Tour de Franklin

Old Georgetown Road

27 April 2014

Y'know that thing that happens when you  try to go to sleep early because you have to get up early, and you can't fall asleep, and then you get all worked up because you can't fall asleep because if you don't sleep then you'll be too tired in the morning, which makes falling asleep even more difficult, and then you keep almost falling asleep and waking up?  I had that last night.

The two alarms I set for 5:15 a.m. went off, and the first thing I thought was, "Fuck."  At least it was a tiny bit light out.

With a new bike rack that, in theory, can hold four, Cheryl was due to arrive at 6:20, at which point Sean and I were to load in.  Cheryl and I had registered well ahead of time.  Sean, having read Jim's blog, decided on Saturday night that he'd try for 40 miles.

It ain't easy being a barista before breakfast, but my first matter of business after dressing myself and feeding the cats was making enough coffee for all three of us.  

It took a little doing to get all three bikes strapped in and steady.  There's no way that thing can hold four bikes, no matter how many hold-downs there are.  Ours were ass-to-elbow up there.

Jim got a big crowd.  After three riders dropped off within the first hour, Dave C was happy to point out that, with this attrition rate, Jim would be down to zero by the end of the ride.

At the bottom of Georgetown Road are two old, well, house-y sorts of things.  It was hard to tell, because both were wearing roof cozies.  "I think that is the roof," Joe offered.

Our first rest stop was near the Main Street Cafe in Kingston.  I made Sean go in to see the place.  He came out with a donut muffin (like, ew?); I came out with rice pudding and more coffee.

It didn't help.  I was no more awake than I was at 5:15.

Those who didn't go into Main Street needed the pit stop on the Griggstown Causeway.  Here's the D&R Canal on the northern side of the road.

The next stop was in the little park on Camp Meeting at the bottom of Hollow Road.  We were at 30 miles.  "How ya feelin'?" I asked Sean.


"Great!" he said.

"Got another 30 in ya?"

He seemed to think he just might.

Hollow marked the beginning of the hilly portion of our ride. From there we went up Grandview.

And that concluded the hilly portion of the ride.  Dave C had asked me why I was on Miss Piggy.  "This ride is flat," he'd said.  Even though I've done this ride twice before, and even though I could easily have looked at past cue sheets, I had in my mind that we'd be climbing a lot more than we did.

Somewhere around 50 miles I realized that my head was asleep while my legs were moving. I was also far hungrier than I had any reason to be.  The last rest stop was at Six Mile Run on Canal Road, only ten miles from the end of the ride. We all stopped and gobbled anyway.

Sean and I rode side by side towards the finish.  "I'm gonna text Dale," I said. "I, Our Lady of Perpetual Headwinds, do solemnly swear, on this day, 27 April, in the year Two Thousand Fourteen, that Sean did complete One Hundred kilometers and is hereafter declared a Bad Ass."

"This is my first metric since a few months before moving to New Jersey," he said.

"Welcome back!"

The Tour de Franklin organizers serve food at the end:  pasta, salad, bread, chips, cookies, and drinks.  Having made enough PB&J sandwiches for all of us for the ride home, I didn't figure I'd eat anything being served.

But the pasta smelled sooooo good.  Sean and Cheryl joined the rest of our gang at one of the half dozen long tables.  I gave in and loaded up.  "So much for the sandwiches," I said.

"You take this as an either-or situation," Sean said. "Me 'n' Cheryl, we're looking at both!"  Cheryl agreed.  "I want my PB&J!"

So Sean and I ate ours on the way home.  Cheryl stashed away what was left, the first of which lasted less than half an hour.

Next year I'll do a few things differently.  First, I'll not bike commute three times in one week before the Spring Fling/Tour de Franklin weekend.  Second, I'll start going to bed earlier mid-week.  And third, I'm bringing Kermit next time.

Kudos to Jim for keeping (most of) us together.  He's a good ride leader, even if he's not ready to commit to it.

Easter Sunday, Spring Fling, and Flowers In Between

Grounds for Sculpture at Rat's

(Or is it Rat's at Grounds for Sculpture?)

26 April 2014

Today we're playing catch-up.  Below is a massive photo dump.

Sunday we slept in.  We had reservations for brunch at Rat's at 11:15.  I drank a lot of coffee and did chores before we left.  Our timing was good; the park was almost empty when we sat down outside.  I got a few pictures before people began to stream in.  My camera battery was dying.  Zooming in would shut it down.

Yes, it's supposed to look like Monet's bridge:

The wall next to the restaurant:

Although we were in a sculpture garden, I took pictures of two sculptures.  One isn't worth posting.  The other is a reflection.  

I was more interested in the peacocks this time.

The camera battery died for real at this point.  I switched to my phone.

There's one more sculpture that was photo-worthy, but the scene petered out before I could get close enough.  It's a semicircle of kids, holding hands and running.  The last kid is about to trip.  What I didn't capture was the handful of real kids playing on the statues of the fake kids.  The kids were moving a lot faster than the peacocks.

A cherry tree on our way out:

Every few years I buy far too many bulbs in the spring for fall delivery.  Last fall I enlisted Jack's help in planting them all.  I can never remember from one order to the next which tulips and daffodils we planted.  Sunday I took pictures.

Terry C emailed a bunch of us and asked what we were up to.  This is what I wrote back:

Today we had brunch at Rat's and walked around Grounds for Sculpture.  No sign of Ms Monroe, whole or in part.

I repaired a cat-shredded comforter by hand, with much feline assistance.

Most of what I've ingested today is caffeine.

At 4 pm, Sean is going to drag me around the county until the Evil Bean is out of my system.

I'm about to do battle with dying bamboo.  Toodles!

At 4:00 Sean pulled up.  I took him on the old Friday Night Route.  We saw sheep on Bayberry Road:

The wind was kicking up pretty good, and the air was getting colder, by the time we got back home.  I unloaded a handful of leftover bunnies on Sean.

Three more days of bike commuting.  Three more days of pothole slalom on Princeton Pike.  On Wednesday the signs went up:  Mercer Road will be closed at Quaker Road on or about May 5, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The repaving is expected to last a couple of weeks.  I'm looking forward to the mile-long milled surface.  It'll be safer than the potholes, and there won't be any traffic.  I'm hoping the work crews let me through.

The sky in West Windsor yesterday as I finished grocery shopping:

Cheryl led the Spring Fling B ride today.  I'd agreed to lead if I had to, but I didn't want to.  Fortunately, Snakehead volunteered before I was called into service. Cheryl and I pushed the faster riders onto him.  We still had a big crowd.  I said I'd sweep, but I didn't really.  When I was near the back I kept an eye on the group, but I found myself near the front most of the time.  Cheryl says I need lessons from Plain Jim on how to sweep.

We went by Peackock's General Store.

I could still smell smoke when I got close to the fence.

Lunch was fun.  I got to see a lot of people I hadn't seen in a long time.  I sat with people I hadn't sat with in a long time.  

This is the D&R Canal at the back of the Masonic Lodge property:

I rode home with Mike B and Theresa.  I stopped for the Cherry Grove Farm cows that have been grazing on the Princeton Pike side of the farm all week.

Yes, Jim.  I stopped for cows.

The tulips were open when I got home.  Same deal about forgetting what we planted; I've got them documented this time.

I'm not sure what this one is going to look like when it opens.  I think it's going to be a ruffly one.

Grape hyacinths multiply on their own.  I planted these years and years ago.

Guinea hen flowers, with species tulips (the originals from which the rest were bred) unopened underneath:

I'm almost positive that there was some creative squirrel action this winter. Several tulips have popped up impossibly close to the azalea and mountain laurel bushes, too close for the bulb planter ever to have reached.

I missed this miniature daffodil last week.  The purple tulips look good.  The hyacinth is kinda wimpy.

And that's the extent of my gardening.

See you all tomorrow on the Tour de Franklin.

Be a Wiseass, Get a Bunny

Spring

19 April 2014

It's a good thing I brought along so many chocolate bunnies today.  I stuffed my front pack full of them.  When he offered, I gave Chris a few to carry in his massive handlebar bag (he'll find them again in June).

The wisecracks were popping up like dandelions.  It went with the weather: bright, sunny, slightly chilly, and a touch of wind after a week in which summer (80 degrees on Monday) did battle with winter (snow on Tuesday night), and spring won out.

The tone was set when Chris busted on me for looking ready long before it was time to push off.  Then, when the four of us (me, Chris, Ron, and Jim, but not Snakehead) got to Pennington, Cheryl presented me with the Golden Bunny award for having led so many Chocolate Bunny rides over the years.  I asked her to hold onto it until the end of the ride.  After that, as we were about to leave, one more person pedaled in.  Jim said, "It's a Johnny-come-lately," to which I corrected, "It's an Eoghan-come-lately."  He'd gone from Kingston to Princeton before realizing he'd left his water bottles behind.  Have I mentioned he's fast?

Being an early season, high-mileage event, the traditional Chocolate Bunny Ride is fraught with catastrophe.  I was resigned to it and not at all surprised when Bagel Hill Barry got a flat four miles in.  As Ron and Barry peeled off the busted tube, John K went off to find a tree.  He came back while Ron was fiddling with the valve on the spare.

Cheryl said something obscene about valves.  I gave her a bunny.  John, enticed by the reward for questionable humor, said, "While John emptied his bladder, Barry filled his."  I gave him a bunny.  "Hey," he said, "If you put those in your back pocket, are they keister bunnies?  I handed him another one.  He whooped with joy.

We followed our traditional route up Stony Brook, over Mountain Church, across Ridge, and up Lindbergh.  Here, I broke with tradition in order to get us away from the skinny part of Amwell Road.  We went down Zion and through Neshanic.  On Riverside Road, two riders cruised past us:  Snakehead and his prickly colleague.  "There you are!"  I called out as he went by.  By all accounts, he was supposed to have been with us this morning.

The Bagel Bistro had a few small tables outside, which most of us crowded around.  There were more of us than chairs, so I sat on the cold cement and offered up, of course, the remains of my muffin, my "bottom."  Cheryl nabbed it.

Cheryl showed us a picture of the beach near her soon-to-be house in Florida. Someone asked how far she'd be from the shore.  "Twenty minutes," she said. I said, "In a few years it'll be ten."

Joe and Dave C were smart: they were sitting across the parking lot, in the sun.  I went over there towards the end to try to warm up.  Joe was eating a huge sandwich. He assured me that he wasn't going to eat the whole thing.  I said, "No worries.  I know you can hold your pork roll."

We left soon after that, and by the time we reached the traffic light on Amwell Road by the canal, I was on the grass, peeling off my outer leggings.  There were a few off-color comments as people crossed the street to wait on the other side. As he passed, John said, "Now we get another chance at Laura's bottom."  I gave him another bunny when we got onto Canal Road.

Cheryl and I started talking about next week's Spring Fling.  She didn't lead enough rides last year to earn a jersey.  I did, but I chose the wind vest instead.  I lamented the uselessness of my long-sleeve windbreaker.  It's more like a parachute.  Cheryl said, "I don't ride with mine.  I use it for other things."  John, on my other side, said, "Do tell."

I handed him another bunny.

At Six Mile Run, as we were leaving a pit stop, who should come flying up Canal Road but Snakehead and his buddy. This time he stopped.  He explained his absence from the Slugs as he pointed to his front wheel (a sew-up with an inner tube, because, um...):  "I didn't get this fixed until 9:30."  I handed him three bunnies and told him to share.

At the Griggstown Causeway, Eoghan headed for home and we headed west. Here, Dave C remembered a wrong-turn-u-turn that I did two years ago.  He's been razzing me about it ever since.  Geez, y'know, it's easy to get mixed up when one has to navigate the intersection of Harlingen and Harlingen.  I didn't goof up this time, but that didn't stop him from asking, "Weren't we supposed to turn back there?"  I whipped out a bunny.  "Here," I said.

"What's this for?"

"To shut you up.  Put a bunny in it!"

Jim ran over some glass as the rest of us got through the intersection at 206.  Ron and I turned back, but the light was so long that Jim was halfway to being finished by the time we got there.  Then we had to wait for the light again. Across the street, Dave was lying on his back in the grass, soaking up the sun.

At the southern end of Hollow Road, where I haven't been in ages, I saw a pair of emus and stopped.

Next to them were two alpacas and a goat.

  

Jim said, "You know they're not cows, right?"

"They're Bolivian cows," I said.

We turned onto Province Line Road.  One hill ahead of us was another group of riders.  We were slowly gaining on them.

On the last hill I caught up with Bill and Metta. Even though I hadn't seen either one of them on a bike in years, I knew who they were from behind, in time to have bunnies ready when I called out their names.  I recognized Barb, too, having spent many a hilly mile in her wake.  She got a bunny, and so did Michael T. I handed him another one to give to Bob P, who was already across the intersection.

On Cherry Valley Road I wondered if I had enough chocolate left to hand out to the Hill Slugs at the end of the ride.

At the Carter Road traffic light, I said, "Straight on from here."  It was a free-for-all with a tailwind.  At Moores Mill two more riders got mixed in with us. One of them turned at Titus Mill.  The other went with us halfway to Pennington before asking, "Have you seen my buddy?"

"He turned," three of us said.  He'll need to re-define buddy, I told him as he stopped.

Outside of Pennington we regrouped.  John was ahead, but the rest of us rode in together.

"Wow," I said, pulling into the parking lot.  "There was no drama today!"

Joe lifted his head, arms outstretched.  "Drama!" he exclaimed.

Dave opened his trunk and three containers of Little Bugger Bunny Balls. That's the official name, he said.  I said, "You'll never put a better bit of bunny balls in your mouth."

"Oh, god," he said.

"Never thought that'd come back to bite you, didja?"  For those who don't know, Dave C is responsible for "You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife.

I had enough bunnies left to hand out, with a few to spare.  Now there was room for the Golden Bunny.

He's aerodynamic.

John took a picture for us:

Moxie is watching me blog.

He just left.  Jack has opened a can of tuna.