Sunday, August 31, 2014

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Monday, September 1


1 September 2014

UPDATE:  THE RIDE IS ON.



31 August 2014


The weather forecast is perfectly cuspy.  Check in here again at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow.  If there's no rain between Lambertville and Clinton, we'll start at the CVS parking lot on Route 29 in Lambertville at 9:00 a.m. and go to Clinton and back in something like 60 miles.

If there is rain up north but not down here, I'll head to the All-Paces ride and lead there if I'm needed.

I need to get something in tomorrow to make up for today.  8.5 miles into Gary W's ride, one of my rear spokes went "plink."  Thanks to one rider's zip tie, a piece of duct tape (I always carry duct tape), and a spoke wrench from a new guy, Fabio, I was able to wobble back to Etra Park on my own.  I got a whole 15 miles in.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Cambridge, MA, Day 2: Life In Glass and Behind Glass

[NOTE: Saturday's ride will be on Monday.  Scroll down two posts for details.]



Glass Black-Eyed Susans, Harvard Museum of Natural History


29 August 2014

This morning we met Chris, my college roommate, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.  I wanted to see the glass flowers made by Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka.  Years ago we'd seen their glass invertebrates, some of which were also on display.

Taking pictures wasn't easy because the glass was under glass.  At the start, we weren't sure if there were real specimens mixed in with the glass ones.  It took a few minutes to figure out that everything was glass, from the life-sized plants to enlargements of the intricate flower parts.





White oak:



Mountain laurel:


Coffee!


Goldenrod:


NJ native black-eyed Susans:


Sea slugs (not Hill Slugs):




Portuguese Man-o-War:


These are not glass beetles.  They are real beetles:



Real bees:

Jack found a stuffed moose among the mammals, so Chris and I had fun photographing him with it.  You'll have to visit him on Facebook to see it.

We left Jack to go back to his research fellowship work at the Harvard University library.  Chris and I always find Ethiopian food when we're together.  We started this when we were in college and have no intention of stopping.

Then we met Jack's college roommate, Andrew, at the Taza chocolate factory in Somerville. It's the only chocolate Chris will eat.  It's different; they don't use cocoa butter. The chocolate is gritty, but not in a bad way.  It takes a few seconds to get used to, the same way the first sip of a really strong, well-brewed cup of coffee is jarring if one is used to watered-down crap.

I was the annoying tourist:  I had to correct the guide when he said that the "caffeine" in chocolate acts differently from the caffeine in coffee. The "caffeine' in chocolate isn't caffeine.  It's theobromine. They're similar compounds, but they're not the same. After the tour I explained to him the role of complex organic compounds (think caffeine, theobromine, and nicotine) in plants as herbivory deterrents.  It just so happens that these compounds are addictive to us, and, as a result, the plants have thrived under our cultivation.

When describing the route the beans take from Central America to Somerville, the guide mentioned that they go through "America's Warehouse: New Jersey."  I let that one slide.  It's sort of true.

After the tour was over, when I got talking to the guide again, I said, "Where I live, America's Warehouse, we have a lot of small coffee roasters."

"Where's that?" he asked, confused.

"Y'know, New Jersey.  America's warehouse.  Like you said."

He turned his head away, embarrassed.

All three of us left with bags full of chocolate.

We went back to the B&B, hung out on the deck with Jack, and spent half an hour picking restaurants for dinner and tomorrow's brunch.  It used to take us this long in college too, not because we can't make up our minds, but because we easily distract ourselves from the main conversation.

As we parted for the night, I reminded them that next year we'll have known each other for 30 years.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Cambridge, MA, Day 1: NJ Doesn'ft Have a Lock on Weird

[NOTE: Saturday's ride will be on Monday.  Scroll down to the next post for details.]


28 August 2014

For instance, this street-level patio.  Zoom in and tell me you're not creeped out.



MIT's Stata Center, designed by Frank Gehry.  Princeton's Gehry isn't as showy.






From the back it's ordinary:


This view is from the center of campus:


This is a not at all weird science building.  It has telltale hood vents.  Jack and I play find-the-labs every time we're on a new campus.  MIT is kind of a gimme.  Jack said, "There's one here, and here, and..."


This is weird.  And wrong:


We plunked down $10 each for admission to the MIT Museum.  It was money well spent.  Here are several of the many Arthur Ganson sculptures.

"Machine With Wishbone," creepy:



"Machine With Roller Chain," for the bike nerds among us:



"Cory's Yellow Chair," way cool:



I didn't get the title of this one.  It might be, or is at least similar to "Machine With 23 Scraps of Paper."



"Haliades," by John Douglas Powers (our Infoguy's secret identity?):



"Lalu," by John Douglas Powers:



Outside, wooden hexagons were being clear-coated.  


OMG, think of what this would do to a good paint job.  I can't look:


Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Monday, September 1

27 August 2014

I'm going to be driving back from Boston on Saturday.  The scheduled Hill Slugs ride will be moved to Monday for an Anti-All-Paces ride.

We'll start at the CVS parking lot on Route 29 in Lambertville at 9:00 a.m. and go to Clinton and back in something like 60 miles.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Lying Bastard Multiple Choice Test



This is:
A:  How Tom's Insane Bike Posse marks its territory
B: A road crew gone rogue
C: How wealthy people in Bucks County react to potholes
D:  We have no idea

(answer:  D)



24 August 2014


The bridge across the Delaware River in Frenchtown is:

A:  The only flat part of Tom's Lying Bastard Ride
B:  Now charging a $1 toll
C:  So tired of being photographed




(answer:  C)

Tom's secret Bastard Loop was a surprise because:

A: It isn't on the route map
B: Instead of a steep hill, the Insane Bike Posse encountered a street fair with a jazz band, jugglers, stilt walkers, and free food (yet, strangely enough, took no photographs)
C: The Posse kept its collective front wheels on the ground


(answer: C)



On the Bastard Loop

A: OLPH couldn't shift into her granny gear until halfway up the hill
B: Tom couldn't shift into his granny gear until halfway up the hill
C: Marc made it up without needing a damned granny gear, you wusses
D: B and C

(answer:  You thought it was A, didn't you?  Well, it was D, so there!)


The Lake Nockamixon Dam is dry because:

A: OLPH was so thirsty she drank the overflow
B: Whitewater is released only twice per year
C: The dam didn't pay its taxes
D: We have no idea




(answer:  D)

True or false:

These are redwoods.



(answer: Sure, why not?  Who's gonna go check?)

The mysterious religious compound on Clymer Road is for

A: Worshipers of white columns
B: Abhorers of windows
C: Rosicrucians



(answer:  Rosicrucians! They're real!)

You know that pyramid with the eye on it on our dollar bills?


(answer: yes)

This car is:

A:  For Winter Larry to tell us the make and model
B:  What every avid cyclist's car should look like
C:  A very large lawn ornament
D:  All of the above


(answer: D)

This is:

A:  A rust-plated, award-winning, caged clove of garlic
B:  A farm implement
C:  Umm...


(answer: C)

These views are:

A:  Stolen from old versions of Microsoft Windows desktops
B:  The reward after 40 miles of hills
C:  Better in person
D:  Fake
E:  B and C





(answer:  E)

The number of road closure signs the Posse encountered was:

A:  1
B:  2
C:  3
D:  4



(answer: 4)

The number of detours and muddy stream crossings was:

A:  0
B:  1
C:  2
D:  3


(answer: A; so much for our reputation)


On the final steep hill, the Posse:

A:  Called Tom a bastard, as Tom predicted
B:  Gave Tom a big, sloppy kiss
C:  Was too out of breath to call Tom anything


(answer: A)


At the end of the ride, Tom said:

A:  He'd do this route again someday
B:  He'd do this route again on Friday
C:  He wasn't sure he'd do this route again


(answer: C)


Saturday, August 23, 2014

Fools in the Rain (Again)

23 August 2014

When Tom postponed his Lying Bastard Ride until tomorrow because it was raining in Frenchtown, he left a handful of us already dressed and ready to go.  There was a ten minute scramble of emails, out of which emerged the plan to meet at Dave C's house at 8:30 for a mild 50-miler, precipitation potential be damned.

A drizzle began as I loaded Miss Piggy into the car.  I missed the turn onto Business Route 1 in PA.  Not only was I now going to arrive minutes before the start, but I was also heading into some real rain.  By the time I had turned back around and pulled into Dave C's neighborhood, it was 8:26. But it didn't matter all that much.  Dave, Jim, and Shawn from the Hood were standing in the rain, under a tree by Dave's driveway.

Dave and I checked the radar.  There was a mass of precipitation headed towards us.  We zoomed in. Dave showed me the direction of his route, which, he said, would take us away from the edge of the rain.

When we took off, it was no longer raining.  The roads were still wet enough to soak our butts right away. It's the initial water that's the worst.  Once you're wet, you're wet.

And we got wet.  Instead of petering out, the rain got worse.  It wasn't heavy, but it was there.  By 20 miles, I was starting to get cold.  I should remind everyone that this is still August.  "Is it wrong to be craving hot chocolate right now?" I asked Dave.

I suggested that we cut out and head home.  While Dave considered which of the three routes were possible from where we were, I squeezed my hands into fists to wring out my gloves.

Dave had originally planned to avoid climbing Jericho Mountain.  We'd already gone around one side of it. Now, though, instead of going around the other side, we were going to go over. He took us up Thompson Mill, which looked and felt like a miniature version of the Eagle Road climb we did a few weeks ago.  As with Eagle, as soon as we got to the top, we were going downhill.

Now is a good time to mention that there are only half a dozen or so road names in this particular part of Bucks County.  There are several Creamery Roads, two Street Roads, and a few that have "Pine" or "Stony" in them somewhere.  For the already directionally confused, this makes orientation even more confusing.

We managed to knock 13 miles off the route, which, although being too short (anything under 40 is too short), ended up being a good decision.  The last couple of miles were in real rain.  The upside is that the real rain washed the half-rain crud off of our bikes.

Dave invited us inside, but Jim said, "I just want to get into the car with the heat on."  I remind everyone, again, that this is August.

I toweled down Miss Piggy, but I didn't bother drying myself.  I'd be in a hot shower soon enough.  Did I mention that this is August?

As is to be expected, when I got home it looked as if it had hardly rained at all in my neighborhood.

*****

NOTE FOR NEXT WEEK:  My listed Saturday ride will be on Sunday instead.  I'm heading to Boston for a few days.  I'll post a reminder and a route before I leave.


Friday, August 22, 2014

Volunteers Needed for Ride for McBride Arrow Painting

22 August 2014

The Ride for McBride is September 20.

We need some volunteers to help paint arrows along the routes.  It should be easy this year because we're keeping last year's routes and many of last year's arrows still look good.  Several of our usual painters are either away or living in Florida.  If you've got a few spare hours the week before September 20, please contact me by leaving a comment or emailing me using the address in the Freewheel.

Thank you!

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Steel Weekend: Stretched Cables, Surprise Desks, and Mung in the Doin's


 The most accurate depiction of me yet

17 August 2014

Beaker came home on Friday.  I didn't load her* up with the lights and bell right away.  First, we were going to play in the Sourlands, so that she could loosen up and I could figure out how she rolls.

The first thing I did was attach the saddle bag and the light.  Then I took pictures.  This one is framed the way it is because I have a picture on my desk from Big Joe's funeral.  It's a black and white photo, circa the 1970's, from the looks of it, of his steel bike, leaning against a garage door.



It was Ross Hart's idea to put a blue stem clamp on.  It was a surprise when I saw it.


I would have preferred a more old-school looking chain ring.  There's only so much I'm willing to spend, though.  Nothing new in the size I wanted was quite what I pictured in my mind.  Still, it's Ultegra, so...

Carbon bottle cages aren't old-school either.  I picked them because my aluminum coffee mug rattles against Gonzo's metal bottle cage.  It's distracting.

The Mavic wheels are a far cry from old-school.  They are, however, unused, from 2007.  In bike years, that's not new.



On Saturday morning, Jim and Marc met me at home.  Marc was on his new climbing bike.  Jim said he felt left out.  He was also drooling over Beaker.

From the moment I clipped in, it was as if Beaker and I had known each other for ten years.  She felt as comfortable as an old pair of jeans.

Well, okay, sure, everything will be just dandy for the first ten miles on fresh legs, even on a rented clunker.  I didn't suppose this feeling would last.

We met Blake, Bagel Hill Barry. Pete, and a very tall Mark on a very tall Serotta, in Pennington.  It wasn't until Jim asked, "Where are we going?" that it dawned on me I hadn't come up with a route.  "Sergeantsville," I said.  I also suggested we might stop at Wheelfine so that I could show Michael the finished product.  I promised we'd have no big hills.

Taking one of my usual routes out of town, we encountered a freshly-milled stretch of Pennington-Rocky Hill Road.  Pete suggested a neighborhood detour.  As we turned off the bumpy stuff, I said, "I have a steel fork.  It don't bother me."

I thought that Beaker might be twitchy on turns.  She's not.  What are the odds that Beaker's rake is the same as Kermit's?  Beaker has a curved fork.  It'd take some real measurements to figure it out.  I'm not that motivated.

On Stony Brook Road, as we approached Mine Road,  I said, "We could hang a left here and find out what she's made of." (Pause) "Left turn!"  (This is how Cheryl and I went up Mine the first time: I called "left turn" out of the blue.)

Jim, Blake, and Pete were, naturally, the first ones up.  Mark sailed up too.  I was my usual distance behind them, and that was a surprise.  I'm supposed to suffer a lot more than I did if I'm hauling a steel frame up a hill.

Halfway up, Marc stopped.  When he got to the top, he explained.  "I was looking for that tenth gear.  It locked up."  Miss Piggy never lets me forget that it's her I'm on when I'm climbing.  I have that tenth gear, but it'll take some double shifting to get to it.

The view from Route 31 of the Hopewell Valley at Mine Road:


This is the world I know.**

Marshall's Corner-Woodsville Road has two hard rollers.  If Beaker was going to be jumpy on a descent, here's where I'd find out.  She wasn't.

At the top of the second roller, I looked back through my rear-view mirror and saw Barry walking into the woods.  Jim couldn't see him, and, as the good sweep he always is, said, "I'm going back."  I figured Barry was simply in need of a tree to duck behind, and that he and Jim would be along in no time.   It took a little longer than that.

When Barry appeared, he looked shaken.  I was confused. "What happened?" There were some cuts on his legs.

"I dropped my water bottle," he explained.  "I was looking for it when I crashed into a desk."

"So you crashed into it when you were off your bike," I said.  "That must've been right after I saw you."

"No," he said.  "You saw me after I crashed.  I was on the bike when I hit the desk."

He assured us he was fine.  On we went.

At South Hunterdon High School we turned onto Mount Airy Road.  This would be the test of descending twitchiness.  Nothing.

Halfway up Sandy Ridge Road, Beaker decided that she didn't like being in one particular gear.  Either side of it was fine, but the 32-tooth cog was a non-starter.

When we got to Sergeantsville, Jim took a look and tightened the cables.


Beaker on her first journey

Inside the general store, I headed for the coffee, as I always do, only to nearly walk into a shelf. They've rearranged the place!  I'm not sure that's allowed.  The coffee, while not the flavorless brown water that used to be brewed here, still has a long way to go.

Breaking the Golden Rule of Bike Routes -- Thou Shalt Not Double Back -- I doubled back all the way to South Hunterdon High School.  Somewhere in here I realized that if I were asked, I wouldn't be able to answer whether I was on Kermit or Beaker.

Even Dinosaur Hill seemed easy.  (This is wrong.  It's never easy. Tailwind?)

Rock Road dumped us across from Wheelfine.  Michael was outside.  "Mister Johnson!"  I called.  He looked up from the tiny two-wheeler with the twisted chain and the fellow who was doing his best to untangle it.

"Oo La La!" he said.  He wasn't surprised at my description of the feel.  While we talked, the other guys poked their heads into the store.  This is something everyone should do at least once, just to say they'd seen it.

I've been working with the Hopewell Valley Arts Council on bike routes for the Stampede (the routes aren't up yet, so I won't bother linking).  There's one ox in particular that the Mayor of Hopewell Township wants the routes to include.  I tried to argue against it, seeing as the ox is at the bottom of Poor Farm at Woosamonsa, a blind curve at the junction of two hills on a narrow road with no shoulders.  She didn't agree with me, and she thinks the ox is special.

Well, it's not, and a car had to weave its way between us bikers as we attempted to stop safely by the ox as we came barreling down Woosamonsa.  I mean, okay, I get that it took a lot of work to encase this ox in armor.  But, meh.  It's not worth crashing for.



On our way home from Pennington, we stopped at a yard sale we'd seen on our way in.  I stopped feeling weird about having four road bikes:


And at least I've never owned one of these:


At the end of the ride, I was still astounded that Beaker had done so well, that the fit was so perfect, that the feel was so familiar.  "This is what a good frame gets you," I said.  Jim replied, "That, and a mechanic who knows what he's doing."


Sunday morning I had to take Jack to the Trenton train station for an Amtrak to Boston (he's there on a fellowship for two weeks).  The sky was alternately spitting rain and sunny up until about 9:30 a.m. Things were clear by 10:30.  I had Kermit ready to go. I wasn't caffeinated, which is rare.  I felt as if I were wading through mud.  There would be no pace-pushing today.

Joe and Jim met me at home, and we started out on a circuitous route to Allentown.  We did get rained on, a very little bit, before we crossed Route 130.  After bumping through the eastern portion of East Branch in the Assunpink WMA (remind me not to do that again), I felt the need to get out of the big ring.

Kermit was having none of that.

Were I to take the anthropomorphization of my bikes to its logical conclusion, I'd chalk this up to jealousy, a temper tantrum from the eldest child when a new, attention-grabbing baby enters the house. But I'm not quite that crazy.  More likely, the shifter was dying or there was still some of New Egypt's rainy pavement stuck in my derailleur.

The rest stop I had chosen was Bruno's One Sweet Ride in Allentown.  Outside, on the sidewalk, Jim looked at Kermit and said, "There's probably mung in the doin's." Joe and I liked this enough to repeat it a few times.

Jim fussed with the derailleur's limit screw to no avail.  Halfway through, I said, "You know, we're outside a bike shop."  This had not occurred to any of us.  I took Kermit in.

Jim Bruno put Kermit on the stand and proceeded to discharge chunks of mung from the doin's until the chain popped from one ring to the next over and over again.

The fix didn't last past Windsor Road.  

In Mercer County Park, Jim's front tire went flat.  He chose a good place for it, along side the cricket pitch. There was a match going on.  I watched the bowler and the batsmen and the guarded wickets to the end of the innings and that's the extent of my knowledge of cricket terminology. The players walked off the pitch at the same time that Jim got his wheel on.

I spent the afternoon doing yard work and chores.  I hung Kermit by the rear wheel and dropped lube into the derailleur; tomorrow I'll flip him over to lube the other side. I also got Beaker ready for her first day as a work horse. Yes, I know.  Why turn such a fine piece of machinery into a mere commuter bike?

Because.



Compared to how I'd had Gonzo loaded up, this is minimal. I can strip the lights and have Beaker weekend-ready in a matter of minutes.

Here's Gonzo, for comparison, in my office at work, next to my colleague's Ramona***, who, unloaded, is as heavy as Gonzo is loaded:


Gonzo is visiting Ross at the moment, awaiting diagnosis on a crunchy hub and crunchy cranks.  If I've ridden Gonzo into the ground, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.  After four seasons of commuter service, Gonzo will be returned to his original role as winter beater bike.  On commute days where rain might threaten, Gonzo will be pressed back into service.




*Yes, Beaker the Muppet is, presumably, male, and one would traditionally assume -- presuming one goes along with this less-than-sane motif of naming bikes in the first place -- that Beaker the Tommasini would therefore be male.  But identity is a continuum, and Beaker the bike identifies as she.

**I had a temporary, part-time job in the winter of 1995.  I lived in Maple Shade at the time; the job, with an environmental consulting firm, was wetland delineation along the NJ Turnpike at Exit 4.  The office, though, was in Flemington, an hour's drive from home.  There's little I remember about the drive except how slow Route 31 could be, and a particular view of a valley as the road rounded a curve. The first time I saw it, I was listening to the radio.  One of those bland '90s songs by a bland '90's band was playing, with the refrain, "It's the world I know."  Ever since then, every time I round that curve...

***Of course I named her.  I started off calling the bike "Romano," after the person who left the bike to my colleague.  But my colleague looked up at me and said, "I think it's a she."  So we re-named it.