Delta Blues

Canal Road near Millstone

21 August 2021

Oh, hi. 

Folks tell me I haven't blogged since August 1.  Things have been happening, one of which made me miss two weekends of group rides.

On August 7, instead of riding with the Slugs, I was driving to Delaware, to a gathering of in-laws. It was the first time we'd seen them since the pandemic hit. Jack and I went in masked, but took them off when we were assured everyone there was vaccinated (which turned out not to be true, we found out later). We stayed six feet away from everyone, out of the crowded room, and left after two hours. It was the riskiest thing I'd done since before lockdown. 

The next day, I rode from home to meet Plain Jim's Sunday group en route. I wasn't sure of my timing, nor theirs, and got farther down the road than either of us expected. I stopped at Carnegie Lake on Route 27 for some photos.

It was a good ride, with a big group. We stopped at Boro Bean. I've become adept at riding home with a pocket full of muffin. 

The next day, Monday, I spat into a tube at 7:30 a.m., as I always do, for my mandatory weekly Covid test. Princeton University requires us to be vaccinated, and has been conducting weekly asymptomatic testing for a year now. I deposited the tube in one of the many drop boxes on campus, and, half a day later, got the Covid-negative result I always get.

Unbeknownst to us, on the same day, what Jack's mother thought was allergies turned into pneumonia. She tested positive the next day.

Now Jack had to get tested too. He scheduled one for Friday morning. 

On Wednesday, Jack complained of allergies. I always have seasonal allergies. The pollen count was up, so I wasn't surprised he was feeling it too. Mine seemed a little worse than usual, but other than that, I felt fine.

Jack's appointment got canceled, so he booked another one, a rapid test, for Thursday morning. At 1:00 he texted me. He'd tested positive. 

I ran downstairs to our building's drop box, picked up a kit, spat, and deposited the tube. It was past the pickup time; I wouldn't find out if I were positive until sometime on Friday. My lab-mates were practically kicking me out of the lab at this point. I wrote to the university's Covid folks and rode my bike home, getting there with just enough time to drive Jack (both of us N95 masked) to get a confirmatory PCR test.

I was furious at myself for not having been more paranoid on Saturday. I should have kept my mask on. I should have made Jack keep his on. I should have dragged Jack out of the place when his mother started going on about how much she hates wearing her mask and how she took it off in the waiting room of her doctor's office. I told Jack's sister that we would not be attending indoor family gatherings for the foreseeable future.

Jack started coughing. He had a low fever. 

There's never a good time for Covid, but because of the things going on in my life, this was an especially not good time.

He took the bedroom, turning the adjoining bathroom exhaust fan on. We turned the noisy, whole-house exhaust fan on. I decamped to the sofa bed in a small room across the hall. I wore an N95 mask whenever I was upstairs. When he wanted to eat, I hid in my room until he finished in the kitchen and brought his food to the bedroom. 

I stayed away from the lab on Friday, working outside, on the porch, on my computer, until it got too hot. Then I hid in my room for the rest of the day. 

My test came back negative. I relaxed a little. Princeton told me I didn't have to stay home from work; instead, I was to report my health status daily, test twice weekly, mask up (we all do now anyway), stay six feet away from everyone, and wipe down everywhere I'd worked when finished. Very early Covid sort of thinking, all that. Very pre-Delta. I was more than happy to have to spit into a tube. I was asymptomatic.

On Saturday morning, while Tom was leading a ride, I set out on my own, with Kermit and his new headset, plus two bottles of water. Not wanting to be too far from home, I stayed local and rode until my water ran out. 

Jack's symptoms leveled off, his fever never reaching 100, his blood oxygen never below 96. In the afternoon, he got approved for a monoclonal antibody infusion, so I drove him up to Princeton Hospital. 

I relaxed a little. I was getting used to the sofa bed, and to sticking my masked face through the crack in the bedroom doorway to check in on Jack. I read books. I made a little jewelry.

Plain Jim had his usual ride on Sunday, but I didn't want to risk being near anyone, so I set out on my own again, with Kermit. 

I needed some canal Zen, my Sunday morning ritual. I followed Princeton Pike through the bridge detour and up into Princeton. In Rocky Hill, I turned onto River Road and followed it all the way to the end on Amwell. I kept on going straight, into Manville. This was one of my lockdown routes. It seemed appropriate to do it again now. 

I crossed the Raritan in Manville and followed Weston Canal Road back to Mettlers Road, turned on Amwell, and got back to Canal Road. 

There had been surprisingly little traffic for late on a Sunday morning. Even Canal Road seemed empty. I stopped for pictures where the road opens up, south of Millstone:

I was hoping I'd see Jim's group somewhere on Canal Road. I passed Suydam and Butler around 11:20. I saw nobody.

I stopped at that farm, the one south of the dip in the road. On my left, a farmer puttered along in the field on his tractor. It was too cliche, and I didn't want him to see me with my camera, so I moved on a little and took pictures of his barn instead.

Jack started feeling better that afternoon, and better still on Monday. I spat into a tube again and it came back negative.

By Thursday, Jack's slight fever was slighter. He stopped coughing. I spat again. I was negative again. By Friday, he felt almost normal.

Saturday's forecast had called for rain, but I listed a ride anyway. When most of the 10 slots were filled, I figured I'd better come up with a route. In the evening, all spaces were taken.

My plan was to ride to Ringoes, and, if the weather held, go on to Sergeantsville. If rain threatened, we'd stop at Carousel and head home.

Ricky and Pete were away, but the rest of the Slugs were there, making us five, plus Martin, Luis, Racer Pete, Heddy, and Eric R.

Bob was showing off his new Cannondale SuperSix, all electronic and disk brakes, the required cables shoved into an outsized stem. Cannondale has, at long last, ditched the billboard look, opting instead for clean lines. It's refreshing.

On (newly-painted) Dinosaur Hill, Tom broke a spoke. Jim got to show off for the new folks as he set about loosening spokes around the missing one so that Tom could at least turn his rear wheel.

Tom thought he might be best off coasting down into Lambertville, to the bike shop there, but I had a different idea. "Go to Wheelfine. Michael has every spoke imaginable. He can fix it." I told him how to get there and asked him to text me when he did. He turned back onto Dinosaur Hill and the rest of us went on to Sergeantsville.

As we were lining our bikes up along the wall, Heddy and Jim started doing a frenetic dance, as a pair of disturbed bees stung her on the ear and him on the right triceps. Neither seemed worse for the wear.

Tom sent a few texts. Michael had cut and threaded a new spoke for him on the spot, and Tom was on his way back to Pennington. 

Our return to Ringoes took us to Lambertville Headquarters Road. I usually ride this in the northbound direction. I shouldn't. It sucks. The southbound journey to Bowne Station is all downhill.

 We were on Snydertown Road when my back started to hurt and I fell behind. I started to wonder if I'm getting too old for this. It wasn't until we were collecting ourselves at the top of Wargo Road that I noticed the saddle. It was loose. I'd missed the signal my back had been sending.

What the fuck? 

This was a brand new Cannondale seat post, with brand new hardware, an exact replacement for the one that cracked. And now, not only had one of the bolts come loose, but the barrel nut specifically designed for this mount was gone. My baggie full of spare bolts was useless at this point.

Well, I'd made it this far. I could make it another 8 miles home.

I cleaned myself off, ate a quick lunch, and called Michael at Wheelfine. There was no point in my going back to Hart's. In replacing my headset two weeks ago, a job I lack the tools to do myself, the kids had managed to destroy my cyclecomputer screen. Clearly, when they put in this new seat post, something I could have done myself but for the lack of proper carbon-carbon lube, they hadn't bothered to use Loctite to secure the bolts. This was two strikes against a shop I used to trust implicitly. 

Michael didn't have any one-inch diameter carbon seat posts on hand, which is surprising, considering his shop has everything a bike has ever needed since the dawn of time. What he did have, he told me, was a spare set of seat bolts with barrel nuts. If they were too big, he said, "I can cut them down," and, he added, "I can tap them too." So I pocketed a few extra bolts and went to load Miss Piggy into the car. The saddle mount fell apart into my hands. It had held long enough to get me home.

 I sat off, masked, to one side, in Michael's back room workspace while he puttered about, telling stories and working magic with metal-cutting tools no other bike shop around here has. There were sparks at one point, as he ground the side of the barrel nut down. "Yeah," he said, "I do a lot of mop-up work for other bike shops."

One in particular, "in town," he said, meaning Lambertville, had been bad-mouthing him. "Michael is old-school," he sneered. "That's why I have that sign up out front."

Old School Is Better Than No School

Old barrels are better than no barrels.

He had little faith that this seat post wouldn't give me trouble. I ordered a Full Speed Ahead post while we were talking, just in case. "Maybe I should carry it in my jersey pocket." 

He advised me to check the bolts often. "I don't get it," I said. "The last one lasted a decade." This one, less than a hundred miles. We figured it came down to the fact that the kids had put thick grease on the bolts instead of covering them in Loctite. 

Michael covered the bolts in Loctite, and we set the saddle position together. The adhesive would take 24 hours to set, which was fine, because there would be no riding on Sunday for anyone. Rain was finally going to wash us out.

That's fine, though, because tomorrow will be full of doing laundry, including two sets of sheets. Jack will be sprung from quarantine, and we can live together again.