It's Getting Cold Outside

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It's that time of year when the riding season is winding down. Even though we haven't changed the clock yet it's already too dark to ride at night. It's also starting to get cold.

I don't have a hard limit of what type of cold weather that I will ride in but once it gets down around 35 or 40 degrees I have second thoughts about going for a ride.

We have been relatively lucky so far on the weekends. A couple of weeks ago I had a ride out of Etra Park. It was about 45 at the start and didn't get much about 55 but the Sun made it feel a little warmer than it was. We did the coffee run to New Egypt which ended up being a nice ride except for the wind on the way back.

I was very busy this past weekend and didn't have time to organize or join one of the club rides so I ended up just going out on my own for a quick 50 miles on Sunday. Although it gets a little lonely after about 30 miles I do enjoy the occasional long ride by myself. I don't have to worry about dropping people or looking like I know where I'm going. I'm free to get lost at my own pace and just enjoy some solitude on the bike. Sunday started out a little cold with wet road from the night before but as the morning when on the roads dried out and it ended up close to 60.

The foliage is close to peak now so I took the opportunity to take some pictures to capture the colors. No picture can really do justice to the scenery but I keep trying any way.

Even though I was riding by myself I almost always run into other riders. I ran into a couple groups of people and road with them for 5 and 6 miles each. It's fun trading stories with strangers and sharing the road for a few miles.

Although we are closing in on winter I will continue to try to get out on weekends when I can. I have a couple of rides in the book for November as long as the weather is good. After I will just do ad hoc rides when the weather is warm enough.

Fall Foliage

Sunday was one of those days when things just come together to create a great ride. Laura had a ride in the book around hills of Pluckemin to try and catch some fall colors but it is always hard to tell a month ahead of time how things are going to be on that day. The last time I did this ride, in the spring, the weather was cool, damp and cloudy so climbing the hills were just all work without the scenic vistas.

This time the weather a little cool but sunny and the leaves were just starting to turn. The views were great and I didn't mind the climbs as much this time. The ride would have been perfect if I had actually remembered to put fresh batteries in my camera. The first time I went to take a shot nothing happen and I realized that there would be no photos for this ride. I did take a few shots with my cell phone but the quality isn't great. Laura managed to get some good photos with her phone and Glen actually had a real camera with him that worked. You can see all their photos here and here.

I actually didn't mind that much that my camera wasn't working. It let me just relax and enjoy the views. Laura lead us on a nice route. I haven't been in this area much but there are some nice roads around here and I definitely need to come back and do some more exploring.

Belleplain Century

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Last year while working on the book I tried to do a lot of different bike events all over the state to find the best roads in each area. One of the events that I was unable to do was the Belleplain Fall Century because it was cancel last year.

So this year when October rolled around I was happy to see that the ride was going to be run this year. I managed to convince Laura, Mike, and Cheryl to join me. Since the start of the ride was over 2 hours away we decided to go down the night before to a hotel close to the start.

Friday night we got a late start because nobody could get off work early. We meet in Allentown and ate at a decent Italian restaurant in the middle of town. From there we just headed down 539 to the parkway and straight to the hotel. It was almost 10pm before we got there so after checking in we headed to our rooms and went to bed.

The next morning got up early because we want to be at the ride at 7:30am. Last night in normal cloths I wasn't sure I actually knew these people but this morning with everybody is dressed to ride they are looking a lot more familiar. I tell them "Now I know who the hell you people are".

It's a quick 20 minute ride to Belleplain State park where the ride begins. There is a little confusion to where the ride actually starts since the park is big and there are no signs to where the event is. We end up following some other cars and find the starting point. Its colder than I thought it would be but the sun it out so I know it will warm up.

We end up starting around 8am and go past a Lake Nummy. There is some a mist going across the lake so I stop to take a couple of pictures. We get a little confused with the directions out of the park. The arrows are hand painted and look more like the markings the gas company puts on the road before they are about to dig it up. The arrows have the number 12 after them which after some discussion we determine means loop 1 & 2 for the two different loops for the morning ride.

The Belleplain Fall Century is a little different than other clubs rides. Instead of having a full 100 mile course they have 2 50 mile loops. They also have a 35 and 28 mile loop. This reduces the number of rest stops and the support they need on the course. For the morning there are 2 loops a 50 mile and 35 mile loop.

The first 50 mile loop goes out to the the East Point Lighthouse on the Delaware Bay. It's one of the few distinguishing features in this part of NJ. The ride out to the lighthouse is nice. The roads are flat and there is no real traffic. This area is mostly pine lands, a little marshland and some scattered farms including some horse farms.

To conserve energy we road in a loose pace line. Laura keep track of lead time and yelled out when it was time for the leader to peel off. This really helped keep us moving along at a good pace with out getting tired.

The lighthouse is on a road that dead ends into the Delaware Bay. There are some houses here probably for people who like to fish. They look like part time vacation homes. We spend some time looking around and take a detour down a packed sand road to see the actual lighthouse. For here we just head on back out along the course.

At mile 37 we stop at a Wawa for a break. Unlike most club events this ride does not provide any support along the course. They also don't include any notes on the queue sheet about where would be a good place to stop. Luckily I know the area a little and with my Wawa radar on I managed to find a Wawa that was just about a 1/4 mile off the course.

After the break it was 18 miles back through some of the pine lands of the Belleplain State Forrest. There wasn't much to see but pines for many miles. This area is flat, level, no change of elevation, horizontal, smooth, devoid of hills, can see a stop light 2 miles ahead FLAT. After 8 miles on the same road with no change of scenery and no elevation change Mike made the comment that "The only thing that changed in the last 8 miles was my odometer". The other thing that make this area a little monotonous to ride is the roads are straight in fact they usually have rumble strips at the end of a road to wake up or warn drivers that the road is about to end.

After 50 miles we were back at the stop. We shed some of our warm cloths. Chowed down on some of the available food and then headed back out. I was feeling more tired than I should at 50 miles which was strange since this is an easy ride. The one plus was that I was drinking correctly. I sometimes have a problem getting enough water into my system during long rides so for today's ride I brought along a bottle of pure Gatoraide along with my camelback which is filled with water. Drinking the Gatoraide as I was riding seem really help me keep hydrated correctly.

The second 50 miles ended up going east of the Belleplain State forest. I don't know this area really well but the arrows seemed to be well marked so it was easy to follow. There wasn't much to see on this loop except more pine lands and flat roads. At 75 miles we found another Wawa to stop at and took an extended break because Laura and Cheryl were getting tired. Cheryl was planning on just doing the first loop but after 10 miles on the second 50 miles loop she realized that she forgot to stop.

After the extended rest everybody was feeling better in fact it has hard to keep up with Laura for the first few miles. We stopped one more time at an actual rest stop that the club had set up which was just a bunch of cars by the side of the road. The second 50 mile loop was a little boring and I was glad when we finally pulled in to the park. I think we ended up going 107 miles at 16.3 which was a good sensible pace. I actually felt pretty good at the end and think I actually got stronger in the last 20 miles.

After the ride we cleaned up a little (There was actually a shower in the bathrooms at the park which we made use of) and headed out for dinner. We ended up in Cape May. By the time we got there it was around sunset so we headed to Sunset beach. I got a couple of good pictures of the sunset. Once the sun set we found a little restaurant on the way out of town and had a good meal.

By the time we finished dinner it was about 8pm and so I didn't get home until around 10pm. It was a long day but it was a lot of fun. If I did it again I would like to make it a long weekend and spend 3 or 4 days in the area.