Windy Weekend Riding

Burnt Mill Road at North Princeton Developmental Center

27 May 2013

I don't remember when it was, four years ago maybe*,  Big Joe led us on an early spring ride north from Mercer County Park towards South Brunswick.  The wind was whipping that day.  It was beating us up pretty hard.  I rode alongside of Big Joe and said, "You know what all this wind training is good for?"

"What?"

"Riding in the wind."

And so it was this weekend.

Eddie the Shoulder volunteered to lead Winter Larry's Sunday Cranbury ride.  He'd emailed us a route to New Egypt at a "strong B" pace.  I put Kermit in the car, met Plain Jim an hour early in Plainsboro, and prepared myself to suffer.

The Shoulder is smart, though (he has a PhD that he actually uses):  he changed the route and pointed us towards the Sourland Mountain instead.  That put us into the wind on the way out.

 

Burnt Mill Road at North Princeton Developmental Center

Normally the Cranbury rides never get closer than an ascent up Grandview and a descent down one of the two nearest exits.

Not this time.  We stayed on the mountain, in the trees, all the way to Peacock's.  Kermit is geared to climb.  He can handle anything in the Sourlands and whatever central Hunterdon County has to offer.  But he's steel.  He's heavy, I push harder, and my back hurts when I'm done.  So when The Shoulder announced that we'd be hauling ourselves over Rileyville, I complained.

 

Plain Jim, Mark and Me at Peacock's

photo by The Shoulder

my Vegas jersey courtesy of Sean and Dale

But I caught myself when The Shoulder began to contemplate other options.  "Ride leader rule."  I said. "Never change your route when people complain.  It's your route."

The last time -- the only time -- I climbed all the way up Rileyville from the north was before 2008, before Kermit had 34 teeth in the back, I think.  It was one of Cheryl's Tuesday night rides, packed with fastboys and fastgirls who would routinely desert us slow folks less than five miles in.  I remembered the top half of the hill as an asphalt wall.

So here we were, two kites (The Shoulder and Plain Jim) and three bricks (me, Neil and his backpack, and Mark), ascending Rileyville.  We were on the second half, Neil and I deep in conversation.  I was thinking that the worst was yet to come, just around a corner, when Neil interrupted himself with, "Now that's just undignified."  I looked to our left.  On the other side of the road we were being passed by a sprinting runner.  All three of us laughed.

I looked up then and saw not the asphalt wall I was expecting, but the top of the hill.  I was in a way low gear.  Should I let myself be passed by a runner and suffer the indignity of being blogged about?  Maybe.

Naah.

I shifted up and zipped past the runner in time to crest the hill before he did.  No matter.  I got blogged about anyway.

The Shoulder, being fast, pulled many Tom Hammells by snapping pictures of us slow types ascending.

 

At least I have good posture, 

if not a sense of which side of the road to ride on.

I have no idea why I'm over there  Must've been

avoiding something or someone.

 

Mark ascending Hopewell-Amwell Road

When we got to Cherry Valley, The Shoulder asked me to help him get us from the outskirts of Princeton to Washington Road.

"You want to cross Route 1 at the Washington Road?" 

"Yeah."

"At the traffic circle?"

"That's what the route says."

"And ride on 571 on the other side."

"Yeah."

"Nuh-uh."

So much for the ride leader rule I imparted earlier.  The three of us bricks mutinied.  We took over and led the group back towards Montgomery and Kingston via the much less gnarly, but still unpleasant, Cherry Valley Road route. 

"Another ride leader rule,"  I offered.  "Always check the road ratings with njbikemap.

*****

My back was sore when Plain Jim and I started from my house towards the Memorial Day All-Paces ride.  I always ride to the park anyway; Plain Jim always wants extra miles.

There were nineteen of us in one of the two B groups today.  The outbound pace was mellow enough, and tailwindy enough, for my back to stop hurting. 

Coming home from New Egypt was another story.  I found myself in the front group with Chris, Ken L (he's allowed out to play again), and at least two guys I've never seen before.  I'm built for the wind:  broad and compact.  I don't get knocked around much, and I can hold a steady pace.  People like to get behind me.

Ten miles from the park all I wanted to do was to finish and stretch my back on the grass by the skating rink parking lot.  We got separated from the rest of the group behind us but kept going anyway.  That gave me plenty of time to recover.  The lagging group came back in dribs and drabs, the last of them having had to repair a flat.  Then there was the obligatory hanging out and catching up with other riders from other groups.  We were well-rested for the into-the-headwind miles home.

I'm glad it's going to rain tomorrow afternoon.  It'll be a good excuse not to bike to work.

*****

One more thing.  Last week, at Twin Lights, Eddie the Shoulder wanted me to pose for a picture.  I hammed it up.  

(* Damn, I'm good!  It was almost exactly four years ago.)

Tom's Twin Lights Ride

19 May 2013

Ah, nothing like a dreary, rainy, lazy Sunday morning to sit around in my gym clothes, drinking coffee, and blogging.  Tom already has his post up.  Jim promises a post that will surely pick up where Tom left off.

As Tom mentions, this was a ride that he, Winter Larry, and I were talking about months ago.  On a steep hill overlooking the New York/New Jersey Bight, Sandy Hook, and Sandy Hook Bay are the Navesink Twin Lights.  I'd never been there, even though I'd been close enough to have seen them on several bike rides to the northern end of Sandy Hook years ago.

Winter Larry's lungs were full of pollen yesterday; he stayed home.  He did take us to Bordentown last Sunday, though.  He'd planned on Cassville and wanted me to take a picture of his favorite white horse along the way, but we convinced him that the return trip dead-on into massive headwinds would be more torture than we wanted.  That's how we wound up in Bordentown instead.  I took these pictures for him, so that he might not feel so sad about not seeing his white horse.

 Delaware River at Bordentown

 River LINE

Cheryl hasn't been to Thompson park in so long that she asked if she could follow me there.  I said hello to her doggies, drooled over her new beater bike (how beater can it be if it used to belong to Little John?), and handed her a travel mug of coffee.

We gave ourselves plenty of time to get there and arrived half an hour early.  I took a few pictures of the lake, which I try to do on the fall mornings Pumpkin Patch Pedals  (here's one).

Within fifteen minutes the crew had assembled:  me, Cheryl, Tom, Ron, Jim, Joe, Dave C, Mark, Neil (there will be howling under bridges today), Tom, Jack, two new guys (Rich and Sean), and, in his first group ride since March, Eddie "The Shoulder"  (tough noogies, Ed, it's your blog name now).

Before pushing off, Tom warned us about the Big Hill Up to The Lights.  Short but steep, the hill might have to be walked.  But he had his Feather, and I'd brought Kermit, because he'd told me earlier that we wouldn't need our tricked-out Cannondales.  I wasn't worried.  Kermit has 34 in the back anyway.

We sacrificed scenery in order to minimize distance; there's not much open space to look at when heading almost due east from Jamesburg.  There was too much traffic for me to stop for pictures along and above the Navesink River, where some of New Jersey's wealthiest live.

Our rest stop, a Quick-Chek in Atlantic Highlands, was well-placed:  the climb to the Twin Lights was a few miles away.  I was towards the back of the pack when Tom signaled the turn up the steep, winding road.  A few people had already stopped at the bottom, having almost missed the turn or dodging a car or something.  This gave me the chance to swing in a wide arc onto the road, with enough momentum in my lowest gear to get me over the steep start, standing for a few pedal strokes.  The hill looks worse than it is.  We've seen far worse a lot closer to home.  Pine Hill, for one, Federal Twist for another.  This one was bad because of the steep approach on a blind curve.

All pain was forgotten at the top.

I grumbled about shooting into the light.  Tom took my camera and showed me how to trick it into overexposing.  Good to know, but I like the dark ones better.

This is the most rural-looking pair of pictures I took all day:

It's just the fence at the edge of the lighthouse property.

Dave pointed out the fence-eating tree:

Nom nom nom!

We descended with all deliberate caution.  Here is the lighthouse from the bottom of the hill.

We took our bikes over the pedestrian bridge to Sandy Hook.  Unlike the Delaware River bridges, this one had no little house with a little man to jump out and force us to walk our bikes.  So some of us rode over, despite several narrow, 180-degree turns and sand at the bottom.

Twin Lights from Sandy Hook

While we waited for the law-abiding citizens,  I took some pictures of the seawall at the southern end of Sandy Hook.

Half the group rode ahead, along the seawall, through patches of inches-deep sand.  I'd had enough of that, and the lagging group followed me onto the road, after which we figured out that the "zeek-zeek-zeek" sound I'd been hearing in my rear wheel was not sand in the chain but the wheel rubbing against the chainstay, having come slightly unseated after the flat I had weeks ago.  It's a Kermit thing.  Happens all the time, fixed in an instant.

We passed through two more overly-moneyed towns:  Rumson and Colt's Neck.  Ahead of us the sky looked threatening.  We got spat on a few times.  We needed another rest stop and found a Dunin' Donuts in a strip mall that could have been anywhere, New Jersey.

Eddie "The Shoulder" poses with his purple doughnut.

We got back to Thompson Park before the rain did.

I can't be within half a mile of Mendoker's Bakery without stopping in.  While waiting for my number to be called, I found Ed's next snack:

This is how to get kids to eat their doughnuts.

OK, well, I guess I beat Jim to the post again.  It's almost noon.  I should go pump some iron or something.

The Calendar Ride

Spring Hill Road near Clinton, NJ

5 May 2013

Yesterday was another near-perfect ride.  We had just the right number of people (six), we stuck together, the weather was as good as it gets, and we might have recruited a new Hill Slug.

I never expect a lot of people to show up when I start far from home and advertise a long, hilly ride, and that's fine, because I can keep track of half a dozen people without having to stop pedaling.  We started later than usual because I knew I'd have been out with friends the night before.  Fortunately, I got enough sleep, and the carb overload did me well.

The new guy was John K.  He introduced himself by cracking a joke.  I had a good feeling about him.  Turns out he used to ride with the Free Wheelers out in the flatlands, long ago, dropping the hammer with Chris C and Ed P.

I had three cue sheets to Clinton with me and went off all of them when we blew past Alexauken Creek Road.  That gave us a good warm-up going north on 29 past Stockton.  Lower Creek Road is just as pretty as Alexauken Creek Road anyway.  I only had to check the map once, which is pretty good for me when I'm up on the western part of the ridge above Frenchtown.  We eventually got ourselves back onto one of my routes.

At the top of Joe Ent Road, where it meets Quakertown Road, I have tried and tried and tried to get a good picture of the northern view.  John said, "We should make a calendar.  This would be April."  I pulled out my camera just as a tractor approached.  I heard a few people say, "Get a picture of the tractor!"

I did, and then attempted, once again, to get something other than a two-dimensional landscape.  This time, perhaps because not everything is yet green, it almost worked.

April

We turned east and headed out of the Delaware River's watershed into the Raritan's.  The route would take us along the ridge where the Dr Seuss trees live.  They don't look as Seussy from this angle nor without their leaves.

To get to the river we turned onto Spring Hill Road.  Halfway down is an expansive view of the Sidney Brook watershed, including a pond and horse jumping ring.

May

While I was taking pictures, John was taking in the view.  A man with "healthquest" printed on his sweatshirt was walking his dog (Shaggy) while chomping on a cigar.  A former cyclist himself, he asked us where we'd been and where we were going.  His house, a studio for his artist wife, faced the road and the valley.  "This view figures prominently in my wife's work," he said.

By now the guys must have been wondering what happened to us.  Dave C took this picture while they were waiting.


"Look at that!"  John said of the view south on River Road.  "Another one for the calendar."

June

The quarter-mile of dirt road leading from the river towards Clinton seemed worse than it had two years ago, but it was flat and nobody complained.

July

We took a leisurely break by the river in Clinton.  I drank a frozen coffee concoction that tasted more like sugar than anything else.  I don't know for sure all that was in it, but it kept me from hunger well into the late afternoon, hours after I got home.

It got me up Baptist Church hill too.

August

As a reward for hauling ourselves up the ridge, we got to coast for miles down Rick Road, back into the Delaware River watershed.  We turned at Schoolhouse.  I tried to capture the hill from the bottom, but this is the best I could do.

We'd already been at the intersections of Goose Island and Rake Factory and of Senator Stout and Hog Hollow.  We added Pittstown and Slacktown to our list.

By  now the miles were adding up.  To shorten the ride, I decided to take Pine Hill from top to bottom. I knew that the top half was unpaved, but Ron the randonneur had been on it recently.  He'd said it was rideable, so I figured we'd give it a shot.

What a mistake.  I didn't count on having to descend around dirt curves or climb through hard-packed dirt.  Any miles we saved were lost in the time it took to navigate.  As I approached the incline, with Dave and John ahead of me, I called out, "Sorry, guys!  Sorry, guys!"  To my horror, they dismounted, thinking I'd meant for them to turn around.  I hadn't meant that.

We gathered at the intersection of Pine Hill and Pavilica, where the road becomes paved again.  Jim pulled in last, stopped and said, "What.  The.  Fuck.  ?"

JeffX had an answer:  "Jimmy M puts at least four dirt roads into every ride!"

Jim said, "Why would I want to do THAT?"

"Diversity!"

"Wha--"

I cut in.  "Jim.  Jim.  Two words:  Iron Bridge."

He paused.  "Yeah, there's that.  At least this wasn't wet."

When we'd all stopped laughing, we descended, returning to Lower Creek and Route 29.  We finished with 59 miles.  When I suggested to JeffX that perhaps a few laps in the parking lot would be in order so that we could make it a metric, he looked over, smiled, shook his head, and gave me a look that said, "Why bother?"  He might be a fastboy racer dude, but he does have some Hill Slug in him.