#67: Janice Goes to Belmar

Belmar Beach

23 July 2023

Con: The muscle strain next to my herneated disc hasn't completely healed.

Con: Between the heat, the smoke, and the rain, I haven't trained for long distances this year.

Con: I've only tested Janice's new stem on a 14-mile round trip bike commute to work. 

Pro: Saturday's weather.

Pro: Saturday's weather.

Pro: Saturday's weather.

Five other people also thought a hundred-mile ride to Belmar would be a good idea. Heddy, Rickety, Martin, and I left my house at 7:30 a.m. Front-loading the ride with miles, we went the long way around towards Franklin Corner Road, scooping up Our Jeff after we crossed Princeton Pike.

Normally, Kermit and I do at least the first 25 miles in the small ring. I'd learned the hard way not to use the big ring too early. Janice's fit felt pretty good though. I was in the big ring. She's geared low, so I figured I could get away with it.

As we passed the skating rink entrance in Mercer County Park, we crossed paths with aother Freewheeler group about to start their ride. 

I wasn't sure where we'd be meeting JackH. He'd signed up for "100++," meaning he'd be riding in from PA. Not having heard from him, I was going to skip the East Picnic Area pickup spot entirely, but at the last minute decided better safe than sorry. We took the bike path, over the wooden bridge, to get there. JackH was waiting, with yet another group of riders setting out for the day.

"I was getting worried," he said. "I thought you might have skipped this stop."

"You never told me where to meet you," I reminded him.

The group we'd passed before came riding in from the wooden bridge. They kept on going. The other group left. Eventually we did too.

At Etra Lake Park, Plain Jim and Pete G were waiting. "I just texted Tom to tell him you were pulling in," Jim said.

"Oh, good. That's why I told him 'one of us' would text him. I knew I'd forget." The plan was to pick him up at our first rest stop. 

This Choose-Your-Distance ride requires a lot of logistics. 

Our Jeff said he couldn't remember if he'd done a century before. "If you've forgotten, it doesn't count," the rest of us agreed. This let us impart all of our hundred-mile wisdom upon him, which any noob can take with a grain of salt, because this form of torture is different for everyone. Our Jeff, leader of the Wedsnesday Premed ride and of AMC hikes, is always prepared. He had a Camelbak of a size that would compare favorably to that which Statler hauls around. 

The route to Belmar is more or less the one passed down to me from Big and Little Joe. While I described it as flat in the ride calendar, that's only relative to the rides I usually lead. This one would have 2700 feet of elevation gain over 100 miles, which isn't nothing. When we hit the first rollers, I moved into the small ring. I was starting to feel a little pull on my back. Damnit. I paid close attention to my posture, doing my best to sit as upright as I could to protect my back. Fortunately, with the new stem, I can comfortably rest my hands on the flat part of the bar, something I didn't do much of at all before.

Tom was waiting for us at the Minit Stop in Jackson. I took advantage of a patch of moss to lie on my stomach like a seal to push the fluid between L5 and S1 back into place. It's been years since I've resorted to this sort of PT during a ride, but better safe than sorry. 

Lately, I've also been arching my back at every red light, another quick way to move fluid to where it belongs. I've been doing this while still clipped in with my right foot. I noticed that this position was putting strain on the muscle I'd just spent weeks trying to un-strain. Damnit.

When we crossed over the causeway at the Manesquan Reservoir, I clipped out with both feet to get pictures of the water.

We were beyond the rollers now, and with a tailwind, we sailed through Farmingdale and on through beach traffic to the shore. Despite this being the first good beach day in forever, the traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I was pleasantly surprised that, unlike every other time I'd been here, a lot of the bathers didn't have size zero bodies and weren't ashamed to bare them. 

The sky looked interesting. When I tried for photos as I was standing on the boardwalk, the sun was so bright I couldn't see what I was taking pictures of.

For me, miles 50-75 are the worst. I feared the worst, considering I hadn't trained for this. I'd done two rides longer than 60 miles, but they were months ago. I made sure I was fed and caffeinated. I warned the century folks that there were hills and a headwind coming up. I reminded them again not to go chasing the 68-milers.

Around mile 70, Tom turned off for home. I thanked him for helping to keep the pace sane. He'd been pulling us for a while.

Sitting up in the small ring, and standing in the pedals once in a while to stretch my back, I made it all the way to our rest stop at mile 72 without hitting the psychological wall I expected to crash into. 

I was on the fence about getting more cold brew. I bought that and water, mixing them into my second bottle. My first bottle I kept full of electrolytes from tablets whose brand name I'm not going to give free advertizing to.

We were in the home stretch now: 12 miles back to Etra and another 17 to the finish. Between us and Etra were more rollers. I regretted not having plain water, but it was too late now. Fortunately, the mild headwind hadn't picked up much, and we had some shade and clouds to help us out. 

By the time we got to Etra, I could feel the century fuzziness kicking in. When this happens, and it usually does, I feel a little foggy and my breathing is faster than usual when I'm not moving. I flopped down in the grass to do the seal thing again for a count of 60, then ate half an energy bar. (For years, I've used Balance peanut butter bars because they don't freeze in the winter and don't melt in the summer. Unfortunately, they aren't available anymore, and I'm dealing with chocolate-coated substitutes that just aren't cutting it. For this ride I made my own little peanut butter sandwiches, but they were small so that I could fit two of them into one pocket. They turned into mushy messes as badly as my melted bar. I need to revise my food game.)

We parted ways with JackH when we entered Mercer County Park. I could feel my right calf trying to cramp as we climbed the railroad overpass on the way to Route 1. We waved goodbye to Jeff halfway down Franklin Corner Road. We made the left onto Princeton Pike, a mile from my house, a hill between us and home.

And that's when all the muscles in my right leg decided it was time to cramp in unison. I was not having it. We were halfway up the hill, half a mile from the end. I powered through, pointing and flexing my foot until the cramp subsided. We coasted into my street, reaching 100 miles exactly.

I served Rickety and Martin some cold brew, drank a can of seltzer water, stumbled around the house a bit, downed a pile of pickles and half a glass of milk, got into the shower, and was convinced that I was minutes away from throwing up. My left foot cramped, which was weird to feel, let alone see, my toes all pointing outward. I wanted to drink more water, but now I was afraid to swallow anything.

I'd agreed to fetch Jack from the train station in an hour. I decided to lie down and do some PT first. Then, when I tried to stand up, I nearly threw up. I texted Jack again, telling him to get an Uber, and collapsed on the bed. 

This isn't the first time in 67 century rides that I've wound up horizontal. I knew my errors: not enough sleep, big ring in the first 25 miles, too much caffeine, not enough plain water, not enough food, and, most of all, nowhere near the distance training I ought to have had before doing this ride. On the other hand, the weather, and my obligatory century for the season.

I fell asleep for a bit. When Jack got home, he brought me water. I sat up, drank it, and found myself ravenous. That was a good sign. 

In the months after I'd PT'd my way out of the herneation the first time, my back would hurt on long rides and I'd have to stop and stretch. I think that's going to be the case for the rest of this summer. When I was recovering, I hadn't done the Guru bike fit. After the fit, things were better. That was ten years ago, though. I think I'm going to have to go through the rest of this summer taking stretch breaks and tweaking the fit on my bikes. I'm sure Janice's new stem helped, but I don't know if this fit is the final one. We'll see how I do with the Premeds on Wednesday. 

Kermit's Revenge

 

the next step 

(source: Google image search)

20 July 2023

Janice got a new stem on Monday. I put air in her tires and checked all of her batteries on Monday evening. I rested her by the front door, taking special care not to put any pressure on the shifters. I'd heard stories about people draining their batteries that way.

For the first time since I started riding with the Premeds (a name that reflects how I feel far more than how they act), I was looking forward to the hilly ride with the hammer finish. If the new setup were to work, I'd climb with ease and pound on the big ring without my lower back turning into a hot knife. 

As usual, I checked the batteries again when I got to the ride. This time I used my GPS, which tells me the exact percentage of charge left in the derailleurs. Sometimes I have to move the shifters to get the GPS to register. I did this. Nothing happened. The GPS still showed "?" for the charge, and the derailleurs weren't moving. The tiny indicator light on the rear derailleur, which was a solid green on Monday (50-100% charge), wasn't even lighting up. What had I done? Did the bike slip, depressing a shifter lever indefinitely, over the past couple of days? Did something happen in the rain a couple of weeks ago? Did a wire break? Did something get reset at the bike shop?

I slid Janice back into the car and drove home. Fucking electronics. I'd gladly switch to cables again if I could keep the wheels and disc brakes.

I plugged Janice into the charger, put air in Kermit's tires, and headed out on my own.

This is why I have a fleet. When one bike goes down, there are others to choose from. Kermit is a 1997 Waterford 2200 that I got used in the fall of 2000. He's full steel, and a mix of Shimano high-end components. I never have to worry about Kermit. Kermit doesn't have stupid shifter batteries or stupid derailleur batteries. Sure, Kermit's front derailleur shifting is a little sloppy these days, and he's not the fastest bike in my fleet. But Kermit and I have over 47 thousand miles together. Kermit hasn't been seeing as much road time since Janice came home. I've been in the hills too much. Tonight was Kermit's revenge. Get on and roll.

When I'm by myself, I take the old Friday night route. It's not flat, but the few rollers and hills aren't much compared to what Our Jeff throws at us on Wednesday evenings. With all that hill energy, and a dose of bike-worry adrenaline on top of it, I decided to push as hard as I could for 20-odd miles. I needed to know if I could take Kermit on the century I'm planning for this coming Saturday. I'd wanted to take Janice, but...

My L5-S1 disc herniation was diagnosed at the end of 2010. For three months, I did intense physical therapy at home, two 45-minute sessions each day. Eventually I got it down to a few minutes of back and leg stretches. In 2016 I had a flareup that felt worse than the original injury. With the muscles around the bad disc still spasming, I put together a hefty inversion table and got on.  When I resurfaced five minutes later, I felt two inches taller. "You put everything back into place," my doctor said when I told him I was probably experiencing confirmation bias. I've been on that table twice each day ever since, although my time upside-down has become noticeably shorter.

Since things started hurting again a few weeks ago, I'm back to more intense PT and longer hangs. It's working. That said, it only took 14.66 miles of hammering on Kermit for things to start feeling off again. I hammered the rest of the way home anyhow. I came in at the lowest edge of B+, a speed I haven't seen in a long, long time. I have no intention of riding this hard for 100 miles, and now I know that, on Kermit, I won't be able to. He needs a new stem.

Janice was fully charged when I got back. The derailleurs responded to the shifters. The little light was a steady green. The GPS picked up 100% charge right away.

With some skepticism, I moved her to lean against the wall by the back door, taking extra care to make sure the shifter levers were nowhere near that wall. For the rest of the night, I periodically checked her charge and shifting. I decided to ride her to work the next day. I needed to be sure the fit was good and that the battery would hold.

In the morning, Janice was still at 100%. 

The minute I got on, I thought, "Whoa! I might as well get a banana seat!" The handle bar felt so high! The feeling lasted a few hundred yards. By the time I hit the I-95 overpass, I'd forgotten all about it and was churning away in the big ring. Seven miles later, I'd hit my second highest average speed of the season, this time without a tailwind. 

In the afternoon, I called Ross and told him what happened. He confirmed that it had to have been a depressed shifter, but he said to keep an eye on things in case it's not. I'd know before Saturday, he assured me. As for the raised bar, the stem swap took me from a 6 degree rise to a 10 degree rise, not much at all. On the other hand, tiny changes like this make an enormous difference.

All day long I've been checking Janice's battery status. "I'm fine," she says. "I got this."

Janice sleeping at my desk

And then I figured it out. On my last check of the day before riding home, I depressed the rear shifter again. It clicked to go into the next cog up, but without the wheel moving, the chain wasn't moving. The motor just kept on clicking. 

I did this! It was me! When I was checking the shifter battery status and depressed both levers at once, I must have missed, sending the motor into a job it couldn't complete until the battery ran itself empty. I probably didn't have my hearing aids in. I didn't hear the fruitless click click click click click click.

I feel so much better now. Janice is going to the beach on Saturday!

A Short Post About Two Rides

Washington Crossing Sunset

15 July 2023

Let's see if I can write a blog post in ten minutes. It's 10:52 p.m. Go!

I rode with the Premeds again on Wednesday. My back wasn't completely pain-free, but after a series of long hangs on my inversion table, I figured I'd be OK. Our Jeff shortened the ride from 36 miles to 33 and took out some of the big hills because of the heat.

To make sure I wouldn't do anything stupid -- besides showing up at all, of course -- I volunteered to sweep. It was peaceful back there. I got to have actual conversations. I was much more relaxed than I usually am on these rides. The reduced elevation gain and my growing familiarity with the roads helped.

We got back in time to catch the sun as it moved behind some clouds.

After dinner at It's Nutts, I pulled out my good camera and took pictures of the spiders hanging around the outdoor seating area. There were a lot of them, and they all appeared to be the same species, Larinioides cornutus:

Heddy helped by using her phone for light. Ken G and Our Jeff didn't run away, and even asked questions. I'll convert them yet.

Today's heat index hit 100 degrees, but that didn't stop Tom from listing a flat ride out of Bordentown. It looked to be a fast group. We stuck together for the first half, stopping to look at the Delaware River in Burlington.

I took some pictures of the Burlington-Bristol bridge:

And one of the underwater plant life growing at the river's edge:

I was standing behind the giant eagle, so this is the photo I took:

Our rest stop was at the Olde World Bakery in Smithville. I was absolutely dripping with sweat. My back was starting to hurt. I'd already emptied my 28-ounce bottle, which I'd filled with electrolytes. I noticed how much water I was drinking at the rest stop. It worried me. I knew I must be dehydrated.

I was fine for the next ten miles or so, save for my back. 

On White Pine Road, a rooster called: "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"

Jim said, "Oh, shut up!"

Then Luis told me to find him some shade. I obliged by knowing that the second half of White Pine is in the woods.

We hit mile 40, the heat was way up, and I was losing power. I wanted to stop to stretch my back. All that takes is me standing with my back arched. I can do it in less than thirty seconds. But the riders up front were rounding corners without stopping. I was in the middle or near the back. I had no time.

Half of the group had gone off the front, but a few were waiting under the trees on Ellisdale Road. "Let the fat chick stretch her back," I begged. It was enough to stop that pain, but now I could feel my right leg about to cramp in two places. We had 4.5 miles to go.

Somehow I made it. I felt nauseated. I almost had chills. I was almost cramping. I couldn't get my breathing rate down. I've been at this nonsense for 23 years, but every once in a while I still get my hydration wrong. It happens. My weight this morning should have tipped me off, but by then it would have been too late anyway.

After sitting in my car for a few minutes, I had enough energy to put my sneakers on and lift Kermit into the car. I let the air conditioner blast into my face for the entire ride home. I felt better after a while and a nap.

I'm okay now. It's going to rain tomorrow, for real this time. I'm taking the day off.

11:12. That's 20 minutes. Still short compared to how long it usually takes.

Maybe I Don't Want to Work This Hard

This is how I feel right now.

11 July 2023

The Nova Scotia bike trip is hanging over my head the way the SAT's did when I was a teenager. I can't help it. I've had impostor syndrome most of my life. 

The adventure will be in August. Of next year. Yet here I am, now, signing up for hilly rides I don't even want to be on because, on day four, next August, we have to climb two mountains, one of which has some 12% grades, and, well, if the other people on this trip are climbing hills now, I'd best be out there with them. I vacillate between being excited about the scenery and wanting to bail while I still can. Every time I tell Heddy or Our Jeff that I'm ready to quit, they talk me back into staying.

Logistics are another matter. If the 6-day trek around Cape Breton is the meat and vegetables, our stay in Bar Harbor afterwards is the ice cream. Those of us who have stayed on Mount Desert Island know that if we're going to snag a rental house, we need to do that now. Some people want to spend a week there. I would too, if not for my day job and the late-August start of the fall semester of glassblowing. 

One of the MDI veterans started making plans. I made clear wanted to stay in the house; I just didn't know for how long. A house was arranged. I wasn't in it. As you can imagine, with respect to my aforementioned impostor syndrome, this did. not. help. To make things worse, they offered no apology. To make things better, they did find me a cottage around the corner from the house, one that would be more affordable than the waterfront hotel I'd reserved for less time just in case. I jumped on that and now have two refundable deposits floating around up there. I also have, as of this writing, no housemates. I'm strangely more okay with that than I thought I'd be, perhaps because I'm still a little pissed off, perhaps because I barely know all but two of the people on this part of the trip, and perhaps because I'll have a bathroom and kitchen to myself. By the time we get to Bar Harbor, I'll either be feeling terribly left out or exuberantly relieved.

Anyway, that's part of why I haven't been blogging.

I have been on some fun rides, though. 

Last month, Tom led a flat one from Mercer County Park down to Columbus. I rode in from home, stopping on the little bridge over the Assunpink in Mercer County Park, as usual.

Those were the only pictures I took. It was the first summery day we'd had. The humidity was up. I was pretty beat after only 50 miles. Ming asked when I was going to lead my century. I told her that I wasn't ready. 

Wednesday evenings are given over to the Premeds. That's what I'm calling the Cape Breton group. They're a bunch of highly-driven overachievers. Our Jeff starts his ride at 5:30 on the dot, which means I have to pack the night before and get to work in time to leave early. 

This isn't some short, breezy evening ride. This is a 50-feet-per-mile elevation gain over more than 30 miles with no break. As the days get longer, Our Jeff adds miles. This week he's planning 36. When we stop to regroup, we start again as soon as the last of the riders crest the hill. If I want to stretch my back, I'd best be towards the front so I can snag 10 seconds off the pedals. Janice needs some tweaking; my back hurts when I ride hard. I'm taking her in next week, hoping for a 24-hour turnaround so that I don't miss a Premed Wednesday.

The last handful of miles are flat and downhill. There's a fenced field that faces west. I've stopped a few times to get late evening sun photos.

I've since learned that there's no time on this ride for photo stops or pee breaks. With so many miles to cover before dark, every second must be saved in case of emergency. To his credit, Our Jeff does get us back before sunset. Then we go to It's Nutts for dinner. I don't get home until close to 10:00. 

One Wednesday we had light rain at start time. Rather than cancel the ride, the leaders (two Premeds subbing for Our Jeff) decided to take the towpath north, under tree cover. This worked out well, although I did question the suggestion of hitting the road at the end "if it's not raining," because it was. 

The air in Central Jersey hadn't been rid of Quebec's smoke for more than a few days when another Pinelands forest caught fire. This one, the City Line fire, burned close enough to the state forest ranger's station that Tom figured we could go see some of it. What we found there a controlled burn; the real fire was miles away, to the northeast, and had been contained early.

This is the best map of the fire I could find, a screenshot of a screenshot. The boundary is close to where I did my grad school field work. 

I led a hilly ride of my own when I found out that the bridge on Alexauken Creek Road had finally been repaired. The weather was good that day. We had actual blue sky. I stopped for a few photos on Losey Road halfway down the northern side of the Sourland Mountain,

and again at the intersection of Bowne Station and Mount Airy-Sandy Ridge.

The repair on Alexauken Creek Road was less than interesting. I guess I was hoping for a stone wall or something after all this time.

Speaking of stone walls, there's one on Woosamonsa that, during lockdown, was exploding with tiger lilies. On this day there were only a few, but I stopped anyway because I think I didn't in 2020.

As has been the pattern this summer, there was rain in the forecast for early afternoon. When we finished the ride at Twin Pines in Pennington, I gestured south and said, "I need to get home before that happens."

I watched the sky for the 3.75 miles home. From the I-95 overpass, it looked apocalyptic to the southeast.

From the other side, it looked like a beautiful summer day. That the view is behind a chain-link fence is simply a metaphor for the weather we've been having.

When I got to my driveway, the storm was coming up behind me.

Then we had more Canadian smoke. It rolled in on a Wednesday evening. From up on some Bucks County ridge (I never know where I am over there), we caught a glimpse of the impending haze.

As we rode on, the air quality got worse.

Looking northwest before our macho mile descent, we saw yellow air.

Overnight, the PM2.5 ticked up. It was still in the moderate range on Thursday morning, so I rode my bike to work. By that afternoon, we'd moved into the red. I wore a KN95 mask on my ride home. It felt gross, but I could see the air at that point.

By Saturday, the smoke had cleared out. Tom led a ride from Etra Park. We stopped at the Manasquan Reservoir.

Our halfway point was in Farmingdale. On our way back, I stopped for pictures of water lilies.

Somewhere in the final ten miles, it became clear to me that I hadn't eaten enough at the rest stop. Half an energy bar doesn't cut it in the summer. How many years have I been doing this? I lost my oomph during the final three miles on Disbrow Hill Road.

Then there was the Fourth of July All-Paces. It was on a Tuesday. Knowing I'd have to do a no-stop, hilly 34 miles the next evening, I opted for a shorter, slower, route with fewer people than the 40-person B ride was offering up. Plain Jim was leading a C+, which, combined with my ride to and from the park, would be perfect. 

It was a hot day. We stopped twice to repair flat tires. Somebody collapsed on the asphalt while waiting in line for the food truck after the ride. Some Premeds gave me shit for not doing the B ride. "I know my body," I said. 

And the next day, I was farther towards the front than usual on Our Jeff's evening ride because those Premeds had beaten themselves up the day before. I even had the energy to join the four-mile macho mile sprint at the end, surprising one of the Premeds who clearly didn't think I had it in me. "Fat chicks represent!" I hollered.

That sprint did no good for my back. Janice is great for climbing. It's the downhills and flats afterwards that are messing me up. When I get in the big ring and start to hammer, I'm leaning forward more, and that puts strain on my lower back. I don't feel it right away. By the time I do, it's too late. This time, I think I strained a muscle near the herniation because the ache didn't go away when I got off the bike.

That didn't stop me from listing a ride to Round Valley Reservoir three days later. The road around the water is open again for the first time since 2020. 

I loaded the car and got in. The sound the wheels made when I reversed out of the driveway was sinister. I pulled over to take a look. My front driver's side tire was flat. Dead flat. I pulled back into the driveway in a panic.

First I called Heddy. She was already en route to the Hillsborough start, but she was close enough to turn around and give me a ride.

Next I called Plain Jim, because I knew he'd be the first one there. The ride was set to start at 8:30 a.m. It was barely 8:00 and he was there already.

Then I went inside to enlist Jack's help with getting the auto club out to fix the flat. He doesn't drive. After some back-and-forth with the auto club, and my being unsure if I even had a spare (I was too frazzled at this point to remember that it was hidden under a tray in the trunk), we decided I'd take care of it when I got home.

We got to the ride start 15 minutes late. I'd wanted to begin early so that we could beat the heat. So much for that.

I still had the car repair nervousness hanging over my head, energy that would have been better used in the hills, when I noticed that my rear bike tire looked low. We were on a hill halfway between Hillsborough and Round Valley. Being in the middle of a contact dermatitis flareup, I enlisted the help of Jack H and Pete R so that I wouldn't have to touch any rubber. They changed the tube quickly. "Did you find what was in it?" Jack H said, "We didn't check."

I wasn't surprised when, within a few miles, the tire went flat again. We were in Stanton now, about to climb up to the reservoir. It took some doing, but we found a tiny wire embedded in the tire. It took three of us, me trying only to touch the tire with my fingernails, to pull the offending piece of metal out.

Now we'd lost almost an hour, all because of me.

Janice did well on Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. We stopped at the boat launch. The water level was higher than it had been for years, between drought and dam repairs.

I stopped again halfway around to get some pictures of the giant berm across from the reservoir.

There's a maintenance road, fenced off, at the other side of the reservoir. Everyone who had gone ahead while I was taking pictures was stopped there, taking pictures. So I did too.

Our break was at Jerry's Brooklyn Grill in Whitehouse Station. We were dripping with sweat. One of the servers said we deserved a medal. The worst of the climbs was over, but now the heat index was 90 degrees. Between here and Hillsborough were relentless rollers. 

We started to get spread out. I did my best to keep everyone together. I mostly succeeded until the last couple of miles. 

Heddy drove me home. I gave her a glass cat for her troubles. 

I showered and ate, and then did battle with the auto club. Finally, well after 5:00, a fellow pulled up and put the donut on. With a power drill and a real jack, it took all of five minutes. I told the guy, "I can change a bike tire. For this, I'm clueless." He said, "I can't change a bike tire. I only know how to put air in it." (I can already hear a certain Freewheeler berating me for not doing this myself. I have an auto club membership for a reason.) 

By now, all but one tire store nearby was closed. Pep Boys, which I'd thought had gone out of business, still had a service center open. Jack and I went up there, slowly, the donut making all kinds of noise. Within half an hour of our arrival, I had a new tire and we drove home.

Because Heddy and Our Jeff were going, I'd signed up for Dave S's Sunday ride from Stockton to Frenchtown, thinking that it would be canceled by rain anyway. As the evening wore on, the forecast improved, and I knew I was doomed.

All this time, I'd been wanting to do some PT for my back. I finally got some in before bed. In the morning, it was still a little sore, but I packed Janice into the car and drove to Stockton anyway.

Dave S is also going on the Nova Scotia trip. He's skipping Bar Harbor though. He's been up Cadillac Mountain. He knows what it's about. 

"No flats today," he said as I got out of my car. I groaned. "People are talking," he explained.

Our climb out of the river valley was on Locktown-Sergeantsville Road, a double-barreled hill that Mike H had dubbed "the Twin Towers." The air was thick with humidity. My legs were already tired. My back was sore. And here came the 11% grade.

"I can't do this," I thought. "I can't do hills two days in a row, let alone five. I need to cancel the trip."

Then, "Janice got this." 

At the top of the second rise, we gathered the group. One more time, I told Our Jeff and Heddy that I ought to drop out, and one more time they said no. 

After that, we were bumbling along the ridge, sometimes climbing a little, sometimes coasting. Somewhere in there, maybe on Whiskey Road, maybe on Stone Signpost, or somewhere in between, there was a house that expressed how I felt.

Reaching the intersection of Hog Hollow and Senator Stout always cheers me up.

When we turned left onto Everittstown Road, I knew it would be our last climb before the break. On the ridge, I switched to the big gear and hammered. 

To our north, the sky looked ominous.

It looked only slightly better in Frenchtown. There was a long line at the Bridge Cafe, so I walked over to the real bridge for some pictures.

It was the long line that spared us Horseshoe Bend and Spring Hill. As we were preparing to leave, the heavens opened up. I consulted my radar app and showed it to Dave S. "I'm making an executive decision," he said. We'd leave now, skipping the hills, and make a mad dash down Route 29 to Stockton.

It turned into a 13-mile sprint. I saw Heddy and Chris ahead and hammered to catch them just in time for the rain to pick up. I kept on hammering, Heddy and Chris right behind me. In Frenchtown, I'd put my hearing aids into a plastic bag, but had forgotten about the camera. I wondered what would happen to Janice's electronics in all this rain. I'd mounted the GPS so that it would tilt down and shed water.

Ten miles later, my back reminded me that I really do need to take Janice in for an adjustment. I slowed down a little. We'd been riding in and out of downpours. Now the rain was letting up. As we reached Prallsville Mills, the road looked almost dry. 

We, on the other hand, were soaked. "Now I know what happens to electronic bikes in the rain," I said to Len as we rolled in. He, of course, had been in the parking lot a good long time already.

"What happens?"

"Nothing!"

My camera survived too. My back, not so much. I had to do a lot of PT when I got home, and even resort to naproxen at bedtime. There was more PT on Monday, a very careful weightlifting session, and another bedtime dose of naproxen.

Today I rode to work on Miss Piggy, staying in the small ring on the way in to be safe. I remembered to call Ross, too. Next Monday I'll take her in for a new stem, one that will put me in a more upright position when I choose to hammer.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to do the Premed 36 tomorrow evening. I'm at that stage where I feel okay now, but that doesn't mean I'm healed. 

*****

Postscript: 

I forgot to mention that, as a lark, I'd painted my nails with the nail polish colors I'd bought for touch-ups to Janice's frame. In all the hubbub on Saturday, I completely forgot to show it off.

No, this is not going to be a thing. I removed the polish and cut my nails on Sunday afternoon.