#39

29 June 2014

I went out with Statler and Waldorf again yesterday.  

Neil had planned a flat to rolling route in the high 70-mile range.  He wanted to go to Delicious Orchards in Colt's Neck ("I need some doughnuts," he wrote). When I wrote back that I was thinking of tacking on enough miles biking from home to Cranbury and back to make it a century, he threw in another rest stop. I told him not to go out of his way for me, but he confirmed that he likes route mapping as much as I do.

I always prep my bike the night before.  Kermit's rear tube was flat again.  I guessed that I'd missed whatever was still in the tire from the last one, and went about changing tubes.  I found a small nick in the tire, but it didn't appear to have gone all the way through.  In the morning, the tire was still full, so I set out at 6:50 a.m. in order to give myself plenty of time to get to Cranbury.  

I had a headwind, and my speed was lower than it ought to have been.

We were about 11 miles out when we hit a bumpy patch.  I started to fall behind. Two miles later we rounded a corner, and that's when I felt the rear wheel go mushy.  We stopped so I could pump it up again.  "There's no point in changing the tube," I said.  "I can't find the puncture."  I got it back up to something approaching 100 psi.  Neil kept looking at my wheel, though.  It was going soft again.

Semi-soft is good for cheese.  Not so much for tires.  So we stopped again, Neil being determined to find the culprit.  It took all four of us, but we did.  The nick had, indeed, ever so slightly gone all the way through, enough that a grain of sand could get in and pierce the tube (Neil extracted said grain).  The leak in the tube was so small that it took Steve five minutes to find it.  Mark had a patch that he stuck on the tire.  We filled it up.  "So much better!"  I said.  "I can feel every bump in the road again."  I like running my tubes at 115 psi.  This time it held. No wonder I'd been so slow on the way to Cranbury.  "You don't notice it until it gets below 100," he said.  "You were leaking air all night."

At Delicious Orchards, Neil was dejected.  There were no apple cider doughnuts. "I got two brownies instead," he said.  I was perplexed, because he was holding two foil pans, each about an inch deep, four inches wide, and six inches long.  He was holding two brownies, and he was going to bring these things home in his Camelbak.

Now, I'm no stranger to hauling things home.  Usually it's coffee.  Sometimes it's pastry.  Once it was a loaf that Mike B carried in his front pack for ten miles.  I'm pretty sure that Neil's load was heavier than anything I've carried back.  Anyone who has ridden with Neil knows, though, that the weight of two gargantuan brownies is but a tiny fraction of his usual load.  I once witnessed him remove a can full of change and a tub of Gatorade powder. So in the brownies went.

About twenty miles later, Neil said,  "My back is killing me." I suggested that we could eat some of his load, but he said his wife would see right through that.  Oh well. We stopped at the Manasquan Reservoir for water and readjustment.

 Neil and Steve

The stop was Mark's idea.  One of the shore cycle groups uses this place a lot.  It has a ranger station with real bathrooms and a water fountain, and a couple of vending machines for drinks.

We watched an egret and a heron, and talked with a park ranger who told us about the pair of bald eagles and the osprey who live on the edge of the water.

He told us about the cat collar that the rangers found in the eagles' nest when they were banding the chicks. Keep your cats indoors, folks.  The birds'll turn on kitty sooner or later.

The wind shifted, because this was a ride with me and Neil.  As headwinds go, it wasn't much, but it was enough for us to keep our reputations.

The route back was through the low rollers of Millstone.  It was enough to start to wear us out.  In Monroe, Steve peeled off for home.  At the edge of Cranbury, I went straight as Neil and Mark turned towards the park.  I found a tree to sit under and grabbed a quick snack, then headed for home, into the wind.

Delaware Water Gap

Delaware River and Arrow Island from Mount Tammany Summit

22 June 2014

I hadn't been on a hike in two years when Our Jeff Lippincott invited me and a handful of others to a 12-mile hike in the Delaware Water Gap.  The plan was to climb Mount Tammany, cross part of the Kittatinny Ridge, visit Sunfish Pond, and hike back.

Jeff's hikes are always a highlight of the annual trip to North Creek.  Since I'm not going again this year, how could I say no to a long day on a mountain with Jeff and Marilyn?  I wasn't sure I'd be properly prepared, but Jeff, the consummate planner, sent me a list of what I'd need, half of which I don't own.

We left his house in Lawrenceville at 7:30 a.m. and headed towards Milford to pick up Amy, the fourth hiker, who lives at the northwestern edge of Hunterdon County.

Although we arrived at the Water Gap half an our earlier than we'd expected, the two parking lots at the trailhead were full.  We wound up in one of two spillover lots across I-80, at least half a mile away.

The trails we took were full of hikers of every age and description, including a mother carrying her toddler on her back. We encountered two huge groups, one of which must have contained 30 people, the other at least 15. We heard foreign languages. Jeff ran into someone he went to high school with.  Most of the time, though, it seemed as if we were the only ones on the mountain.

Here are Amy and Marilyn ascending the Red Dot Trail:

There's a view of the Delaware River through the trees:

Halfway up, more or less:

Our Jeff, in not quite a rock scramble:

Getting close to the summit:

Mountain laurels:

At the summit with Marilyn, Our Jeff, and Amy:

More summit:

Jeff then led us across the ridge on a fire trail.  This part was flat and sunny.  The ferns smelled like peaches.  A black snake crossed our path.

Our turnoff to Sunfish Pond was at the head of the Turquoise Trail, marked by a cairn:

Sunfish Pond:

We rested here and had lunch.

We doubled back up the Turquoise Trail to the fire road.  It was here that I noticed a twinge in my left knee whenever we descended. I found a stick that I could use for support, just in case.

The fire road merged with the Dunnfield Creek Trail, which began with a rocky ascent and then a rocky descent.  I found a thicker, longer stick, and just in time, because, with almost six miles left to go, I needed it for everything but ascending.

When we got to the creek, we stopped to rest.  Jeff needed water, so he pumped from the creek through a small filter he brought with him.

The trail crosses the creek at least four times.  I lost count.  Most of the time we rock-hopped.  For the last two crossings, though, I found it easier to wade than risk more twinges.  To the others, my wading must have seemed odd.  To me, it was business as usual.  I explained to Amy the penchant Tom and I have for fording streams.

Jeff slowed the pace.  I apologized as I descended rocks sideways to avoid further injury.  I suppose I was invoking Rule Number Five, but, really, as long as I could walk, there wasn't much of a choice, and I wasn't even close to being hurt badly.

I limped out of the forest, leaning on my limpin' stick.  Here's the Red Dot Trail head sign, with my stick, and a warning about rattlesnakes:

We crossed back under the highway.  On the way, we got a good view of the mountain. The trail summit is the tiny rock outcrop above the big one near the center of the picture.

I plopped down on the blacktop next to Jeff's car, took of my shoes, changed into dry socks, ate my remaining blueberries, and swallowed to naproxen tablets.  We changed clothes in the bathrooms.  I left my limpin' stick for the next hiker.

Across the river is Mount Minsi, not as tall as Tammany:

We stopped at the Log Cabin Inn, in Columbia, NJ, for dinner.  It looks like a combination biker bar, pizza joint, and hick hangout.  It's the only thing for miles around.  They have not one, but two kinds of veggie burgers.

On the drive home, as on the way up, we passed Foul Rift Road, and could see the cooling towers from the power plant across the river.  I'd assumed, wrongly, that it was a nuclear plant.  It's not;  it's the oil- and gas-burning Martins Creek plant. It used to burn coal.

Because it was close by, I suggested we take a short detour up Fiddler's Elbow.  I narrated. Jeff's SUV groaned at the same spot that my bike gave up.  I tried to navigate us back to where we were, but my phone's signal was choppy and I misdirected.  Jeff's GPS got us back on course, and in a flash of memory I recognized the road we were on from a blog picture that's part of my desktop slideshow at work.

We ended up riding on Route 57 for a while.  It was worth it; we could see the Highlands ridges on either side of us as the sun went down.  We made one more stop, for ice cream, at Jimmy's, three miles down the road from where Amy lives. The line was long, and the ice cream not worth the wait, I thought, so Marilyn and I reserved a picnic bench by a creek and talked about strength training.  Amy explained that this was the main hangout in town.  By now, my leg had stiffened up.  I tested what I could do with it.  I could squat.  I could step onto the bench.  I could bend.  There was no swelling.  But it hurt like the dickens to step off a curb.

It was another hour before we got back to Jeff's house, and a short drive home from there.  When I stepped out of the car, I was walking normally.  The stairs at home were no problem.  Nonetheless, I loaded up with NSAIDS and planned to stay off the bike on Sunday.  I slept for 9 hours instead.  Today, other than being pretty much sore from the waist down, I feel fine.  No twinges.

Maybe I'll do a century next weekend.

No Slug Buffer

 Rocktown Road uphill from Lambertville

14 June 2014

Jim already has his post up about today's ride.  I'm glad he got the details out there, because it frees me up to rant, more or less.

Cheryl and I were hoping that more Slugs would come out today, but they didn't. That left me and Cheryl to fend for ourselves among a cadre of fastboys, some whom we didn't even recognize and others I know I don't want to ride with.  Jim and John K were, as always, gracious about slowing down, and even waiting, so that we could catch up.  Despite that, the two of us didn't have a big enough Slug Buffer to ever truly feel comfortable.  Having copied the cue sheet, I was fine with being abandoned.  Cheryl and I could make our own way at our own pace and be no worse for the wear.  I even suggested that we could head home at any time if we felt like it, and I could drive her back to her car. But John and Jim kept waiting for us.

Things got worse when, about 20 miles in, when the terrain got hilly, Cheryl's rear hub began to slip randomly, leaving her to pedal without traction until the hub caught again.

John's one-stop metric put us in Sergeantsville.  To our relief, almost nothing has changed but the faces behind the counter and an apparent upgrade in the coffee (I stayed away this time, having had quite enough in the morning).  The store looks the same, the cook is the same, and the place still even smells the same.  I wasn't expecting any of that, and, until today, I never really noticed how the store smells. It's not a bad smell.  It's a musty sort of smell.  But now it's a welcoming, familiar smell, one that will let us breathe a sigh of relief:  long live the Sergeantsville Deli.

When Cheryl and Blake decided to cut out for home, I was left in the back of the pack, the anchor.  I'm used to being in the back with the Slugs.  Slugs don't care who's in front and who's in back.  Slugs don't say shit like this:

"I'm in energy conservation mode.  I'm going to ride here in the back with you."

Those who know me will be surprised that I didn't drop the F bomb and be done with it. Instead I sternly informed the ignoramus that I know my distance, that I know my pace, that I know my speed, and that his comment was insulting.

Slugs don't say shit like this (same perp):

"You dropped your sandwich so you could climb the hills faster."

My sandwich became bird food because I hit a bump while I was trying to eat it on the fly so as not to slow anyone down.  I said, "You just don't get it, do you?  I don't care how fast I climb."

Which isn't strictly true.  I do care: If I were faster then my friends wouldn't have to keep waiting for me.  But most of the time, when we're out on a Slug adventure, I don't even look at my speed until the ride is over (see last week's post).

A few seconds lapsed, and I said, "Being faster does not make one a better person.  What it does do is increase one's potential to be an asshole." He laughed.

Slugs stop to take pictures. Today I stopped only once for that, a scene only Cheryl also noticed (there were turkeys under the tree, too dark for my phone to handle).

I didn't even stop at Mount Airy.  As a testament to how much slower Cheryl and I were, Jim had time to snap a picture of me not stopping to snap pictures.  Had there been cows, maybe I would have stopped.

Jim's picture of me not taking pictures of cows

Sheesh.  This post reads as if the lady doth protest too much.  Perhaps she does. Had I not been insulted twice by someone I've been explaining myself to on and off for over a decade, perhaps I wouldn't be feeling so grumpy.

It's not John's fault.  I'm glad he considers me a friend worth inviting to a ride.  I appreciate that he had a stack of pizzas and cold drinks waiting for us when we got back. I appreciate how gracious he and Jim were being as Cheryl and I lagged behind.  I'm glad I did the extra miles to his house and that I got almost 80 in for the day. I'm glad that Cheryl was there (and sad that we won't be able to buffer each other when she moves away). I'm glad that someone else took over the responsibility for leading today.  I'm glad that there's still squash cherry nut bread at the Sergeantsville Deli. And I'm glad that Jim and I had a tailwind to push us home.

Here's the route.

Reputations: when a B is not a B, and whether or not that matters

This is Not a B Pace.

8 June 2014

I lead B rides.  Peter F and Gary W lead B rides.  We all have the same reputation: none of us comes in at a B pace.

My reputation is complicated.  I'm at once too fast and too slow.  I take all damn day.  I stop for pictures.  I stop for expensive snacks. My rides are too long. I add extra miles by inviting people to start from my house. I add extra miles by riding to other people's rides.  I'm slow on the hills.  I'm good in the wind.  

Over the years my rides have become more difficult as I've become a better climber and become infected by the distance bug. At the end of a ride, we're lucky to see an average in the 14 mph range. I lead a slow B.  It's a B only because we kick it out in the flats, when there are any, and because I'm leading metrics by April.

Peter and Gary have the opposite problem.  Their rides are short (40 miles, the bare minimum I'd consider for a ride in January), flat, and fast.  Their rides, like mine,  are listed as B rides.  Where I use "slow B" in my description, they use "strong B," but we're all B leaders.  Gary earned his reputation last year, when rumors of averages higher than 18 mph began percolating through the parking lots.

Last night I got plenty of sleep, so I decided to attempt a Gary ride.  Peter was filling in.  There were 15 of us, most of whom I didn't recognize.  There was one other Hill Slug -- Marc -- and two sometimes Slugs -- John and Jane.  I put myself in the middle of the pack and expected to be finding my own way home after 10 miles.  I needn't have worried.  I finished in the middle with what is probably a modest average for this group.

Peter and I spent a lot of time during the ride talking about what a B means and how to list a ride.  He said that people know what to expect on Gary's rides, which is true if by "people" he means regulars.  But riders like me, who show up once in a while and have been fed only rumors, don't know what to expect.

He and Gary don't want to list their rides as B+, even though they are, because when they do, the A riders come along, push the pace, and steal the ride.  I told him that he is more than welcome to use the phrase that I use when I list my rides in the Free Wheel:

Pace pushers not welcome.

I was amazed that all 15 of us finished the ride together.  "This group always finishes together," several people said.  Peter added, "They're afraid of me."  I said, "My riders are afraid of me, too, but for different reasons."

Reputations.  If you can't beat 'em, ride 'em.

 Pace-pushers beware the wrath of the Floating Cat Head.