Tyler Park Loop

 Because Laura was off on a boondoggle in Bar Harbor for some "job related training" I ended up leading her Sunday Ride. I am mostly over my bronchitis so I decided to head to the hills and do something a little different. Since it is Sunday and the traffic would be a little lighter I decided to head to Tyler State Park from the Yardley Park and Ride. I was joined by Jim, Jack and Blake and did this route.

I have been to Tyler State Park in the winter but don't go there in the summer so I wanted to see it when it wasn't cold and icy. The ride to the park was a slow up hill grind. We entered the park through a residential neighborhood and then did a quick loop around the park with a stop at the boat house by the dam.

We then headed to the Schofield Covered Bridge and left the park along the gravel road. Except for the climb up the gravel steps the gravel was rideable

 

After we left the park we headed towards New Hope for a rest stop via the Van Sant covered bridge. We took a slight detour after the bridge to see Jacks old house.

After the break at Wawa we headed up slogged up hill then along ridge before finishing on river road. At the end we had 46 miles and about 3000 ft of climbing. I'm not sure if I would do the loop again to Tyler State Park but if felt good to be able to be back on the bike again.

Lazy Weekend

It was the perfect weekend to ride a bike yet I was stuck just looking out the window. My bronchitis is getting better but I am still coughing enough to know that any aerobic activity will set me back although it was really hard not to go out and ride.

So instead of another story of my bike adventures I wanted to post a review of the new pump I got. I currently have a Topeka Road Morph

Its a good pump and has the features of a floor pump, including a gauge. The pump is heavier than most bike pumps but is very reliable I and can get any tire up to 100 psi with out too much effort. Since I lead rides I use this pump a lot to pump up tires of anybody that gets a flat. After 3 years the pump was wearing out and I needed a replacement so I wanted to see if there was anything better out there.

I looked at three other pumps. This first one I looked at was Pro Bike Tool pump.

What I liked about this pump was that is was small and light but still had a hose to connect to the value and a gauge that was east to read. I decided not to get this one because although most people thought it was a quality pump most agreed that it was hard to get the pressure much over 80 psi. If this was a pump I used to get me home after a flat that would be fine but since I have to deal with flats on a regular basis with the people that ride with me I wanted something a little easier to pump and could get me to a higher pressure.

The second pump I looked at was the Lezyne Micro Drive HP Pump.

This thing is not only a compact floor pump it is also a work of art. Joe had this on his new new Soma Sans Marcos bike a few weeks ago and it looked great on his bike. This is a great pump but it is about twice as heavy as the current Road Morph I carry. I don't really care about the weight but it is also very bulky so it might be hard to find a good mounting place on my bikes for it. Although this would look great on my feather I went for something easier to carry.

The pump I chose was the Topeka Turbo Morph. This is essentially the same as the Road Morph but will a better gauge.

It also pumps at a higher volume. As you can see from the comparison below it is almost the same as the old Road Morph. There are some minor changes in the design. The head seems better built and the hose doesn't extend any more. I am hoping the internal parts a a little better to so that maybe this pump will last a little longer.

For me the Morph pumps are a good trade off between weight, size and function. When I or anybody I ride with have a flat I want a pump that I is almost as good as a floor pump so I know I have enough pressure in the tire and don't have to worry about pinch flats. 

Close Encounters on the way to Sandy Hook

There are a number of rides that I have done many times and Sandy Hook is one of them that I do at least once a year. The route that I use hasn't changed that much over the years but because of my high point exploring last year I found a couple of new roads and a way to get to Sandy Hook with a slightly more northern route. Here is a link the to route we actually took.

This route offers a little less traffic on the way to Sandy Hook and allowed me to check out the old Bell Labs office complex. This lab was once one of the leading research facilities in the world and was birthplace of radio astronomy, the transistor and the cellphone. Now it is an abandon campus that is going to turned into an office park and housing development.

One of the most unusual features of the property is the water tower that looks like a UFO. (BTW don't google Bell Labs and UFOs unless you want to see some posts from some dumb witted people who believe Bell Labs helped create today's technology by reverse engineering the wreckage from the Roswell UFO crash)

Contrary to the insane beliefs of the people who think the X-Files was a documentary series, the water tower is not from another planet. It is just an ugly water tower in the shape of a transistor. Now I am an electrical engineer and worked with a lot of transistors early in my career and that water tower doesn't look like any transistor I used.

So I guess it must be an artistic impression of one. 

Joining me on this ride was Laura, Jim, Ed and Jack. This was Jack's first real road ride since his fall and Ed had just got back from a trip down under. We made our usual stop at the Quick Check on Rt 36 before heading down to the beach.

The wind had started out brisk and was a lot stronger by the time we got to the beach. So much so that we were sand blasted a few times. It was blowing at least 20 mph with stronger gusts.  Instead of our normal ride out to the end of Sandy Hook and back we decided to just go to the first beach and turn around there because of the wind.

We went back home from Sandy Hook the normal way with a quick stop in Little Silver before the push home. Although we had head winds most of the way home there was enough cover to make it bearable although it wore me out a little. About 3 miles from the end I started cramping up but made it to the end with out having to stop to stretch it out.

We did have more traffic than normal on the way home because it was a warm sunny day and it is beach season. I will go back to Sandy Hook again and now have two ways to get there but probably would try to go there only in off season to avoid some traffic.

Although I quickly recovered from my cramps I felt pretty bad Sunday night and developed a dry cough. It turns out I caught a case of bronchitis so it will probably be a week or more before I can get back on the bike.

The Holy Kickstand

As promised before this weeks ride I performed a blessing of the bikes to try and get rid of the bad juju I have had on the past couple of rides. I brought with me the "Holy Kickstand". This is a non-denominational religious artifact. A normal kickstand helps prop the bike up and keep it from falling down. The Holy Kickstand is the spiritual version of a kickstand and helps keep the rider and bike upright at all times during the ride.

Using the Holy Kickstand I performed a traditional  Hawaiian hoʻoponopono blessing. Ho'oponopono is a mental cleansing where a person or group of people admit their problems and ask for forgiveness to appease the Ke Akua (creator). I then used the Brita water of purity to bless each bike similar to the asperges ritual performed by catholic priests.

Although I am not a trained kahuna I must have done a good enough job because the ride was trouble free. Laura, Jim, Bob and I did a ride around Round Valley. As it is most of the times we visit the Round Valley reservoir the weather was hot and overcast.

Unlike last week this ride had no drama just some good riding and interesting conversations. We ended up doing the reverse version of this route.  At the top of Lindbergh Laura peeled off as she had ridden in. Jim, Bob and I back to Griggstown. It was nice to finally have a ride with out any problems. Although I can't fully attribute the clean ride with blessing ceremony it didn't hurt so this blessing may become part of my normal pre-ride ritual.