Lucky 13

10 August

Sunday Mike B. and I did another century by riding from home to Etra Lake Park, where the Joes took us to Belmar and back. Big Joe laid down the rules right away: we were to ride in a pace line and there would be no stopping for pictures. This elicited the first FU of the day by yours truly. There was no pace line and there were pictures.

The weather was perfect for a century. Or at least it started out that way. How often in August can you start a ride by being asked, "Aren't you cold?" I mean, Mike was wearing a jacket at 6:45 a.m. If the temperature got above 80 on Sunday I'd be surprised.

There was almost no wind either, and the day was mostly cloudy. The route was as flat as you can get going from here to there, which is to say we rolled a little on the way out. The group was big -- eleven of us, including Linda all the way from Philly. Glenn and I got so engrossed in conversation that we were beyond Turkey Swamp before I started to pay attention to where we were.

Fifty miles were gone before I knew it and we were pulling into the beach-front crap food mecca. I guess the Joes were so worried about the impending storm front that they wasted no time in getting us to the rest stop. No mansion gawking today.

I used my trusty formula for century success: PB&J (on Jack's homemade bread), a bucket of ice coffee from Dunkin' Donuts (black, of course), and a muffin head. The stump was left untouched, in Cheryl's honor, since she couldn't be with us.

We hauled out of there pretty quickly too. Ahead of us the sky was looking pretty unruly. Big Joe hadn't planned another stop until he learned that Mike and I were piling on the miles. So we stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts at a strip mall in Freehold just as a few drops started coming down. Big Joe and I saw a lone lightning flash far away, and heard the distant thunder. At first we waited under the eaves (there was plenty of room) but the rain neither let up nor got worse. So we took off again. And Big Joe took off faster, dragging a few of the crowd with him.

Big Joe and Tom and Glenn were all asking me and Mike if we wanted a ride home from the park, but I was feeling so good I refused to get a ride home from anyone. Besides, getting within a handful of miles of a century and quitting just seemed so wrong. The rain came and went.

Mike and I decided to go home the long way so we could ride past Tom's house to drop him off. The rain came and went some more. We got a good scare at the intersection at Route 130, though, when thunder rolled right above us from one side of the sky to the other. I was weighing risk against caution, almost finishing against 100 miles. The rain came and went some more.

As it happened, Mike and I stayed ahead of the storm all the way home. We could see clear sky and we were heading straight for it. We were wet by the end, sure, but we never even needed to stop to wipe our glasses. It took me longer to clean Kermit than it did to clean myself.

If I could feel like this for every century I'd ride two every weekend.

Tom has more details over at his blog. He took pictures, too. Don't miss the one of scenic, downtown Belmar. Yippee.

One more thing: After reading my blog, Big Joe declared that I'm a bigger wise-ass than he is. I didn't think that was possible. Takes one to know one, Joe.