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Geese Like Headwinds
25 February 2017
I'm behind on blogging and life in general. I'll start at the end and write my way backwards to last weekend.
Over the past six days, I've had four meetings. Three of them have been in north Jersey*. Three have been after work, meaning I didn't get home until 9:30 p.m. or later. Three of them involved interviewing four gubernatorial primary candidates for NJ Sierra Club endorsement. (I can't talk about that until a month from now.) While all this was happening, I had to get the March Freewheel out, which I did, around 7:30 p.m. yesterday, a new record in lateness, especially when the month is missing a few days. And, to cut into my time some more, one of my new hearing aids called it quits and I was back and forth to the audiologist three times to get it fixed.
Why did my hearing aid die? Because I was told I could wear it outside and sweat on it. Which I did, on Sunday, when the February air was something near 70 degrees. As I've been doing through the colder weather, I covered the aids in foam headphone pads to block the searing wind noise.
I left from home at 9:00 with Rowlf, to meet John at the Reed Recreation Park in Allentown for a recovery ride. I'd done almost 60 miles on Saturday, and then been out with friends. I didn't think I'd have enough sleep to get up early enough for Winter Larry's Cranbury ride. There have been some fastboys up there lately.
Helped along by a tailwind, I had more energy than I thought. I caught up with a young buck on a cross bike who was heading for Mercer County Park. "Nice Colnago!" he said. Given his age, I was impressed that he knew what a steel bike was, let alone a vintage Colnago.
The wind pushed me along Meadowbrook and Gordon. I had my new hearing aids in, foam covers on, no hat. I could hear cars coming a hundred yards away. Without my electronic ears, I can't hear them until they're almost on my wheel.
As I approached Old York, I saw a string of bikers. I picked out Ralph's unmistakable black and orange fixie in the line and knew I was coming across Winter Larry's group.
I turned in, enmeshing myself in the crowd, greeting everyone I knew. I realized right then how much I like riding with these guys and how much I dislike having to drive to Cranbury to do it. If I could meet them on Old York like this every Sunday, I'd do it. Larry wanted to know where I was going, and when I told him, he decided to detour his ride to the recreation park.
John wasn't there yet, but Ron's Sunday group was. After a round of greetings and the discovery that the bathrooms were locked (they always are on Sundays), John pulled in, Ron's group left, and I sent Larry off on his way.
John and I hadn't seen each other in real life since maybe November. We had a lot to catch up on. While he got ready, I snapped a picture of the clouds.
John's usual recovery route is about 30 miles. If I were to do the whole thing, I'd have nearly 60 miles and two days of near metrics. I told him I might cut out early. I had to be in Philly in the afternoon anyway.
We veered off the usual course, riding through the Assunpink from the south as we talked. John is a pro at the running monologue, mixing long stories with quick asides like this one, as a three-wheeled, black, low-rider motorcycle passed us: "Holy shit! It's fucking Batman!" We did our best not to giggle as it passed us. It really did look like the Batmobile.
From there we made our way to Etra Park,
where a Canada goose convention was taking place.
From there, we were into the headwind, which was fine, because I was starting to sweat. I should reiterate here that this was February 19 and we were riding in summer gear.
On Windsor Road, I went north and John went south. I was going through Mercer County Park when I noticed a rhythmic clicking in my left ear. At first I thought it was the wind tapping a stray wisp of hair, but it wasn't that. At the next traffic light, I felt the foam. It wasn't wet. I wiggled the aid. I wasn't sure if it was even transmitting. I didn't worry too much; the audiologist who told me these were sweat-proof also told me to get a drier, which I did.
At home, I switched batteries. The aid powered up with its usual annoying tone. But it wouldn't transmit. I put it in the drier and popped my old aid into my left ear. For the rest of the day, I walked around with lopsided hearing. When I got home from Philly, the drying cycle was finished. I tried the aid again before going to sleep. This time, I got the power tone and heard the electronic hiss. But it still wasn't transmitting. I put it back in the drier overnight. In the morning things were no different.
I dropped it off with the audiologist mid-day on Monday. She didn't get a chance to play with it until late in the day, and called me back in after swapping receivers. It still wasn't working, but she wanted to try one more thing which she needed the other aid for. So I went back at the end of the day. She tried again, but it still didn't work. She told me not to use the foam covers. "They tend to collect moisture," she said. It was the other audiologist there who had told me to go ahead and sweat on them. I got it back on Friday, repaired for no charge. I scheduled an appointment for an in-the-ear fitting for a second set of aids, tiny ones like other riders have, ones that go way into the ear. I like the pair I have too much to give them up, but I need something outside that I can sweat on and not go deaf from amplified wind noise.
The foam covers had given me no trouble the day before, when I led seven people to Flemington. When Jim, Pete, and I left my house, it was 36 degrees out. The predicted high for the day would be 20 degrees higher than that. It was going to be a deep-pocket, many-layered day, and also the longest distance we'd travel in a while.
I'd loaded the route into my GPS. From the start, though, it was attempting to reroute me. I figured that, once we got to Pennington, it would sort itself out, Pennington being one of my regular starting points. Pete noticed that I also had a hand-written cue sheet. "Belt and suspenders," I said.
We met Chris, Ricky, Ed, Andrew, and Celeste in Pennington. The GPS was still confused.
When we descended into Hopewell, it was telling me to get onto the canal towpath. At the top of Rileyville Road, I loaded the route in again. No luck. I was still being directed to the canal. Not all was lost, however: during all this fiddling, I learned how to get to the map display. I was glad to have the cue sheet, even though I knew where I was going. I'd also sent the route to Jim, whose GPS was following the route just fine.
Almost everyone was wearing red, which made counting heads easy but telling people apart from a distance a bit of a challenge.
My winter fascination this year is lone trees, like this one on Wertsville Road.
There's a new bike rack outside of Factory Fuel in Flemington.
Inside, there was a case of homemade pastries, including something that looked like what a Pop-Tart is trying to be. "What is that Pop-Tart thing?" I asked the barista.
"A homemade Pop-Tart!" she said "With raspberry filling." Yes, please.
We sat outside. Because that's what one does in February around here now.
By now it was warm enough that my hat, vest, and arm warmers were stuffed into my jersey pockets. Within a few miles, I had to stop to take my toe warmers off. A few miles later we stopped for another strip break. And then another. Pete had been yellow; now he was orange. A couple of the red guys weren't red anymore either.
Start to finish, Jim, Pete, and I had almost sixty miles, with our winter clothes in our pockets. Because that's what we do in February now that we don't have winter.
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