It's a Tom Ride

As I said a few post ago I have had a few new people on my rides who let's just say weren't used to my style of leading. A couple weeks ago we had to go through a little dirt and some one complained that the dirt clogged up their cleats. The response from one of the members of my insane posse was that it was a Tom ride and dirt and detours should be expected. I will admit that do things a little differently than other leaders. For each ride I try to have one interesting thing to see and try to have fun during the ride. I am a bit adventurous so when there is a bridge out I will investigate it to see if it is possible to get around it. I won't do anything unsafe but I may push the boundaries a little. We have had to walk through water a couple of times and climb over a few barriers but most of the time there is an easy way to get around most detours with out doing anything to hard or dangerous.

I also don't mine a short dirt road every now and then. Sometimes its better than going on a busy road or taking a long detour. My posse is use to and accepts this and even misses it when it doesn't happen. The truth is I always try to do something a little unexpected with a ride if I can. 

For example for my Robling ride besides doing the trail through Robling we went down to visit the eagle statue by the Burlington Bristol bridge. There is really no good reason to ride into the middle of Burlington to just see the eagle statue but it just something stupid and fun to do as part of the ride. 

 

 

This pass week I lead a ride out of Mercer County Park. It was a simple route down to Cream Ridge and back. We did run into a couple of detours and a closed road but we went through the barrier and couldn't understand why the road was closed.  On the way back to Mercer park I took a detour on the way back just to go down Line Rd. Line Rd is a road through a swamp that was closed to traffic for some reason but is still rideable on a bike. It was over grown a couple of years ago but it was cut back last year so it is still passable. Few people know our use this road anymore. I learned about it from Norm years ago and try to take it once a year or so. It's just something different and stupid to do that puts a little fun into my rides.