avoiding the flood: last ride of the year

 It rained last week.

This was on top of rain that had caused flooding (and the closure of the causeways at Griggstown and Blackwells Mills) the week before. The causeways had reopened, but the ground was still so wet, that last week's rain flooded them (and a number of other low-lying roads and bridges in the area) again. The rain that came was not intense, but for a couple of days, it was unrelenting.

Not only were the causeways closed, but the water levels kept rising more than a day after the rain stopped.

Now, when I post rides out of the Claremont School, I ALWAYS cross one of the causeways I mentioned, and sometimes both. So when it looked like the causeways might still be closed for today's ride, I considered not posting anything...

... and then I thought, "Maybe I can start a ride at that Veterans Park in Montgomery". The park is called Montgomery Veterans Park. So I adjusted a route that goes to that Italian Bakery in Raritan, and came up with a route of 37 miles. That's pretty good!

When I tried to post the ride, though, Google decided that Montgomery Veterans Park is in Belle Mead, rather than Montgomery, and you can't get the address of the entrance, so I had to post the address as, "across from 196 Harlingen Road, Belle Mead". 

Whatever. All seven of my registrants found the start, although some were at the UPPER lot, while I (and some others) were at the LOWER lot. The lower lot is the one with the porta-potty (and the restrooms open, in season). I rode back-and-forth between the lots, assuring people they were in more-or-less the right place, and we'd be sure to collect everybody before we got onto the route.

The route. Here's another case of RideWithGPS routing software hugely underestimating the climb: the route plan was 34.7 miles with about 1100' of climb. Laura OLPH said she thought it might be a flat route... 

... but there's that climb on East Mountain (not as bad as the annoying hill in the other direction, but you do have to get over the same elevation), and the hill at River Road onto South Branch Road, and that other hill on South Branch Road, and the one just before Old York, and a few bumps on Roycefield, and you gotta get up Amwell to Amsterdam...

... and the next thing you know, you're ending the ride with 1600' of climb in the 35-miles-or-so. (But the link shows we brought it in right in the middle of the C+ range, despite having some fast horses along.)

And speaking of the fast horses, my thanks to them for letting an old guy make believe he can keep up with 'em.

I love that Italian Bakery. The bake-y stuff is good, and I don't get complaints about the quality of the coffee. And they treat us decently.

So that's the last ride for the year. According to my RideWithGPS page, I logged a little over 4500 miles this year on 231 rides. That's a pretty good number of days on the bike, but not as many miles as I'd hoped; I hope to do more in 2024. And I led 36 rides for the club; not as many as the 40 I had hoped for, but weather and life's demands got in the way. 

And I wish I had a fancy, pithy button-up for the end of this last post for the year, but I don't. Here's wishing youse health and success, and good company.

electric boots with an iphone app

 

Dave H posted a club ride for today out of Skillman Park, with what RideWithGPS said was gonna be about 1600' of climb. A number of my favorite club members were registered, and I decided to go. 

The first other person at the start was Heddy.

Heddy had a new toy for the cold weather: battery-driven heated socks, connected to an app on her phone for controls and reporting on the state of the batteries (one for each leg). Another rider remembered Elton John's lyric from Bennie and the Jets:

She's got electric boots, a mohair suit,
Y'know I read it in a magazine...

And the others:

Dave hadn't apparently planned on a stop, but the route passes the Boro Bean in Hopewell, and the sense of the meeting was to have a stop there. 

Shortly after we started, we turned west onto Skillman Road to face the perpetual headwind, for which Laura OLPH took credit (if there's not a wind from the west on Skillman Road, then something dire is happening with the weather). Then we started the climb up Hollow Road towards Zion, and then further up on Lindbergh... and I got the suspicion that the reported 1600' of climb at RideWithGPS might be an underestimate. My device was already reporting 900', and it told me we had three more rated climbs (the GPS device has a function that rates climbs if they are long and steep enough. I regularly have more of them than fellow riders on their devices; I tell them that this is because my device is in "old man mode"). I remember complaining that I was too old be be doing climbs like this; Heddy later pointed out that I was saying this as I was passing her on an uphill. (Don't worry: Heddy passed me often enough that I won't get a swollen head.)

A few of us at the Boro Bean:

And between us and a few other riders there, there was a gorgeous chaos of bikes.

I noticed Dave saddling up as if to go, and others doing the same. We got started on the route again, but we'd left several behind who weren't ready to come out with us yet. They pointed out the problem when they caught up with us. It shouldn't happen, and it can be a problem with large groups. Edit:  I have been confronted about the way I originally wrote about this. I have removed the offending language.

On we went. Dave had set the route so we avoided some of the worst short, sharp shock hills and the worst traffic; I may use some of these roads on my future rides. We went the other way on Opossum, which means we went DOWN the hill that's so unpleasant when you go UP it, and we went the right way across the one-way bridge. Laura pointed out that it was more pleasant this way... but that way doesn't go the way I usually want to go!

Ghina, Stacey, and EZ mugging at the end:

Yeah, and remember that reported 1600' of climb? The ride page says it was actually over 2000'. RideWithGPS routing climb estimates may have the reliability of Tiktok influencers. Just sayin'.

last ride before xmas

 Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and my Polish wife's family still do all the Wigilia stuff: the celebration is on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day, there will be a number of different dishes, but none with meat (because on Christmas Eve, the animals* talked about the birth of Jesus, and you don't eat creatures with whom you might be in conversation at some point), the celebrations go on forever (so don't plan on doing anything else for the day). So I wont do a ride Sunday (for Christmas Eve) or Monday (for Christmas). So today's last-minute-listed-by-Laura OLPH-ride will do for the last ride before Christmas for me (and who's writing this blog post, anyway? Who else counts?).

*Either the fish didn't talk about the birth, or nobody was around to poll them about their views, because there is usually a plethora of fish dishes at the Wigilia celebration. One of the traditional ones is referred to as "Greek Fish", but it's Greek in about the same way as The French Disease is French. "Greek Fish" contains catsup (at least in the versions with which my Polish in-laws are familiar), so calling the fish "Greek" is a slander on things Hellenic.

This isn't much about a bike ride yet, is it?

Laura listed this ride late yesterday (late, partly out of busy-ness, and partly, I think, out of a desire to keep the riff-raff out). I found out about it from an email, and signed up. Ten of us started.

Tom H has been having some health issues, but came to chat anyway.

 Laura had chosen one of Tom's routes through New Egypt (after deciding the we, or she, or all of us needed a flatter route today). We'd done the route with Tom a few months ago; I like this one - we pass the longhorn farm, and there's a stop at Charleston Coffee and the attached bagel shop.

Longhorn farm?

Yes, longhorn farm. And if we pass anything bovine, Laura's gonna stop for pictures. As did Martin, above.

Above in grey, Eric H. We haven't seen much of him for a while due to medical issues, either; I'm glad he's back.

On to Charleston Coffee for the stop.

(I ducked out a bit early to cross at the traffic light. The mid-block crossing-and-left-turn, above, while not really dangerous, is more stressful than an old guy like me needs. And I got that pic at the top of the post from it.)

This is one of those front-loaded routes, where the stop comes 28 miles into this 43-mile route, and the fifteen miles back is more direct (well, direct for bike-friendly roads, anyway). You can go check it out on the ride page.

And so, tomorrow, while I'm doing the best I can to feel fellowship with the in-laws, I'll have this pleasantness as fuel for my patience and forbearance.

christmas songs in a minor key

 Now that Christmas is less than a week away, I feel comfortable sharing this one. I have a number of personal holiday traditions, including three involving the Dickens A Christmas Carol: I read it each year in text, and I read it aloud among the other readers at the Princeton Library/McCarter Theater Christmas Carol Read-Aloud, and I watch at least one movie (this year it was the Jim Carrey 3D one; while it has the advantage to me of general fidelity to the Dickens text [I can quote along with it], the horse-drawn hearse chase at the end is entirely unnecessary).

But that's not what this post is for. Nor are the other personal holiday traditions that I don't tell youse about.

The one I am telling about is about Dodie's Christmas Songs in a Minor Key. Dodie is a singer-songwriter with a delightful hippie-esque look. Much of her music I can take or leave, but she's taken to making a video at this time of year, of... well, Christmas songs in minor keys. Or interesting time signatures, or some other neat adjustment.

There are about half-a-dozen of these; I'll link to two:

I love them. If you love them, too, you're welcome. If you don't, don't tell me, please. Merry Christmas.

some different roads

 

It was late in the week before Laura OLPH got to emailing around her plan for the ride she was going to lead today, and it was only last night that she got it listed on the club's calendar. But since we knew we were planning on going, we got signed up, and six of us went off on the ride today from Twin Pines. (Maybe I didn't get pictures of everybody.)

Laura had said she wanted to try some different roads, and a different stop in Lambertville. Yeah, I'm up for that. So off we went on the route she'd set up.

One of different roads was Mine Road west of Stony Brook. It's a different road from the ones we usually take in that neighborhood, largely because it climbs about 100 feet in about two-tenths of a mile. I was too busy breathing hard to complain at the time.

Another of the different roads (like, do you think I had any idea where we were at the time?) brought us to a farm with cows, triggering the obligatory photo stop.

This vista was better in person than shows in the picture.

 We rolled into Lambertville, and stopped at the new-to-me Lambertville Bakehouse, where the clerks sang the praises of a product called a bostock, a slice of Japanese milk bread, sugared and covered with almonds. Not real sweet, it had what I refer to as a "grown up" taste. They weren't wrong; I liked it. We haven't been there in the year-and-a-half they've been open; here's wishing them success and longevity.

Out front, in the rack where some of us put the bikes, was a cute girls bike.

I didn't notice until Heddy pointed it out, but the basket is unique: it's a plastic Tupperware-like thing, held on with blue painter's tape. Ingenious! I hope it works!

On the way back, we rode for a few miles on 579 Linvale-Harbourton Road. No shoulder, and lots of traffic; dozens of cars passed us in the three-or-so miles we rode it. I found the experience enervating, and when we turned onto Woosamonsa, I slow-pedaled to try to get my composure back again.

The "try some different roads" thing reminds me of a story Joe M told me about Joe McBride, for whom the old McBride Rides were named. The two Joes would go riding together, and Joe McBride would complain about riding the same old roads and plan to ride on roads they didn't often ride... and then would complain about the conditions of those roads: traffic, surfaces, hills, and so on. The other Joe would remind him that we often ride the same roads, because we know that their condition would be conducive to a safe, pleasant ride. Still, sometimes it pays to do something different.

Go check out the ride page (yeah, I know you won't do it, but Imma link to it anyways).