Riding Small, Talking Big

Orchard on Wemrock Road

24 February 2013

For the first time in a month, the five of us who showed up for Winter Larry's ride were on our road bikes.

Ed had been laid up with what he called a "snarfle-virus," sporting a 103°F fever last weekend.  Ron had fixed up his old bike, the one that crashed.  Mark had been in Florida.  Larry had been home, going stir-crazy.  Tom had ventured out on his mountain bike in the snow.  I'd been spending hours at a time indoors on Gonzo, doing my level best to retain some of last summer's endurance.  But mostly we'd all been off the road because of the weather.

Larry figured he'd start us out gently, with a short ride to Battleview Orchards.  His route puts the rest stop very early, before we reach even 15 miles.  Naturally, I groused about that, but Larry said that he'd only memorized the route in one direction.

When one is on an early-season, easy ride with a tailwind, one has a tendency to make big plans for later on.  Today Larry, Tom, and I were plotting a trip to the Navesink Twin Lights.  Starting from Cranbury, the ride would be 100 miles.  Tom and I were good with that.  I need to lead a century sooner or later.  Larry spent the ride scouring his mental map for starting locations that would shorten the ride but not be too far for people to drive.  By the end of the ride he had settled on Thompson Park in Jamesburg.  That sounded good, because we could all go to Mendoker's bakery afterwards.

We tossed around some other big ideas while the tailwind pushed us, but I don't remember what they were. 

Near Battleview Orchard I stopped for pictures.

Battleview is the sort of place that makes sense if you've got a car or a big basket.  There are tables of apples and pears, aisles of breads and cakes, and rows of multi-colored sugary sinfulness that would only serve to bring on a mid-ride sugar crash. 

I'm a sucker for winesap apples, so I chose a big one for my snack. I had no memories of the coffee being good; today added to that.  I had to ask Larry what we were drinking.  He said it was coffee.  I threw most of mine away.

Hot, brown water aside, most of my  Battleview Orchard displeasure comes from it's too-early position in the ride.  I learned from the Tom H School of Bike Routes to put the break somewhere around five miles past the halfway point.  But some of my discomfort comes from the route itself:  it was the first one I was on after I found out that Big Joe had died.  I had announced his death in the beginning of the ride, and at the orchard we sat around glumly reminiscing.  On the other hand, it was on that ride, at the orchard, that Plain Jim introduced himself to me.  So, there is that and the winesaps.


After the early break, we were into a moderate headwind for 20 miles.  I figured that if I could pedal nonstop on Gonzo for two hours, I could push into a headwind for that long.

Tom and I were discussing which of my bikes would be better for the lighthouse ride -- there's a short, steep hill to contend with -- when something went wrong with his rear derailleur.  It didn't take long to figure out that his cable had snapped; the problem was what to do with it.  He decided to tie it around the bottom of his bottle cage, but the end wouldn't stay put. 

Fortunately, I always carry duct tape, a few yards wrapped around an old name card holder I snagged from one of Jack's conferences. With the headwind, Tom wasn't going to need his big chain ring anyway.

So here we are, at the end of February, with bubpkis to show for it.  We've got some training to make up for, so grease your chains.  If the weather is good next Saturday, we're gonna have to work for our rest stop.  I promise, though, that the coffee will be good.