First let me apologize for what will probably sound like patting myself on the back. I didn't make the ride what it was, I just lead and enjoyed it. One of the advantages of being a ride leader is that you get to pick your favorite routes and everyone has to follow you. Of course there is the opposite side of the coin, riders can revolt (usually in a humorous way) and you must adjust (like removing extra hills). Myself and a friend are terrible hill climbers, we're flat landers and usually lead fast, flat centuries (we're both ride leaders). Today I felt we needed the abuse of climbing hills. I've had asthma for the last 5 days and needed something to break it (any ride would do). We rode a hilly 72 mile ride ( Cranbury-Ringo ) and we had a good crowd. I had 4 riders and myself. One rider is new to the group (2nd ride with us) but fits in well, he knows the correct verbal abuse for the ride leader and can take verbal abuse (the replies) quite well. Verbal abuse is not cursing but rather teasing, if your a NY'r (from the boro's) you'll understand. The other riders are regulars and can handle pace lines, fast pulls up to 23 mph on the flats (we're a B/B+ pace depending on the club) and each likes to stay on the front too long or go a little too fast.Yes, we're racer wanna-bes but without the pretense that we'll ever be racers. We just enjoy the physical abuse and scenary. We wait for those who have pushed too hard and bring the pace down so they can handle it. We're very up-front that we'll be physically abusive and ask any new rider lots of questions before they join us. We've had several who abused us quite well but we've never left anyone behind. We're a very talkative group (I've been accused of never shutting up) and we tell lots of bad jokes (some mentally painful ).

When we started out this morning (8 AM) it was a nice 75 degrees. It was windy, it seemed to be out of the NW - N at about 15 mph so it would be a cross wind all day. We had to deal with a lot of auto traffic at the start which was a bit of a surprise but not a problem. We started out way too fast (upwards of 23 mph (max) pulls). We started hitting hills six miles into the ride, the other riders took the hills quite well. My friend and I took out time, it's a long distance habit we won't push to the point where we blow up but we do ride hard enough. I always instruct the faster group to ride to a point and wait. On the down hill my friend demontrated why we call him Sir Issac Netwon (gravity is his friend). If you don't catch him quick you usually can't keep up with him. I noticed on the climbs that it would get very hot and on the decents very cool. This would be repeated on every hill. We climbed Dutchtown Zion Rd (nice hill), Long Hill Rd and decended Limburgh Rd. That was a fun decent. I only hit 39 mph because it was unsafe to pass one of my other riders (twisty roads all alike ). We then rode on to Ringos. The breeze and sun felt good, the conversations were lively and the scenery was rolling farm land (very scenic).

We ate in Ringos then road out to Sergentsville. I thought Sergentsville would be too busy which is why I decided not to stop there. At this point we start getting more down hills than up hills as we did most of the work on the first half getting to Sergentsville. We decended Sandy Ridge Mt Airy Rd at a nice pace of 41 mph without extra effort (not much pedaling). We then climbed Mt Airy Harbourton Rd (I seem to remember this being a bigger hill), this split the group in 2. the hills were starting to have an affect on some folks. I had to ride back and forth between the groups to make sure no one rode off too far ahead (very tiring). We then zig-zagged our way back to Hopewell (really nice down hill to Hopewell) and the back to Rocky Hill. We had our second stop in Rocky Hill. We finished by riding around Herrontown Wood and into Kingston, then out to Forrestal Village, across Rt 1 and out to Plainsboro Rd back to Cranbury. The whole ride was nice and warm, everyone talked to everyone else (that's easy with a small group), we all had fun and we abused ourselves nicely. We had just enough to get back, do a cool down ride and get home and shower.

Distance: 72.4 miles
Total climb: 2900+ ft
Route: Out West and back East
Avg Speed: 16.42 mph (on my computer, I'm not the fastest in the hills)
Winds: NW to N, 13 - 18 mph (cross wind)
Temps: 88 F
Start: 8AM
Finish: 1:30 PM
Stops: 2
# of cyclist we passed in the same direction: none
# of cyclist we passed in the other direction: dozens (we lost count)
Enjoyed the ride, priceless.

Before anyone gets too critical of the total climbs, one of my riders commented that my normal rides don't have hills. My reply was "True but we have very large overpasses". And as for my asthma ... what asthma.