Short Winter Hills

 

Stony Brook Road at Van Dyke Road

22 February 2025

I led a ride today. It was cold. Four brave souls showed up: Pete G, Our Jeff, John K, and Dave S. I kept it short but threw in enough little hills to get the elevation up to almost 50 feet per mile. 

The sun was out in a cloudless sky. We don't get many days like this. While there were still small patches of ice on the sides of shady roads, what we ended up dodging the most were vast salt flats left over from weeks of repeated brinings.

We climbed to the top of Stony Brook. On our way up, in the woods south of Mine Road, we heard the call of a pileated woodpecker. John K is obsessed with pileated woodpeckers. In a good way.

Pete was first up the hill, of course, and took his phone out for pictures of the ice in a second-order Stony Brook tributary near the intersection of Van Dyke Road. There's probably a name for the little creek. I checked a few maps but couldn't find it. 

A critter, perhaps a raccoon, had stepped out onto the ice, near where water remained unfrozen under the bridge.

We took a break at Boro Bean, my go-to winter rest stop. The conversation centered mostly on birds, woodpeckers in particular, because John K was there. Dave showed a picture of what a yellow-bellied sapsucker had done to a tree in his yard. This reminded me of something Mike B had called us winter riders years and years ago: "yellow-bellied snot-suckers." He wasn't wrong.

A sign at the end of Crusher Road told us that the road was closed. We figured a tree was down from the storm last week. John K left us here to take a more direct route back.

Halfway up the road, there was a sagging power line snagged on something that looked more metallic than wooden. It was off to the side.

We zig zagged our way back to Pennington, losing Pete when we got close to his house. John passed us in his car when we were a mile away from the end.

I'm not as tired nor as sore as I thought I'd be. This is because we took it easy and I had enough sleep last night. What hills we did climb were enough though. I'm looking forward to riding in shorts again.

Some of the Henry Hudson Trail

 

Keyport, NJ

21 February 2025

There was snow in the forecast. Again. We'd have the morning to squeeze a ride in.

Tom talked some of us into driving halfway across the state to ride the inland section of the Henry Hudson Trail that goes north from Freehold. By "talked some of us into," I mean that he made the suggestion and I seconded it right away. 

I spent too long drinking coffee and doomscrolling. I barely made it to the parking lot on time. Heddy, Jim, and Rickety were already there. We were all on our gravel bikes, except Tom, who was on a road bike.

The trail is paved and well-maintained. Six miles in, the trail dumped us onto Route 79 for a mile. Just short of 12 miles, in Matawan, we ran out of trail. Tom's original plan was to turn around here. But, he said, there was a good view of the Raritan Bay down in Keyport in a few more miles. I checked the radar. There was nothing coming our way. 

Through trial and error on solo rides, Tom had figured out how to get to the water's edge. We were on roads for a while, then, after crossing over the Garden State Parkway, wound up on the trail again. We crossed Route 35 then turned off the trail to go north towards the water. 

Our cameras came out when we reached the Raritan Bay.

Across the bay, to the east, we could see the Verrazzano Narrows bridge. To the southeast of that was the northern tip of Sandy Hook.

To the north was another bridge, over the Raritan River, I think. A gull photobombed my first attempt at zooming in on it.

Plain Jim has more photos. After a long conversation with a fellow who wants to get himself a bike, we headed inland again on a slightly different route. We were into the wind now, and the sky was taking on a more ominous hue. With gravel tires, road riding is plodding. 

 

Back we plodded, staying on the road for the last mile. We reached our starting point a few tenths of a mile short of 30. Heddy and I felt the need to Griff it up, so we returned to the trail via the dirt path. This sullied our tires for the drive home. Heddy pulled out a whisk broom and cleaned hers off. Jim was enamored with the idea. I mooched the broom when she was finished. 

I drove back through Freehold towards Route 33. The snow arrived as I got up to speed on the highway.

Wintry Mix

Whatchoo lookin' at?

 8 February 2025

There's a coating of ice dripping down from the deck railings as I type this. It's the second time this week.

The first time was Thursday morning. While I was waiting for the freezing rain to turn to rain, I crunched around the yard with my camera.

There was another storm forecast for tonight. Ahead of it was a cloudy day that would barely be above freezing. I'd already signed up for the PFW hike at Plainsboro Preserve when Pete started asking around for a Saturday ride out of Pennington. Around bedtime I wavered for a moment, looked at the forecast again, and fetched my hiking boots from the closet.

Heddy, Jim, and Our Jeff made the same decision. The hike was led by CAT ferry buddy David G. In all the years since the Plainsboro Preserve opened, I've only biked past it, never gone in.

We set out on a wide trail that clearly used to be a road. We were next to a large lake. Right away we spotted fresh beaver gnawings.

Opposite the lake was a stream. I walked down to the bank to see if the pile of sticks was a lodge.

It appeared, for now anyway, to be only a pile of sticks.

We took a side trail out to a peninsula. I'd thought this was where my grad school friend had hidden a geocache, but it didn't match the picture I showed to David. The only reason I knew about the cache is that it's the blown glass balloon I sent her at the end of last semester. 

The surface of the lake was mostly frozen.

We doubled back and then followed a trail up a narrow berm. Off to our left was an orderly stack of freshly cut logs.  "OCD beavers," I explained. (I didn't get a picture; it wouldn't have come out well from where we were standing.)

Woodpecker holes!

David was telling me about his brief stint as a serious birder when he spotted what he said was a downy woodpecker way up in a tree off the trail. I asked him which woodpecker shows up at birdfeeders, because I get them once in a while. The ones I see are smaller than the one we were looking at, and I got downy and hairy mixed up in my head. Figuring I could pull up my Merlin app and find a photo, I reached for my phone. 

There was a text from Rose, one of my glassblowing workshop classmates. Campus would be closed tomorrow because of the impending storm, and our first day of the spring workshop was canceled. That would probably mean an additional Sunday tacked onto the end of the semester, one more Sunday off the bike. I never did open Merlin.

We turned onto a different trail, where we found a bat house. (This is a different one; the one we found wouldn't have photographed well.)

It was far over our heads. It took us a minute to figure out where the bats would enter. There were slats in the bottom wide enough for a bat to wriggle through but too big for a squirrel.

Somebody asked, "How many fit in there?"

I said, "Depends on how well they know each other."

To Heddy, I added, "It's an Air B&B: Air Bat and Bat."

She groaned, but at least I had something for the blog.

"You know where they get their furnishings?" I asked. "Bat Bat and Beyond." (Bed Bat and Beyond would have been much better.)

"I shouldn't put this in my blog," I added.

We came upon a grove of evergreens in rows. They remind David of his time in the Pacific Northwest.

Then we were back at the parking lot. David suggested I follow one of the trails behind the visitor's center to see if I could find the spot that matched my friend's picture. I wandered through a trail designed for kids, with little activity centers spaced close together, then turned onto another trail that led towards the lake. I didn't go far; it was clear that the cache spot was somewhere other than in this park.

On my way back, I saw a flicker of blue off to my left. A bluebird had settled on a tree trunk. I managed to pull my camera out of my pocket and get three quick pictures before it flew off.

I stopped to photograph another bat house that had better lighting around it.

"Did you find it?" David asked about the cache when I got back to my car. "No," I said, forgetting to tell him about the bluebird. 

I checked the text again and realized that the cache was at "Plainsboro Pond," not Plainsboro Preserve, and that Google Maps can't find a Plainsboro Pond. I think I might know now what my friend meant, but, in case any geocachers are reading this, I'm not saying. 

Hot Mess Part Forty-Five: Thirteen More Sundays, Day 0

What day is it?

2 February 2025

I slept in today, enjoying my last lazy Sunday morning before the sping workshop kicks in.

The group text storm started at 8:25.

Murano: "Running late. On my way."

I had a moment of panic. The workshop starts February 9, doesn't it? I keep the schedule page open, watching it every day for enrollment changes. I checked again. Yes. The 9th. Today is February 2. I'm sure of it.

CP texted me separately: "Is today the first session or next Sunday?"

Me: "Next week!"

CP: "Alrighty. Thank you Laura!"

Meanwhile, on the group text:

Sometimes: "I thought it was next week."

CP: "Hey, Murano. It's CP. I'm here now and everything is locked up. Do we start next Sunday?"

Murano: "Supposed to be today I thought. According to the schedule."

CP: "Same here. Still no one here. Waiting to hear from Laura."

Me: "Next week!"

CP: "Next week guys. Confirmed by Laura."

Me: 

I was scooping the litter boxes ten minutes later when Murano called. "Doesn't class start today? I'm here and the door is locked."

"Next week."

"The 9th."

"Yeah, next week."

"Today's the 9th."

"Today's the 2nd."

Long pause. 

Around 1:00, All The Glass sent an email to me, LT2, and the building manager. Still clearing his basement of glassblowing paraphernalia, he had some tools and protective clothing to donate. "I am planning to stop by Monday night around 9:30pm (end of lab I believe)," he wrote.

"Next week," I wrote back.

Were we all part of some group hallucination?

I decided to get proactive and send a group text to my Monday evening classmates. "Hey, guys! Our session starts next week, not tomorrow." I explained the morning confusion.

Sage: "Oh well. It could have been worse. I was confused, but double-checked with Rose."

Me: "Better than last year, when the room wasn't ready on our first day."

Sage: "Don't jinx it."

Curious about whether or not the dates had changed between November and now, I scrolled back into my records, to the original class announcement. Nope. Nothing had changed. Workshop sessions begin next week.

Winter Wind

 

Stony Brook at Pennington-Hopewell Road

2 February 2025

I was bogged down at work this week. Tom jumped in before I had a chance to think about it and suggested a trail ride for today. Temperatures would be slightly above freezing and falling, with 15 mph winds and gusts above 20 mph. That sounds like towpath weather, except that all the snow we had last weekend had melted mid-week, and then we had rain on and off all day Friday. The paths would be a mess. I suggested a road ride from Pennington instead. At least we could find some trees to block the wind.

Heddy, Rickety, Martin, Jack H, and Pete were stupid brave enough to join me. 

The streets had just about dried when I left the house at 9:30 Saturday morning. I gave myself half and hour to ride 3.5 miles because I knew I'd be straight into the wind. It felt like a 3-mile hill.

Indoors, I've been trying to work on increasing my cadence. I've come to an agreement with Rouvy: I can give it power or I can give it high rpm, but not both. I'm a slow-twitch Slug. I got talking about that with Pete. He told me that he'd gone out on a ride with Martin during the week. His wife had passed them in her car. "It looked like you two were on separate rides," she told him. He said, "My legs are going like an eggbeater and Martin's are like a metronome." I'm somewhere in the middle, I guess. I'm not looking to race, just to be more efficient.

Pete had a flat halfway up the Carter Road hill (it's barely a hill, except in the winter, when it feels like a big one). 

At the end of Wargo Road, Pete's tire went soft again. He turned around; he wasn't far from home. 

At the end of Tyburn, I gave everyone a choice: We could ride up the lower part of Stony Brook and take the hill on 518 towards Hopewell, or we could go straight to Boro Bean from here. Jack H said, "I'll see you at the coffee shop," and there were no protestations. 

Boro Bean's wooden door was shut when we rolled up. The outdoor chairs were tilted against the tables. One after another, we asked, "Are they closed?"

No, just keeping the heat in. The place was bustling as usual. Heddy and I ordered cortados. If she's there, that's what I get. Rickety decided to order one too. "See what you started?" I told her. The barista made the best cortado I've had on this side of the Atlantic.

Jack H has taken up spinning classes. Heddy still spins. I took classes from 1998 until the pandemic. We were trading stories and suggestions. Training on Rowlf (my 1986 Colnago Master) permanently fixed onto my Wahoo Kickr, and being fed workouts and real-life roads by Rouvy, is a different beast. Spin bikes have flywheels. Rowlf has a freewheel. Spin bikes require the user to adust the tension. Rouvy throws 14% grade hills at me and I have to deal with them. On the other hand, even in 53/11, I can get no traction on Rouvy's steep desecents. I try to avoid courses with a lot of downhills.

We climbed the low grade westward out of the Hopewell Valley, towards Route 31. When we passed the Stony Brook and the railroad bridge, I doubled back for photos. Everyone waited for me at the next intersection. "I couldn't resist the shadows of the trees on the ice," I said.

After we turned onto Woosamonsa from Route 31, Heddy laughed at the simultaneous clicking of all of us switching to our big rings. We'd finally found a flat road shielded from the wind. And we had a tailwind on Burd.

We didn't finish with many miles, but it was enough. We hung around the parking lot, chatting, as we usually do. Heddy and Martin said they want to flood me with updates from their biking trip to Italy in May. I was invited. I declined. 

I said, "Don't make me regret it. I'm just about over the trauma from the Canada trip."

"Trauma?" Martin asked.

I've been calling it that, overstating the situation because I haven't found a better description for it. 

During a brief period of downtime at work, I'd added the trip photos to my desktop slideshow. Each photo that shows up comes with how I felt when I was taking the picture. Maybe by next year I'll have processed the trip enough to go on another one.

Meanwhile, I had 3.5 miles of tailwind to send me home.