The Last Ride of the Winter

This entry is dedicated to Samantha of the Curly Tummy Fuzz, c.1989-2008.

15 March

The alarm wakes me at 7:15. If the roads are dry, I'm leading an official ride, and I have to leave for the meeting corner in an hour. I strain to keep my eyes open. The phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Laura. The roads are wet. What do you want to do?" It's Cheryl. I pull myself up and stagger to a window. "Oh, yeah, that's wet."

"We can wait an hour and go out at ten." That sounds good. I can send an email to everyone. "Send it soon. Mike's probably pacing the floor." I switch on the computer, send the email, set my alarm for another half hour, and flop back into bed.

By the time I leave the house, the roads are starting to dry out, and I get to the corner on time for a change. Mike B. is chatty today, which is good. He and Theresa have split, which is bad.

The sky is still cloudy, but the air is warm. I'm clearly overdressed, even with a strong headwind. We dodge puddles at the entrance to the parking lot. I lean Grover against a tree and shout, "Hot! Hot! Hot!" I unzip my jacket, pull off my balaclava, and get rid of the glove liners. "Hot!" This is the worst time of year for figuring out what to wear. Early spring and early fall are the worst. During the summer it's easy: we're nearly naked. In the winter, we put on everything we own. But now the temperature can change ten degrees in an hour or two, the sun can dry everything out, or things can stay clammy behind clouds all day long. The wind can cool you off or freeze you.

Bob and Mike M. are in the parking lot already. Barb pulls in. John D. arrives a little late, having hit every red light between Hamilton and here. As he gets ready, he tells me that Samantha died in her sleep a few nights ago. "You gave her a good puss life," I tell him.

I came up with a route last night, but I don't like it. It's stupid. It doesn't really go anywhere. I just wanted to do something different, but this route isn't going to be it. I tell everyone I don't like what I have in mind and I'm open to suggestions. "Sergeantsville." "Lambertville." Show of hands? Lambertville it is.

With Bob and Barb on the ride, I have to find some worthy ascents. They're both mountain goats, part of Michael H's crowd, Anchor House riders. I figure I'm probably going to be too flat for them. We'll go to Lambertville, but I'll go a different way.

We turn onto Delaware Avenue, but instead of sending them over to Woosamonsa or Poor Farm, I signal to go straight ahead. It's been years since I've gone to 579 this way. I think there's a small hill in there somewhere. I remember that it's pretty. At the intersection I turn us north, into the wind, for a good, long time. I just bypassed a big hill by going this way; I need to make up for it.

"Let's go up Pleasant Valley," Mike B. says. I think that would be a good idea. I haven't done that in years either. But a few minutes later I think of something else. "Hey, Mike! We're not gonna do Pleasant Valley. I have something mean and nasty in mind."

Mike M. comes up alongside me. "Did you say mean and nasty?"

"Yep." And I laugh.

I'm feeling lighthearted, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I'm finally leading again, or because we're seven people, or because we have the right mix of people today. I have a bag of jelly beans in a little pouch behind my stem. They make a pleasant little rattle on the bumps in the road.

"Right turn!"

"Oh no," Cheryl groans. I'm sending us up the back side of Poor Farm, up Harbourton-Woodsville Road. We'll reach the same altitute, just not as harshly.

"This is the road where I first heard Barb use the term 'hill slug,'" I call out, "So this hill is dedicated to her." Cheryl passes the message back to Barb. John, Cheryl, and Mike B. zip past me, as it should be. I try holding the center of the handlebars as Sean suggested. Climbing does feel easier this way, but I'm feeling a little squirrely. How am I going to reach the brakes? I move my hands back to the hoods and feel it in my legs. OK, never mind, back to the top of the bar.

For the first time in a while, I get a chance to talk to Mike B. He wants to ride as the "three musketeers" this year -- him, Cheryl, and me -- but he doesn't know how he's going to do it if he finds a girlfriend. I think about that as he pulls ahead of me, so I don't have the chance to tell him that I'm juggling biking and Jack all the time. It's doable if you don't let biking take over your life.

As we start up Mountain Road, Mike B. rides at my side, despite my urging him to go at his own pace. He says he wants to ride with me. He starts singing the Turtles' "Happy Together," and when he gets to the chorus, I chime in, "So tired together." I ad lib the next verse, something about how if I ride only with him I'll go crazy.

Somewhere along the line he starts singing about mozzerella. I say, "Don't talk about cheese when we're climbing."

"Oh, sorry."

On Rocktown Road we pass the Joes coming in the opposite direction. "You're doing hills!" I exclaim. This would be the first time since his tumble last summer that screwed up his back that Big Joe has been climbing. He says he's doing little hills, but his back still hurts. "We're going to Lambertville. Wanna come?" He thinks about it.

"How are you getting out?" he asks me. I haven't thought that far ahead. "Probalby Rocktown." There's no way out but up, unless you take Route 29, which is pretty much a death sentence. He decides his back can't take it.

We're all in the middle of the road, yakking away. Some people haven't seen each other in ages, that's what it is. That's why we're all so giddy. In twos and threes we slowly peel off towards Route 31.

We probably haven't climbed enough hills, so I send everyone down Harbourton-Mount Airy. The downhill is long enough for me to sing "Prickly Thorn But Sweetly Worn" entirely before the ass-burner hill kicks in, by which time I'm onto "St. Andrew," which is two minutes of White Stripes white noise. Perfect for a short climb. At the top, fuzzy calves are loafing in the mud. Mike B. says, "It smells like my kitchen, right Cheryl?" Eeewww. A German Shepherd on a doorstep lazily eyes us.

John has been hurling out one-liners I know I'll forget by the time I get home. [Yep.] He does a workout on Elliot Spitzer, the New York Governor caught in a prostitution ring: "He talked her down from five thousand an hour to forty-three hundred for the whole night. Can you believe it? Never pay retail!"

On Queen Road, Mike B. says something to Barb that prompts me to call out, "Stop flirting with all the women on the ride, Mike."

We turn onto Alexauken Creek Road, and our thoughts turn to coffee.

In line at Rojo's, I give John a lesson on how to use a French press. "I figured out I'm spending $30 a week on coffee in the cafeteria," he says. A press, a grinder, and some fresh beans will solve that.

I order a large Colombian. John gets the Midwives blend. Cheryl and Mike have gone around the corner for bagels.

Seven of us cram around a wooden table. It feels so comfortable, so chummy, so familiar. Mike M. has finished his espresso. Mike B. is down to his undershirt. I plop the bag of jelly beans onto the table. A few Swedish fish from last season are mixed in. "Vintage," somebody says. Everyone digs in. Mike B. tells us he had a bag of Swedish fish at home. "I let myself have four at lunch," he explains. "But -- I work at home -- in the middle of the afternoon, I have to, you know, go check to see if they're still there."
We're sharing food, passing out chunks of Cliff bars, and kicking back. Cheryl says my right eye looks red. Uh-oh.

On my way to the bathroom to check my eye, I stop to chat with the Rojo's owner, Dave, for a little while. Like me, he's a Penn grad. Undergrad and law school for him, and a daughter there now in midwife school. Midwives blend. Aha. I find out I have to wait till November for the next batch of beans from East Timor. Meanwhile, I'm really digging the decaf Sumatra. In the bathroom I dig out some drops that blur my vision for a few minutes. My right eye does look pretty gross, but at least it's not scratched and swollen.

Now, how to get out of Lambertville in a way to make Bob and Barbara happy? Swan or Franklin, of course. Those are the roads I avoid at all cost; they make my legs shake just thinking about them. But right now I'm flying on a strong Colombian brew. "Hey, Bob. Which one's harder, Swan or Franklin?"

"Franklin," John answers. "It's shorter but it's steeper."

"Straight!" I call out. I must just be watching myself do this, I think. Didn't I blog just last week that I don't go up this road? It's been probably five years since I've been here. Cheryl figures the same. I don't even remember what the top looks like, or even where this leads.

Before the road curves away to the left, it levels out. I stop for a picture.



Whoops. There's a bit more hill around the corner. Did I just cheat? But there's an even better view from here. I hop off and pull my phone out again.





I feel badly that the group is waiting for me when I finally catch up, around another corner and far up the road, past where Studdiford changes name to Goat Hill. "Sorry. I was being a shutterbug." I try to get a picture of a yard flag with a moose on it, but the wind kicks up and I give up.

We turn onto Valley Road. Back when we were planning our Halloween ride, Barb, John, and I had come here looking for the gravity hill. We couldn't find the spot that, according to legend, seems to pull you uphill.

My bottom bracket, which at some point every winter starts chirping, now sounds like a distant crow. "What is that sound?" Mike asks, and soon after Barb asks the same thing. Gonzo is due for a cleaning. I call it "the annual flea-dip and shots." Mike says he calls it "a colonoscopy."

The question arises, are we taking Pleasant Valley all the way back, or are we going to cut out at Pleasant Valley-Harbourton Road?

Years ago, Cheryl and I were on one of Alan Kammerman's rides. Alan rides a mountain bike on the road. I think it's for ballast when the wind blows. Bob Barish once suggested he remove the seat since he hardly uses it. Alan is small and strong. No hill fazes him. His rides scare me. Cheryl and I were on one of these, and after hauling ourselves up Swan, or Franklin, who knows which, we decided that Pleasant Valley just wasn't happening. We turned left on Pleasant Valley-Harbourton, leaving the rest of the group to struggle up the badly-paved, baking hot series of Unpleasant Valley hills. As we rounded a bend, Cheryl called out, "Suckers!" To this day, we call this the Suckers Bail-Out Route. Not that either of us has gone near this direction in five years, but still.

We near the Bail-Out. John tentatively turns. I holler, "Swing 'em if you got 'em! We're goin' straight!"

Even in winter, this road is hot. Mike B. says he's boiling in oil. I'm sweating too. This road is one of the few that sucks in both directions. At least it's pretty. At the end of the road, Barb says she'd been reading more about the gravity hill. "It's on this road, somewhere near this end." But none of us felt as if we'd had any help at all getting over that hill.

We take a detour down to Jacob's Creek Road. Bob has never been there so he's in for a treat. I tell him I feel as if I need to put in big hills for him and Barb. He assures me that isn't necessary. I notice that he climbs with his hands on the top of his handlebars, too. So does John. I pull up alongside John and ask him about it, and we discuss aerodynamics as we climb up Washington Crossing Road.

John tosses out another one-liner. I tell Cheryl, "I need to bring a tape recorder." She agrees.

At the end of the ride we're a little short on miles, but nobody minds. We decide to try for New Egypt tomorrow if the weather holds out, but it's not looking good.

Mike wants to get in an even fifty miles, so he insists that he and Cheryl ride with me all the way to my house. He admits he's too anal; I tell him he needs to loosen up.

Under the oak tree in our front yard, crocuses and snowdrops are blooming. The buds on the dogwoods and the oak are starting to swell. This is the last weekend before spring, and, given tomorrow's forecast, likely our last ride of the winter. Next week, if the roads are dry, Kermit will have his 2008 debut. It will be Easter weekend. I have the chocolate bunnies ready.