Herding Well-Behaved Cats

24 May 2008

I'm leading today. Bored with the usual trips to Lambertville and Sergeantsville, I spent the past couple of days trying to come up with something else in the 50-mile range.

I figured out a 65-miler that I'll do if everyone wants to. But Irene and Henry, via email, wisely warned me off of that idea. Ride leaders who don't follow what they submit to the ride book aren't looked upon fondly.

Back to the drawing board. If I take some less-than-pleasant roads I can get us north of Sergeantsville long enough to ride on some roads with silly names: Boar's Head, Whiskey. We can double back to Sergeantsville and go home any old way. If I have a small group -- and there's no reason I shouldn't, since people are probably saving themselves for the long Memorial Day weekend -- I can pull it off. But I'm not very excited by the route.

I pedal over to Pennington by myself. Cheryl is in Maryland on a four-day biking weekend. Mike B. is back in the Land of the Girlfriend, all communications cut off.

Near the parking lot I see two riders, Doug and Christina, who I remember from one of my adventures last year. Doug is a racer, and he dragged poor Christina out on one of my longer hilly ventures. She made it, but she was terrified of all the fast people. Truth be told, so was I.

"I see you put him on a mountain bike to slow him down," I call out to her as I catch up to them. She laughs and asks if I'm riding with friends today. "I'm leading, right there," I tell her, pointing to the parking lot driveway. They decide to go on my ride. As we pull into the parking lot, I see three times more people than I expected.

The weather is perfect: clear skies, no humidity, mid-sixties. I ought to have known better. So much for the goofy Sergeantsville route. I count heads and decide that we're going to Stanton. The mileage will be right, and it's the only place I can think of besides Sergeantsville that can comfortably absorb fifteen bikers at once.

There are a handful of people I don't know, or hardly do. The talent spread of the people I do know is going to make things interesting.

Irene and Henry are here. Irene is finished her radiation treatments and doesn't need chemo. She's been training for Anchor House and beating everyone up the hills. Tom is here with his camera. Mike M. doesn't mind going to Stanton again.

Phyllis is back on her road bike, finally healed enough to give fifty miles a go. Blake is giving biking a shot between fencing competitions. Barb has peeled herself away from Anchor House training, saying she doesn't have to do 70 miles every day. I haven't seen Glenn since I can't remember when.

Howard and Garry are too fast for my ride, but they're the sort who behave themselves.

Susan and Marylin are new, but they look fast: light and lean.

This is going to be interesting. I gather them all together and go through the Bike Nazi spiel, borrowed heavily from Biker Bob.

And we're off, a noisy crowd in a long line down Pennington-Rocky Hill Road. I warn Christina that the first hill, Stony Brook, is coming up. I want to make sure she feels at ease; she's already nervous. I know exactly how she feels, having been through it on Bob's ride just two weeks ago.

On the first part of Stony Brook, the flat part, Barb looks over to talk to the person next to her and rides over a stone, blowing out her front inner tube. Blake decides now is as good a time as any to call it a day. At the same time, we pick up a stray Freewheeler, Gene, who'd been out on his own.

I'm surprised, and relieved, how easily I get up the hill. The adjustments I made yesterday have made all the difference. So for the past two months I've been working twice as hard and been half as comfortable, and last. Now I'm in the middle, which makes keeping track of all these people a lot easier.

We fly down Rileyville, which I've chosen over Lindburgh because the view is better. Next up is Manners. "Bad Manners," I call it, because it's one of those roads that's a bitch in both directions. I warn Christina that it's not a bad hill, just annoying. Last time we were here we were being chased by a tractor. Today the coast is clear.

Tom takes some pictures of us on Cider Mill. I don't even notice. I'm in the back, in a heavy conversation with Glenn. He works at Bristol Myers Squibb, and we're talking about the relative benefits and insecurities of academia versus pharmaceuticals. I'm tired of not making any money at Penn, but I have the comfort of knowing when the grants are going to run out. Glenn says that in industry one replaces the insecurity of grants with that of being bought out. He asks if I'm interested in working at BMS. "Yes," I tell him, but I hesitate a little. Better the devil you know and all that. On the other hand, I spend three hours each day commuting for a wage that barely surpasses my age. As is typical for conversations had while cycling, we never finish.





On Old York Road Christina gets a flat and she and Doug decide to drop off. Damn. We're not so far from Stanton now, and she was doing so well. Phyllis is beside me, bending down over her knee. "My knee and I were having a little conversation," she says, but she's not turning back.

At the corner of Barley Sheaf and Pleasant Run Tom's camera comes out again. I'm glad someone finally got a picture of this little creek. At the next intersection Irene asks if either of us got a picture of the inflatable cows in a yard half a mile back. We didn't. "Too bad," she says. "It's quintessential New Jersey." I'll have to stop for them next time.



We approach Stanton the back way, through the woods, where Tom takes more pictures.



We turn down Stanton Mountain Road. Last year Tom took one of his best pictures looking out towards the mountains from this hill.



We must be too early for the hay.



The Stanton General Store has some prize muffins on display today. There's something chocolatey with white blobs on the back counter. Marshmallows, we're told. Ick. I get a bicep workout lifting a chocolate chip beauty onto the counter. Irene and Henry go for an apple fritter the size of a small throw pillow. Out back, we join a table with Mike and Tom, who is seemingly unperturbed by the idea of marshmallows in a chocolate muffin. Glenn and I talk land use policy as I work my way through a large cup of the Evil Bean. The caffeine hits well before I'm halfway around the rim of the muffin top. Irene and Henry polish off their pillow and we slowly pull ourselves out of our sugar stupors and towards our bikes. I stuff the remainder of my now nearly headless muffin in my jacket.

There are a handful of ways to get back home. Fortunately Mike has some maps with him, so I snag the one I need and plot a course.

"I'd take us to see the buffalo," I tell everyone, "but it's down a dirt road and it's been to rainy." Phyllis looks sad.

A voice comes from a truck window behind me. "Just go down 523," he says. "The entrance to the farm is right there. There's a big event there today, lots of people. You can't miss it."

"Thanks!" I'd planned to go that way anyway.

As we approach the farm, we see a sign reading, "Buffalo Observation Day, Saturday, May 24, 10 a.m.-4 p.m." Downhill from the road people are gathered along a fence watching the buffalo, who are gathered on the other side of the fence, watching the people. One buffalo must be bored with the affair: he's charging up the hill. If we're lucky he'll run all the way up and we'll get there the same time he does. But he changes course, and he's too far away for a good picture, so we don't stop.

We turn off the busy road and make our way towards Rockafellows Mill Road and its hundred meters of gravel. At least we can ride over it today. On the other side is a narrow bridge over the Raritan's South Branch.

"Picture! Picture! Stopping!" Everyone stops for the view, Susan nearly plowing into Glenn and tipping over slowly, landing gracefully in the center of the bridge. If only all falls could be that well-executed, nobody would ever get hurt. "That was beautiful," I tell her. "Very well handled," once I'm sure she's okay. Tom documents the aftermath, and the scenery.



Irene points out a man in waders nearly up to his butt in the water, fishing, and of some yellow irises along the bank. I take some pictures with my cell phone:






Tom uses his real camera with better results:





Howard is clearly getting antsy. He's riding ahead, checking his GPS while he waits for the rest of us.

"You can go on ahead if you want," I tell him.

"Yeah. The GPS will tell me the way home."

Mike says, "It'll send you down Route 31."

"No, it won't," Howard crows. "I told it to avoid main roads."

We're back on Bad Manners Road, which isn't a very nice thing to do to people right before having to climb back over the Sourlands. I tell Henry I'm riding with a muffin stump handicap.



At the end of the road Howard and Phyllis don't wait for the rest of us. I take a vote: We can go up Lindburgh, which will be quicker but tougher, or we can go up the mountain sideways with a better view.

"The better view!" Tom shouts.




Linvale is our last big climb of the day. Marylin, who only started riding in March, is doing amazingly well for someone who has never biked this far before. She says she's beat, but we can see how happy she is. And when we get back to the parking lot she's asking me to put her on our ad hoc ride email list.

We schmooze in the parking lot a little to long. Barb calls me over to get me on the road home. I take the long way so we can ride together towards her house.

Back home I pull on a T-shirt and slump into a chair next to Jack on the back porch. We share the rest of the muffin, Burnaby hoovering up the crumbs.

Tom sends me his pictures the next day. He called this one, "Sorry, Laura, you still don't look fast."





Smart-ass. ;)