#46: Salt Water Slugs

Nope. Nothing at all. 

10 July 2016

A crowded beach does nothing for me. Still, if Joe says he's making the trek to Belmar, I'm going to start from my house and make it a century. It's the journey, not the destination. (Gad, I hate it when those stupid sayings make sense.)

Etra is the new Cranbury. Everyone who is anyone is there on a Sunday morning, where a fast B and a reasonable C+ depart. Into this crowd I rode, finding Joe, Carol, Gen, Christine, Chris, Jack H, and Jim, a fair representation of past and current Hill Slugs. As we pushed off, Barry went with us, making us nine altogether.

A tailwind helped get us to the shore. Joe took the reverse route from the one I usually take (I still only trust myself with one route). I was surprised that I had the mental wherewithal to see it backwards and correct a couple of near misses at familiar intersections. I like the backwards route; it gets the rollier rollers out of the way early and puts us in the trees on the trip back.

Halfway to the beach, Carol's front derailleur decided that now was a good time to snap into a handful of pieces. Jim and Chris had the situation sorted out in a matter of minutes, and Carol finished the ride by manually moving the chain between front rings when the situation required it, which, given that this was a Belmar ride, was all of twice.

I was hoping, as we neared the shore, that I'd get some kind of thrill from seeing the ocean. I didn't.

There were too many people and not enough algae-coated rocks. I wanted the people out of the way so that I could look at the waves breaking on the jetty.

Like this:

No, I'm not going to stop thinking about Maine. Ever.

The ride was fun, though, because it was full of people I hadn't seen in  a long time. We stuck together, nobody pushed the pace, the headwind was nothing out of the ordinary, and, when the sun went behind a cloud, we were met with a cool, dry breeze.

I didn't have to go around the block to get my hundred miles, either, and I felt much better after today's ride then I did after last week's century.

Can we have this weather for the Princeton Bicycling Event on August 6?