Like Summer Without Leaves

Hazy December View from Rileyville Road

12 December 2015

Dripping sweat in mid-December: the new normal.

This time of year, the long-distance views are great because the air is clear. Not so much today. At first I thought it was my new sunglasses* (the old ones being more glass than sunglass as the coating flakes away), but, no, it was real haze.

Of the five Slugs that left from Pennington today, only one was smart enough to wear shorts. The rest of us were peeling off layers every few miles.

I'm liking the new Miss Piggy. She's lighter than the old one, and I think she's got better power transfer. Hills that used to be annoying are now about 25% less annoying.  I'm trying to decide if the saddle's bolt coming loose halfway through the ride counts as a Piggy mechanical; if it happens again, then, yes. Jim suggested I coat the bolt with beeswax, which I have among my beading supplies. That's easy enough, but then I'll never know if this is another Cannondale defect that I can battle six ways from Sunday for five more years before demanding a new frame.  I like this frame. I think I'll go for the beeswax.

Wary of becoming predictable, I took a circuitous route to Sergeantsville that brought us in from the north. Along the way, we passed Hillbilly Hall at the top of Rileyville Road. It really is in the middle of nowhere. I've always liked the signs, and since one of my colleagues thinks that she might have been there years ago, I took some pictures for her.

Haze and utility wires at the bottom of Rileyville at Wertsville Road:

Haze and utility wires from the top of Manners:

Somehow, there was a perfectly passable road between Sergeantsville and Flemington that I hadn't been on. Britton Road is now one of my new favorites, although, because it holds a couple of steep little hills, it's the kind of road that would elicit invective if traversed on the wrong sort of day. I didn't take any pictures there. Maybe next time.

Jim has a kickstand on the Krakow Monster. A carbon fiber kickstand.

A carbon fiber kickstand that folds away onto the seat tube.

This would be wrong on so many levels, except that Jim says the Krakow Monster was built to go grocery shopping. It made sense when he said it; not so much now.

The new owners of the Sergeantsville General Store have renovated the bathroom. There's no longer a hacksawed hole in the sink leading to a trash can. There are new tiles on the floor and walls. Some of the old, er, charm remains, though, so you won't forget where you are. The floor outside is new, too. No more creaky wood (I liked the creaky wood); now it's shiny tiles that look like inlaid wood. I'm still getting used to having to walk to a different part of the store for coffee. The shelves keep moving around. I miss Sun greeting me with "Hey! Long time, no see!" But the chef is the same. As long as I can find the squash-cherry-nut bread, I'm cool with whatever.

I took a more predictable route home, and this time I stopped on Snydertown for my own pictures of the Mechanic Hideaway.  John K and I pondered what sort of repair shop the place might be. Maybe he (we assumed it was a he for no good reason) would be more exclusive and reclusive than even Michael at Wheelfine. Maybe he'd only work on steel bikes. Vintage steel bikes. With no more than six gears. "Well, maybe seven," John added. I suggested that there might be a bouncer at the door.

"He's got to be a welder," Jim said, looking more closely at the frame mailbox than I ever had.

When I got home and logged my miles, I noticed that I'll need 52 more to reach the next 4-digit round number. I don't expect Larry will do more than 45 tomorrow. How OCD do I want to be? I'm leaving for England on Friday and won't be able to ride again until December 30. Do I pedal around Cranbury tomorrow until I get the extra 7? Do I hop on a bike on New Year's Eve? Do I say, "Whatever" and finish the year with a four digit number that I'll forget as soon as I look away from it?

On the phone from England, Jack said, "If I cared about miles, that sort of thing would drive me nuts." This is a man who makes sure all of the bills in his wallet are the same side up and has his tea at exactly 4:00 p.m. each day. "You should get them in tomorrow," he advised. "You don't know what the weather will be like when we get back."

Right. I guess I'll park in Plainsboro and ride over to Cranbury.  There goes half an hour of sleep.**





(*When I tried the new sunglasses on last week, I thought I looked sort of bad-ass. This morning, without any provocation from me, Pete said, "You look kind of bad-ass.")

(**Update: I've been recording distances on a spreadsheet all season. To check my numbers, I did the math using the odometer readings from my road fleet. The odometer total is 15.6 miles higher, which suggests that I forgot to enter one commute trip, which is a smidge longer than 14 miles but I always enter just 14. Over the course of a season, that could easily add up to another 1.6 miles. So I can get that extra half hour of sleep tomorrow. All I need is 37 miles to reach that round number.)