A Walk in the Park

 

Red-Tailed Hawk, Tyler State Park, Newtown, PA

21 January 2024

Still on the mend, Tom announced he'd be at Tyler State Park's boathose at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday if we wanted to join him for a 5-mile walk.

We all had to drive at a snail's pace when we entered the park because we'd hit the end of an organized polar bear run and the road hadn't been plowed wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic as well as the runners.

We did find each other relatively easily, considering the mayhem. Joining Tom were Jim, Pete, Rickety, Cheryl G, Eric, Heddy, Our Jeff, and me.

We sometimes ride here when the roads are too icy because the asphalt paths are usually plowed. They were today, too, more or less, but not as tidily as in the past. It would have been rough going if we'd brought our bikes. 

I was testing out a new ankle brace. My old one is from 1992, the year I had surgery to tighten up a ligament gone loose from 12 sprains in 11 years. All that flopping around destroyed the proprioception; my brain doesn't know where my left ankle is. So I do strengthening exercises for the muscles around it, and wear a brace any time I might encounter unlevel ground. The brace shores up my ankle, and, should it wobble, the pressure from the brace tells my brain where my foot is. To my surprise, the new brace, much stiffer than the old one (no surprise, considering), was comfortable, and there were probably times that it was doing its job.

We started by walking across the dam over the Neshaminy Creek. 

On the downstream side, what looked like rocks were, upon closer inspection, Canada geese.

Tom led us off the paved path, down a snowy trail to the covered bridge. This part is never plowed. We usually park our bikes up top, walk down for pictures, and trudge back up again. We did the same thing today, reversing course at the bottom.

But first we milled about, taking pictures.

The view from the far side of the bridge, on the sunny side, showed shallow ice floes on the water's surface.

On the other side, the bridge cast a shadow on the creek.

There were more goose-rocks in the water.

Tom seemed to have disappeared. I followed a trail down to the water's edge. He was there with his good camera, gloves off so he could work the controls. He's been taking photography classes lately. He was already good at this. I expect the photos he'll share from today will put the rest of us to shame.

At the top of the hill, Our Jeff and Pete took a break on a bench. I didn't notice Jeff's finger until I uploaded the photo (click to embiggen).

He did that because he saw what I was doing to Tom's gloves.

We went back up the hill.

There was a horse farm I hadn't noticed before.

We came down a long, steep hill that we usually ride up. I ought to have taken a picture. I don't know why I didn't. 

Later, I noticed some duckweed in a shallow section of the creek.

We reached the dam again. I took some pictures of the path we didn't take that we usually ride up and back on. There's a big hill up that way.

Some of us thought the walk was over. Jeff and Pete called it a day. I almost did too, until I found out that we were going to walk along the path on this side of the creek for a bit. 

Heddy and I got to talking and got a little ahead. The guys called us to turn around.

We found a red-tailed hawk perched on a branch over our heads and stopped for photos. The sun was in my eyes. My glasses are the kind that darken in sunlight, and they're polarized too. I could barely see my camera's display. I was mostly shooting blind.

We walked on, and the hawk flew in front of us to land on a branch closer to the stream, and to us. We stopped again.

This look says, "I'm giving you guys one more minute. After that, I have mice to catch."

This bird must be used to people by now.

Someone left a pile of dried fruit and nuts on both sides of a little bridge over the creek.

The last time I went walking with the Insane Bike Posse at Tyler was in the winter of 2021. Jim and Mighty Mike had just received their first Covid vaccines, and I had severe vaccine envy. We were walking outside with masks on. I'm glad the Posse is still together three years later.

Weird New Weather

sky over Twin Pines

14 January 2024

Saturday

"That was more work than I expected," I said, pulling into the Twin Pines parking lot on Fozzie, my no-frills gravel bike.

The wind was out of the west at a steady 17 mph, with 29 mph gusts. The ground was still wet from the early morning rain. A tree had taken down a power line where Lawrenceville-Pennington Road meets Denow. There was debris to be dodged. 

It was 54 degrees when I left the house. In January. In New Jersey. 

Overhead, the storm was on its way out, with gray and white clouds moving at a noticeable speed.

We'd been dithering for several days over whether or not to ride. As Saturday drew nearer, I decided not to list anything on our club's calendar. The towpath and LHT would be a muddy mess. The trees up on the Sourland Mountain were probably spitting branches; my front yard was already week's supply of campfire kindling, and that was just from one tree. Our best bet, I figured, was to ride in the shadow of the mountain rather than on it. 

At 7:00 a.m. we still weren't sure. We decided to meet at Twin Pines at 10:00 if things cleared up by 9:00. Pete G, Martin, and Heddy were in. 

The sun came out at 9:00.

Four of us, on our gravel bikes, did the Old Friday Night Route (if you know, you know).

We took the new bike path on the north side of Keefe Road. I stopped to get photos of the head-high grass in the field against the puffy clouds, blue sky, and fresh blacktop. We used Heddy for scale.

The counterclockwise route went past the Pole Farm, around Carson Road Woods, through ETS, up Carter, over Bayberry, over to Moores Mill, up to Route 31, on 31 (briefly!), down Woosamonsa and Burd, into Pennington the back way, and then down Pennington-Lawrenceville Road to Twin Pines.

We got rained on a few times. If there's water on your GPS, it counts as rain. We had confirmation by looking at the droplets hitting roadside puddles.

The wind picked up and the temperature dropped.

At the end of the ride, Heddy, Martin, and I talked about the Nova Scotia trip. We're in the thick of logistics now, reserving hotels and our spots on the CAT ferry from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth. To anyone who hasn't traveled to New England in the summer, this seems very early to be doing all that. It's not. The ferry only leaves once a day.

The sky between me and home was gunmetal gray now. It was raining. I surfed the tailwind when I had it, and leaned into the gusts that threatened to send me sideways when I didn't. 

After I got home, had lunch, and warmed myself back up, I made the journey up to see Michael at Wheelfine. It had been a year. I had to confess to my sin, Janice. 

Tony G was in the shop, picking out bar tape to go with a Di Bernardi frame he was going to build into a fixie. Tony G has a lot of bikes. Tony G does not admit to knowing how many that many is. "If I knew," he said, "I'd have to tell my wife." I'll let that one slide. 

I bought a pack of 3 metal tire levers with thin ends for a whopping $5. Given the tint of the plastic wrap, the bag had probably been around since the Carter administration. I need levers this thin to get the damned Vittoria Rubino Pro tires off Janice's Boyd carbon rims. 

Anyway, Michael and I chatted for a while as the wind shook the door to the shop. Tony puttered around, having decided on black tape to go with the dark blue frame. We'll have to coordinate bikes when he's ready to take his fixie out on a ride. It'll look good next to Beaker, my blue Tommasini.

At night, Eric H and I traded texts for at least an hour, trying to figure out if it would be possible, let alone safe, for him to lead his planned Sunday ride from Claremont. The route required crossing the D&R Canal at Griggstown. I went down a rabbit hole gawping at NOAA's water gauge tables. The causeway was flooded. Would it still be in the morning? What about the predicted snow squalls? 

Sunday

I got up early and put my warmest winter gear on. That meant the wind-stop leggings that, unless I bunch them up at the knees, feel as if they were meant to immobilize me.

At a few minutes before 9:00, Eric texted me to tell me he cancelled the ride. The causeway was still flooded. Two of the six riders had already bailed.

No problem. I could work out on my trainer instead.

Or, wait! There was that hike that TEW was leading out of the Pole Farm. It was already filled, but maybe she'd let me in. I called, and she did. There were, it turned out, several last-minute add-ons, including Jack H and Plain Jim.

We walked in sunlight with a stiff wind.

I have no sense of distance on foot. The loop was five miles. Somewhere in there, maybe halfway, clouds started moving in.

the pole

With half a mile to go, I stopped to take some pictures of the thick, gray clouds to our west. These were the snow squalls, and they were heading our way.

I tried to get a picture of the less-threatening sky to the east, as seen through one of the round, screened thingies next to the Reed/Bryan Farm parking lot.

We did get some snow squalls maybe half an hour later. They didn't amount to much. None of that zero-visibility stuff that the forecasters had been threatening, anyway. Nothing stuck to the ground. It doesn't count if it doesn't stick.

Some real winter air is headed our way this week. It'll be 25 degrees colder tomorrow than it was yesterday morning. This is, I guess, what passes for normal now. 

Rough Riding on the Towpath

Ode to a Retrogrouch

 6 January 2024

I didn't take any pictures during our towpath ride today. I was too busy navigating cobbles and washouts.

Our plan was to get something close to 20 miles in before the snow started. Six of us met in the Brearley House parking lot.

We went north. Normally, the stretch in Lawrence Township is, as Pete G put it, "the canary in the coal mine." It's subject to flooding from the high, wet ground above. The path is coated with rough sand that, if it hasn't washed away or become submerged, is deep enough to cause a fishtail or two.

Today, that section was the easy part. North of Quaker Road, we encountered a sawhorse set across the path by the kind folks of the State Park. "Trail closed," the signs said, rather unhelpfully. Yellow caution tape was tied to the right side and a tree. On the left side, the tape had been broken. 

We, being Good Little Hill Slugs, went right on through. We were joined by dozens of other scofflaws, mostly on foot, traversing the towpath from the northern side.

It became clear very quickly why the state didn't want us there. In between complete washout craters spanning the entire width of the path, there were signs of large trees having been recently sawed down. 

The bridge over the towpath at Washington Road is under construction. There's a temporary stretch of large stones and hastily-poured blacktop to get people across Washington Road (which is, again, closed).

Then there's the cobblestone spillway, a known hazard that's more of a mindfuck than a fall risk.

When we reached Kingston, I decided we needed to get closer to 10 miles before turning around or riding up the hill for a break at PJ's. 

What a mistake that turned out to be. There was washboard washout after washboard washout, deep grooves in the cinder that I took at speed because I used to own a mountain bike. Then we had to turn around and do the same thing over again. 

I had just re-bounced over half of the washouts when I heard the telltale sound of a flat tire grinding on gravel. At the same time, we came upon TEW's hiking group, Plain Jim among them. We stopped. I reached for my rear tire, which was firm. I hadn't yet considered the front when Jim said, "You're flat."

So there I was, sitting on the ground, changing my inner tube with my glove liners on so that I wouldn't come in contact with the rubber. This was, needless to say, not going well at the step where I had to put the new tube in. I took my gloves off. My fingers froze instantly. I put my gloves back on, fussed around a bit more, then finally asked for help. Chris has big enough hands that he was able to get the tire back around the tube without tools. In all the years I've been riding, with all the bikes I've had, I have never, ever been able to do that. Small hands.

When I reached for my pump, the entire mount came off the bike with it, the connection points having snapped. No problem. I have more side mounts at home. It took a while to get the tire up to a reasonable pressure. I shoved the pump into my Camelbak and off we went.

I made a mental note to lead towpath rides from Washington Crossing or thereabouts from now on.

We'd lost time, so we didn't stop at PJ's. I'd promised we'd get back by noon, and we did.

The snow started a few minutes after the last of us drove off.

New Year's Day on the Towpath

 

somewhere north of Washington Crossing

2 January 2024

Yesterday was Ron M's 11th annual New Year's Day towpath ride. Looking back in my records, it appears that this might be my first, at least since before 2015, when I started keeping track of which bike I ride and how far on any given day. I see that I was out on Grover, my mountain bike, on New Year's Day 2015, for all of 14.7 miles. It must have been a very cold day for me to have hauled Grover all the way to Washington Crossing for so few miles. 

Anyway, I was part of a big group yesterday. We went north. Sometimes we got separated. Pete G and I stopped to wait across the canal from wherever this bike and kayak rental place is on Route 29 somewhere south of Lambertville.

We got separated again in Lambertville. Apparently there was a minor pileup as the group in back tried to cross Bridge Street. 

Ron led us to the pedestrian bridge at Bulls Island. Somebody wanted a selfie with all of us lined up against the railing. 

We walked across for our rest stop at the Lumberville General Store. These days, if Heddy is on the ride, I might try a cortado. That's her test of whether or not a stop is worth the coffee. Unlike the Italian bakery in Raritan, where we were on Jim's ride yesterday, these folks weren't sure how to make one. I played it safe and got a cappucino.

I think they put crack in it, because when we made our way back, I felt the need to hammer. I was just far enough ahead to get a photo of a mile marker we'd passed on the way up, where the feeder canal peters out into the Delaware River. 

"RUN FAR. EAT PLANTS. LISTEN TO RICE." 

I darted ahead again to get a picture of the abandoned rail car across the canal, south of Lambertville.

We collected half the group when we got to the dirt road that leads down to Titusville. Ron had told us to go that way. We waited a bit for the rest of the group, but we were getting cold. 

They weren't far behind us. In the parking lot, Christine passed around miniature stroopwaffels and beer.

I should do this ride again next year.