I rode the Donuts and Hoagies 102k randonneur Permanent route yesterday, so named because many of the Controls are Wawas (hoagies), along with an independent donut shop and a Donkey Donuts.
Nice Spring day for a bike ride (altho with just a few sprinkles late [I suppose that's appropriate for a ride with 'donuts' in the name]), starting and ending at Village Park in the fine old town of Cranbury NJ. I only had 1 off-course 'bonus mile', which is pretty good for me on an unfamiliar route. My total was 64.4 miles.
One especially nice thing about riding solo, with no timetable to meet someone, I just wake up whenever, go thru my morning routine, prepare the bike and gear, head out when I am ready, arrive at the start point without worrying about traffic, then saddle up. It is a zen way of going.
From my home to the start point, I had a one-hour drive, part of which was on the New Jersey Turnpike, and I either saw or crossed over the Turnpike many times during this ride.
Rode on a lot of back roads, too. Saw lots of skunk cabbage, which was always one of the first signs of Spring we would see when Bill S and I, as boys, hung out 'down the crick' and got our feet wet despite parental warnings.
When I entered my Results on the Randonneur USA site, I mistakenly entered my Moving time, not my Overall time. *urk* It looks like I finished about an hour earlier than I actually did. But I can't find any way to Edit my info there. The Contact link just takes you to Bugzilla, where you create an account, which I did, only to find it is only for reporting Bugs, which this is not; it is user error. EDIT: Found on the RUSA site an email address for requesting corrections. Response was almost instantaneous, and the correction was made within an hour of my request. Kudos!
I took care to do plenty of hydrating in the couple days leading up to the ride. Along with taking Saltstick capsules, I drank less than 2 water bottles-full along the ride itself, but I had to pee plenty. I recall going at least 2 times in the woods, once at the Millstone Twp muni building (thank you, kind civil servant, for letting me in), and at least 3 times in porta-potties. Riding solo and not carrying a lock, I was not comfortable leaving my bike outside a Wawa, e.g., to go inside for a nature break, so I didn't.
Noticed during one porta-potty nature break that the structure's plastic has a recycle triangle with a '2' in it. I guess it's appropriate that a potty would be a #1 or a #2.
Pictures, route map and elevation profile here: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/65506676
