Oldwick Derp Ride

Fox Hill Road, Oldwick, Hunterdon County

7 October 2017

Total derp.

We had a new rider today, and I did the usual new rider things throughout the ride, like ask if she was a member, ask how well she knew the area, narrate the route, and ask who she usually rides with when she goes on club rides. She must have thought I was an idiot, because, after the ride was over, when I went to photograph the sign-in sheet to send it up to the official ride recorder, I realized that the new rider was the Thursday night hilly B ride leader, Cristina M, and that we'd met once before, during the bundled-upness of winter, and that she could have kicked all of our asses with one leg tied behind her back, but she didn't, because she's cool.

Anyway.

I saw Andrew walking his bike across Route 206 at Amwell Road as I was driving to the ride start. He was drinking coffee from a paper cup, and he continued to do so as he mounted his bike on Amwell Road. I pulled into the Bagel Bistro lot to get a quick couple dozen for long-term storage; the bagels are worth the trip. Five minutes later I was in the Woodfield Park lot with Jim, Andrew (he'd finished his drink), Prem, Ricky, and the aforementioned Cristina.

The route I'd picked out wasn't particularly hilly. I really only wanted to catch the view from the top of Fox Hill Road. I could have been a true bitch about getting there, but I chose roads that went between the nasty stuff. It's October. Fuck it.

I always go into the Thor Solberg Airport parking lot to see if there's anything interesting going on. There wasn't, but we stayed a few minutes and took pictures anyway.

There's bridge out and then there's bridge out. "Nine times out of ten we get through," I explained to Cristina. "Nineteen times out of twenty," I added, figuring in the times we've waded through water and slogged through mud.  This was not to be one of those times, on Pulaski Road between 42^nd Street and School, although if there hadn't been a friendly construction worker explaining the detour, I'm not sure we wouldn't have slogged or waded.

We went around instead, adding three miles.

The beef cattle on Mill Road weren't in the water today.

I saw Jim had stopped to take a picture of this groovy sycamore, so I did too.

We passed a passel of Morris Area Free Wheelers. I can always tell them by their giant cue sheets.

We passed a patient cow on Rockaway Road.

Up on Sawmill I heard* bells, quiet little bells, peaceful little bells, zen little bells, bells I could listen to all day. The bells were attached to the necks of a flock of sheep, and when they walked or shook their heads the peaceful little bells would clink and chime and I wondered what it would sound like if a predator got to one of them and so much for zen.

I got more zen looking at the Rockaway Brook from high above:

The Rockaway-Sawmill stretch is one of my favorite places in Hunterdon County.

Fox Hill Road holds one of my favorite vistas. It's never the same view twice. Today we looked out into haze. There are two clearings. The first affords a view of what I think might be the Watchung Mountains.

The second clearing is halfway down the hill. The glimmer of white near the center of this picture is the road at the bottom:

As I was coming down, Cristina was climbing back up. She was preparing for next week's Covered Bridges Ride in Pennsylvania. I apologized for leading such a flat ride.

This is the view from the bottom of Fox Hill, looking back towards the top:

At the Oldwick General Store we ran into the Morris Area Free Wheelers we'd seen before, and then, as we were getting ready to leave, a guy in another group of riders called out my name. He looked vaguely familiar, but they all kind of do. He said he'd ridden with me years ago and that he knew Cheryl. I asked his name; it didn't help me remember. He said he wanted to take my picture and text it to Cheryl. "I don't like having my picture taken," I said. "Tell her you saw me." She knows what I look like.

On our way back, we found ourselves grinding through a stretch on Holland Brook that had been stripped to its skivvies. We were riding on red dirt and deep gravel, slightly downhill and around curves. It was something less than fun.

I told Cristina that unexpected dirt roads were par for the course on Hill Slug rides. When we found pavement at the next intersection, Jim said, "We can not do that again."

Next up, headwind. "Wind from the south has rain in its mouth," Jim said, and it probably does. Tomorrow looks to be a sad day for us Free Wheelers.


(*This is one of those times when hearing aids are worth every penny.)