I'll Pull You if You Hold My Cake

Mendoker's Easter Egg Cake

Passing the Philadelphia Cheesesteak Test

1 April 2018

There was a stiff wind out of the northwest this morning when I arrived in front of Bruno's. Chris and one other rider, a newbie named Jon, were talking outside of the store. I didn't think to check if the shop was open. 

Jon's debut ensured that Chris would have to be on his best behavior. No dirt roads for us today. 

We were going to take another shot at Jamesburg. If Mendoker's was closed for Easter we'd find something else. Chris was confident that they'd at least be open for a few hours. I had big pockets again because the temperature was going to shoot up by at least ten degrees and I'd probably have to stash some clothing at some point. There might be room to stash a miniature seven-layer cake too.

Chris said he'd have room in his pack for it. "I'll pull you if you hold my cake," I promised.

Chris didn't meander this time. We made a bee line towards Cranbury. Jon, who had ridden from Cranbury yesterday, recognized some of the route. For someone who had bought his first road bike two weeks ago he sure looked like a B+ rider out for a recovery day.

This being Easter we were able to take roads that we usually avoid. One was Sharon Station, which, back in the early aughts, before 579 was realigned, was a regular route. Now one only leads down that road if one wants to get yelled at.

I lasted nearly six miles before I needed to lose some clothing. Chris, in his typical Chrisness, attempted simultaneously to be obscene and state that he couldn't be obscene. "Chill, Chris," I said. "It's just a jacket."

We turned in to the Assunpink Wildlife Management Area on the newly-paved extension of Imlaystown-Hightstown Road, the one that used to be dirt because it was constantly flooded, and which, by recent reports, is constantly being flooded. 

From a distance it looked flooded again. I slowed as we approached. We let Chris go through first. Jon, who was, until recently, a mountain biker, went next. If you look closely at the water you can still see the ripples my tires left as I pedaled through.

We looked around for beaver dams but we didn't see any from the road.

At the other end of the park Chris shed his jacket, cramming into his spacious handlebar pack. "There goes the room for your cake," he said.

We needn't have worried. Mendoker's was open, and empty, but there were no seven-layer-cakes of any size to be had. Instead I found a little Easter egg cake that I carefully wrapped and put into my pocket, flowery-icing side out.

Getting out of Jamesburg meant climbing the little hill in Thompson Park and then riding due west back towards Cranbury. By now the wind had picked up and shifted westward a little. I did my civic duty of pulling through the worst of it.

Forty miles in, Jon announced that this was now the farthest he'd gone on a road bike. He didn't seem even a little tired. He took a pull too. Despite his humble protestations I have a feeling he'll be in the fastboy pack before the month is out.

The egg cake made it back to Allentown in one piece, although the icing had mashed itself against the paper bag in a pretty little Jackson Pollock-meets-Philadelphia Cheesesteak impression.

I was glad to see that Bruno's was closed. The family needs a day off once in a while.

On the drive out of Allentown I glanced at the car's thermometer. It was 65 degrees out.

It's 10:30 p.m. as I write this. Eight hours from now there will be snow on the ground because of course there will be. 

Right.

We'll console ourselves with a gratuitous picture of Moxie commandeering my jacket.