Left or Right?

Most of my winter rides tend to be close to home. I don't usually take the time to map out these rides since I know these roads so well and can easily make up the routes as I go. A couple of weeks ago I did an afternoon adhoc ride with Herb, Mary and George and decided to head to Englishtown. I had the route all mapped out in my head but was not really paying attention and ended up taking a slightly different route than I was planning. No problem I just recalculated the route in my head and mapped out new route to get me on track. Part of this re routing had me taking a Gravelhill Spotswood road which I hadn't been on in years so I was a little disoriented but knew the general direction I was heading was correct. I eventually found the road I wanted but made a left instead of a right and got totally turned around. What I ended up doing was an unintentional 8 mile circle that got me no closer to Englishtown. It's really embarrassing getting lost so close to home and the others deservedly harassed me the rest of the ride.

At this point George wanted some coffee and Englishtown was too far so I just headed to Roy's in Millstone and then we wandered around back to our starting point. We never did make it to Englishtown but still had a nice ride.

The next week we all went out again and this time I was determined to get to Englishtown so before the ride I actually created a ridesheet just to make sure I won't get turned around this time. Although Herb and George kept doubting my abilities to get them to Englishtown we did eventually make it. This is not a route I would do with a big group because there a couple of spots with a little traffic but it is a nice ride to do for a change of pace with a small group. The ridesheet is now on my NJ Road Biking site in the ridesheet page in case your interested in trying it out.

Winter Projects

Winter is usually the time when I spend more time doing projects around the house. I don't mind doing project around the house because I am pretty handy and can usually get the job done the way I want it in the time I want it done. It also saves me a little money and replaces some of the exercise that I'm not getting because I'm not riding as much.

This winter so far I have put up a shed, insulated the attic, built some cabinets for the basement and probably have some painting in my near future. The other big project this winter has been getting my book ready to publish. I have spent a lot of time proof reading the manuscript, making maps for each ride and number of other little things needed by the publisher to get the book to print. Its almost done and I finally got some of the proof pages of the actual book and I am happy with the way it looks. A few more passes of proof reading and the book should be ready to go. According to the publisher, Falcon Press, it should be available on April 14th.

To provide some detailed information about the book for people looking to buy it I have created a web site NJRoadBiking that explains what's in the book. The site is very simple doesn't contain much more than a description of the book. For those of you who follow the blog and ride with me there will not be much new information here. The one part that you may be interested in is the ride sheet page where I have some ride sheets for some rides that I have done over the last couple of years but didn't make the book. There aren't a lot of ride sheets here yet but I will continue to add more in the weeks and months ahead. I have always wanted to have a way to share my ride sheets with everybody in the club so now that I have the web site set up this will be easy to do.

Beautiful Desolation

In this months Bicycling magazine there was an article about how riding in bad weather can be beautiful. This past weekend was finally warm enough to go out for a ride. I took my camera with me hoping to capture the beauty of the winter landscape.

The truth is that the landscape is pretty desolate in the winter. The farms are all plowed and empty, the trees are leafless, and the roads are filled with salt and sand. There really isn't a lot of beauty out there. I did get a decent pictures of some trees along the Millstone river but this picture and the rest of the landscape would be a lot nicer in the summer. So although I enjoyed getting out on the road this past weekend after a few weeks of being stuck inside. I really didn't see anything I would call beautiful.