Cold Wind, Hot Coffee, and Alpacas

Candlelight Farm Alpacas

19 March 2016

None of my regulars contacted me yesterday. I guess I'm biking up to Pennington on my own. There was that one guy who didn't bother to read the blog and emailed me for details instead. I sent him back to the blog. It might end up being the two of us. That'll be weird.

There's a headwind out of the north. That's good. We'll get pushed home, if we survive Flemington.

Two cars are in the parking lot at the ride start.

"Heyyyyyy!" I haven't seen Linda in years. She's got her Seven today, not her usual IndyFab. Andrew is here again. 

Bob drives in, apologetic. "Take your time. We're chill."

Carl drives in, apologetic. "I went to the wrong place," he says.  

"I put the address in the blog," I grin. "Take your time." 

There's plenty to yammer on about while we're waiting. Bob has snazzy shoes that are shoes and booties in one piece. Andrew prefers to go low-tech with plastic wrap over the toe box. Linda digs for warmer gear. Carl can't find his lighter gloves; he's stuck with steamy lobster claws. I'm toasty in my half-wool Wheelfine jersey under the same winter jacket I've been wearing since 2000.

Yesterday evening I pored over online maps to make sure I could get us in and out of Flemington safely and under 50 miles. It was easier than I thought it would be. We should come in around 42 miles. If it weren't near freezing and cloudy, that wouldn't be far enough.

I have a hand-written cue sheet, as always. Linda's Garmin is on the fritz. We push off, north out of Pennington straight up Pennington-Rocky Hill to Hopewell-Princeton Road. 

Carl is having derailleur trouble and he's not dressed warmly enough. He turns back. He'll have ten miles anyway.

Linda and I have been talking almost the whole time, catching up. We can't figure out the last time we rode together. I think it was at least two years ago, when a group of us came across her as she was doing a late solo ride.  It was long enough ago that I had two fewer bikes than I do now, and Miss Piggy was still a problem child.

We talk all the way up Greenwood and down Rileyville. I'm pretty sure this is the only way one can go up and over the mountain without turning.*

At the bottom, I flip my cue sheet early. "We've got one more set of hills on Bad Manners Road. There's an alpaca farm at the top. I haven't seen any there for years. There's still a sign there, though. A few years ago, Cheryl and I were < ahref="http://perpetualheadwinds.blogspot.com/search?q=alpacas" target="_blank" title="Alpacas and a Bike that Works">talking to the alpacas

. I haven't seen them there since. The bottom fell out of the market."

We turn left on Wertsville. Linda and I are still talking when, ahead of us, Andrew passes Van Lieus. Van Lieus?  Wait a minute. We're going the wrong way.

I'm certain of the order of roads that cross the mountain. I'm terrible at remembering where the roads come in on the opposite side of Wertsville. If we just passed Van Lieus, the next road up is going to be Back Brook, I think.

From behind, Bob asks, "What happened to Manners?"

"I made a wrong turn. We'll catch it on the way home." By saying that, I've blown my cue sheet to bits.

Back Brook isn't the next one. Dutch is. Back Brook intersects with Dutch. I suck at this. We turn on Dutch, which, I'm reasonably sure, intersects with Old York. Lord knows how many miles I'm adding at this point.

We turn right on Old York. We could cross 202 instead, but, from there, I'd have to navigate through Flemington on roads I haven't committed to memory. Old York is on my cue sheet for the return trip; I'll do the route in reverse from here.

I'm looking for Reaville, which is much farther east than I'd hoped; we pass Van Lieus on its northern end.

There it is. I flip the cue sheet so that I can read it backwards, but from here I have a solid mental picture.

Reaville rolls. Remember that. I think we're going in the easy direction, or maybe I'm just relieved that I know where I'm headed again.

I've only been through Flemington once before, back in 2013 or so, when I led a Hunterdon Land Trust ride from Dvoor Farm on the Route 12/523 traffic circle (yikes) to Round Valley. Now we're coming at Flemington from the east at the only intersection I could find that gets us across Route 31 with a light. 

There's traffic, but not much and the lights are working for us. Flemington has some way cool Victorian-style houses. I should take some pictures someday.**

There's a winter farmers market going on today next to Factory Fuel.

Inside, we're inside what used to be the Stangl Pottery factory. There's seating in the kiln. Andrew suggests we sit near the door to keep an eye on the bikes. The coffee is good. The pastries are made on site. I buy two small bunny cookies to take home.

Andrew disappears and comes back from the farmers market with a cup of soup. We talk about food that should never be consumed during a bike ride. We talk about goofy road names in Hunterdon County. We're clearly not in a hurry to get moving again. My muffin stump goes uneaten.

Linda vanishes for a while. Bob disappears. I explore the market. Lots of meat. Farmers markets are kind of bleak for vegetarians in the winter. I go back to the coffee shop. Bob is back with a cup of chili and an extra spoon.

Now the hard part: getting started again. This is the shivery part. The cloud cover is heavier than before. The sky looks gunmetal gray. We're supposed to get some snow tomorrow, the first day of spring. This happened last year too.

Once we get past Route 31 and turn north onto Royal, we're out of town. I'm amused at how we went from urban to rural in one intersection. Once we cross over River Road, I know where we are and don't need the cue sheet.

I have to take a picture of the Raritan, of course, because I don't have a picture of the Raritan at this exact spot (lord help me) yet.

Barley Sheaf feels downhill-ish, except for the short inclines that, if we didn't have a tailwind and weren't cold, would be really annoying.

"Bad Manners?" Bob asks as we turn onto Amwell.

The tailwind helps. From the top of the first hill we can see to the second. "The alpaca farm is at the top of the next one," I tell Bob. "But I don't see any fuzzy bumps from here."

We stop at the top anyway. I don't see any animals. I might as well take some pictures though. I should get some of people on bikes for the Freewheel, I suppose. I usually wait until humans are out of the frame.

"Go ahead," I tell Andrew and Bob, but Andrew is looking at something in the field. I follow his gaze.

Alpacas!

"Sorry guys. I gotta get some pictures."  I have to show Sean that there are alpacas up here after all. When he first moved to New Jersey, I took him up here to see them and there weren't any. He hasn't let me forget it since.

I must be getting hungry. These trees look like cuberdons.

When we get to Wertsville again, I know which way to turn. We're going sideways up the mountain, old Hill Slug style: Rileyville to Saddle Shop to Runyon Mill to Orchard to Linvale.

"If you want, we could keep going straight to the top here and take the dirt road down Stony Brook."

Nobody wants. We turn on Orchard.

Where Stony Brook meets 654, Andrew peels off for home. We're down to three.

I spend too much time talking in the parking lot in Pennington. My fingers are cold when I push off again.

I'm almost at the Hopewell border when I see a rider on the other side of the road. I get ready to do my usual raised-finger greeting when I see he looks familiar. Sean cuts across the road as I pull over.

He says, "Did I miss the ride start?"

"By a couple of hours. Hey!  The alpacas are back!"

"Manners Road?"

"Yeah!"

"I'm headed that way."

"Then Rainbow Hill?"

"Yep."

"Ouch."

"Then Lindbergh."

"Ouch." Now I feel like a slouch.

"Then Province Line."

"Ouch." A serious slouch.

"Hey," he says, looking at my odometer. "You're good for another fifty."

"I'm hungry. I wanna go home and eat pasta."

"I'd better go before it rains."

"You'll have a tailwind coming home."

Now my fingers are hurting. It's raw out here.

I need to eat a real lunch, but first I need to check on the bunnies.

I'm looking at tomorrow's forecast, wondering if I can get a short ride in before the rain (not snow) starts. The air will be warming up when the rain comes in. That's a recipe for ice. I know better than to mess with that.

See you next week.



*This is true if one doesn't include the dirt stretch on Stony Brook, which isn't exactly directly across from Runyon Mill, or that there's technically a sort of turn where Hopewell-Amwell Road meets Province Line. Neither of these things occurred to me at the time. Still, Greenwood/Rileyville the closest thing to a straight shot south to north over the Sourland Mountain.

**Seriously, I should. I spent the last five minutes searching online and came up empty.