First Chilly Weekend

Harbourton-Mt Airy Road

3 November 2019

The first chilly weekend of the year is always a shock. By now I've pretty much figured out exactly what I'll have to put on and now much I'll have to remove during a particular ride's temperature range. That doesn't make stepping out of the front doorway any easier.

Enough Slugs were otherwise occupied on Saturday that I didn't bother to list a ride. Instead I drove to Cranbury for the first time in lord knows how long.

Prem was leading. While he'd listed the average pace at 16 mph, I knew it wouldn't be that low. There's no Cranbury fastboy who can keep it down to 16. The group was small and half Slugged (me, Bob, Jack H, and Andrew). I didn't know any of the others.

I almost didn't bring my camera, but without the camera there are no pictures, and without pictures there's no story, and without a story there's no blog post, and without a blog post, the Hill Slugs cease to exist. 

The starting pace was more effort than I was hoping for. I got the sense that Prem and the others were holding back. I stayed with the group well enough, but I knew I'd pay for it the next day.

On Route 524 I took my turn at pulling to give Prem a break.

Not until we arrived at Phil's outside of Allentown did I check our average speed and pull out my camera. Our average was, by my cycle computer, on the verge of no longer being B. Our Garmins had us above that. I felt better about the effort. 

The camera was for the goats in the pasture next door. Now I'd have something to blog around.

Andrew and one of the other  guys left us before the ride was over. The wind slowed us down a little on the way home.

Had we not set our clocks back that night I'd never have been able to lead my ride the next day. Fortunately, only Ricky and Pete showed up, both at my house for extra miles. I'd swapped wheels on Miss Piggy, her original set of Mavic Axiums having worn thin at the rims. Now she's sporting Beaker's old Ksyrium Elites, the ones that are a bitch and a half to put new tires onto (one of which had come unseated on its own the night before, at 11:00 p.m.). I was too tired to be able to discern if the ride felt different or if it was me that felt exhausted.

I didn't have a set route. We started going northeast but I tacked west when we got to Titus Mill. We crossed Route 31, went up Woosamonsa, and then turned right on 579.

"Where are we turning off?" Pete asked.

"Next left," I said. "Harbourton<&emdash;>Pleasant Valley-Harbourton."

Pete blew right past it. Ricky and I called after him to no avail. "I guess he'll meet us up there somewhere," I said, and started running through the possibilities. Sheesh; he'd have to turn on Harbourton-Mount Airy and hope to run into us when we turn onto it from Rock Road.  Maybe he decided I was just too slow this morning and went off on his own.

I don't think I've ever stopped on this road for pictures except at the very end, where it intersects with Pleasant Valley. Today I stopped at the bottom of a hill to take pictures of what Google Maps suggests is a tributary to Moores Creek.

I didn't hurry, hoping that Pete would appear at the top of the hill behind me. He didn't. We moved on.

Ricky and I were on Goat Hill, deep into a conversation about nothing important, when a third shadow emerged and said, "Car back." It was Pete, who had turned around and caught up with us.

Until today I've never stopped on the final hill up to Mount Airy where the cows are. I explained to Pete and Ricky that art had to happen.

Every time we roll past this barn there's one more hole in the structure and one more new slat somewhere else.

We stopped at the Bagel Barn deli on Route 523, downhill from the Sergeantsville General Store. "My everything hurts," I whined as I rested Miss Piggy on a railing.

After the break I said, "I want to find the least painful way home."

"Uber," Pete said.

We went east, riding with a tailwind into Ringoes. Pete suggested we take the dirt section of Stony Brook, assuring me that, despite half a week of rain, the gravel would be dry.

This was, if nothing else, a good test for the wheels. If I hadn't known I'd changed them, I might not have noticed a difference in the ride. As it was, it felt both sludgier and stiffer at once. Go figure.

We took a slight detour through Pete's neighborhood so that he could show us a house that had gone up in flames when a construction worker breached a gas line. (You can find the story online but I'm not going to give nj.com the satisfaction of linking to it; they post far too much clickbait.)

When I got back to my own neighborhood I noticed that all of my neighbors had raked their leaves. I hadn't. Ours is that one yard that isn't looking tidy. We have an oak tree in the front. While some of its leaves are down, most aren't. If we get lucky, the next windy day will do the work for us. If not, I'm sure my next door neighbor will cast a disapproving eye my way.