Over the Hill(Slug)s on a Spring Day

18 April

Beautiful weather, ten people, and I forgot my camera, not that I'd have had room for it by the end of the ride. Smolenyak and Big Trouble sent me some photos, though, so we're good.

Here's the story:

The plan was to carpool up to Pluckemin, but nobody seemed to be taking me up on the offer except, of course, Mike B., who will drive for the price of a homemade sandwich.

At 7 a.m. the day of the ride (Not Yet)Big Trouble called for directions to my house. It wasn't until I hung up and called Mike that I remembered who this guy was: someone who has been on all of two of my rides and disappeared off the front on both. This could be interesting.

When he got to the house he decided his bike was too big for Mike's car and he'd follow us up in his own. OK, whatever.

We were barely out of the driveway when my phone rang. "The parking lot is empty," Smolenyak said.

"It's 8 a.m.! We'll be there in 45 minutes. Go get something at Burger King."

The lot wasn't so empty when we got there. We were ten, including two people I'd never met before. Another group was gathering in the other half of the lot; they were the Morris Area Freewheelers, whose riding style (hand out cue sheets, see ya later maybe) we unashamedly dissed while I passed our sign-in sheet around.

"There will be three big climbs," I said. "The first one isn't much. The second one is bigger, and the third is the biggest. It's after the first rest stop. I'll explain it later." I gave the usual spiel, about riding safely, and I said, as I always do, "If you ride ahead you're on your own."

After a brief stop at the Burger King (this was a classy neighborhood, so the place was well-camouflaged) for bathrooms, I nearly missed our second turn, but Smolenyak and Mike called me back before the road turned to dirt.

We made the turn onto a little rise. I called back, "This isn't the hill!"

"Damn," somebody said.

The Ghost Bike at the end of New Bromley was gone. We took a strip break; some of the guys were very overdressed. After the next turn we'd be climbing.

At the top of the first hill we could see an overpass we were about to go under. I told the gang what Chris told me: "The real hills start north of 78. That's Route 78."

Potterstown Road rolls, steeply, and the first intersection is at Rockaway Road.

(Cue "Ayub's Song/As You Were." It's on iTunes. You should buy it, except Dale 'cause she's got it already.)

One of the many Rockaway Creek crossings on Rockaway Road:



The gingerbread house is still for sale. We were too early for the tulips.

At the top of Rockaway is the village of Mountainville, and at the intersection is the Mountainville General Store, a house from the 1800's, closed for years.

But today there were people working on the house. We stopped to talk. At the end of this month we'll have another rest stop. With muffins.

Here's downtown Mountainville. In the background, far right, you can see Ken peering at Joe B's maps, trying to figure out where the hell we are.





[Photos courtesy of (Not Yet)Big Trouble]

We turned west and headed up to the top of the Cokesbury ridge. To the south lay Round Valley, to the west Spruce Run, but we turned north on Mountain Grove for our second biggie, to the top of another ridge. Someone with GPS said that the grade on the steepest part of this one was 17%. Not the worst we've put ourselves on, but bad enough.

Hoffman's Crossing is at the edge of the ridge. I told everyone that we'd have a 360-degree view at a hairpin turn and that everyone should stop to gawk.

We didn't even get that far before people started stopping.

I took this picture before the hairpin. The ridge in the background is on the other side of the Ken Lockwood Gorge where the South Branch of the Raritan River runs.



Here's(Not Yet)Big Trouble's shot of the spot on the road where I took my picture:



Smolenyak snapped this one, at the hairpin, looking east. We'd have had a better view but there's a tall, white fence just to the left of this picture. It wasn't there last year. Too many people taking in a view for free that these people are paying for, I guess.



We plummeted down the ridge and rode along the Raritan upstream towards Califon.

One of the new guys asked me, "Is this Mayberry?" He was having trouble processing the fact that we were, indeed, in New Jersey. This happens a lot. One gets used to it after a while.

At the Califon General Store I offered Mike half of the sandwich I'd hastily smushed together in the morning. "Do you want the peanut butter half or the Nutella half?"

"I dunno. Does Nutella have chocolate in it? I need to stay away from that stuff. I've been eating too much of it."

"Hazlenut, but it's chocolate season."

Lynne said, "There is no chocolate season." Right on.

While pouring my coffee inside I overheard a teenage kid describe to his friend someone "really smart but really dumb at the same time."

I turned around. "That's the best description of a nerd I've ever heard," I said.

Outside on the porch I sat on the floor. Ken, who is the Ride Captain for the club, described to the new guys some of the leaders, where they go, and where they start from. I said I've been biking from home a lot lately. Ken said, "Yeah. It's nice to leave the car home once in a while."

Smolenyak chuckled. "He doesn't even own a car," I explained. This is the man who hauled a 32-inch TV set home on a trailer hitched to his fixed-gear bike, after the 24-incher he'd previously dragged home proved to be insufficient.

Now it was time for the warning about the next hill. I said what I said last time: "We'll be following the Raritan River for a while. Then the river disappears and the hill starts. It looks like it's never gonna end but it does. Trust me, it does. When we get to the top we're going to turn on Frog Hollow Road because, well, because it's called Frog Hollow."

Smolenyak, who would be putting nearly a century in today, decided to take a slightly less hilly route and meet us a few miles down the road. I offered the escape to everyone. There were no takers.

We got a little spread out on the hill. (Not Yet)Big Trouble was ahead of me. I stopped at the top but he didn't. Instead he went down the hill ahead of me to the spot where Frog Hollow comes in. I saw him circle around and turn to face me.

I turned around as the other riders got to the top. It didn't take long. After the last one was up I asked, "Do you guys wanna know how much you just climbed?"

They nodded.

"Four hundred forty feet," I said.

"Whoa."

"That was our last big hill," I told them.

When I turned around to continue along the road, (Not Yet) Big Trouble was gone. "Maybe he went down Frog Hollow," I said. But when we turned he wasn't there.

"He has no idea where he is." I said. "He followed us up here. Oh well. If you're off the front you're on your own."

Frog Hollow sent us back down the ridge in nearly the same direction we'd come from. I was hoping nobody would notice.

We turned off on Beavers Road because, well, it's called Beavers. We rounded a corner.

"Uh oh," Mike said.

"Whoops. Sorry, guys!" We were facing an asphalt wall. I sort of forgot about this when I was checking the maps again this morning. We downshifted and plodded on.

Every so often I called out, "I'm sorry!"

And when the road turned again to give us some more hill, I just started laughing. What can you do? "Ride leaders always lie!" I hollered.

Nobody seemed miffed. We had a good descent at the end of the road. Smolenyak was waiting there for us.

A few turns later, as we gathered everyone after a little downhill, I checked my phone. There was a missed call from a number I didn't recognize. It must be Big Trouble. I wondered how he'd even got my cell number. (I found out later that he'd called home for it.)

I called. He answered. "Where are you?"

"I'm riding down Frog Hollow," he said. He'd been up and down it looking for us. He'd gone ahead, past it, then doubled back onto it, missing us completely.

I covered the mouthpiece. "You guys wanna wait for him?" People shook their heads. I was right there with them. I gave him directions, but he said he couldn't remember that much at once, so I told him to call me back when he got to the end of what he could remember.

We went on, slowly descending the ridge on winding roads. When I checked the phone again I'd missed a call again. I gave him some more directions. He'd gained on us. "You're not too far back," I said. "When you get to the end of Guinea Hollow make a left on Sawmill."

Joe B. said, "You're too charitable."

I climbed up Guinea Hollow once, a few years ago. It took a long time, but it was never very steep. Now we were flying down, a stream on our left, a steep slope on our right, and woods all around us. At the end the intersection at Sawmill wasn't marked. We turned left.

We were going back uphill a little, but the road was so pretty and the climb so gentle nobody complained. To our right, down a steep drop, was the Rockaway Creek. On our left a few houses hid in the woods on top of a steep hill.

I'd been here once before, but I didn't notice the water wheel the last time. We all stopped.

Smolenyak took this picture. It's probably too small to make out the Christmas lights strung around the middle of the wheel:



You can see the stream in the background. This wheel is nowhere near the water. I think the wheel was moved. Mike B. doesn't think so, but it's easier to move a wheel than change the course of a stream.

A little further on Smolenyak showed us a spring on the left side of the road. "In the summer this is all mint," he said. There were only a few sprigs of the stuff.

"Can you drink from it?" someone asked.

"I've filled my water bottle with it," he replied. Most people were underwhelmed, though. Not enough mint. In the summer, Smolenyak said, you can smell it from the road.

We moved on.

Here's a fun fact: Rockaway and Sawmill Roads go around Hell Mountain. This leaves me thinking two things: One, if this is their idea of hell, I'd like to find their heaven; and two, I've never been here during a snowstorm.

By the time we reached the end of Sawmill I had four missed calls from Big Trouble. We must've been without a signal for a while. I called back. "There was no sign at the end of Guinea Hollow," Big Trouble said. "You said go left but there was no sign, so I went right, back to that general store, and asked for directions. Now I'm on Sawmill. I see a stop sign."

I looked back and there he was. He caught up and passed us as we began our curving, multi-mile descent south on Route 517 into Oldwick.

In a matter of minutes all that climbing was undone.

I bought two muffins to take home and stuffed them into the pockets of my jersey. There wasn't much room for the rest of what I'd been carrying: my cleat covers, cell phone, and the usual bag of random stuff a ride leader always carries -- money, and old driver's license, carbon dioxide cartridges, the sign-in sheet, maps, keys, salt tablets, and a random assortment of over-the-counter drugs just in case something painful were to happen to someone.

We sat outside; I plopped down on the ground in between some occupied chairs and contemplated aloud bringing home a loaf of something. "Mike, if I bought a loaf, would you carry it for me?" He had that big pack on his handlebars, after all.

He said yes. So much for the carry-one's-own-muffin credo.

"We only have ten miles and one hill left," I said.

We went inside. I found the lightest loaf I could, pumpkin nut, but then I realized that, since Jack doesn't like pumpkin, I'd have to eat the whole thing myself. So I chose chocolate chocolate chip instead.

The thing was a good stand-in for a barbell. On my way out I started to rearrange my pockets. I couldn't make Mike carry this brick home. He could take the muffins instead.

"Give me the loaf," he insisted. "I've already rearranged my bag."

"I can't do that to you. It's too heavy. I'll put it in my pocket."

"You'll destroy it. Give it to me." He hoisted the loaf from my hands.

I'd be exaggerating if I said his bike damn near tipped over from the weight of the thing, or that I'm sure we did some structural damage to his frame. Oh well. At least he'd have some ballast in a strong cross-wind.

After a short uphill on Vliettown Road most of the rest of the way was down.

One of the new guys rode himself off the road on Black River Road, but he was back on his bike before most of us even knew what had happened. Unlike my doofus move in October '07, which completely stopped the ride as I picked my boobs off the pavement. Anyway...

We even had a faint hint of a tailwind on our last stretch.
We had a good paceline going until about a mile from the end, where Burnt Hill Road goes over a highway (206 or 287 or something). That last little incline pretty much trashed us.

I have it on good authority from those who've done this stretch a lot that this always happens.

Mike made it back to the parking lot without a complaint, although I could have sworn I heard his front fork heave a sigh of relief when he removed the chocolate cinder block.

Big Trouble was unrepentant, oblivious to the fact that I had relieved him of riding up and down Frog Hollow in perpetuity. I said, "Stay with us next time. Next time I won't be so nice." I don't think he got it.

I put the loaf in the freezer.