by Jonathan O’Keeffe » Sat Mar 12, 2011 4:55 pm
Today’s inaugural Saturday Morning Ride of the 2011 season could have served as an NCC Board of Directors meeting, as we had a quorum of the board at the start (Don, Joe, Jeff B., Jonathan, Tom, and I), along with Derek, Rich, Amy, Rob, Roberto, and Ivan. The weather was decent, with temperatures in the mid-40s and the sun peeking through the clouds, and a brisk breeze from the southwest. The roads are an absolute mess this spring between the sand and the potholes, but Jonathan did a great job in plotting a route that avoided the worst of the road conditions, and we actually rode on pretty solid asphalt for most of the day.
We headed up River Road in Hatfield, cut west on Christian Lane toward Whately, and headed north toward and then across 116, looping around to head south through South Deerfield, then over the river and down Rt. 47 in Sunderland and Hadley.
Roberto has clearly been working hard this winter, as he challenged the group by charging up every incline that presented itself, leaving the rest of us in his dust. Rob was on a fixie, and reached impressive levels of leg-blurring cadence on some of the descents. Don and Joe made strong efforts on the two contested town line sprints, but they couldn’t quite catch the fat guy who has mostly been sitting on his butt all winter.
We caught sight of a large hawk skimming low across the road in Whately, scattering the group across the road. And in other wildlife news, we spent an inordinate amount of time waiting in the cold in South Deerfield while Jeff conversed with some sort of ferret or mongoose or something in the window of a parked car.
33 miles @ 16.5 mph, 1,700′ of climbing.
