16 April 2022
Passover and Easter are this weekend. Being a good little atheist, I chose to lead a bike ride. Most of the Slugs are out of town, down with colds, or scurrying around not being atheists.
On Friday afternoon, only Pete had signed up. Ming and Martin waited until late Friday night, after the afternoon rain was no longer in the forecast.
I set out from home on Miss Piggy. It was looking to be one of those days where everything hurts for no reason at all. Great.
At Route 206 and Franklin Corner, I merged with two riders who looked fast. They passed me on the little Lawrenceville-Pennington Road hill, because of course they did, but I caught up to them at the light. They turned towards the Pole Farm shortly after that.
We started off generally northeast, zig-zaging our way over to Hollow Road. I'd originally planned to go all the way to the top and turn on Long Hill, but Pete, having seen the gaping hole still gaping since Ida, warned me to detour on Grandview to Pin Oak and then to Dutchtown Zion.
I'd completely forgotten the gravel at the top of Dutchtown Zion, it's been that long. The intersection with Long Hill is where the gaping hole is. There's no Hill Slugging across that one. We climbed over the rest of the mountain on Long Hill.
It's been even longer since I've been on Blackpoint. This time of year, you can see the Neshanic River waaaaaay down there to the right. This might have been the only road in the Neshanic-Raritan basin we were on today that would be safe from the hundred-year floods we get each summer.
We turned west from there, following the Raritan upstream to the Wawa in Three Bridges.
Sitting on the curb were the two guys who passed me in Lawrenceville. Having started from Robbinsville, they were deep into a century, about to climb up to Round Valley Reservoir.
We doubled back and picked up Three Bridges Road, where we could see how much stream bank erosion has been happening. All along the river, I looked at the houses and thought, "Nope. Wouldn't want to live that close" as we passed.
The valley is full of short, sharp rollers. If it had been any warmer than the mid-60s it was today, we'd have been suffering. As it was, the rollers were only mildly annoying. On a hot day, the tar would have been bubbling under our tires, the heat rising from the asphalt with no shade in sight.
Our last big climb was Lindbergh from Wertsville. How many years has it been since I've climbed this hill? Certainly not since lockdown, anyway. It gets easier each time. I know now to look for mailbox number 64. That's where the road gets steep and the surface deteriorates. The worst ends around mailbox 72, and then it seems that Ridge Road should be just over the next hump (but it never is).
We regrouped on Ridge. Martin pounded his chest and exclaimed, "Is that all ya got, Lindbergh?" (It's not all Lindberg's got: past Ridge is a steep little but-wait-there's-more.) We turned on Ridge, and that's when Ming's rear wheel seized.
We spent a solid five minutes, if not more, trying to get the through-axle skewer to align with the drive-side dropout. Why it even came loose is a mystery, but my guess is that the crash she had two months ago was enough to loosen it, and then the bumps on Lindbergh finished it off. Fortunately, we got it to catch eventually, and it seemed to hold for the rest of the ride home. I suggested she take it to a bike shop to have it inspected. These things aren't supposed to come loose. Disc brakes. Phooey.
I realized, when I got home, that I hadn't taken any pictures. One can't blog without a photo or two, so I rested Miss Piggy against my neighbor's fence and snapped a couple of photos of her rear wheel against my yard's drooping daffodils.
So, to recap: One closed road, one dirt road, and one mechanical. Yep, it's a Hill Slug ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment