No Paces Ride

Last weekend was Memorial Day which is usually the time of the first all paces ride of the year. There was no ride this year, of course, because of the pandemic. I'm not sure there will be one in July or Sept either. However because of the holiday weekend and a day off work I did get a lot of riding in.

This riding season is going to be a lot different this year than other years. Although I have been doing some rides with a few of the insane bike posse most of the rides I have been doing have been solo rides this year.

Even in this new normal I'm starting to get into a rhythm and taking advantage the current situation. I was off the Wednesday before Memorial Day and decided to explore Veterans Park in Hamilton. It was sort of a spur of the moment thing as I saw on Facebook a picture of a Cobra helicopter in a park somewhere. After a little research I saw that the picture was taken from Veterans Park in the middle of Hamilton. Normally I won't ride in this area as Rt 33 and Kuser road have more traffic than I like to ride on. However traffic is lower these days and I found a circuitous route that kept me off most of the main roads.

Veterans Park is a lot bigger than I realized and has 3 interesting military displays. The first is at the entrance is where there is a F4 Phantom.

 

There area also a tank and Cobra helicopter at the east parking lot. 

Besides these displays there is also a lake and some paved and dirt paths around the park. I spent a couple of miles on the paved path and mistakenly got on to a dirt one which I managed to make may way though on a road bike. This might be a good place to check out in the winter on the mountain bike.

On Memorial Day weekend I ended up riding two days in a row as Saturday was a rain out. On Sunday I did a solo ride to Segantville from Rocky Hill and met Laura and some of the slugs there. This was a hilly ride so I rode my Synapse. The ride ended up being 46 miles and about 2500 feet of climbing so I was pretty tired by the end.

On Monday I led a group from Etra to the Manasquan Reservoir. It was a bit of a cloudy day but when we got to the reservoir it was packed and the parking lot was full and there were a lot of people on the paths and a lot of boats in the water. We spent a few minutes at the reservoir before heading back.

This weekend I led a ride from MCP to the south of New Egypt to see some long horn cows. When I went to pump up my tires before the ride I saw that my rear tire on my Feather was flat. I had done a short ride on Thursday night and didn't notice any problem with the tire. I was planning on changing it soon as it was a little worn. When I checked the tire for any problems it was easy to understand why the tire went flat.

The tire actually ripped so the reason for the flat was clear. The tire had a complete failure. Some of the belts must have been damaged and some time between Thursday night and Saturday morning the tire ripped. I'm glad this didn't happen on the road.

When I got to MCP there were about 20 other bikers there doing some other ride. We left right after them and had a good flat ride and found the long horns.

I ended up with almost 60 miles which is about as far as I can go with the supplies I can carry. Although most Wawas and coffee shops are open carrying all my food and water with me has been working well so I don't think I will inside one anytime soon.