The Calendar Ride

Spring Hill Road near Clinton, NJ

5 May 2013

Yesterday was another near-perfect ride.  We had just the right number of people (six), we stuck together, the weather was as good as it gets, and we might have recruited a new Hill Slug.

I never expect a lot of people to show up when I start far from home and advertise a long, hilly ride, and that's fine, because I can keep track of half a dozen people without having to stop pedaling.  We started later than usual because I knew I'd have been out with friends the night before.  Fortunately, I got enough sleep, and the carb overload did me well.

The new guy was John K.  He introduced himself by cracking a joke.  I had a good feeling about him.  Turns out he used to ride with the Free Wheelers out in the flatlands, long ago, dropping the hammer with Chris C and Ed P.

I had three cue sheets to Clinton with me and went off all of them when we blew past Alexauken Creek Road.  That gave us a good warm-up going north on 29 past Stockton.  Lower Creek Road is just as pretty as Alexauken Creek Road anyway.  I only had to check the map once, which is pretty good for me when I'm up on the western part of the ridge above Frenchtown.  We eventually got ourselves back onto one of my routes.

At the top of Joe Ent Road, where it meets Quakertown Road, I have tried and tried and tried to get a good picture of the northern view.  John said, "We should make a calendar.  This would be April."  I pulled out my camera just as a tractor approached.  I heard a few people say, "Get a picture of the tractor!"

I did, and then attempted, once again, to get something other than a two-dimensional landscape.  This time, perhaps because not everything is yet green, it almost worked.

April

We turned east and headed out of the Delaware River's watershed into the Raritan's.  The route would take us along the ridge where the Dr Seuss trees live.  They don't look as Seussy from this angle nor without their leaves.

To get to the river we turned onto Spring Hill Road.  Halfway down is an expansive view of the Sidney Brook watershed, including a pond and horse jumping ring.

May

While I was taking pictures, John was taking in the view.  A man with "healthquest" printed on his sweatshirt was walking his dog (Shaggy) while chomping on a cigar.  A former cyclist himself, he asked us where we'd been and where we were going.  His house, a studio for his artist wife, faced the road and the valley.  "This view figures prominently in my wife's work," he said.

By now the guys must have been wondering what happened to us.  Dave C took this picture while they were waiting.


"Look at that!"  John said of the view south on River Road.  "Another one for the calendar."

June

The quarter-mile of dirt road leading from the river towards Clinton seemed worse than it had two years ago, but it was flat and nobody complained.

July

We took a leisurely break by the river in Clinton.  I drank a frozen coffee concoction that tasted more like sugar than anything else.  I don't know for sure all that was in it, but it kept me from hunger well into the late afternoon, hours after I got home.

It got me up Baptist Church hill too.

August

As a reward for hauling ourselves up the ridge, we got to coast for miles down Rick Road, back into the Delaware River watershed.  We turned at Schoolhouse.  I tried to capture the hill from the bottom, but this is the best I could do.

We'd already been at the intersections of Goose Island and Rake Factory and of Senator Stout and Hog Hollow.  We added Pittstown and Slacktown to our list.

By  now the miles were adding up.  To shorten the ride, I decided to take Pine Hill from top to bottom. I knew that the top half was unpaved, but Ron the randonneur had been on it recently.  He'd said it was rideable, so I figured we'd give it a shot.

What a mistake.  I didn't count on having to descend around dirt curves or climb through hard-packed dirt.  Any miles we saved were lost in the time it took to navigate.  As I approached the incline, with Dave and John ahead of me, I called out, "Sorry, guys!  Sorry, guys!"  To my horror, they dismounted, thinking I'd meant for them to turn around.  I hadn't meant that.

We gathered at the intersection of Pine Hill and Pavilica, where the road becomes paved again.  Jim pulled in last, stopped and said, "What.  The.  Fuck.  ?"

JeffX had an answer:  "Jimmy M puts at least four dirt roads into every ride!"

Jim said, "Why would I want to do THAT?"

"Diversity!"

"Wha--"

I cut in.  "Jim.  Jim.  Two words:  Iron Bridge."

He paused.  "Yeah, there's that.  At least this wasn't wet."

When we'd all stopped laughing, we descended, returning to Lower Creek and Route 29.  We finished with 59 miles.  When I suggested to JeffX that perhaps a few laps in the parking lot would be in order so that we could make it a metric, he looked over, smiled, shook his head, and gave me a look that said, "Why bother?"  He might be a fastboy racer dude, but he does have some Hill Slug in him.