Regular Thing

Great Blue Heron, D&R Canal near Griggstown, NJ

14 July 2019

I have to wake up at 5:45 a.m. in order to bike over to Plain Jim's Sunday ride at Six Mile Run. Each time I'm convinced this will be the last time I do this; if I drive I can sleep another half hour. 

Until the moment I leave the house. Then I remember why.

There's nobody on the roads at 7:10 a.m. on a Sunday. I have a clear shot all the way up Princeton Pike. Princeton's main drag is empty. There's no traffic near Carnegie Lake. On Canal Road there are more bikes than cars.

I can think about stuff, or not think about stuff. 

And this morning there was a great blue heron perched on the dredging boom in the canal. I doubled back for pictures.

I zoomed in.

I zoomed in again, past 40x, into digital.

The surface of the water looked like a Monet painting.

Jim had a big crowd today. His ride is catching on, which is great. He's getting more defectors from Cranbury.

Today he took us to Hopewell for a stop at Boro Bean. I think it was Ricky's idea to put our steel bikes together on one side of the rack. From front to back is Kermit, Ricky's Cinelli, and John K's Lotus.

I left the group after the break and headed up Carter Road for the ten miles home. There were two riders ahead of me. I passed one of them. On the hill. That never happens. Then we all got passed by a group of blue-shifted climbers. We'll call it even.

It wasn't even noon yet when I got home. If this ride is a regular thing, so is the post-ride, still-sweating lawn mowing and post-shower loads of laundry. I have my own Sunday triathlon.