Not an actual ride report, because I didn't actually ride. I brought home a broken collarbone as a souvenir from my RAGBRAI trip a couple weeks ago, and I still have a little bit more time before I can get back on the road. Fortunately, Ari has been doing a superb job filling in for me on the Monday night intro rides. Since this is his last week before he heads back to school, he wanted to celebrate by taking the crew out for ice cream, and he invited me to meet up with the group there.

Ari arranged a shorter route to account for the steadily-diminishing mid-August daylight and to allow some extra time for face-stuffing. He rode most of our Easthampton route in reverse, calling an audible early on to remove the Park Hill climb after Kavi got a flat early in the ride. He rolled into Mt. Tom Ice Cream at about 6:30 PM, with a group of eight or nine riders. It was great to see a bunch of familiar faces, and a couple of new ones as well. It was my first time at Mt. Tom, and I have to say the ice cream (Mexican Chocolate) was superb.

We all scarfed down some ice cream and chatted a bit before Ari and the rest of the riders hit the road for the return to NoHo, while I took the easy way home in my car. Not sure how the rest of their ride went, but I'm sure Ari did a great job guiding them home.

I told the group tonight that we had two more rides scheduled before the end of the season, but I mis-spoke -- we're actually on the calendar through the end of August, so three more rides, on the 17th, 24th, and 31st. I will miss next week again, but Adam has stepped up to lead that one. Hopefully I'll be back on the road after that to finish out the season. Hope to see you all then!