we're not back to normal

There are a few things that I remember specifically about today's ride. First of all, the Pig is not open yet, although we gathered there.

Second, I ducked into a porta-potty, after which Laura OLPH gave me a lecture and a peroxide wipe. I took both.

Third, we came across Ron M, Chris C, and Ken W, who might have been doing some of the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail. I didn't get pictures of them.

Fourth, we met Tom H in Sergeantsville, even though he didn't come with us.

Fifth, at the end, Ricky sounded like he was about done with social distancing rides. I like to ride, and I especially like to see my friends, but I don't think I can blame him.

We're not back to normal.

Ride page.

less facebook, i think

I think Facebook is making me less tolerant of people with whom I disagree. I think it stokes my outrage and diminishes my toleration. I'm afraid that, over time, there will be fewer and fewer people with whom I speak (and to whom I listen). I'm afraid of developing resentments against people who are friends, or trying to be friends.

I'm afraid I will become less civil, less polite. I don't want to rebuff well-intended advances from people trying to make them in good faith.

The echo chamber of people who already agree with me should not be the only place I put my ears.

I'm not cutting it off, but I'm not staying long, either.

arbitrary mileage ride

I don't usually adhere to arbitrary mileages on rides. For example, if we get to the end of a ride and my mileage shows 48.8, I don't do an extra trip around the block to get the computer to show 50.

And after yesterday's ride, I didn't want to commit to anything demanding. I figured I'd do a recovery ride today: maybe 20 miles, maybe pretty flat.

But then I noticed on my RideWithGPS page that I was less than 29 miles from breaking 1400 miles for the year. Pretty good for mid-May, even in a year that wasn't corona-crazy.

Well, that made a difference. I went to the route-plotting page and found that most of the convenient routes were either substantially less than, or substantially more than, the number I expected...

... but if I took a trip up Coppermine to do that 300' climb, I could get in a route that should be only a bit over the 29 miles. OK; I'll take the Krakow Monster, the heavy-but-comfortable bike, and take it slow up Coppermine.

So I wound up with this arbitrary mileage ride. And:

Dag. Five miles over. I thought I planned it better than that.

on the way back to normal

No, we're not there yet. But:

1. There was weather that seemed a bit more like what I'd expect for the season,
2. Several of us got together for a group ride, from a start that we've used before, and
3. I'm finally showing some decent speed on a long ride.

Tom H invited a few of us on a ride out of Bordentown. I rode down early, and saw Chris C and Jack H; Chris was doing a different ride.

It turned out I was in the wrong lot; when I rolled over to the correct one, the gang was mostly "assembled", although we were still keeping our social-distance:

You can barely see 'em in the pictures, right?

We decided to go out in two groups: a group of four and a group of three after that. I went out with the second group: Laura OLPH and Jack H. Jack got a factory-refurbished GPS of the same model I have, and I gave him some pointers on its strengths and vagaries.

We left Bordentown, and went through the Hanovers, and around the lake at Browns Mills. I caught Laura lookin' fast:

... and then lookin' a bit more recognizable:

No conversation as we were riding today, and little at the stops; we were too far away from each other.

The Excellent Wife (TEW) will know why I posted this picture.

We stopped at a park near Vincentown:

...but, of course, no cafe, no toilets, not much of anything (and the angle of the pictures doesn't really show the separations we were keeping).

The rest of the way back, the "two groups" was honored more in the breach than the observance, although we did maintain separations.At one point, a couple of riders blew by and I chased for a while. Old habits die hard.

Almost 56 miles at 15.8mph. I feel better about this ride than most I've done recently. Thanks to Tom for setting it up, and to the rest of the gang for coming along. Here's hoping we can resume regular Club rides soon.

tempus fugit

The birthday card from my sister reads:

... but I think what she's really asking is how can she be that age, minus the difference in our ages.

The excellent hand-stamped card is made by my brother-in-law. I think he ought to sell them.

canal road construction, porta potty at vets park

Mostly because I want to try to start remembering what I saw and when: I did this ride today. A few things to note:

First, there was construction or something on Canal Road (it might have been tree clearing):

Second, there's a porta-potty at Veteran' Park in Montgomery.

Third, despite the wind, I turned in a not-sucky average speed today.

disappointment, headwinds, and chickens.

All alone outside the Pig.

Several of the Insane Bike Posse, or the Hill Slugs, or maybe it was the Usual Suspects were planning to get together before riding our separate ways at the parking lot on Griggstown-Rocky Hill Road this morning. I haven't seen much of these folks (well, of course), so I got our the Yellow Maserati and left the house in plenty of time to get there.

Alas, I was about two miles along when I discovered the slow flat in the rear tire. I didn't want to fuss with it, so as fast as I dared, I rode back home, and set up the Krakow Monster... then as fast as I could (bucking the 15-mph-or-so headwind), I headed to the gathering place. 

By the time I got there, though, the only evidence that any of my friends had been there was Tom's car.

It was not to be the only disappointment of the day.

Earlier, I had checked out the website for Sourland Coffee, my favorite stop, and got this:

What? Timed out? I did a quick "whois" search, and found that their domain had expired on the first of the month. Well, that boded not well for their reopening. I decided to ride down there to see what the shape of the shop would be.

So, continuing to fight the headwind, I rode down through Princeton. On Rosedale Road, near Province Line, I saw three chickens feeding hear the gutter.

It's Princeton. Anything might happen.

I continued down Carter & Cold Soil to Federal City Road. I've passed Old Mill a few times, and wanted to see where it went, so I went over that and the end of Federal City, to see which I like better (and now I think there may never be a route where I'd have to make the decision!).

From there to the Pig, Sourland Coffee. On the door was a note with a number for UPS to call about redirection of packages. I didn't know if that was a good sign or not, so I took down the number to let that person know about the domain expiration. I got some pictures of the outside and through the windows...

Well, it's not empty. But the t-shirt I remember hanging on the wall is gone.

Oh, damn; I hope they come back.

I decided to see about some other stops. I took a pretty direct route up to Hopewell to the Boro Bean (and changing direction gave me a welcome tailwind, and a substantial increase to my average speed):

Open. And someone on the porch, deo gratias.

The Brick Market was hosting a farmers market...

...but the store itself was definitely closed. Nonetheless, it seems they might reopen after this isolation is lifted.

I whipped along 518, relishing the tailwind, seeing speeds I haven't seen in years. When I got to 206, I checked out Bagel Barn, famous for good bagels and wretched service:

So they're open. My Thomas Sweet in Montgomery, however...

The notice does leave hope for reopening. I'm clinging to that.

From there, the shortest route home is the wicked climb up 518 to Route 27 (no, thank you!), or my usual route up Canal Road, which is the way I went. I wound up with an exhausting 46.8 miles for this ride. It was more and harder than I should have gone; I'm still beat.

Since then, I've texted the number that was on the door of the Pig, and gotten a reply that there was a glitch with the domain. I'm hoping this means they have plans to reopen.

Oh, please.

a blustery day in may

Today's shadow. The wind blew all the clouds away.

 So I guess if we can get a crowd for a ride on a fine spring day in January, then, COVID-19 or no, it is only poetic justice (or something) that I ride alone on a day in mid-May where there was almost frost overnight, and it wasn't yet 40F at the time I left the house for the ride.

Welcome to spring in central Jersey.

I've been out in weather worse than this, and weekends are riding time (especially considering that The Excellent Wife [TEW]was up taking care of her 90-year-old mother last night and today, and I'm alone in the house), so I hopped on the bike after an early online WW meeting (on Zoom, of course). I wasn't sure how far, or where, I'd go; I wanted to see how demanding Aeolus, keeper of the winds, was going to be.

Aeolus gave a bag of all the winds to Odysseus, but I didn't have such luck; I had to deal with the winds out of captivity, so I decided to keep the ride down to about 30 miles (but I included a climb of Coppermine Road, which goes up about 300' in .8 of a mile). On the way, I passed the lot at Six Mile/Blackwells Mills, where one of the most popular mountain bike trails begins.

I wasn't surprised it wasn't open. When last I passed, last week, the lot was full with cars, and folks were not adhering to social distancing rules.

Neither was the road at Colonial Park open.

It's been weeks since I was there (and I didn't write about it when I went), but I remember riding on the park road, and being nervous about the number of people in the park and how close they were one to the other. I'd seen online that the park road was to be closed, and I wanted to see for myself. I think keeping the road closed was a wise decision on the part of the county administrators... although, with the reputation of Somerset County as a Republican stronghold, there may be some pushback from the voters.

Ride page linked here. Check out the elevation profile at the bottom; I had no idea that the top of the hill at Coppermine was so much higher than (for example) my house, where I started and finished.

what "white privilege" means

What would have happened next if those guys on the right had not been Caucasians?

Or how about these guys?

it's an ill wind that blows nobody good

I might keep the mask even after the coronavirus,

No stranger has tried to hug me any time I've worn this thing.

recovery & reconnoiter

After yesterday's ride, Laura OLPH had a route planned that was gonna go right by my usual rides, and she said she'd be there about 9:45am today. Well, the meeting place (at the parking area for the D&R towpath, on the Kingston-Rocky Hill Road below 518) was to close to go direct, so I plotted out a 20-mile route from home to there (it's about ten miles direct) including a couple of roads I might want to add to the rides I lead for the bike club. I left a smidge early, and wound up a bit faster than I expected, so before stopping at the parking area, I huffed and puffed my way up Coppermine Road (with the extra-heavy monstercross bike, the Krakow Monster) and whizzed down Old Georgetown, about doubling the overall climb for the rest of the ride.

I waited at the stop, and saw a rider coming up Kingston-Rocky Hill Road. I turned out to be Jack H. Shortly thereafter, we saw Laura.

WE chatted for a bit (Laura's got an idea for a long ride that might be social-distancing-friendly), and then they went off to roll up towards Manville (Jack thought better of it and changed direction after a bit). I decided to ride through the grounds of the old State Village for Epileptics in Montgomery.

I like to come down from the north to Route 518 in that area, and then go to the Thomas Sweet on 206 in Montgomery. There's a stream that runs parallel to 518, and it means there's a dip in the rod and a subsequent climb. I've tried a few ways to find a less-worse way to do it, and I thought maybe if we went out to 601 in Skillman, maybe it would be better, and we could go out through the old hospital grounds and come back on 518. It depended what that stretch of 601 looks like.

It looks like this:

Yeah, there's still that dip and the climb on the other side. I was doing it in reverse today, so I turned around to do the climb, and... nope. Especially with the extra traffic on 601, that's not a great alternative.

Oh, well.

At that point, I had about 27 miles in. I figured without too much stretch, I could get 40 in for a 100-mile weekend, and I had a little more exploration I wanted to do of those roads in Millstone and Montgomery. I came back down Canal Road, and met Laura AGAIN - she asked how my alternative route had worked out, and I replied with an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable to register my disappointment.

(After I got home, I found out that The Excellent Wife [TEW], on her bike trip today, had also met Laura on the road. I swear, neither of these later meetings were planned.)

From there, home by the usual route. I wound up with 45 miles, making this the first 100-mile weekend of the year. Here's hoping for more!

finally seeing friends, and 65 for 65

Group rides for our bike club, the Princeton Freewheelers, have been cancelled for weeks. As noted in Tom H's blog, some of us have been gathering for meetings on Zoom. But it's not the same as riding together.

While they haven't been riding together, some of Tom's Insane Bike Posse have been riding to a meeting point, and hinging out for a few minutes, shouting at each other at a "social distance" (see some of the pictures from this post in Laura OLPH's blog).

I haven't been going. I've been a bit freaked about the whole COVID-19 thing.

But with the governor opening the parks this weekend, I thought I might like to meet the gang. Tom suggested a meeting at a location in Bordentown, 30 miles from me one-way over roads that are not the most bike-friendly. But he talked about a start from the Mercer Park East Picnic Area, a much-more-reasonable 20 miles away, over less-threatening roads. I could make their 9:30 am meetup easily if I left the house at 7:30, and the weather looked cooperative.

I made it so easily that I was half an hour early. There weren't many in the lot.

I decided to make the most of the time by rolling over to the main entrance to the park. It might be hard to maintain social distance on the park path, so I went by road. The entrance sign warned:

but I figured that all would be right in the world because they spelled "cancelled" with two L's, the way I prefer. (Yes, I made a point of getting a picture of the sign. In fact, I got three; this is the best of the lot.)

I rolled back to see that folks had arrived, and they were, in fact, (mostly) masked and keeping social distance.

After some in-person chat, we decided to go our separate ways. Some of them were riding with Tom for at least a while; I was going my own way. As I was fiddling around with the bike GPS, up rolled Peter G, just that bit too late to have met anyone else.

We also chatted for a bit, and went off.

I had only about twenty miles to get home... but I have a sixty-fifth birthday around the corner. Now, among our bike club members, there's a tradition that the old geezers (well, we're mostly in that crowd) should ride their age in miles around their birthdays. Mine comes early in the riding season, so I haven't done it most years, and I decided, since I was on my own today, that I would. Instead of going straight back, I set a route that I thought would add enough miles...

...and it mostly did. I was a few miles short as I was closing in on home, so I turned south as I neared home and retraced my earlier steps (or pedalstrokes), until I got home with just over 65 miles.

Happy birthday to me.