Monday, September 6, 2021

Higher Ground: The Ida Destruction Tour

 

Tom Anoints Us With the Holy Kickstand


6 September 2021

On the Sunday before Ida struck, Tom invited the Slugs to an open house ride. We started from Allentown, rode down to his new place in a gated community, got fed and watered by him and Lori, and then rode back. Because I rode from my house to Allentown, it was a long day for me. 

I didn't blog about it because I hadn't taken any pictures, save for the one above, where he anointed us with the Holy Kickstand and Loctite. We didn't quite get away without mechanical problems: my rear tire developed a small, harmless bulge, sending me 80 miles with an annoying hop that I felt every time we slowed down. 

I've changed both tires and it's all smoothness now. Getting new tires is like getting new sneakers: Why didn't I do this ages ago?

When Ida came barreling through around 5:30 Wednesday eveninng, I was at work, in the middle of a timed procedure that took me well into the second tornado warning. I was in a windowless, internal room, sciencing away, when my phone went nuts with the university's emergency alert system and the National Weather Service both yelling at me to ohmygodtakecoverthisisforreal! So I stayed put until the all-clear at 8:10 p.m. Wading through rivers of construction site runoff from the new dorms, I made it to my car with my sneakers dripping with water. I took the high roads, Routes 1 and 295, to get home, only to confront a rising flood at the bottom of a hill a mile from my house. I turned towards Route 1 at Bakers Basin, suspecting that the intersection might already be several feet under water. It wasn't, and I got back to the house at 8:45. It wasn't long after that when the water rushed into Bakers Basin, and our neighborhood was more or less surrounded by a moat.

The next thing to flood was the Free Wheeler Facebook page, as photo after photo appeared, with roads under water or completely gone, and parts of the towpath washed away. It would have been easier to report the good biking roads that were still open.

The weather forecast for Labor Day weekend promised to be near perfect, so I listed a ride for Saturday.  I didn't bother to come up with a route. We'd aim for high ground and hope for the best.

Tom was ready with the Holy Kickstand again. 




The ten of us headed up Pennington-Rocky Hill Road. I took pictures on the way back. This is what the bridge over the Stony Brook looked like:

The stream, probably still running high, was a good ten or fifteen feet below the bridge.




There was debris on Stony Brook Road, and maybe a barricade or two that we ignored, before we got to a spot above 518 where we had to dismount. The asphalt had been washed away.





Mountain Road was fine. Linvale Road was fine. Rocktown Road was fine. We even got across Route 31 without having to wait for traffic. 

There was a barricade on Harbourton-Mount Airy Road, but a driver coming from behind them told us we could get through. There were some sticks and things littering the road at the Alexauken Creek bridge, but that was it. We went right on through, up the hill, past the cows (there were no cows), and down onto Queen Road.

On high ground now, we had no trouble on Sandy Ridge-Mount Airy Road. When we got past the graveyard, I signaled a turn onto Covered Bridge Road. I wanted to see the destruction we'd been told about.

At the sharp bend in the road was a hand-written sign: "If you do NOT live down here or you are NOT working here, PLEASE Stay OUT! It is a dead End! Thank you."


I wavered for a moment. Then Jack H turned past the sign, and we followed.

At the bottom of the hill was a stone house, its foundation partially scoured away, the road before it caved in at the sides. In front of us, the distraught homeowner took a break from talking to the cop in the SUV to tell us not to to pass. "I'm so over this," she said.

"Can we get up to Sergeantsville from there?" I asked, hoping we could.

"No," she said. "There's no road." 




While we were having this discussion, Jack H sneaked off behind her to go see for himself if Lower Creek Road, one of our favorite stretches, was passable at all. I wanted to go with him, but politeness prevailed. I motioned the group to turn around.

"Grind 'em if you got 'em," I said. It's a steep hill even when you have a rolling start, which we now didn't.

"What did it look like?" I asked Jack H when he caught up to us.

"Gone," he said.

We stopped at the Bagel Barn on Sergeantsville Road. Some of the patrons inside weren't wearing masks, which disturbed me somewhat. I beat a hasty retreat, iced coffee in hand.

One of our number suggested we take Rosemont-Ringoes Road down to the covered bridge. We'd have to come right back up the hill, of course, because Lower Creek Road was no more. I was all for it; I wanted to see Lower Creek for myself. 

But first, the bridge:


There appeared to be a tree wedged into the side.


Traffic could still get through on the uncovered side of the road, and there was a lot of traffic trying to squeeze past.

Jack H and Ricky had already turned down Lower Creek Road. I followed. From where we were, the pavement was solid for a quarter mile or so. Then it gave way to dirt. And then it stopped.

(Please excuse the video quality; I had to shrink it to fit Blogger's size limit.)




Behind me was a section of riprap that might or might not have been there all along. Was this new, or was everything around it washed away?



The rest of the route, back up Rosemont-Ringoes Road, Lambert, Dunkard Church (somehow not flooded), 579, Larison, Old York, Dutch Lane, Wertsville, Losey, Rocktown, Linvale, Woodsville, Marshalls Corner-Woodsville, 654 (which was blocked off but we ignored the sawhorses), Moores Mill-Mount Rose, Wargo, and Titus Mill, was clear.

Wertsville Road at Dutch Lane

Plain Jim's Sunday ride was scheduled for the impossible hour of 8:00 a.m. I somehow managed to drag my legs to the start, driving this time, because of the hour and closed roads. I took Beaker, my cushy, recovery ride bike.

The sky over the Claremont Elementary School parking lot was interesting.



Jim's route never got far from the start. Like me the day before, he was unsure if we'd be able to get where he wanted to go. 

The sky was clouding over.



There must have been some bad flooding at the northern end of River Road. Somebody had much of their house out on the street.


The sky continued to cloud over.


Our ride ended as it had begun, on Canal Road, where the asphalt was covered in a layer of reddish-brown silt. There was an inordinate amount of traffic trying to squeeze past us at Blackwells Mills, where I chose to stop to document the silt that had made its way sometimes ten feet above the canal's edge on the other side.







By now, it was raining lightly.

Up ahead, the road narrowed to one lane, blocked by mud and downed trees. We passed two cars that looked as if they'd been floated to their final resting spots, one on the side of the road, one on a front lawn. 

We turned uphill on Suydam, the traffic still with us. At the top we found out why: South Middlebush, which had been open earlier in the morning, was now closed.  

On my way home, I drove down Washington Road in Princeton to see how close to the lab the tornado had gotten. The mess was all on the other side of Carnegie Lake. The tornado knew that, without a Covid vaccination and a saliva test, it was not permitted on campus.

My legs were pretty well shot by now, but I got Kermit ready for the Labor Day All-Paces ride anyway. I'd signed up for the slower of the two B rides. I wasn't sure I'd have the stamina to maintain the pace. The Guy I Blocked on Facebook was signed up. I'd blocked him years ago, when he started fat-shaming and bombarding the Free Wheelers' page with videos, as if none of us knew thing one about how to ride a bike. I wasn't the only one to erase him. And now I'd be riding with him. 

All I wanted to do was leave him in the dust and tell him, "Not bad for a fat chick, huh?" That was highly unlikely with three-day legs, never mind that I hadn't attempted a Cranbury-style B ride in roughly forever. I had no idea what flatland pace I'd be able to hold.

Few of the Slugs wanted anything to do with the All-Pace mayhem. Plain Jim, was off on some other ride with TEW, and Jack H had plans to put himself in some fastboy group. 

The Guy I Blocked on Facebook was always at the front. He seemed to be the sort who can't be second. He was strong, no doubt about that; I don't think he was even clipped in. At the rest stop he tried to lecture anyone who would listen on sugar and hydration. Nobody was listening. 

There were some hills, or what passes for hills, on the way back: the hard rollers of Millstone. Freshly caffeinated now, I found myself closer and closer to the front of the pack, just like back in my Cranbury days. It was the combination of the hills, which Kermit has the gears for, and the headwind, which I have the body for.

By the time we reached the home stretch, I was out in front, if only for a few miles. The Guy I Blocked on Facebook didn't let me stay up there for long, headwinds or not. I never got the chance to tell him off. When we reached the parking lot, he disappeared. 

On the way home I was into the wind until the final mile. 

So now my legs are well and truly toast. I'll give the road crews another day to clean up the mess on Princeton Pike; I'm not riding to work tomorrow.

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