Chatsworth Lake: This is the Pinelands.
15 October 2016
We were 40 miles in when I remembered that I hadn't been on a weekend ride in three weeks.
Tom, Jack H, Jim, Bob, and I made up the usual Hill Slugs. Because Gordon and Rajesh were there, though, Tom performed the ritual Blessing of the Bikes with the Holy Kickstand.
We left the Mansfield Township Park on the newly-opened segment of the Kinkora Trail, a former rail bed now paved wide and smooth with asphalt. The surface was so good that we were able to reach typical road cruising speeds as we looped around, avoiding Mount Pleasant and a chunk of Island Road.
Which was good, because Island Road is pretty much chunks right now.
I'd swiped the route from Tom, written myself a cue sheet, and dutifully given the route to Alan, Jim's Garmin Touring (get it?), should I lose my way. Tom, though, said he'd made some modifications in order to bring the distance up to something close to 62 miles.
We were heading south, into the Pinelands. Rajesh had never been there before, and as a punishment he had to listen to me spout off about forest fires, how the pines and oaks have adapted, the sandy soil, the two varieties of blueberries, cranberry bogs, and how I've forgotten the scientific name for cranberries.
Our true rest stop would come late in the ride, so we stopped at the Ranger's Station in Lebanon State Forest. Those of us who are old enough still call it that. I summoned Rajesh over to a map posted at the edge of the Cranberry Trail. It was old enough too. It still said Lebanon. He and I spent a good five minutes geeking out over the map. That was fun.
Tom's diversion took us through Chatsworth, population nil. We were not expecting throngs of people and lines of cars through the main intersection. They were there for the Vaccinium macrocarpon festival. We passed a booth selling Vaccinium macrocarpon chili. Ick, I think. Tom suggested we could stop here instead of in Tabernacle. I said, "No. I just want to get out of this mess."
So we did, and around the corner was this, Chatsworth Lake, in all of its quintessential autumnal Pinelands glory. We all stopped for pictures.
From there it wasn't far to Nixon's in Tabernacle. Outside the general store was a row of tables and a few volunteers holding a bake sale for rescued kill-shelter dogs. Bowser, a beautiful mix of something or other that I've forgotten, laid at the feet of one of the volunteers. "He was a day away from being killed," his owner said. I skipped the desserts and gave them a donation. With all the layers of clothes I'd stripped, I'd run out of pockets for food.
Besides, there was rice pudding to be had inside the store.
Rajesh and I walked across the parking lot to the field where Nixons has set up picnic tables under a shelter. The tables were occupied, though, by a group of serious-looking elders. We sat on the grass.
"I can hear that they're singing," I said, "But I'm half deaf. I can't hear what they're singing."
"Ave Maria," he said.
"Jim should be here."
I told him later. "Which Ave Maria?" he asked. "There are dozens of them." Shows what I know.
Ten miles later, Jim pulled over with a mechanical problem. One of his rear derailleur pulley wheels had seized. After some mucking about with a screwdriver to loosen it, the wheel spun again. That he was able to fix this within five minutes is a testament to his mechanical ability. Whether or not the Holy Kickstand had a role in this (either through help or through inadequacy), we'll never know. (Jim later reported that the pulley's bearings had been ground to smithereens.)
We made it back to Mansfield with a metric century-ish distance. In the clear blue sky's afternoon sunlight, Kermit was looking especially sparkly:
I left Kermit in the car overnight, with plans to do some sort of flat riding on Sunday. Unfortunately, my choices were a leaderless B out of Vaccinium macrocarpon, a C+ ride from Etra (but I wanted to be back home early), or Marc's B+ from Etra. I decided that I'd rather be dropped by the Fastboys than wind up leading from Vaccinium macrocarpon, so I chose Marc and hoped he'd be merciful. I don't recover as quickly as most of my riding buddies, for whatever reason.
Fortunately, there were only four of us. Marc had done a double metric the day before, so my metric excuse was dead on arrival. He'd done the ride with Mary, who was leading her C+ ride right next to us. Instead, I said, "Feel free to drop me." Marc announced that, since we were only four, we'd wait for each other. Waiting isn't mandatory on B+ rides.
Sal and Rudy could have left me in the dust in the first half mile, but they didn't. Marc could have too, but he didn't. Sometimes I was a quarter mile back. Sometimes I was in front. Mostly I was right behind Marc, wherever he was in the group. When in doubt, keep the leader in sight.
We were fighting a headwind out of the southwest, and we were looking forward to being pushed home.
We stopped in New Egypt. So did Mary's group.
On our return trip, the wind shifted to the west. So much for the push. I was losing steam.
I only checked our average when we got back to the park. It was a solid B. "There were more hills than I thought," Marc said by way of explanation. There was also wind, and me, but I'm being redundant.
There aren't going to be many perfect-weather weekends left before we have to start burying ourselves under balaclavas, booties, and lobster-claw gloves. Get out there while you can.
If the weather holds, I'll be leading a Halloween ride to Lambertville in two weeks. I hope some Flatlanders come along.
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