1 August 2021
Kermit's steering felt oddly stiff when I set out to lead a ride from Allentown last weekend. Tom had fixed the route I'd hastily planned, but it was still flat and didn't have a lot of turns.
It was a small group: me, Tom, Jack H, Katherine, and Ron S. I hadn't seen Ron in ages, not since we ran into each other on campus before there were vaccines.
The ride was uneventful, which is a good thing. I didn't think to stop for pictures, which has been happening a lot lately. I did take one of a weed growing through a crack in the sidewalk outside of the Columbus deli, where we had our rest stop.
One thing Free Wheelers are good for is swooping in during a time of need. Neil had listed a memorial ride for his wife, and most of the Slugs signed up. Then the head tube on Neil's titanium Mongoose snapped, leaving him without a working bike. He announced he was planning to cancel the ride.
Not so fast! He rides the same size frame as I do, and I have a fleet. Two of my bikes were on the disabled list: Miss Piggy was awaiting a carbon seat post, and Kermit was in the shop with a busted headset. I was planning to take Beaker on the memorial ride. That left Rowlf, which is my commuting bike, and Fozzie, which is my gravel bike.
I looped Jim into our email chain. If anyone could whip Neil's old commuter Trek into shape for Saturday at the last minute, it would be Jim. I loaded Fozzie into my car just in case, while Neil arrived at Jim's on Friday evening with the old Trek. We were there for a couple of hours, and, in the end, I never had to take Fozzie out of my car.
The ride went off without a hitch, and was about as perfect a ride as one could hope for, from the company to the pace to the weather.
Winter Larry had a flat on Birmingham-Arney's Mount Road, at the bottom of a hill. A few of us waited at the top. I took a picture of the valley and muddy stream below us,
and of the road behind us.
We were just about to leave, the people at the bottom having made their way to the top, when I saw the spider.
I wanted it to be a spined Micrathena, because I'd seen that NJ people on iNaturalist have been finding them recently. At first, I thought that's what it was, but with the Canon, I can't take good close-ups. I went around to the other side and snapped a few pictures, at which point the spider scooted off its web, and it looked as if it were carrying its prey with it. So I was getting pictures of a spider clinging to a meal, which nearly always hinders identification.
But there was one good picture in the lot, and when I zoomed in, this is what I saw:
A spined Micrathena!
I am such. a. nerd.
The sky over the Pemberton Wawa was pretty too.
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