Making Up for Lost Time: Eagles, Rain, Piglet

Reed Farm, Allentown, NJ 

15 May 2022

I: Eagles

After putting in a few long days in the lab, then finding my schedule blissfully open on Thursday morning, I took Pete up on his offer for a short ride. I have vacation days to burn, and the forecast for the weekend did not look good.

There was a strong wind out of the east, so we headed east. We started from Pennington, going down Old Mill Road, where we could see the eagle nest on the other side of the field. I had to use my 40x optical zoom and enlarge the photo more at home to determine that one of the parents was in the nest, and that another, maybe the juvenile, was hiding behind the middle branch.

After a brief real estate tour, we were back on Pennington-Rocky Hill Road. There were cows and sheep,

and a redwing blackbird perched on the pasture fence.

We rode the Princeton Ridge, taking side roads south of Cherry Valley, where the landed gentry are. This got us into the back end of Princeton. Pete wanted to detour to one of several of the university's construction sites, where something is going in (a parking garage maybe?) where he usually goes to watch soccer games.

I took him to the other construction site, which, awkwardly, meant we had to ride along the side of the building where I was supposed to be right now. The second site is an 8-building dorm complex with about 1000 beds. We had to navigate around several large trucks waiting to get onto the road, which is covered in a fine layer of silt deposited by the daily rounds of the street-sweeper truck.

From there we went north and east, back towards Pennington. From Pennington-Rocky Hill Road, south of Old Mill, we could see the nest again. I pulled over to try to get some more photos.

This time, I found a blurry juvenile with wind-ruffled feathers. 

When I went to the lab in the afternoon, I felt refreshed.

II: Metric in the Rain

Meanwhile, the weekend's forecast appeared to be improving. When Tom proposed a 48-miler out of Reed in Allentown, I decided to make up for lost time by biking to and from the start. This would add a little under 28 miles. 

My laptop wasn't recognizing my GPS again, but our desktop PC still was, and I downloaded the route.

Friday night's Saturday forecast depended on where one looked. AccuWeather was calling for a 45-50% chance of showers all day. NOAA was being more optimistic, pushing the rain off to the late afternoon. At 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, Tom declared that the ride was on.

I left the house on Beaker a little before 8:00 a.m. The sky was a uniform, dense gray. It was met with fog once I crossed over Quakerbridge Road. By the time I got to Allentown, visibility was iffy. I took some pictures in the parking lot and put my camera in a sealed sandwich bag.

We had as close to the full roster of Hill Slugs/Insane Bike Posse as we've been able to manage this season, what with various injuries and Covid quarantines. 

Jack H, Rickety, Pete, Jim, Martin, and I received the blessing of the Holy Kickstand. Martin took pictures.

Tom reminded us that the Holy Kickstand doesn't guard us from stupidity.

Nor does it protect us from rain. We weren't far into the ride when the first few drops fell. Pete called out, "This rain is some bullshit!"

But it was only a few drops. 

We'd already stopped for a mechanical once, barely out of the parking lot, when Pete needed to reseat his rear tire. Said tire went flat not long after that. We'd been riding in and out of faint rain showers. Now, as we were stopped, it was coming down a little more. Jim and Martin took some pictures (this one is from Martin):

I might have taken pictures too, but when we started getting wet, I'd taken my hearing aids out and put them in the same bag as my camera. I didn't want to risk losing them, so I didn't take the camera out for the rest of the ride.

As we stood there, we heard booms coming from the north. At first we thought it was thunder, but Tom said, "Howitzers." We were close enough to Fort Dix to hear them. Tom knew because his new house is close enough to Joint Base MDL that the neighborhood receives noise calendars from the military.

We got started again as the rain was petering out. Tom figured we'd stick to the planned route and make up our minds at the rest stop in New Egypt.

Before we got there, though, Jim had a flat. (The photo is by Martin.)

Conveniently, we were near the driveway of a house under repair. There was a porta-potty. But there was also a "no trespassing sign." Jack H, of course, went right on in. He's our resident scofflaw. Martin and I decided not to chance it. I started singing, 

As I went walking I saw a sign there,

And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."

But on the other side it didn't say nothing.

That side was made for you and me.

We found some trees across the street. 

Now it was really, truly raining.

"We maybe should turn north now?" I suggested as we reached an intersection. Behind me, Jim said, "I think we should cut the ride short." So we did, as soon as we reached a north-south road.

The rain was splashing onto my GPS, making the screen go crazy. At one point it was convinced we were in the Bahamas. I wasn't worried about water getting into the device. Although the plastic door that protects the USB connection had long ago broken off, I'd kept the port sealed under electrical tape, which was holding firmly. When we finally deviated from the planned route, I turned the navigation off and hoped the GPS would stay quiet.

At the intersection of Holmes Mill and Polhemustown, Pete complained about the rain again. Tom said he hadn't promised us that we'd stay dry. Pete replied that it was acid rain. This got Martin started:

If your child ain't all he should be now

This girl will put him right

I'll show him what he could be now

Just give me one night

I joined in:

I'm the gypsy, the acid queen

"I don't know the next line," I admitted. Martin sang, 

 Pay me before I start

That got everyone started on listing the first albums they ever bought. I'll skip the embarrassing details.

The rain was more on than off for the rest of the ride back to Allentown. Several people offered me a ride home, but I didn't see the point. I was already wet, and if I stayed on my bike, I'd have a metric century.

Somewhere near town, Martin got himself a flat. He and Jim decided it wasn't worth fixing and Jim drove back to pick him up. Of the 48 miles planned, we'd managed 35.

Jack H wanted more miles and rode with me as far as Mercer County Park. 

When I got home, I grabbed a spray bottle of Simple Green and cleaned Beaker's drivetrain. Then I hosed the entire bike down, including the filthy Muppet on the saddle bag. My timing was perfect: as I wheeled the bike into the screened porch to dry it off, the rain became heavy, steady, and didn't stop for hours.

III: Piglet?

Rickety and Pete felt cheated out of miles on Saturday. I suggested a recovery ride from a newish bakery in a decrepitish shopping center two miles south of my house. 

I came up with a route, sent it to the guys, and tried to upload it to my GPS. My laptop would not recognize the device, not for the first time. It would connect just fine, and start charging, but no amount of resets and port switches got me farther than that. I moved over to our desktop PC, which informed me that the drive was corrupted. 

With a trip to Maine coming up in less than two weeks, I didn't want to be stuck with a malfunctioning GPS. I get lost on the Acadia carriage roads too much for that. So I picked up a new one at REI and spent too much of the rest of the evening adjusting screens and settings.

On Sunday morning, I mounted the new GPS on Kermit and coasted downhill for two miles to meet Rickety and Pete, who had ridden 8 miles from Pennington. 

Cafe du Pain seems like a good place to start and end a ride. It's got the right food and the right attitude: La Colombe coffee (just like the dearly departed Pig), home-baked pastries and sandwiches, and a community-oriented vibe, including partnering with Princeton eBikes (next door) to donate to the Boys and Girls Club of Mercer County.

The only problem is the location: it's in a strip mall that borders Route 1. The back side is on Princeton Pike, which is residential there and has wide shoulders. At 9:00 a.m., the bakery was closed but the roads out of there were quiet. We snaked our way northeast through neighborhoods and don't-try-this-at-rush-hour roads all the way through Ewing to Nursery, Bear Tavern, Jacob's Creek, and Scotch Roads.

Eventually we got to the rural stuff. As we circled back towards Pennington, Pete said, "I'm giving you custody of Ricky," and turned toward home. 

I hadn't been planning to go back to the bakery, but Ricky wanted the miles and the experience, so we went. I'm glad we did. We sat outside -- they have two little tables -- and discussed logistics. We decided that Jim needed to know about this place, because he's still morning the loss of the Pig. "This place is the Piglet," I said. 

We'll be back on some Sunday for a recovery ride, or maybe I'll start from here sometimes in the winter, when all we'll really want is 35 miles of relentless rollers.