I decided to ride Rick's new-ish 100k permanent course without letting him know. I figured it would surprise him. And I wanted the flexibility of doing an early start without having to coordinate with anyone else, so I drove to Atco around sunrise and rode solo from there. Brother Paul let me park at his house, and I joined the course en route at roughly the midpoint less than a mile away in downtown Atco. At the start, temp was 32F, and felt like 26F due to 6mph winds from the northwest. After my halfway point in Vineland, it was 41/36F, NW winds 7mph. It was cold enough. I had a little fun with Rick, texting him a couple pics of where I was early on, knowing he would recognize his route and realize I was riding it. I liked the course, especially early on a Sunday with little traffic on some nice country roads. It is one I would ride again. Before halfway thru, I felt my thigh muscles protesting again, like they did during last month's 100k. hmmm. Not riding enough? The course has 'gravel' in the name, and there is a good 1.5 mile stretch of gravel road, complete with some full-road puddles after yesterday's rain. But it was no real problem, and a nice change of pace. Around that same section of the route I sensed a bit of tobacco road. 'Nuff said. My front derailleur was a bit balky, then flat-out wouldn't shift to the big chainring. I futzed with it roadside for 15 minutes, to no avail. I found I was able to perform 'manual' shifts while riding along by reaching under the downtube and pulling the cable. Then I tried to leave it in the big ring. Thank goodness I have 10 cogs in the rear to give me some range, and the route is in South Jersey flatlands. Later in the ride I stopped to pee at a construction site porta-pot, and surprisingly, while walking the bike I sank in wet sand, as did my bike wheels. It wasn't really convenient to clean the bike off, so I had crunchy rim brakes for a while. I tried to ride going easy on the brakes, and I finished fine. A good day on the bike, and my 12th month, completing my second RUSA P-12.