local barbershop

 I got back from the barber a few minutes ago, and this came out of my head.

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The crones, or almost-crones
Giving the haircuts, are standing at chairs
Marked with the names of the men (all of them were men)
Who gave haircuts in these places forty years ago.

But they were not the first barbers here. In the arms
Of the chairs are ashtrays, now clean,
But still with the memory of ashes, from when
Everybody smoked at the barber’s. On the counters

Are products I only remember seeing
When I was getting 25¢ haircuts, beside men
Who looked old to me then, although they
Were decades younger than I am now.

This floor has had hair swept from men
Who fought Nazis, or North Koreans,
Or who could make a living with only
A strong back and a willing attitude.

The pictures by the licenses are of grandchildren
Rather than of lovers and parties of their youth.
And despite my directions, and the crone’s obedience,
My hair comes out in a style from a movie
That was popular twenty years before I was born.

 

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I almost never write poetry (I wrote one about a year ago, and none before that for decades), and I have no idea where this came from.

brother-in-law to go to hospice, and other stuff

 I heard yesterday that my sister's husband is being evaluated for hospice after a series of medical problems including a recent broken hip. 

I am trying to be supportive of my sister.

I've had a cold and didn't ride this weekend. I haven't ridden much recently, partly due to other commitments. These include a voice-over part for a production of the Performing Arts Club of the over-55 community in which I live, and the out-of-state wedding of my favorite niece.

Some of these are new opportunities, which I'm enjoying... still, the news about the brother-in-law, on top of the recent death of a nephew, has me out of sorts.

small no-pace ride

 A number of the club cyclists planned to do one of the organized rides today (one of which is the locally-famous Central Bucks Covered Bridges Ride), but I didn't get my act together to go (and I wasn't ready to take on the elevation in the Covered Bridges ride), so I posted one of my no-pace rides instead. The Excellent Wife (TEW) agreed to come out, but all of the other registrants could easily have taken on a much more demanding ride... Nonetheless, five of us (including TEW and me) came out.

We do the usual, easy, 21-ish-mile flat route, initially at a chatty pace, and then we picked it up a bit as the ride continued. The group sets the pace of this ride: if I have slower riders, I ride in the back with them; if not, the group set the pace (I've brought up the rear pretty regularly on this ride). 

When we got up to the turn onto Culver Road, TEW engaged in her usual practice of cutting through the bagel shop parking lot to avoid a confusing left turn at a five-points intersection. The rest of us got caught at the light, and TEW pulled way out in front... and then stayed there for miles. She later said that she wasn't worried about the rest of us catching up, and, in truth, I guess she didn't need to be.

Peter R brought out his fixie.

If you've got a bike that may not be suited to most group rides, this is the one on which to bring it. Peter said, though, he wouldn't do it again: since the pedals can't be moved easily to (for example) a convenient starting position, it's not a perfect bike for a group ride. (I hadn't thought of that. Years ago, there was a vogue for fixies on group rides. Nobody complained about the problem, but perhaps nobody wanted to admit that it was a problem for them.

We stopped at the Southfield McCaffreys.

It's a better stop than you would think.

And back. Raj rolled off a bit early because he'd ridden in. Laura OLPH griffed up her miles a bit by riding part of the way back withe me, before heading back to her car.

I'll keep doing these. Come on out, if you're an interested club member - or even if you're not a clb member; you get one for free.

new brunswick bike exchange ride

 Some of youse already know about the New Brunswick Bike Exchange (see also Facebook link). We take bike donations, and either rebuild them and sell them at low cost, or strip them for parts that we can use on the bikes we do sell. I'm a co-manager of the all-volunteer staff, and I wish I could have taken credit for organizing the ride today (it DOES sound like a co-managerial thing to do), but the truth is that one of our weekend volunteers, Baratier Erebus du Halm, set the whole business up.

That's the founder of the feast, on the left, above.

We were a crew of six, with varying interests and abilities. We left from Washington Crossing and went up the D&R Canal at a conversational pace to Lambertville.

It was a lovely fall day, with temperatures as if it were the end of May.

Once in Lambertville, we did a walk around, stopped for lunch at El Tule, a Peruvian restaurant there, and came back, again at a stately pace.

My thanks to the volunteers, both for their service to the Bike Exchange, and for allowing me to participate in such a delightful day.

Ride page.

weekend rides

 It's been a while since I've done a ride longer than about ten miles around the neighborhood. I got out on two this weekend.

Tom H posted a club ride out of Freehold, heading through Middletown and Atlantic Highlands to Sandy Hook, then down through Sea Bright and Tinton Falls back to Freehold.

That route brings us by the Route 35 Scary Clown. Martin and Laura OLPH decided they needed Scary Clown pictures, and I decided I needed pictures of the two of them getting Scary Clown pictures.

Tom hadn't counted on the traffic on Kings Highway and the other local roads. He usually does this route around the Jewish holidays, which has limited the traffic in the past, but apparently not so this year. I found the traffic on these roads with no shoulder to be enervating; I was downhearted for the next several miles. Tom later told me I was acting like an old man, and he wasn't wrong.

But the path at the shore, and then Sandy Hook, helped me get back on track again.

And back. We kept up a pretty hot pace (for us), and ended up with 60 miles for the day, with a little climb and some wind. For the last few miles, I decided to let the group go ahead, and slow-rolled back to the start (hey, it's not a race, and I knew where I was going!) Go check the ride page.

---

For today, I'd posted a variation of one of my regular routes, from Franklin down through Princeton (but through a neighborhood rather than along Route 27), and up to Hopewell and back. I got twelve takers, many capable of faster paces than the posted pace. After having done 60 miles the day before, I was a bit concerned about having the energy to keep up, but I did well enough that I could keep up with the group, and check in regularly with the three new (to me) riders and make sure they were OK.

As happens on some of my rides, there was a very fast group that went off the front. At first, they would wait at turns, but then they just started taking the turns and proceeding. None of the other riders appeared to complain or have problems, and we did stop a few times for water and breath.

 We stopped at the Boro Bean.

On the way back, I discovered I'd inadvertently routed the group onto 206. Two were off the front, and I couldn't see them, so I don't know the route they took, but I re-routed the remainder onto less trafficky roads, and then across the canal and back.

About three miles from the end, we came upon the off-the-front pair; one had had to make a panic stop; the other had gone over behind him. While the rider was apparently upset, there was no sign of personal injury... but the derailleur hanger had sacrificed itself to save the rear mech. The bike was not in rideable condition. We were close enough to the end to arrange for a pick-up... and a text exchange later in the afternoon elicited that the rider was at the shop having the hanger changed out, and was little the worse for wear.

Ride page.

Enough bike drama. I'm going back to my cranky retired guy life.