Delaware Canal Towpath near Yardley, PA
13 January 2019
"If you like what we just did you'll love what's coming next," Ron said as we stood on the wrong side of the street, next to a crosswalk, at a busy intersection of Route 29 in Trenton.
What we'd just done was cross the Trenton Makes Bridge and ride our mountain bikes through the Capitol and State Street, then dipping south again on Calhoun Street, taking the wrong way down a ramp to an asphalt path along the river. Considering that everything I'd done so far today had been steeped in massive airheadedness, I had no reason to question anything.
We'd started at Washington Crossing on the Jersey side. After a full year of not being late to rides, I started this one off by showing up at 9:58. I'd stupidly left home after 9:30, after checking the calendar for cancellation one last time, not wanting to drive all the way to the park to find I'd missed the announcement en route. There was enough snow on the ground to cancel the other two rides that had been scheduled to go out today.
I can go from driver's seat to saddle relatively quickly. Grover, now 12 years old, and my least cared-for bike, requires two extra steps: seating the front wheel and engaging the brake. The first is a pain because the skewer is a few millimeters short. I always have to unscrew the cap to the point that the spring is ready to fall out in order to get the fork onto the skewer. Recently the spring disappeared. This has made seating the wheel that much easier. Meanwhile the front brake cable is starting to fray. Getting the notch at the end to fit into the slot on the other side has always been a struggle. Now I have to make sure I don't make the fraying worse. Today I managed to accomplish both tasks without losing or breaking any more parts.
I did notice that the left crank arm is exposed at the bottom bracket. I showed it to Jim. He told me not to worry. Chris suggested the part might be in the car. "It's probably on a trail somewhere," I said. Jim agreed.
We started off by walking across the bridge to the Pennsylvania side. I noticed that the back wheel seemed to be resisting, yet when I lifted the bike it spun freely. I chalked it up to the wheel's age and continued walking.
Ron and Ken W debated the best way to get to the towpath on the other side. Ken pointed us into the park and Ron led through several twists and turns that left me completely disoriented. When we reached the path he turned left. The ride description had said we'd be heading north, so I figured I was just confused, and anyway the towpath isn't always next to the river on the Pennsylvania side.
I seemed to be exerting more effort than usual to keep up. My seat, which I'd never adjusted after the end of my mountain biking days, felt too low. Maybe the shocks in the seat post were collapsing. Jim suggested I could move the post up a few millimeters. It sounded like a good idea. Jim, riding the Krakow Monster on wide road tires, was keeping to the back and riding gingerly. We both stopped at a high spot to take a picture, and a rest.
I stopped again farther down.
A cyclist on a fat-tire bike passed us in the opposite direction. He wasn't wearing a helmet. It was at this point that I realized I wasn't wearing a helmet either. With the balaclava on, I hadn't noticed the lack of pressure from the helmet straps. With a balaclava on, my head was covered, and the other riders, four in all, hadn't noticed my lack of headgear either.
While they were waiting for me to catch up they had their cameras out, each getting pictures of me and the scenery as I approached. I made the most of it and pointed to my head as I got closer. That started a discussion of where they could now post their pictures, because one can't be on a PFW ride without a helmet. They decided that as long as our club president didn't see it we'd be fine. (Hi, Ira.)
Then they decided they should kick me out of the club. "We should Barry her!" Yep, they've coined a new term to honor the dishonored.
"I think I forgot to start my GPS," I told Ron. He'd had some trouble getting his started earlier. Oh well. I'd find out our distance at the end of the ride. "We've gone 5.5 miles," he said. I decided to start recording, and hit the button, only to find that I'd been recording all along after all.
On we went until we saw the city of Trenton. It was now that I figured out we hadn't been going north. Never mind that this is my third towpath ride in four weeks, each of them covering the same ground. It all looks different when there's snow.
We got as far as Pennsylvania Avenue, where we have to walk our bikes through the back lot of a warehouse, over a pallet that crosses a swale. Jim had the presence of mind to backtrack and take a flat course to the street. Chris rolled into the 7-11 on the other side.
As I walked the bike to rest against a post I felt the resistance in the rear wheel again and handed Grover off to Jim. Without missing a beat he diagnosed the problem: in my haste I'd fastened the front brake on the wrong notch. The brake pads were rubbing, not so much as to stop me, but enough to create drag. For some reason I decided that the pedals shouldn't be moving backwards when I roll the bike backwards, never mind that all my bikes do that and I knew that. I immediately felt like a fool.
While we were at it we raised the saddle a few millimeters. I drank half a cup of what was supposed to have been coffee. I had a couple of bars with me but it didn't occur to me to eat anything.
Moving was much easier when we set off again, but crossing the Trenton Makes bridge on foot was a cold, cold experience. We weren't likely to see temperatures above freezing all day, and the sky was completely overcast. What little breeze there was hit us dead-on.
We had a little more discussion near the capitol complex to figure out how best to get back to the towpath. Having done this a few weeks ago with Tom and Chris, I remembered curving around to the south then climbing a short hill towards State Street. Chris suggested turning north instead, so we did, finding State Street several traffic lights later. We turned left and got stuck in Sunday traffic, which was a New Jersey Transit bus.
If we'd stayed on State we'd have found the towpath on short order. Instead, though, Ron pointed us back toward the river on Calhoun. I thought he'd given up and was planning to go back to the Pennsylvania side, but just short of the bridge he turned right, the wrong way onto the bridge ramp. I went up onto the narrow sidewalk, which was interrupted by lamp posts that required careful navigation around.
Ron turned sharply onto a paved path along the river. This was a section of the city I'd never been in. The path ended led to a street with old-ish houses, many of them with front porches, open or glassed in, that faced the river, far enough and high enough from it not to wind up under it.
We turned away from the river as the street was about to end, and that's where Ron made his pronouncement about what was next. "This is what they do on the Wednesday night rides," Ron said. We were going the wrong way up a one-way hill, then walking our bikes on nearly hidden dirt path in a small patch of woods. It angled sharply, ending at a series of posts several inches too narrow to fit a set of mountain bike bars through head-on. Chris, of course, decided to ride up it, only to have to stop short.
Jim and I got out our cameras. Neither of us could fathom doing this in the dark. "Well this was stupid," he said, looking down at the path and Route 29 beyond it.
When I turned around I recognized where we were: the place where the canal goes over the road. We were nearly on the aqueduct. Beyond it there was scenery.
The sky was starting to clear a little. We picked up the pace, with Jim in the lead and me second. Behind me I could hear Chris cackling as Ron found himself breaking through ice none of us could see beneath the snow.
I stopped for one more picture now that there was some blue sky to look at.
Not having had time before the ride to take some pictures of the river at Washington Crossing, I took a couple of minutes to do it at the end.
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