Maybe this is Willow Road in Hillsborough?
18 December 2022
I led my traditional Halloween ride to Lambertville. The week before, I was on one of Plain Jim's Sunday hammerhead rides, where I took this photo of the sky. I'm not sure where we were. Most of the past two months have been a blur. I've been busy.
Anyway, I had a decent group for the Halloween ride. We'd been up in Oldwick two weeks before, ahead of the peak. Now, at the top of the Sourland Mountain, we were past it.
There was something off about the setup on my hill-climbing bike, Miss Piggy. After the seat post had broken last summer, I'd gotten a new one, and the mechanics at Hart's failed to tighten the bolts that held the saddle on. I lost one of the bolts 40 miles into a 50-mile hilly ride and went straigt to Wheelfine with what was left. Michael machined a new barrel nut, set the whole mess in with Loctite, and sent me on my way. I'd had my measurements ready, but I might have miscommunicated, giving the saddle height from the ground rather than the crank, or something. Since then, I'd be fine for the first 40 miles, then 30, then even less, before my back would start to hurt. Every post-ride recovery included knee pain. I knew the saddle felt low and the reach too far, but I didn't want to mess with any of it on my own, lest I shed bolts again. So I lived with it, knowing I'd have to take care of it sooner or later.
So, limping into Lambertville, I led the group to Luminary Coffee, in the space Rojo's used to occupy over on the north side of Union Street, before Ida washed a lot of our favorite places off the map.
Luminary was so new that I'd found out about it by word of mouth. It wasn't even on Google Maps. The seating area was pleasingly sparse, devoid of all the roasting-related clutter and merchandise that used to fill the Rojo's space. We gave the place a thumbs-up and proceeded south on Union to look at the Halloween decorations.
There didn't seem to be as much this year as in years past. I did find a haunt of ghosts hanging from a corner tree. The pro-choice yard sign was a bonus.
To protect her characters from the elements, Dolores Dragan has put her displays in little tents. The section on the side of her house was closed off, unfortunately.
The following Saturday, Tom led a ride from Bordentown into the Pinelands. I had to check Plain Jim's post to remember where we started from and what happened.
Somewhere in Burlington County I got this photo.
Tom took us along both sides of Mirror Lake in Pemberton. The sun was at a better angle when we swung around to the south side, and I stopped for a handful of pictures.
Tom kept up his Insane Bike Posse cred by finding a road with a bridge out.
Somewhere else in Burlington County, I got another photo.
Meanwhile, I had started dreading Jim's Sunday rides. Saturday's hilly rides were leaving me exhausted for Sunday's once-upon-a-time recovery rides that were now B+ invasions. I'd watch the registrant list change from mellow B riders who dropped out when the B+ hammerheads began to sign on. More than once I considered canceling my own registration, only to tell myself to suck it up and pedal.
By mid-November, I had had enough. For some reason, maybe rain, I chose to list a hilly ride on a Sunday. I made a point to explain that the pace would be C+ in the hills and B in the flat spots.
Mid-week, my regulars began to sign up. By the end of the week, a B+ invasion had begun. The only thing preventing a complete takeover was my 10-rider limit. On Friday evening, a B+ ride leader, a true pace-pusher, was begging me to let him join. Nope. As politely as possible, I explained how I was having a hard enough time keeping up as it was, wanted to keep the group to ten, and suggested that, were he to post a B+ ride, I was sure he'd get some takers.
As I rode to the start of the ride, a lecture was bubbling up.
I always give a pre-ride spiel, listing the club rules. This time I started differently. It went something like this:
"Some of you are B+ riders. You really shouldn't be here. If you see 'C+' in the description and you're a B+ rider, think about what that means to the other folks who have already signed up. It's intimidating. Slower riders have been canceling their registrations when the B+ riders start to sign up.. When you register for a ride like this, think about how it makes the slower riders feel."
When we set out, everyone stayed behind me. When we got to the hills, people stayed close. We remained together, uphill and into the wind, as I led the group to Sergeantsville on roads I don't take very often. A couple of the faster riders asked me, quietly, out of earshot of anyone else, if they were the one I'd been aiming at. Yes and no.
Somewhere on Everitts Road, I took a couple of pictures.
The consensus these days is that the Bagel Barn and Deli in Sergeantsville is a better stop than the general store. I've been alternating between the two, but the last time we went to the general store, I sensed deterioration. The new owners had done well to clean up in the beginning. Now, though, there wasn't even toilet paper in the bathroom, and the place seemed kind of cruddy. We went to the Bagel Barn this time. I don't like the food selection as much, but at least it's clean, and the coffee is decent.
On the way back, we went to visit the Mount Airy cows.
As we got closer to home, the faster people started to get ahead. I didn't really care. I was too busy trying to ignore my aching back.
(In December, I drove Miss Piggy and Beaker up to Michael. He took Beaker's measurements, adjusted Miss Piggy to match, gave her a new middle chain ring, and now my back and knees don't hurt anymore. I'm not any faster, but my mood is better.)
A week later, I was off the bike and deep in the Pinelands on a Sierra Club informational field trip. We started from the Brendan Byrne State Forest headquarters, which is a regular stop on Tom's Pinelands Cruise. It was weird to be there on foot, with my biking life, my activist life, and my grad school memories (my field site being a few miles awy) all coming in at once. I'd already forgotten more than most people know about Pinealnds ecology.
As we traipsed around from one site to the next, I was surreptitiosly blowing my runny nose. I'd taken an antigen test in the morning and had come up negative. On the drive home, though, I definitely felt sick. I tested negative by PCR the following day and every week since. Is this what catching a cold is going to be like from now on?
The next Saturday, Tom led a ride from Allentown. The morning was cold, too cold for me to turn a 40-mile ride into a 70-miler by biking in from home. The B+ invasion had happened to Tom's listing late in the week.
"How many miles do you think it will take before the group splits?" Eric H asked me. I don't remember which one of us said "six," but whichever one of us said it was correct. When the rest of us caught up, Eric was in that group, but after that, he caught a case of common sense and stayed back with us and the leader.
Every time the fast group decided to wait and we started up again, one particular rider would sprint out ahead, getting himself a good couple hundred yards off the front. The rest of the B+ invasion would give chase. This rider is a semi-regular on Jim's Sunday rides, and for the life of me I don't know why.
The B+ pace-pusher I'd shut out from my previous ride was there and mumbled something about pace-pushing to me as he sped past in an attempt to catch the sprinter.
At the rest stop in New Egypt, Charlestown Coffee, the fast folks sat inside and the rest of us gathered outside in the breezeway. The two groups didn't even talk to each other.
I didn't take any pictures this time. Plain Jim summed up the ride quite well at the end of his blog post: "Y'know, if some faster riders wanted to lead rides at their own pace, youse wouldn't have to shiver at those intersections while you're waiting for us to show up. Just sayin'..."
I did take pictures the following week, when Tom led an invite-only ride from Mercer County Park. For the first time in months, I felt at ease. I rode in from home, stopping on the little bridge over the Assunpink Creek on the wooded path:
Tom took us north, along a rails-to-trails line that went from West Windsor to Plainsboro. It was pretty, but there wasn't really a good place to stop that wouldn't have caused a serious pileup.
I don't know why I took this picture of the plains of Plainsboro.
We headed towards the canal, then up through Hillsborough on some of Jim's regular roads. Our stop was at Thomas Sweet.
I had to get back early because I needed to pick up my glass from the classroom before they shut down for the weekend. I had some cold-working to do. The class was eating a lot of my out-of-class time.
Pete wanted to get home too, so we left the group at Harrison Road, where they negotiaed construction and we continued on through the back of Princeton's campus. Pete wanted to get a picture of Carnegie Lake by the university's boat house. I'd never been down there before, so I took a lot of pictures too.
Well, that's it for the photos I have on my hard drive. There's one more post brewing before I'm all caught up. For that, I need to fetch the card from my camera.
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