beaker's maiden voyage

Visitors to Laura OLPH's blog will know that she got herself a lovely, lugged Italian frame, which she has had made up into a bike she has named Beaker. She bought it from Michael over at Wheelfine Imports, and had Ross at Hart's build it up (after all, he had her Guru measurements). It was ready yesterday.

Laura had a ride in the list for today, and her blog post describing it said:

A retirement party in Jersey City on Saturday afternoon means that I can't lead a long ride starting far away on Saturday morning. Add to that the impending Friday taking-home of Beaker (brake-arrival-dependent) and we have a recipe for a moderately hilly, local-origin, breaking-in ride of an almost reasonable distance (something like 45 miles)...

Marco B and I did a few extra miles with Laura, and, in Hopewell, met Peter, Blake, Bagel-Hill Barry, and another Mark (he's quite tall; I am resisting the urge to call him Over-The-Mark or Measuring-Up-To-The-Mark, but my resolve is slipping). Laura had the idea to go to Sergeantsville, but then thought she wanted to show off the made-up Beaker to Michael at Wheelfine... anyway, we did this route, complete with doublings-back. On the way up, Barry lost a bottle, went back to find it, and while he was looking, ran into a desk that was in the road to be picked up as trash. He hurt himself, but not enough that he had to stop riding; he completed with us. (He admitted that, although his leg hurt, his pride hurt, too.)

On we went to the Sergeantsville Store, which has been taken over by an Indian family (although there's still a Far East Asian woman of some description doing some of the cooking); there was the most engaging little Indian girl working the counter! (But when I tried to get a picture, she was nowhere to be found.)

In order to get back to Wheelfine, Laura broke one of her own rules, and we went back almost exactly the same way we came in. We got to Wheelfine, and, while Laura was showing off the made-up Beaker bike to Michael, a few of the rest of us went inside the store to marvel at the glorious chaos inside. I'm not going to describe it; go see it yourself.

Then back. On the ride, we passed a few of the oxen of the Hopewell Valley Stampede, an art project; watch Laura's blog for an upcoming event. Laura had been told about a must-see piece right at a blind curve at Woosamonsa and Poor Farm (yeah, don't YOU wanna stop there?), but we weren't impressed; I got a picture... but there are better oxen; we saw a number of them.

Then back to the ride start, and then back to the car. On the way, we passed a garage sale with the most complete collection of lawn mowers and snowblowers. I wonder what the story of that might have been?

Pictures:  Below, Peter is hiding from Homeland Security, or something.

Terrible pictures of Beaker, below.

Michael at Wheefine.

The "must see" ox, with brown armor and chain mail. Ho-hum.

Need a lawnmower?