Jack only joined us for the first few miles of the ride as Jack didn't want to push his broken foot too much and Jim didn't want to do the hills and miles because he was leading Sunday.

Although it was cooler than it had been the past few weeks it was still humid and a little foggy as we worked our way up and over the Sourlands. At 20 miles we made our first stop at the Wawa on 202. Since this was going to be a long and hilly ride I wanted to try and stay hydrated. From there we headed up to and over the hill to the reservoir. Its almost never great weather when we come here but today wasn't that bad. It was still sunny and there were some cool clouds building over the water.

We then made our usual stop at the deli at Whitehouse Station where we talked with Jeff about  randonneuring. He is yet another person I know that is in to long distance biking. It seems like it is a disease that is infecting the bike community and although I applaud the skill and dedication it takes to do those types of rides it is something I will avoid like the zombie plague.

On the way back from Whitehouse Station it went from hot to oppressive and I was concerned with cramping but that didn't happen until we were only a mile from the end of the ride. I was able to stand up on the pedals and stretch it out. We ended up with 58 miles and a little over 2000 feet of climbing. In the heat this was about as far and as much climbing as I wanted to do but I was happy to be able to push myself to do this ride as I have not been able to put in the climbing or the miles because of all the hot weather we have had.