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 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment