This is not a chocolate bunny.
31 March 2018
The guys were all wearing red. I'm glad that they coordinate their outfits for Hill Slug rides. It shows they care.
I led Andrew, Jim, Marc, and Ricky into a headwind out of Hillsborough. We rode in the chill along the Raritan River, following it north towards Tewksbury. We hadn't gone far into Readington when I had to stop. My feet, lined with toe warmers, wool socks, and shoe covers, were burning up. I crammed the covers in a pocket -- I always wear big pockets this time of year -- while the guys made a few adjustments to their bikes and their clothing.
Our route would be fifty miles, with about 2500 feet of elevation gain. That wasn't much overall; the trouble was that most of the hills would be in the second third of the ride. Everything else would be rollers, innocuous in the first fifteen miles, annoying in the last.
With the leaves down we could see the Readington Farms dairy towers from Old Route 28 long before we turned onto Mill Road. The towers, always shiny, are jarring on the otherwise rural road. Past the dairy the road curves downhill and travels through several miles of nothing but open space dotted with cows. Someday I need to make a short video of Mill Road because no picture I ever take captures it all.
I stopped to take a picture of the Taylor grist mill where Taylorsville Road meets Rockaway. There are two signs to commemorate the site. It needs a third: "Jack H pissed here." He did, and some Slugs remind us of it whenever we pass.
I wonder how many signs we'd need if we marked every spot where a cyclist has marked a spot.
With the leaves down we got a good view of the little rapids in the Rockaway Creek.
We took Rockaway to the top, where the on-again-off-again Mountainville general store is off again.
The ascent continued on Sawmill. Jim said, "We need to do this on July 31, not March 31."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because my legs will be ready."
"By then I won't be doing something this easy."
"Fuck you. I hate you," he said, and sped off up the hill in front of me.
I let the guys get out of sight in front of me when we passed the old water wheel. I haven't tried to get a picture of it in years. There are still lights strung from it.
Although none of it is steep, from Rockaway to the end of Sawmill is a good seven miles of climbing. There needs to be a reward for something like that. I gave them the view from Fox Hill.
I've been down this road probably a dozen times, but never when there have been bare trees. With the leaves down I noticed a few things I hadn't before. First, that there is a large pond at the bottom of the hill as the road approaches Homestead; and second, that Fox Hill is steep. Jim noticed it too.
I wonder if that's why the Cadillac Mountain descent gives me the heebie-jeebies. There's nothing between the road and oblivion.
At the Oldwick General Store we broke into the bag of jelly beans I had stuffed in my pocket. I rearranged and re-dressed in order to create some real estate in a pocket for a small baked loaf. Jim wanted a picture of the red Slugs. I used his camera and mine, which meant that the guys had to pose four times.
The beans got stuffed into Miss Piggy's front pack, where they rattled all the way up and down every annoying bump and roller between Oldwick and Hillsborough.
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