Leader: Steve Palincsar
Members: Ron Altemus
Guests: none
Route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/50368066
Weather:High haze, sunny, breezy. 70 at the start, almost 80 at the end.
AMS:11.5
Mechanicals/Mishaps: Plenty, beginning with a camera malfunction (memory card somehow got unseated), continuing with me getting trapped in the booth at Captain John's (if Ron hadn't suggested standing
up and sitting on the fence to wriggle out I'd still be stuck there) and coming to a crescendo trying to fix a glass puncture with a pump that developed pressure but wouldn't open the valve; a pump whose piston freely moved up and down but wouldn't move any air; a backup pump I've carried for a couple of years that simply fell apart the first time I actually had to use it; and a replacement tube that may or may not have actually been holding air.
Report:
Cobb Island's place in radio history
No cyclists out today, but there was a good sized crowd at Captain John's. The waitresses were wearing bunny ears to celebrate Easter. We had toured Cobb Island before stopping to have lunch, and after I extricated myself from my imprisonment in the booth on the deck outside, Ron and I set out to explore some wooded lanes that went down to the shore of Neal Sound. The shoulders of Rock Point Rd were strewn with broken glass, and we got as far as Furby Rd when my front tire went flat.
We struggled for a while with pumps that weren't pumping (at least it was easy to get the tire on and off, so the wheel rebuild and the new rims were definitely a success) as a bunch of children on dirt bikes kept roaring up and down the road. Ron finally suggested installing the round nut on the valve stem, and somehow, I still don't know how, that change let me start getting air into the tire.
I decided to skip the out-and-back to Woodbury Beach and we headed straight back up Rock Point Rd to Piccowaxen Rec Center, finishing with 29.9 miles. Definitely an "adventure" that left some indelible memories.
