RIDE REPORT
Wednesday, 14 August 2024, Too Cool for School Ride
Ride Leader: Jack Donohue
31 miles, 10:00 am start from Bedford
Riders (10): Jack, Aiko Pinkoski, Barry Nelson, Curt Dudley-Marling, Dave Balaban, Ethan Smith, Frank Aronson, Gary Williams, Linda Nelson, and Simon Lingard.
They say you should learn from your mistakes. In my case, it was more like "deja vu all over again."
The ride de jour was going to be my Elm Street ride. I advertised it somewhat late in the game since there was no ride as of Tuesday. Meanwhile Clyde had sent out an email about Rte 225 being closed west of Carlisle for all weekdays. I didn't put the two together until Tuesday night, as I was lying in bed wondering if I had checked this. I hadn't and, in the spirit of "if something can go wrong it will," the ride went there.
So, Wednesday morning I was scrambling to find a route that one could actually ride. My first thought was to just move the route around avoiding Carlisle center. That added a few miles and hills and seemed like a bad idea. Then I came up with the solution: lead a different ride. I had several in my repertoire that started at the same place. So I emailed all the registrants with the new route. Problem solved? Not really. Turns out about half the group didn't get the memo and still had the route from the original ride, which was completely different.
I had figured most of the group would have navigation and go off the front never to be seen again. Instead, we had a group with the wrong navigation or no navigation at all. But this was a Wednesday Wheeler ride known for its human arrows. What could go wrong?
No sweep was forthcoming, so I deputized Curt, who was one of the GPS-less. What was I thinking? The sweep absolutely has to have navigation. We started out and for the first few turns we all stayed together. As long as Curt was visible we didn't need any arrows. I figured we could all stay together sans arrows. Wrong! Somehow, at some point we ended up with no Curt and no arrows.
To make a long story longer, Barry called Curt and we got him back into the fold. Then we ran into a detour. No more cues from my Lady of the Phone. Fortunately, Linda stepped into the breach and guided us through the uncharted region.
Other than that it was a nice day, nice route, good group. We passed the four advertised School Streets, though one was in fact a School Way. Close enough.
Report by Jack Donohue.
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