Lying Bastard 2023

My semi regular Lying Bastard ride use to be a ride where I would post a ride and a route and then make some changes (like adding an unexpected 15% climb) somewhere along the way. My Insane posse however knows most of my tricks by now so there are very few surprises on this ride. 

This year we did this route. I have tweaked the ride over the years to make it a little easier and get rid of roads that had traffic or were not in good condition. There are still a few roads I would like to change like the roads right after the rest stop but some times there are no good alternatives. 

The only surprise of this years ride was a quick detour to see the spillway where the water empties out of Lake Noximixon. The bridge on Headquarters Rd is still out and I don't think they will ever fix it. This year they piled more gravel in front of the barrier but there is still no problem getting over the bridge. 

The climb up Headquarters is the longest climb of the ride. It's just a long grind with only one or two quick steep spots. My legs felt tired as I started up the first few climbs. I had done a long ride on Wednesday to the shore where my legs felt heavy so I guess I had not recovered from my busy week. It's not that I felt bad it's just that I could not push as hard as I normally do so had to use slightly lower gears and cadence. 

It rain early in the morning before the start and was cloudy when we started but by the time we took a bathroom break on the south west corner of the lake the sun was out and the humidity was dropping. 

From there we climbed up the west side of the lake and then through the rolling hills on the north side. There are no real tough climbs here but just a constant up and down with a few short of steep spots along the way. 

There was almost no traffic on these roads which is one of the reasons I like to ride around here. I just wish my legs had a little more life in them. 

After our stop at Turkey Hill we started the last 10 miles back. The first two miles we hit a lot of traffic. Most of the way has a shoulder that lets traffic get around us but there was one spot where a car would not pass us even through they had room. We pull over for a few minutes to let the cars pass then made our way to the Red Circle of Death and back to the start. 

It was a very uneventful ride so even thought it is called the Lying Bastard ride it has really just become a normal ride around the hills of Lake Noximixon.

A Busy Week

 

Last weekend I went for a ride with my other bike club mainly because the ride started close to home and I errands I need to run in the afternoon. It didn't hurt that the club was buying ice cream for everyone at the rest stop. The JSTS club has some unique traditions through out the year and the ice cream ride is my favorite. We stopped at a place in Englishtown and all the different paces stop at the same place so it's sort of like a big ice cream party. The place we stopped at is called Four Brothers. They usually don't open until 11am but the club called ahead and got them to open a half hour early since 50 or more bikers were heading their way. I usually don't like to eat something as heavy as ice cream during a ride but on certain occasions it just feels right.

This past Wednesday I went to the Atlantic City airshow since I hadn't been at one in while and a person in our community asked me to go. It's a long day since the air show starts at 11am and runs until 4pm. It's very crowded on the beach so you have to get their early and stake out a spot. We had no problem with finding a parking lot or getting a good spot on the beach. It was a mostly sunny day but not too hot. We had an umbrella to keep the sun off us so I was relatively comfortable on the beach. The airshow was good and had a couple of good acts. My favorite was the dual mustangs.There is just nothing that sounds and look as good as those airplanes. 

There was also a Harrier jet that hovered over the beach that was cool. This is a shot taken by other person with me who is an avid photographer. He changed the picture to high contrast B&W to show more detail.

After the airshow since it was on the way home we stopped by the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge to try to get some picture of the birds there. Since I had my good camera with me with the telephoto lens I wanted to see if I could some better bird pics than I did two weeks ago. There were a lot of herrings there along with an assortment of seagulls and other water fowl. I got a good pic of a egret landing

And some kind of bird that skims the water with its beak.

And a heron eating a fish. I'm not sure of the bird type so need to add an app on my phone to better identify them.

Wildlife photography is challenging as you have to take pictures in bursts hoping you will get the bird in focus and at the perfect moment. You also have to hope for good light which we didn't have. I definitely learned a lot and got enough good shots but I know I can do better so will probably try some more wild life photography in the future. 

This past weekend I lead one of my standard rides out of Allentown as I felt like something close and flat. The route goes down to Columbus then through New Egypt and out to some pastures past some longhorn cattle. 

Normally the cattle our on the INSIDE of the fence however this one got out and most of the people on the ride did not want to get too close... Except for Luis and Jim who stood in front of the cow for a picture I wanted to send to Laura.

Cattle are very docile animals so I don't think it would have charged us as long as we didn't stop it from eating the grass it was so interested in. 

We stopped at Charleston Coffee for our break and maintained a good pace into a slight headwind. It was a good ride on a sunny and low humidity day. As August turns into September we should have more weather like this.

The bike ride on Saturday was not my only event for the day. The photography club here had an outing to Jenkinson's in Point Pleasant to learn about a type of photography called street photography where you try to walk down the street and get candid shots of people or objects you encounter as you walk past them. I'm not very good at taking pictures of people or have a lot experience so decided to give it a try. 

There were about 10 of from the club on the boardwalk with our cameras. We started about a half hour before sunset. It felt strange just talking picture of people on the boardwalk. I felt like I was invading their privacy but it was really crowded and no body seemed to mind or really care. There are a few people in the club that are very good at going up to someone and asking them to pose for a picture. As you can image there were quite a few strange characters on the boardwalk that would make a good picture. 

It was fun walking around with some of the other people from the photography club. They are each a little different and have different styles so I picked up some tips from them. After I got into it I relaxed and took a few good shots. The best one was of a girl on a swing giving her mother a high five as she went around.

 

I converted it to black and white because the low light made the colors look dim so converting it to black and white brought out more detail. I also took picture of some of the rides and got creative and did a long exposure to blur the motion of the swing. That is the picture at the top of the post. 

I left the boardwalk around 9pm and was tired from a long day and a busy week but did a lot of different things and had a lot of fun.

Batsto, Beach ride and Birds

Last week I had a couple of unique rides. On my Wednesday off I road from Belmar up to Long Branch along the beach. I did the ride early in the morning so there wasn't much traffic. I rode through Asbury Park through Deal and then to Long Branch which has a nice paved bike path along the beach. There is also 7 Presidents park and monument dedicated to the 7 presidents who visited Long Branch starting with Ulysses S. Grant who had a house here and declared Long Branch the nations best beach.

It's not much of a monument but Long Branch itself is probably one of the better beach towns at the Jersey Shore. I had a pretty stiff north wind fighting me on the way north so it was an easy ride back. I did an inland loop in the way back around one of the bays with some nice view of a couple of marina's. I ended up with 27 mile. This is not a ride I would do a lot but it was a nice ride along the beaches that is fun for a change of pace.

This past Saturday the with decent weather I got the posse to join be on a southern sojourn down to Batsto in south Jersey. We a route along the Mullica river out to Smithville and back. The roads down by Batsto are flat and almost traffic free. There are also a couple of interesting sites along the way so it is a scenic ride. 

We did this route and got a good number of the posse to join me including a new addition Jeff. Jeff asked if there would be any dirt roads in the route which prompted a laugh from a few of the regulars. For some reason most of my rides involve a bridge out and some dirt along the way so they don't bother asking anymore. The group was still complaining about dirt in their cleats from our journey up Stony Brook where we had walk across Zippy creek.

We started our ride by going through the woods around Batsto before crossing over the Mullica River where we stopped to talk to the bridge operator. We didn't hit much traffic as we cruised towards Smithville. We moved along at a good clip with the slight tail wind we had. We had our first bridge out as we got to the town of Port Republic. This was the same bridge our we encountered the last time we did this ride 3 years ago. At that time they were just about to tear down the bridge. This time the bridge was just about finished so it wasn't a problem getting over. 

When we got to Smithville we stopped at a bakery in the shopping village. The last time we were down here in 2020 this was all closed so we had to stop at CVS. The bakery made a much better stop. After rest stop we headed out to Leed's Point which gives you a good view of the inland waterway and a distance view of Atlantic City. We usually get attacked by bug here but it wasn't bad this time. We stopped for some pictures like the one at the top of the post then headed back west towards our start. 

We did have a flat tire to deal with but otherwise it was trouble free ride back to the starting point. There was some minor traffic at a few spot but for the most part it was a quiet, flat and scenic ride. We did have two more bridge outs on the way back so it was the rare triple bridge out ride but we were able to easily ride over both of them. 

After the ride I headed home but stopped at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge to take some pictures of birds. I had wanted to come down here for a while but never took the time so I figure since I was close I would check it out. There were a lot heroins, seagulls,egrets and  other birds I couldn't even name. Also the bugs that were usually at Leed's Point were here instead and attached me as soon as I go out of the car to take a few pictures.

 I got a couple of good pics with my point and shoot camera

but want to go back with my real camera to get some better pictures.

When I was on the beach last Wednesday I did get a few good bird pics with my DLSR camera.

 

 

These are with a new telephoto lens. After I learn to use it better I should be able to do even better. 

 

When I got home that day I was actually able to capture a humming bird going after a sun flower on our patio.

 

 It was a lucky shot but with the flowers we have on our patio the humming birds come by a couple of times a day so hope to get a few more before the flowers fade.