Wargo Road, Fog
31 December 2021
The roads were still wet when I set out on Miss Piggy, one of my glass vases wrapped in the massive back pocket of my 21-year-old winter jacket.
I handed the glass off to Jack H in the Twin Pines parking lot and shed my glove liners and cap. New Year's Eve in the low 50s? Welcome to the new normal. Or, as we might say in ten years, "back when we thought 50 was warm for December."
I lulled the group -- Pete G, Racer Pete, Plain Jim, Jack H, Rickety, and Mike G -- into an easy start around the Pole Farm and up to the north of Pennington.
On Wargo Road, Jim and I stopped to take pictures of the fog.
As we neared Hopewell, Jim made noises as if he wouldn't mind our skipping the Sourland Mountain and going straight to Boro Bean.
But I'm too much of an asshole for that. We went all the way up Stony Brook, cut across Van Dyke to Rileyville, and continued climbing to Ridge Road. We turned south onto Lindbergh to do that annoying little asphalt wall around the bend, and then that other wall that is actually worse than it looks, the one where the road splits into Province Line and Hopewell-Amwell.
From there, it was back into the Hopewell Valley and over to Boro Bean. I filled my muffin pocket with two muffins. It was just cold and clammy enough that stopping might not have been the best of ideas. Nobody complained, though. Peter F's fast group rolled in a few minutes after we did.
Pete G left early; home was only about four miles away. The rest of us had ten-ish to go.
We went up Crusher, where Jim stopped to admire the sheep and goats in the field across from the tree that has the half-gall (the other half having fallen away years ago; I've been riding so long I remember when the gall was whole).
We were just up the rise before Titus Mill when I noticed how bumpy the road was feeling. It took me all the way to the farm stand near Elm Ridge to realize that my front tire had gone flat.
Thinking it would be a quick fix, we got to work. Racer Pete did his best to pry the tire off the rim by hand. I knew this would be a challenge. I know these rims; it takes metal levers. I fished them out of my saddle bag.
I've been fixing flats for over 20 years. So has Racer Pete. Keep that in mind.
When the CO2 cartridge left us with an empty tube, I figured the tube was pinched, because that's what happens every damned time I try to change tires on these rims. They're Michelin tires, and they don't play well with these Mavic Kysirium Elite rims. One needs red tire walls for Miss Piggy, though. Sacrifices must be made.
So we loaded in another tube. We'd already taken turns running our fingers over the tire, not finding anything. When the second tube went flat, we checked the rim as well. Nothing.
A third tube went in, but not before I sent the group on its way, leaving Racer Pete and me standing on the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail next to a farm stand, tools and tubes splayed out around us. The plan was for Jim to come back with his car, driving the route in reverse to get here, lest we get back on the road.
We checked the tire and rim again. Tube number four met the same fate, or was about to (I lost count) when Jim arrived. Pete set out for home.
Jim drove me to my house, which worked out well, because he'd planned to stop by after the ride anyway, to help me put a new chain on Gonzo, who has been on trainer duty for a year and a half now. I'd swapped cassettes in September, but the chain wasn't staying on some of the bigger rings.
Not only was the chain ready to be retired, but the cassette was also a few foot-pounds under-torqued. The wrench I have wasn't quite up to the task, apparently. That, or, as usual, I'm too chicken to go full-weight when I tighten bike parts. The derailleur needed aligning, too; I hadn't bothered, thinking I might take Gonzo outdoors on his dedicated wheel and I didn't want to mess that up. But when I showed Jim that the steering tube and the stem seemed to be operating independently of each other, we agreed that, as long as I have this stem, Gonzo will remain on stationary bike duty.
After I cleaned up, I called Michael at Wheelfine. "I'm like a bad penny," I said, and explained the tire situation. An hour and a half later, I was over there, wheel in hand. I'd just been there yesterday, picking up Kermit, and the week before, fetching Miss Piggy, both of whom had been way overdue for tune-ups and the sort of OCD attention Michael gives each bike.
Michael was putting a new chain ring on a Bianchi frame, upgrading the look from black to silver, to give it more aesthetic appeal so that it might sell. The frame was Celeste green. "Love it or hate it," he said about the color. Hate it. But the silver made it look a little pretty.
It didn't take thirty seconds after he got the tire off for him to find the culprit. As he answered a phone call, he dropped a flat, triangular piece of stone into my palm.
(And yes, my skin is that dry. This is what happens when you wash your hands a lot.)
After he hung up, he said, "It caught on my nail, that's how I found it."
Derp. Racer Pete and I had checked the tire how many times?
The sliver of rock had slowly worked its way in from the outside of the tire, through the threads, and out the other side just enough to stick its pointy end into whatever tube was pressing against it at the moment.
He showed me the hole. On the outside, he had to bend the tire to expose it.
On the inside, it was barely noticeable.
"Y'know," I said as I made my way to the door, "If I keep coming up here, I'm gonna walk out with that pretty little blue Basso under my arm." It's right by the front door. It's rather fetching for carbon.
I'm not looking to replace Miss Piggy quite yet, though. The frame, six years old, is still in good shape. The components, some from Miss Piggy's original 2010 frame, are in good working order. I don't know how long carbon frames last these days. Given how long some bikes have been hanging on display at Wheelfine, I'd lay even odds that the little blue Basso might still be there in five years.
And so I end 2021 with not some snazzy round-number of miles, and not with as many as last year, but in the general neighborhood of where I usually wind up since I've been keeping track.
My 2022 playlist is ready to go. I'm signed up for Jim's ride on Sunday. I'm bringing Kermit.
Tomorrow will be rainy. I suppose I should run through Gonzo's gears on the trainer, slowpoking my way up some Italian mountain pass. Why start the year on fresh legs?
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