Pine Barrens Metric

After doing mostly hills for the pass few weekends it was a nice change of pace to head south through the Pine Barrens. This was a metric century that I had it the book. It turned out to be a popular ride. I got a number of emails and phone calls before the ride. This was a long ride on a hot day and although I try not to discourage people from coming on my rides I like to make sure the know terrain and speed that I plan to do. You don't want a rider to get in over their head and not be able to complete the ride.

I ended up having 9 people on the ride. It was most of the regular crowd plus a couple of new people, Lisa and Alex. This route was a combination of a Medford Lakes ride and a Pine Barrens ride that I did for the book last year. It started in Columbus just off 206 and headed mostly south towards Medford Lakes. On the way we passed Smithville a town that use to be an industrial village and produced woodworking machinery and high-wheel bicycles in the late 1800s. The land down here is mostly open farmland and is very pleasant to ride. We moved along at a good pace.

After going through the tip of Medford Lakes we headed out 532 which is a long 15 mile stretch that would bring us to Lebanon State forest. We stoppped at a little general store in Tabernacle. This is a popular place to stop for most of the bikers in the area and even though it was empty when we got there with in about 10 minutes a large group of bikers.

From the rest stop we continued on to through Chadworths to Lebanon State forest and got to ride through some real pinelands. Henry ended up having a flat along the way. Lisa wanted to observe to learn how to better change a tire so we gave her a lesson. Stopping to change the tire made me realize how hot it was starting to get.

We continued on and started to head back north from Chadworth. Just before we got to Browns Mill Alex had a flat so we demostarted how to change a flat again. At 50 miles we made our second rest stop in Browns Mill. From here is was mostly straight north back to the starting point. We ended up having to make a slight detour around Fort Dix that I hadden planned on but it really didn't any extra miles to the ride.

The ride ended up being 63 miles. We averaged about 17 mph which was a little better than I was expecting given the heat. This was a good group of people today nobody was pushing the pace and nobody was dragging. It was a good route and I really enjoyed the ride but by the end it was getting really hot and I'm glad it ended when it did.