Finally a Successful Mountain-Bike Ride in NJ!!

Sure my adventures mimicking a drunken U-Boat commander/swamp buggy driver were entertaining, but not the sort of thing that I wanted to repeat.  This evening was a success!  I rode over to Mercer County Park and successfully found/followed/rode some terrific trails.  Single-track, technical from roots, mud holes, and log piles.  Well, yes, of course I did fall once, but that is fairly requisite to count as a good effort.  I definitely will be repeating this ride and exploring more trails in the area I rode for the first time today.  I tracked it with mapmyride.com here:  http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/100916099

No pictures; just hanging on for dear life.

To Alpaca, Or Not To Alpaca

So I went out with OLPH the other day for a personal guided tour to a nice ride from my house.
Why didn't I think of this before!!
Why didn't my personal shopper at Neiman Marcus think to suggest this to me??
The New Jersey Transit Bus routes have not produced the pleasant cycling experience I was seeking, and OLPH promised me a field full of alpacas and a lovely loop.  Twenty miles of winding roads in 80 degrees and 80 percent humidity later, we get a cardboard cut-out of an alpaca.  They knew not to be out that day.

OK, you can't blame your ride leader when she saw a whole mess of 'em last weekend and they decide to stay inside with the air-conditioning and the PlayStation.

However, we did come across a ride leader seriously lacking.  Choose your ride leader carefully as I did.

OLPH checked online to find out that the store usually targeted for snacks, water, bathroom was closed that weekend.  When we arrived on our way to the next best rest stop in the area, we discovered 8 or so riders milling about the middle of the road.  The ride leader was bitching that the store was closed and suggesting that any riders needing a bathroom just head to the back of the store and piss on it.

Nice.

OLPH tried to tell the other ride leader where we were heading just down the road . . .

and he cut her off: "I have a route."  I thought to myself: ya, a well planned route I see.

So we excused ourselves and headed to a Dunkin Donuts for iced coffee, clean bathroom, and fairly poor tasting well water for our water bottles.  As we were almost ready to leave, about half of the other group of riders mutinied the alleged ride leader and showed up at DD.

Choose your ride leader carefully.