Ride leader: Steve Palincsar
Members: Joan Oppel, Larry Perkins, Denise ?, Jay Lewis, CLL ?, Ron Altemus (ink smeared on wet paper rendered some names illegible -- but they rode with the Bs anyway)
Route: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/4418210 Planned to be 50 miles, 1786' of elevation gain, but in practice ended up as 43 for the CC group.
Weather: According to weather.com's hourly forecasts for the Nanjemoy area, the worst weather predicted for today was a 30% chance of a "few showers" beginning at 1 pm. Prior to that, the chance of rain was zero. Temperatures were to be in the 70s.
At least, they got the temperature right. As for the zero % chance of rain before 1 pm, a light rain began at 10:15, around 13 miles into the ride. As I said this morning, "We've all been there before. Last Sunday at the Covered Bridge Metric in Lancaster the forecast said no chance of rain in the morning, and it started drizzling at 8:30 and rained from the first rest stop until lunch. But we didn't melt, and even with all the horse poop on the roads in Lancaster County we still had a great time; and there are no horse drawn vehicles in Nanjemoy. So what's the worst that could happen? ... Bring your rain jacket and a bike with fenders, they're wonderful lucky charms to keep the weather nice. And worst case, they'll make things a lot more pleasant." Joan brought the rain jacket and Ron brought a bike with fenders. And although those things failed as lucky charms to ward off the rain, they certainly did help make the riding far more pleasant. (I wonder why fenders are such a rarity. Sure, they're banned by UCI as providing unfair aerodynamic advantage, but who cares? Do we weigh our bikes to make sure they aren't too light? Do we check the height of our socks? UCI has rules about those things too...)
Mishaps & mechanicals: Larry's crank had fallen off before. It started falling off again at the rest stop at Friendship Farm. He turned back (a very wise choice, as it turned out) and arrived safe without incident.
Ride report: The rain began at 10:15 and grew stronger as the day wore on, occasionally slacking off slightly as the sky brightened, but soon intensifying again. We rode on anyway, and actually had a good time. After a break at the Nanjemoy store, those riding with me (Ron and Joan, everyone else having hared off with the Bs) voted to shorten the ride, returning via Poseytown, Bowie and Mason Springs, with a side trip to Pisgah Park.
The sun had come out as we climbed the rollers on Mason Spring, and we took off our rain jackets at the park, but as we were exiting the park the rain began anew, and it was still raining when we left the firehouse. Bottom line: we did not melt, there was no horse poop, and we really didn't even get dirty. Ron exaggerates when he speaks of the harmonica, the thumb piano and the singing, but we did have plenty of fun nonetheless.
