Lake Fugawi

9 March

I knock on John D.'s door at 8:30 am. We pushed our clocks ahead one hour last night, and I can feel it. He lets me in; I always want to play with the cats when I stop by. Poor old Samantha, she of the long hair and curly tummy fuzz, is hunkered down on the corner of the sofa, her kidneys failing. Hilda says she has days to live. I pet her fluffy head. She's as old as Cleio, who is only in the beginning stages of renal failure, and who is still spry for a cat who will turn nineteen in a few months.

I say hello to Maxwell and Zanzibar and Isaac's tail in the living room, and Tessa and deaf Luna on the stairs. John grinds coffee beans and I step outside to wait. We're going to Prospertown, somewhere west of Great Adventure off of I-195. I have no idea what to expect, and I haven't gotten around to asking. Above me the winds are gusting at thirty miles per hour or more. Whatever we're about to do, I hope it's not out in the open.

As I follow John through a maze of back roads in Hamilton to the highway, he's drinking his coffee and I'm drinking mine. We're both hooked on Rojo's now, and look askance at other options. I've got a dark roast Sumatran-East Timor decaf-caffeine blend going. I don't know what John has, but he'll need it on his single-speed mountain bike.

Chris pulls into the lake parking lot at the same time we do. The wind is whipping around so much I'm hesitant to take off my winter coat. I have to grit my teeth when I do it.
To our left, the high roller coasters of Great Adventure poke above the trees. All around us is Pinelands forest.




Chris leads us out of the lot, away from the lake. He's putting us on the open road, uphill and into the wind. John grumbles as we climb. He only has one gear to get him through this. It's not easy to pity him; he brought this on himself, but still I do. Mountain bikes aren't made for windy roads at nine thirty in the morning on the first day of daylight saving time. Chris, far ahead, gestures left and we turn onto another county road, out of the wind. He turns left again, into the woods, and now we're looking for a dirt road into the forest.

"Where are we?" I ask. "Colliers Mills?"

"Nope," Chris says. "That's on the other side of 528." I don't know where we are in relation to 528.

Yesterday's rain brought us here: anything else but sandy soil would be a mudfest. Still, we have to maneuver around puddles that are too wide and too deep to do anything but walk around. We reach a puddle that John pedals through. Chris follows, I watch, and decide to pedal through it too. I make it to the other side without getting my feet wet, but I lose momentum as my rear wheel clears the water, and my feet go down into wet mud. Water trickles to my socks before I can yank my feet back onto the pedals. I wonder how long it'll be before my toes get numb; toe warmers don't seem to work wet. I had a pair of wicking socks that I wore all of twice before I misplaced them. I forgot to put plastic bags in my shoes today.

The sand is too warm to be frozen. We fishtail a lot.

We pass by a ridge. Chris asks John if he wants to climb it later, and John says he does.

Whenever we're on a road and John sees a fire ditch, he calls out, "Ho-ho-hoooooooooooo!" and turns in.

Chris sort of knows where he's going. John and I don't, but John has his GPS. Every time we reach an intersection, John consults his computer. I realize how much I trust these guys.

We're trying to get across a lake without having to swim. In a clearing we look around for anything that looks like a road. We think we see one not too far away, so we head towards it, John in the lead. Halfway across we have to cross a channel by walking on a thin, steel beam and using our bikes for balance. John goes first and helps Chris and me across. I can't figure out how John made it over by himself without falling in. Chris puts his bike down to clear the channel of debris. I take pictures. Since we don't know where we are or what lake this is, I name it "Lake Fugawi."






We find ourselves against the back end of Great Adventure's safari park. Little antelope-creatures with long horns scamper about at the edge of our view. One of them only has one horn.

Of all the terrains I've mountain biked so far, I like the Pinelands the best. I don't get thrown around as much as in Mercer County Park. There aren't as many obstacles to jump, but we have to be quick to keep upright in shifting sand and in avoiding low bushes that creep into fire ditches. We have to navigate thin, sandy trails and do puddle slaloms. We can careen off potholes and bounce off of sandy moguls. There are wide dirt roads and small, sun-dappled, pine-needled trails. We see black water streams and open lakes. The wind above us is just another sound; we can't feel it down here. We go anaerobic a lot.

We find ourselves on a paved road, outside of the forest. The sign says Perrineville and I get confused. This isn't the Perrineville Road I know of back near the Assunpink Wildlife Management Area, or the Perrine Road up in Plainsboro. Whoever this guy was, he sure got around. Chris and John take a guess as to which way we should go, and we end up in front of Saint Vladimir Russian Orthodox Church in Cassville. I stop for a picture. A turkey vulture is perched on one of the spires, but by the time I get my phone out, the bird has flown away.



We're near the Cassville deli, a very creepy road bike rest stop with no real food in it, and bad coffee. The owners smoke inside and argue. The music on the speakers is either Ozzy Osbourne or Yankee Doodle Dandy. We can sit on the porch outside, too close to traffic. The entire experience pretty much sucks. Today we bike on past, not at all interested even in getting warm inside.

It seems we've gone the wrong way on Perrineville, and now we have to ride on Route 528 westward into the wind again, looking for an entrance back into the forest. We find one after a mile or so. My feet are getting cold. I start to get worried and a little cranky. I'm ready to go home. John and Chris are looking for the quickest way back.

We come upon the ridge we'd passed earlier. Not even John can get all the way up without walking. I don't even try. Walking up is tough enough as my toes seem to be numb. But walking helps; they feel warmer by the time I get to the top of the hill. Chris points out Great Adventure through a break in the trees. "We want to go that way," he says. John consults his GPS and plots a course. I look out above the forest around us. I can't tell if it's flat or hilly here. Chris says he always has to climb this ridge to get his bearings.

Back on the sandy road out of the forest, I can tell that the caffeine is out of my system, leaving me just tired. My mind separates from my legs; they don't feel like part of my body as they go 'round and 'round and 'round.

We have a tailwind on the road back to Prospertown Lake. Chris says, "If you got the gears..." and zooms ahead of us, up a hill. I shift to follow. Behind me, John says, "No fair." My chain is squeaking. Grover needs a greasing and a tune-up.

In the parking lot I dive for my winter coat, call Jack, and take a few more pictures. John adjusts his chain, seeking single-speed perfection.




Maybe this will be the last mountain biking day of the season. I hope so. We talk about next week, when I'm scheduled to lead a ride on the road.

When I get home, I check NJ Bikemap (Dustin's maps). We were in the Prospertown Wildlife Management Area, just north of the Collier's Mills Wildlife Management Area, west of Cassville and just north of Fort Dix.