Sourlands Sandy Hook

 

cow reaches for the good stuff

8 October 2022

Yeah, I'm about three weeks behind.

September 17 was the day Blob invited a handful of us to a barbecue at his house. We'd have to ride first, of course. He did a mashup of a couple of the Sourland Spectacular routes, starting from his house.

We went up Dutchtown Zion Road, which I haven't been up in years. At the top, we got a good look at the bridge on Long Hill that, more than a year after Ida, is still out.

Plain Jim noticed that the cement looked fresh. A plank lying across the top of the new culverts looked recent, too. Then again, we'd been in a drought for months; the wood could have been that old.

I took a picture while we collected ourselves at the bottom of Long Hill at Wertsville.

We were zigzaging our way towards Sergeantsville when Blob had us make the left turn from 523 to 539. I saw what was coming and hollered, "Hard hill ahead! Really hard!" Blob had no idea we'd be pitched at 18% for a quarter mile while county road traffic whizzed past us. I dropped into my granny gear. "See y'all later," I said as they went ahead, not knowing what was coming. 

We turned left onto Bizer, where the assembled Slugs had Things To Say about the hill.

The Sergeantsville General Store has competition from the Bagel Barn a quarter mile away. Since the new owners took over a handful of years ago, there have been some aesthetic improvments, but those seem to have stalled. The place feels seedy now, not in a charming, historic-house way.

On Dunkard Church, we all had to stop to admire the enterprising cow who had pushed a section of wire fence aside to get to the good grass by the road.

After we got our photos, she backed out gracefully.

Blob's route took us to the top of Long Hill again, this time from the other side. At the Hollow Road intersection, it's not easy to see the new culverts.

Back at Blob's house, we sat on the back patio and gobbled down the spread that he and Helen had prepared. I didn't stay too long; I had to get over to Newtown to pick up Tuesday's glass work (the subject of a forthcoming blog post, one of these months).

*****

A week later, Tom listed a ride to Sandy Hook that started in a park just east of the center of Freehold. It was the first chilly day of autumn, with the traditional should-I-or-shouldn't-I with the sleeves and leggings in the parking lot. I went with shorts and arm warmers.

Tom chose a northerly route, which took us through hills that I'd sort of knew about generally but had forgotten about specifically. There was some wind too. 

One thing I did remember about this route was that we'd pass by Circus Liquors in Middletown. This is the home of the creepy, drunken clown, about which much digital ink has been spilled.

Welcome to New Jersey. Now get the fuck out.

Most of the climbing was over before our Wawa rest stop. After that, we headed to the coastal section of the Henry Hudson Trail. It was here that the group learned just how much they have to wait for me when things get pretty.

We crossed over the Navesink inlet and turned north. "How much wind are we gonna get?" Eric asked me.

"All of it!" I said, as it smacked us in the face.

We went all the way to the top of the peninsula, stopping at a few beachy turnoffs.

We're not sure if this old building is being reconstructed or carefully destructed, but everyone wanted to see the pictures I'd taken while they got so far ahead of me I thought I'd lost them for good.

I caught up with them near some more delapidation.

The tailwind we thought we'd have on the southbound leg didn't really materialize. Most of the group whizzed right past the prettiest stuff.

We turned off to the eastern shore one more time before leaving the park.

I tried zooming in to see exactly what it was we were looking at on the horizon. There was too much diffraction to be certain. The thing on the right was a ship.

The blocky stuff? Dunno.

I turned back to the beach.

We crossed the Shrewsbury inlet and headed west, into a wind that was somewhere between head and cross.

Rumson.

Little Silver (with a rest stop).

Tinton Falls.

Colts Neck.

Colts Neck.

Colts Neck.

Freehold (finally!).

We had 61.8 miles, close enough to 100 km to call it a metric. 

*****

Last weekend we got the rain we'd been needing for months. It rained for 5 days straight. Up to my ears in work and other obligations, I didn't get a chance to ride outside until yesterday. Sunset is at 6:30 now; I rode home from work as clouds rolled over the last light of day.