Recovery Ride with Sheep and Coffee

Sorry, Martin. You got bumped by a moose.

23 December 2018

Two-ride weekends have been in short supply this year. At the last minute I listed a short, slow, recovery ride from Pennington. This being two days before Christmas I ought to have secured the reindeer antlers to my helmet ahead of time, but I didn't, and shoved them in the back of my jacket instead. They'd be more aero back there anyway.

As usual, Ricky and Jim showed up at the house and we rode up to Twin Pines to meet Chris, Racer Pete, and Martin (who, after introducing himself, reminded me that I had indeed ridden with him before and he'd even made it into my blog as the guy whose name I didn't know who commented on Chris' rest stop cookie).

The route was the Old Friday Night Route from the early aughts. I had to stop on Van Kirk to look for the herd of cows in the pasture along the stream. 

They were in the back, hidden by the trees and the sun behind them.

We took the long way through ETS, following the side road through the woods. Then we had the one hill up Carter to Bayberry. Back in the day, when my only bike was Bluestreak, the 1983 Raleigh Grand Prix chromoly neutron star, this was the Big Hill. Miss Piggy floated up by comparison.

There was a surprise on Bayberry: a large herd of sheep. I'd never seen them here before.

I stopped to get pictures. Martin jumped off his bike and ran it to the fence. "I wanna be in your damned blog!" he exclaimed, and posed long enough for me and Jim to get off a few shots.

"With that line you will be," Jim assured him.

"You might even get the lead-off picture," I said as we rode away. "It depends. You might get bumped by a sheep."

The Old Friday Night Route, in its purest form -- not lengthened for the longest summer days, not shortened for the end of the summer season -- is only 23 miles. The idea, then, of stopping at mile 21 for coffee, seemed ridiculous.

But this was a recovery ride. A recovery ride in December. Two days before Christmas. And we'd never been inside of Sourland Coffee because it's too close to where we start our rides. In we went.

The place is a TARDIS*. I managed one shot that made the place look empty. It wasn't. We commandeered a long table and collectively decided we needed to stop here at the end of our local rides.

In pulling out my wallet to pay for the coffee I had to remove the antlers as well. We played with them on the table. I was hoping Chris would take them but he didn't.

So I asked one of the workers behind the counter if I could add to the embellishments on the wall. She said "sure," so I put them on the buffalo. They'd have looked better on the bear but they were too small to fit. 

(*IIt's bigger on the inside.)