Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, 2 February?

31 January 2013

In other words, nuh-uh.

Old-School New-Bike Lug-Porn

 Ron A's Mercian

20 January 2012

The first thing I said was, "I need to get pictures.  Jim needs to see this."  He was home with a fever.  It was the least I could do.

I didn't expect anyone to show up for the ride yesterday.  Most of my regulars had called in sick or otherwise occupied.  I hadn't even thought of a route.  I figured I'd be riding by myself.

To see four people getting ready in the parking lot was a surprise.  To find that one of them had built a new bike from a steel frame was an even better one.  There aren't many of us still riding steel.

Riding with me were two Rons, a Mike, a Pete, and, from the edge of Pennington to the other side of the Sourlands, a Bob.

Despite the weight of the bike, Ron A still kicked our asses up every hill.  I don't figure I'll be seeing much of him when the warm weather rolls around.

I'll leave the rest of the lug-drooling to Jim, who got his post up on the web the minute his fever broke.  Should you notice the similarity of post titles, and the fact that his went up first, he got the title from me, not the other way 'round.

Enough of that.  You came here to see pictures of cows on Wertsville Road, east of Van Lieus.

A Dalmatian cow?

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, 19 January

15 January 2013

It's gonna be cold in the early morning, so let's push off at 10:00 a.m. from the Hopewell YMCA parking lot on Main Street, across from Ingleside, in Pennington.
We'll keep the mileage to a mellow 40-ish.  Extra-milers can start with me from my house at 9:30 a.m.

The Recipe for Jet Fuel and a Grimy Bike

13 January 2013

This blog post will demonstrate that even when I've got nothing, I can still turn it into too many words.

Damp winter roads are the reason I got Gonzo, my beater bike.  But Gonzo, now serving as my commuter bike, is laden with a rack and lights.  I just haven't had the foresight to strip him of these excesses until the days get long enough to bike to work again.  So I've been taking Kermit out to Cranbury.

Lately it hasn't seemed possible to ride with Winter Larry and not return with a bike full of road splut.  Today was no exception, but cleaner than the last few.

The early morning fog had dissipated by the time nine of us headed out towards Turkey Swamp.  I didn't do a lick of exercise yesterday, and I've recovered from whatever it was I had last weekend.  This helped me keep within a reasonable distance of some of the faster guys, especially after the break, because I drank some Jet Fuel.

Jet Fuel (recipe by Winter Grime Larry), available only at low-end convenience stores:

40% coffee, caffeinated, the lower-quality the better

40% hot chocolate, from a machine that delivers a dubious assortment of hot drinks

20% milk, poured from a carton that has been sitting in a metal tin for an unknown amount of time

Although I had fun on today's ride, I didn't take any pictures and there's not much of a story.  I blame this on Ed and Jim, neither of whom were there to supply me with blog fodder.

There was one noteworthy exchange, in the parking lot, before we got started:

Winter Grime Larry:  "Where's Simple Jim?"

OLPH:  "Plain Jim?  He couldn't make it today."

Mark H:  "He has a life, Larry!"

Simple Jim!  Snort!  I'm sure he'll have fun with that.

Stealth Fast?

Whatchoo lookin' at?

6 January 2013

It's 6 p.m.  I feel like crap. I came home from today's ride and slept for an hour.  Every time I stand up I get dizzy. Perfect setup for blogging.

Yesterday I was leading from behind.  This happens in the off-season.  In the spring, I get some of the the Fastboys who come out of hibernation and shake the rust off by taking it easy with me.  In the winter, I get the Fastboys who don't hibernate.  Sometimes my rides are the only thing going.

So it was yesterday, with five people who can kick my ass in their sleep, and one who would if he hadn't found himself on the ground with his left leg under his motorcycle not too long ago.


We went to Lambertville.  I remembered my camera.

Mount Airy, the location of many of my winter photographs:

Alexauken Creek Road is one of our favorites.  This time I noticed something I hadn't seen before:  a little tunnel for a stream feeding into Alexauken Creek, making space for what was probably once a railway.

The Rojo's mocha gave me enough energy to keep up a little better, and to talk to Linda about cats who fetch (mine, mostly toys; hers, peanuts).  Still, in Pennington, where we dropped off a couple of riders, I had to say, "I don't know why you guys ride with me," alluding to their speed and my lack thereof.

Dave H. said, "You're stealth fast."

"Stealth fast?"

He tried to explain it, but I neither understood it at the time nor remember it now.  Ed cited our average during the Event century.  "Yeah, but there was a big group." I was still puzzled.

Four of us rode back to my house, mostly downhill.  Plain Jim said, "You wanna know what 'stealth fast' means?  It means going 20 miles per hour down 206!"

"It's downhill!"

Plain Jim says I have "yeah, but" disease.  Yeah, but if I trash myself before anyone else does, it's easier to take.  Duh.

Half an hour after I stopped pedaling, everything hurt.  Jack was already feeling out of sorts.  Maybe I'd caught what he had.  I stretched, but it did nothing.  Later I did more stretches, more PT, and stumbled into bed unsure if I'd be riding with Winter Larry in the morning.


At 7:00 a.m. I shut off the alarm and checked email from my phone.  Winter Larry's ride was on, and Plain Jim and Ed would be there.  I was half dressed before I looked out of a front window.

There was a dusting of snow in the driveway, snow on the car, snow on the side of the wet road.  I wasn't feeling great, but I wasn't feeling bad enough to stay home, and, besides, if they're going, I'm going.

It was just the four of us.  I warned the guys that I wasn't feeling quite right. 

There are two main ways not to feel quite right on a bike:  one, the legs are willing but the motivation just isn't there; and two, the motivation is there but the legs are still in bed.  The former happens to me in Spinning class.  The latter happens outside.  The latter was happening today.  If I'd been a car, I'd not have been able to get out of second gear. 

Winter Larry took us to Hornerstown via Walnford and Hill Road.  This is the Walnford Mill, where the Event century had its last rest stop, where Ed studied the clouds.

Larry saw the horses on Hill Road first.  Normally, I have a thing about not stopping on hills for pictures.  Today I waived the rule.

The melting snow put a haze around us.  I faced into the sun for a silhouette.

Jim was waiting for me at the top, staring into a field at a barn.

He asked, "Is that a Chevrolet logo?"

"Yep."

"Y'know, if there were a god," the former seminarian, Unitarian, atheist said to me, "this is what he'd be about:  beauty and peace." 

I was looking past him, to his left, at something nearer to us on the ground.

I asked, "Should I take a picture of the dead deer?"

I didn't.

We stopped in Hornerstown and had a lively conversation over coffee and pastries at the Dunkin' Donuts there.  Larry, truly earnest, suggested to me that he take Jack canoeing on Lake Carnegie.

Jim let out a guffaw and doubled over with laughter.  I wasn't far behind.  Larry was confused.

Before we left, I texted Jack, ending it with, "Jim knows you."

We were thirty miles in, already on our way home, when I started feeling genuinely crappy. 

That's also when we started hitting the shady roads where the snow hadn't melted.  I'm not allowed to mountain bike anymore because of my spine, but knowing how to ride on a slippery surface came in handy.  Hold your line, hold your pace, don't hold the brakes, and, as Chris likes to remind us, don't fart.  Nobody slipped.  Nobody fell.

Near the end I apologized for my slow pace.  "You can blame me in your blog," I told Jim. 

He dismissed it.   "If I'm not complaining, I'm not happy," he said.

"I read that somewhere," I replied.  He'd already left the parking lot, having parked elsewhere for his usual extra miles, when I checked my phone.

"Jim is a wise man," Jack wrote.

It's 11 p.m. now.  I'd written half of this post, gone away, came back, and scrapped most of it.  It's better now, and, I think, so am I.  Good night, and see you next Sunday.

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, 5 January

3 January 2013

Saturday won't see 32 degrees until around 10:00 a.m., so let's meet at the Hopewell YMCA parking lot (Main Street, across from Ingleside, in Pennington) at 10:00.  We'll shoot for 40-ish miles, depending on what people want to do.

Extra-milers can start with me from my house at 9:30 a.m.