All Ride Long

The floor of Cocoluxe, Gladstone, NJ

UPDATE #1:  For two more takes on the same adventure, read what Jim and Tom have to say.

UPDATE #2:  I brought the chocolate mouse into work and three of us ate it.  Now I need to come up with a less sadistic bike route to Gladstone so I can get more. Also, I seem to have conflated two hills.  The switchback was on Old Army road, much earlier in the ride than I make it out to be in the story below.  The agony still holds, however.

12 May 2012

Jim is working out his pre-ride jitters by singing in circles around the parking lot.  I'm wondering how much more of my coffee I should drink.  Chris has a wry smile on; he knows what we're in for.  Ron is quiet.  John and Jane pull in.

It's good to do one nothing-but-big-hills ride early in the season.  It makes everything else after that seem easy.  Tom and Chris have brought us up here because Chris has insisted that Tom will never know what real hills are like unless he crosses over to the north side of Route 78.

We're well north of Route 78 now.  We're at the top of the road that winds through Jockey Hollow in the Morristown National Historical Park.  Tom gathers us around and, one more time, tells us that even he doesn't really know what this 50-mile, 5000-foot elevation gain ride is going to be like.  He says we can hate him for it, though.  

I'm remembering what Chris said about it at the Spring Fling:  "It's like my El Camino ride, but without the flat parts."   "El Camino del Diablo" used to show up in the ride book once or twice each year, back before I even had mountain bike gearing, let alone a triple.   I never considered it, except for maybe someday.  Tom calls this one "El Capitan."  I have Miss Piggy.  I'm ready.

We push off and it's nothing but hills.  It's just little ones at first, then a big one about five miles in.  We're under trees and the road winds around.  We get spread out.  I know it's cheating, but I have to stop for a picture.

Jane comes by just after the shutter closes on the second shot.

I catch up to her and we the situation.  "It looks like Lindbergh,"  I say, "up at the top, where there's that little 'whoops' around the corner."  I'm still in my middle ring in front, but I've bottomed out to the 34 in back.  Jane is somehow pushing along with only 26 in the back.  If that's all I'd had, I'd've stayed home.  Here we are, barely started, and I've already gone anaerobic.  When I stop at the top I have to put my hands over my head.  Only when my heart rate gets to around 180 bpm do I feel like barfing.  It only lasts half a minute, though.

After that I do what Tom has already done:  I switch into my granny gear.  "I don't know what's coming," Tom says.  "Much better," I tell him when we reach the next hill.  I stay in my granny during the descents.  I don't know what's around the corner.

Three of us work at Princeton University.  Three of us have mountain bike gearing.  Three of us have triples.  I'm the only one that's in all three groups.

Punchiness usually hits me towards the end of a ride.  This time I've started early.  As we reach the top of another hill, less than ten miles in, while Jim is pulling up around me, I hear myself sing to him, in a childlike voice, to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus," which I never even sang as  kid,

The wheels and the foots go 'round and 'round

He laughs.  Seconds later, he adds, 

The mouth and the lips go "Fuck you, Tom

Fuck you, Tom

Fuck you, Tom"

The mouth and the lips go "Fuck you, Tom"

All day long.

Well, now we have something, don't we?  "Hey, Tom!  We're singing about you."  He's not surprised.

I catch the end of a discussion in which Chris says he'll charge $50 to carry anything in his handlebar bag.  John suggests a full set of China.  I chip in that I feel privileged:  "He carried my chocolate bunnies for free.  Then again, he got to keep the extras."

I wonder why we haven't seen any other bikers.  There was that group at the entrance to the park when I drove in, but that's all I've seen.  This is supposed to be prime territory.  Tom says, "They know where the good roads are."

At the top of another hill we almost have a view.  Tom pulls out his camera and I get mine.  "It's gonna come out flat," I lament, but we do our best.

At the end we turn right.  Jane points back and says, "That's where we were, up there!"

We swoop past what looks like a lake at first.  But there's a chain-link fence around it.  It's a reservoir.  The only one I've seen and heard of by name up north is the Wanaque, but there are something like twenty up here.  The building looks sort of the same.  I have no idea where we are, though.

[It's the Clyde Potts Reservoir, which drains into the Whippany River.]

Our first rest stop is in Gladstone.  Tom slows to investigate a bakery.  I move on just past the block of stores so that I can take pictures of the train station.  I'm not sure why I'm doing it other than to remind myself later of where I was.

But then I see that this is the end of the Gladstone rail line, and that's kinda cool, I guess.

I hear Tom coming up behind me.   "Closed," he's saying.  Chris says something about the "other Main Street," and leads us to a busier section of town.  We stop in front of Cocoluxe, where a few bikers are already hanging out.  This must be the Sergeantsville of Morris County.

Jim comes up to me as I put my cleat covers on, singing about what happened a couple of blocks away:

The bak'ry sign says "We are closed

We are closed

We are closed"

The bak'ry sign says "We are closed

All day long."

I get iced coffee, a small muffin, and a chocolate mouse to bring home later.

"Can you wrap it up?  I have to carry it."  The mouse arrives in a little pink box, too cute to remove, too big for my pockets.  I beg Chris to carry it.  "It's really light," I tell him, tossing it up and down.  He agrees without hesitation.

We're sitting next door to a dealer selling five red Porches.

Jim sings,

Tom and his friends go up the hill

Up the hill

Up the hill

Tom and his friends go up the hill

Far too long.

I look down at my coffee.  "I have so much caffeine in my system right now."  I put the muffin stump on the table and work on my Cliff bar instead.  It's a better thing to eat.  I don't know what's coming.

At the end of Mosle Road we find an old schoolhouse.  Jane is enamored with the weather vane.

24 miles in, Jane is happy that we've covered 29 miles.  This causes some confusion until she figures out that she's been reading the elevation gain.  Two thousand nine hundred and change halfway through the ride.  Well, that's heartening, we decide.  We've done three fifths of our climbing.

By now I'm not surprised when I find myself bottoming out at 24-32 at 4. 5 mph.  There's a great view on our right, but I can only point.  I'm not stopping this time.

When we gather to re-group, it's next to a house that's typical up here.

Later we pass two that are bordered by wrought-iron fences. Farther on I see a for sale sign that advertises 38 acres.  I wonder if a decimal point is missing.

We stop again in Basking Ridge or Bernards or both or something.  It's my turn again.

The hills on this route go on and on

On and on

On and on

The hills on this route go on and on

All ride long.

Jim says, "I'm ruined.  I'm ruined!"

As we get ready to take off, Jane checks her GPS and is astonished at her average.  "Are you sure that's not the average grade?"

She calls John over to double-check.  No, it's her average.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if our average speed and average grade were the same.  I wouldn't be surprised if our average speed were less than the average grade.

We're about to get the only break of the day:  a few miles of flat roads as we pass through the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.  I'm psyched about that.  "I want to get pictures," I tell him.

"There's nothing to see," he says.  "There's this one bridge with a view.  It's the same picture in all the books.  The bridge, the swamp, and a great blue heron."  Good enough for me.

We're at 37 miles.  I switch into my middle ring.  Behind me, Jane sings,

The cars on the road go "Honk! Honk! Honk!

Off the road

You damn bikes"

The cars on the road go "Honk! Honk! Honk!"

All ride long.

We've been pretty lucky, really, with the honking.  I can remember only one for the day so far.

"I have another one," she says.  Together we smooth it out:

The gal in the back goes "Oh my god

Oh my god

Oh my god"

The gal in the back goes "Oh my god

No more gears!"

Jim flies past me, singing,

Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight

Come out tonight

Come out tonight

I've got Dr. John in my head, singing his studio version of Junco Partner:

Well, give me whiskey, when I get a little frisky.

Cause it's my good drink, when I get a little dry.

Give me tobacco, when I get a little sickly

But give me heaven before I die.

[The version I know is from "Dr. John's Gumbo," with a full band, Nawlins drums, and horn section.  But you can watch him solo, with slightly different lyrics, here.  Go watch it.  If I'd known piano could sound like this back when I was taking lessons as a kid, I might not have quit so soon.]

Gradually the houses fade out and woods fade in.  Sometimes there's marsh on either side of us, sometimes it's houses.  The only way I can tell what's part of the refuge and what's not is by the little goose signs posted every so often.

I wonder about the gun sign.  Safe guns only?

Swamp iris!  Blue flag! I turn around so I can get pictures.  

We get to the bridge with the view just as a great blue heron is taking off.  

I used to have to know all these plants.  Arrow arum is coming up (bottom right), and a few water lilies are about to bloom.

Jane wonders what the bridge is in the distance.  Tom says it's a trail.  He asks me, "You done?"

"Not yet.  One more."  I cross the road and take two.

We're closing in on 50 miles.  There's only one way to go.  I switch back into my granny.

"Right turn!"  It's a sharp turn and a sharp grade.  I don't have much left for it.

Me:  Fuck you, Tom! Fuck you, Tom!
Jane:  Oh my god!
Me:  Fuck you, Tom!
Jane:  No more gears!


John, always in front, never looking tired, finds the switchback first.  He waves down at us.

It's my turn for "Oh my god!" as I approach it.  But it's not bad.  It's not bad at all.  I look over and holler, "It's all right!  It's all right!"

But then it isn't.  It's far from all right.  It's a fucking asphalt wall.  I'm out of gears and out of breath.  I don't dare stand.  I find a position that keeps my front wheel on the ground.  I wonder if I should tack.  No.  That'll just take longer.  I should stop.  But then I won't be able to clip in again.  It looks like it's leveling out up there.  OK.  No, there's more.  I should stop.  But then I won't be able to clip in again.  It looks like it's leveling out up there.  I've been anaerobic for too long.  Just a little more.  John's stopped.  That's the top.  Just a little more.

One by one we get there, beat, trashed, ruined.  Jane, in keeping herself entertained and focused, has come up with another verse as she watched her GPS up the hill:

The people on the ride go "Fuck you, Tom!"

"We've got that already."

"What's this climb

At forty-nine?

Twenty-one percent

Your ass is mine

All day long!"

Amen to that.

Tom says, "Chris made me do it."  We stand at the top for a few minutes, fuming.  "Ready to go?"

Chris says, "Wait.  One more thing.  Put your hand out, Laura."

"Huh?"

He shakes it and pats me on the back.  "Congratulations.  You can no longer complain about hills.  You have a new motto:  I may be a Hill Slug, but I'm not afraid of hills.  Fear me, hills."

"I have one:  Fuck you, Chris."  But I slap him on the shoulder.  "Thanks."

We turn right, onto the Jockey Hollow park road.  "It's straight in from here," Tom tells us.  Yeah, straight up.  Jane and I grumble every time the road rises even a little.

I'm so wasted that, when I see the parking lot, I find myself riding straight over a sidewalk and off the curb to get to my car faster.

We call out our averages, a sick joke.  One of us is in the 8's.  Another is in the high 12's.  That's how slow we were going and how steep the hills were.  If we take John and Jim out of the equation (they're kites, after all), it shakes out something like this:  those of us with mountain bike cassettes (Tom, Ron, and I) had higher averages than those with flat-land gears in the back (how does Jane do it?) or triples in the front (Chris).

John emerges with a cooler of beer.

I plop down onto the grass, pushing my disc fluid back where it belongs.  Jane collapses on her back, trying to put her shoulders back where they belonged.  Tom, John, and Ron mill about.

Jim takes off.  Ron leaves.  Tom and Chris head home.  John and Jane leave, with me behind them.  The three of us are looking for somewhere to eat, outside.  The one place they'd seen on the way in is closed.  We're directed to another one a few miles away.  It doesn't look promising.  "It looks like a mausoleum," John says.  We walk away.  "We're just gonna go home," he says.  "Yeah, me too."  But first I'm going back to the little farm market up the road.  Dale's birthday was yesterday and I promised her a plant.

I pick out a huge, hanging fuchsia.  I have to pay inside, where I do my best to pass the frosted flower-shaped cookies and go for an apple instead.  I come out with both, and fizzy water.

In the car, on the highway, I take monster chomps from the apple.  This is good.  I can stay away from the cookies and have some real food when I get home.

Or not.  Caught in a line of traffic behind an eighteen-wheeler, at a red light, in Hillsborough, I tear open the wrapper on a tulip and inhale half of it.  By the next red light, the whole thing is gone.

I get home just in time to drop my stuff and take Jack to the train station for one in a series of Rutgers graduation duties. I text Dale that I have a plant for her, and she invites me to dinner with her, Sean, and her visiting dad and brother.

Sean has been poking around the Sourland Mountain again. We play with maps on my phone.  He wants to know if I'm going to ride tomorrow.

"Nuh uh!  My legs are tired.  My bike is tired!"

Yeah, I suffered today.  But I suffered with six other people and we had fun.