More nice weather in NJ for my 5/17 ride. It started out a bit cool and I left my sweater in the car. I planned out a nice 103 mile ride from Cranbury to Lacey to Tabernacle and back. I was surprised at how warm I felt in the cooler temperatures (high 50's) I usually need a sweater for that. The week before we'd experienced hot weather and I didn't fare well until the thunderstorm cooled us down. I still get a bit winded by the small climbs (this is the flat lands, these are small and could barely be called hills). I need to work a bit more on my stamina and recovery. Our first stop was at mile 38.7. I tend to not stop early but I do have more stops later, if needed. We stopped at the Lacey WaWa, a very busy place but it has pretty much everything we need (restrooms, junk food, sandwiches, etc). We then proceeded to Pasadena Rd. I recall Pasadena being rather rough (crocodile cracking). But it wasn't too bad or I hadn't been on it in such a long time I didn't care ;-). The sand mine was rather busy as there were about 8 dump trucks going in the other direction. This is also probably why the railroad crossings on Rt 539 and Pasadena/Savoy Rd were replaced with new crossings. The intersection at Savoy Rd and Rt 72 was very busy but manageable. When we hit Chatsworth our old friend the westerly wind was there to greet us. It normal for the wind to be out of the west at this time of the year which makes Tabernacle-Chatsworth Rd (Rt 532) a very good road to train for the Longest Day ride. The ride from Chatsworth to Tabernacle was pleasant. That might be why it didn't feel as long, especially early in the season. So when we reached Nixon's and we found that we had a pace of 17.1 mph I was ecstatic. We owe that to Rich who was feeling good and helped us keep the pace up (I wasn't sucking wheel this time though ;-) ). Lunch was quicker (we knew what to do at the lunch counter).
The ride home was pretty good though my legs had been pushed pretty hard. Surprisingly I was able to climb short hills and overpasses better than I had been able to in the past 5 years. Normally after mile 75 I'd hit the hill an I was forced to shift to a 39x25 as I had no strength. Don't get me wrong I was tired and sore still but I was climbing these hills much faster than 1.5 mph (sometimes I'd even hit 4.5 mph ! ;-) ). We skipped stopping at Allentown so we road the last 40 miles straight back. While I was sore and tired (no so more than normal) I was feeling pretty good. We avg'd 16.9 mph which was a 1mph avg jump over the previous week. I'm very please with my progress so far. Especially when I'm carrying more weight than I every have in my life and that I've had a messed up riding schedule for the last 3 years. Next week (5/24) it's a double metric riding from Cranbury to Griggstown, down part of the Longest Day route to Chatsworth, then over to Tabernacle and Back to Cranbury. I think I'll start that ride 1 hour early (7AM).
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