We Don't Stop for Sheep?

Rocktown Road, West Amwell

26 February 2017

Apparently I can't tell the difference between a cold headwind and a fever. I ain't moving for nothing right now, so y'all get to see what I type when my head is spinning and my legs are tingly. Enjoy.

I spent yesterday indoors, on my butt, ending a long week of burning the candle at both ends. I needed to ride today, even if it was winter-ish again and the wind was gusting at 30 mph. I managed to rustle up a few brave Slugs. Jim, Snakehead, and I headed up to Pennington to meet Pete and John K.

Right away we acknowledged in unison that we were working harder than usual. No surprise; we were going right into the wind, which blows out of the northwest most days anyway. We picked up Pete near the parking lot entrance. We were a few minutes early, so we waited around for John. I checked my phone for texts but there was nothing. After ten minutes, we headed out.

I didn't have a route in mind. Our goal was to stay under as many trees as possible. We were doing pretty well with that until Stony Brook Road, when Ed suggested we climb Mine. The best way to climb Mine Road is by surprise, so we took the left and up we went.

 View from Mine Road at Route 31

As we finished the climb on the west side of Rt 31, Jim requested that we don't do that again today. I was happy to oblige.

We zigged and zagged, and with each turn I was less inclined to go to Sergeantsville and more inclined to skip more inclines and go to Lambertville instead. From where we were, having descended New Road and turned left onto 579, Rock Road to Harbourton-Mount Airy was the most tree-lined and would face us in the right direction.

This, of course, meant that we'd climb that little steep thing where the increasingly dilapidated barn is (they're putting up new siding!) and find ourselves in front of the Mount Airy future hamburgers.

They're not fat; they're pregnant.

We hid in the trees on Alexauken Creek Road (still pipeline-free because we've managed to stall PennEast a little longer) and then turned into Lambertville, where John K was waiting for us, coffee in hand, at Rojo's.

He'd been running late, then later, and decided to ride to Lambertville on his own. Unfortunately, he'd dressed for yesterday, not today, and was dreading having to go outside again. I told him, "The thermometer at the high school up on the hill said 36 degrees." He stayed inside with us until we were all ready to go.

John took the towpath and we took the tailwind up Rocktown Road. We let ourselves get pushed past the hill and across the open fields, stopping only for a somewhat shy but slightly curious cow who was smart enough to stay in the barn.

 

 Er, that's not your good side, honey.

I was feeling more beat than I ought to have as we turned down Stony Brook. Everything was hurting a little. When I saw the lone tree, I had an excuse to stop, what with lone trees being my photo thing this winter.

This is at the top of the hill on the southern side of Stony Brook, where there's a four-foot berm on one side and a steep slope down to the stream on the other. So while it looks as if I were lying down to take this picture (in hindsight, that might have been a good idea), I wasn't.

When we got to the end of the road, the guys turned right because that's what I always do. I reeled them back in, made the left, and headed with the wind to Crusher Road.

Where three alpacas let me let them ham it up.

Farther along, I gestured to Jim towards a flock of sheep in the back of a pasture as I rode past.

"We don't stop for sheep?" he asked.

"Too far away." And also, I didn't want to stop anymore.

We parted company with Pete at Cherry Valley Road so that Jim, Snakehead, and I could take Carter all the way to 206 and check out the new bridge across the Shipetauken Creek. The sides are done in what looks like solid pinkish cement, for some reason, unlike any other bridge around here.

The guys weren't too pleased that I led them along 206 through the center of Lawrenceville, but I got back in their good graces by taking the slight downward grade with a tailwind on Franklin Corner towards Princeton Pike.

Snakehead wants to rename the stretch of the Pike between Franklin Corner and the top of the hill in honor of what has happened to him and Jim there. He wants to call it "Century Bonk Way," or something like that. I can't remember. I have a fever.

Oak branches and sky in my front yard

Blogging Backwards, With Our Clothes In Our Pockets

T

Geese Like Headwinds

25 February 2017

I'm behind on blogging and life in general. I'll start at the end and write my way backwards to last weekend.

Over the past six days, I've had four meetings. Three of them have been in north Jersey*. Three have been after work, meaning I didn't get home until 9:30 p.m. or later. Three of them involved interviewing four gubernatorial primary candidates for NJ Sierra Club endorsement. (I can't talk about that until a month from now.) While all this was happening, I had to get the March Freewheel out, which I did, around 7:30 p.m. yesterday, a new record in lateness, especially when the month is missing a few days. And, to cut into my time some more, one of my new hearing aids called it quits and I was back and forth to the audiologist three times to get it fixed.

Why did my hearing aid die?  Because I was told I could wear it outside and sweat on it. Which I did, on Sunday, when the February air was something near 70 degrees. As I've been doing through the colder weather, I covered the aids in foam headphone pads to block the searing wind noise.

I left from home at 9:00 with Rowlf, to meet John at the Reed Recreation Park in Allentown for a recovery ride. I'd done almost 60 miles on Saturday, and then been out with friends. I didn't think I'd have enough sleep to get up early enough for Winter Larry's Cranbury ride. There have been some fastboys up there lately.

Helped along by a tailwind, I had more energy than I thought. I caught up with a young buck on a cross bike who was heading for Mercer County Park.  "Nice Colnago!" he said. Given his age, I was impressed that he knew what a steel bike was, let alone a vintage Colnago. 

The wind pushed me along Meadowbrook and Gordon. I had my new hearing aids in, foam covers on, no hat. I could hear cars coming a hundred yards away. Without my electronic ears, I can't hear them until they're almost on my wheel.

As I approached Old York, I saw a string of bikers. I picked out Ralph's unmistakable black and orange fixie in the line and knew I was coming across Winter Larry's group. 

I turned in, enmeshing myself in the crowd, greeting everyone I knew. I realized right then how much I like riding with these guys and how much I dislike having to drive to Cranbury to do it. If I could meet them on Old York like this every Sunday, I'd do it. Larry wanted to know where I was going, and when I told him, he decided to detour his ride to the recreation park.

John wasn't there yet, but Ron's Sunday group was. After a round of greetings and the discovery that the bathrooms were locked (they always are on Sundays), John pulled in, Ron's group left, and I sent Larry off on his way.

John and I hadn't seen each other in real life since maybe November. We had a lot to catch up on. While he got ready, I snapped a picture of the clouds.

John's usual recovery route is about 30 miles. If I were to do the whole thing, I'd have nearly 60 miles and two days of near metrics. I told him I might cut out early. I had to be in Philly in the afternoon anyway.

We veered off the usual course, riding through the Assunpink from the south as we talked. John is a pro at the running monologue, mixing long stories with quick asides like this one, as a three-wheeled, black, low-rider motorcycle passed us: "Holy shit! It's fucking Batman!"  We did our best not to giggle as it passed us. It really did look like the Batmobile.

From there we made our way to Etra Park, 

where a Canada goose convention was taking place.

From there, we were into the headwind, which was fine, because I was starting to sweat. I should reiterate here that this was February 19 and we were riding in summer gear.

On Windsor Road, I went north and John went south. I was going through Mercer County Park when I noticed a rhythmic clicking in my left ear. At first I thought it was the wind tapping a stray wisp of hair, but it wasn't that. At the next traffic light, I felt the foam. It wasn't wet. I wiggled the aid. I wasn't sure if it was even transmitting. I didn't worry too much; the audiologist who told me these were sweat-proof also told me to get a drier, which I did.

At home, I switched batteries. The aid powered up with its usual annoying tone. But it wouldn't transmit. I put it in the drier and popped my old aid into my left ear. For the rest of the day, I walked around with lopsided hearing. When I got home from Philly, the drying cycle was finished. I tried the aid again before going to sleep. This time, I got the power tone and heard the electronic hiss. But it still wasn't transmitting. I put it back in the drier overnight. In the morning things were no different. 

I dropped it off with the audiologist mid-day on Monday. She didn't get a chance to play with it until late in the day, and called me back in after swapping receivers. It still wasn't working, but she wanted to try one more thing which she needed the other aid for. So I went back at the end of the day. She tried again, but it still didn't work. She told me not to use the foam covers. "They tend to collect moisture," she said. It was the other audiologist there who had told me to go ahead and sweat on them. I got it back on Friday, repaired for no charge. I scheduled an appointment for an in-the-ear fitting for a second set of aids, tiny ones like other riders have, ones that go way into the ear. I like the pair I have too much to give them up, but I need something outside that I can sweat on and not go deaf from amplified wind noise.

The foam covers had given me no trouble the day before, when I led seven people to Flemington. When Jim, Pete, and I left my house, it was 36 degrees out. The predicted high for the day would be 20 degrees higher than that. It was going to be a deep-pocket, many-layered day, and also the longest distance we'd travel in a while.

I'd loaded the route into my GPS. From the start, though, it was attempting to reroute me. I figured that, once we got to Pennington, it would sort itself out, Pennington being one of my regular starting points. Pete noticed that I also had a hand-written cue sheet. "Belt and suspenders," I said.

We met Chris, Ricky, Ed, Andrew, and Celeste in Pennington. The GPS was still confused.

When we descended into Hopewell, it was telling me to get onto the canal towpath. At the top of Rileyville Road, I loaded the route in again. No luck. I was still being directed to the canal. Not all was lost, however: during all this fiddling, I learned how to get to the map display. I was glad to have the cue sheet, even though I knew where I was going. I'd also sent the route to Jim, whose GPS was following the route just fine.

Almost everyone was wearing red, which made counting heads easy but telling people apart from a distance a bit of a challenge.

My winter fascination this year is lone trees, like this one on Wertsville Road.

There's a new bike rack outside of Factory Fuel in Flemington.

Inside, there was a case of homemade pastries, including something that looked like what a Pop-Tart is trying to be. "What is that Pop-Tart thing?" I asked the barista.

"A homemade Pop-Tart!" she said "With raspberry filling." Yes, please.

We sat outside. Because that's what one does in February around here now.

As we were preparing to leave, a woman carrying yoga gear approached me, glad that we were using the bike rack she'd asked the building's owners to install.  "I ride my bike here all the time," she said, "And there's nowhere to put it."  Thank you, yoga woman.

By now it was warm enough that my hat, vest, and arm warmers were stuffed into my jersey pockets. Within a few miles, I had to stop to take my toe warmers off. A few miles later we stopped for another strip break. And then another. Pete had been yellow; now he was orange. A couple of the red guys weren't red anymore either.

Start to finish, Jim, Pete, and I had almost sixty miles, with our winter clothes in our pockets. Because that's what we do in February now that we don't have winter.

(*anywhere in NJ north of where you are right now)

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, February 18

16 February 2017

Let's get back on the road!

I have a 46-mile, hilly-ish, route picked out. Meet at the Hopewell Valley Regional School District parking lot, 425 S Main St, across from Ingleside, in Pennington, for a 9:30 a.m. start. For 11 extra miles, contact me and we'll meet at my house at 9:00 a.m.

One More Snowy Path

Tyler State Park

11 February 2017

On Wednesday, I rode my bike to work in nearly 60-degree weather. On Thursday, we got five inches of snow.

Today's ride was an extra; until a few days ago, I was supposed to be chairing the morning portion of a meeting. That got cancelled, and Tom offered to lead in Tyler State Park at an hour early enough for me to get back in time for the afternoon session.

Wicked tired yesterday, I pushed the alarm back another fifteen minutes when it went off this morning. And because of that, I barely got to the park in time. I also had that last-minute panic when the parking lot wasn't where I thought it would be. In the nick of time, I found Tom, Chris, and, hallelujah, Plain Jim, finally back after a couple months of illness and injury. We all agreed that he'd chosen a good time to be out of action.

It's been two years since I've been to Tyler State Park. I remembered two things: that there are hills, and that there's a creek.

There's always a creek.

And I always take pictures of creeks. We stood on a low bridge above a dam.

Another damn picture of another damn body of water.

Or something sticking out of the water. 

Or of rocks in the water.

At least it's not the Raritan this time. The Neshaminy Creek does flow into the Delaware, though. Same watershed as half the other pictures I take.

Two years ago the trail down to the bridge was covered in snow. It was today, too, mostly.

I took this same picture two years ago. It rolls around every so often on my desktop slide show at work.

I like it when I can step back into my pictures.

Over a tributary, my camera battery decided it was too cold. I used my cell phone instead, and put the camera into an inside pocket to warm up.

The paved trails loop across each other. By taking a few of them twice, we managed to cover almost all of them. We passed the Tyler Park Center for the Arts twice. On the second round, my camera had warmed up enough to use again.

Across the way, tomorrow's weather was rolling in.

In all of our loops, we saw no other cyclists. We crossed paths with runners, walkers, and a vast assortment of handsome dogs. There were golden retrievers, corgis, Labrador retrievers, mutts, shepherds, and, my favorite, a husky puppy rolling around in the snow like a cat in catnip.

Back at the dam again, we stopped at the rest rooms. Tom and I wandered about with our cameras. Jim and I fussed around some park bench icicles. Composition. I really need to hew my composition skills.

Last week, I posted a photo of a fake goose in frozen water. Today, I post a real goose in moving water.

In the measly twelve miles, we climbed almost 900 feet between photo and orientation stops. It wasn't difficult, but it wasn't easy either. I got home in plenty of time to clean up and get to the afternoon meeting, where, I think, I'm getting past my years-long volunteer burnout.

I'll be sacrificing some cycling time to the Resistance. It is necessary.