7 June 2008
As Yogi Berra once said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
Today’s heat index is going to near 100 degrees, and I’m leading the double reservoir ride from Frenchtown. Here I’d thought that by putting it in early June I’d avoid last year’s roasting death march, but the weather gods seem to have caught up with me.
Mike B (always searching for his name in the blog) picks me up at 7:15. Cheryl’s bike is already here because the two of us put her old saddle back on last night. I pull a crumbling cooler out of the garage and load it with ice packs, water, and a travel mug of half-and-half ice coffee to share with Cheryl. Mike (because it’s all about him) and I are getting pretty efficient with loading all three bikes into the back of his SUV, and Cheryl and I are getting good at putting $5 bills on his dashboard for gas money.
As we drive north on Route 31, Cheryl and I sharing the coffee, we’re in the same foggy haze as we had last summer for this ride. Today, though, the humidity is supposed to drop and the sun will come out pretty soon.
The haze is so thick I can’t see across the Frenchtown bridge. The air in Frenchtown is still pretty cool, though. At least the ground isn’t wet from the humidity this time.
Mike M. calls to tell me he’s running late. We’ll wait. There’s no way we’d leave without one of the true Hill Slugs. Tom couldn’t ride with us today. If he were here, we’d have the full Slug complement.
Joe B. pulls up. He’s one of those strong, quiet hill guys who shows up on my rides once in a while. He used to be a ride leader.
Marilyn drives in, looking for Mike H’s ride, scheduled to leave half an hour from now. Mike H’s rides intimidate me. He goes vertical, relentlessly, over and over again. Mike B (why read a blog if you’re not in it?) and I convince her to come along with us. “My ride’s easier,” I tell her. It probably will be. Marilyn has gone from zero to B in three months. She hung with us on our trip to Stanton two weeks ago, and went with us to New Egypt two days later. She’s got guts to ride with the B’s in her first season. It took me a couple of years to muster the courage to ride alongside all those long legs.
Once Mike M arrives and is ready, I corral everyone and give them the low-down: There will be three big climbs, two of which we can skip if we don’t feel like doing them. If we do everything, it’ll be 60 miles, and 55 if we don’t. The third big climb will be unavoidable. We’ll be stopping to look at the reservoirs up close and from far away. By the time we leave it’s close to 9:00 a.m.
The scent of honeysuckle hangs thick in the air as we follow the river north towards Milford.
The haze is beginning to clear as we get into Milford and start up out of the river valley. Except the bridge is out on Javes Road. We’ll have to go around. Way around. We follow the detour signs, which take us out and up gently. I recognize a lone supermarket on the empty county road. John Danek took us here on last year’s windmill ride, back when my vision was still a little blurry from the first corneal incident. Knowing I’ve been here before relaxes me a bit.
The detour sends us east and we’re back where I wanted to be. This time we can see the scenery. Last year we could barely see each other.
We pass the Alexandria airport (did we even see the entrance last time?):
The little hills start. Marilyn’s gears are making a racket. Something in her front shifter is very wrong. She’s working way too hard already and she’s falling behind. I tell the guys to slow down a little so she can catch up. But by the time we get to the top of Michelin Corner Road, still south of the real hills, we know it’s time for her to turn around. I give her the first page of my map so she can go back the way we’re going to go back later. “I’ve memorized the route,” I tell her, and show her how to get home. We exchange phone numbers just in case.
Marilyn turns left and we go north and then east, towards Spruce Run Reservoir. Out of the haze the hills loom, gray-green mounds in the distance.
At the reservoir entrance the Mikes race to the guard house, the winner paying all of our $2 entrance fees. Mike B (what’s a blog without Mike B?) wins. By the time the rest of us catch up and learn what’s going on, the deal is done.
We go to the same lookout spot as last year, hoping for more than a view into fog. This time we can see farther out to the hazy shoreline across the water. A man is fishing off the edge, hoping for trout.
Here’s what we saw last year (fantastic photos by Tom, of course):
And this year (cell phone, of course):
Last year Tom captured a spider web on the wooden railings
so I look for one today. I find a tattered specimen, but my camera’s not good enough, and there’s not enough moisture left in the air. If you look closely you can see some webby stuff at the bottom center:
We walk back to our bikes. A few people are munching, so I pop a couple of Shot Bloks. I know what’s coming next, and it’s starting to frighten me.
Mike B (star of the show, of course) has grass in his derailleur. At the intersection of Route 31 he pulls over to pull it out. “Mechanical!” Mike M calls out. “Or is it really mechanical?” he adds. “It’s botanical,” I reply.
We cross 31 and turn onto Buffalo Hollow Road for the first of two hills. We pass a woman walking down the hill. Mike M rides up to me as the road flattens. “Did you see the look of Schadenfreude on that woman’s face?”
“Oh, great. Now I’ll have to spell ‘Schadenfreude,” I reply, adding, “I almost asked her what we’re in for but she didn’t look like a biker.” We’re at the top of the hill before the road drops and ascends again.
I have a picture of this from last year.
It’s in a slide show rotation on my work computer desktop. Now I’m at the exact spot where I took the picture and I feel as if I’ve climbed into the frame. Weird. We zip down the hill and start climbing again. I turn us onto Observatory Road. We’re now in Voorhees State Park, where we’d hiked in March.
Cheryl, Mike B (always Mike B) and I were here in March on a hike. We’d walked part of this road. I’d told Cheryl we were coming back here by bike this summer, and told her to look behind her at the steepness. “We can do this,” she’d said. Well, now we’re doing it, like it or not.
I’m glad we’re in the shade; the air is thick and hot now. The road twists and climbs, giving us only brief rests. I keep an eye on Cheryl in front of me so I can tell what’s coming. Sometimes she stands; that’s when I know trouble is near. When she sits down again I know I’ll be getting a rest soon. I’m alarmed at how slowly her legs are turning. This could spell doom for me; I can’t spin the way she can. This hill is steep. Even with my special gearing I have to stand. I wonder what the guys behind me are thinking when they see me get up. I think they might just want to kill me, if I don’t die right here first.
Then I see daylight through the trees and Cheryl stopped ahead of me. To her right is the observatory with a car parked at the entrance gate. Cheryl is on the left side of the road talking to the driver who is standing in the middle.
I pull up. Cheryl introduces me to an observatory volunteer. “I can give you a tour,” he offers. “I dunno. We should keep going.” I’m thinking of the heat and the time. Then the guys come up. “Do you guys want a tour of the observatory?” We decide to do it.
The place was built in 1974 by volunteers and has been volunteer-run ever since. Our tour guide is Ray. I ask him about light pollution up here. He says it’s bad and getting worse. Who knew the little town of High Bridge below us would be that bad? Maybe it’s everything around here – Flemington maybe, or even Newark, or just the east coast in general. We enter a lecture room. It’s cool and dark in here. The air feels good as we drip sweat.
He motions us towards a stairway leading to the telescope. Great. Stairs after a 340-foot climb. Along the way there’s a satellite photograph of the US at night. The entire eastern seaboard is flooded with light. No wonder these guys can’t see anything.
Ray opens the door to the telescope room. We’re facing a massive device that could be a stunt double for a James Bond film doomsday machine. We start firing questions at Ray faster than he can answer them. He tells us how the roof opens, how light travels down a tube (looks like the gun on a tank) towards a series of mirrors and finally to an eyepiece.
The scope is programmed to rotate at the same speed as the Earth to keep objects in focus. A full moon in the viewer is blinding. As the rest of us move towards the door to leave, Mike M is still asking questions. “Does this have a camera?”
Ray says, “If you become a member and pay for one.”
Someone asks how often he uses the scope himself. He looks down, sheepishly, and says, “I haven’t been on for about five years. Once you’ve seen everything…” We head down the stairs.
My phone rings. “Hello, Slug Number One! This is the Almost Slug.”
It’s Marilyn, back in Frenchtown. Before I even ask her if she’s okay I’m going on about the telescope tour. “I got a little lost on the way back,” she says. “There was an old-timey parade.” She got in about twenty miles, which was just fine with her. I tell her to take her bike back to the shop right away, and that the hill we just climbed would have made her gears explode. It’s hyperbole, of course, but I hope she knows what I mean. I’m not sure I do even as I say it.
Ray stands beside me as I get back on the bike. “Be careful,” he says, and “Drink a lot of water. Be safe.” He says this over and over again as I say “Goodbye” and “Thanks” and “I will.”
We begin our descent, stopping half a mile down the road at a scenic overlook. We’d been here in the winter, too, and could see Round Valley in the distance. Today, well, so much for the view. We see trees and haze beyond.
It’s a good thing we got that tour, I tell the crew, or we would have climbed this hill for nothing. Ray passes us as we get to the end of the road and turn right towards High Bridge. The Hill Top Deli awaits.
Diet root beers, PB&J, orange juice, water, five of us crowded around a round picnic table outside. I get up to reach for my maps and Cheryl notices the wet mark my butt leaves on the bench. “It’s hot! I’m sweaty! I be you’ll leave one too.” She stands up. The bench is dry. “Wow.” How does she do that? I’m dripping the same way the guys are.
I show the crew where we’re going next. We’re not going to do the middle climb. This last one took too much out of us and we still have more than 30 miles to go.
We descend into High Bridge, where, just like last year, I get turned around and wind up in a dead end at the train station. I can see where we need to be so I point us downhill and get lucky. I can feel the heat baking us now as we ride through a residential neighborhood and climb a few rollers. As we round a shady corner things aren’t looking familiar.
I would have remembered the Solitude House from last year, and suddenly I know where we are. We’re at one end of Lake Solitude. The only reason I know this is because someone from around here asked the Sierra Club, via me, about our position on the dam removal on this lake. I had to go to my wall map to figure out where this was, and defer to others in the Chapter to get the answer (remove the dam). At the time I’d seen how close it was to the double reservoir route, but until now I’d forgotten.
“Stop!” I call out as I check the map. Mike B (search for) looks over my shoulder. If we continue this way we’ll be climbing back up the hill we’d just left and be faced with ascending part or all of Cokesbury Mountain. “I don’t want to do that,” I tell him.
“Turn around! Turn around!” Well, now I’ve seen Lake Solitude anyway. We should come back this way sometime. Pretty road. We find the turn I’d missed and we’re on our way to Round Valley.
We’re on Reformatory Road, passing a huge complex that must have been, or must be, a reformatory for men. Cheryl asks if there’s one for women here so she can check herself in. Mike M asks, “Do you think it would help?” She suggests checking herself into the men’s asylum. Maybe she’d find a date, she says. “Inmate dating!” I call out, picturing a speed-dating scene with women and men separated by Plexiglas.
We get to Round Valley Reservoir via the access road off of Route 22, which seems a pretty gentle way to get up there. We must have been pretty high up to begin with because getting to the reservoir is work from all other angles. I signal to turn into the boat launch area and we watch people fishing. Somebody catches something big which Joe identifies, but I can’t see it from where I’m standing.
It’s hot. We don’t stay long.
Coming up is the Best Downhill Ever, the southbound descent from the top of the reservoir. The road is smooth, wide, and winding, with the reservoir on the left and farmland on the right. Mike B (find next) lets out a whoop as we swoop (that one’s for you, Dale).
At the bottom of the hill we turn west onto Payne, newly-paved in the blackest of asphalt. The heat engulfs us. I’m baking here. Across 31 we get some shade on Lilac and Kickeniuk, but we’re now on unfamiliar turf.
A small bridge crosses the Raritan River. I have to stop for a picture, now feeling obligated to document every Raritan crossing I make. The water is brown from Wednesday’s downpour.
I warn everyone that we’re about to climb again. It’s unavoidable. We have to get from the Raritan watershed to the Delaware watershed, and there’s a monster ridge in between. “I don’t know this road,” I tell the crew, “so I don’t know what’s coming.” It’s another 350 feet, but this one is longer. That should make it easier.
This one doesn’t feel as bad. As we pull away from the river and two farms along the bank we ride under the cover of trees. The road turns and all I see is Cheryl ahead of me. After a while things level out and I figure we’re at the top. To my right is the perfect view.
As I put my phone away I see the guys approaching. Cheryl is out of sight around the corner. But around the corner isn’t the end; it’s more hill. Damn. I shift all the way down and plod along. I don’t have much left, but once we’re up on the ridge it should be easy.
At the top Cheryl says, “I don’t think I can do any more hills.” Not do hills? She must be tired. We wait in the shade. As the guys arrive I tell them that we should be finished climbing.
I’m wrong, of course, because the minute we turn left onto Sidney Road there’s a hill there to mock us. And when we turn right onto West Sidney the road isn’t flat either. It’s not long before we’re facing an asphalt wall. Down go the gears. I’m not even trying now, just spinning quickly enough and slowly enough to keep moving.
Cheryl is a hundred yards or so ahead of me when I hear her. “Fucking HILL!” I smile, but I’m worried. It’s too soon for anyone to come apart. At the top she is leaning over her handlebars. “I can’t do one more hill,” she says. The guys are quiet when they get up to us.
Now we’re on Quakertown Road and going downhill into Pittstown. We pass the befuddling “Do not enter -- this is not an exit” sign just before our rest stop. I’m dizzy as I dismount.
This time we sit inside. I’m hungry but I don’t know what to eat. This place doesn’t to PB&J (“We’re Italian,” they’d explained to me last year.) so I unwrap my energy bar, which is nuts glommed together with something sweet and sticky. It tastes like ass but I eat it anyway. That and a salt tablet, just in case. Nobody else wants a tablet. None of us wants to get up or go back outside, but we have ten miles to go.
Cheryl asks Mike B (is he in this one?) if he’s read my blog recently. “Yes,” he says.
Cheryl and I both retort, “No you haven’t.”
“We’d know if you read it. It’s obvious.”
“What did I miss?”
“You’ll have to read it. You’ll see.”
“I only read it to look for my name,” he explains. “I use the ‘search’ tool with ‘Mike B’ and go through it that way.”
“Because it’s all about you,” I add.
“It’s all about me,” he replies. Oh, it’s on now. I know what I’m going to do this time.
Slowly we stand up.
“When we get to Frenchtown I’m buying,” I announce. “There’s sorbet at the café.”
Back at our bikes I pull out the maps. “Huh. I didn’t notice that ‘160’ on Sidney.” That was the wall. “We have one more 140-foot climb around the corner, and after that I can’t tell you because Marilyn has my map. But we will have a long downhill at the end, that much I know.”
After the 140 feet, though, we still seem to be going up. This has to end sometime. Even on the flats I seem to be dragging. We have a headwind, not strong but hot, enough to blow the sweat away. I look ahead for any sign of shade, or of Rick Road where our long descent will begin.
It seems like forever before we get there. Cheryl announces that she’s no longer having fun, then apologizes. I don’t feel bad or good, just exhausted, automated, the legs going ‘round and ‘round, the brain on neutral. As Matt says, “You still gotta pedal.” I know this so well now that I no longer have to think it.
We finally get our payoff. Rick Road drops and drops for miles. The wind and the shade cool us off. This downhill has to be better than Round Valley, if not for the swooping (of which there isn’t much) then for the length. But I’m not sure I want to do the work to get back up here. Three miles of coasting puts us in a better mood until the end, where a numbskull in an SUV nearly creams Mike B (does he get it yet?) as she bolts out of her driveway.
Three more turns and we’re home. The first is Stamets, which hands us a little hill just to shake us out of our relaxation. Then its more dive-bombing down. Out of nowhere I get one of my all-time favorite songs in my head, one that only pops in when I’m feeling carefree and happy, one I haven’t even made a point to listen to in years: Supertramp's "Dreamer."
Dreamer, you know you are a dreamer
Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no!
I said dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer
Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no!
I said "Far out, - What a day, a year, a laugh it is!"
You know, - Well you know you had it comin' to you,
Now there's not a lot I can do
Dreamer, you stupid little dreamer;
So now you put your head in your hands, oh no!
I said "Far out, - What a day, a year, a laugh it is!"
You know, - Well you know you had it comin' to you,
Now there's not a lot I can do.
Well work it out someday
If I could see something
You can see anything you want boy
If I could be someone-
You can be anyone, celebrate boy.
If I could do something-
Well you can do something,
If I could do anything-
Well can you do something out of this world?
Take a dream on a Sunday
Take a life, take a holiday
Take a lie, take a dreamer
dream, dream, dream, dream, dream along...
Dreamer, you know you are a dreamer
Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no!
I said dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer
Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no!
OH NO! But the bliss stops at an intersection I wasn’t expecting. I don’t know which is the new road and which is the one we’re supposed to be on. The left turn I’m looking for isn’t this one, which is a triangular intersection that just confuses me. I stop and start to reach for my maps when I remember that Marilyn has this one. I’m supposed to have memorized this part, but I don’t remember any Gallmeir Road popping up. Through my exhausted haze I can feel a bit of panic, but we must be close to the river at this point.
I look around. To the left the road descends. “Are you sure?” Cheryl asks. “Yep,” I say, but I don’t know why I’m so sure, other than the fact that the road goes down.
But not for long. We’re climbing again. Cheryl is antsy now. There are lots of cars coming our way. I take this as a good sign. It means we must be near something big, like the river or at least an intersection. After the road takes a sharp turn we wind up at a big intersection. I have no idea where we are. My notion is to turn left, based on nothing at all. I try to flag down a few cars. Eventually a woman in an SUV stops as I call out, “We need directions!”
“Which way is the river?” I ask.
She points the opposite way from where I would have gone. “That way. That’s 513,” she says. “It’ll take you right into Frenchtown.”
“How far?” I dread the answer.
“Two or three miles. It’ll take you right in.” Whew.
“What’s the name of this road?”
“This is Gallmeir,” she says.
Right. Big oops there. If not for this woman we’d be heading back up the ridge and calling an ambulance to take us home.
“Thank you so much!”
I call out to the group to turn onto 513. “Three miles to Frenchtown!”
The road looks familiar. This must be the same route we took back last year. The road that Tom said would be “all downhill from here” but wasn’t. A series of low rollers confirms it. A mile marker reads “mile 2” and I know we’re headed in the right direction. One more mile and there will be a steep drop into town. Mike M bolts ahead. He must remember this road too. I haven’t been this pooped since the Chocolate Bunny in March.
I wait until we’re all in the parking lot before I say, “You’re strong people, tough people, and good eggs all around.” Despite my nearly desiccating every one of them, they’re thanking me for a good ride. We’re all crazy.
I’m so trashed I can’t even find the energy to take my shoes off. I call home to let Jack know we’re going to be a while. It’s already 3:30, a solid hour later than I’d thought we’d be back. I stagger to my backpack and reach for my towel and change of clothes. I can barely change my socks.
“I feel as if I’ve done a century,” I tell Mike B (following the plot at all?). I duck behind the car door to change, too exhausted to walk to the bathroom at the café. I feel better once I’m out of my sweaty clothes, but it’s still in the mid-90’s and I can’t seem to stop sweating. I take some money and my towel with me into the café.
Joe is already there, having waited for us to change and put our bikes in the car. He’s halfway through a bowl of sorbet. I ask him, “Did you pay yet?”
“No.” He gestures towards the counter. “I told her you’re paying.”
So I do, for four raspberry sorbets and two cookies (for Jack). “This is the best thing I’ve tasted all day.”
They agree.
*****
Epilogue:
From now on I’m carrying two sets of maps, but, as it turns out, the wrong turn didn’t cost us any miles, just shade, altitude, and patience.
It also turns out that our ascents after Pittstown to Rick Road put us higher than we had been all day, including at the top of the observatory hill.
And I learned today that when we turned onto Sidney Road we were at the headwaters of Sidney Brook, which is so clean that it has the maximum protection the state allows, keeping development 300 feet away in either direction. The stream supports trout, as does Spruce Run Reservoir, which means that we were riding in some relatively clean, unpolluted watersheds.
