Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Lambertville to Clinton on a Cold, Gray Day, with Steel Frame Fantasies


how to make a 350-foot drop disappear:  zoom in

25 March 2014

The route was perfect for a mild, cloudless, slightly breezy, spring day. Unfortunately, Sunday was not a mild, cloudless, slightly breezy spring day.

We pushed off from Lambertville at 40 degrees, under a blanket of clouds, with a steady northwest wind.  The wind got stronger, we never saw the sun, and the air never warmed more than a few degrees.

But we had a good time anyway.

The first dozen miles were mostly uphill.  I've been on almost all of these roads before; however, I'd managed to forget that 519 out of Stockton is a double-humper.  Having warned the group about the first ascent, I spent the second one apologizing.

I thought all would be well and good when we got to the ridge.  That's where we hit the wind, the sort of wind that, when one is on a slight upgrade, makes one ponder why one is moving under 15 miles per hour on an apparently flat road.

We passed through Pittstown.  Jim knows the spot well enough now to point out my favorite sign:  "Do not enter.  This is not an exit."  Perricone's, where we used to have our second stop on the Double Reservoir Ride, which was always perfectly chilled and roomy inside, which had a shaded picnic table outside, which was the only place between High Bridge and Frenchtown that I could think of stopping on a hilly metric, which had gone from a deli to a restaurant in the past year, is now out of business completely.

There wasn't much time to ponder the fate of Perricones, because as soon as we turned onto 579 we were climbing again, 415 feet in 2.9 miles, straight into the wind.

Our reward was the descent on Baptist Church Road.  It doesn't look like much. It never does when my camera is involved.  Trust me, though: between the field and the hills is a 350-foot drop and an interstate highway.


We tried to figure out which ridge we were looking at.  Snakehead wondered if it might be where Fiddler's Elbow is, but I knew that we were two ridges and one river south of that. The best I could figure was that we were looking at the ridge that hides Bloomsbury. Now that I have the online maps to geek out over, I can tell you that we were looking at Musconetcong Mountain.  On the far western side is Bloomsbury and the Musconetcong River in the Delaware watershed. If you follow the ridge to its northeastern end, you'll get to Schooley's Mountain, where Tom likes to drag us at least once each summer.  Streams on the southern face of the ridge drain into the Delaware on the western side and into the Raritan on the eastern side. Route 579, where we'd just been, seems to be the dividing point. I tell you all of this because I'm sure you were desperate to know.


At the bottom of the drop, we still had 5 miles to go.  We continued downhill. My fingers began to freeze, I was hungry, and I needed to take a furious wizz.  I forgot all of that, though, when we pulled into Clinton.  The renovations by the river are complete.  Now we can walk to the water's edge.

The spillway:



The water wheel below the spillway:


Duck butt:


The river's edge:


More mallards:


The plaza by the river:

Snakehead, Bagel Hill Barry, Needs A Nickname Ron, and Plain Jim

It was here I remembered to ask Jim about the frames hanging in WheelFine.  "Lugs?"

"Lugs," he said.

"I want a steel frame with pretty lugs," I said wistfully, knowing full well that Kermit has fine lugs, albeit hiding under psychedelic paint.

Jim said, "If you get a frame, I'll build the bike."

Oh no.  "I can't get another bike," I whined.  "I have three in heavy rotation already. I use them all.  What would I do with another one?  Where would I put it?"

Inside Citispot (which, to my relief, has neither closed nor burned down), Jim said, "There was a bit more climbing than I expected."

Barry said, "I knew what to expect," and to me, "You need to stop apologizing for the hills.  It's a hilly ride."

"Yeah," I conceded, "If you wanted a flat ride you'd be out with Larry right now."

I never meant to eat the whipped cream on the top of my mocha, but when I got to the bottom, the whipped cream was gone.

Jim had to sing us through the tangle of intersections on our way out of town.  I was aiming for the view on Sidney Road just after the turn off of Pittstown Road.

Looking west, towards the ridge we'd been on:




Looking southeast, where we were headed:


Are those my Dr. Seuss trees?  I think those are my Dr. Seuss trees. We'll know in about ten minutes.


About ten minutes later, Ron asked, "Are those those trees?"

"Yep!"


On his way to the trees, Marc's chain pulled a Miss Piggy and jumped between the cassette and spokes.  I feel somewhat vindicated, because Marc has a 32-tooth cog in the back, as I do.  It's a new bike; the cables have stretched.  "I swear it's making me slower," he said.

"The wind is making you slower!" Jim answered.

We could forget about the wind for now.  It would be at our backs for most of the ride home.

Here's the view from the intersection of 579 and 523:


Our tiny little Sourland Mountain is in there somewhere.


Although we regularly take Sandy Ridge-Mount Airy Road to Lambertville and Sergeantsville, this is the first time I've taken pictures from the intersection  at Bowne Station Road.  We would follow the power lines all the way back to Lambertville.


For the record, lest one assume I stop for every cow, we passed lots of cows on this ride.  Until now I did not take pictures.


After the ride I drove to Upper Black Eddy to pick up an order of coffee from Homestead.  There, I met the roaster and found out that they'll ship for $7.99, free if the order is over $100 (between me and Terry C, we've got that covered).  They're starting a subscription service, too.  If enough of us go in on this, I could be handing out 5 pound bags of coffee from my living room.  Let me know.

I decided to take county roads most of the way home, and in doing so I saw the views on 519 and 579 again.

As usual, the Boys were asleep when I got home.  Their slogan is "We nap so you don't have to."

Burnaby, 9.5, and Mojo, 3

Jack and I went out to dinner with Terry C, Gordon, Terry S, Dale, and Sean. Over heaps of Mexican food, I told Sean of my lug lust.  We hatched a plan.  "I could get a frame," I mused, "and put Gonzo's components on.  It would still be my commuter bike."

Later that night I fleshed it out even more in an email to Jim, adding that I could donate the LeMond frame (which I've never liked because it's lugless and badly painted) to the New Brunswick Bike Exchange.  Jim could occupy himself all winter by building not one, but two bikes.

The next morning I mentioned the plan to Jack, not being sure how much of it he'd heard over the din at the restaurant.  He said, "Why not get another bike?"

This, dear readers, is a good husband.

I explained why it wouldn't be prudent.

I let Jim know that Jack would not kick me out of the house if I brought another frame into the house.  Jim wrote back,

"...Jack has not heard and been seduced by the siren song of tools. He hoards them not; he does not compare and contrast materials and manufacturers; he does not have opinions on, for example, the relative merits of chromoly vs. stainless. He wastes his substance on such fripperies as wine, literature, and fountain pens. He will never know the joy of a perfectly-torqued bottom bracket, and the silence that betokens its excellence. My hands twitch with the anticipation of the setting of the torque wrenches...As if the getting of another bike is the end of the building, adjusting, and tweaking process! No, a new bike would be even worse, because EVERY measurement and specification would be subject to adjustment, not merely to attempting to match the bikes you already have! (I suppose I could just leave the new bike the way it comes from the shop... no, on second thought, I couldn't; I am constitutionally incapable of such a thing.)

Oh, my stars. I'm all a-twitter now; I may have to download and install a new operating system [or] something just to calm down."  


So.  If anyone out there sees a 54 cm electric blue or cherry red steel frame with polished chrome lugs, let me know.

Meanwhile, I'll run the Lambertville to Clinton route again when it's 60 degrees and sunny.  Which, the way this year has been going, will be, oh, some time in July.

Is it snowing out yet?

Yes, it is.  The grass is coated.  Again.  I'm going to go bang my head against a wall now.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Sunday, March 23

20 March 2014

We haven't been to Clinton in a while.  Let's go from Lambertville to Clinton.

I haven't worked out the route yet, but count on something around 55 miles.  The ride will start at 9:00 a.m. from the CVS parking lot on Route 29 at the northern end of Lambertville.

This ride will be a little tougher than the last few have been because we'll be going from valley to ridge to valley in both directions, and we're in the windy season.  On the plus side, what goes up must come down.

See you Sunday.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

What We Said at the Start of Winter Larry's Ride


St Vladimir Russian Orthodox Church, Cassville

16 March 2014


Winter Larry:  We're going to see the Russian church, in solidarity with Ukraine.

OLPH:  You're going to visit a Russian church in solidarity with Ukraine.*

Winter Larry:  Yeah, well...




OLPH, to Winter Larry:  You've got a bunch of tired Slugs.

Plain Jim:  You know what they say.

OLPH:  What?

Plain Jim:  Rule Number Five.

Someone:  What's Rule Number Five?

Plain Jim, Eddie the Snake, Others:  Harden the fuck up!



(*I mean, seriously, ten bikers milling about the outside of a beautiful church is going to make Putin change his mind about annexing Crimea?  Really?)

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Uphill and Into the Wind

Slug #1:  What's a cake without candles?
Slug #2:  A cake!

15 February 2014

I'm trashed.  This is good.  My hamstrings are sore.  Perfect.  After a near-metric century today (missing by one mile), I feel caught up.

In  honor of Ed's birthday -- it was his idea to do this -- we went to Main Street in Kingston.  He ordered the cake and I came up with a route meant to satisfy his need for challenging hills, big descents, and distance.  I wouldn't tell him, or anyone else, what I had in mind.  I was enjoying Jim and Celeste attempting to puzzle it out in the comments section.

The extra miles from my house thing is gaining in popularity.  There were four Slugs in the street at 8:30 a.m., a full half hour before the ride was scheduled to begin.  I hadn't even started breakfast at that point.  Jack stumbled down in his robe at the same moment that the second of the Slugs knocked on the door.  I was pouring coffee soon after when my phone rang.  Cheryl, waiting in Pennington, had missed the part in the blog post about starting at 9:30.  She had enough time to drive home and back again, but decided against it and went to find coffee instead.

Sean joined us for the ride to Pennington.  Nursing an old knee injury, he headed for the Pole Farm when we headed out towards Route 31.

I told the assembled crowd where we were headed, and chided Jim about his prediction that the ride would be tougher, longer, and more scenic before the rest stop.  "This time we're stopping a few miles before the halfway point."  I added, "On the way back the wind is going to be [pause] interesting."

We'd barely crossed Route 31 when Chris figured out where I was headed.  "Is this a two Poor Farm ride?" he asked. 

"You're very clever.  Shh."  I said.

Ed asked, "Are we going up Poor Farm?"

I said, "I ain't tellin'."

Chris said, "Shh!"

"Right turn!"

"I hate you," Jim said.  Many others groaned, but we got through it.  We always do.

On Crusher Road, Jim stopped to photograph the gall, half gone now.  I figured I might as well get a picture too,


and get a shot of those cows down there while I'm at it.


Jim mused that he ought to broaden his description of my cow photos to include not only Mount Airy, but cows in general.  If I take a lot of cow pictures it's not a premeditated thing.  Plus, there are a lot of cows around here.  Sooner or later one or two are going to wander into the scenery.

We had a bit of a tailwind between Hopewell and Kingston.  Ed, having internalized my tutorial and admonishments from his ride last Saturday, stopped at every intersection and said, "Snake."

This is because, in order to break him of his habit of whipping through left turns without the rest of the group, I told him that, as a leader, he needs to think of himself and the group as one organism.  "Like a snake," I suggested.  "You don't want to get your head cut off and leave your body behind."

So it was "Snake" and "Snake eyes" at every corner.  At the end of the ride I decided that we should call him "Eddie the Snake."  Maybe it'll stick, unlike "Eddie the Shoulder," which only made sense for the few weeks a year ago when he was injured and not riding anyway.  If he can stick to keeping his group together on left turns, he can keep the nickname.

We ate well in Kingston, then waited far too long for a mysterious gentleman to get out of the bathroom.  The delay meant that we'd be facing the worst of the headwinds.  It was noon.

I knew we were in for a slice of hell when I could feel the wind even on the canal. When we turned west onto Belle Mead-Griggstown Road, it was like hitting a wall. We pushed against that wall all the way to the base of the Sourland Mountain.

"Please tell me we're not climbing Dutchtown-Zion," Cheryl said, "Because if you are I'm leaving."

"We're not.  We're taking Grandview."

She put her head on her handlebars.  I said, "If we take 518 it's gonna be a lot worse.  Let's get up into the trees and stay there."

The lower half of Grandview is out in the open.  The upper half is bordered by a thin row of trees on either side.  I was in a low gear on the lower part of the hill when I feathered my front shifter to stop some cross-chain rub and wound up in my granny gear.  I left it there.  For once Miss Piggy did the right thing in spite of herself.  When we got to the top I made sure that everyone knew I put this hill in for Ed.

Even deep within the cathedral of tall trees on the Sourland Ridge we could still feel some wind.  I changed the route so that we'd stay in the trees as long as possible.  It was dumb luck that found us with a tailwind for most of the last handful of miles back to Pennington and home.

We were short of a metric century by about a mile when we turned into my neighborhood, so we circled around to where Sean and Dale live, hoping to get their attention.  When, on the third pass around the block, they still didn't see us, I stopped and knocked on the door.  Sean came outside to check up on us.  We never did get to 100 km.

Eddie the Snake asked that I document the headwinds.  Here's NOAA's record:
  

D
a
t
e
Time
(edt)
Wind
(mph)
Vis.
(mi.)
WeatherSky Cond.Temperature (ºF)Relative
Humidity
Wind
Chill
(°F)
Heat
Index
(°F)
PressurePrecipitation (in.)
AirDwpt6 houraltimeter
(in)
sea level
(mb)
1 hr3 hr6 hr
Max.Min.
1515:53NW 17 G 2610.00A Few CloudsFEW070572732%NANA29.831009.5
1514:53NW 15 G 2810.00FairCLR592527%NANA29.811008.9
1513:53W 16 G 3310.00Fair

CLR5823594826%NANA29.831009.4
1512:53W 20 G 2510.00A Few CloudsFEW080572833%NANA29.831009.5
1511:53W 14 G 2810.00OvercastBKN060 OVC075573036%NANA29.821009.1

We were already on the mountain when the gusts were at their worst.  The shift from west to northwest was what gave us the perfect push home.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, March 15: Ed's Birthday Ride

13 March 2014


We're going to Main Street in Kingston, where Ed might share a cake with us.  Getting there and back will be either 50 miles (if you choose the 9:30 a.m. start at the Hopewell Administration Building on Main Street, across from Ingleside, in Pennington) or 61 miles (if you choose to start from my house at 9:00 a.m.). 


I put some hills in that only Ed likes.  You can thank me later.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The Last of the Snowy Rides


Rocktown Road at Wertsville Road

12 March 2014

Last Sunday's ride has got to be the last ride we'll have done with snow still on the ground this winter.

Woosamonsa Road, at the bottom of the hill:



Cows and calves at Mount Airy, because now I'm expected to pull out my camera:




Outside of the Sergeantsville General Store:


Rocktown Road at Wertsville Road:




Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Giggle of the Day





11 March 2014

I know I owe you photos from this weekend, but first I need to show you this.

It's a 32-foot ladder that was inadvertently left in a duct in our lab.  The walls were built around it, and now the contractors can't remove it without sawing it into pieces.

Good times.





Sunday, March 2, 2014

Going a Long Way for a Bad Joke

File:Statler and Waldorf.jpg
(Mark and Neil, property of Disney)

2 March 2014

We were out late in NYC last night, so late that I refused to look at the clock after 1:00 a.m.  No matter; I was determined to be on Winter Larry's Cranbury ride today.

Yesterday I took Gonzo up to Princeton and back for a meeting.  It was a pothole recognizance ride; bike commuting begins on March 10, provided I can see the road.  So, sleep-deprived as I was, I had mostly fresh legs under me. I also had caffeine in me, which served only to make me feel awake as I would on a normal caffeine-free day.

The forecast was for a very slight chance of rain ahead of this evening's snowstorm.  The air was above freezing.  There was almost no wind, and a thick cloud cover hung over us.

We were seven, the perfect number for a Winter Larry ride.  Most of the fastboys from last week were elsewhere, leaving the ride to us mellow folk.
Mark and Neil were there.  I know that for some of you the Mark and Neil Show is an acquired taste (for which they're proud).  I enjoy their tomfoolery.

As Winter Larry was finishing up his pre-ride speech, I asked in a whiny, sarcastic voice, "Can we go to Clarksburg?  Pleeeeeeeease?"

"Just for that, we're going to Clarksburg."

We headed south, then hooked west in Allentown towards Robbinsville.  As we rounded a corner, I caught the end of a conversation between Larry and Neil:

"So, Larry.  Do snow banks pay interest?"

This is the sort of thing that one might hear in one's head as one is drifting off to sleep.  In some other world, it would make perfect sense.  Today I was just groggy enough that it seemed completely rational.

What followed for the next few miles were more groaners from Neil and Mark.  A dead branch in the road prompted Neil to ask Larry if it was a branch of a snow bank.  Snow on a berm caused me to ask Neil if it was a mega-bank, to which he answered in an even worse pun, which I've fortunately forgotten.

Just north of Walnford we got pelted by sleet.  We stopped to check the radar and decided we'd best head back to Cranbury, away from the edge of the storm.

Clarksburg:  there but for a few drops of rain.

When we passed through Allentown again, we were out of the rain, so we decided to stop at Bruno's.  None of us had been there since the bike shop moved to Main Street and added a candy store in the rear.  Bikes, chocolate, and coffee.  'Nuff said. (For the record, I didn't try the coffee, so I can't report on it).

There were a few more drops of rain when we set out again, but we left it behind in Allentown.

On Old York Road, between hollering "Hole!" at regular intervals, I found myself next to Neil and Mark.  "I like riding with you guys."

"Yeah," Mark said, "Without Neil we're lacking a certain je ne sais quoi."

"Je sais quoi," I answered.

"I like to think of us as Abbot and Costello," Mark said.

"Naah," Neil replied.  "More like Waldorf and Astoria."

Waldorf and Astoria?  I said, "You mean Statler and Waldorf?"

"Yeah.  Those guys."

We took a fairly direct route back to Cranbury, the sky to the south of us looking ominous.  We had gone only 35 miles.

One day in the distant past I had decided that a ride doesn't count unless it's at least 40 miles.  Count towards what I don't know.  I don't even record my individual ride distances. Nonetheless, I had to do at least 40 today, what with impending April metrics and summer centuries looming, so I ambled off towards Plainsboro and did some of the Plain Jim Pre-Ride Loop in reverse. "This is pathetic," I was thinking.  "I'm aiming for 40 in March.  Last year at this time I bet I was shooting for 60."

40, 60.  One of those numbers is probably the total inches of snow accumulation we've had this winter.  Sean has been counting:  tonight is our 14th storm.  As I said to Neil, we'll be making big deposits into our driveway snow banks tomorrow.  Ba-dum-bum.



Saturday, March 1, 2014

Goodbye, Peacock's


photo by Cheryl McDonald

1 March 2014

One of our favorite rest stops burned down last night.  So far there's been no information about the cause, but there haven't been any reports of injuries either.

 via Twitter

From the Hunterdon County Democrat:


Early this afternoon, Cheryl and Ron biked past what's left of the general store. She says it's still smoldering:


Will Peacock's General Store rise from the ashes?*  When's the Ride for Peacock's fundraiser?**


(*Insert your own bird-to-bird transformation joke here.)

(**No, not that I know of.)