Climb Every Mountain

Now that the trees have started blooming I can start thinking seriously about some of my riding goals for the year. One of my goals is to start doing some hillier rides with the goal of trying some of the tougher hills in the state. What are toughest hills in the state? Luckily someone did the research and came up with a list you can find here.  A few of these like Fiddlers Elbow and Breakneck are well known tough climbs. This is a pretty comprehensive list and although I am familiar and have done some of the hills on the list there are a lot more I haven't heard of. I'm not planning on trying to do all of the major hills listed but will try to knock a few off my list like Fiddlers Elbow, Iron Bridge and Millbrook.

This is going to take a little training to get in shape to tackle these hills and even then I expect I may have to walk up parts of some of these. This weekend I went out did some climbing close to where I live. Over the next few weeks I try to get to the Sourlands a couple of times to do some of the small hills so that by May I can hit the real hills in Pennsylvania and up in Morris County. Yes these will be hard and hilly but I promise some good scenery along with one of the best downhills in New Jersey. 

What Happen to Winter

Spring is almost here which means longer days and warmer weather. This is usually a welcome sight after a dark, cold winter. But I don't think we had any winter this year. Yes it was dark and there were a few days where I went to put the dog out in the morning and said "It feels kinda cold" and once or twice I noticed some white stuff on the ground. But I never shoveled any snow or got out my winter coat. The most amazing thing however is that I wrote my bike EVERY weekend of the winter.

There were a few times when I hit the trail on the mountain bike because I didn't want to deal with the cold or wind on the road but there was never a weekend where the conditions won't let me go out for a ride. Normally I'm lucky if I get out once or twice a month during winter and even in the summer there is usually a few weekends where I get rained out. So this winter will go in the record books as the year I never stopped riding.

Still I'm glad the warmer weather is here and that we moved our clocks forward. In a week or two I should be able to get a ride in after work and start building some real miles. Last year was spent riding the roads in and around Philadelphia for my new book. That was a lot of fun and I have a few new place to ride but I am looking forward planning my rides based on my mood as opposed to a check list needed to finish the book.

Although I don't have a set list of rides I need to do this year I do have a few plans. I do want to do some more hills this year and plan to spend a little more time in Frenchtown and beyond. I would like to spend a weekend in Delaware. The Philadelphia book does have a few cool rides down there that my co-author did that I want to try. I would like to make it up Mt Greylock and also head up to Lake Champlain. I will also definitely head back into Philly a couple of time. I'm looking forward to more time on the bike and some interesting sighs along the way. You never know what you are going find when you ride. Like this car on Gordon Road that must of been going a little too fast.