Just Right

 

I didn't take a picture so I doodled instead.

21 July 2024

Tick. Tick. Tick. One month to go before the big trip. I emailed Tom and Dave S about my potentially leading a Saturday ride. Tom wrote back that if my route was as hilly as what Dave and I have been posting lately, no thanks. He had a much more reasonable 50-miler to Whitehouse Station in mind.

The total elevation gain would be something in the 50 feet per mile neighborhood, in other words, typical Hill Slug fare before the Cabot Trail panic set in. I noted that the route was full of rollers. He replied that the big climbs were before the break, adding "I think it is a 'Goldilocks' ride as there are some hills but not too many and none are that hard."

So that's what I called it when I copied the route to my Ridewithgps page. 

It only occurred to me after the ride had filled that the route would be going too close to Round Valley Reservoir for me to have named it that. We'd be at the bottom of the eastern side. On the western side, the ascent is a three-part hill, named by cyclists as the Three Bears. Oops. Too late now.

But, hey, if we're going to be that close to the reservoir, might as well climb the eastern side, take a peek and coast back down. I created an alternate route that I decided to keep quiet about until the day of the ride.

We started at the Griggstown Causeway at 8:30 a.m. By 8:15, the center lot was full and some riders had to park in the lot closer to River Road.

"Has anyone here not been to Round Valley?" I asked. Nobody raised their hand. The sky was completely overcast and the air was humid. The view wouldn't be great up there anyway. 

On the ten-person ride were four PFW Board members, five established ride leaders, and an incoming ride leader.

I like to keep my group together and breathing normally, so I wait at the tops of hills until everyone has, in Jim's words, "put their lungs back in." There wasn't much waiting.

On any ride Tom or I lead, there is likely to be a closed road, a bridge out, a dirt road, and perhaps some rain. 

We encountered what we thought would be our first closed road when we crossed Route 202 at River Road. It took me a few seconds to remember that we were well past July 10. 

Fortunately, the part of River Road that we were on was intact. We turned onto Rockafellows Mill, which has an unpaved section near the bridge over the Raritan River. The reason it is unpaved is that it floods, so much so that, off on one side of the road, is a giant flood gauge for all drivers to see. I wondered how useful that is: to verify that one is driving through several feet of water, one must be driving through several feet of water. 

We turned onto Pleasant Run, a pretty but narrow road that tends to get a fair amount of traffic. When we passed a collapsing barn with vultures on the roof, I knew it wouldn't be safe for me to stop, and I didn't want to make everyone wait at the intersection while I turned around and stood in traffic. So I didn't take the picture, and I've been regretting it ever since. I made a silly doodle instead.

When we crossed Route 523 at Pleasant Run, we encountered another closed road. This one looked permanent, with evenly-spaced bollards across the intersection. We rode between them, of course. The pavement was deteriorating and littered with fallen branches. At the other end, we went through a neighborhood that clearly belonged to the top fraction of a percent, the mansions bordered by a golf course that overlooked the eastern side of Cushetunk Mountain, behind which was the reservoir.

We rolled into Whitehouse Station for our rest stop at Jerry's Brooklin Grill. Sitting at an outdoor table were Mike V and Debbie, who, having been closed out of my 10-person ride, had set out from their house on the same route.

Janice at Jerry's

We joined them outside. Dave S peeked at his phone. "I want to see if anything's happening*." I knew what me meant. 

Mike and Debbie joined us for most of the return trip. Now there were five PFW Board members and seven ride leaders. This time of year, there are so many rides listed on any given day that bunching seven of them up doesn't even make a dent. 

When the ride was over, folks agreed that the route was just right. One person admitted to me that he'd never actually been to Round Valley. "I didn't want to be the only one raising their hand," he said. No problem. We'll go soon enough.

I had sufficient sleep and energy for Jim's Sunday ride. Rickety chided me for bringing Janice. "She was in the car already," I explained. "Poor Kermit."

Poor Jim, too. As we learned when we rolled up, another one of his favorite rest stops is closed on Sundays (Sweet Gourmet just for the summer, the sign says). That leaves him with his Boro Bean route and the Raritan bakery route. The bad-service bagel shop had good service today, though, so we were fine.  

Jim's rides are organized chaos. I don't know how he keeps his cool with so many people and such a big ability spread. Kudos to him. I'm sticking with my ten-person cap, pace-pushers not welcome.

(*It happened this afternoon. Burn it all down and start over. Why not? It's all about entertainment now anyway.)