Downshift and Spin

Rocktown Road above Lambertville 

12 January 2020

Halfway up Rocktown Road on our way out of Lambertville, I realized I hadn't taken any pictures. This posed an existential question: If I don't take any pictures, would there be a blog post?

So I stopped on the ridge.

Ricky, Pete, Bob, and Sophie were so far ahead of me that thirty more seconds wouldn't make a difference.

I'd listed the ride on Saturday evening. Up until then, there had been rain in the forecast for Sunday morning. Now we'd be dry and facing 40-mph wind gusts instead. I didn't care. I hadn't ridden since December 28. The forecast temperature was for the mid-60s.

Ricky started with me from my house. We spent a little too long drinking Kenyan coffee I'd made with the stovetop espresso pot. Not as strong as real espresso, it comes out like a dense Americano: opaque.

We needed the caffeine kick because we were into the wind the whole way up to the Pig. Pedaling seems so easy when you don't have tights on for the first time in months. Still, I stayed in the small ring, my usual mashing giving way to quick spinning.

We arrived a few minutes late. Pete had already found us, in his customary manner, as he pedaled past the Pig until he saw us approaching south of Pennington. Sophie and Bob were in the parking lot.

Sophie had forgotten her helmet. She was ready to call it quits, but Pete, who lives about a mile away, had a spare at home. We followed him to his house, got Sophie sorted, and went on our way.

I decided to add some miles at the top of the Sourland Mountain by going east on Mountain Church to Rileyville, then back west on Mountain. When we got to Linvale, I had a massive brain fart, and instead of continuing straight, I turned left, sending us back down the mountain in exactly the wrong direction.

So much for my ability to navigate on roads I've been traveling since 2000.

We went west on 518, straight into the wind now, without trees to block it. We ducked north on Harbourton-Mount Airy, then south on Rock Road West, putting us back on 518  above Lambertville.

One good brain fart deserves another: I wanted to turn right on York Road to get us farther north into Lambertville. York Road is, of course, off of 179, not 518.

Pete was enjoying every minute of my brain-fartery.

We went to Rojo's, because of course we did. One of these days I should try Lambertville Trading Company again. There's rarely any room inside LTC, but, then again, there weren't any inside tables at Rojo's today either.

Even after the break I was lagging as we made our way up Rocktown Road.

We had a good tailwind, so we went straight to Route 31. We didn't have Jim to sing us across. Somehow we all made it through alive anyway.

Years ago, like, maybe ten now, there was an alpaca farm not too far in from Route 31. The animals would all turn to watch us.  Even though that pasture has been empty, I always look. Today I saw something.

In the distance, in a field that was so far away that I wasn't sure if the property fronted on Route 31 or on Mountain, was a small herd of alpacas.

40x zoom for the win.

We swung through Pete's neighborhood again on the way back so that Sophie could hand off the helmet. Pete, Bob, and I lingered in the Pig parking lot, enjoying the unseasonably* warm air. Ricky and I let the wind, which had died down only a little, push us home.



(*I don't even know what that means anymore. Wild temperature swings are the norm now. Welcome to the slow apocalypse.)