Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Suffern, NY, to Somerset, NJ

Peter, Tom, Bill, me, Al, Larry

A rare picture of me, courtesy of Don

The SAG angels:  Robin and Carol

What today's ride looked like.  Suburbia.

Lunch stop.


"Mostly cloudy. Areas of fog in the morning. A chance of showers...mainly in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 70s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40 percent."


Although it was a little foggy when we started out this morning, it cleared to partly cloudy skies, followed by sunshine. No rain fell on the riders!


Today's ride was very different from yesterday; we spent the entire day riding though the suburbs of New Jersey. Our route sheets (yes, plural) included 32 right turns, 24 left turns, and 7 straights. That works out to one instruction per mile! Having to navigate continuously made the time go by very quickly. Rush hour traffic was a little hairy when we left the hotel, but thinned out as the day progressed. It was the usual group, Al, Peter, Jack and me. We played cat and mouse with Michel and Sam and Stuart joined us at the front for a brief while. A couple of miles from the hotel, we stopped for lunch and a lot of the riders behind us saw the bikes and stopped, too.


We added about four "bonus" miles to the ride when, at one point, we went right when we should have turned left. Luckily, we realized our error before we rode too far off course.


Somerset, NJ (unincorporated)
Pop 23,000 elev 92'
Home to one of the first Marconi wireless stations in the US.
New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the US! Considering all the bedroom communities we passed through, I believe it.


68.5 miles; 4:25 hours; 2,667' of climb; 3,491 Calories.

2 comments:

  1. Sadly, work interfered with Team Bitey's tour and we were unable to log any saddle time today.

    However, we provide the following for your reading pleasure. Here is an email received today from a student (verbatim):

    "Hi, I am in your class today at 420pm, and because today is my birthday, family is coming here out of town to see me and they are only out here for the afternoon so i can't make it to class today but i wanted to make sure i wasn't going to miss anything important from you."

    The response I wanted to send (read the following in a voice dripping with sarcasm to capture the tone):

    "I completely understand. Your birthday is WAY more important than attending class. And naturally, you will not miss "anything important" because all I'm doing is flapping my gums and uttering inanities for two hours twice a week. So by all means, do not trouble yourself by coming to class."

    What I actually wrote:

    "Please pick up a lecture outline from me on Thursday, and make arrangements with a classmate to get the lecture notes you missed. Have a nice birthday."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Errgggg.... those bonus miles will start adding up if your not careful.

    ReplyDelete