Hill Slug Ad Hoc, Saturday, 27 June

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That blue "A" is Mine Brook Park off of Old Croton Road, off of Route 12, just west of Flemington. It's where we'll meet for Saturday's ride, which will start at 8:30. (Directions are at the end of this post.)

If you missed Larry's Bloomsbury Boogie, this is the same ride with a few more twists and turns that will get us off the main roads and onto some side streets with delightfully wacky names. I won't give them away here, but suffice to say that these people must've been pretty drunk when they named their streets.

The distance will be metric-ish and the route, thanks to Larry's genius, manages to skirt all the nasty inclines between Flemington and Bloomsbury. I didn't think that was possible, but Larry has shown us the Hill Slug way.

Oh -- and if you like to brew your own coffee, bring big pockets. Our second rest stop will be at a small-batch coffee roaster/general store.

*****

To get to Mine Brook Park, go north on Route 31 (it merges with 202 for a while so stay awake) towards Flemington. When you get to the commercial strip you'll see signs for a traffic circle and Route 12.

Follow the signs for Route 12 around the circle. It only goes west at this point.

You'll go through two more smaller roundabouts as you stay on Route 12. Just after the last one you'll see Old Croton Road on your right.

Turn right. The park entrance is on the right about a quarter mile down the road.

Windowsill Bird Blogging -- Update

17 June

When I looked out of the kitchen window at 6:20 a.m. today the nest was empty. The last chick has fledged. It's a safe bet the other two chicks fledged yesterday amid all the gutter-cleaning chaos.

Jack kept an eye on the nest all day today. Nobody came back.

Wikipedia has a good summary of the robin's breeding habits. The nest we've been following was probably the second brood of the season. Chicks take two weeks from hatching to fledging, and nestmates fledge within two days of each other.

Windowsill Bird Blogging

16 June

I took this picture on June 10. At least they look like birds now.



And this is only one day later:



This is one day after that (four days ago):



So far, so good. Mombird scolds me every time I go near the nest for pictures while the chicks impersonate rocks.

She scolded me this morning when I hung a sign on the gutter: "Do not disturb the bird nest." We'd scheduled a gutter cleaning for today. It was way past due. We had six-inch plants sprouting in the gutters all around the house.

The pot the nest is suspended from a bracket on the wall under the eave, tucked back from the gutter by a foot or so. This past week has been very rainy, and noisy with thunder. Between that and my regular visits to the nest I figured all four birds would be used to people by now. I even talked to the chicks this morning. "You're a good-looking bunch of chickens," I told them. Then I took this picture:



It was nearly 8 o'clock when Jack and I got home today. I half expected the nest, and its flower pot, to be on the deck in ruins. Before I did anything else I went into the back yard to check.

The pot was still there, the fuchsia intact, undisturbed. Mombird scolded me from the roof. I peered into the nest.

One chick. Just one chick.

In our mailbox was a note:

Hello.

We are sorry about one of the birds.

We didn't touch it or anything. But with all the noise it ran away. It was running by the weed in the back.

SORRY. Hope it will come back.

I walked the perimeter twice, listening for the chicks (they've been peeping lately) and to Mombird, looking for anything in the copious weeds that flood the edge of our back yard. I checked the flower bed and the compost pile. Nothing. Those chicks are too good at being rocks for me to ever find them in this mess.

I'm going straight to hell. Why didn't I wait until the chicks had fledged before I got all antsy about the gutters?

I watched through the window as Mombird fed the last chick. Maybe she knows where the other two are and she's feeding them. Maybe they got eaten already. Maybe stuff like this happens all the time.

Maybe that last chick is thinking, "Ha! Now I get all the worms!"

#19

14 June

I slept through the first seventy miles, woke up to hit the wall in a headwind, and went back to sleep ten miles later.

Larry's Bloomsbury Boogie

6 June

Y'all missed a good one.

I was supposed to be leading a ride at the same time but I sent the Slugs up to Larry instead. Larry's ride started from Mine Brook Park just outside of Flemington off of Route 12. Tom sent me a cue sheet he'd used last year so I had some inkling of what we'd be doing. Being a Flatlander, Larry plotted a course that managed to miss all of the big hills between Flemington and Bloomsbury. Pretty impressive.

We started out on Old Croton Road. Larry had told me we'd be passing Hardscrabble Hill Road. How could I pass that one up? It's even mentioned in the Garden State Stomp.

"It's too big, especially without a warm-up," he said to all of us before we pushed off. I suggested we could ride down it on the way back. Rich K. (what he, an A rider, was doing with us B people was a mystery to me) said the road was too beat up for that.

But when we came up on it and Larry gave me the choice, I turned left.

Four guys, including Rich, followed me, passing me, of course. Yeah, it's a hill, but it's a lot easier than, say, Goat Hill. By the time I got to the top the rest of the ride was just coming around the bend on Old Croton.

As they approached I called out, "We can so go down this road! It's not bad at all!" I pulled in behind Hilda. "You could do it, no problem." Larry is too much like me: we both put The Fear into people about upcoming hills.

In Quakertown we turned onto Route 579 (which goes on forever, starting near Trenton, winding its way northwest through Mercer and Hunterdon Counties, and ending in Bloomsbury). Now I've been on both of Quakertown's main roads and I can state, with confidence, that there's nothing there but a hairdresser and a "Maid Brigade" storefront. And a firehouse half a mile down the road.

The best thing about Quakertown is the descent between it and Pittstown. The best thing about Pittstown, if you're not stopping at Perricone's for food, is that building with the mysterious sign I've mentioned before: "Do not enter. This is not an exit."

We turned onto Everittstown Road after that. This brought back memories of our first attempt at the Double Reservoir Ride (pre-blog days, but it's in the Hill Slug Chronicles if you want to wade through that). Suffice to say that's where we started calling it the Bataan Death March. Today it was actually pleasant: the air was only a little humid and it wasn't quite hot.

We didn't start climbing again until we turned onto Sweet Hollow Road. We were in the woods with streams on both sides of us.

"This is like Rockaway Road!" Ken called out.

"This is nothing at all like Rockaway Road!" I called back. He's still learning the turf up here; he'll get it eventually.

Larry stopped us all so he could put The Fear into us again, this time about Myler Road. I remembered Tom mentioning it last year, but I didn't remember the context. Maybe this was going to be a real hill.

Yeah, it was a hill, and yeah, it had a few spots where we needed to work. But compared to the stuff I routinely drag the Slugs on, it wasn't much. Just a little long. We were in the shade, though, and the road was pretty. If this was as bad as it was going to get then we'd have nothing to worry about.

At the top Hilda was relieved too, and happy that she wasn't fazed by the climb. We were at the top of the ridge now; Bloomsbury was on the other side. The ride down was so steep toward the bottom that I almost did an endo grabbing the brakes. I wasn't the only one.

I've been to Bloomsbury twice before, so I knew about the general store there, with its goldfish pond, picket fence, and umbrella tables. I'd just begun the ritual of taking off my helmet and gloves, and putting my cleat covers on, when Larry said, "Do you know about the waterfall?"

"Waterfall?" Nobody mentioned any waterfalls when I was here before.

He pointed to the bridge a few hundred yards down the road. "It rained a lot this week, so it should be good."

"I guess I'll have to get a picture then," I said and got back on my bike. Hilda followed me.

Well. It was a waterfall the way Hardscrabble was a giant hill.

Hilda told me what I should put in the blog: "This is Larry's Niagara Falls."



Yep. A spillway on the Musconetcong River.




Being next to the river, Bloomsbury is in a valley. The only way I've ever gotten out of here before is up, but Larry found the way out that didn't involve more than thirty seconds of climbing. Somehow he got us following the Musconetcong to the Delaware.

Musconetcong. That's fun to say. Roll it around in your mouth a few times: "Muss-conn-ett-kong."

It got narrower farther downstream as we rode along it on River Road. At a small bridge over the river I followed the road sign over it, but everybody else went straight. I stopped for a few pictures anyway, figuring I'd just have to chase everyone down. I tried to be quick about it and was just packing away my camera when everyone came back. They'd made the wrong turn.



Musconetcong. Musconetcong. Musconetcong.



Soon we were riding along the Delaware River. We stopped at Riegelsville, New Jersey, across the river from Riegelsville, Pennsylvania. The two towns are connected by a miniature Brooklyn Bridge.



It took me a while to get these pictures. I didn't want any cars getting in the way of my view. I eventually gave up.



Here's the Delaware just north of the bridge:



We continued south along Riegelsville-New Milford Road, where, to our right was a jagged wall of rock. Once I saw a tiny waterfall -- as if someone were pissing over the edge -- and later a bigger one.

"Look, Larry! A waterfall! A real one!"

He nodded.

"He's learning!" I told Hilda.

Here it is, from back in April. There was about five times more water today:



We thought someone was off the back and stopped to regroup, so I got this picture. Somehow it's too peaceful to be full-out tacky.



In Milford we crossed the Delaware. I took this picture before we went over:



Larry was taking us to Upper Black Eddy because none of us had been there before. He led us to a general store. "Quick stop," he said. "Five minutes."

This is the Delaware Canal (they don't seem to call it the Delaware and Raritan Canal on this side of the river) at Upper Black Eddy:






The Homestead General Store:



Inside was a surprise. Directed to the bathroom, I found myself standing in front of shelves laden with small bags of coffee beans and in front of a roaster. Better still, many of the bags were labeled "fair trade organic."

If I finished the remaining quarter sandwich in my pocket... I felt around. Yep. There's room.

The bag read, "Dead Man's Brew. Only If You Dare. Fair Trade Organic." Good thing I'd shoved some extra cash in my jersey this morning.

Meanwhile the five minutes stretched to ten or so. Outside two terriers kept a park bench safe:



We stayed on the Pennsylvania side until we reached the Frenchtown bridge. There was a little more climbing to do after that, to get back on the ridge again, but Larry found the most benign route.

Ridge Road lived up to its name. We certainly felt very high up when we got to the top, where open fields let us see to the hills north of us.

Our last treat was the descent down Hardscrabble Hill Road, where Larry hit 40 miles per hour.

*****

7 June, 9:45 a.m.

I just had a taste of Dead Man's Brew. Downstairs there's a travel mug full of it waiting for the train ride into New York City. I can't figure out what the blend is, so I've decided to call Homestead and ask. "It's our most popular blend," the woman at the store says. But as for what's in it, "We're not gonna tell you." I'll just have to come back, she adds.

I will.

Windowsill Bird Blogging

Chicks!

The Eighteenth Century

30 May

Before we start: Buy Tom Hammell's book, Road Biking New Jersey: A Guide to the State's Best Bike Rides.

*****

We haven't even left Brendan Byrne State Forest (Gah! I still can't get used to that. It's Lebanon, damn it!) yet and we're already talking about adding miles to make this ride a century. It would be pretty easy to do. Mary rode over here from New Egypt, something over twenty miles. We could ride back part of the way with her. If we do it then this will be my eighteenth century.

"Let's see how we feel on the way back," I tell Mike. It's Tom's ride anyway.

He's taking us south on Route 72. Last time we were here storm clouds hung low and cars coming towards us had their lights on. We never did get rain, but some of my riders were crabby about going down this high-speed two-lane highway.

The shoulder is plenty big. A tailwind pushes us as we move southeast to the West Penn Pygmy Plains. I have to stop for some pictures.

This is what the forest looks like facing north. These are full-grown trees.



Here's a mature forest with a man of questionable maturity insisting on being in the picture for scale.



Genetics and frequent fire keep these trees short. They sprout branches from the trunk at ground level, and half of the pitch pine cones only open when the heat of a forest fire melts the cone's resin coating. Oaks and pines in the rest of the Pine Barrens don't master this trick as often or as well.



This gas-guzzler looks even bigger against the small trees:



This sand road is one lane wide:



For a pack of leisurely B riders, we're flying. The longer we get a tailwind the more likely it is that I'll have enough energy for a century, provided we don't get slammed by the headwind on the way home.

We take Route 72 as far as Route 539, where we turn south. This is how I used to get to Tuckerton in grad school. A few of my friends did their research at the old Coast Guard station. I used to go on weekends to help them out just so I could be there. It was much more glamorous and scenic than my study site, where I would perch ankle-deep in sulfurous mud while being eyed by mosquitoes baffled by my head-to-toe repellent.

The Tuckerton field station was on stilts above a salt marsh, across the Great Egg Harbor from Atlantic City. I could never convince Jack to come with me, but he did put up well with my heading out there all the time. I stopped going when my friends left the university and I got busier with my own project.

Anyway, we're on our way to Tuckerton. I wonder how much of it will look familiar. We only used to stop there to go to the food store. I don't think I ever saw much of it by daylight.

Up ahead, though, is another pygmy pine forest. I remember the time Chris visited me from Boston. She drove out to the field station to meet me. About Warren Grove she asked, "Why is the road so high?"



It's not. The trees are so low. Tom is checking his new GPS. Herb has gone ahead. I guess he doesn't like to stop for pictures the way Tom and I do. Whenever I stop Mike stops with me, even when I tell everyone to go ahead. So far it hasn't paid off for him too well; as much as he tries he's only been in a few of my shots.



It looks like there was a fire here recently. Look at all those trunk branches. On a class field trip here I once counted a hundred branches coming out of the base of an oak.

So, this is a mature forest:



Here's a tree that somehow escaped the burn and the stunting genes:



The trees get taller again, and soon after we're back in civilization. We pass "Kangaroo Kourt Nursery School." That's so wrong on so many levels I don't know where to begin. On the other hand, might as well give the little tykes a taste of reality early.

We must've passed the road to the field station because nothing here looks familiar. Small houses crowd busy streets. Some people get caught at a red light so I have time to take this picture:



"Rugged?" Now I have Monty Python's lumberjack skit (5:44 minutes in) going through my head.

Under the sign a woman, obviously the owner, eyes me suspiciously, frowning. Mike calls to her, gesturing at me, "Insurance inspector."

I shake my head and give the "pay no attention to him" signal with my hands. She cracks a smile. I feel better.

As we pass the front of the store we see it's full of antiques. The guys marvel at a stack of cracker tins.

We ride slowly until we run out of road at South Green Street Park. I become a shutterbug.





My memories of Tuckerton are good ones that have gone bad over time. Looking out on the bay I start to remember some of the good stuff, like the sunsets and the sound of the black skimmers on the water at night.





The field station looked nothing like this. It was on a salt marsh, not open water.



I ask Tom, "How far are we from the Coast Guard station?"

He gestures to his right. "The next finger over. Six miles."

"I've been there," Herb says.

"Can we go?" Am I nuts?

"No. It's too far."

We turn back towards the road. The wind smacks us in our faces. I look down. It seems my cycle computer stopped keeping time right around when my own time travel started. I stop to fix the transmitter. I've managed to lose 2.5 miles, about the distance from the rugged man store to the park and back. Just like grad school: it might as well never have happened.

Now that we're fighting the wind I try to get a paceline going. I know it will make it easier for all of us if we stick to it. Mike and I also know just how fast we need to go to match what we've been calling our "century speed," the average we kept getting, without trying, on five of our six centuries together last year.

At a big river -- Tom says it's either the Bass or the Mullica, but it might be the Wading River -- we pass under an ugly drawbridge. The light isn't good, but that funky arch is a flat cement wall. You'd think that whoever owns this bridge would at least pretty it up for the tourists.



The bridge is ugly but the view isn't. Finally, salt marsh:



Nice toy:



Just like every other river picture I take: cement, railing, water, trees, sky, yawn.



Phragmites!



We're chugging along pretty well through the Pinelands. We pass a sign for the village of Batsto. A memory flickers by, of my aborted idea for my masters thesis project: studying an endangered plant that I looked for in a lot of places and finally found in Batsto Lake.

Tom calls out that we missed a turn. We stop and he looks at his map. He turns us around to the Batsto sign.

A little while later Tom says we're off course. We're not quite lost, he says, but we're not where he wants us to be. It's a good ten miles to the rest stop, so I suggest we just sit down where we are and eat whatever we have. We cross the street to the front yard of a small church. Next door music blares as a man works on his truck.

Ten miles later we're in Sweetwater:



Everyone orders big sandwiches except me. I still have a Jack-bread PB-Nuttella and J, my century staple.

Is the front of this store being held up by milk crates?



We take our time in Sweetwater. I call home.

Then it's back into the headwind with five minute paceline pulls. We come upon another ugly drawbridge, open. It's closing by the time we get up close.



Ugly bridge, good-looking river:



Now we're back into the Pinelands. We pass a driveway with the words "Kowboy Korner" written on a post.

We make a left onto a road that Tom says we'll be on for twenty miles, straight into the wind and straight into Chatsworth. Mike remembers this road from his solo rides from New Providence to Cape May.

I don't have to look at my computer to know I've hit seventy miles. It happens when it's my turn to pull, the trees giving way to open cranberry bogs and farms on either side of us. I'm looking at the clock. Five minutes. Four minutes. I have to stop. I've hit the seventy-mile wall. I have to distract myself. I try to pedal to the rhythm of the music in my head. Three minutes. Only two more minutes. I watch my speed drop. One minute. I know the rule about pulling: stop before you get tired. But I'm too anal, too proud, to reneg on my five minutes.

Finally I can drift to the back of the line. I coast to recover, sit up, stretch. And just like that I'm past the seventy-mile wall.

When we reach Chatsworth we pass a stand selling "ice kones."

OK, that's enough. Too many people down here are trying to be kute. It's not kute. It's stupid.

We finish the ride with eighty-five miles and hang out in the shade at the entrance to the ranger's station. After a little snack and a lot of thanks to Tom, he and Herb drive off. Mike and I will follow Mary for about eight miles then turn around.

Our course takes us along roads I used to drive all the time when I was at the Pinelands field station. We pass the field station too, just to make sure I have some more flashbacks from the Lost Years. This time my computer stays on.

By the time Mike and I finish our trip my legs are pretty well shot. It might only have been a hundred miles but it sure was a long eighteenth century.

Hill Slug Ad Hoc 6 June

There was a lapse in ride coordination this month, leaving me and Larry to lead similar rides on the same day.

So, instead of competing we're combining. Larry is the official leader, but I'll have a cue sheet as well. Larry promises not to drop anyone. He's not going for the biggest hills either, so there's nothing to worry about on that front.

Here are the details, from the Freewheel:

Saturday
FEATURE RIDE
June 6
B
56 mi
9:15 AM

BLOOMSBURY BOOGIE: Larry promises this is the most outstanding ride in NJ visiting the towns of Little York, Bloomsbury, Milford and Frenchtown. Ride along two beautiful rivers and cool forest roads. Route is designed to minimize the 3 significant hills, of course nobody left behind. Rain date is June 13. Meet at Mine Brook Park, Flemington, NJ. Take US 202 or NJ 31 north to NJ 12 west at traffic circle, then right on to Old Croton Rd., and Mine Brook Park is on the right. Leader: Larry Goldsmith