#51: Might as Well Make it 100

 Cookstown-Browns Mills Road

9 July 2017

Chris missed a turn and got us deep into Fort Dix on one of those roads that has more road around every bend. 

Against my better judgment, I'd set out from home on Kermit for 15 miles to Bruno's in Allentown. I'd figured Chris and Sue would combine their rides and we'd do an easy 35 miles, which didn't happen (she had quite the crowd). Chris headed due south, with me and Little Joe in tow. Had I read the ride description I'd already have known what Chris told me: he was planning on 50 miles. That would give me 80.

I went into century mode and dropped my speed.

We passed through New Egypt and turned south again on Cookstown-Browns Mills Road.

At 40 miles in for me, we found ourselves at an unlabeled T intersection on what had been Range Road at some point miles ago. I was called upon to pull out my phone and get us back onto a main road. "I'm not ever going to let you live this down," I said. If I had a dollar for every time Chris has busted on me for using a cue sheet, I could buy him a GPS.

539 was east, to our left. 530, where Chris wanted to be, was off to our right. I'm glad we went right, because when I checked the map again at home, what I thought had been an intersection isn't. In reality it's probably two roads who can see each other across a barbed wire fence. Had we stayed on it, we'd have come full circle around the base and wound up back in New Egypt some six miles later.

As it was, in two miles we were off the base. And on Route 70. Joe and I were confused. I know I need reading glasses; I also know I can read the difference between "70" and "530" without them. "They're the same thing here," Chris said.

We turned east and rode the shoulder for a mile and a half, where Route 539 intersects and a Wawa sign rises into the sky, a beacon for cyclists low on water and caffeine.

Once, and only once, on a very hot day, when I went long and we all wanted to get back, I led my riders up 539 from Long Swamp Road. We went all the way back to Allentown that way. When Chris put us on, I assumed we'd do the same thing.

We were eight miles south of Long Swamp at this point. Traffic was heavy. We had a clear line of sight, and a decent shoulder that was strewn with blown tire bits. I ran over one.

Chris signaled to stop in front of a fenced-off road whose cracks were filling with greenery. This was, apparently, the site of a radioactive leak that spread across Route 539. He pointed out a clearing on the other side, where everything was excavated in the 1990s. Joe tried to read the sign. All but "Federal property" was faded.

We headed north again.

There was a screeching of brakes and a southbound pickup truck pulled over into the grass. "Next left!" Chris bellowed. "I wanna get out of this mess!"  And we did, on Long Swamp.

The rest of our way back to Allentown was much less hair-raising. I had 67 miles when we sat at the candy counter in the back of Bruno's One Sweet Ride. We'd missed Sue's group and the cookout. Chris and Joe ate the two remaining hamburgers. I had a mango smoothie, which is the thing I get when I walk into Bruno's. Joe had one too. We both got brain freezes on the second sip.

"When's your first brevet gonna be," Chris needled me.

"Nuh uh."

We all agreed that there's a point where long-distance riding is no longer fun. "One should stop about 20 miles before that," I said.

Jimmy Bruno, who owns the store, and his daughter, who makes the candy and our brains freeze, stood around talking with us until customers came in. We wandered over to the register to talk with Jimmy some more about bells and air horns and rear lights controlled (for a hundred bucks) by push-button from the handle bar.

One of these days I might buy something from Jimmy. It'll probably be their shop jersey when the bright yellow ones arrive. The sleeves are black with a dense candy pattern. What could be wrong with that?

When I set out on Old York Road, I figured I'd go straight home on Gordon Road. I didn't figure I'd be able to squeeze another 17 miles out of a 15 mile trip.

But the sky was that perfect blue we seldom see in July. The clouds were those puffy cumulus ones that look even better through polarized sunglasses. The air was warm but dry. I had a gentle crosswind.

When Gordon Road, my usual route home, came up on the left, I passed it by. I passed by Sharon Road too. I turned instead on Perrineville. When Perrineville bent right and over the Turnpike, I kept on going straight, under the trees of Allen Road to Windsor.

At Old Trenton Road, I didn't turn towards the park. I went straight, into the monotony of West Windsor, where every road is some permutation of Village or Mill or Post or something else that I can never keep straight. I figured if I stayed on this one long enough, I was bound to hit Clarksville, and then I could turn left and find Alexander towards Princeton.

I saw Clarksville and kept on going straight.

This was a bad idea. I found myself having to turn onto Princeton-Hightstown Road, which has as much traffic as 539, but no shoulder.  The first intersection I came upon was Alexander, and I got out of the busy mess back onto familiar territory.

From there, Princeton. The worst road conditions in Mercer County are in Princeton, hands down. Now I had a headwind, traffic, blacktop lumps, potholes, and a hill to climb, all with only 85 miles. From campus to home is 7 miles. I had to find another 8 somewhere.

I took the long way around the golf course and seminary. That didn't help much. Where Princeton Pike meets I-95, I was up to 92 miles. I turned west on Franklin Corner, into the wind and ever so slightly uphill. Still not enough. I crossed 206 and turned onto Denow Road for another invisible ascent to Federal City. I made up some speed on the long coast back down to 206.

Still not enough. I backtracked to Princeton Pike.  Still not enough. I turned into the looping road of the neighborhood one block north from and several tax brackets higher than my house. 

0.8 miles to go. I went the long way into my neighborhood. Two tenths. I went around the block.

As I approached my driveway, the odometer flipped to 100 miles.

It took two centuries of feeling like crap for the first good one of the season to happen. I could end it here and declare myself done with centuries for the season. I probably won't.