covered bridges

One of the things you learn on a covered bridge ride, where the covered bridges are real and not restored artifacts (like the one near Sergeantsville), is that every covered bridge is the gateway to an uphill.

Including this one.

(A portion of that picture will be the background of the Princeton Freewheeler web page for a while.)

Tom H's listing said:

• This will be a hilly ride through three covered bridges on the PA side of the Delaware. The ride will be 45 to 50 miles with a few steep climbs but I promise some good scenery and downhills.

 He provided the route link, which promised 3200' of climb, and despite that (and the knowledge that Tom sometimes likes to torture his riders), six of us came out, including the long-lost Mike M, here shown with Tom H.

The rest of us (besides y'r ob'd't, Plain Jim) were Ricky G, Jack H, Robert N, and Laurie, who is new to me, but was apparently known to the others. (She must have been; they were not much better-behaved than usual, as I expect they might have been were a comparative stranger present.)

About eight or ten miles in, Mike had the good sense to turn back. I'm sure we were meant to think that his legs weren't up to the hills, but I think the deterioration of the level of the bad puns and gossip likely had more to do with it.

There WAS a lot of climbing: a decent few near the start got us up to Wismer Road, and then to Uhlerstown and Erwinna. Tom's got a new GPS, and we had a few discussions about the route (I'm no stranger to those), but we kept to it.

As promised, there were covered bridges.

Just before the drop on Bridgeton Hill Road, we had discussions about leaving space for each other on that downhill, and about ambulances and wills, and the like. But we all made it down to the stop at Black Eddy... as, apparently, did every other person with a bike along the Delaware.

It was good to see all those riders out. There were others out, too, not on bikes, and some of them didn't seem to know what to make of us. Don't worry; we're not as scary as those other biker gangs.

We sat where we could.

We returned on the Jersey side of the Delaware. Once again we climbed up to the ridge, but this was a bit more forgiving that the other. It was a great day.

The last descent was down Federal Twist, on which one of our number has had some drama. We mostly did not take it at breakneck speed (you can call it cowardice; I call it prudence), and made it back to the start at a reasonable pace. You can see my ride page here.

With perhaps more ambition than discretion, I've listed a ride for tomorrow AND a ride at the All-Paces on Monday. Perhaps you'll want to come out and see how crippled I really am!