Slugs on the Towpath

 

D&R Canal, Lambertville, NJ

16 November 2025

Fozzie the gravel bike doesn't usually come out to play until the dead of winter, when it's too cold or too windy to ride on the open road.

This autumn has been different. Ron M and Ken W have been listing Sunday towpath rides. They're the perfect distance and pace for recovery after a day of hills. 

Last Saturday, Tom posted a hilly ride from Yardley to Lahaska. I recognized most of the roads from the Wednesday Premed rides, although I still can't put them together to get a sense of where I am when I'm on them. 

When, early in the ride, we ended up crossing Wrightstown Road, I asked for a picture stop. One does not stop for photos on a Premed ride, especially at this intersection, which I'm usually hammering past in the final 7 macho miles. I wasn't hammering on this day. With the group we had, I was hoping simply to keep up.

Those were the only pictures I took. When we reached Lahaska, we stuck with the Lucky Cupcake, where there was decent coffee and a spread of pastries so vast that Rickety said, "This place should be illegal."

Tom veered from the Premed roads towards the end. Stoopville Road? One and done. 

Martin announced that he would be leading a towpath ride from Yardley the next day. I signed up.

I prefer the Jersey side to the PA side. West of the river, there are low bridges to duck under, and the trail isn't as well maintained nor as wide. 

We were a big group and got spread out. During a catch-up pause, I took some pictures. We were somewhere north of Yardley.

It was one of those spots where the canal goes over a creek. I'm always amazed that a bridge can hold this much water without bursting.

Not far north of that, I stopped to capture the way the light was hitting the hills in the distance.

There was rain predicted for early afternoon. We were south of Bulls Island, at the Virginia Forest Recreation Area, for a bathroom break. The sky was looking foreboding.

Out on a spit, a group of people in day-glow yellow appeared to be engaged in some sort of training exercise. There was a boat nearby they seemed to be communicating with.

From where we were, we could see the Bulls Island bridge.

Martin wanted to go past Bulls Island to a newly-built bridge; the old one had been washed out in tropical storm Ida a handful of years ago.

We rode over the bridge. I was glad we were going to turn around here, because on the other side, the towpath appeared to be nothing but grass.

Glen, a bridge inspector by profession, rode over the bridge and gave it a thumbs-up.

"How long has this been open?" I aske Martin.

"A few weeks."

"I can tell," I said, pointing to the rows of cables that ran underneath the railings. "No spider webs." It's too cold for them to get started.

Half the group had turned off in Lumberville to go directly to the general store. We met them there. As we were finishing up, it started raining, a little drizzle.

One is supposed to walk one's bike over the Bulls Island Bridge, but I wasn't the only one not to dismount. It was too chilly out to get wet. I wanted to get as close to the end as possible before the occasional drizzle turned into outright rain.

I was off the front, not so much that I couldn't see the group behind me, when Ron came speeding up on his electric bike. "Pace pusher!" he teased.

"Dude," I said, "I'm tryna stay dry!"

He got in front of me and I drafted. We'd gone a few miles before I looked at our speed. We were well above the advertized pace. We stopped at an intersection, where a few others caught up. Ron pulled us all back.

I did stop in Titusville for another handful of pictures. The sun lit up the yellow leaves on the towpath.

Moments later, the sun was behind a bank of heavy clouds to the southwest. We still had to go south to Ewing then west over the I-295 bridge to Yardley. We were headed right for the rain.

We beat it, but barely. The rest of the group got wet. I took one last picture from inside my car.

This weekend was almost a copy of last. Tom led an off-the-books ride from Cranbury. I brought Kermit out of four months in dry dock for the event. Poor Kermit. 

Tom kept the ride short because it was on the chilly side of cool. The transition from winter to spring and from autumn to winter are the most difficult times of year to dress for. One needs layers, but also pockets to store said layers. Yesterday, I kept everything on that I started with.

Today's forecast, although warmer than yesterday's, had a wind advisory in it. 

temperature in red; wind gusts in blue

I'd listed a towpath ride from Lambertville to Upper Black Eddy, 37 miles, which is long for a towpath ride this time of year (Martin's was 34, so I didn't think I was stretching the boundary too much). I described it as a C ride with a C+ effort, because the gravel and wind would not make for a fast nor easy ride.

I set the limit to 12 riders. It filled up, and then people were dropping out and signing up like a game of musical chairs, all the way to Sunday morning.

I started with 10 riders. One rolled in on a road bike with skinny tires. Knowing we'd be on the PA side north of Lumberville (that photo of grass above), I shook my head. I'd thought having the word "towpath" in the ride title would have been enough, but the rider said, "I'm not familiar with the area." The rider decided to go with us anyway.

We started on the NJ side from the Holcombe Jimison Farmstead Museum at the northern end of Lambertville. At Bulls Island, the road biker decided to head back on Route 29. Doug and Christine, not fond of the PA side, opted to stay on the NJ side to Frenchtown, where the towpath ends, and cross over to PA there, to meet us in Upper Black Eddy.

So we were down to 7. I started riding across the bridge, which one isn't supposed to do, but dismounted halfway over. The crosswind was so strong it was blowing me sideways. I took a picture from the bridge, facing north.

We rode on the aforementioned grass, which led to what was little more than two red gravel ruts with grass in between. I was glad for having learned rudimentary mountain bike skills. The double-track gave way to single-track. We got a little spread out, so when there was space to pull over, we did.

This happened to be where the Tinicum Creek flows into the Delaware River, the location information on my phone tells me. At the time, I had no clue.  I said as much to Pete. He helpfully offered, "We're in Pennsylvania."

The single-track continued, making for awkward passing etiquitte when a group of riders came at us from the north. We both moved off the track onto opposite sides of it. I remembered this section from having ridden up to Easton on Ken W's towpath century in July 2021. There would be more of that closer to Easton, but we weren't going that far.

To our right was the river. To the left was a wall of hill, so tall and steep that it blocked the wind. But the wall disappeared ocasionally, and whenever I saw a cornfield between us and the river, I knew we'd be in for some hard work. 

At the Uhlerstown covered bridge, another rider begged off. We gave him directions to the NJ side. Now we were 6.

I kept looking at my GPS. Upper Black Eddy would be around mile 19. We still had 4 miles of brutal headwind to go.

When we reached the Homestead General Store, I had a moment of panic, because there was nobody sitting out back and I thought the place might be closed. But of course there wasn't anyone outside. The wind was gusting at 40 mph and the temperature was dropping! Inside, there wasn't a seat to be had.

There were two open tables on the front porch, which was protected from most of the wind, but was out of the sun. I pulled my hat and glove liners out of my pocket and put them on.

Ron had ordered a sandwich. That's never a good idea, especially with a big group in a crowded general store. By the time it was ready, half the riders were itching to leave. Doug and Christine had arrived halfway through Ron's wait, so I stayed with them while the impatient people took off for home.

Now we were 4: me, Ron, Doug, and Christine.

At least we had a strong tailwind. Most of the time. Sometimes it blew across the path, carrying long corn leaves with it. We crossed the river into Frenchtown and got under the trees, where we had slightly less help from the wind.

Ron, full of battery and bacon, sped off the front. Doug, a racer who, unlike every other racer I've met, keeps the pace of whatever ride he's on, was back with Christine.

So I was alone on the towpath, trying to keep everyone in sight. Eventually I gave up and hammered to catch Ron. I asked him to wait with me for Doug and Christine, to find out if they wanted us to wait or to keep going. 

Christine said she was done. "Doug is going to pick me up in Stockton," she said. "You guys go on."

Now we were 3.

Somewhere north of Byram (says my phone), we encountered a fallen tree. "This wasn't here on our way up," Doug said. Ron's pedals got tangled in the vine that had grown around it as he walked his bike over. I hoisted Fozze above the mess. Doug made a futile attempt to clear some of the smaller branches as Christine appeared in the distance.

Doug helped Christine over the tree and we took off again. Ron and Doug sped up at Prallsville Mills, leaving me by myelf once more. But at the Stockton General Store, Ron stopped.

I should mention at this point that we'd been hearing the roar of gas-powered generators all along the towpath since Frenchtown. There was one going outside the general store too. Ron decided to take his chances in a pitch-dark bathroom, while Doug charged ahead.

I took a picture of a towpath map while I waited. It's not the easiest thing to deciper on the fly.

Hanging from a bush next to the store was a bee trap full of hundreds of dead yellowjackets. I'm on team bee here. Don't make the bee decline worse by setting traps. Just stay out of their way and let them do their thing.

We had 1.8 miles to go. 

After I packed Fozzie away, I walked to the bridge over the canal for a couple more pictures.

So that was a mess. I'd expected us to get spread out, and I'd expected the impatient riders to leave. Towpath rides are less coherent by nature anyway, because nobody is going to get lost. It's the leader's responsibility to see the last rider in; anyone off the front is on their own. Still, I was hoping for more camaraderie than we got today.