It's the End of the World... or Not

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As some of you may have hear today, May 21st, was suppose to be the beginning of the End of Days according to predictions made by American Christian radio host Harold Camping. These type of predictions aren't new and are usually made by some megalomaniac crack pot who thinks they knows the mind of God. Although there are a few hours left until May 22 I'll go out on a limb and say this one is as bogus as all the other ones.

Even though I didn't get swept up in the Rapture today I did find a small piece of heaven on my ride today. I was down in the Brandywine region of PA checking out some rides for the book. This is a beautiful area just north of Delaware on Rt 1 that was the sight of one of the battles of the revolutionary war and still has a lot of its rural charm. There is a lot of preserved land and farms in this area so it is not real built up except along Rt 1. There are also plenty of quiet roads, rolling hills and nice vistas that make this a popular place to ride. This is a hilly area. There are no real tough climbs but there are also is not a lot of flat spots so you are going up hill or down hill for the most part.

I have not biked much in this area before so I didn't know what to expect. I was lucky to have a nice clear sunny day so when I was on the top of the hills I was able to see the valley below and beyond. Although I did this ride on my own I was never really alone as there were plenty of other bikers around. There was a nice combination of forested and open land I would go climb up a hill to a clearing with a nice view then descend through a forest along a stream. The Brandywine river winds around this area and it seemed like I crossed it 5 or 6 times on my ride. It kinda reminded me of the Raritan river.

The 40 miles of my ride went by quick and when I was done I actually wished the ride was longer. The Brandywine area is a bit of a hike to get to but I will try to get back here again when I can.

After the ride I went to Longwood Gardens which is probably one of the best botanical gardens in the country. I had been to Longwood Gardens a few times before in the winter during Christmas so since it was so close to where I started the ride I wanted to check it out during the spring. Longwood Gardens is a massive place with numerious well maintain gardens, many different fountains and a large conservatory filled with any kind of plant you can imagine. It took me a couple of hours to work my way through the gardens and snap a few pictures. It was Lilytopia week so the main room of the conservatory was filled with hundreds of varieties of lily's. It not only looked good but also smelled great. If you have any interest in flowers or gardens you owe it to yourself to make a visit here.

Attack Turkey Must Die

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This past weekend Chris, Jeff and I headed to the Quad County Metric in Green Lane PA. I wanted to do this ride to map out some rides in this area. The weather was good so there were already a lot of people there when we arrived.

We decided to do the 45 mile ride with an option to add 8 more hilly miles if we wanted. The first few miles were pretty hilly nothing really steep but there was a lot more up than down.

At around 8 miles at the top of a long slow climb was a turkey who seemed really pissed will all the bikers going by. I stopped, took a few pictures then had to quickly pedal away as he started coming after me. I told him that I'll see him on Thanksgiving... on my plate.

After the first 10 miles things leveled off and we even had a few down hills. Jeff was complaining that there was some thing wrong with his gloves since the gel pads were on not on the palm side of the gloves. "Umh, maybe you put them on backwards" I said. Which is what he did and felt a little stupid about it. The main reason I knew he had them on backwards was that I had the same gloves and knew it was easy to put them on backwards since the closure is on the bottom of the wrist instead of the top. I took a picture of the gloves on wrong just to make sure Jeff can not deny this in the future.

At mile 13 we had to make a decision whether to do the extra 8 hilly miles or not. NOT! Its just too early in the season and we didn't know how hard the rest of the ride would be. The middle of the ride wasn't bad and had some killer downhills. The food was pretty good at the rest stop with a lot of home made food including potatos which is something I had never seen at a ride before.

After the rest stop we had some nice rides along some rivers and some more climbing here and there. It was a clear sunny day and the scenery was nice. There were a couple of long slow climbs. Nothing really difficult but this route had very few flat spots we were either going up or down hill and I don't think I ever shifted more on any other ride I have done.

By the end of the ride we had done around 3800 feet of climbing in 46 miles. We were tired but didn't feel real bad. They had some decent food when we got back and we ended up meeting a few people from the Princeton freewheelers after lunch. All in all is was good day and I'm glad I did the event. It is always fun to get out and do different rides. The Suburban Cyclist did a good job with this event and I'm looking forward to doing the Lake Noxamixon ride at the end of August. If you are intested in joining me you can check out the ride at their web site

The Bridges of Buck County

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Anybody wanting to see a some covered bridges can take a tour through Bucks county PA which has 11 of them scattered around. As part of exploring and mapping out rides in PA I took a couple of rides this week to check out some of these bridges.

The first ride I did was to explore the area around Newtown. As part of this ride I rode through Tyler Park which contains the Schofield Covered Bridge. Unlike other cover bridges in Bucks county this one is no longer used by cars and now is only used by hiker and horses in Tyler Park

While checking out the bridge I also rode some of the 10 miles of bike paths in the park. Tyler park is pretty nice there are a lot of wooded areas and fields and some nice paths along the Neshaminy Creek. There is also a nice picnic and beach area. All the bike paths are paved so it was easy riding around.

After Tyler park I headed north along the ridge towards New Hope and did a few hills before eventually making my way to the Van Sant Bridge.





On Saturday I headed to PA again. This time I started from Bulls island and headed up to Doylestown. I had one tough climb up Wismer then cruised along the ridge. The PA side has a lot more ups and downs than the NJ side so it was slow going. On Wismer I ran into the Loux Bridge and then headed downhill to the Frankenfield Bridge.



Eventually just before I made my way back to the Delaware river I checked out the Erwinna Bridge which really is kind of ugly and beat up.

After this I crossed over to NJ and took a break in Frenchtown. I had only 27 mile in at this point so from Frenchtown I headed up the ridge and road along on 519 before making my way back to Bulls Island via Federal Twist. I did a lot of climbing in this ride so coming all the way down on Federal Twist was my reward for all the climbs. I actually hit 45 mph which felt great but dangerous.

There are still a lot of covered bridges I didn't get a chance to see so I'm sure I will visit this area again to try and see a few more.