Saturday, August 17, 2019

Slugchronicity



I coined a new word at the start of today's ride. I have a core group of people I usually ride with. When I'm leading the ride they are know as the insane bike posse. When Laura leads they are know as the hill slugs. I have been riding with these people for 10-15 years and some even a little longer. I know how they ride and how they think. This makes it easier to ride together and just have fun.

Today, Laura scheduled a ride to Manasquan from Allentown. I had originally plan to do the lying bastard ride but Laura emailed me that she wanted to do the century so I told her I would postpone my ride to another week. The ride to Manasquan is a 70 mile ride with a 100 mile option from her house. I didn't plan to do either as I had to be home in the early afternoon and didn't have the time to go all the way to Manasquan. I did want to get another long ride in after last weeks pineland cruise. I decided to ride in from my house and split off halfway some where and get back before 1pm.

I timed the ride from my house to get to the start in Allentown by 8 am because that is when I thought Laura and her group would arrive from her house. As I was going down Old York Rd I crossed Gordon and saw Laura, Brian, and Martin coming down the road. They quickly caught up to me and we rode the last mile to the start in Allentown together. At Allentown we met Jack who road in and Jim. Bob showed up a few minutes later.

As we pulled in I told Laura that we had slug synchronicity since we had randomly met up on the road. She turned the word into Slugchronicity so now we have a new word for when we accidentally do things in sync.

Today's weather was warmer and more humid than last week and so I was already sweating pretty good when we left Allentown. Although I didn't know the exact route Laura was going to take she had sent me an old route and I guess it would be close to that so had the route in my GPS which turned out to be 95% correct. The route had a lot of long straight segments and we made it quickly through Clarksburg and to our first stop at a Quickcheckon on 537.

From there we continued to head east towards the shore. I bailed when we got close to Farmingdale. I already had 32 miles in and had about another 30 to go to get back home. I made a quick stop at another Foodmart in Farmingdale and then headed for home. Luckily there was not much wind and what there was of it seem like a tailwind. I made my way around the backside of the Manasquan Reservoir and up to Ely Harmony Rd and the usual way through Millstone back home.

I was home by 12:15 and had got 63 miles in. Even though it was a hot and humid ride I felt pretty good when I got home. I hope this means I'm ready for next weeks trip along the GAP Trail.

I plan to relax this afternoon to recover and of course listen to the Police's Synchronicity Album where the first song will now have the lyrics:

Slugchronicity! Slugchronicity! Slugchronicity!

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