Spring is Early

 

Chesterfield-Georgetown Road

16 March 2024

Daffodils are out everywhere. Forsythia are popping. I even saw a few dandelions. At work, the magnolias are blooming. At home, the redbuds are redbudding. Our crocuses have been out for weeks. The snowdrops started in January. A few Vinca flowers are out. The grass has turned bright green again. I might have to cut it in a week. There's an aura of color at the tops of the trees. I've already found a couple of juvenile orbweavers, and today a running crab spider was inspecting the back wall of the house. We've had a handful of days in the high 60s and low 70s already.

It's mid-March.

I really was planning to list a ride today, a hilly one, with a rest stop and everything. 

Tom beat me to it, offering an unofficial, flat ride from Bordentown. He's definitely on the mend. He was planning 35 miles. I said I was hoping for 50. He put together a route for us extra-milers that started from Allentown and ended with exactly 50 miles.

Pete, Rickety, Heddy, and JackH took me up on the extra miles. We rode into the wind at a workout pace for 8 miles to what the Insane Bike Posse is now calling "Joe Larry" park. "Joseph Lawrence" is too stuffy, I guess. Tom, Our Jeff, Eric, and Blob were there.

We went west towards the Delaware and rode along the river in Florence. Then we cut east with a tailwind the Jacksonville Deli for a rest stop.

Somebody had a minor mechanical problem at mile 40, so I scooted across the road to get some photos without power lines in them.

We extra-milers parted ways with Tom, Our Jeff, and Eric in Chesterfield. Blob went along with us for a while then doubled back. The pace picked up again. I did my best to keep up, never quite off the back but never up in the pack either. I'm glad I took Janice instead of Kermit (whose front derailleur is rubbing the chain), because I needed the lighter weight and zippier wheels to keep up with the other two clones of Janice on today's ride.

Kermit has been my flatland bike, and Janice is geared for hills. It'll be a year next month that Janice arrived. People told me I'll never ride anything else. I didn't believe them, and for a while, I was right. Then my back started bothering me, I was spending more time climbing, and my steel bikes lived out  the rest of the year inside until I finally got around to changing their stems. 

I've been taking Kermit and Beaker out on solo Sunday rides after glassblowing class, when I'm simply trying to get an easy 25 miles in. That's not going to last. Class ends on April 28, after which I'll be focused on training for Nova Scotia.