Knowing When to Bail

I led a ride on Saturday that was suppose to do one of my normal routes from Allentown but the it didn't work out as planned. The plan was to go down through Columbus and past some longhorn cattle before a stop at Charleston Coffee which is one of our better rest stops. The weather was going to be in the high 40s low 50s so not bad temperature wise. The winds were suppose to be in the 15-20mph range so not great but we have ridden in this type of weather before. 

I ended up having a full ride and headed out down the planned route. On Iron Bridge there was a bridge out sign but we ignored it and headed toward the bridge. There is usually always a way to get through. Not this time as there was a bucket loader hammering some pilings in and a couple feet of dirt to get through so we turned around (This is one of the very few times this has happen to me.) 

To get around the closed bridge we had to go directly into the wind which was at least a steady  25mph with gusts well above 30mph. After a mile going straight into it a couple people bailed on the ride and headed back to the start(They were the smart ones). We were only about 5 miles into the ride at that point.

 Luckily the next 20 miles we did not have many head wind stretches but even dealing with the cross wind was tough has I had to lean into it to stay close to vertical. The last 5 miles of the planned route were going to be straight into this head wind which would have really been hard if not impossible so as I road along I thought about alternate routes. 

I have been riding in the area long enough to have a mental map in my head so decided to head north once we got to New Egypt since that is almost due south of Allentown where we started. I didn't know the exact route or road names but managed to get us to the New Egypt Wawa for a stop. 

Then it was through town and up Evergreen Rd which got us to Cream Ridge and from there most of the people knew the way back. We spread out a little as the wind was really wearing us down. 

The original ride was suppose to be 42 miles and we ended up with 39 so close. It felt a lot longer than that and we were slow because of the wind. We didn't do the ride expected but sometimes you have to give into the weather and do the best you can.