Stuck

Somewhere in Deep South Jersey

16 July 2022

Every so often, I get stuck. It started on June 18.

Tom led a ride that started in Fort Mott, NJ, more than an hour's drive from home. Rickety, Jack H, Martin, Blob, Tom, and I met in Bordentown to carpool. We put Beaker in the back of Tom's truck and the other guys, paired off, followed us.

The forecast was for a mild, dry day. Great. But the wind would be gusting at over 30 mph. We'd be out in the open fields nearly the whole time.

The fort is on the bay side. The Delaware state line is the high tide line.

The terrain looked more or less like this the whole time:

The planned route was 62 miles. 20 miles in, I started having trouble with my rear derailleur. Cog by cog, I was losing the ability to shift into the smaller rear gears. We had a tailwind, but I was stuck in a too-small gear to mash the way I wanted to. By the time we got to our rest stop at mile 24, the middle two gears were all I had left. 

Rickety managed to move the derailleur into a smaller gear, which was great as long as we were with the wind.

The problem was, we weren't. In the 30-mph headwind, I wanted to spin, and I couldn't. Instead, I was mashing into the wind, wearing myself out long before the ride was over.

It didn't help when the GPS put us on a dirt road. Tom and I were in the back of the pack, unsure if this was going to be a dead end.

The other guys forged ahead and called back to us that they'd found asphalt. We came to a T, where I tried, and failed, to get a photo of a sprinkler in the orchard ahead of us, and Tom checked his route to make sure we weren't off course.

Eventually, we came upon a little general store. It wasn't a planned stop, but we all needed it. Martin disappeared around the back of the building. When he returned, he was beaming. One of the proprietors had told him of a scenic view with a boat ramp, just up the road, make a left.

This would be a detour, and I was in agony from the waist down. But anything for a view, so off we went, with a tailwind.

There was no view. There was no boat ramp. After a couple of miles, we stopped. I figured I'd snap a few photos before we headed back into the wind. It gave me an excuse to rest.

We could see the Oyster Creek cooling tower in the distance.

We went back the way we came, pushing into the headwind. Tom figured our 62-mile trip would now be 65. I held those three miles against Martin for the rest of the ride. He, however, was having a blast.

And then the boat ramp appeared, and it was, indeed, pretty. We all dismounted and puttered around with our cameras for a few minutes. I think we all (well, maybe not Martin) wanted a rest.

I stepped down onto the dock. The planks sank under my feet. I took a picture and made a hasty retreat.

On the other side of the road was a gravel drive and a small bridge over a creek.

On the bridge was a sign warning of a $10,000 fine for littering. On the other side of the road was a bag full of trash.

The last fifteen miles took forever. We didn't stop again until we passed New Jersey's Ugliest Lighthouse on the road into Fort Mott.

My legs were shot. My knees were shot. My back was shot. My derailleur was shot. I stayed off the bike the next day. Jack and I took a walk through the little Loveless Nature Preserve instead.

A side path led to the Johnson Trolley Line, now a gravel path that connects Ewing with the edge of Rider University. The path stops at I-95 and continues on the other side. There have been murmurings for years about reconnecting the fragment. The murmurs are getting louder. Someday we might have a pedestrian bridge over the highway.

I had June 20 off, so I took Beaker up to see Michael at Wheelfine. 

I spent two hours there, just me and him, in the back, as he carefully cleaned the entire drive train, chiding me for using far too much lube, smirking at the cat hair caught in the pulleys. But it wasn't the dirt. It was the derailleur. He cleaned it completely and threw three kinds of lube at it. But it still double-clicked when it should have single-clicked. He held it in his hand, clicking, grimacing.

"This is the kind of thing you love, isn't it? Or hate."

"Both," he said. It plays to his OCD a little to well.

The derailleur was dead. "Campy's not supposed to break," I whined, searching eBay for a replacement. I found one and ordered it while Michael put Beaker back together. To his credit, he was able to get the derailleur to move through all 11 gears, even though the middle ones would require some Old Miss Piggy-style double-shifting. In the end, he barely wanted to charge me anything for his time. "I didn't fix it," he said. 

I took Beaker out on a solo ride the next day, because I had that day off too. My employer has been feeling generous with holidays this year. Pandemic payback, I guess. Riding Beaker felt like riding Old Miss Piggy. I was a little too used to the whole double-shift-shift-back routine. Beaker would be given solo ride duties for now.

I had a Zoom meeting that night and nearly missed the summer solstice sunset everyone online was crowing about.

Mike V, our new club President, had a ride listed for Round Valley on Saturday. He'd entered it into the ride calendar as a C+ ride, but also listing a range of averages that went well into B. I can't keep a B pace in the hills. I really wanted to see Round Valley, though. The road around it has been closed for construction since before the pandemic. If Mike had mapped through that, the road must be open again. 

As the week wore on, more and more fastboys were signing up for the ride, and by Thursday, 25 people had registered. I texted Mike and voluteered to lead a slower group. I figured I'd end up riding by myself.

By Saturday morning, a few had dropped out. The forecast had been iffy for a couple of days. I drove through a rain shower to get to Skillman Park. Jim was the only other person there when I arrived. I thought perhaps the ride had been cancelled, but it hadn't; I was just way early.

I didn't recognize a lot of the folks who gathered in the parking lot. Most of them walked right past me as if I didn't exist, which is a thing that fastboys do. When 7 riders opted to come with me, I felt a little better. Three of them I knew well enough: Jim, Heddy, and Eric H. Two were complete strangers: Uday and Debbie (Mike's wife). Two others had been with me on Hill Slug rides in the distant past: Jeff S and Lenny G.

We waited for the fastboys to leave the park. They seemed to have taken off at a pace I wouldn't have wanted to attempt for a ride with three thousand feet of elevation mostly crammed into a dozen or so miles. When Debbie got a flat somewhere west of Hillsborough, I felt relief. This would put time and distance enough between our two groups that our group could relax. I leaned Miss Piggy against a fence while we waitied for Jim, a.k.a. the Ramblin' Wrench, to see to the tire.

Half of my group had never been to Round Valley. I promised it would be a treat. I also promised it would be work. First there would be Stanton Mountain Road, and then the Three Bears on the way to the top of the road that would lead us to the reservoir. 

About Stanton Mountain Road: I told the group that there's no reason to climb Stanton Mountain Road unless you want bragging rights. The last time I bothered was many years ago, when the steep and winding descent was more pothole than asphalt. That day, two riders reached the bottom with flat tires. The road has since been paved. It wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered, but it still sucked. There is no reason to climb Stanton Mountain Road. 

We collected ourselves at the bottom. 

"Was that Papa Bear," Jeff asked. 

"Uh, no. That's coming."

So far we'd been lucky with the clouds, but as the morning wore on, the temperature was rising, and the humidity with it.

When we turned into the reservoir, I was hoping the first-timers would have the same reaction that I did, that the erstwhile Mike B did, that Jim did. That didn't happen. People were underwhelmed, thirsty, and sweaty.

The water level in the reservoir is so low now that grass has grown between the end of the boat ramp and the water's edge. Maybe that's why people were unimpressed. The water seems so far away now.

From where we stood, we could see chain link fence stretching from the road down to the water. We approached it anyway and had to turn back. I'm known for ignoring closed roads, but this was something else entirely.

Fortunately, I knew the way around it. We doubled back to the main road and descended to Route 22. The shoulder is wide there, and we weren't on it for long before bearing right at the sign for Lebanon. We turned right again at Cherry, went under the railroad bridge, and climbed back up to the reservoir, where we were greeted with more fence at the intersection with Old Mountain Road.

The reservoir's dams are being replaced. 

Behind the fence, along the road on top of the northern dam, is where the best view is. On one side is the reservoir, and on the other is the biggest berm you'll ever see, hundreds of feet sloping down to a valley. And from where we were, we could see none of it.

We turned down Old Mountain and made our way into Whitehouse Station. The rest stop was at Jerry's Brooklyn Grill. The moment we got there, the owner, still wearing an apron, stepped out, and two servers, grinning, locked the door. The hijinx only lasted a few minutes. 

We sat outside at a pair of tables that weren't there in the Before Times. Jim said, "At this point, this is a separate ride. I'm going to demand credit for sweeping, and you for leading." That was fine by me. We were having a good time out here, all mellow and slow.

Jeff asked, "Are there any more hills?"

"It's rolling all the way back," I said, "but there aren't any more big ones."

So roll we did, all the way to the outskirts of Hillsborough, by which point, Jeff and Lenny had had enough. Jim told me that they might drop off, and then Lenny told me to go ahead. Jim was sweeping, and when the rest of us rounded a corner and stopped to wait, we saw Jim stop behind us, waiting also. 

My back was starting to hurt. Thick clouds were rolling in. The air felt like a convection oven. Thinking Jim was going to ride in with Jeff and Lenny, the rest of us took off. We hammered, which my back was not liking at all. I'd made it 47 miles this time, better than the usual 40. 

We straggled into the park with 56 miles. Under a tree, Mike, Martin (who rides with the fastboys now), and Ken G applauded as we rode in. I know they meant well, but in my state of mind, all I heard was, "Well done, slowpoke. Everyone else has gone home."

I didn't even put Miss Piggy in the car. I rolled her onto the grass and lay down on my stomach to stretch my back. Mike reported his group's average, 16 mph. I bet he was glad to push the pace without the slow folks holding him back. I had no idea what our average was. I reached over to check my GPS. Our group had come in nudging 15 at the fastest, but we weren't all back yet.

When Jim rolled in, he was alone. Martin and Mike applauded. I looked over, confused. "Where are the other guys?"

"We're not gonna talk about them," he growled. He'd found them sitting under a tree and made for home by himself. He chalked it up to miscommunication between them, him, and me. It was a miserable end to a miserable second half. 

I slept in the next morning. I got out of bed only to find myself still in bed, having only dreamed I'd woken up. So I got up, only to find I hadn't really. This happened at least three times before I managed to sit up for real.

The next day was the July 4 All-Paces ride. I hadn't signed up and found myself shut out of all of them by Sunday afternoon. I asked Mike if I could fill a slot if one opened up. Instead he said he'd sign me in if I'd sweep, "knowing you like to be in back." I agreed to it, but clarified that I don't so much like being in back as that's where I end up on hilly rides.

I rode Kermit in from home, passing a carnival set up in Mercer County Park.

Given the number of people Mike had signed in, being at the rear of the mob seemed the safest place to be. I had no trouble keeping up with the back of the pack, which was a bit of a relief. I barely knew anyone in the group, and those I did know were mostly people I don't see very often. 

Being in the back also made me invisible. When we got to Emery's Blueberry Patch, I took my turn in the porta-potty. While I was in there, I heard a group photo happen. Nobody even noticed my absence. I don't allow my face on social media anyway, but it would have been kind if someone had at least asked me.

On the outside wall of the store was this "let's get lost" thingie for sale. It spoke to me, but I didn't buy it.

I'm often the only woman on the rides I attend. Not so today; there were four others. And they were all skinny. Two of them were so skinny that their thighs weren't much bigger than one of my arms. 

One of them held her phone out to take a picture of Luis. "Look at you, all fit and skinny!" she exclaimed.

"Hey!" I interjected from the sidelines. "No fat shaming!"

Luis said, "Stop it. You're not fat."

"Ah, but fat is a problem though. Watch it."

I was so done with this scene. I missed the safety of the Hill Slugs, where I could be myself.

Mike was being strict about our time. He wanted to get back to the park by noon because he was in charge of the snacks and drinks. Still, the pace out of  New Egypt seemed more leisurely than before. I said to Chris, "They're all full of pie."

The pace picked up eventually. I remained in the back, where one guy, no mirror, kept nearly running me off the road. I moved to the front. "I've abdicated my duty," I tole Mike. I'd had enough. We were almost back at the park anyway.

Most of the other groups had already arrived and most of the riders had left by the time we got there. I didn't get much of a chance to talk to anyone. I milled about for a few minutes and then rode home.

Mid-week, I put a ride in for Saturday: Lambertville to Clinton. The forecast at the time looked good. But by Friday, not so much. I let my registrants know that we might be rained out, and that, if the weather were to hold for part of the morning, I'd lead something local instead.

At 6:15 I woke up, checked the forecast, and canceled the ride. I wrote to the Slugs and asked if they'd be up for something local later in the morning, then went back to sleep.

Two hours later, I had a handful of yeses in my inbox, so I put a ride in the calendar for 10:00. Everyone who had signed onto the canceled ride showed up at Twin Pines. I hadn't created a route for them to download. We'd wing it to Lambertville, with one eye on the clouds.

I zigged and zagged through the Sourlands, winding up at the top of Mount Airy Road, where there were no cows. So I took a picture of a frightening farm implement instead.

Whirling blades of death, this thing:

Should we go down Alexauken Creek Road? The bridge on the south end is still out, but I'd heard there's a path around it. A Hill Slug ride isn't a Hill Slug ride if we don't encounter a closed road, so down we went. 

Jim describes Alexauken Creek Road as "fifteen minutes of vacation." We haven't had this fifteen minutes since Ida wreaked havoc on Central Jersey last September. 

It was clear that the road isn't getting much traffic. Weeds are encroaching along the sides. 

Hamp Road is a dirt road that starts off with a metal bridge. We've often pulled over to stand on it and take pictures in the spring, when the creek banks are full of yellow flowers.

This time, the bank was full of the opposite side of road.

When we got to the hole in the road, Pete found the path off to the left. (That's him on the far side in the photo below.)

It wasn't difficult to cross, just awkward, in cleats, with a bike in tow.

Whether or not this crossing is worth the fifteen minutes of vacation is an open question.

The rest of the ride passed without incident or pictures, and we made it back to Pennington with more elevation gain than I usually pack in.

I paid for that the next day. I really should take some time off the bike. My knees are often sore now, my hamstrings are tight, and that's pulling on my back, which is hurting earlier in the rides than it did last year. But when you're a big gal in a group of skinny fat-shamers, there is no rest.  So off I went on Jim's Sunday ride.

It was mercifully flat. We went into Raritan via the Nevius Street bridge. I'm old enough to remember this bridge being an actual road, and riding over it. Now it's been repurposed as a pedestrian bridge, with benches, and it's glorious.

It's next to a mysterious edifice that claims to be property of the Duke Estate and do not enter.

I posted the Lambertville to Clinton ride for the coming Saturday. I hoped for a mellow crowd. At home, I did a lot of stretchng and laid off the leg work when I lifted weights.