mercer county juneteenth ride

 

Today was the third annual Juneteenth Freedom Day Ride, and the first (I think) out of Mercer Park, in support of (among other things) the Samuel McCoy III scholarship fund. They had routes of 35, 50, and 75 miles. I decided to do the 50 mile route (gimme a break: I'm 68 years old, and I'm leading club rides each of the next two days, and this route had over 2000' of climb). I sent around an email to some of The Usual Suspects to see if anybody was interested, and Bob N and Laura OLPH expressed some interest. They became my mini-team.

At the start:

Above in red, telling somebody where to go, is Doug Smarr, the coordinator of the event.

Bob N and I are early risers, and I missed the bit about the start time for the 50-miler being 9am, so we set a 7:30 start time (and we wondered why nobody was passing us -- no wonder, when we were an hour-plus ahead of 'em! Laura was gentle when she pointed out how I'd missed the instructions, despite her not being an early riser). 

So we were first to the Bethel AME Church on Hollow Road, which was to be open for visits today. The caretaker was kind enough to let us in.

There was a wonderful story about a man associated with the church whose name was Trueheart. When Lindbergh was trying to buy up all of the local property, Trueheart refused to sell, and penned an eloquent letter explaining the importance of his home to his family. I love it that someone refused to sell to a man so powerful as Lindbergh was at the time.

(Laura pointed out that there were two hills in the Sourlands that were worse than they looked, and this route hit both of 'em.)

At the stop at Sourland Cycles.

(I worked at Sourland for about a month, a year or two ago, and it was not a great fit. Luckily, the staff there either didn't recognize me, or I successfully ditched 'em.)

The three of us decided to repair to the Boro Bean, down the street, for a somewhat better quality of empty calories. Some of the other riders started passing us.

As we were coming back through Pennington, we met another group of riders, and got to talking about other rides, and the Princeton FreeWheelers club. I started a speech about how the $35 dues is less than some of us spend at Starbucks in a month. Evidently I got heated; Bob rolled back to be sure I wasn't involved in a disagreement. On the contrary: there was a rider who apparently follows these blog posts, and appeared happy to meet me when he found who I was. I'm still all flustered about that.

Bob and I cut through the park to save a couple of dodgy left turns to finish the ride, and were able to witness another rider successfully avoid a "left hook" (a car, to his left, that without warning, turns right in front of him; it can be a dangerous experience). We rode along with the fellow for a while to ensure he had no ill effects from the close call, but he appeared fine.

At the end:

I got a less-complimentary picture of the person above, and she very sensibly made me delete it and get another one.

I liked this ride. Imma plan to do it again.

mutant pump

 

Splice in the hose.

When Jimmy Bruno was still alive and running his shop in Allentown, I bought this pump from him:

Get a load of that beauty. The pump was tall enough so that I could fill a 700x28 tire in nineteen strokes, the gauge was up where I could see it, and the hose was long enough that it would reach both tires on a bike that I had hanging from the garage ceiling. (I'd have to arrange the upper tire so that the valve was near the bottom, but still -- with my bad back, it was better than bending over.)

The careful reader will have noticed the usage of the past tense in that sentence. Alas, the pump gave up the ghost; the valve that kept the air from filling back into the pump after each stroke, died. I tried opening the pump to see if I could fix it, but the sealed module stymied my efforts.

Now, glasses will fix the visibility of the gauge, and a few extra strokes are no big thing, but that fill-the-tire-while-the-bike-is-still-hanging-up thing is a real loss. So I decided to see what I could do.

I cut the long hose, with the head attached, from that pump, and looked for a cheap pump to try to mate it with. Harbor Freight, of the cheap-and-questionable tools, has a pump for about $20. The head will only fit Schrader valves, but I'm gonna cut that off, anyway.

So I get that pump, and cut both hoses. Each has an inner diameter of about 1/8", jammed onto a fitting of about 1/4". So I figure I'll get a 1/4" barb fitting to fit the two hoses together.

Now, if you want the fitting, it's available online, for between $2-5. Shipping adds about another $20. What? One of the ways to cut the shipping cost is to buy in bulk, but what are you going to do with a hundred of em? So you go to the Home Depot site, and you see they have one that they will deliver to your local store in South Brunswick.

The item gets lost in shipping, and then you get a message a week later that it's in the store, but hasn't been set in the deliver locker. Three days later, you go to the store with the printout, and the friendly clerk tells you that their system says it's still in transit. And two days later, you get a message that the item is really no longer in stock, and they're refunding the charge.

So you contact Lowes, which has 'em in the East Brunswick store, and you get it the next day. 

 You get the item home, and you realize that, while the pieces from the old pump were about 1/4" wide, the barbed fitting you wanted should have been the 1/8" variety. So with a judicious application of heat and profanity, you get the hose ends far enough onto the fitting to work, and hold 'em on with some worm clamps. Go see the top picture.

Does it work? Well enough. The cheap pump doesn't like pressures over about 80psi, so it takes some force to get it up to the 90psi I like to ride on. But it does inflate the tire that's hanging from above. And its long enough that I don't have to move the valve to the bottom.

And it looks marvellously dumb.

It's good enough for now.

(I think I'm going to have to face the fact that, even among bike enthusiasts, I'm a bit of an eccentric.)

meet the bike rabbi

 

Friend Matt F has started a bike blog. Go read his first post.

He's got a lotta damn gall writing such a good first post. As I let him know over on Facebook, I might forgive him, but it wont be soon.

gettin' dragged to that italian bakery

I didn't expect to be available to lead a ride today, so friend Eric H agreed to lead in my absence, and given his feelings for that Italian Bakery in Raritan, and the availability of a better route, it wasn't any surprise that he chose that for the stop. Nor was it any surprise that twelve of us signed up. It was a little surprising that two of 'em didn't actually show up at the start, but we got word that one of 'em got his wires crossed. So there's that.

Eric did an original version of the new route, a bit longer than the one I did last week. This route goes for a bit on Amwell Road, and I have a dispute with the goddess of Amwell Road, so I was properly awestruck and fearful, and she spared me for today. 

Along the way, a solo rider caught up with us and asked about riding with the group. We were properly polite, and we hope Mohit will actually decide to join. He stayed with us until the stop, and then begged off, citing family responsibilities.

We were a spirited group today, and pretty much ignored the advertised C+ pace (13.0-14.9mph) for the first half of the ride. My average was 15.9 at the stop, and I was in the back, sweeping; I suspect some of the folks out front had faster averages than that.

It was Eric's birthday, and there was the appropriate song and celebration at the stop.

And there were a few classic car owners, showing off their goodies.

We were a spirited group on the way back, as well. Eventually, Eric and I decided to let the pace-pushers go, and rode at our own pace to the start; some of the riders had already departed by the time we got in (it did reduce the import of some of the complaints about pace-pushers I see, when I note who was in the faster group). I wound up with an average of 15.4, but since Eric and I were last, and nobody appeared to be suffering, it seems to have been OK.

You can check it out on the ride page.

after the smoke cleared

 ... and pretty maids all in a row.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been champing at the bit to get out and do something, since we've been forced inside by the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. So when Tom H emailed around to do a ride today, I was ALL ABOUT it.

Showing more than a modicum of good sense, Tom help off on choosing the route until he knew what the air situation was going to be, and when he heard that there were fires also in the Pinelands, he set us a route that kept us out of there. We wound up with about 45 miles out of Mercer Park.

Some of Tom's Insane Bike Posse:

Tom was ready in case the smoke got bad again.

The wind seemed to be mostly at our backs early in the day, and we had a great time with the pace. We rolled over sometimes-familiar-to-me roads through Robbinsville and Bordentown. When we got to Columbus, where the stop was to be, we saw chairs lining the streets, and people. It turned out there was to be a parade that day, for a Columbus Farm Festival or some such.

 We took a break at the store in Columbus, and the parade meant that we had to hurry along... but it had the advantage that part of the route was closed to car traffic, but open to us. Now, Tom almost always has a closed road or bridge on one of his routes, but rarely do we get to ride OUT of a closed street, so this was a new experience for us, and affects his average, or something.

 And back. We were heading into the wind at that point, and the wind started to pick up. Several stretches on the way back were "into the wind" battles, and we traded pulls in the wind. And the last four miles or so were a real push into that wind.

But it was a great day, and a fun ride. Go see the ride page.

route: much more betterer

 

A few weeks ago, I led a ride to a favorite stop, an Italian bakery in Raritan. I gave all the warnings about how bad the route was, and people came anyway.

A couple of riders, who know the area better than I (and are better navigators), made some suggestions, and one of them completely recast the route. I rode it today, and made another tweak...

...and it is so much better than the route I initially had. It's not perfect, but what route in Central Jersey is gonna be perfect?

Enough to say: It's good enough that I'm planning to use it regularly. Sunday riders: plan to see some rides to Raritan.

You can see the new route on the ride page. Special thanks (in more than this) to one of my Sunday regulars, who may be unnecessarily embarrassed if I call out him/her by name...