hounds and high water

 I went out for a slow solo ride this morning (in order to be available to get The Excellent Wife [TEW] from the airport later). I was making up the route as I went, with sort-of the intention of coming back across the Griggstown Causeway.

About fourteen miles in, though, I was flagged down by John W, who stopped to chat for a bit. In passing, he mentioned that the canal was flooded. I had noticed that the water was high when I came across at Blackwells Mills, but I had been able to cross... so I presumed he meant at Griggstown, which is more prone to flood.

I turned around to go back to cross at Blackwells Mills. The water was high.

Adding to the entertainment at the time, though, were a couple of loose dogs (obviously well-cared-for, although I don't know anything about canine breeds or whatever), out for a stroll, and not really caring about the chaos they caused to the traffic.

In the last picture, you can see a couple of the drivers trying to round them up and get the off the road before they were hurt. It was clear I wasn't going to be able to add anything useful to the situation.

Ride page.

bbc on why i'm always lost

 See article on why people can't tell right from left.

Apparently, it's as common as one in six.

midweek ride

 

I found myself with some unexpected free time yesterday, and friend Judy F was leading a ride, so I dragged along. It turns out the start is close to home; I left far too much travel time and was early. 

This was to be the first long ride on the new handlebar setup, so the short-ish planned distance (27 miles), and the pace (a degree slower than I usually go*) were a good fit for the day. And what a day it was: not hot, breezy, clear  - a great day for a ride.

*I need to admit that, in my decline, my pace IS slowing. While I can keep up with club rides listed at the pace I go, I'm no longer at the front, and the rides at the next pace down don't feel draggy. We have a club rule about "if you're off the front, you're on your own," but in these days of devices with turn-by-turn directions, it's common for group rides to split into faster and slower groups. I find myself in the slower group on some rides, and the faster group on others, or sometimes both on the same ride.

Judy apparently has a route she likes and does the same route each time; it looks like this. The break comes at Grover's Mill Coffee, about ten miles into this 26-ish mile route.

(I had a LOT of pictures that didn't come out on this ride. Contact me if you want some blurry, barely-recognizable images.)

The early stop gave me an opportunity to complain (there weren't many; I really had to dig). And how do you know if I'm having a good time if I'm not complaining?

Judy's route goes through neighborhoods I don't know, in towns that are close to me. I remember asking Mitch at one point, "Are we still in New Jersey?" "Kansas", was his reply.

A little while later, I asked, "Did you say 'Kansas' before, so I'd say later, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore' "?

"I wondered if you'd pick up on that," he said.

New handlebar setup: The bars put me in a more forward-leaning position. It puts the weight on a different part of my hands, which I'm not used to, and I find I move around the bars frequently for comfort. But I didn't find I got the pins-and-needles, hands-going-to-sleep feeling I got on the other bars, which I tried to manage by using gloves with padding across the full palm (that solution was only partially successful). Friend Ron A points out (on Facebook) that the new bar is a Cinelli 66 Campione del Mondo, so it's got racing cred (far beyond my league, but it pleases my retrogrouchy heart), so I intend to continue with it. The on-the-hoods position gets me a little lower than previously, and out of the wind, and (so far) my back has not registered any complaints about the new posture.

Good ride, good people to ride with. Judy doesn't do this ride every week, but I'm going to start looking for it.

memorial day all-paces

 Mostly, you'll want to see the photo album on the FreeWheeler website; it's at this page.

But I took a C ride on the All-Paces yesterday...

... which was mostly memorable to me for two things: Anthony G's beautiful Basso:

 (How many lovely bikes does he have?)

... and the fact that we pulled into Allentown minutes before a parade was to start. We did manage to get through, but I think a number of the locals thought that we were the overture to the symphony that was to follow. (I gotta find an alternate route in case we're a minute later next year...)

We did this route. Afterwards, Paul Kimball pointed out a minor correction that will keep us off the dangerous Robbinsville-Allentown Road (county 526), which I will also incorporate for the future.

(Paul, if you see this: that saddle is the Selle Anatomica.)

(I got ANOTHER flat on the Krakow Monster. I need to review the whole tires/tubes situation on that bike.)

I also got a couple of leads for Ramblin' Wrench/mechanic business. I'm starting to get busy; this may turn into something.

unusual for the usual

 

Tom H, who knows something about riding bikes in New Jersey, scheduled a club ride for today out of Bordentown.

Above, that's Kyle, whose last name I didn't get. He's not a member; this was his trial ride. I was relentless about plugging the club. I hope I didn't drive him off!

It was gonna be warm enough (and flat enough) that a few of us thought it was gonna be a good idea. 40-45ish miles, not a lotta climbing (Burlington County has the topography of typing paper), some prettiness in Roebling, Bordentown, Burlington City.

Now: One (or maybe more) of the things on which you can usually depend on a ride that Tom leads is a road under construction, or a closed bridge, or both. And while he did lead us along a park path between Old York Road and Roebling, that didn't seem to be enough; nor did the short stint in the park at which the pictures above were taken. We were about 60% through the route, and I was wondering where the weird stuff was, when we pulled in for a planned stop at the Jacksonville Deli.

It was dark. And closed.

We quickly adjusted plans to stop at a deli in Columbus... but more important to me is that my faith in Tom was restored, because a closed rest stop definitely trumps a closed road or closed bridge on a ride like this.

In Columbus:

Ride page.

shoulders of giants

 At the board meeting of the Princeton Freewheelers last night, I heard that an anonymous donation had been made to the club, and with it, two ride leaders had been named as having been the precipitants of the donation. Christine R was one, and I was the other.

I'm honored, of course. But everything I know, I learned from other leaders: many good, some exceptionally bad. I will, of course, inevitably leave some out, but among those from whom I have learned the most (in alphabetical order):

• Tom Hammel
• Dave Hepburn
• Ken Leon
• Laura Lynch
• Joe Miller
  
• Al Porter
  
• Don Sprague

Thanks to all those on this list, and apologies to those whose names should have been here, but I forgot them.

the rain never came

Early in the week, the predictions for rain for today were dire, so Laura OLPH planned a route with places where we could shorten and return if the weather proved uncooperative. Nine of use showed up for the ride. But at the start, we had a pleasant surprise:

Andrew A was in town for a day for something-or-other, off from his sabbatical at Cornell. He's rented out the house and was staying in a hotel, and had an hour or so before he had to check out, so he rode in to see who was going to be at the start of Laura's ride!

(My uncooperative camera didn't catch the others.)

Laura's route led us up into the Sourlands and then back to the Boro Bean. 

John K had brought his lovely Yasujiro, with all the Campagnolo doodads. (Is putting Campy parts on a Japanese frame inappropriate cultural appropriation of some kind or other?)

Below, John went for the whole kit, including hat and gloves.

I'd be jealous, except I know I'd never have the guts to actually ride such a beautiful thing. 

Of course, Ricky had his Cinelli...

(So much excellence in one picture!)

There may be no such thing as a bad bike.

On the way back, we were looking to add miles, and then the wind kicked up, so the ride page shows our loopy peregrinations.

And, of course, the threatened rain never did come.

I've got a shorter one for tomorrow. Y'wanna come?

pfw fall picnic, and road closed

 

 

The Princeton Freewheelers All-Paces Rides and Fall Picnic was yesterday, and, while I led nine of us on this ride, the most important thing about it for this blog, I think is the photo album hosted on the PFW web page. Click the four-arrow icon at the lower right of the Picnic album to get the slideshow at a size you can actually see. Thanks to Luis Chen for some of the pics.

I happened to mention to Neil Cherry that I'd like to have a route that went to Charleston Coffee instead of the one I had, and within an hour or two he had sent me this. It's way better than what I'd come up with, and I'm grateful. Next time I need a 27-miler out of Tall Cedars Picnic Area, expect I'll use that.

 

---

Today, while about fifty of the active club members were off doing the Sprague Memorial Century (or at least a part of it), I led a ride with four members out of Claremont. We did one of my routes that goes through Prtinceton, then to Hopewell and Montgomery before heading back. Except for tired legs on Prretty Brook Road, it was uneventful until we got to Bayberry Road:

Well, I'm not a regular in Tom H's Insane Bike Posse for nothin', you know. So I decided we'd press ahead. 

The first bridge was open...

So was the second. But then:

We debated going back to Carter or down to Elm Ridge... but the somebody (probably Dave) noticed that the creek was dry, and we might be able to walk and carry the bikes to the other side.

It's a trick I took from Tom H's book, although not one of the ones he's actually published.

We stopped at Boro Bean, as had a few other bikes.

The rest of the ride was uneventful, although we went faster than I like to go. (I'll get complaints about the speed. Don't worry about it; if you'd been along, you know we would have adjusted without comment or complaint.)