Mount Airy in the Morning / Double Reservoir Ride / Revenge of the Pork Roll

I

12 June 2011: Mount Airy in the Morning

On a weekend that I figured I wouldn't be riding, I managed to squeeze one in before an early afternoon meeting on Sunday. Mike and Theresa were free, so we headed out from home towards Sergeantsville.

We weren't much past the middle of Pennington when Mike's tire went flat. Knowing I was pressed for time, he apologized and said that Theresa and I should just go on. I assured him we had plenty of time. He fixed the flat and was just about to put the wheel back on when he noticed the bump.

Now, anyone who has ever changed a flat tire knows that a bump is bad news. It usually shows up before the tube is even full, and, if ignored or unnoticed, explodes before the tire hits the road.

Not in this case. "It was there this morning," he said. And there it stayed, all the way to Seargeantsville. Mike had flat tire paranoia the whole time, of course, reaching around to feel the wheel at the top of every hill.

Although the roads were dry, the sky was gray, the air misty, and the fields wet. I took some pictures at the top of Mount Airy. Of all the places I've photographed regularly, I think this field is in the top few for the number of times I've stopped for pictures.

At Sergeantsville, he said, "Get us to Lindbergh." We'd have just enough time.

On Lindbergh, we regrouped at Ridge, as we always do, and proceeded on up the rest of the hill, heading for Province Line, Cherry Valley, Carter, and on home. I took the lead when we started again. I guess I spaced out, or had a good song in my head, because I was about to start the first descent when I noticed that there was nobody behind me.

I turned around. Mike was at Zion Road. "His tire exploded," Theresa said.

He held it up for me to see. An inch of hairy threads protruded from the surface. Mike pulled out a boot -- a slice of used tire -- and began the repair. "You should just go," he said.

I waited. "We'll see what time it is when we get to Cherry Valley. If I need to, I'll hammer home from there."

I needed to. I pretty much sprinted in the big ring for ten miles. Part of that sprint was on a milled section of Carter Road. I considered stopping to call Mike and warn him off, but the alternative at this point would easily take him five miles out of his way. I didn't call; I didn't have time.

When I got home it was half an hour past when I'd planned to get there. Rushing around, I managed to get ready quickly enough that I'd only be fifteen minutes late for the meeting (and I wasn't the only one).

Before I left the house, Mike called. His tire made it through Carter Road. At home, it landed in the trash can.

*****

II

18 June 2011: Double Reservoir Ride

The last time I led this ride was two years ago. Having learned from the first two times, we did the last one when the temperature was in the mid-70s with no humidity.

The route starts in Frenchtown, climbs over the ridge into the Raritan watershed, farts around at Spruce Run Reservoir, climbs into High Bridge where it has a snack, drags itself up the Cokesbury ridge, descends at great speed to the base of Round Valley Reservoir, climbs back up to said reservoir, descends again, hauls itself bitching and moaning up the ridge once more, rests in Pittstown, and plummets back down to the Delaware River, where it arrives ready for a long shower.

Every iteration of this route is an attempt to make it less of a death march, and to some extent I've succeeded. But there's no getting around the ridge that divides the Delaware from the Raritan if we want to make it home on the same day we left.

This year the weather was perfect. Every Hill Slug that has done the Double Reservoir Ride before had a decent excuse not to be with us this time around.

Yep, I had a new crop of suckers: Plain Jim, getting ready for Anchor House; Ron, a Cranbury refugee who converted to Slugdom on his first hilly ride with us; Alan, a Cranbury refugee too, but also a climber with the Fastboys; and then there was Ken.

"I'm from Texas!" he declared. He was up here for two weeks for work. Andy, a Spin instructor at RWJ-Hamilton and a survivor of several of my ill-fated road experiments, had suggested that Ken see what the Hill Slugs were up to this weekend.

"We don't have hills in Texas," he said. "Well, we do, but we keep 'em far apart from each other." I wasn't worried. Andy wouldn't have sentenced him to a ride he couldn't handle.

The first couple dozen miles are a gentle climb towards Spruce Run. I was pretty much leading from the back. We went into the reservoir and looked around. I took the road towards the marina. It went on far longer than I'd hoped it would, but nobody seemed to mind.

We watched the Sunfish sitting in the water. There was no wind. We could have been watching a painting.

As we headed out, I warned the guys: "See that green lump over there?"

Jim said, "That's ours?"

"Yep. There's coffee and muffins at the top, but first we have to climb an annoying little hill."

Good ol' Buffalo Hollow. It looks like a warehouse driveway where it meets Route 31. It's industrial-ugly at first, gritty and bumpy, passing disorderly little warehouses before it makes a turn into the woods.

The woods are where the hill starts. It's bad enough there. Then it turns left (the tough ones always seem to turn left), into the sun, and gives a big raspberry with a sharply-inclined overpass at the top.

Ron almost popped a wheelie.

We regrouped. Ken said, "I have a question. When you say 'annoying little hill,' what do you mean by 'little'?"

"Um. It was bigger than I remembered. But it was annoying, wasn't it?"

"Yep."

After a break at the Hilltop Deli in High Bridge, I led the group along Lake Solitude and to the bottom of Cokesbury Mountain. "Gear down! This is the toughest climb of the day!"

A woman in her yard heard my warning, looked over at us, and said, "This is just the beginning."

"I know," I said. "They don't, but I do."

Ken called out, "I don't! I'm from Texas." Then he passed me.

"Wait at Petticoat," I told the guys as they pulled ahead.

I hadn't been on this hill since 2007. Miss Piggy seemed to be making the climb more bearable today.

Ken, Jim, and Alan stopped near the top, well before Petticoat. As I turtled on past them, I shouted, "Pedal, ya pussies!"

I have a knack for being completely inappropriate. Jim loved it, though.

All was forgiven when we got the view of Round Valley Reservoir from the top of Cokesbury:

The descent was worth it, too.

We stopped at Round Valley Reservoir's boat launch for some water. I didn't bother taking any pictures this time. They never come out the way I want them to.

One of my favorite downhills is the one we get coming off the reservoir counterclockwise. The road swoops and dives with wide turns and great views that I never stop to capture on camera. Jim had never gone this way before. "The road kept falling away!" It freaked him out a little.

From there we headed west again. Payne Road is one of the few around with a traffic light at Route 31, so it's the only road I've ever taken to get from Round Valley back towards Frenchtown. At the top of the road, towards the end, is a good view of the ridge. And on top of the ridge is a line of trees that look as if they were drawn by Dr. Seuss.

I've noticed them before. Two years ago I tried to get a picture. It didn't come out too well, but I've zoomed in here so that you can see what I'm talking about.

In the back of my mind I've been obsessed with finding those trees. I'd checked maps, trying to figure out what hill they're on. I'd biked Sidney Road from the bottom to the top, hoping to see them from the other side. But I'd never found them.

Today we were going to go up Sidney again, but first we were going to ride along the Raritan almost to Clinton. Just before we turned along the river, I looked up. The trees were above us, closer, but I still didn't know where. I put it out of my mind.

We started up Sidney at Lansdown, in the woods. Halfway up, Ron got a cramp. I pulled out my tube of salt tablets. In my pack they'd been reduced mostly to powder. I poured half the tube into Ron's glove. He downed the mess with some water and made a face. "That wasn't good," he said.

We started up again. Jim's "On your left!" was getting as predictable as sunrise. He and Alan disappeared ahead of me. I was keeping an eye on Ron through my mirror.

The woods cleared away, exposing the valley on our left.

And there they were, behind a wrought-iron gate.

I slowed and stopped crossed the street. Ken looked over at me as he passed. "I found the Dr. Seuss trees!"

"What?"

"I'll explain later!"

Ron, recovered, and I caught the guys at the corner of the road into Quakertown.

When we got to Pittstown I told Ken what I'd been looking at. He'd seen them from Payne Road too. "They looked like something from that movie with the blue people."

"Pandora?"

"Yeah."

Now we only had ten miles left to go. As we were getting ready to leave, Jim became transfixed by the way Ken mounted his bike. He showed all of us how to do it. I'm not going to tell you what we were doing. Suffice to say we were giddy enough at this point to hatch a plan. I don't know if it'll ever happen; we'd have to practice first.

*****

III

26 June 2011:  Revenge of the Pork Roll

It's not pork roll.

I've developed a nasty habit over the past handful of years: Whenever there's a flat ride someone else is leading that I want to do, I try to figure out a way to turn it into a century.

Joe's plan to ride to Belmar today is a perfect example. It's 67 miles from Etra park to the beach and back again. I can ride to Etra from home in just under 16 miles. By Friday, the plan was for Joe to meet me at home. We'd meet up with Jeff the Derailleur Killer and Ron at Mercer County Park and ride to Etra for anyone else who might show up without having answered any of Joe's emails. Which was nobody, it turned out.

This was our first ride to Belmar without Big Joe.

We didn't ride in a pace line, nor did we hurry.  The main drag wasn't as crowded as we'd seen it in the past, and we found a table at our customary rest stop along the strip of dive eateries among the stripped divers less than half our age.

The line at Dunkin' Donuts is always long.  Over the years I learned to eat my packed snack while waiting in line, lest Big Joe get annoyed at the amount of time I'd taken waiting for coffee.  I ate in line again today.

The guys looked concerned over the bucket of iced coffee I carried to the table.  "You're gonna drink all that?"

"It's mostly ice."

Joe was eating something greasy from the sandwich shop next door.  The owner stood in the entrance shouting, "Breakfast!  Iced coffee!  No wait!  Breakfast!"  Now he tells me.

Jeff got up to retrieve his sandwich.  "I got what Joe got," he said.  "It looked good."

"What?"

"Pork roll."

"Ugh!"  The thought of riding home with something like that in my stomach.  "I don't know how you guys do it."

We lingered.  I'd forgotten my camera, yet Plain Jim had insisted on a blog entry with pictures.   So I walked across the street to capture the beach with my cell phone.

Yeah, I know.  I go for the company.

On my way back I passed a woman on a beach cruiser to beat all beach cruisers.  How can you not love a massive purple bow on a wicker basket?

"It's my 40th birthday present!" she said.

"Can I take a picture?"

"Sure!"

The seat tube has "Belmar" painted on it.

Biking home from Belmar is always the toughest part of the ride.  Sometimes it's the wind; sometimes it's the heat; and sometimes the rollers seem like mountains.  Today there was more wind than heat, but not much of either.  Still, a couple of us hit our walls and had to fight through them.

When we stopped at another Dunkin' Donuts (no caffeine for me this time), Jeff wasn't sure he had another 20 miles in him.

We blamed the pork roll.  "The only useful thing in there was the salt," he said.  "But it looked so good."  Joe said, "I've had it before.  I knew I could handle it." 

One of the toughest lessons to learn in long-distance cycling -- and I learned the hard way too -- is that you can't necessarily eat what your buddy is eating.

A few minutes more rest and half a liter of various liquids got Jeff back on the road.  I knew he could do it.

Our steady pedaling was interrupted by an unexpected hole in the ground.  "Road closed.  Local traffic only," the sign on Sweetmans Lane said, right before the bottom fell out.  One has to wonder what kind of local traffic drives through this:

Joe stopped and began contemplating his cue sheet.  Walking ahead, I said, "I'm from the Tom Hammell school of closed roads.  Nothing's impossible."

I got closer and shook my head.  I looked down at the mud and over at the guys.  "C'mon!"

Next to the mess was an old mill:

I went first, stepping gingerly on solid ground. Behind me, Ron led Joe and Jeff over the berm. They carried their bikes. I lifted Kermit from the mud and took the low road. My shoes were coated, but I got to the other side first, in time to pull out my phone.

"Wait! Hold still!" They froze until I put my phone away.

Jeff said, "This girl is full of piss and vinegar and puppy dog tails."

"Now why would you go and say a nice thing like that?" I asked.

Someone said, "Garsh."

Ron handed me a tissue, which I used in a futile attempt remove the mud from my cleats.

A few miles later my left foot almost got stuck in the pedal. The mud had cemented everything together.

By the time we got back to my neighborhood, my computer was reading a mile more than Joe's. We did loops through the side streets until his read 100.