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.)	Weather	Sky Cond.	Temperature (ºF)				Relative Humidity	Wind Chill (°F)	Heat Index (°F)	Pressure		Precipitation (in.)
						Air	Dwpt	6 hour					altimeter (in)	sea level (mb)	1 hr	3 hr	6 hr
								Max.	Min.
15	15:53	NW 17 G 26	10.00	A Few Clouds	FEW070	57	27			32%	NA	NA	29.83	1009.5
15	14:53	NW 15 G 28	10.00	Fair	CLR	59	25			27%	NA	NA	29.81	1008.9
15	13:53	W 16 G 33	10.00	Fair	CLR	58	23	59	48	26%	NA	NA	29.83	1009.4
15	12:53	W 20 G 25	10.00	A Few Clouds	FEW080	57	28			33%	NA	NA	29.83	1009.5
15	11:53	W 14 G 28	10.00	Overcast	BKN060 OVC075	57	30			36%	NA	NA	29.82	1009.1

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.