When it was time to put some rides in the book I decided to add a covered bridge ride to show people some of the roads I found. We started from Bulls Island and although the rain had passed it was still very overcast and foggy. After crossing over the bridge at Bulls Island we headed up the ridge. The first real climb started a few miles into the ride when we turned up Wismer. There are two climbs in quick succession of 120 and 180 feet. That get a little steep. But once that was over it was more gentle ups and downs as we passed through the covered bridges. We went through the Loux, Frankenfield and Erwinna bridges. The Loux is one of the nicest covered bridges in Bucks county. I would have stopped for some pictures but they won't have come out that nice because of the weather. You can check out the ones I took last year HERE.
Right before we turned on to the road to the Erwinna bridge we were climbing a small hill with some one on a mountain bike just a little bit ahead of us. I was planning on going around the biker but for some reason we weren't gaining any ground on him. It didn't seem right because the guy was going up hill and he was barely peddling. Either his was a former Tour de France racer in a 53x11 gear going up hill or he had a motor some where. I quicken my pace a little but was still not able to catch him until we hit a stop at the end of the road. I got a quick glimpse of his rear wheel which had a big drum on it which I assumed was a motor. That made me feel better about not being able to keep up with him.
From here we headed back up the hill. This was a nice gentle climb that would have been enjoyable except for the fact that they had just ground up the road surface to get it ready to pave. It was ridable but very bumpy. There was a small part that was paved but for the most part we had a couple of miles of numb nut inducing peddling.
Eventually we ended up on the top of Bridgeton Road. This is a great downhill but the last time I went down this hill one of the people behind got out of control and ran off the road. I told everybody to enjoy the downhill just not too much.
We stopped at the bottom of the hill for a quick break then headed over to the NJ side for some more climbing. I took Javes to Rummel which is the easy way up to the ridge. A couple of people peeled off because they were getting a little tired. The rest of headed on along the ridge. The weather was have suppose to have gotten better by now but instead the clouds had descended to ground. It wasn't actually raining but our bikes, glasses and bodies were being covered with dew from the moist air.
This really didn't make it any harder to ride it just obscured most of the scenic views that I had hope to enjoy. The route back to the start had us going through Sky Manner which has three small airports. I did see the airports but all the planes were grounded because of the weather. Most of the road in this area were new to me and were actually pretty nice so I will probably come back this way again.
The ride ended by going down Federal Twist from the top. This is a steep straight smooth downhill if you're daring you can hit speeds of over 50 MPH. If I had my Feather I would have tucked and let her rip but my Cannondale is not as stable. I got it up to just over 46 miles which was as fun and scary as it sounds.
The ride ended up being around 48 miles with about 3600 feet of climbing. I felt pretty good at the end which gave me some encouragement that I may be able to complete next weeks ride up in Jockey Hollow.
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