Blogjam

Doesn't Stop a Slug

21 December 2019

Oh, hello! Been a while. 

Half a dozen bike rides got stuck behind half a semester of hand-blown glass that needed to be talked about and gotten rid of.  That's out of the way now, and, thanks to a handful of you, we've raised close to $400 for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.

So, anyway, it's been cold. 

And windy. At the end of November, Tom led us on a flat ride along the Delaware River from Bordentown to Roebling.

We stopped in a little park in Florence. (I think. It's been a while.) We were across from the Tullytown landfill. It's the closest thing to a hill around here.

Duck butts. You're welcome.

We turned east somewhere south of Florence, passing through some farmland, where I felt it necessary, for some reason, to take this picture.

The next day, I led a hilly ride from Pennington to Sergeantsville. The ride was notable in that Len, who we haven't seen all year, drove up from the depths of Gloucester County with his brand new, high-end, boxy-as-hell (is hell boxy?) Cannondale, while Ron A, who we haven't seen in half a year, showed up in his newly-acquired, 1980 Raleigh Pro (that I stupidly didn't take a picture of). Given the crowd I run with, you can guess which machine got all the attention.

In Pennington we met up with John K, who was on a vintage Serotta. Racer Pete had his old Cinelli. I was, shamefully, riding carbon Miss Piggy.

Lately I haven't been planning my routes. This time the only thing I had in mind was to approach from the east. I glanced at the map on my wall as I was walking out to join the guys who were starting from home with me.

Somewhere on or near Yard Road, we passed a house with cows in the side yard.

As duty-bound as we feel to go to the Sergeantsville General Store, we chose the Bagel Barn around the corner instead. They're putting up stiff competition, which is to say that both places have their benefits. There's less food to choose from at the deli, and it lacks the charm of the general store. But the bagels are really good, and getting to the bathroom doesn't require a stairway pirouette in cleats.

December 7 was too cold for the road. I barely made it to the Maidenhead Meadows parking lot on Grover in time; the new saddle was a touch too low and I couldn't get any speed on the road. We started along the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail right away. I didn't get a chance to raise the seat post until we were halfway through the Pole Farm.

I've taken pictures of Rosedale Lake before. That didn't stop me from taking pictures of Rosedale Lake again.

A few hundred yards down the path, Luis had stopped. He'd seen a great blue heron in a tree at the edge of the woods.

I snapped a picture of another tree while I was at it.

We got separated near the Equestrian Center. Tom doesn't like to go through there because it's always muddy. Some of us followed him and stayed on the road. A few went onto the path. We waited for them across from Old Mill Road. We usually blow right past this field on Pennington-Rocky Hill Road. I took pictures while we waited.

There's a real path from Province Line to ETS now. It's paved and curvy, much better than the soggy mush we used to have to bounce through along the pipeline clearing.

When we got back to the parking lot, we spent too much time asking Tom questions about the bike rack setup in the back of his truck. My hands and feet got cold, which made the last three miles home less than enjoyable.

The next day was only a little bit warmer. I listed a ride that would go out for three hours, starting and ending at the Pig. I hadn't had Rowlf out in a while, so I got him ready. Ricky arrived with his purple Cinelli, officially named Barney now. Len drove in and unloaded his tricked-out carbon box. 

When I wheeled Rowlf out my front door, Len exclaimed, "Holy smokes!" and decided then and there that he needed to get himself a steel bike with chrome stays. 

Once again I didn't have a plan. Pete G met us at the Pig. I turned south, using the old Friday night C+ route as my default setting.

The cows on Van Kirk Road weren't close to the fence, but they were close enough for a few pictures. The pasture is pretty, cows or not.

We were puttering along Province Line Road when Pete turned left onto Players Lane to show us an impossibly large mansion under construction.

Across the road, the gate to Jasna Polana, an exclusive golf course on the old Johnson estate, was open. "My company has a membership here," Pete said, and coasted on through. We followed him. This golf course has been here about as long as I've been in the Free Wheelers, yet I've never even considered going in.

We followed a long driveway to the mansion.

Next to the house is a pavilion overlooking the woods behind the course.

The guys were up by a gazebo, chatting with a security guard. I caught up. The guard didn't mind our trespassing at all. He gave us a brief history of the place and told us that the parking lot we were standing on, the one overlooking the woods, was sitting on top of what had once been a bomb shelter. "Now we store the golf carts in it," he said.

We were getting cold, so we moved on.

Len, who spends a surprising amount of time up here, usually riding with the Real Hill Climbers and Fastboys, hadn't been on Province Line Road before. I explained what the Province Line is, and did a little serpentine across the double yellow line. "East Jersey, West Jersey, East Jersey, West Jersey."

At Rosedale Road, I veered off the Friday night route and went straight, down the closed section of Province Line, across the pedestrian bridge, up the hill on the other side, and straight on until we ran out of road.

"See up there? That's where the rest of Province Line is." I promised to take him on the other half some other day.

I was paying attention to the time, having promised we'd be out for three hours and wanting to get to the Pig by 11:30. We had enough time to take a small detour down Old Mill Road, along the side of the field where the eagle's nest is.

There was a break in the hedgerow, so I stopped for some pictures. There seemed to be something above the nest, but from where we were I couldn't tell if it was a bird or a branch.

Pete, convinced that bald eagles migrate, because the ones on the island in upstate New York, where his family has a house, do. I've been telling him that the ones down here in Mercer County stay put in the winter.

Not until I uploaded the pictures last week did I manage to prove my point.

I emailed the picture to Pete, who has migrated to Florida for the holidays. He wrote back that I ought to have held up a copy of the day's newspaper to prove the photo's authenticity. Bewildered, I wrote back, "What's a newspaper?"

One week later we had a rainy Saturday and a Sunday that was just about warm enough for a short ride. Jim being elsewhere, Tom took over the Sunday from Six Mile Run duty.

Chris arrived in holiday uniform.

We were going to have high winds to contend with. Fortunately, the route had us going into the wind early, before the gusts topped 20 mph. If nothing else, it was a good opportunity for me to peel off my balaclava for a few minutes to test how well my new hearing aides do in the wind.

Silence. Perfect. Finally.

The cows on Orchard Road in Hillsborough, which I've photographed before, were out again today.

This is not a real eagle.

Tom hewed closely to Jim's regular route. We stopped at Thomas Sweet in Montgomery, arriving just as a group from the Cylcepaths was leaving.

Yesterday's rain was enough to close the Griggstown Causeway. The gate wasn't enough to stop us, of course.

The Millstone River had overflowed its banks and poured into the field and onto the road.

It was dry enough for us to pass through easily.

Which brings us to today, Saturday, December 21, the first day of winter. Colder than last week, the chill was enough to keep the dusting of snow from Wednesday's squalls still on the shady part of Meadow Road leading into the Brearley House parking lot. Chris, Ricky, Bob, and Jack H (on vacation from his numerous vacations) met me there. The plan was to go north for an hour and a half then turn around.

I've never been past the woods on Province Line Road when they haven't been under water. Today they were under ice.

We got a quick peek at the Alexander Road bridge construction, the source of much traffic agony in and around Princeton. There's a dedicated way through for towpath travelers.

As we approached Blackwells Mills, where I planned to turn around, Bob lamented that there wasn't anywhere along the towpath to get a hot drink. We hatched a plan to take over the little house next to the causeway. Ricky got in on it too while we waited for Chris and Jack to finish their business over at the porta-john in the Six Mile Run parking lot.

We'd open the place from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. We'd serve coffee and sell Gatorade. "And bottled water," Bob said.

"No bottled water," I corrected. "Water bottles. And some kind of carb." We'd charge people on foot or on bikes a dollar less than we'd charge people arriving by car. "Cash only," I added.

Ricky, the new owner of a burr grinder, and so into the coffee game now that his wife thinks he's crazy, would grind the beans.

By the time Chris and Jack got back, we had it all worked out.

And I was freezing.

There was another patch of flooded woods along the stretch that parallels Mapleton Road.

High water had frozen along the bank of the Millstone near the northern end of Princeton.

I let art happen at the Millstone River aqueduct:

At the bridge construction site again, we stood for a few minutes to watch the workers insert a piece of bridge piling into the canal. It was halfway in when we got there; we watched the pile driver (the square, blue thing) send the rest of it into the muck in seconds.

"Time to go," Ricky or Chris said.

"Aw," Bob whined, "It was just getting good."

"Construction porn," I said.

Now I was cold, tired, and hungry. Where the path had been hard-packed and frozen on our way up, it was now melting and mushy, making us work harder to travel the remaining handful of miles. By the time we got back to the path to Brearley House, I was lagging behind.

Jim is, finally, once again leading his Sunday ride from Blackwells Mills tomorrow. Up until about noon today I had every intention of riding my bike up there, just as I had done most times last summer.

Yeah, no, maybe. It's hard work keeping up with these guys. My legs are sore, and, at 8:30 a.m. it's going to be something like 26 degrees. I have no doubt I could stay warm for the 18 miles it takes to get to Six Mile Run. The problem is that I'd stop there, and freeze, and not warm up for the remaining 36 miles.  Hmph. Depends on how well I sleep tonight, and on how good my coffee game is tomorrow morning. I'll probably drive.