Hay Cow

It is now officially fall and the days are starting to get shorter and a colder. Soon we will be riding in arm warmers and jackets. Today however was closer to a summer day. Laura had listed a ride to Oldwick which is one of the few places we haven't gone this year. Bob, Ricky, Jim and Blake also showed up for the ride.

Laura had not posed the route but I had a general idea where we were going. Laura had said she was going to be stopping for pictures during this ride and it didn't take long to get to the first picture stop. One of the farms had taken some hay bails and painted them like pigs and cows.

We also made a quick stop at Solsberg airport although we didn't see any airplanes taking off.

We eventually made our way to Rockaway Rd and one of my favorite climbs. We are still a few weeks from peak color so most of the trees are still green even though some leaves are already falling because it has been so dry from lack of rain. From the top of Rockaway we work our way over to Fox Hill and a fun downhill with a good view of the valley that we always stop for.

Its was a little hazy be we could still see over to the next ridge.

Our rest stop today was the Oldwick general store which was not as crowded as it usually is. In fact we were to only bikers there for once.

By the time we left to head back it was actually feeling more summer like. We cruised through a lot of scenic rural back roads and saw a lot of deer lurking along the roads. It almost felt like they were following us. 

We ended up with just over 51 miles. Even though we had done some climbing it was a very relaxed and enjoyable ride. It was one of the better routes we did this year and one we should do more often.

An Entertaineing Ride

After doing hilly rides for the past two weeks it was time to do something flatter. I didn't feel like going to the pinelands or toward the shore so decided to just head south of New Egypt. The ride started from MCP so it was close enough to ride in. I was joined by Jim, Martin, Ken, Laurie and Laura. This was planned as a low key ride on familiar roads.

We headed out across Rt 130 and towards the Assinpink where we meet a pack of hound dogs walking down road presumably heading out to a fox hunt?  It was then on to Rue Rd and past some donkeys and alpacas. The last set of animals we saw was a herd of long horn steers south of New Egypt. It was more wild life than we normally see.

It did however smell really bad by the long horns.

We stopped at Charleston Coffee at the intersection of 528 and 539 and a preferred stop when we are in this area. They have good coffee and a decent selection of baked goods to eat and if don't like the selection there a bagel shop next store. Today there was even a guitar player singing at the shop so we had entertainment while we ate.

A couple months ago when Laura lead a ride in this area she tried to get from the top of Hawkins Rd to Charleston Coffee but ran into some dirt roads. Today I decided to try to see if I could find a way to do it. I look at google maps and checked out the satellite image and found a way to zig zag through some developments to get through. I wasn't 100% we won't run into some dirt but wanted to give it a try. Not only did we not run into any dirt roads but it actually turned out to kinda scenic.

It was then back to more familiar roads for the last 15 miles back. The only hitch on the way back was that Laura got her chain jammed in her front chain ring. Her front derailleur had not been working since just after the beginning of the ride. Then she thought it working and tried to shift only to have it jam.

It took a few minutes to release the jam and then we road the last few miles back.

Although this was suppose to be an easy boring ride it ended up being more interesting and entertaining than expected.     

Lying Bastard 2019

I'm not sure why I do my lying bastard ride each year as it always leads to my posse abusing my character (not that they don't do that on my other rides). This ride annoys them and they complain more about this ride than the other hilly rides I do even though on paper its not the hardest ride I do.

This year I did not get much of a turnout for the ride. In fact I thought it was going to be the lonely bastard ride as nobody signed up for the ride until late Friday. It ended up just being me, Jack and Pete who just got back from his vacation up state. Laura, the traitor that she is, decided to do Neils longer but flatter ride.

It was a perfect day for a ride. It was just 60 degrees when we started but sunny enough not to need arm warmers. We crossed the bridge into PA and had a couple of miles on river road before the climbing started. Its a six mile climb to get to the top the ridge. It a gentle climb with a few steep bumps here and there but actually a relatively easy climb as shown HERE in the route we did.

Once we got to the ridge we ended up on some traffic free roads with good views of the valley below. For some reason on the PA side the roads on the ridge are more lumpy and bumpy than on the NJ side. I think that one of the things that makes this ride seem harder. Even when you are cruising along the ridge there are a lot of short 5-6% climbs so you can't really relax.

There is not a lot of civilization by Lake Nockamixion so its hard to find a place to take a break. We usually stop in Perkasie and then again at a Turkey Hill on 412. Since Jack and Pete don't mind doing a break later in the ride we skipped going into Perkasie.

Although the route I do for this ride is mostly the same I do tweak it a little every year. This year I changed it so we won't have to cross Rt 313 which is hard to do since it always has a lot of traffic. This actually meant going down by the lake on the south west side which I haven't been before. There is a boat launch on that side where we stopped for a look at the lake.

From there we followed the usual route around the back roads on the north side of the lake. This area is a little strange as it has some "healing centers" and a Greek temple. It was more quiet roads with just enough hills to make us keep working. There were also a few roads that were rocked like last week.

Eventually we made our way to the stop at the Turkey Hill and then headed back to the start which is mostly downhill. I got a flat just after the break when I ran over some sharp rocks in the road.

The last feature of this ride is the descent down what I call the Red Circle of Death (Red Cliff Rd). Its a road that starts off really steep and so the first few hundred feet can be a little dangerous if you aren't careful. What made this even harder this year was that after seeing no cars on the roads we were riding there were two cars at the top of this hill that we had to get around as it started. We managed to make it all down safely and then cruised along the river back to Frenchtown.

The ride ended up being about 2900 ft of climbing and didn't feel as hard as it normally did. Maybe that is because of the weather or because for some reason I didn't get abused as much on this ride as previous years. We'll see what happens next year.