[Bent] Round Valley ride of doom

[Sfriedlander2 at aol.com]

I just want to thank Rich for leading the ride and making it sort of fun  
despite our misadventures. Also thanks to John, Don, and Dick for their 
expert  mechanical assistance and rescuing me from having to ride the last mile 
back to  the parking lot. Glad to hear that Andy's OK.
 
I went out for a ride yesterday and things went a lot better. In fact, it  
was probably the most exhilarating ride I ever experienced. My partner 
wanted to  visit her beach house on LBI, so I let her drive the minivan while I 
rode there  in my F40 with full body-sock. I was a bit concerned that it 
might be too windy  for the body sock, but it turned out to be a tail wind for 
most of the  trip. Since it was a one-way ride, I experienced the ecstasy of 
having a tail  wind for virtually the whole ride and ended up with a 21.1 
average for 50.2  miles - my fastest ride ever and quite a change from the 
sub-12 mph rides I've  done lately.   
 
Steve
 
 
In a message dated 4/20/2010 8:34:20 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
richsadler at comcast.net writes:

The best  thing I can say about the ride was, it could have been worse. 
Six of us  met for the ride-John Tetz, Don Jacobus with his new moving 
bottom bracket  FWD homebuilt, Steve Friedlander, Dick Ludwig, Andy 
Milstein & me  (Rich Sadler) All went well until we came to a closed 
bridge over the  Raritan. We decided to cross anyway even though the 
footing wasn't so  great. While passing the bikes across, Andy slipped & 
fell about 10  feet off the bridge abutment. He looked pretty bad- bloody 
nose &  groaning so I called 911. Andy is tougher than I thought, though 
& got  up eventually. The ride left just before the cops pulled up, 
leaving me to  deal with them without spilling the beans that we crossed  
illegally.
I caught up with Andy & the rest of the  ride in Flemington, where 
Andy's wife collected him. She was  understandably horrified & took him 
to the hospital to get checked  out. He called me later that evening- no 
broken bones, they stitched up a  cut on his ankle, & he's pretty sore- 
what a relief!
So now we were five. On the first hill out of Flemington, Steve's 
chain  broke, & in the process, ripped his rear Derailer apart. We 
weren't  able to pry his chain out of the rear sprocket, so we  cut the 
chain,  leaving a piece jammed there, which prevented the freewheel from 
working.  We took the rest of the chain & turned his bike into a single 
speed.  Steve gamely rode the next 12 miles in one gear, taking his feet 
off the  pedals on the downhills as they flailed away in front of him. In 
fact he  made it up all the hills but the very last, steepest one on 
Allerton  without dismounting. John, Dick & Don rode ahead with Steve's 
car keys  so that he could come back along the route & pick him up. 
Either they  underestimated Steve's fortitude or they stopped in a bar on 
the way back,  because John pulled up when we had the worst hills behind 
us & only a  mile to go.
So, not a great MARS ride. While it doesn't rank  up with Andy's 
catastrophe, on the way home the clutch in my car started  slipping! It 
was just one of those days you'd like to  skip.
Rich



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