Racist Buffalo?
13 April 2014
Five Slugs joined me today: Ron, Cheryl, Marc, Barry, and John K.
We left from Lambertville, headed up Lower Creek, and took Pine Hill to get to the top of the ridge. I only ever take Pine Hill this time of year because there's plenty of time to catch the view of the valley between the bare trees as we plod up at zero point something miles per hour.
John was riding a steel, lugged, 7-speed Serotta from 1988. It was his dream bike back in the day, and when he found it for sale while he was on a business trip, he bought it. "I put the frame on the other bed in the hotel room," he said. "I kept turning on the light to look at it." He placed a big order with Nashbar, and when the parts arrived, "I stayed up until 3 a.m. building it." He took it on a group ride a few hours later. I told him about my quest for a lugged steel frame (still the stuff of a future post). He told me about Folk Engineered frames, made right here in Newark, New Jersey. Follow the link and look at the lug design in the last picture. I'll wait.
Pretty cool, huh?
He told me to take a peek at Ellis Cycles too. There's some sexy stuff at that link too. I'll wait. Go.
It's still not as good as what I have on order. But that's the stuff of another blog post. Let's get back to the scenery.
This was our first warm day of the season. The air was sticky and hazy. Here's a view of Pennsylvania from the top of Gallmeier Road at Everittstown Road.
I didn't stop for any cows last week. On Stamets Road I finally broke down and stopped for pictures. The sheer number of them here should make up for all those I passed by.
The calf didn't move at all. "You lookin' at me?"
These are Belted Galloway cows. Michael H calls them "Oreo cows."
Homestead General Store was crowded with both kinds of bikers: the Spandex kind and the leather kind. We also met three little bulldogs, one of whom was named Knuckles.
I'd given the group the option of hammering down Route 29 all the way home, but we opted to stay in the hills instead. Outside of Frenchtown we took Horseshoe Bend, and from there Spring Hill.
I hadn't been on Spring Hill in many years. The first time (perhaps the only time) I was there, I remember cresting a hill and coming face to face with a pissed-off looking buffalo.
The hill we crested was steep. I stopped for a picture of a messy pile of hay.
Cheryl passed by. "Cross this one off your list," she said.
Cheryl spotted the buffalo, way down at the end of a long, gravel driveway. To me and some of the rest of us, it looked like a rock. John, Ron, and I turned around to get another look, not quite believing that we weren't looking at a rock. Just then an SUV pulled out of the driveway. A woman who looked to be in her thirties, with two kids in the back seats, rolled down the window.
"That's Gussie," she said. "She's 20 years old, has one eye, and doesn't like black people."
Excuse me?
I hope I made a face and I hope she saw it. Who the hell says that? Why say that? Who the hell teaches a buffalo to be racist? The car pulled away and I said, "There are no racist buffalo, just racist owners." I can only hope the kids have a different fate.
John said, "It was the white man who killed all the buffalo."
I'm going to cross this road off my list.
We had fewer than ten miles left to go when I turned off of Kingwood-Locktown Road onto Wickecheoke.
Dirt. I stopped, pulled out my phone, checked where we were, and decided that the best route was forward. When I mapped this route, I noted that there were two names for this road, the second being Upper Creek, which I've been on many, many times. "It's gonna turn to pavement," I said. John rode ahead and I followed. For over a mile we rode on gravel and hard pack. We came to an intersection I hadn't anticipated, an intersection of gravel and gravel. By the time we found blacktop again, we'd been on 1.5 miles of dirt road.
As a result of the combination of boneheadedness and bad-assery that took us down 1.5 miles of dirt road that I could easily have avoided, I punched everyone's Hill Slugs Waders Club cards when we got back to Lambertville.
When I got home, Jack and our college buddy, Rob, were jamming on their acoustic guitars in the living room. As I engulfed the last of my pasta with kale, they were finishing Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere:"
Climb that hill
No matter how steep
When you get up to it
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