Somewhere off of Wertsville Road
19 September 2017
We have to rewind a bit here, back to the second week of September, for the Sourland Spectacular. I talked Bob N down from a 7:00 start. The night before would be Jack's 50th birthday; I didn't know if I'd be out late. He agreed that 8:00 would be more civilized. Still, the sun was low when I arrived at 7:40 for registration at the Otto Kaufman Community Center in Montgomery. It was impossible to find anyone without standing in the shadow of the building and looking west.
Jim eventually emerged from the glare, and we found Ricky. Bob was delayed by a flat en route. He decided to tell us the story as we rolled out a mere five minutes after our intended starting time.
"There was an alligator," he began, because hurricanes were much on our minds. "If there can be a sharknado there can be a hurrigator," Jim said. "We decided this at work." The alligator turned out to be a wire as thick as a paper clip.
We were about a mile in when we lost Jim. Bob and I stopped to wait on Fairview.
This being the Sourlands, and early September, we were bound to run into and over freshly chip-sealed roads. There were at least two before the first rest stop, which was somewhere on Wertsville Road.
Somewhere in here Ricky's GPS got bored with turn-by-turn directions. That left Bob's and mine to battle to the finish.
We hit a long stretch of chip seal on Lambert Road on our way to Sergeantsville. We were nearing 48 of 65 miles and I was in need of caffeine. I asked if anyone would object to a stop at the general store. It was a much-needed rest. We lingered there long enough that volunteers were already packing up when we passed by the second official rest stop. We cruised right on by.
On Werstsville Road again, where Losey comes in, Ricky and I stopped for a field of sunflowers.
They were on both sides of the road, and up the Losey hill, too, but I couldn't get a good shot from Losey.
I stopped again for the view on Rocktown towards the mountain.
On Orchard Road, a group of horses enjoyed an early lunch.
As we neared Hopewell at the top of the mountain, my GPS did its now predictable Hopewell vicinity frying trick. This time the screen went dead. I revived it easily enough, but without the turn-by-turn directions. Ricky's GPS had come back.
On Camp Meeting Road, less than a mile from the end, Bob's GPS began to tell him to turn around.
I stopped on the railroad bridge to do a little trainspotting.
Our late start and Sergeantsville loitering put us at the tail end of the lunch crowd. Over fresh pizza (made from a lunch truck oven and tasting much better than it had any right to) and ice cream sundaes (the last of the Bent Spoon vanilla), we pondered what to do with our freebie universal phone mounts.
"They look like handcuffs," Ricky offered.
I went inside the community center to wash up. When I came out, only a few bikes remained on the racks that volunteers were beginning to dismantle.
During the course of the ride I'd plucked a foxtail for Miss Piggy. I made sure to get a picture of it when I got home.
I got home late enough that there was just time to clean up before heading out to fetch a friend from the train station and drive to Lambertville for dinner, where we met with another couple of friends and I was punchy from hills, pizza, and ice cream. Then we all went back home to open a bottle of 50-year-old Barolo, which I didn't try because I don't like red wine because I'm weird.
Bob, meanwhile, emailed us all a link in ridewithgps that explains, in excruciating detail, how to set one's Garmin GPS so that it doesn't lose the route. I'd already done all but one step, a setting I'd put in place on the original Piece of Shit but forgotten to set on Son Of. I made the change and hoped for the best. I'd have to put it to the test in a week, for the Ride for McBride.
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