26-27 July
I was painting the bathroom last night when Jack popped his head into the room to tell me that my father called. I figured that my aunt must’ve taken a turn for the worse. Then I realized it was more sinister than that: he’d read my blog.
After cleaning off the brushes and cleaning off myself I called him back. Indeed he’d read the bit about overtraining and had pretty much freaked out. Freaking out is usually my mother’s territory, especially if it’s something medical. This was a fitness thing, however, and my mother doesn’t know how to break a sweat.
So I had to reassure him that I hadn’t done any exercising for six days now and that the overtraining symptoms had all but disappeared. His opinion was that we cyclists are all obsessive nuts. Why did we need to go riding 70 miles anyway? Because we don’t want to drive that far, I told him. “There are parts of New Jersey people don’t know about. We have great scenery, horses, cows, sheep, a covered bridge, and even a Dutch windmill,” I added.
Not convinced I was better, he asked me to call him after tomorrow’s ride. Fine. Whatever. I hung up, pretty sure that my parents had switched skins.
*****
Tom’s ride today is taking us to Sergeantsville via Dutchtown-Zion Road, a road we call “rude” because it starts off annoying and gets worse at the end. I’ve been up it a handful of times. I don’t worry about it anymore because I know what’s coming.
We’re starting from the D&R Canal parking lot in Rocky Hill. Henry and Irene – Wall-E and Eva now – are in the parking lot when I arrive. I’m glad, but surprised, that they’re here. Tom says, “I thought you’d be taking some time off.”
“We did,” Eva says. “Two days.”
And here I took six.
There are Anchor House riders, and then there’s the rest of us.
Cheryl’s here, too. I had to twist her arm a little.
She tells Mike M. and Tom that she found a job working from home. She’s not starting until the end of August, which gives her a month to goof off.
I tell Mike that Glenn gave my resume to the director of his group at BMS and the director wants me to come to the campus for a visit even though there aren’t any jobs open in his group right now. “That’s positive,” Mike says. I’m a complete stranger to the corporate world, so if Mike says it’s good, I’m glad to hear it.
Eddie and Artie are at the far end of the lot. The last time I saw Artie was one ride after the time his chain exploded. “You know this is dangerous having us both on the same ride,” I tell him. A year before the exploding chain he’d gone on one of my hilly rides and wound up in the hospital a few days later with chest pains. It turned out to be work-related stress and his heart was fine, but he enjoyed telling people that I’d damn near killed him.
We start by climbing out of the canal valley towards the Sourlands. It’s a gradual hill but I feel it on most days. Today I don’t. Good sign.
I feel pretty good climbing Dutchtown-Zion, too. I stay in the back, looking for the “Beware of Attack Frog” sign on one of the mailboxes by the stream. For the second time I can’t find it. The people must’ve moved, or maybe the frog died.
I pass a few people after the road gets rude. Mike M. asks how much more of this there is. “This is it,” I tell him. Around the corner Tom is ready with his camera. I give him the thumbs-up and pull to a stop next to him and Irene.
A wave of dizziness hits me and I freeze. “We need a few minutes here,” Eva calls out. Wall-E razzes me: “If this old body can do it, you certainly can.” I say nothing, waiting to find out what my body is going to do. Eva tells him, “She can’t answer you right now.”
The wave passes. Sean had warned me that I might not be fully recovered right away. I hope that’s all this is.
It turns out to be. Unlike last week, I feel no lasting effects of the wave as we continue to climb up the Sourlands, first on Hollow Road, then Long Hill towards the ridge. I feel fine. The next big hill won’t be until the end of the ride, when we go up Lindbergh. I haven’t been up that one at all this year.
Meanwhile we’re riding across the ridge towards Lambertville. I tell Eva about the BMS visit. She says I’ll get laid off. “I’ve been told that scientists are the last ones to go,” I tell her.
“Bullshit,” she says. “Do you know how many of my clients are former BMS scientists?”
“OK, well that sucks. But if I’m earning twice as much as I’m earning now I’ll be able to put money away for when I’m laid off. And then there’s the Philly wage tax.” She agrees about those things. Philadelphia takes 5% off the top and we don’t get it back even if we live out of state. I’m willing to take the gamble. “I can always go back to Penn.”
Tom takes over the ridge on Rocktown Road. Of all the times I’ve been here I’ve never taken a picture. I haven’t photographed much this close to home. I stop for some long-overdue photos.
Instead of turning onto Mount Airy Road we go down the other side of the ridge on Rocktown and turn onto Mill Road. I’ve only been here two times so I don’t remember what it looks like. Country houses are hidden in the shade. We round a corner and face a short, steep hill. From behind us Artie is cursing at his gears. He says something about an engine and flies past us, hollering, “Yah! Yah!” as he whacks his own butt as if he were a horse. We giggle our way up the hill.
At the top is a farm with a pile of hay bales partially covered in tarp next to a barn. I think about a picture, but it’s not very pretty. Eva is reading my mind: “Not so attractive when they’re like that.”
The wind is out of the west today. The gas coming off the generating station on Queen Road is particularly pungent this morning. Farther up the road Artie wonders where the “horses that look at us” are. The pasture is empty, making the barbed wire fence just look sinister. I wonder how long it takes a horse to learn what barbed wire is.
Tom turns us onto Bowne Station. This means we’ll be climbing a lot of little hills instead of the long, roller-ish ascent to Sandy Ridge. At least Bowne Station is in the shade. I haven’t been here in about a year. I still feel good, but I’m not pushing myself. I’m supposed to be taking it easy.
The hills on Buchanan don’t bother me at all.
Eddie offers us a sample of a new electrolyte tablet he’s been taking. He says he can feel the difference. I try one. “Take two. You might not feel just one.” Too much salt can be as bad as not enough. I don’t have a lot of water left anyway, so I take just one.
We ride past the Sandy Ridge cemetery and down towards the covered bridge. Cheryl and I go through the one-lane bridge. “We’re the only ones doing this, aren’t we?” I ask. “We have to. It’s tradition.” I hear someone else rattling over the wooden slats as I return on the road outside of the bridge.
This is Covered Bridge Road, the road leading to the covered bridge, but not the road the covered bridge is actually on. You need to know where you are around here.
Now we’re climbing what Eva has called “Mount Ringoes” into Sergeantsville. It’s another long one but it’s not steep. To our left is Pine Hill. I’ve heard that’s a ball-buster. The electrolytes are kicking in. I know the feeling from the few times I’ve had to take sodium chloride tablets on hot days. I sweat a lot, so I make sure to replace it with electrolyte drinks and tablets. I’ve seen how well they work, too, the most recently being that guy on the century two weeks ago.
When we pull into Sergeantsville there are a few bikers already there. I lean my bike against the stone wall. A guy in a nearby chair looks over and asks, “Does Kermit help you up the hills?”
“Naah. I wish he did. If I could figure out a way to get the breeze to move his little feet and get that to help me pedal…”
The guy says, “You know there’s no such thing as a tailwind.” He doesn’t know he’s talking to Our Lady of Perpetual Headwinds.
At the other side of the patio Blake and Little Joe are talking. The two of them got here separately, Joe riding with the guy who noticed Kermit. I ask Joe if he’s got any biking plans tomorrow with Big Joe. He does, something flat. I ask if I can tag along. “I really don’t want to go to Cranbury.” He tells me to be at Big Joe’s at 8 a.m.
I’ve got my usual coffee and homemade cherry nut bread. Cheryl is hovering around but she doesn’t snag any of my bread the way she usually does.
Sergeantsville is another place I’ve never taken pictures of. Here’s one side of the General Store:
Here’s the front. Sitting in front are Tom and Eva. Cheryl and Mike M. are behind them.
Here’s the other side of the store, the part that’s a house. It’s built into a hill so when you go upstairs to use the bathroom and look out the window you’re on street level.
Here’s a view of bustling, downtown Sergeantsville. It’s pretty busy today. There seems to be more traffic here than there used to be:
That’s the one traffic light in the whole place. It just flashes.
I decide to call my father. My mother answers the phone. “Yo. Is Dad around?”
“Yeah. He’s on the porch. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Dad picks up. “Yo, Larko!”
“Thirty-one miles down and I’m fine. We’re at the rest stop. I feel fine. I just had some coffee and some homemade cherry nut bread and we’re about to leave.”
“That’s your problem. You eat too much.”
“Hey! How dare you!” All my life it’s been my mother’s job to tell me I eat too much. They’ve definitely switched skins, or they’re both sharing hers. He has no idea, of course, just how much you have to eat on a long ride. I’ve tried not eating. It doesn’t work. We don’t let people not eat at rest stops. On last year’s first century I figured out that I ate over a thousand calories during the ride. We’re going half that distance today and I’ll be doing it on a couple hundred calories of homemade bread, a few Shot Bloks, and a heavy dose of caffeine.
“OK, then. You drink too much coffee.”
“This is my first cup in days.” I never drink coffee on a Friday. I need the caffeine to pack its full punch on Saturday. Better to dry out during the week.
“I gotta go,” I tell him.
I eat too much, huh? Well, I have to keep my well-padded-tank-with-boobs figure somehow, don’t I? Note to the parental units: be careful what you say while I’m on a ride. If I’m in bike shorts anything anyone says is fair game for the blog.
Wall-e and Eva are finally feeling last week’s 500 miles. They’re taking Tom’s cue sheet and heading back on their own at a slower pace.
When we cross Route 31 Tom turns onto Dutch Road. Artie and Eddie peel off. There are a few more hills that way. Artie just wants to head up Lindbergh and go home. Now there are just five of us and I’m the slowest.
We turn onto Back Brook Road, which parallels Wertsville. I’ve only been up here once. Cheryl and I are pretty sure this will dump us out on Bad Manners Road. “You know there’s a big hill on Manners, right?” Cheryl and I are asking him this at the same time.
“Well, it’ll be a warm-up for Lindbergh,” he says, but he says his map shows us not winding up on Manners.
So much for knowing every road around here. Tom is right: we wind up on Van Lieus. I know what’s coming. I tell Cheryl, “You don’t like this road.” It has a couple of short, steep hills, the kind that annoy the heck out of her. She starts to remember.
Tom and I stop for a photo at the top of the hill.
We turn onto Wertsville. There’s a farm on the left that’s just begging to be in a picture. I pull off and tell everyone I’ll catch up.
By the time I’m finished the group is out of sight. I turn onto Lindbergh in time to see them disappearing up the first part of the hill.
Lindbergh is another slice of bucolic splendor but I’m not stopping on this hill. On my right is an open field. To my left are overgrown shrubs. There’s probably another farm behind them. The road descends a little, over a stream and under the trees before it ascends again. I look out of my rear-view mirror. I can just barely see the next ridge through the trees.
Not long from now the road is going to get steeper. I keep track of mail box numbers. I’m in the forties now. The steep stuff is around sixty-four, or maybe seventy-two. Anyhow it starts or ends at one of those.
I have a good climbing song in my head: Taj Mahal’s “You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond,” a rolling blues number, live. The best part is when he sings, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Get your ass into it! Hallelujah! Shake it!”
When that ends I’m just about at mailbox sixty-four. Onto Peter Gabriel’s “Kiss That Frog.” For the first time I’m enjoying climbing this hill. I can’t see anyone ahead of me. Everything’s so quiet. I know where to go from here if I don’t catch the rest of the crew.
By the time I get to the song’s bridge I’m passing mailbox seventy-two. The steepest part is over. A few more twists and I pass everyone waiting for me at Ridge Road. I keep pedaling. There’s still more Lindbergh to tackle.
“You didn’t have to wait, guys. I was getting a picture.”
“That’s OK, Tom says.”
As I pass, he says, “She’s not stopping. She’s too macho to stop.”
“I have to make up for last week.”
“What happened last week?” Cheryl wants to know. I forgot to email her the blog while her internet connection isn’t letting her get to a lot of pubic sites. I guess I forgot to tell her, too. “I had to stop on a hill.”
We turn on Zion and fly down the hill, then turn onto Hollow and fly some more.
The wind is at our backs on Camp Meeting. Tom proposes doing an extra six-mile loop up Georgetown Road by the canal. Nobody seems to want to go. “I’m supposed to be taking it easy,” I tell him.
Allen says, “I noticed.”
“My father says we’re all obsessive nuts.”
“When people say I’m crazy I just say –”
“—Well, yeah!” we say in unison.
He’s worse than I am, though. He proceeds to tell me about the time he took his bike with him on a cruise to Bermuda. “People gave me strange looks when I wheeled my bike up the ramp. They wanted to know what I was going to do with it. I told them I was going to ride laps around the ship.” He rode laps around the island of Bermuda instead.
I stop for more pictures at the corner of Orchard and Burnt Hill. I tell the group not to wait. Dustin’s map has an exclamation point near this intersection, but I’ve never really looked at it until now. So here are some more pictures of close-to-home places we pass all the time:
A mile down the road Mike and Tom are waiting. Cheryl and Allen have gone on. “You didn’t have to wait,” I say again, and again Tom says it’s okay. Opossum Road is an annoying little stretch because it’s uphill and we always hit it at the end of a ride. But I’m feeling pretty good and it doesn’t bother me.
Tom laments that we’re going to finish with only fifty-four miles. “It’s a bit short,” he says. Crazy Season lives.
*****
Sean, a former marathoner and triathlete, warned me by email that after a week of rest, “just do not be surprised if you are not completely zippity-do-dah in a week.”
I certainly felt “zippity-do” today, but not so much “dah” until I had that coffee.
*****
There’s rain in the forecast for Sunday afternoon and Big Joe wants to get home early. I ride over to his house for an 8 a.m. start. There’s nobody on the road. Even Route 31 is empty when I cross it.
Big Joe, just back from a trip to Cape Cod, comes out of his driveway and gives me a Terrorist Fist Jab. He says we’re going to Rocky Hill.
I wonder how we’re going to get up there without climbing. Little Joe says that what Big Joe calls hills are things we don’t even notice we’re climbing.
And that’s what happens. We get all the way to the Great Road without hitting any of the usual major inclines along the way. I’m impressed.
“We’re going to the crazy place,” Big Joe says. The North Princeton Developmental Center, a sprawling complex of decaying buildings and toxic waste that once housed mentally disturbed boys. Now it’s abandoned, save for a brand spanking-new elementary school in the center of what would make a perfect setting for a horror movie. Soon the buildings will be razed to be replaced by a huge housing development. Already the side roads are blocked off, keeping us from pavements cracked and sprouting knee-high grasses.
I’m going to take pictures of what we can still see before all the creepy is plowed under.
“I wonder what it does to those kids to be going to school in the middle of this place,” I say to the Joes as I catch up at the edge of the elementary school. Big Joe says, “We were wondering the same thing.” They’ll probably be his patients in ten years.
The way out is blocked off. We duck under the tape and continue on our way, past shiny white tarps covering mounds of anyone’s guess.
We stop at the Wawa in Rocky Hill. I get some iced coffee and root around for a decent muffin. I’m halfway out the door when Cheryl, in biking gear, is halfway in. It takes me a second to remember that she’s not on our ride today, another half to wonder whom she’s riding with instead, and another full second to notice the sandals on her feet and remember that she’s teaching two Spinning classes this morning at the gym down the road. “The next class is at ten,” she says. I don’t even know what time it is.
She joins us outside, having just enough time to snag some of my muffin stump. Ride muffins have to have a Cheryl to eat their stumps. That’s the rule. She hurries off, coffee in hand.
Big Joe gives us the rest of the route: “We’re doing the Real Estate Ride followed by the Institution Ride.” He takes us onto Prospect Street in Princeton, where each of the houses could easily swallow three of mine. We pass cross streets called “Castle Howard” and “Prince William.” I scoff at it. Little Joe says, “How pretentious.” I wonder why we weren’t asked to show our tax returns before entering this neighborhood. We’re parallel to Route 27, Princeton’s main drag, but it’s silent here.
We turn into Princeton University property. At the end is a concrete wall on either side of the road, a grand entrance trying very hard, like the rest of the campus, to look like something in England. Give it up already: this is New Jersey.
The plan is to head towards my house to drop me off. We get onto the marked bike route on Princeton Pike. The northern end begins just north of the Lawrenceville border. The southern end peters out just before the I-95 overpass.
“We’re leaving the land of the haves and entering the land of the have-nots,” I explain. “The highway is the divide.”
Little Joe says, “One of my friends calls this side of town ‘Larryville.’”
“That’s perfect! I’m going to have to steal that.”
Joe says his friend picked it up from other people. I wonder why it’s taken me nearly nine years to learn it. Larry it is, too downmarket to go by the full ‘Lawrence.”
We turn into my neighborhood. “I have to do another half mile to get to forty,” so I take them in a big circle. Big Joe calls it another Real Estate ride. Our development was one of the early post-World War II suburbs, built in the mid-1950s. There are only a handful of models, but time and multiple owners have changed so many of them that it takes a keen eye to pick out which houses are clones of others. I get the half mile and send the Joes on their way home.
Jack is on the rowing machine when I walk in the house. “Get rained out?” he asks. I’m never back this early.
“Joe needed to be home by eleven.” What time is it anyway? I peek at the oven clock. 10:45. That’s, like, the whole day left. Cool. I’ll get some blogging in.
