Now that I'm back from vacation I'm able to get more riding in. After a long and cold winter I'm looking forward to putting more miles in and getting back in riding shape. Spring is a time of rebirth so I'm looking forwards to the flowers that come with it and the warmer days that will make for longer rides. We have had a good amount of rain in the last month and the Manasquan reservoir is starting to recover as you can see by the picture at the top of the post. Here what it looked like in November.
Here what it looks like by Georgia Rd now.
Here what is looked like in November.
It still has a way to go but it looks like its about halfway to normal.
I have a number of rides I do from my house and use this rides gauge how I'm riding. A few days after getting back from vacation I did a 25 mile local ride and felt surprising good so decided to lead a B ride (Okay its a B- under the new guidelines) from Allentown. It was a warm but windy day but still a good day for a ride. We only had two minor problems on the ride. I'm not talking about the bridge out
as that is just a given on one of my rides. We did have to straddle the beams to get over but no one complained (much).
We did have a problematic flat tire that took a while to change. There was a issue with tire being hard to get off and on the rim along with a tube where the valve stem kept unscrewing as well as a cartridge inflator that broke. With tubes and inflators from different people we managed to get the tire on and inflated. One of the advantages with riding with a group is that if you have multiple failures of equipment you have a better chance of fixing the problem than if you ride by yourself.
The second problem was the wind in the final few miles. We wrote right into it on our way back to Allentown and got spread out a little. Still we I did 41 miles and felt okay at the end of the ride so it felt like a step towards doing longer rides.
This weekend was summer like on Saturday. I ended up staying over at our condo on the shore on Friday night to try and get a view of the partial solar eclipse happening at sunrise.
The clouds were just starting clear at sunrise so I didn't think I got a good picture of the eclipse until I had a chance to download the pictures on my computer and take a closer look. Like the June 2021 partial solar eclipse I got lucky and managed to get a bird in the shot. Unlike last time the picture I got was actually better than it looked like in person.
Since I was down the shore on Saturday morning I decided to do a reverse Belmar ride and start by my condo. I actually got Jim and Jack to join me and we did a ride out past Manasquan reservoir. Jack and I also did a warm up ride along to ocean to Asbury and back before the ride.
It was another windy day so I was happy we were going into at the start instead of having to fight our way back at the end of the ride. The route went out through some local neighborhoods and past the shark river on the way out. There were a few scenic spots and interesting landmarks along the way. After that we pushed our way into the wind until we rounded Manasquan reservoir and then got pushed back to the beach.
We stopped at the Allenwood General Store which had a bathroom, good muffins and a picnic table to sit on so I may try to find ways to stop here again.
When we got back to the beach is was close to 80 degrees and crowded with cars and people. After the ride I hung out at the beach with my wife for a couple of hours before heading to our favorite place for a good dinner.
Spring is finally here so looking forward to the warmer weather and longer rides that come with it.