Bob is one of the newer members of the insane bike posse and fits in good with the group. Laura and I mentored him through his first century a couple of Augusts ago. This year with a little peer pressure we got him to buy a mountain bike so that he could join us on our trail rides. His first trail ride was a few weeks ago on the ride I did out of Washington Crossing and was with us last week, in the snow, at Penny Pack park. Now that he has a mountain bike I am trying to show him how can expand his riding options.
This week I had an off the books ride out of Rocky Hill. The plan was to head north to where the Raritan River meets the Millstone and do an out and back ride of 20-25 miles. Even though it was warmer than last week it was still only 25 degrees at the start. I had a big turn out for such a cold ride. Laura, Pete, Jim, Ricky, Bob and Chris were all there.
For the first part of the ride the path was a little bumpy as the tire tracks and foot prints made in the warm muddy conditions of a past couple of days had frozen. Once we got north of Blackwell Mills the path was more packed down and a lot smoother. The only thing that slowed us down was the occasional large branch or tree across the path. We also ran into work crew and a bunch of trucks on the path that left very little room to go around.
When we got to the place where the Raritan River meets the Millstone we stopped for a couple of pictures. I didn't manage to get any pictures because I had my camera in my outer pocket and the battery was too cold to put out any power.
We had a slight tail wind on the way which made the riding a little easier. When we got to Blackwell Mills I decided to split off with Bob and Chris to show Bob what is is like to do some real mountain biking in 6 mile run. Pete ended up coming with us too as the rest of the group headed back down the path to the start. Instead of doing the longer Blue trail I decided to ride up to the Jacques Rd parking lot and do the White trail to Red trail. This would give us a 3 mile trek through the woods and would be enough to give Bob and intro to mountain biking. Bob's bike was still way to clean for a mountain bike so it was time for it to get a little muddy.
I expected the trail to still be frozen but after the first few hundred feet it looks like the ground was thawing and it was getting muddy. Pete wisely turned around but Chris, Bob and I kept going. There were a lot of spots where the trail was dry and flat and these parts were fun and not too hard. There were also a lot of icy puddles we had to work our way through. You had to try to run through them as fast as you could and try not to put you foot down and get wet. I wasn't always successful but only had to put my foot in the water once.
I forgot how many steep little hills this place had. I had a problem getting in my bottom ring in the front as some mud was frozen on the derailleur. I kick it a couple of times to try to loosen it up but eventually gave up and walked up the steeper spots. I remember why I don't do this type of riding much any more. Chris eventually kicked it into gear and riding was much better after that.
Bob was having the usual beginner problems getting use to handling the bike over this kind of terrain. He did have the occasional fall but got better as we kept going. He said it was like going skiing for the first time.
Once we got out of the valley and on to the drier parts of the trail it was a little better and I started to enjoy it. A few more icy puddles and a couple stream crossings later we made it back to the parking lot and headed by down Canal Rd to Rocky Hill. I was feeling pretty tired after the riding through the woods so we didn't bother getting back on the canal path as the road was easier and would be faster.
When we got back to Rocky hill, Ricky was still there waiting in his car. He had left his lights on so had a dead battery. Luckily Chris had some jumper cables so we were able to get Ricky's car started.
I was muddy and tired but was glad that I did the loop in six mile run as it was fun introducing Bob to another part of the biking experience.
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