Holy Rollers -- 2017 Trenton Bike Tour

Riding 14 miles the day before a 10 mile race probably was not the smartest idea. The weather was beautiful. People kept peeling off layers as the temperature rose about 20 degrees during our ride past many of Trenton's churches.

We started at the Trent House, which gave us great parking and enough space to gather both before and after the event. Don went early to help sign people in. He brought both of our bicycles. Ashley slept in to recover from a Halloween party the night before and in anticipation of a Sweet 16 that night. It was a good choice for her.

Jeffrey mapped out a route going through all four of Trenton's wards (often the North Ward, where we used to live) is ignored. As one might expect with the theme of places of worship, we spent a lot of time in Chambersburg (formerly the Italian section of town).

I hesitate to say too much about this ride for fear of getting the information wrong. Jeffrey provided an awesome list of what we were seeing. Unfortunately it wasn't convenient to read it and ride at the same time. He shouted out and identified some of the harder to see ones (like the mosque on the other side of Route 1 behind some trees). 

A couple of people wore costumes

Around the seven mile mark we had a rest stop at a church that is now a community center. Here more people peeled off their long-sleeved tops and put on the t-shirt that came with the event.

Throughout the ride we had at least three (perhaps four) police escorts. Two were on ATVs, blocking traffic and generally keeping us safe as they leapfrogged around us. There was also at least one bicycle police officer keeping the pace at a reasonable 7-8 MPH (slower than we may have gone on our own, but reasonable for such a large group of people).

From time to time we would stop and make sure we were still together. This was especially important early on as we crossed Route 129.

Wills and his tall bike. Wills is a group leader and avid bike activist.

It was a great ride. As Don was on the committee, I'm still hopeful I will see some official stats about how many people were on the ride. It was a good number -- enough to feel festive, not so many we were losing people. They could not have had a nicer day weather-wise. It was brisk at the start and warmed up to about 80 with no sign of rain. It didn't feel like fall. It felt like a perfect day any time of year.