Coming Apart at the Seams

White Bridge Road, Quakertown, Hunterdon County

9 June 2018

"I can't wait to see what you write in your blog about this ride," Jack H said after the second time I waited at a corner for people to turn around and catch up.

"Where's the dog house?" Ricky asked after we waited for him and Elaine the first time. Ricky gave me cow socks last year; I couldn't Sprague him in good conscience. I told him that he'd have immunity until the socks wear out.

"I'm too much of a squish to be a complete bastard," I said to Elaine, a newcomer to the Slug life.

As usual, everyone on the ride was faster than me. All the work at the gym has made me stronger, but that only means that these days I'm not quite as far behind as I was last year.

We -- Jack H, Elaine, Ricky, Bob, Pete, JeffX, and me -- were on our way to Clinton from Lambertville.  Why JeffX and Elaine, both A riders, were slumming it with me remains a mystery.

In an effort not to be too annoying, I only stopped once for pictures. We were on White Bridge Road in Quakertown (the one next to Pittstown), still on the ridge. There was a good view of the Hunterdon hills across an open field. It would have been better without the massive power line support. It was one of those that looks like a wire robot mannequin, the kind that really ruins the scenery.

As we climbed I kept feeling a little pinch on my inner thigh on my right leg, as if something were sticking out on my saddlebag and rubbing with each pedal stroke. Something must have shifted when I was moving the bag around to fit the rear camera last week. I kept pushing the bag out of the way, which would work for a while.

I jiggered it some more when we got to Clinton, then spent a few minutes taking the obligatory picture of the red mill across the river. I wonder what would happen if I didn't take the picture. I might get fined or something.

I zoomed in to the little outbuilding between the water wheel and the spillway.

I zoomed in even more on a dead tree trunk straddling the spillway.

I took a picture of the rocks downstream because they were there.

I tried to make the shadow of the steel bridge deck on the ugly supporting cement look artsy. Meh.

I took pictures of the bridge because everyone else probably does too, and it was there.

Who waters the flowers in the pots hanging from the bridge?

As soon as we left Clinton the little sting in my leg started up again. This time I felt around not on the saddle bag but on my leg, thinking maybe there was something lodged in my shorts.

Nope. I reached down and felt my own flesh pooching out of a half-inch hole in my shorts. "Well," I thought, "this is a new one." Usually it's the padding that dies first, which hurts more but is, at least, something that happens to everyone, and doesn't happen all at once.

I had to wait until we got to the top of Spring Hill before I could do anything about it.

Everyone but JeffX, who was, mysteriously, behind me, was already waiting at the corner.

"Hang on," I said. "Ol' Thunder Thighs done ripped her shorts."

"Must be all that weight training," Pete said, and then, unbeknownst to me, took my picture as I attempted to affix strips of electrical tape (because that's what I had in my bag) to my leg under my rolled-up shorts. "Geez," I said. "It broke the skin." No wonder it hurt. What I really could have used was a large bandage, but none of us was carrying one.

The tape held for most of the next hill. I had to stop at the top to wrap the remaining strips of tape around the outside of my leg.

That held long enough for me to find out that JeffX was nursing an IT band injury which he incurred after a 350-mile ride and which had sidelined him for a month. "I knew something had to be wrong for you to be behind me," I said, because JeffX is never behind me.

When we got to Route 12 at 519 JeffX decided to go back to Lambertville on his own while I stepped inside the general store to look for tape.

The clerk, a friendly, young fellow, pointed me to an aisle where my choice was cellophane or packing. I was about to spring for the small roll of packing tape when he said, "I might have something better in my bag."

He pulled out a roll of athletic adhesive tape. "Perfect!" I said. "I lived on this stuff in high school. 12 ankle sprains in 11 years." He was a rock climber who wasn't climbing enough to keep his callouses. "Ow," I said in sympathy as I wrapped the hole and my leg three times around.

This held better, but, Spandex being Spandex, the hole escaped a few times. I was able to shift the tape with one hand while pedaling. We were finished with the hills anyway so it wasn't as bad.

I took pictures of the mess when we got back to Lambertville. Bob threatened to take pictures of me taking pictures.

Now the shorts are in the trash, a new set of electrical tape strips are in my bag, and I've added athletic tape and bandages to the mess of things I carry on each ride. Two new pairs of shorts are on order, because if one pair just went, the other one I got at the same time is surely on its way. I like to have unopened packages of shorts on deck. I consider them a supply, like tubes and carbon dioxide cartridges.

JeffX emailed me to say he made it back to Lambertville safely, and that the Hill Slugs ride was just what he needed to get back into randonneur shape.

Plain Jim has a recovery ride tomorrow. I'll do my best not to have another wardrobe malfunction.