Over the past couple of weeks we have had few days which were actually NOT as hot as hell. Last Saturday was the first day in a while below 90 where the humidity was low. Laura scheduled her pick your distance ride to Belmar. She and a few others were doing a hundred miles a couple of others started in Etra for 67 miles. Since the route almost goes by my house I met them at their first rest stop and did 55 miles. It was nice to ride out of my house for a PFW ride since I don't get a chance to do that much anymore. It was low 80s and low humidity so for the first time this summer I didn't feel like I was riding inside an oven.
With a light west wind we made our way quick to the beach and our normal stop in Belmar by the beach for a break. The beach was crowded but not overly so and the traffic wasn't all that bad as we didn't have much of a problem getting in our out of Belmar.
On the way back there was a small head wind but it didn't really slow us down. I left the group when they turned towards Freehold and headed home. I had about 10 miles more to get home and cruised home with out a problem. For once I did over 50 miles and didn't cramp or feel dehydrated.
The past week most days were over 90 with high humidity. I did a quick ride early Wednesday morning just to get some miles in but was home before 10am. I didn't really leave the house the rest of the week. Saturday was another 90+ degree high humidity day so I decided skip riding and instead do a ride on Sunday where the weather would be in the upper 70s with low humidity. I thought of doing Jim's Sunday ride but on Thursday it was almost full and the start of his ride is at least an hour away for me. I looked at other rides but nothing appealed to me so I scheduled to lead a ride out of Yardley.
I usually don't lead rides on Sundays especially when another person I normally ride with, like Jim, has a scheduled ride because I don't like to split up the group. However Jim always has more than enough people to fill his Sunday rides so I don't think he had a problem with it. I know I pull a few people off his ride but I'm sure he didn't miss them.
We did this route which goes over the 95 bridge into Pennington and back through Lambertville and New Hope. It's hilly but I haven't done a lot of hill work this year so figure it would be a good day for a hilly ride.
There was some emails before the ride stating that Stony Brook Rd was closed because of a bridge out. The way around Stony Brook would have involved a short but steep climb up Van Dyke so we checked out the bridge out. The bridge over "Zippy Creek" is gone. The have poured the foundations but there was no walkway for the workers to get over the creek. However "Zippy" is not much of a creek and only about a foot and a half wide so we made our way down the embankment and walked over a couple stones to get over to the other side. The only problem with the crossing is that some people got some mud in their cleats so had to clean them out before starting again.
We made our way to Lambertville and stopped at Union Coffee for our break then headed over the bridge to New Hope to continue the ride. Lambertville and New Hope were really crowded so it was slow going over the bridge and through New Hope until we got out of town.
There were still a few more climbs left and I was mostly in the back on the way up the hills. The last 5 miles was along the river and that is when to ride became a race as most of the group sprinted for home.
The weather had stay cool and dry so I wasn't too worn out after the ride. I know there is still some more hot weather ahead this summer but hope we get a few more days like this.
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