Saturday, September 21, 2013

Opportunistic Exploring

At the end of the McBride ride Laura mentioned the possibility of riding to Cocoluxe for her ride this week. When it came time to plan her ride she chose to stay closer to home and do a double shot coffee ride. I don't drink coffee and I had to be up in Long Valley Saturday afternoon so since Cocoluxe had been calling me since Laura mentioned it I decided to do a ride on my own out of Peapack to do some exploring.

The last time I was in Peapack was when I did the El Capitan ride. Laura did a ride earlier in the year that I missed so this seemed like a good time to explore some new roads. I ended up doing this route which is a combination of some of my Schooley's Mountain Ride with a little be of El Capitan. The main point of the ride was eat some chocolate goodness from Cocoluxe and to go down Fox Chase hill again which was a cool hill I discovered as part of the El Capitan ride.

The weather was a little cold and foggy but since the ride started with a climb up Potterville Rd I warned up pretty quick. In 10 miles I was Rockaway Rd working my way up the hill. I ran in to a Morris County Freewheeler group that I rode with for 5 miles before splitting off to head into Hacklebarny.



One of the new roads I explored was Pleasant Hill Rd. Although there were a couple short steep spots it wasn't a bad rode and had a couple of cool downhills as well as some nice views of a small river and surrounding marshland.

The ride did not have a lot of flat spots so there was a lot of ups and downs, mostly ups but the last part of the ride has some cool down hills down South Rd and Old Mill Rd. The last down hill as Fox Chase Rd but when I got there was a sign that said the road was closed. As most people know I usually don't pay attention to those signs since there is usually a way to get around most road construction when on a bike.

In this case the road was closed past where I turned off so it wasn't a problem and I was able to enjoy the downhill into Peapack and a nice stop at Cocoluxe to satisfy my chocolate fix.

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