Slug Trail

Union Transportation Trail near Doctors Creek

28 January 2017

With the wind blowing flurries sideways across the Herbert Road parking lot at the northern end of the Union Transportation Trail, Tom said that going off-road was the right decision today. The minute I spent with my gloves off as I fished out the sign-in sheet was enough to freeze my fingers.

I'd expected two riders, maybe three, on a day like this. There were already four or five when I arrived, and they kept coming in. We left with nine, going north first, because one of our number had just been exploring past the official northern end of the trail. Hill Slugs like exploring.

From Herbert Road to Old York Road the trail is finished. After that, we were in the Assunpink Wildlife Management Area, flanked by farms, riding on grass and cinders, because another one of our number took the liberty of opening a gate that wasn't locked. The trail will someday officially include this stretch, all the way to Allens Lane.

We rode until we reached another gate. We could have heaved our bikes over it and gone on, as our exploring miscreant had done. One rider is one thing. Nine riders is quite another. I took a picture and turned around.

I turned around just in time to see a motorized cart approaching. The three of us at the gate figured we were in for it now. We weren't. The two farm workers in the cart waved at us and turned into a field.

Back at the unofficially opened gate, we paused for cows.

As we approached the Herbert Road lot again, we picked up another rider, and then John K at the lot. We were now eleven, a mix of B+, B, and C+ riders, and we got spread out. I didn't worry too much about it, considering the route was a nearly flat, well-defined, short, out-and-back deal.  I put my camera away and focused on keeping the ride together by stopping whenever we had to cross a road.

The southern end of the trail, for now, is at a parking lot on Millstream Road a few miles north of New Egypt. I would be remiss in my duty not to make a passing reference to the handful of wisecracks about using the port-a-pot on a day like this. Ice fishing. Gas power.

I offered that if anyone wanted to ride a couple of miles on 537, we could investigate a new coffee shop I'd learned about only this morning. Nobody wanted to do that, so we turned back.

I didn't do a head count at the end of the trail; only when we passed one of our riders a quarter mile into our return trip did I realize he'd been missing. He assured me he was OK as I passed, but I asked the handful of Slugs who hadn't gone ahead to wait at 539.

I positioned myself so I could see the trail behind us. After a few minutes, the rider didn't appear, so I called him. He assured me again that he was fine. "I've never been on this trail before," he said. "I'm taking lots of pictures. Don't wait for me!"  "You sure?"  "Yeah!"

So I hung up and took a picture of the trail ahead of us.

After that, I stopped to take more pictures. One rider decided to wait for the straggler.  I didn't care if the rest of the group went ahead. I was hoping that the two in the back would catch up with me while I took my time with the camera.

 

Most of the trail isn't wooded or curvy. It's dead straight and dead flat. Follow the power line poles into the distance and you'll know where you're headed.
 

Near the base of the I-195 overpass, the trail brushes up against a field of Phragmites. They're the cockroach of wetlands, but I'm fond of them all the same.

The wind was bending them.

Crossing New Sharon Branch, we passed a backyard dock and boat:

In the end, everyone returned within ten minutes of everyone else. We were all happy to have squeezed out almost 20 miles on a day when sane people would be inside.

Not until I lifted Grover out of the car did I notice the collage of towpath and trail mud caked to the underside of the down tube. Liking the red and gray contrast against the blue paint, I left it there and put the bike inside. Also, the hose was probably frozen anyway.

Todays' cast of characters: Tom; Snakehead (!); Chris; John K (on a road bike); Ralph; Ricky; Tru,;The Jerry Foster; and two newcomers, Brian and Paul.

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, January 28: Union Transportation Trail

26 January 2017

As of this writing, the wind chill on Saturday will be in the 20s. Let's stay off the road and explore the Union Transportation Trail instead.

The surface is gravel, sometimes loose, so bring a hybrid or mountain bike.

Meet at the Sharon Station Road parking lot, at 70 Herbert Road, Upper Freehold, NJ, 08514, for a 9:30 a.m. start.

The route is out and back, 17 miles if we don't go the extra 1.5 miles on the road into New Egypt for a break, 20 miles if we do.

The Sound of Fog

Etra Lake 

22 January 2017

"Are you a cyborg today?" Pete wanted to know if I was wearing my new hearing aids as we pushed off from my house to meet Tom and whomever else at Mercer County Park.

"Yep." They were snug under my hat, protected from the wind. The air was chilly and damp, and the roads were still a little wet from the previous day's rain. Whenever a car passed by, the sound was irritatingly loud. More noise I'll have to get used to.

Chris and Bob were at the park with Tom, and so was Joe (the only one smart enough to have brought a bike with fenders). I felt a little warm, so I took my hat off.

That's when the wind noise started. My hearing aids have three microphones, the largest one sitting on the top towards the front. There's nothing to baffle it from the wind, and, despite my audiologist's adjustments and assurances, and despite the aids' apparent ability to "learn" what background noise is, the loud, sharp crackle would not go away. Especially in my right ear. It must be at the same frequency the aids are attempting to amplify to make up for my deficit.  Heading into the wind was the worst, unless I cocked my head a little to the right, which is no way to spend half a ride.

"I need a baffle," I said to Bob and Pete, who are safely nerdy enough (in a good way!) to appreciate my musings.  "What I need is a little rubber band to put on either side of the mic."

Pete was doubtful. Bob thought I was crazy.  I thought that if I could come up with a solution I would save myself a few thousand dollars of investment in a set of in-the-ear aids to use outdoors.

It finally dawned on me that what I needed was foam to cover the microphone the way foam covers microphones and headphones. And I realized that, somewhere in my house, was a spare set or two of foam ear bud covers.  Meanwhile, I'd have to continue to move my head around.

Aside from that, it was a good ride. Because I brought my camera with me, I finally had the chance to take pictures of flatlands that we usually blow right past.

One of those is the farm at the corner of Hill Road and Arneytown-Hornerstown Road.

Another is the seemingly permanent road closure across from the farm. Tom said something blogworthy here, something someone else told me I should quote, and I've completely forgotten what it is.  It had to do with his decision not to tempt fate. I suppose our tradition of blowing past road closures is weather-dependent. This is the second time in three weeks that I've gone around, rather than through, a closed road.

On our way back from New Egypt, I stopped to take pictures of Doctors Creek on Davis Station Road in Imlaystown:

There was enough splut on Kermit (both the frog and the frame) that I had to hose both of them off when I got home.

In the afternoon, I dug around and found two pairs of vintage ear bud covers. When I pulled one of them over one of my hearing aids, the foam immediately ripped, but it fit snugly and covered the microphone.

I wanted to test this out on Sunday morning. At 7:00 a.m. I got out of bed and looked out to the street. The road was damp under fog. I called Winter Larry. He sounded like he wanted to go but wasn't sure anyone else would. When I said I was game, he said he'd be in Cranbury.

Half an hour before leaving the house, I decided I should take Gonzo, who I'd bought for dirty winter road rides, rather than Kermit, who'd had one bath already this weekend. That meant switching wheels from the sludgy ones I use on the trainer to the prima donna ones I use outside. I was kind of proud of myself for being able to make the swap, throw on a headlight, and fill the tires in a matter of minutes.

The fog was sometimes thick on the drive over to Cranbury. I'd want to bring the camera.

There were four Fastboys in the parking lot. When I saw them, I decided to leave the camera in the car. Larry persuaded me to bring it along.

As we proceeded along Station Road east of 130, I felt more tired than I ought to have. I was having trouble getting Gonzo to move. It felt the way I sometimes feel in my dreams, when I can't get my pedals to turn or my legs to work. I also heard something strange from my back wheel. With the entire group far ahead of me, I stopped.

The wheel had slipped and was rubbing against a brake pad. I re-seated the wheel and hopped back on. That's more like it!  I caught up and apologized. "Mechanical," I said.

As we cruised along, I noticed that I didn't hear any screeching wind at all.  Hallelujah!

We turned into Thompson Park in Jamesburg, where the fog behind the trees was irresistible. At the top of the hill, I dismounted to take pictures. When I looked back, I saw that I wasn't the only one.

When I stepped on the pedals again, the wheel slipped again. Nobody noticed, though, because they were a few yards down the road, using the bathroom. This time I tightened the skewer even harder; I'd forgotten how finicky this frame is about that. This time it held.

A little while later, I noticed loud wind noise in my left ear, and it wasn't until I peeled my outer glove off and felt around that I realized the aid had slipped off from behind my ear. With the tube and plug still snug in my ear, the top was bouncing around. The same fFstboy who had hung back with me when my wheel started rubbing (before taking off) saw me fumbling around and asked if I was OK. I'd already popped it back into place (my old aids used to do this with frightening regularity, which is why I never wanted to try them outside) at that point.

Partly because of the fog, and partly because I'd told Larry that I'd prefer a short route (I had to be somewhere in the early afternoon), we skipped the rest stop.  Instead, while the Fastboys were waiting at a corner for me and Larry to catch up, they began munching on energy bars. I reached into my pockets, sure that I'd packed one, but I couldn't feel it. Larry offered me a chunk of his bagel. The Fastboy who had witnessed my previous fumbles must have thought I was a right mess.

Some days are like this.

As we rounded the corner from Disbrow Hill to Etra, a driver pulled up and asked for directions. It took the group a while to set them straight, so I wandered over to the edge of Etra Lake for a few pictures. The fog was starting to lift.

I'm glad I brought my camera because I finally got a picture of the moose on South Main Street in Hightstown. It's been there for years, and, being so close to the end of the ride, I've always sped on past.

At the end of the ride, I pulled off my hearing aids to see how they'd fared.

If I'm careful, I could get another ride or two out of these before having to toss them. I'm not worried, though, because I found, on Amazon, of course, a pack of 120 pairs of covers*. In several colors. This makes me happy. I can finally get funky with my hearing aids. It's what I've wanted all along.


(This begs the question of who, besides a nerd like me wanting to muffle hearing aid wind amplification, would ever need 120 pairs of ear bud covers. Whatever.)

The End of the Canal

The End of the D&R Canal, New Brunswick

15 January 2017

Some things you have to see because they're there.

I took Grover and my new bionic ears up to Blackwells Mills to meet Tom and Pete for a ride to the northern end of the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath.

Pete looked at my tires and Tom's tires and said, "You know I'm not one to give bike advice, right?"

"Uh huh."

"You guys gotta get slicks." Especially me, since I'm never going to be bouncing around in the woods again.  [Done. Cheap, but the wire bead is gonna make my knuckles bleed.]

This is the first time I've taken my new ears on a bike ride, my audiologist having assured me that I won't destroy them with my sweat. Not that we were going to get sweaty this morning, with the temperature barely above freezing and a noticeable breeze coming at us from the northwest.

Yesterday's dusting of snow and freezing rain left a shallow, crunchy crust on the towpath.

And damn, that crust is loud under wide tires! How do you people stand it?  I could hear Tom and Pete nattering away about satellites, both of them being satellite programmers, but I couldn't catch the details over the crusty din. 

A few miles into the ride, my right hearing aid battery decided to quit, signalling with a cascade of tones every few seconds, which is impossible to ignore. I think Pete was impressed with how fast I can change a pair of batteries (if one goes, the other is about to) under freezing temperatures. I used the opportunity to snap a few pictures, since I had my lobster gloves off anyway.

At South Bound Brook, the Raritan curves north and I-287 curves south. The towpath goes under the highway twice. I stopped under the first bridge to gawk at this graffiti. That's one steady hand that must have painted this from a boat.

At Landing Lane in New Brunswick, the curated crushed shale gave way to single track for about a quarter mile.  And then, there it was, the end of the line:

Even Pete took a picture.

On the way back, we spotted some ducks in the river. We didn't know what they were, so I took a couple of pictures in order to figure them out later.

 

Buffleheads. They were moving fast along the river. A good close-up was impossible.

Where the Millstone meets the Raritan, we stopped for a quick rest.  The Millstone is left center; the Raritan is just off center above the spillway:

I walked back to try to see everything at once: the canal (left), the towpath with Tom and Pete (center), the Millstone (center right) and the Raritan (right):

By now the snow had melted and we were turning ourselves red-brown from Brunswick shale mud. We weren't plastered as badly as two weeks ago, but I still had to put Grover under the hose before I brought him inside.

So.  It took me seventeen years to ride the entire Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath. "For the amount of time I've been riding," Tom said yesterday, "there's still so much of New Jersey I haven't seen." 

This is as good a time as any to announce that the theme for the Hill Slugs and the Insane Bike Posse in 2017 will be Weird New Jersey. We've been brainstorming already. Come along!

MCP on Foot

Winter Sky Over Mercer Lake

14 January 2017

I was stuck on my screened-in back porch, with Gonzo, on the fluid trainer, during last week's snowstorm. There was just enough light left for a few pictures after the snow stopped.

Tom and Jack H invited me to an easy hike in Mercer County Park today. Never having been on the trails on foot, and not having been in the woods there in something like 8 years, I pushed my scheduled ride to Sunday and bundled up for a loop around Mercer Lake.

I haven't been on a hike in two years. The loop through the park almost doesn't count. It was enough, though, to unglue the soles of my 22-year-old boots halfway around the lake. Jack H had duct tape, and it held.

The trails we followed were ones I'd seen many times on my mountain bike. The places I remembered most, though, were the ones where I'd chickened out or fallen in memorable ways.

Stopping for pictures is easier on foot.

Mercer Lake on the western side of the park:

Near the dam is a small hill that looks a lot steeper from two wheels.

We ducked through a gap in the chain-link fence over the Assunpink River dam, the dam that created Mercer Lake.

On the other side, we headed east again.

We wound up crossing and skirting the golf course, and traipsing through the woods next to the green. The ground was littered with stray golf balls (I tossed a bright yellow one back onto the course), glass trash, and a crock pot.

While we were walking, Chris texted me, having seen our cars in the parking lot. He was on his mountain bike. He came across a rusty bike wedged in the crook of a tree and sent me these pictures:

I sent him a picture of my feet.

Some logs are scarred with gouges from mountain bike chain rings. Others are speckled with fungus.

Out of the woods again, we were behind the Caspersen Rowing Center, where the US Olympic rowing teams train.

One team was training on the lake. 

Beavers!

Deep in the woods is a foundation from a small house:

Bridge Zen is a cinch on foot.

View from the bridge by the East Picnic Area:

Behind the tennis center:

When we got back to our cars, Chris was in his truck. If he wasn't waiting for us, he sure made it look like he was.

Jack H is suggesting we go to Baldpate Mountain next weekend. I'll need new boots first, ones that don't have my feet sloshing around despite thick wool socks, that are lightweight, waterproof, sturdy, and willing to live in the closet most of the time. Because as soon as I can get back on the road with the Hill Slugs, I will.