30 November 2025
Tom invited the Insane Bike Posse for a Black Friday off-the-books ride on the Lawrence Hopewell Trail. In a rare event, the entire posse of regulars, minus one who was traveling, plus one visiting guest, made it to the start.
I rode in from home on Fozzie. I was in full winter gear as the temperature hovered around freezing. I stuck to the road past the Lenox Drive and Brearley House entrances to save time. I must have had a tailwind.
Martin and Pete had ridden in from Pete's house. The parking lot at Maidenhead Meadows was so full that Blob had to move his car over to give a truck the last possilbe space. Rickety and Our Jeff were there, as were Heddy and Ginger (who had never seen the LHT). Even Plain Jim made a rare appearance on his newish Motobecane gravel bike.
Tom had told us we'd be going counterclockwise, but when we started out, he said he'd changed his mind. Some folks in the group were riding over the Maidenhead Meadows boardwalk for the first time. It's more of a causeway; it's about a quarter mile long, hovering a few feet above the surrounding wooded wetlands.
With lobster-claw gloves, there was no taking pictures with my phone. I didn't think to bring the years-old, semi-functioning, PowerShot stored on the top shelf of a closet. I could have managed that with no fingers. Next time.
There are still some places on the LHT were signs are lacking. The route through the Lawrenceville School campus is something less than clearly marked. There are no signs at all through the Pennington neighborhood between Wargo and Moores Mill-Mount Rose Roads. We've been doing the LHT long enough to wing it in those places.
By the time we got to the Province Line Road bridge over the Stony Brook, we were getting spread out. The road surface south of the bridge is deteriorating. It's a steeper climb that way, too, but at least it's easier to avoid the mess at low speed.
Tom still avoids the trail section on Old Mill Road. It's been improved, but he still takes the road. I think the section through Carson Road Woods is much worse. There's no way to avoid that easily, though. It comes toward the end when riding clockwise.
Crossing Province Line at Route 206 and again at Bannister Drive is annoying, but it's better than fighting with heavy traffic on the narrow road.
There were still a lot of cars in the Maidenhead Meadows lot when we trickled in. Next to us, the Christmas tree farm was blaring music. Their lot was full.
I rode home in the woods, over the causeway again, to avoid the wind and traffic.
My plan was to list a towpath ride for the next day. When I sent out feelers, some of the folks who'd been enthusiastic about the idea on the LHT ride bowed out. It was so late in the evening at this point that I decided it would be easier to keep the ride off the books than to hound everyone into signing in. There would only be five of us anyway.
Saturday was warmer than Friday by a few degrees, and less windy too. However, we wouldn't have as much protection from what wind there was.
Pete rode into Washington Crossing from home, as did Martin. They met me, Heddy, and Plain Jim (again!) there.
We stayed on the New Jersey side all the way to Bulls Island. Jim had misread my description as 18 miles, not 28, and, in Stockton, asked "Where are we going?"
"Lumberville!" I said. I was wearing my decades-old winter jacket with the giant back pocket. I'd promised Jack some cookies from the Lumberville General Store.
We did have a headwind. I could tell it was coming by looking at the surface of the canal. Sometimes it was glassy; sometimes it was rippled.
The canal, a feeder for the main one on the PA side, peters out to the north of Bulls Island, but near the south of Bulls Island, the grade is so steep that the feeder is hard to see.
One is supposed to walk one's bike over the Bulls Island bridge. I don't always. There were pedestrians this time, so we half rode, half one-legged it.
In Lumberville, we sat outside to keep ourselves from the shock of warming up too much indoors then stepping out. When we left, my figers were cold. It didn't take long for them to warm up again. I had a pocket full of cookie ballast, but we had a tailwind so it didn't matter.
Pete and Martin were lobbying for the western towpath detour around the center of Lambertville. They didn't want to have to dodge pedestrians like we did on the way up. I don't enjoy the detour route as much. It's not well maintained. It can get muddy and rocky, and then there's a lot of on-street riding through parking lots and behind the smelly sewage treatment plant. But we did it anyway because I wanted to get pictures of the old rail car.
I've passed it many times this year without stopping for pictures. This time I did. The train is a palette for graffiti. The work looked relatively fresh.
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