Once More Into the Breach

 

Delaware River at Washington Crossing

31 January 2021

I'm glad I'm not the sort to make new year's resolutions, because if I were I'd have broken each one already.

I wasn't going to consider buying a new gravel bike. I did. Not there are any out there I'm willing to pay for.

I wasn't going to use any subscription biking apps when I started using my indoor trainer in November. I did. Not that I'm paying for a subscription just yet.

And I wasn't going to bother to ride outside on Saturday because the real feel would be something in the single digits. I did. Not that it felt as cold as last weekend, when I had no qualms about going out on both days.

Those last two items are related. Most of my friends who ride indoors are on Zwift or Strava or both. I have no interest in either. I want to be anonymous, without some avatar representing me, without my name up on some list on the screen, and I don't want to ride in some virtual reality world. Rouvy seems a better fit. Although it's aimed at racers and Iron People, the routes are real videos, some made by users and curated by Rouvy.

On Thursday morning, as I was using Wahoo's built-in app on my indoor trainer, grinding through an endurance ride, because I still follow the old-school spinning workout protocols, I was getting bored looking at the display of cadence, watts, and heart rate. "I wonder," I thought, "if Rouvy has courses in Acadia National Park."

It does: a carriage road loop, Park Loop Road with Cadillac Mountain, and the mountain road by itself. I downloaded the app and the carriage road video for a free trial. The weekend would be cold; I could experiment. 

On Friday we had our weekly Insane Bike Posse Zoom therapy session. "I'm going to ride up the canal from Washington Crossing tomorrow if anyone wants to join me," Pete said.  

"I'll go," Tom answered.

Peer pressure. "Okay," I added.

It was 20 degrees when I packed Grover into the car. Blobs of ice were floating down the Delaware River.

But it wasn't as windy as last week. Jack H, who found us by chance, was the only one of us who didn't stop on the bridge for pictures.

As we did last week, we went up the Pennsylvania side, which is more sheltered from the wind than the New Jersey side. The canal was starting to ice over.

By the time we reached New Hope, Tom had had enough of the cold and decided to turn back. The rest of us went on. I stopped to get a picture of the sculpture that I missed getting last week.

We crossed the river to Stockton.

With the wind at our backs, we flew home. Pete turned up Church street to ride back to his house. Jack H is still riding his Fuji gravel bike while he waits for his new one, a higher-end Cannondale Topstone, to arrive, "late March or April," he said. I'll take his or the Topstone 4, whichever comes first.

At this point my chances of getting a new bike this winter are about as low as my getting the COVID vaccine.

None of us had plans for an organized Sunday ride. Snow was in the forecast. I spent Saturday afternoon making two trips to Newtown to pick up two curio cabinets from a classmate. I figured I'd spend the weekend moving furniture around. Once I got started with cleaning the cabinets, though, my caffeinated brain had me packing away a rack of rare CDs, moving the rack out of the house, sliding the cabinets where the rack was, and moving glass around. In the end, it was as if the crowded pieces now had a chance to breathe, with room to spare for another few years. It was also after midnight.

I tried to sleep; instead I lay awake and came up with three possible designs for the glass pendant lamps Mighty Mike wants me to make for him. At 2:00 a.m., I gave up, found Mojo on a sofa, and carried him to bed, where he purred on my stomach until we both fell asleep.

Of course, I woke up late, and by the time I'd finished breakfast, the ground was already dusted by the first flakes of the storm that promised to leave us under at least a foot of snow.

So down I went to Gonzo, who has been posted on the Wahook Kickr Core since late summer. I linked Rouvy to the Kickr, turned on my heart rate monitor, started the music, and began the Acadia National Park carriage road course.

I was transported. I was there. It was summer, late afternoon. I almost hollered out to Jack, "Come here! You have to see this!" The video was crisp, and, every once in a while, the rider's shadow would appear on the crushed stone path. He was on a road bike, flying past people on mountain bikes and cruisers. I remember doing that too. Most of the time it was just me and the carriage roads, not a soul in sight. I only wish the rider had aimed the camera at Eagle Lake or out over the edge at the top of the open climbs. Unlike me, this guy doesn't stop for pictures.

I've cued up the Park Loop Road loop with Cadillac Mountain.  Central Jersey will be snowed in for a while. I'll be in Maine.