A Pre-Ride Espresso
7 May 2017
I was stressed nearly to the breaking point, with life squeezing me from all sides. I wasn't able to ride on Saturday, and the upcoming week was going to be a rough one.
A couple of Slugs were up for a Sunday ride on April 30. Snakehead said he hadn't been to Frenchtown in a while, so I put a route together that went there from Hopewell.
I thought Snakehead was going to meet me at home, but the time to leave came and went without him showing up. I pushed off on my own, riding the ten miles at a leisurely pace. I had time enough to detour around Carter Road, which had been milled the week before from Cherry Valley all the way into town. When I approached this time, I could see fresh blacktop starting at the Crusher Road intersection.
Who can resist a 1.5-mile descent on pavement so new it hasn't yet been striped?
Snakehead was in the parking lot, hot coffee in one hand and pastry in the other. I'd already had my usual dose of caffeine, but, with so much time to spare and Boro Bean around the corner, I went into town.
You've seen him*: the solo biker drinking an espresso on the porch of that little cafe in that little town. He looks so fit, so chill, so damn cool.
I clomped up the wooden steps, went inside to the counter, and ordered an espresso. I took it outside to a small, wooden table, and faced the road, Miss Piggy in the bike rack next to the street. For five minutes, I was that fit, chill, cool guy.
Then reality set in, because Snakehead, Ricky, and Pete are far more fit, chill, and cool than I'll ever be**.
Snakehead's carbon bike was making a rare appearance, his steel Love Child up on the rack for repair, which made us an all-carbon crew.
The route meandered through the Sourlands. I don't remember why we stopped on Mountain Road, but it was a good opportunity to snap a picture of a typical Sourland forest, complete with the requisite boulder and ponding water.
In Ringoes, I took us up Route 539, all the way to where it meets 523. We've done the reverse many times; this was the first time I'd gone north. It's open, rolling terrain, the last mile a gradual ascent. On the far side of the road was a bovine huddle that I had to stop for.
On the other side of 523, 579 takes a steep jump for half a mile. I'd warned the guys about it. Ricky and Pete were far ahead of me and Snakehead. Ricky thanked me, in a voice dripping with irony, when we met them at the top.
That was the worst of it, though. We rolled along the ridge, turning on Boar's Head Road.
It was easy going from there, except that Ridge Road into Frenchtown is a mess of divots and lumps of blacktop with the occasional orange construction barrel. I'd stay away from there for the next little while if I were you.
There were half a dozen road bikes in the rack outside of the Bridge Cafe in Frenchtown. Inside was the Free Wheeler C+ hilly ride, led by Bob P. Michael H called me over, and we spent a good long time catching each other up on PennEast.
(I'm going to catch you up now. FERC requires three Commissioners for a quorum. In January, one Commissioner resigned; his replacement requires an appointment that the Senate must approve. No appointment has been made. PSE&G, the sole NJ partner, pulled out of the consortium. In April, FERC issued its final EIS, giving PennEast an undeserved advance, but not giving them the required Certificate, because, without a quorum, they can't issue any. Almost immediately after this, the Army Corps of Engineers submitted a statement that PennEast does not have enough survey information to apply for its required permits. Days later, the NJ DEP said the same thing, and gave PennEast 60 days to acquire the necessary surveys. PennEast can't do these surveys, however, because 70% of the NJ landowners steadfastly refuse to allow surveyors onto their properties. A week or so later, news spread that a second of the three FERC Commissioners would be resigning in the summer. PennEast's spokeswoman, however, continues to spin all of this as if it were just a flesh wound.)
Before we headed out, I took a few pictures of the bridge.
We climbed out of the valley on Horseshoe Bend Road, and then rolled along 519 to Sanford Road, where we turned and I pointed out where the PennEast pipeline route would be. Hint: it's where the anti-PennEast and no tresspassing yard signs are. I stopped to chat with one of the sign bearers, thanking him for being the reason that PennEast is circling the drain.
When we got back to Hopewell, Ricky gave me a pair of socks.
When I got home, life smacked me in the face again. Monday and Tuesday were spent with a colleague up in Piscataway, in front of a machine that we were sure was going to break down on us, again. We spent twelve hours straight up there on Monday, and ten and a half there on Tuesday. I missed the PFW Board meeting on Monday and was so swamped with catch-up lab work on Wednesday that I missed another meeting and spent the night poring over another environmental assessment for another NJ pipeline proposal. I don't even remember most of Thursday. Friday was marked by a much anticipated caffeine withdrawal headache. And Saturday will be covered in the next blog post.
(*Or her, of course. But face it, most recreational cyclists are men. Middle-aged men. Middle-aged men in Lycra. "MAMLs." I'm not making this up.)
(**Nicer, too, apparently.)
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