Turkey Top Turkey Top Turkey Top

At eye-level in the hallway

23 June 2019

It was my idea. After we painted the hallway it took me almost a year to put the maps back up. I put them back up in a different arrangement from before. The top of Hunterdon County was now at eye-level, and I found myself looking straight at Turkey Top. Naturally, Tom thought it was a stupid idea and gave me a link to a couple of his Cololuxe routes that got as far northeast as Long Valley. I played with the routes, agreed it was stupid, and sent the modified ones back. 

Last week, as we headed out towards Belmar, Tom said he wanted to lead his annual Cocoluxe ride this weekend. "Maybe we'll go to Turkey Top," he said. On Wednesday evening he listed the ride. Friday afternoon he sent those of us who had registered two GPS files. One was of his usual Cocoluxe route. The other, he said, would go to Turkey top, "if we are feeling strong."

The expedition would add an extra 800 feet of climbing in the same distance. We would be looking at 46 miles with 4200 feet of elevation gain. That's close enough to 1:1 in my mental shorthand for me to know that we would be in for a slog.

I made sure to get a lot of sleep and have plenty of cold brew ready.

If one is going to drive an hour to Peapack to start a ride around the corner from Cocoluxe, one might as well pack a cooler and get there half an hour early. Experience shows that by noon Cocoluxe is denuded. One wants one's chocolate mice.

"Turkey Top?" Tom asked as we got ready.

"We're here. Might as well."

Ricky said, "I've been working on my cold brew game." Uh oh. I've created a monster.

Tom's crew was all legs: Jim, Ricky, Pete, and Ken G. He and I played it conservatively, partly because we've done this route enough times to know what was coming, and partly because we're not, despite all appearances, stupid. 

We were barely out of the gate when Ken complained that his GPS was telling him he was going too slowly to match his previous speeds on Pottersville Road. I chided him for looking at his computer and told him to look at the scenery instead.

They all missed this:

We continued west to Tewksbury and across to Hill and Dale Road. We went north on Rockaway and Guinea Hollow. These were the prettiest roads of the route, but I didn't take any pictures.

We passed through Califon and crossed Route 513 onto Sliker. So far this was part of the usual path to Schooley's Mountain.

Both Tom and I had remembered Slicker up to the point where it gets steep. Somehow we'd both forgotten about that, having placed the steep part on Pleasant Hill Road, which has its own steep part, and which we slogged right on past this time.

We kept going, getting a little downhill reprieve in the woods. Sliker makes a hard left here. Somebody felt it necessary to decorate the bend with a pot of flowers.

We turned onto Anthony Road, then hooked a right on Mount Lebanon and started climbing again.

Tom and I, being at the back of the pack, arrived at Turkey Top as Pete was singing: "Turkey Top Turkey Top Turkey Top New Jersey!"

Tom said, "Your singing's worse than Jim's."

"Aww!"

"Hey," I said. "You ride with Tom you're gonna feel the burn."

"One way or another," Jim said.

Then we turned left and descended for a mile. It was worth the trip.

"Now we have a 500-foot climb," Tom said. There was much changing of gears.

We were up on a ridge now, the one that frames the northern side of Long Valley, and, while it wasn't exactly flat, it felt like flat. We took our break at the combination post office-general store at the top of Schooley's Mountain.

The rest of the ride was more downhill than up. I remembered Four Bridges Road as prettier than it actually is, although it's plenty pretty. What I'd forgotten until we hit the s-curves is how hard I hit the brakes going around them. For all that Miss Piggy helps me get up the hills, I never trust her to get me down them.

At the bottom of North Four Bridges Road is a dam and a bridge crossing the North Branch of the Raritan River. Jim was already there taking pictures.

South Four Bridges Road was more built-up.

Not finished with the North-South thing, we turned onto North Road and then South Road to get around the center of Chester. Both go more or less east-west.

We collected ourselves at the beginning of Ironia Road.

We climbed another hill and then spent the next mile or so descending. With the end so close, we got spread out. I stopped on Willow to take a picture of some sort of farming thingy.

The end of the route runs along the South Branch of the Raritan River, which means we hit both branches near their northernmost points.

Somewhere in there was one more little hill. I was so done with hills.

I wasn't done with pastries, though. With my cooler only half-full and a lab cookout to go to as soon as I got home and cleaned up, I decided to take the 12-minute drive up to Chester to visit a bakery there, on recommendation from a colleague who would be hosting the cookout. I think I found the last parking spot on the main street. The sidewalks were full of people and dogs. Chester is the kind of place where I'd spend all my money on stuff I don't need and not feel bad about it. If Chester weren't over an hour from home I might consider doing just that.

I didn't pull into my driveway until nearly 3:30. Jack, after being up since midnight our time and flying home from a 10-day work trip overseas, would be on a 4:30 train. I bailed on the party, which would take me over half an hour to get to, and promised the host her bag of cookies. 

I'd signed up for Jim's recovery ride from Six Mile Run to the Pig. Miss Piggy needs some cable tweaking, so I got Rowlf ready instead.

Jack, being six hours ahead of us, had no problem going to sleep early and woke up shortly after I did when my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. It seems perverse to get up earlier on weekends than during the week, but one benefit of riding to Six Mile from home is that, after peeling off from the group at the rest stop, I'm back home before noon. Another benefit is that, as the days get hotter, the early start will get us out of the worst of it.  So, Rowlf and I made our way up to the park, where we joined Jim, Prem, Ricky, Mindy, and Rich K (who, after I figured out that he was Rich K, we figured out I haven't seen since 2008; no surprise, being that he's the quintessential fastboy). 

As a recovery route, the trip to the Pig is more gentle than the Bagel Barn routes. That having been said,  we did have to get over Province Line Road the hard way, from north to south at Route 518. Poor Mindy; never having been there, she didn't know what to expect from the towering wall of asphalt that is the second hill. Had I known, I'd have told her that the reward is the roller coaster-like descent that looks, from the top, as if the road has fallen off into nowhere. Anyway, she made it, so kudos to her.  We got into Pennington via Pennington-Rocky Hill Road where, on the descent from Cherry Valley, I let Rowlf do his thing. Now that's a bike I feel comfortable bombing downhill on. 

After filling up at the Pig, I stayed with the group as they made their way back east, breaking off where Cold Soil meets Carter. I got home so early I didn't know what to do with myself, so I mowed the lawn and did the laundry before settling down to blog.