Merry Krampus

Its has been a long time since I have posted mostly because I haven't had a lot to say. I have been spending most of my free time trying to finish up the book. The writing is done but putting all the pieces together. manuscript, maps, pictures, etcs takes a lot of time.

I still have been riding. Although the weather has been cool we haven't had many days below freezing or any snow so getting out on the roads for a ride has not been a problem. Most of the rides that I have been doing have been local as I don't venture far from home during the cold weather. Local rides for me usually involves heading east and south and crossing the Turnpike a number of times. Work on widening the Turnpike is in full swing which has closed a number of bridges that I normally use so I have been doing a lot of detours. Some of the new bridges are closed to being finished but I suspect it will another year before things are near normal.

Christmas Eve day I got out for a fun ride with most of the usual gang and evey a few people, like Mike, who hasn't been around much this year. A few people, like Cheryl pictured here, were dressed with antlers or like Jim had a santa hat on. I actually had planned to add a wreath to my bike but didn't have time because of a flat tire. It was a cold and windy ride with a couple of detours to get around the bridge construction but still fun.

With all my spare time going to finishing the book the holidays sort of snuck up on me. I was talking to a friend of mine who lives over in Europe about different Christmas traditions and he mentioned Krampus who is basically an anti Santa Claus and goes around at Christmas time punishing bad kids by stuffing then in a sack taking them home and eating them. That's a lot worst than getting coal in your stocking.

Enjoy your Holidays...

Philadelphia Bike Expo

Bicycle advocacy is alive and growing at least that is the message I took away from the seminars that I attended at the Philadelphia Bike Expo this weekend. The Expo is mostly a bike show with different vendors selling bikes and accessories but it is also a chance for some presentations on different initiatives the various bike advocacy groups are working on.

The first presentation was on bike trail development in South Jersey. It was mostly about new bike trails and bike lanes being adding around the southern part of the state. It's amazing the number of towns adding bike path and bike lanes to try to create a better environment for getting around on bikes. I didn't realize there was that much improvements going on in the state. One of the more interesting parts was when they talked about all the trails and parks that they are adding around the Camden waterfront. The guy giving the presentation was real excited about all the new development and he actually made Camden sound like its actually going to be nice place to bike? I'll believe it when I see it but the drawings of the parks did look cool.

The next seminar I attended was by the deputy head of the department of transportation of Philadelphia. She had a really dry sense of humor and gave a pretty funny talk about how she and her team have worked hard to convince both the politicians and people of the city that bike lanes and path are good for everybody. For example one of her most recent projects was adding a dedicated bike lane on Spruce and Pine. These bike lanes actually removed a lane of traffic from the street but she had data that showed that travel time for cars was actually quicker, accidents for bikers when down by 40% and car accidents were down 25%. I like her pragmatic approach and she and her department should be able to continue to keep improving the bicycling environment in the city.

There was also a good presentation on the Schuyykill trail. Over a million bicyclist use this trail every year and the city is continuing to spend a lot money to improve and expand the trail. In the next couple of years they are going to take back some industrial land south of the Art Museum that will make a nice extension to the trail.

The last talk I attended was by the Bike Snob. If you've read Bicycling Magazine over the last couple of years you probably caught some of his articles. He is basically a bicycle comedian and did a 40 minute talk with pictures about the strangeness of mountain biking his style was a little Seinfeld like... "So what's the deal with a recumbent mountain bike?"  I didn't realize there were so many strange and funny things about mountain biking.

The only thing disappointing thing about the day was the weather. The snow made walking around the city hard and messy and the drive home wasn't a lot of fun either. It also keep the outdoor vendors away from the show so although there were a lot of bike shops and custom bike makers there there wasn't a lot of people selling used bikes and parts. I did get to talk to a few people from the Philly Bike Club and I also got to meet the author of "Where to Bike Philadelphia" It's a really good book that is a little different than the one that I'm working on but it shows the interest and demand for these type of books. It was also nice to talk to somebody else who understand the work required to publish a bike book.

Of course the snow meant that there was no riding this past weekend but hopefully this was just an anomaly and we can have a few more weeks before it starts getting really cold and crappy

The Murals Of Philadelphia

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As I have biked around Philly I have tried to take some pictures along the way that would be good enough to put into the book. The problem this summer was the the weather has been pretty bad. When it was nice enough to ride and I was in Philly it was either hot and hazy or overcast. This weekend the weather was finally perfect so I headed to the city for a photo ride.

The more I bike around the city the more cool things I see and discover. Philadelphia has this program called the Mural Arts Program that connects artists with members of a community to create murals to beautify the urban landscape. As I have ridden around Philly this year I have notice a mural here and there but when I actually started looking for them I couldn' believe the sheer number of them and what great works of art they really are. If you ride down Spring Garden they are almost on every block. The picture above is the Bicycle Mural which is at Spring Garden and 2nd. It's a very colorful and abstract piece of art that actually wraps around two sides of the building. This is one photo that will definitely end up in the book.

My ride this weekend took me on a 35 mile loop from the top of Wisahickon Park to the Ben Franklin Bridge and back. We hit a number of the major sites along the way including the Art Museum, Schuykill River, Independence Mall and Fairmount Park. This was a good route that I really enjoyed.  I'll post the route in the near future so other people can enjoy the ride. I was joined by Chris on this ride which was good since it gave me a subject to put in some of the pictures. I got a couple of good shots of him by the Art Museum steps including one of him doing a Rocky pose with his bike.

Unfortunately Chris's rear tire had a major spoke problem by the Ben Franklin Bridge. He hopped a curb and twisted his back wheel. He tried to work the spokes but couldn't get it to get much better. He opened the rear brake and rode for a while but after some more tweeking the rear break rubbed against the tire and wore through. At this point his was done and we were into another episode of Tom and Chris's Excellent Misadventures.

With Chris out of commission I left him at Independence Mall while I headed back to the car on my own. I felt bad leaving Chris but with out a spare tire there was no way to get the bike ridable so it was the logical choice.

It took me a little over an hour to get back to the car. I stopped a few times along the way to get a few more pictures for the book. Once back at the car the hard part was getting back to Chris. Although it took me an hour to get back to the car on bike it took over a hour and a half to drive back to him. This was because all the traffic and road closures in this city this weekend. There was some big event in Germantown then a regatta that closed Kelly drive for a stretch and then there was the Occupy Philly by City Hall. As usually in most major city riding a bike is a much faster way to get around than by car.

By the time I got back to Chris he had actually worked on the wheel some more and it gotten it mostly straightened out. I think the lesson here is that it takes patience to fix the spokes of a wheel. So when it happened we tried to do a least amount of work to get the bike barely ridable whereas we should have just taken the time and approached it like we were truing the whole wheel and maybe we might have been able to get the bike ridable.

Despite the mechanical problem it was still a good day. Philly is a gritty urban landscape that can be a little challenging to ride in at times. If you just look at the roads and trails that are crowded with people and car traffic you might be discouraged to ride here. However if you look around at the art, architecture, landscapes and monuments you can find a lot to like here. There are few better places to ride a mountain bike than Forbidden Drive, The roads of Fairmount Park are filled with interesting buildings and sculptures. Boat House Row and the Art Museum are just fun places to hang out and on Saturdays and Sundays it is just plain cool to ride down the car free MLK Drive. Philly is a great place to ride on a nice sunny day.

Ambler Ramble

This week in my exploration of Philly I joined the Philly Bike Club for their Ambler Ramble. This is one of their most popular club rides like the PFW's Cranbury ride. The is a nice 45 mile ride that starts at the Art Museum and makes it out to the country in back. Like most of the rides in Philly it was a combination of back street neighborhoods and park roads.

One of the thing that makes this ride possible is the large number of streets with bike lanes and the lots of little parks sprinkled through out the city. There were a few busy streets along the way but this route has been perfected to over time to reduce the need to do much urban riding.

Of course a good ride would not be complete with out a decent rest stop and when we got to Ambler there was a nice little sandwich shop with good food and comfortable tables both inside and out.

After the rest stop the group broke up into a fast and slow group. I headed back with the fast group as we wound our way back into Philly. The last 10 miles were along River Road and the Schuykill River. There were still signs of the flooding of the past weeks and people were still cleaning up but at least the roads and trails were clear. The last 5 miles were on MLK Drive which is closed to car traffic on Saturdays and Sunday. It's pretty cool to ride on the empty MLK Drive with all the other bikers and made the last part of the ride a lot of fun.

Biking in Philly is a little harder than the outlying suburbs because of the traffic and congestion of the city but what I have learned in my travels here is that with little determination and careful route planning its not to hard to find a good route to enjoy here. If you're interested in trying the Ambler Ramble I suggest you join the Philly Bike Club some Saturday morning or you can do it on your own with the route posted here  http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/448390

Lake Nockamixon

Although my vacation was great it feels good to be back on the bike again. I was planning to do the Suburban Cyclist Lake Nockamixon ride last weekend but decided against it because of the approaching hurricane. I managed to get out during the week for a couple of short rides but finally got back on the road again this Labor Day weekend and did some longer rides.

On Saturday Laura, Cheryl, Jeff and I joined me as I explored and mapped out my Lake Nockamixon ride. We started from Peace Valley on the other side of Doylestown and made it to Lake Nockamixon and back. I pasted the route together from the cue sheets from previous Lake Noxkamixon rides and some guesses after looking through Google Maps. Although I planned a 52 mile ride it ended up at 58 mostly because we put some extra miles exploring the actual park around the lake.

Nockamixon State Park is a hidden gem of a park. Not only does it have a large 7 mile long lake with a real marina but also has a swimming pool with a couple of slides and lots of place to picnic, hike, bike and ride horses. It even has some cabins you can rent. We spent a little time by the lake watching all the sail boats then made a quick stop by the pool and snack bar before heading back out on the roads. You can see my pictures from the lake HERE

There is some strange stuff on the roads around lake. On Clymer road it started out with a bunch of houses where every house had a motorcycle and guy with long hair and beard (Hell's Angle Hideout?). Pass that there was a place called Rock Ridge(after the town in Blazing Saddles?) that looked like a retirement home. Next to that was a couple of wellness centers where I'm sure homeopathic witch doctors try and milk the old people in the retirement home out of their money. Then just down road from that a big white building with large columns that looked like a greek temple. All in all a strange road.

When we got around the south side of the lake we saw a bunch of cars off the side of the road and wondered what they were looking at, then we saw it. It was the dam and spillway that forms the lake. The spillway is like a terraced waterfall. We stopped for some pictures then moved made our way back home.

We ended up going through the town of Perkasie where the downtown area streets are layed out and named exactly the same as downtown Philly. Laura was calling out the name before we got to each street. The last few miles were slighly uphill and we were getting tired but made it back in decent shape.

Although I had not been on 80% of the road we did ,this turned out to be a good route that we all enjoyed so I will definately be doing this one again.

Alaska

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I haven't posted in quite a while mostly because I have been on vacation in the great state of Alaska. It was a phenomenal trip where each day we found something new, beautiful and exciting. It is hard to put into word all that I have seen. I got some great pictures and some cool stories to tell. Although you have probable seen some of the many national geographic specials or reality shows about Alaska until you visit the state you can't appreciate how beautiful, bazaar and different this state really is. Alaska is a place of extremes its very seismically active with extreme weather (Much like New Jersey this past week). This will be a long post of my trip if you don't want to read the full details just check out the pictures HERE and you will get an idea of what a great trip this was.

Alaska is 1/3 the size of the continental US with only a population of about 750,000. You see the words "The Last Frontier" on Alaska's licences and they are not kidding. Go a little over 100 miles away from the major cities like Anchorage or Fairbanks and there is no power, roads or any service what so ever. Unless you have survival training going out to the rural parts is almost a certain death sentence. Towns like Juneau, and Ketchikan which are in the warmer parts of the state can't even be reach by car because the terrain is too rugged to create a road.

Although I shy away from organized tours it is probably the best way to explore this state. We tour a 12 day cruise/tour which started with a 5 day land tour to see the interior of the state followed by a 7 day tour through the glaciers and south east part of the state.

Day 1 - Our tour started in Anchorage which took us the entire previous day to get to from NJ. We spent the morning in Anchorage walking around the small center part of town. 40% of the population of Alaska lives in and around Anchorage because of its relatively mild climate and access to easy transportation by land, sea and air. One surprising thing about Anchorage is that the food here is pretty dam good with a lot of variety.

During the afternoon we took a tour to the portage glacier which is about an hour outside the city. On the way we learned the history of area and how the glaciers carved out the mountains and valleys around here as well as how all the silt deposits clog most of the bays and harbors and make the bottom like quick sand. In fact if you step off the rocks on to what looks like a dark sandy beach you will sink up to your knees and not be able to get out and die when the 20 - 30 foot tide comes in. This is just one of the many ways to die in Alaska.

The main purpose of our day trip to the glacier was to take boat ride up to it's face and get a close look at it. We ended up about 100 feet away and even though it was one of the smaller glaciers it was still impressive. It was a little overcast which made it appear a little bluer than normal. You can see the pictures HERE

Besides visiting the glacier we also made a couple of side trips. One to see the salmon starting to swim upstream to spawn and another to visit a ski resort. At the ski resort we took a tram to the top of the mountain to get a better view of the bays. Because of its northern latitude Alaska has some very large tides shifts 20-30 feet. There are also some strange currents in the water which causes a vortide in the bays when the conditions are just right. A vortide is a 5 - 10 foot wave that slowly rolls down the bay from the ocean to the end. We were actually lucky enough to see one from the top of the mountain.

Day2 - We headed from Anchorage to Mt McKinley. On the way we passed through the town of Wasila and saw Sara Palin's house. One nice thing to note is that most Alaskans I talked to seem to have the same contempt for her that we have here although they know enough tourist like her so every gift shop has cardboard cut outs of her and her 2012 calendars and other crap to buy.

It took about 3 hours to get to the lodge at McKinley and as we got there the clouds were just clearing and we saw our first view of McKinley. Because the mountain range has a lot of high peaks and creates it's own weather McKinley is only visible 30% of the time. As our bus driver said we were blessed because for the pass two weeks they had not seem the mountain at all.

After a quick lunch at the lodge we headed to the town of Talkeetna. Talkeetna is basically a train stop with one semi paved street with a couple of gift shops and places to eat. This is a place where a lot of people start hunting or fishing trips out to the wilderness. There is also a small airport here which is the main place all the climber start their ascent of McKinley.

During the afternoon we took a scheduled sightseeing flight around McKinley. The flight was amazing and was like living inside an IMAX movie. I got to ride in the co-pilots seat of a small 8 seat DeHavilland Otter. I got some of the best pictures I have ever taken but they don't capture the feeling of being at 12,000 feet and looking up at the 20,320 top of Mt McKinley. You can see my best pictures HERE



Day3 - We took a jet boat ride on the Talkeetna and Susitna (silt) river and again were blessed with cloudless skys. This only happens 10% of the time here so I got some great views of the mountains again. We also saw some wildlife along the way. Eagles are almost as common as Turkey Vultures in NJ so you can't help but see a few every time you go out. We also actually saw a small black bear along the river. Included in our boat tour was a stop at model of a native fishing shack used by the natives to catch salmon in the summer season. In this part of the state and north there are still a good number of people who live off the land. After the boat ride we boarded a bus and headed further north to Denali state park.

Day 4 - We took a 5 hour wildlife tour through Denali park. Except for a few Dall sheep on top of the mountains we did not see much wildlife but it was another cloudless day and the scenery was great. We got yet another view of McKinley. In the afternoon we visited the kennel for the sled dogs used in the winter by the rangers in Denali and got a demonstration of the dogs pulling a sled. We also saw some two week old puppies.

Day 5 - We took a 9 hour train ride in a glass covered train car. This was to get us from Denali to our cruise ship. The weather had turned cloudy with a little rain but train was comfortable with some nice views along the way. I even managed to spot a couple of moose. It was nice getting to our cruise ship in Whitter which meant that we would not have to be moving our suite cases for the next 7 days.

Day 6 & 7 - The first two days of the cruise were spent heading south east along the coast and visiting a few glaciers along the way. The first day we stopped at Hubbard Glacier for a few hours then on the second day we entered Glacier Bay national park and cruised passed 5 or 6 glaciers. The two main ones being the Margerie and Lamplugh. No matter how many glaciers you see each one is different and cool. It never gets boring. It is hard to convey the size and imposing mass of these things most of them dwarfed our 1000 ft long cruise ship. It is just something that has to be experienced. The weather was overcast with some light rain but it didn't hurt our view or enjoyment in any way. You can see some more pictures of them HERE

Day 8 - We docked at the town of Skagway which was the launching point for the gold rush of 1898 where over 100,000 people headed to the Yukon to try and get rich by finding gold. Of course the only people that made any money were the people selling the supplies. The town looks much the same as it did then except that it is now mostly a shopping meca for the cruise ships. We spent the morning walking around the town then in the afternoon took a jeep tour that got us over the famous White Pass and about 60 miles into the Yukon basically tracing the path of the prospectors. We went through a number of different valleys and each one was a little different from the next. It was pretty now in August but I would imagine in the winter even this well maintained road would be dangerous to drive. In town I saw an old train that was used to keep the train tracks over the pass clear and it looked like a large drill bit that would be used to drill a tunnel to the center of the earth.

Day 9 - Docked in Juneau the capital of Alaska. We didn't have much time to see the town because we took an all day tour to see the Mendenhall glacier and then a whale watch. At this point I'm like yea great another glacier but this one was as cool as all the other and different enough to be glad I saw it. Besides the glacier I also got with in a few feet of a black bear. I was walking down to the beach and spotted what I though was a dog in the woods. After a closer look I realized it was a black bear so I backed away a little and got a picture or two. The bus driver had said that we might see some bears here and said they were use to people and harmless as long as you didn't approach them. I figured I was safe because the bear was headed the other way, besides there were 15 other people near me including a few small kids who I knew I could out run if the bear charged.

The whale watch was a transformational experience. Not only did we get to see killer and humpback whales but we got to see a whole pod of the killer whales just playing around in the water and breaching left and right.

The humpback whales were all around the boat and at one point we saw 12 of them perform what is called bubble net feeding. This is where one whale goes down and creates a stream of bubbles around a school of fish then the other whales come up through the net and gobble up all the fish. This is something I have only seen on TV and when you see it live it is powerful and strangely emotional. Even the tour guide on the boat was awe struck and at a lost for words. At one point the 12 humpbacks were about 50 feet from the boat and you could feel and hear them breathing as they dove under the boat. It was defiantly one of the highlights of the trip. You can see some of the pictures of the killer and humpback whales HERE

Day 10 - Docked in Ketchikan, the southern most town in Alaska. This is one of the best places to do salmon fishing and most of the non tourist economy is based on fishing of sort or the other. At this time of year the salmon were heading upstream to spawn so we walked around town and along a stream to watch all the salmon try to make it upstream. These fish are powerful swimmers we watch them head up rapids and small waterfalls and have no idea how they can make it up river in the fast currents.

In the afternoon we headed out on the Deadliest Catch tour. If you have ever seen the show you would love this tour. They took an old crab boat the Aleutian Ballad and added a bunch of seating to it so they can take about 100 people out on the boat and show them how they fish for crab and salmon and other fish. We got to see them haul fish on long lines, king and opillio crab pots, as well as an octopus. The best thing was all the stories they had about fishing and few insights to the Deadliest Catch show.

Day 11 - We spent this day at sea going through the inside passage toward Vancouver. The scenery was nice and the weather was also getting warmer. We also spotted some more killer and humpback whales from our balcony.

Day 12 - Arrived early in the morning in Vancouver and got off the ship. We took a tour of the city which included a trip to Lynn Canyon where we walked over a suspension bridge as well as a visit to a salmon hatchery. At night we found a cool little part of town called Granville island where we had a nice dinner.

All in all this was a great trip and much different from anything we have done before. Alaska is a place that is hard to understand until experienced so I highly recommend you put this on your list of vacations because you won't be disappointed.

Too Hot to Ride

I'm usually pretty tolerant of the heat but this past weekend it was almost too hot to ride. Friday and Saturday's peak temperature was well over 100 degrees as shown in the picture. For me riding in the low 90s is not a problem as long as I take it easy but once it goes above the mid 90s I stay indoors.

At these extreme temperatures you usually see the local news showing you the old sidewalk is hot enough to fry an egg demonstration. I found a different way to show how hot the sidewalk is.

I didn't ride on Saturday because of the heat so when I put my dog out the early afternoon I threw and ice cube on the side walk because she likes to play with ice cubes. The ice cube not only melted really quick but the water also evaporated almost as quick. Since I was just hagging around the house on Saturday I decided to do a little time lapse photography. You can see the video here

What I did was to set up my thermometer next to a few ice cubes and then setup my camera to take a picture every 15 seconds. It took only about 10 minutes for the ice cubes to melt and another 10 minutes for most of the water to evaporate. Its not a great video but it was a good distraction on a Saturday after noon.

I did manage to get out on Sunday. It was still 81 degrees when we started at 8:00 am but we managed to get a little over 50 mile in and were back around 11:30 am. It was in the low 90s but we had cloud cover a lot of the time which really helped. In fact at a 17 mph average is was one of my fastest rides this year. Hopefully it will be cooler next weekend.

You Can't Always Believe the Internet

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The Internet is an invaluable research tool and has helped me find cool places to visit and good roads to ride on as I continue to work to my way around Philadelphia. I've done 3 more rides around the city over the last couple of weeks. Before each ride I usually spend an hour or so working out the route and finding information about the what I'm going to see along the way.

Google Maps is one of the main tools I use. Between the satellite view and the street view feature I can do a virtual ride of the route and find which roads to avoid and which roads are bike friendly. Although I use Delorme's Topo USA to map out the ride and make a cue sheet I just found a new free tool that can take a route on a Google Map and automatically make a cue sheet or GPX file. Its called Google Cue and you can find instruction how to use it here.

The pre ride research has allowed me to have a good idea of what the ride will be like ahead of time and what to expect along the way. So when I rode the route I had planned to the Bryn Athyn Cathedral I saw exactly what I expected. The roads were through some quiet residential neighborhoods with not too much traffic. There were a couple of busy intersections in Jenkintown that I new would be there but confirmed that they were no problem to bike through. And the cathedral was a magnificent as was described on Wikipedia.

Likewise my ride through Pennypack park's paved trail proved that is was as nice a place to ride as many people on yelp.com had described. The trail is wide and smooth there are plenty of cool bridges and views along the way. The state penitentiary was at the end of the trail as expected. Of course what I didn't expect was for the escape alarm to sound while I was next to the prision so got the hell out of there before the inmates got over the wall.

This past weekend I decided to do one of the mountain biking rides for the book so I headed to Wharton State Forest. According to a couple of web sites on mountain biking there is a well marked trail by the Atison Ranger station call the Quaker Bridge Hampton Furnace Loop Trail that sounded like an easy ride along the sand roads with a couple of cool things to see along the way.

So I got to the Atison Ranger station around 9 am on Saturday and the map there seemed to confirm what the map I saw online said so I headed off down the road. It had rained heavy the night before so although I was riding on sand roads that usually drain well I still had to go through a few puddles of water. The sand on the roads were a little deep in spots so it was a little tough getting traction at times.

The first problem I noticed was that the trail had no markings. There were suppose to be blue blazes to mark the trail, but no matter, the route I had mapped out was pretty simple to follow there were 4 or 5 turns so as long as the miles worked to where the sand roads crossed I could find my way around. I also had my GPS just in case.

As I continued on through the wet loose sand roads I notice there were a lot of sand roads crossing and it would be very easy to get lost in here if you didn't have a GPS. The bugs were also becoming a problem. They were Jurassic in size and no matter how fast I pedaled I always had a swarm of 10 or 15 trying to bite me. The last straw that made me decide to abort the ride is where I came to the river crossing and all that was left of the bridge that I was suppose to use to cross the river was a couple of large posts sticking out of the river.

I retraced my steps back to my car and scratched this ride off the list for the book. I through I would have to head back home to do some more research to find a new ride to do down here but as it happened I ran into another mountain biker in the parking lot who said I should check out the trails down in Batsto which was just a few miles down the road.

So down to Batsto I went where I found 4 different interconnected trails to choose from. These were all single track trails from 6 miles to 19 miles long. I did a 10 mile loop that combine a couple of the trails. It was a nice single track trail that wasn't really challenging but it was fun to ride. It was exactly what I wanted for the book. So although research can help you find some good rides sometimes you can't always trust what you find. Sometimes you just have to go out and ride and be open to change your plans and explore other opportunities.

Ridley Creek State Park

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This weeks effort to learn more about the roads in and around Philly led me to Ridley Creek State park. This 2600 acre park is about 16 miles south of the city and looked like a cool place to check out. The Philly bike club had a ride from center city to the park and back so I took the opportunity to tag along and learn some new roads.

I ended up doing a 45 mile ride and found some good roads. The nice thing about Philly is that it doesn't take too long to get out of the main city and on to quieter roads. The ride to the park was nice and a little hillier than I thought it would be but there was nothing real steep or long just a lot of ups and downs.

The park itself is nice and has a 5 mile paved trail with a pretty good hill at the start, a 200 foot climb in 3/4 of a mile. The park is mostly heavily forested land with a few open areas. The park also contains an old stone mansion, an arboretum and of course Ridley Creek. The pave trail is one big loop so the group I was riding with sort of split up and road at different paces until we all met up back again at the beginning of the trail.

The ride back to Philly a little more direct. A few people in the group were getting tired so we had to wait at the top of some of the climbs. Eventually as we go closer to the city a few people decided to go ahead on their own to get back a little quicker. Since I was in a little hurry myself to get home I decided to head back with them.

I am enjoying my exploration of Philly and learning new roads. Today's route was one of the better rides I did and one I would probably do again.

Center City

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The more time I spend riding in and around Philadelphia the more I understand it and enjoy it. Although I have ridden the roads and trails outside of center city I have never really spent much time riding around the city itself. So this past Saturday I headed to the city to do a few rides. I ended up doing three loops. The first loop started at the Art Museum and headed to Penn's Landing and back.

Riding in the heart of any city is hard with the crowded streets, traffic and the general impatiences of both drivers and pedestrians bad things can easily happen. I must say through that riding around the Philly really wasn't too bad. This city is made up of a lot of little neighborhoods and as long as you stay away from the main thoroughfares like Market and Broad Street you can ride along most streets. I ended up going down the Schuylkill river trail which got me down to Locust Street where I headed east towards Penn's Landing. I took a couple detours along the way to see some sites like Rittenhouse Square, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Independence Hall didn't look quite right and if you look at the picture you can see what I mean.

When I got to Penn's Landing I took a quick detour south to Old Swedes Church which is the oldest church in Pennsylvania to take a few pictures before exploring Penn's Landing. Penn's Landing was a little disappointing. As waterfronts goes there is not much going on here compared to Baltimore's inner harbor but I did get a few pictures of the scenery along the river. The trip back to the Art Museum was an easy trip down Spring Garden. The city has a lot of bike lanes which makes getting around by bike pretty easy. Of course like any city the bike lanes are some times blocked by double parked cars or other obstacles but as long as you have so good urban riding skills getting around the city is no problem just watch out for the occasional cobble stone road which are harsh even on a mountain bike.

For my second loop I headed to Forbidden Drive which is about 5 miles north from the Art Museum on the Schuylkill river trail. Forbidden drive is a wide gravel path along the Wissahickon river. This is an unbelievably beautiful river gorge and being so close to the city is a very popular place for bikers, runners and anybody looking to enjoy the outdoors. There are also a number of interesting bridges and features along the trail. I really enjoyed this ride. One of the best features was the Valley Green Inn which is an old hotel built in the late 1700's that is now a restaurant and snack bar. It was a good place to take a break and talk to a few other bikers.

There are also a number of mountain bike trails that go off of Forbidden Drive. I have heard from a few people that they are pretty fun. I didn't get a chance to explore them this time so but will try to get back here again to explore them.

My last loop was around Fairmount Park. Fairmount Park is the main park in Philly. Unlike Central Park in NY which is one large park, Fairmount Park is a sort of a series of smaller some what interconnected parks that have grown over time. The park has a series of athletic fields historic houses and museums that straddle both sides of the Schuylkill River. There are a lot of roads that criss cross the park and even on a nice Saturday the roads were pretty quiet. There were a lot of interesting builds and statues along the route I took. I also got some good views of the city from the top of a few hills. It was a little hazy so the pictures weren't perfectly clear but I now know the city skyline for a couple of different angles.

I spent about 40 miles touring the city and feel I'm starting to understand it from a biking point of view. I still have some more exploring to do but so far I am finding a lot to like about biking in Philly.

A Day at the Races

Although I don't follow bike racing that closely I have always wanted to see the Philly International Cycling Championship. I have seen pictures of the riders going up the Manayunk wall, Lemon Tree Hill and zipping along Kelly Drive and just wanted to see it in person.

This year I joined the Philly bike club to get to know the area in and around Philly so when I saw they had some rides on the race day I decided to make the trip in to see the race.

Since I didn't want to deal with the crowds and parking I took the Riverline from Bordentown to the Aquarium in Camden and then rode over the Ben Franklin to get to Philly. The ride over the Ben Franklin was actually easy and nice. The weather was a little cloudy so the pictures I took didn't come out to great but the view was still nice.

Philly has a lot of roads with bike lanes so it was no problem getting to the Art Museum near where the race started. I got there about a half hour before the race so I had a chance to ride the course a little and see some of the hubub going on. There were a lot of vendor selling and giving away stuff. There were a lot of people milling around but it wasn't real crowded.

They cleared the roads around 8:45 am and the race started at 9:00 am. The first 3 lap go around the Eakins Oval to Logan Square and back then they head out on the 14.4 mile course which takes them out to Manayunk and beyond.

After the first 3 laps were over I headed out with the club for a ride. We headed through Fairmount Park and stopped along to course the see the racers a few times before heading out for a ride around town. When ended up at Lemon Tree Hill where the club has an area set up to watch the race which included food and drinks. I hung around for a little while talking to some people from the club before heading back home. All in all it was a good day and something I may do again next year.

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.

Say Cheese!

This Sunday I headed to the Sourlands for some hill training as I try to get into shape for the "Ride the Quad" which is a hilly ride in Montgomery County PA. It was also way too windy to ride in the flats today.

I ended up riding by myself because I decided to do this last minute and didn't see any rides in the book that worked with my schedule.

I always have my camera with me when I ride so I can capture an interesting sights along the way. As I came through Mount Airy I saw a bunch of cows just sitting by the fence. I won't have taken a second look expect for the fact that it looked like they were waiting for somebody to take a family photo. They were arranged almost perfectly with the small calfs in front and the bigger cows in the back and exactly in between the fences posts. So I took the shot and moved on.

Spring is Here

It's finally starting to feel like spring out there. You know its spring when you start worrying about dressing too warm, start putting sunscreen on, and seeing flowers along the road.

Spring is also the time I realize that I need to do some work to get back in shape as the inclines along the ride feel like hills and doing 40 miles feels like a metric. No matter what I do over the winter to try and stay in riding shape I aways loose some aerobic capacity.

I know this is normal and part of the cycle of riding but when I feel the first warm days of spring I am anxious to get into shape so I can start expanding the length and type of rides I do with out having to worry about if I'm in good enough shape to do the ride.

The Streets of Philadelphia

The winter weather has faded away and I've been able to get back on the road again for the past 3 weeks. I really enjoyed trying to bike through the snowy winter on a mountain bike and do some different type of riding but it's been nice to get back on the road an catch up with some people I haven't seen in a while. I actually rode with George this past weekend. It was good to see him riding again after the accident he had in the fall. Even though he said he is only about 70% recovered he rode good enough for me to have to switch to the big chain ring to catch him a few times along the ride.

March is the beginning of the riding season which makes me start to think about new rides I want to try and setting my goals for the season. Last year I decided to do more hilly rides and work at becoming better at climbing. 2010 was a good year and all the hills I climbed got me into really good shape.

This year is going to be a lot different than last year mostly because I'm going to be working on a new book "Best Bike Rides Philadelphia". This book is going to have the best road and mountain bike rides in and near the city of Philadelphia. The rides will mostly be in the 15 to 30 mile range and meant for new or less serious riders. I've already started doing the research and doing some of the rides for the book. What I'm discovering is that Philly has a lot of nice and cool places to ride. For example they actually close MLK drive on Saturdays and Sundays in the summer just for bikers and runner to use to ride along the Schuylkill River. There is also various parts of Fairmount park which has a lot of good paved and dirt trails some of which they actually plow during the winter. I was able to ride an 11 mile trail along Pennypack Creek even through there was over a foot of snow on the ground. This is going to be a fun project but is going to take a lot of my normal riding time.

I still plan to do some rides with the club but I won't be leading as many rides as last year since I will be riding outside of the usual club areas. As I did with the Road Biking NJ book some of rides I will put into the freewheeler will be rides to explore the areas I need to get the book done. These will include areas from Doylestown to Wharton State Park to Newark Delaware. So keep and eye on this blog and the rides I put in the freewheeler and join my as I explore some of the roads in and around Philadelphia.

Winter Thaw

It looks like Punxsutawney Phil prediction of a early spring may be correct as the pass couple of weeks have been warm enough to melt most of the snow. It's still been a little hard to get out for a ride as the weather is still a little crazy. This past Saturday was over 50 degrees but with 25 mph steady winds gusting to 40+ there was no way I was going out for a ride.

Luckily Sunday the wind died down. It was below freezing but was sunny. Some people wuss out in the cold weather but I have become a little braver this season. I still won't go out on the road if it is much below 40 but on a mountain bike if I dress right and stay in the woods I can ride down to 25 and be comfortable.

So Sunday I decided to ride the canal path from Princeton to Rocky Hill and back. Even though I have lived in this area for over 20 years I have actually never rode along the canal path so it was a fun ride. There was still some deep snow in a few spot which I had to walk around but the trail was mostly clear and easy to ride. The warm weather of the past couple of weeks have me itching to get back on the road but for now I am happy to be able to get out any way I can.

Thunder Sleet...WTF

So I'm just sitting in my house relaxing after dinner. It is another snow/rain/sleet snowpocalypse type of day. I'm watching the news and listening to NBC 10's weatherman, Glen Schwartz, explain how he was "surprised" by the amount of snow we had this morning..... Wait a minute here, isn't it your job to predict the weather. You have Doppler ten thousand, a team of meteorologists and claim to have the most advance weather prediction algorithms know to man and the best you can do when we get 5 inches of snow when you predicted a little bit of rain is to say "Well that was surprising"

He then goes on to show his prediction for the overnight snow storm with the expected snow amounts, which at this point I have no faith in. He even says that we may see some "Thunder Sleet". OK now he is totally making crap up. "Thunder Sleet"?

A half hour later sleet is pounding on the windows and all of a sudden I see a bright flash of light. Was that lighting? No it can't be. Then comes the thunder. Wow that was strange it's like the worst storms of summer and winter combined. I guess the locust will start falling from the sky tomorrow.

This strange winter weather has given me the opportunity to take a few interesting pictures. I'm sure I will have more soon as the weather doesn't seem to be getting better anytime soon.

Here is a nice one I took the morning after the snow storm right after Christmas.



In early January we had a really cold day. Our sun room is unheated and because of the pool the humidity can get really high. So the morning when it was 3 degrees we had a little ice build up on the inside of the room.

Here is a picture of Chris while riding around Lebanon



















At the end of the same ride my camelback ended up freezing up. It was late in the day and getting colder. I now know that when it is around 20 degrees I should wear the camelback on the inside of my coat.

Snow Biking

So far this winter is shaping up to be a cold and snowy one a little like last year. We had a big snow storm right after Christmas and a few small ones since. This have left the roads unrideable and with the temperatures not getting much above freezing it could be a while before I am able to ride on the road again.

This has lead me to try out mountain biking in order to continue biking this winter. Chris, Laura, Mike and others have been doing this for years and it looked like fun so I decided it was time to give it a try. I don't have a mountain bike and did want to keep borrowing other peoples so I went the Trenton Bike Exchange. The Trenton Bike Exchange has a lot of old used bikes that are relatively cheap $25 to $200. They didn't have a lot of choices in mountain bikes that fit me. I ended up getting an old Giant mountain bike that is at least 10 years old and a little beat up but is good cheap bike that will let me try mountain biking an see if I really like it.

After cleaning up the bike and adding some new pedals I headed to Mercer Park this past Sunday. We had just gotten a couple of inches of snow which was enough to be fun but not too deep to make riding impossible. Chris and Mike M joined me for the ride which is good since they know the trails better than I do. They called me a snow virgin and did seem to take some joy at the fact that I hadn't ridden in snow before which meant they were going to enjoy watching me fall on my ass.

Riding in the snow was fun but hard. I don't have a lot of experience riding mountain bikes so my handling abilities are not that good on smooth dirt let alone slippery snow. Keeping my balance was tough especially in deep snow. I went down a number of times which I'm learning is just part of mountain biking. As Mike said "when you fall on a road bike its called a crash, when you fall on a mountain bike it is just a fall". Luckily the snow was still soft and fluffy.

It was really pretty riding through the snow although I was concentrating on keeping from falling. We ended up going around the other side of the lake and for the most part the snow was only a couple of inches deep but there were spots where the drifts were deep so we did a bit walking. There were also spots where there was a lot of a ice under the snow which were impossible to ride through.

Chris's mountain bike skills again impressed me. He seems to be able to ride though almost any thing and was a lot faster than I was. It was cold and windy but being in the woods blocked the wind. Riding a mountain bike is hard work especially in the snow so I warmed up pretty quick and was never really was cold.

By the time we got to the other side of the lake we were a little tired so we took an easier way back. We ended up on the paved bike path which was snow covered but ridable until we got near the tennis courts where the drifts were too deep to keep riding. We switched to the road for the rest of the way back to the boat house. This was the only time on the whole ride that I felt how windy it really was.

We ended up spending over 2 hours riding/walking in the snow. I was a little tired and sore. My wife thought I was crazy to go riding in the snow but it was a fun time. I got to test out the bike and do a different type of riding. I can't say I'm a mountain biker yet but I am not longer a snow virgin I am a snow novice.