I'm Built For Comfort, I Ain't Built for Speed

Vliettown Road

9 April 2014

Saturday, 5 April:

NOAA:  "Breezy."

8:53 a.m.

NW 17 mph

Gusts 32 mph

Never mind that.  It's a tailwind all the way to Mercer County Park.  Tom is getting the band back together, and I want to be there.

The paved path through the woods is cracks and mud in a steady rhythm on the blacktop.

I arrive 10 minutes early to more than one person telling me, "I thought you'd be on Ed's ride." This is why these guys don't ride with me anymore.  I shake my head, blow a raspberry, wonder how this happened. 

There's time for me to hand out Waders Club cards. Joe reads, "Because we'd rather cross this stream than climb that hill" and says, "Bullshit. You'd cross the stream AND climb the hill."  I tell him about Bloomsbury: "There was a bear up there!"

Dave C is here, and Mighty Mike, Ron, Herb, Cheryl, Al, and Mary.

9:53 a.m. 

NW 22 mph

Gusts 33 mph 

We lean into the crosswinds blowing over empty fields.  We take our time. We talk and talk and talk.  Sometimes Tom finds a tailwind for us. 

Dave is on a snazzy carbon bike he got second-hand. I ride next to him and talk about bike frames. [There's news on that front, but it's the stuff of another post.] We talk about cooking.  He's been making his own rice cakes and energy bars. "I love cooking," he says. To me, it's a chore.

Cheryl tells us about her house being built in Florida, where it is, and about her neighbors on Laughing Gull Lane.  Mighty Mike asks if that's the street she'll be on. "No," she says. "I'm on Latitude Drive."

Mighty Mike says, "The Attitude on Latitude."

"That's right," she says.

"That's gonna stick," I say as we turn into Imlaystown.

10:53 a.m. 

NW 22 mph

Gusts 32 mph 

Tom says, over and over again, "The way back is gonna suck."

We stop at the Wawa in New Egypt.  I reach out to the group, the remains of my muffin in hand. "Who wants my bottom?"

I don't hear the whole conversation after that, but I do hear Dave say something about eating his balls when we get back to the park.

The return trip is crosswinds and headwinds. Tom takes us over Hill Road, northbound, the easy way. We regroup at the Walnford mill bridge. Mighty Mike says, "Well, that resembled exercise."

Then we continue uphill and into the wind towards Allentown.

11:53 a.m. 

NW 17 mph

Gusts 32 mph

Gordon Road is dead-on into it. I keep my climbing gears on my flat-road bike for days like this.  I look down at my speedometer as I spin in the wind tunnel between the warehouses and the long greenhouse. 12 mph.

12:53 p.m. 

W 16 mph 

G 33 mph

Dave opens a container of home-made date-cashew-honey-vanilla/ginger balls (I avoid the ginger ones).

Wow. "I could eat these buggers all day long," I tell him, but I stop at two.  

Ron and I head out of the park on the road.  I prefer the wind to the thumping path. Halfway into the park again, Ron peels off towards home.

On Youngs Rd, I see somebody who looks like Sean.  He waves. I wave and holler, "Yo!" I consider turning around, but he has continued on, so I don't stop. The  wind is burning my eyes behind my sunglasses.

1:53 p.m. 

NW 17 mph

Gusts 32 mph

Home at 1:20 p.m., I text Dale to find out if it was Sean I'd seen. It wasn't Sean. (Some guy out there is probably a tad confused right now.) Sean is heading out in an hour.  Wise choice, I text back.  The wind is supposed to die down a little by then.

My legs are tired.  I do a round of PT, go out to dinner with the usual gang (minus Jack, who is lecturing at a conference in DC), and stretch again before turning in for a solid 8 hours of cat-accompanied sleep.


Sunday, 6 April

I'm expecting Ron, Plain Jim, and Snakehead.  I'm glad to see Barry too.

But the others make me nervous. They're not Hill Slugs.  They're Rocky Hill Raiders.  John and Jane are honorary Slugs, true.  Pete G tolerates my slow pace. But Arnie S?  Peter frickin' H?  

"You don't belong on my ride," I tell Peter. 

"I just had hip replacement surgery," he assures me.

I have to remind myself that this happens every spring. The Fastboys, getting a late start on the season, use me as a warm-up.  Once.  Then I never see them again.

I have two cue sheets on folded 3x5 cards, one in each hand.  They have to pick a hand. Left wins. "We're going to..." It takes me a few seconds to unfold it. "Oldwick."

Arnie says the bridge at the end of East Mountain is out. "Well, you'll all get your cards punched," I tell him.  He says it was passable on Tuesday.

I remind them that I stop for pictures.

At the top of Blackpoint, it's Arnie who stops first.  "Something wrong?" someone asks.

Arnie says, "I've never stopped to look before.  I'm always flying past.  You can see stuff in the winter you can't see in the summer."

Arnie has some Slug in him!

The Neshanic River from Blackpoint Road:

Our next detour is the Thor Solberg Airport in Readington.

We watch two planes take off.

A few miles on I stop again for the old tractors on Pulaski Road.

I think by now my stopping is getting on people's nerves.  I have no evidence for this, just a hunch that we really should get on with it.  

We're on Rockaway Road when a team in full kit blazes past us in the opposite direction. Ron says, "Next time we should all dress the same.  I wanna look that good."

"We do look that good.  We're totally cool," I tell him.  

If you ever see me in team kit, shoot me dead.

As much as I want to stop for pictures on Hill and Dale, I don't. I take it all in: the barns, the pond, the sloping pastures, the hills in the distance.

We regroup at 517. Jim and John fantasize about having an expensive sports car.  Jim says, "I'd sell it and get two Priuses." I sneak in a couple of pictures.

The Oldwick General Store has neither closed nor burned down.  Jim got the bottom of my muffin.

Arnie asks which road we're taking out of here.  "Vliettown."

"Ohhhhhh," he says, and that worries Jim a little.

"It's just annoying," I reassure him.

Vliettown Road is a fuck you in both directions, whether you're tired and on your way to muffins, or full of muffins and on your way home.  But the view at Black River Road is always good.  No hay bales this time.

We hammer down Rattlesnake Bridge Road.

The road names here drive me crazy. We take South Branch to Studdiford to cross the Raritan, then turn onto South Branch.  

Immediately after the turn is a short, steep hill that overlooks the river and feels like an overpass.  Years ago, Frank A got a leg cramp here and had to dismount in the middle of the hill. I think of it every time I'm here, which isn't the best light to remember a deceased friend in, but there it is.

We make a left turn soon after. Everyone is across but Jane.  I call out to slow down.  They stop, eventually, ahead of me.  I look back to see Jane at the corner, off her bike. I turn around.  "Something go kerflooey?"

"My legs.  Both of them cramped on that hill."  I tell her about Frank as she digs in her pack for salt.

There's a cat in the yard behind us. Pussycat don't care.

When Jane and I make the turn onto River Road, nobody's there.  We're close enough to home that people know how to get there.  I guess they got tired of stopping.  I'm a little pissed off though.  I take in the scenery, the expansive fields by the river, slightly rolling beneath us.  I'd stop for a picture, but...


At the end of the road, the rest of the group is there.


When we reach the closed road sign on East Mountain, I'm ready to give out my first Waders Club punches.

But we hardly have to slow down through the thin coating of red clay covering the road.  We all agree that this doesn't count. We didn't even have to clip out.

Better luck next time.