The Chocolate Eyeball Ride

1 November

We had a good turnout this year, the weather was chilly but otherwise perfect, and we hit peak leaf season in the Sourlands spot-on. There were only two glitches: first, I couldn't find chocolate eyeballs anywhere, and second, John, one of our three leaders, canceled the night before the ride. So we had to settle for chocolate pumpkins and nobody to look for the black goat on Lindbergh Road.

The plan was to follow the same route as last year. Last year we didn't stick to the planned route, and we didn't this time either.

Our first diversion was my doing.

I don't remember when I first heard about Federal Twist Road, but I do know that I've been down the hill twice. I'd been up the first part of the hill many times, but the second part, the legendary nasty part, the part that even Barb has to stand on, I've never done. Last fall I decided I'd climb that hill this year. This year I completely forgot about it. Until now. Well, until three days ago when the thought occurred to me that this was pretty much my only chance to finally get up the thing. So I looked at Dustin's map, figured out that I'd been up bigger hills this year, and realized that, after so many years, I'd run out of excuses.

So on the first part of the hill, which we were climbing almost straight out of the park, I asked Barb if she thought it would be a good idea go go all the way up with no warm-up on a day like this. She said "no," and that was that, Barb being the resident Federal Twist expert.

But when we got to the top of the first part, where Raven Rock comes in, I put the question to everyone, with the caveat that we were all still pretty much freezing. Bob, the other resident hill expert, and Cheryl, who has only cursed out one hill in all the time I've known her, said, almost in unison, "Let's do it!"

"Okay, then."

As usual, when confronted with a road that has a bigger reputation than its percent incline, I got nervous, but there was nothing for it except to keep on climbing. It's steep, but you can see the top from the bottom. That's always a good thing. I followed Barb. I stood when she stood, I sat when she sat, and when my heart rate felt too high I tacked a little until it slowed down.

I can say this: It'll never feel worse than that, since we started with no warm-up. I'm not exactly in a rush to repeat the experience any time soon, however.

At the top I congratulated Marilyn. "This is her first year riding and she made it up Federal Twist! I've been riding for nine years and it took me this long."

But now for the prizes. "Can anyone tell me why this road is called Federal Twist?"

Mike said something about a government endoscopist. "Anyone else?"

Ralph said, "Hanged British soldiers twisting in the wind." I lobbed a chocolate pumpkin over peoples' heads and he caught it.

"Wrong. John told us that last year. He made the story up." But it was better than Mike's. "They didn't have endoscopes in the seventeen hundreds."

I conferred with Bob about where to turn off to get back onto the cue sheet and we decided on Milltown Road. The other option, Strimples' Mill, has a better name, but it ends with a big hill, and that would just be mean.

The detour probably added about five miles, but it was worth it. We got back to where we wanted to be and headed towards the Wiley Nurseries house, where Barb told the story in a near-whisper:

The Brenda Wiley Story:

This is true. Barb knew Brenda and her mom because Brenda went to school with Barb’s daughter. Brenda was a tall, lanky, beautiful gymnast. Her mom was a 300-pound mass. Brenda started hanging around some unsavory people and dating a guy her mom didn’t like. They fought about it till one Saturday, when Brenda’s mother was out of the house. Her little brother was lying on the couch, watching TV. To get him out of the way, she stabbed him to death. When her mother came home, she stabbed her, too, over and over, until she, too, was dead. She fled into Rosemont by car, but the police caught up with her. She’s now serving jail time up north. She’ll get out in her mid-forties.



Here's Barb (center) telling the story to, from left to right, Howard, Lynn, Cheryl, Marilyn, and Bob.



While she told the story I snapped a northward view:



Mike wanted a picture of himself in costume, so here it is. That's his costume. Really.



Down at the Green Sergeants Covered Bridge I told a ghost story:



"About a hundred years ago a guy was biking here on Halloween and a ghost told him that if he wanted to live til the end of the year he had to bike through the bridge."

"That's bullshit!" Cheryl said I handed her a piece of candy.

"Hey, I didn't even know how it was going to end when I started telling it."

Someone said it would be more believable if I were to some details. But we biked through the bridge anyway. We always do.

We climbed past Sergeantsville and headed to the Sourlands. We stopped on Losey Road so Barb could tell the second murder story:

The Murdered Security Guard Story:

Barb’s son went to high school with a super-athlete football player-wrestler who, into drugs and with friends, robbed and killed a 70-something-year-old security guard. They made off with less than $100 for their efforts. The boys stayed quiet and went off to college. But a year later one of the friends let the story slip. Police came and carted away the killer, who was in the middle of a wrestling match at the time. Barb tells us he’s still in prison up in north Jersey. It seems that he and Brenda Wiley will get out around the same time.

We biked along the ridge. The trees are so tall there they form a Gothic arch of branches over the narrow road. It looks like a cathedral. We were in an explosion of color -- red, orange, and yellow -- that my camera just couldn't capture. It was like biking into an Impressionist painting. Here's me trying:




Even though there's a sign that says, "No trespassing," we biked up the Lindbergh Estate driveway anyway. There was still snow on the roof from last Tuesday's bizarre weather.



You see the front door slightly open there? That's because right after I snapped the picture a guy came out and asked, "Can I help you?" I said, "We're just looking around." He said, "Okay" and went back inside.

Cheryl told the Lindbergh kidnapping story in such detail that she got two chocolate pumpkins for her effort.

We turned around and went all the way down Lindbergh.

Last year when we did this ride I wrote, "The trees end, and I’m facing the undulating ridges of north central Jersey. I’m looking straight at last summer. The downhill steepens and summer drops out of sight."

This year last summer's mountains were just last week. I stopped a few times to try to get pictures of what I meant a year ago.





Marilyn dropped her chain somewhere near the top. She left voicemail and I called her back to tell her and Ralph just to come straight down the hill. By the time I hung up and deleted the message, they were just arriving.



Peacock's has a basement bathroom you need a key to get into. Last year I stood in line with John. Upside-down, bereft of all but a chain, locked to a post, was a bike frame. John looked at it and said, "That was the last biker who didn't flush." I was ready to tell that as a ghost story this year, but when I went into the basement the frame was gone, replaced by many armchairs and sofas stacked along the wall. Nothing creepy leaped to mind. I told everyone that the ghost in the basement was gone.

Here's the front of the store. It's an old house.



Howard wanted to know the fastest speed I'd ever gone.

"Fifty. Down Federal Twist."

"Whoa."

"Hey, Bob! What's the fastest you've ever gone?" He's done some big hills. This should be good.

"Fifty-six point five, down Federal Twist."

"Holy cow!" "Wow!" "Sheez!"

Cheryl said she'd eaten too much to climb back up Lindbergh. An alternate route was fine with me. She picked one out that would be easy on the eyes and the stomach. We went parallel to Wertsville Road via Back Brook, which is up higher and let us see the ridges to the north and the Sourlands to the south. Everything was exploding with color.

We wound our way to the Sandy Ridge Cemetery. I sent everyone in with a challenge: Find as many road names or place names on the headstones as you can and you'll get a chocolate pumpkin. Everyone was into it. We must've been there for ten minutes, wandering around, calling out names. Some of them we recognized from as far away as West Windsor and Stanton. Last year Barb, John, and I found a list of the headstones online. How many do you recognize?

Mike and Theresa were so into it we had to call them back to their bikes. Theresa found a headstone with a death date that was never filled in. It just said, "19--." She said, "It's like the guy died and they just forgot to do it."




By the time people grabbed their share of chocolate the supply was nearly gone. "Now that we're finished with the hills I've lightened the load." Three lone pumpkins were rolling around noisily in the pack on my top tube.

It was all downhill and flat from there.

On the way I stopped at Federal Twist for a couple of pictures. This was the last hill around here that I'd been genuinely afraid of. Sure, there are worse, like Tumble Falls, which, five years later, Cheryl is still talking about. I suppose I should tackle that someday, but I really don't need to make a mission of hunting for bigger and steeper hills. Mike and Chris have both said it's time for me to try Fiddler's Elbow, a monster that most people can't climb, somewhere up in Warren County. I'm totally cool with not going there.



That white blob on the saddle bag, by the way, is Kermit in his ghost costume.

**********

2 November

I went out into the Hunterdon County hills again today with Bob. We started from almost the same place, but this time we went north to Frenchtown. Up there it was as if winter had already happened. So many of the trees were bare, so many others oaks with brown leaves. It wasn't until we got closer to Federal Twist (no, we didn't go up this time) that the colors came back.

We went by the covered bridge again. I told Bill the ghost story I'd come up with yesterday. I said I was trying to come up with something we could repeat so often that it would become legend. He agreed that there should be more detail.

I said, "Okay, on a moonless midnight a man was walking through the bridge when he encountered a wraith."

"A wraith?"

"A wraith. It has to be a wraith."

"You're going to make people scramble for their dictionaries."

It took me a few more minutes to come up with more: "So the wraith says, 'If you want to live out the year you must do me a favor. Answer me these questions three.'"

No, that wouldn't do. That's Monty Python.

"You must do me a favor." I paused. What must he do?

I said, "You must keep to the right and always signal your intentions."