Thursday:
"You can so do Goat Hill," I told Hilda over the phone. "Just don't tell me," she said.
Saturday:
Cheryl called around 7:30. She thought the ride started at 9 so she'd meet us in Pennington.
I didn't get as far as Mike's house. Chris, Mary, and Linda were at the corner. It was Chris' idea to call Mike when he didn't show up in his own driveway at 8. He thought we were going to meet at 8:30. "I'll be ready in five minutes!" he said. I sent Mary, Linda, and Chris on to Pennington; I went on to Mike's house.
I couldn't figure what all the confusion was about. The ride was in the book and I posted the time on the blog, too. Neither Mike nor Cheryl had checked.
Nerves had Mike flying down the road. "Don't burn it all out here," I said. "We have plenty of time."
Hilda drove past us. She called out, "I thought you'd be there by now!" Mike muttered an apology. "We have plenty of time," I said.
It was foggy. Rain wasn't in the forecast until later. I figured we could get to Sergeantsville and back and stay dry.
Just beyond the YMCA parking lot in Pennington, Main Street was blocked off. Pennington Day. We'd have to go around. Cars were already filling the lot when we turned in. It took me a few seconds to figure out who in the crowd was riding.
I was doing my usual pre-ride stuff: taking off my sunglasses, digging around for the sign-in sheet and pen, talking to whomever, when I heard, "Waaaal-eeeee!"
"EEEVA!" I gave her a big hug. "I thought you dropped off the face of the earth!" Her other half was at home today.
When the sign-in sheet finished going around there were fourteen people on it. I promised not to do anything crazy today. Chris told me later that there were far more women than men on the ride. This is a rare thing for a B ride.
We headed westward out of Pennington in the fog. Eva and I caught each other up on our lives since January.
Mike said the fog was "like Bear Mountain." I said it wasn't that bad. I could see ahead of us well enough, even if we had to stop every few miles to collectively wipe our glasses.
A small group of riders ahead of us started up Poor Farm. We turned onto Woosamonsa, then Bear Tavern, left onto Pleasant Valley-Harbourton Road, right on Pleasant Valley, and right on Valley; in other words, towards Goat Hill.
Somewhere on Valley Road is a "gravity hill," that supposedly pulls cars up. Years of cycling on the road has left us mystified, but today I think I might have found it. We were going downhill gradually, and there was a little rise in front of us. I didn't have to pedal to get over it. Nobody was close enough to me for me to say anything, though. I'll have to try it again.
I found Hilda in the crowd and pedaled next to her as we turned off Valley. "This hill has three false tops," I told her. That's what Alan told me the first time I went up.
"Around this first bend is a great view. You can see Bowman's Tower in Pennsylvania," I told her. But there was fog in the way. "Bowman's what now?" I asked.
"This second part isn't bad. It's just long." We made small talk.
"This last bit is the worst," I said. She said, "Don't tell me," but I told her about the one time I went up here when a guy got to the top and leaned against a mailbox. The whole thing gave way. "So when we see the mailbox we're done."
It took longer than I remembered, but when we passed it I told Hilda, "Congratulations! You just climbed Goat Hill."
"This is Goat Hill?!"
This woman can climb; she just doesn't believe it. She's tougher than she knows.
We took my usual route over the ridge, down Dinosaur Hill, and to the Mount Airy church. The cow pasture was empty.
At the corner I asked, "Has anyone not seen the covered bridge?" Mary said, "I haven't," so I said we'd go there.
The bridge is one-way. Picture fourteen people in a line making a lazy loop through the bridge, calling out, "U-turn!" and doubling back.
At the Sergeantsville General Store Sun greeted me with his usual, "Long time, no see!" I finally said, "I always feel so guilty when you say that." As good as this place is, I can't come here every weekend.
The fog had finally lifted by the time we started up again. I took Back Brook for the view, and then we zig-zagged back up the Sourland Mountain, starting on Runyon Mill.
Every time I get on this road I remember the day that Cheryl, I, and the long-lost Jeff K went on a long ride from Cheryl's house when she lived in Hopewell. It was hot, the route was hilly, and this was our last big climb of the ride. Jeff, as always, was quiet while Cheryl and I grumbled. I said to him, "I bet you feel like a spring chicken."
"Nope," he said.
"Fried chicken?"
We were going about 10 mph. "No sprinting," Jeff said.
"I am sprinting," I replied.
From then on that day was known as the Fried Chicken Ride, and from that day on I've avoided Runyon Mill.
Cheryl and I debated the best way back to Pennington without having to walk fourteen bikes through a street festival. We settled on Old Mill to Federal City.
On Wargo Frank said the sun would come out. We didn't believe him, but when we turned onto Old Mill I saw my shadow.
We made it back to the lot with a few more miles than I'd planned, but nobody was complaining. Cheryl went off to lunch with Blake. Mike, Chris, Mary, Linda, and I headed home. Mary peeled off; she was going to ride all the way back to New Egypt.
We rode Linda back to Mike's house, hung out there for a bit, then went onto mine for a metric.
Chris and Mike puttered around in the back yard for a few minutes, Chris to check on the blue spruce Christmas tree he'd helped us plant a handful of years ago, and Mike to say that he wanted bamboo like we have.
"No, you don't," Chris and I said in unison. I kicked over a new shoot that had poked up too far into the yard.
Jack came out onto the screened porch to say hello.
Chris chuckled at the pitch pine we'd been coaxing to grow towards the sun. "I gave up," I told him. "It's a pitch pine. It's doing it's pitch pine thing." Which, in typical pitch pine fashion, means growing every which way but up.
Chris told us where tomorrow's ride would be. I couldn't picture Pond Road, so Chris drew a map in the dust on the garage wall.
Then they left. I went inside and stuffed my face.
Sunday:
I got rained on a little on my way over to Mike's, but we decided we'd go on to the Pond Road Middle School parking lot for Bob S's ride anyway. Chris called to find out what we were doing. "We're heading over. It could be different in an hour anyway." Chris said the forecast seemed random.
Once in a while we got spat on. We got to the lot early. I was sweating in my shell jacket. I have yet to find one that breathes and keeps me dry at the same time. I hung it over my handlebars to dry out.
Eventually Bob showed up, then Chris, who rode over, then Herb, then Norm (who'd been on my Poor Farm Roasts the Fixies ride).
Unsure of the weather, and because Mike and I rode over ("What about Chris?" "Aah, he doesn't count."), Bob decided we'd stay local. When he found out I'd never been there we headed for Chambersburg, the once-upon-a-time thriving restaurant neighborhood in Trenton.
Mike was thrilled to be riding on Nottingham and Route 33. I wasn't, nor was Chris.
Norm got a flat when his patched tube leaked. He replaced it with another patched tube, which leaked, and settled on a third. It held for a handful of minutes before it started to leak, so he turned back and we went on.
When we got close to the train station I told the guys about the renovated old houses across from the station. We stopped to have a look.
I pass these houses every day. They're being renovated for use as offices.
I'm especially fond of this one because it has a room at the top with windows on all four sides. That would so be my bead room if I lived there:
While I wandered around to take pictures Herb went behind the one on the corner. As I returned he emerged. Bob said, "Anything interesting back there?"
"A rat ran over my foot," Herb said.
Next to us a streetlamp was down:
Bob, a Trenton native, took us on a circuitous route through the Chambersburg streets. It was Sunday morning and there was less traffic here than we'd normally see Mercer County's farmland roads.
We passed the Roebling Market, which looked as if it held an outdoor farmers' market. Behind it was what might once have been a factory but was now filled with stores. It looked intriguing, and Mike and I thought we should come back. (A Google search at home, though, showed it to be just another mall full of chain stores. Sigh.)
I'd never been to De Lorenzo's, the home of tomato pie so good that people line up outside to eat there. It's also famous for not having a bathroom; you have to pee before you leave the house.
Across the street from the restaurant is a wiry, factory-looking thing:
Here's the pizza. The store was closed:
Chris, complaining about the ugly houses and all the stop-starting we were doing, cursed over a flat. While he fixed it I took this picture. I don't think the houses are ugly. They've got more character than any McMansions we see out in the once farmland.
Then there was this boarded-up something-or-other:
Before De Lorenzo's, Herb said, "We have to go to Rossi's. Best hamburgers in New Jersey."
I said, "Wouldn't that be a point of some contention?"
"Nope," he said, "Best burgers, hands down."
Mike was taken with the Joe DiMaggio sign next to the store. I don't remember what it said, but it was along the lines of "Joe DiMaggio was here a lot."
On our way out of the city we passed a ballfield named for him.
Chris grumbled about the ugly Hamilton suburb; then we were somehow on an on-ramp and off again, and just as suddenly the houses disappeared and I knew where we were. South Broad, where the houses end and the farms begin. Just like that we were out of the city and back onto our regular stomping ground.
We decided we'd stop at the bakery in Hamilton, formerly Hoffman's, now taken over by an Italian family. I hadn't been there in so long I didn't know it'd changed hands over a year ago.
Bob took us the long way, south then east then north again, the wind picking up and pushing against us over open fields.
The smell of black locust flowers was strong.
We got to the bakery at 11:30. Half of the shelves were empty. It turns out that you have to get there before 11:00 on Sundays. When the churches let out, the store runs out. Bob and Herb shared a sugary, raspberry thing. I inhaled my Jack Bread PB-Nutella & J sandwich. So much for having lunch at home. I called Jack to tell him to eat without me. I drank something calling itself coffee.
The route home was into the wind. I was pretty trashed, and hungry, too. At the end of Windsor Road Mike and I peeled off. We entered the Vortex -- the winding road through Mercer County Park that will have stiff headwinds on a dead calm day no matter which way you're facing -- and fought our way to the other side.
When I got home I stuffed my face.
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