Leader: Joan Oppel
Members: Ron Altemus, Donaro Gardner, Jessica Hirschhorn, Patricia Sanders
Route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/49557816
The roads were clear so snow, ice and salt, including the shoulders. The route did use pretty well traveled roads - Hawthorne and Mt Pisgah, Ripley, Poorhous, Masons S;prings, Smallwood Church, Smallwood State Park, Sweetman, Bicknell, Chicamuxen.
Weather: Pretty nice - sunny! -after temperatures hovering in teens and low 20s for (seemed like) weeks - about 44 to start, hovered between there and 50 for most of the ride.
Mechanicals/Mishaps: None
Report: It has been rainy or snowy since right after New Year's Day. Two snows a week apart were followed by very cold temperatures - lows below teens, highs 20s - and ICE. Today's ride was the first one scheduled since January 1 to actually happen.
And we had a great time. It was terrific to find the roads so clear. The worst surface was in the Livingston parking lot - a nice sheet of packed snow and ice. (The trail was still snow covered in many places that we could see.)
Impromptu rest stop at Pisgah Park, impromptu stop at Mini Farm World on Smallwood Church to say hello to some baby goats and the Highland cattle (and dogs and donkeys and chickens). Acutal rest stop at Smallwood State Park, where we foung the boat ramp and dock area iced in.
