We had beautiful weather every day this week except for yesterday. So which day did I chose for my ride? Yesterday, of course. It's Tom's fault; he wanted to join me again and yesterday was the only day he was free. So like last time I rode up to Neshanic Station where we met a little after 8 AM, planning to do essentially the same ride as we did in May. It was raining. And it was cold. And as we got wetter, we got colder around the extremities.

Interesting stuff. At one point I spooked a big buck who was standing near the road, and next thing I know hewas running alongside me for a couple hundred yards maybe. But he was like 30-100 feet off to my right side; so while I was riding down a nice road at 15 mph, this buck was charging along through people's yards and the woods between the houses and over a little stream (I had a bridge) and up a hill. The whole time he held his head as if he was charging something, with his antlers leading the way, prongs forward, right about at my head/chest level. He eventually veered off to the right, away from the road.

At another point we stopped for a minor mechanical adjustment (my saddle was rotating, point coming up) and we heard the distinctive call of a turkey. Not unusual in the woods on a cold wet day a month before Thanksgiving. Right? But this turkey was somewhere in the canopy of trees 60 or 80 feet directly above. I know turkeys can fly, but I don't know if they go that high up and land in trees.

We saw lots of other deer, geese, red tailed hawk, and the usual variety of livestock: cows, horses, sheep, goats, donkeys, and white ducks.

It was not a nice day to be out riding. We decided to turn back and get our miles in closer to home (or to Tom's car) so we could bail if necessary. And we did. I got about 75 miles in; Tom about 50.

Best thing about the ride, the little pin on the front wheel was hitting the wrong side of the star-shaped wheel on the mileage meter on my bike, so according to it I rode -75.1 miles (starting at 474.8, finishing at 399.7). So it was kinda like a metric un-century.

I rode my 1948 Raleigh Record Ace, at the moment I think it's the best riding bike I have with full fenders and dynamo headlights. It might be the best riding bike I have. Sturmey Archer five speed hub. The brakes could be better, but when you limit yourself to early 50's stuff you make some compromises!