Going to the Extreme

When I tell people that I ride bikes for fun they usually ask me how far I ride, 5-10 miles? When I tell them that I usually do 40 to 60 miles most weekends they think that is a lot of miles. I tell them that if you build up miles slowly as you begin to ride its really very easy to do long ride and you can even do 100 miles with out much of a problem if you put in enough training.

After being in the hills last weekend I decided to do something flat this weekend down in the pine barrens. At 60 miles this would be one of the longer rides I do. 60-70 miles is about longest rides I like to do especially early in the season.

We started from Mansfield park and I was joined by Chris, Pete, Laurie(second week in a row), and Jack (who rode in from Bordentown because apparently 60 miles was too short a ride for him).

We headed out the bike path to Island Rd and then went around Fort Dix and through Browns Mills to get to the pinelands. We had to a slight detour on Catesville Rd as it was more gravel than road so I'm taking that road off the route. Here is the modified ride we did.

Our first rest stop was at the ranger station at Brendan Byrne state park. As we were there a bunch of other riders pulled in. I saw that Mary was part of the group. This was one of the randonneurs rides that Mary does. Today they were doing 600k and in case you can't translate that in your head its a HOLLY SHIT 372 mile ride. Now this is over 2 days so its ONLY 186 miles a day. But the last time I did a century you know what I wanted to do the day after doing a century? Not get on the bike and do another fucking century and this group was about to do an almost back to back double century. It makes my 60 mile ride feel like a ride around the block.

After leaving Mary and her truly insane group we headed down through the pinelands and ended up at Nixons for our real rest stop. There we met Raj who is also a randonneur. He was only doing a 73 miles as a warm up to his 600k ride next week with 50 other randonneurs. Apparently this year is the Paris randonneur 1200k and you have to do a 600k to qualify for it which is why so many people are doing the 600k. I can understand a few people wanting to push their body to the extreme but it is amazing to me that there are over 50 people in NJ who actually do this. To do these rides its 14-17 hours in the saddle for two straight days. This is not only physically difficult but must be a big mental strain. I can imagine with that many hour on a bike you must start to hallucinate or freak out at some point.

In any case I was happy with the 60 miles we did. The weather was a little more humid than predicted so I was a little worn out by the end of the ride. I wish Mary and her fellow randonnerurs good luck on their long travels but for me I keep my rides well under 100 miles.

Bike Rally

This memorial day week was one of the better ones we have had weather wise this year. Saturday was cloudy but a cool 70 degrees with no chance of rain. I had put a ride, on the calendar, out of Bull's Island to climb a few hills and see a few covered bridges. Its one of the rides I use to see how well I can climb. We did this route which looks a little hillier than it is.

I was joined by Jim, Bob, Ricky, Jack, Lorrie (last seen on the Lying Bastard ride) and Mike back for a visit after sailing the high seas. It was an easy climb up to Carversville before we headed up Wiener road which has two steep climbs close together that usually gets my heart rate close to max. From there we headed through three different covered bridges which requires a series of ups and downs. The climbs are not very steep or long but they add up after a while. This is a scenic ride with some decent downhills so I do enjoy this route. Mike bail after about 10 miles as he has not been riding much but it was good to see him and hear about how he has been doing.

We had one last long but easy climb up Upper Tinicum Rd to get to the ridge above Milford. Then it was a death defying decent down Bridgeton Rd to our stop in Black Eddy. We apparently weren't the only bikers out for a ride as Homestead was packed with them. There was at least 25 other bikers there and out numbered the other people there. We ended up talking to a couple of the other rides and traded stories.

Then it was over the river to the NJ side and up the hill to Sky Manor. Once there we rode along the ridge which was relatively flat. The last part of the ride came down Federal Twist back to our start. I ended up with over 3000 feet of climbing. I made it through the ride but felt slow so will definitely do some more hilly rides to keep building my hill muscles.

Monday was the all pace ride. I went there to see a few people I don't normally see. It was good catching up with everybody. I ended up on Ron's ride but bailed out just after 10 miles since I wanted to do a little shorter ride. Jack came along with me. We ended up stopping at Roy's. When we got there it appeared most of the other rides stopped there too. It looked like a bike rally with at least 4 different groups of riders. We didn't hang around too long as I had some projects to finish at home.

This was definitely the weekend to go riding as everybody was out. Now that it is unofficially summer let's hope we have more weekends like this.

Cheesequake Run

Its unusual for me to get a request for a ride that I haven't done before in NJ. However when Jack asked if I could lead a ride to Cheesequake I said sure since I hadn't been there before. There aren't a lot quiet roads by Cheesequake so it was a little hard to find a good route. I ended up with this route from Monmouth Battlefield Park.

Because of an alternate ride suggestion there was a flurry of email before the ride that eventually degenerated into our normal insults. (🖕)  Jack, Jim, Ricky, Peter, Chris and Laura (back from her residency in glass blowing) ended up joining me for the ride.

The beginning of the ride was similar to our normal Sandy Hook ride which heads through Freehold then out Dutch Lane. Although I kept it on the back roads there was still some traffic that was annoying. The area east of Freehold continues to be built up so I usually only do rides in this area on Sundays when the roads are quieter.

When we got to Homdel I started heading towards Cheesequake. The meant going on some new roads and over a couple of hills. The new roads would have been nice except for the fact that the they were in pretty bad shape. This hills were a little steeper than expected but nothing extreme. The Beacon Hill downhill would have been fun if not for the pot holes, poor lighting and occasional wet spots. There were many ways we could have hurt ourselves on that down hill.

At the bottom of the hill we had a short stint on 79 before stopping at a Quick Check. From there is was up a few more back roads that were suppose to be the better roads in the area according to njbikemap but it was not a fun ride. The roads were extremely beat up to the point that there were some spot that were more hole than road. There also was moderate traffic in spots. It was nothing real dangerous but it was not a relaxing ride.

Once we made it to Cheesequake we headed towards Hook Lake. When we got there is was actually hard to see the lake as it not much more than a large puddle next to a sand beach.

Before the lake I actually headed along a wooden path to the crabbing bridge to get a view of the swamp land that is Cheesequake. We stopped for some pictures before heading back out of the park,

We had to retrace our way back on the roads we came in on. They weren't any smoother on the way back. To avoid riding some of the busier roads in the area I opted to take the Henry Hudson trail back to Freehold. This trail is a well maintained paved trail that is no problem riding on a road bike. There are some occasional cracks and bump but the only real problem with riding this trail is all the people walking along it. Today however there were only a few people on the trail so that wasn't a problem.

I did hit a couple of unseen bumps pretty hard and my camera flew out of my top tube bag on to the path and on to the grass. Jack picked it up. I bought the Nikon coolpix S33 specifically because it was water proof and shock resistant and I can report that a 4 foot drop at 15 miles an hour onto a hard surface will not hurt this camera. It still works fine and I can't even find a mark where it hit.

There was a small part of the Henry Hudson trail that is not finished so we had to ride on Rt 79 for a mile or so. To get back on the trail we had to make a left to Newman Springs Rd to get to Big Brook Park. At the intersection was a police car blocking the way. Apparently there was an accident on the road. I convinced the officer to let us by since we were only going to the park which was before the accident. We had to go through two more check points to get to the park. It must have been a pretty bad accident to have this many cars blocking off the road. Although we saw the flashing lights as we turned into the park we never saw the actual accident.

The trail through the Big Brook Park was the smoothest and nicest part of the trail. We jumped off the trail where it met Kozloski and made our way to Monmouth Battlefield Park. Although it was fun to go some place we haven't been before it's not a ride I would do again anytime soon.

I may go back to Cheesequake for some hiking or mountain biking as it looks like it has some interesting trails. And now that I know the name of the park comes from a sub-tribe of the Lenni Lenape called the Chichequaas (pronounced chink-a-qeek) I won't associate this part with foods or earthquakes anymore.

Fresh Face

I tend to ride with the same group of people most of the time. Occasionally we get a new person to join our group for a ride but for some reason they usually don't come back. Today we had a new woman, Hillary, join us for a ride. She fit in well with the group so I hope she comes back for another ride.  She emailed me and told me that she wanted to move from a C+ to B ride. I sent her the route and made sure she knew what type of ride it would be. I just wanted to make sure she knew what she was getting herself into.

When she got to the ride I introduced her to the my regulars Jack, Jim, Pete, and Ricky. Laura was MIA because of her glassblowing class. I was going to do a group photo with us giving her the finger(because that is how we show her we miss her) but decided to ask Hillary to do it instead. The fact that she agreed to do it showed that she would get along with the group. I sent the picture to Laura with the caption "You've been replace" to which she replied "It was inevitable"

Before heading out for the ride I did the blessing of the Holy Kickstand since we had a new person on the ride. I made sure I gave a couple extra shakes towards Jack just in case we got near Federal Twist.

We did this route and started with a climb which can't be avoided when you are starting from Lambertville. It was a slow steady climb up to Sergeantsville then continued our way up to Pittstown and then through Sky Manor before heading down to Frenchtown. The weather was better than expected. It was sunny and mid 60s. We got some good views as we rode along the ridge.

Frenchtown was crowded as it seemed every biker in the area was gathered there. We ended up sitting by river. I had two routes for the way back. One flat the other hilly. I decided to go for the flatter way back which involved heading down Rt 29.

With a stiff tail wind we quickly made our way pass Bulls Island on our way to Lower Creek where we climbed back up the hill and back into Lambertville. We ended up with 43 miles and about 2000ft of climbing. Hillary didn't seem to have much of a problem keeping up and should be able to hang with us if she wants join us for another ride.


 

Meditations on GPS Navigation

After almost 10 years my faithful Delorme PN-40 GPS has started to become unreliable. It still works but it thinks it is 1999. It goes through batteries twice as fast as it use to. The connector on back of the unit is so worn it is very hard to get it to connect and sync with the computer. I would gladly buy another Delorme GPS unit but they were recently bought by Garmin so Delorme no longer sells GPS units.

If you want a GPS unit for a bike you pretty much are going to buy one of the models from Garmin. Wahoo does make an alternative but it doesn't match the features of a Garmin. The other alternative is to use your phone but then you need to carry a supplemental battery so the phone will last the entire ride with the screen on.

After some research and some good advice from Jim I bought the Garmin Edge Explore. The Explore is targeted at bikers who want a GPS mainly for navigation and are willing to give up some of the advance fitness and workout measurements like power and V02 max. It got a large 3" screen and more features than I need. Its really a good piece of hardware. The screen is good size and is a little bit bigger than my old Delorme. Surprisingly the Delorme screen is almost as clear as the new Explore even though the Explore has 10 year newer technology.

The unit is easy to configure and you can display a lot of different information on the large screen. Besides using the Explore for navigation it will also be my speedometer/cycle computer. It also is able to sync to my heart rate strap so I no longer need to wear a separate monitor.

As with all new toys it takes a while to understand how it works. I did a few short rides with it to get the hang of how to use it. I even did a couple of rides with both the old Delorme and new Explore so I could compare the accuracy between the two. Unlike the Delorme no ride planning software is included. You have to create the route somewhere like RideWithGPS and then download the route to the Explore. Its not hard to do but is not as seamless and integrated as the Delorme.

Once the route is on the Explore and I'm riding it is very similar to the Delorme. On the Delorme I kept the screen on the map view. It had an orange highlight on the route and displayed the next turn as well as distance to the next turn and distance to the end of the ride. On the Explore I can set it up similar to the Delorme but not exactly. On the Explore it is a little easier to switch between screens so I normally leave it on one of the data screens so I can see speed, distance to next turn, time, total distance and heart rate all at once. When I get with in a tenth of a mile of a turn the Explore automatically switches to the map to show you the turn which I like.

After the ride it is easy to connect to my computer and upload the ride to Garmin Connect which I have automatically synced with my RideWithGPS account. I still am getting use to the unit and still need to figure out how to do a few things but overall I'm very happy with it. Today during the Spring Fling I left Chris's ride and headed home on my own. I used the "where to" function to let it calculate a way home. Half the time it would suggest a different way than I wanted to go but then quickly recalculate with out complaining as I ignored its suggestions. Having the Explore show me the approximate distance until I get home was useful as it let me know how direct a route I should take from home.

I know some people that have problems with Garmin GPSs not being able to follow an uploaded route or having other problems with the unit that makes them not trust it but so far I haven't had any real problems. I am the original tech geek. I've worked on the satellites that send the GPS signals to these units so I understand the detailed math and algorithms used by these units to calculate position and speed. If needed I could probably de-compile the firmware and rewrite it. So I think I get a certain amount of respect from these types of devices as it knows I could take a soldering iron and go all medieval on it ass. I also enjoy getting into the details of how the software and hardware works and try not to get angry at these devices. I want to stay on their good side because we all know that machines will some day take over the world.

My only real problem with the new Explore is that the elevation data is low by at least 40%. When I did a ride with both the Delorme and Explore the difference in elevation was almost double. It seems like whatever algorithm it uses to calculate the elevation under estimates the change. GPS units don't actually calculate your exact position each second. It only calculates the exact position when you first turn it on since that takes about 5 to 30 seconds depending on the position of the satellites. While you're riding every few seconds the GPS unit gets a time a position signal from the satellites but it can't really do a full calculation of your position instantaneously so it uses a simpler algorithm to approximate the position based on the rate of change of the data. The accuracy of the calculation depends on the amount of computing power you have, the amount of satellites in view and the time between points. There is always a trade off between speed and accuracy. The Explore is  pretty good at calculating the actual position and speed but not the elevation for some reason. I went up Stillhouse and although the Delorme and Explore showed the same height at the bottom hill by the time I got to the top the Explore was off but 40 feet. It seems the elevation changes a lot slower on the Explore. Just look at how the Explore profile is so much smaller and smoother than the Delorme.

The Explore profile

The Delorme profile

I know all this doesn't really matter but this type of analysis is interesting to me and part of how I get to know and understand the inner workings of the devices I use. In any case because I don't really trust the elevation of the Explore. I will use the elevation from the RideWithGPS instead to for my rides.

The other issue that I found while switching to the Explore is that state of software used to plan a ride has actually taken a step backwords. When I bough the Delorme it came with a software for the PC specifically made to research and plan rides. Setting way points and moving them was a lot easier than using RideWithGPS. I can do things with the Delorme software like show a 3D view of the route that just aren't available now.

Free open source software is good from the point of view that there is a lot of free software available to use but because people don't pay for software any more it is not as sophisticated or easy to use. Of course RideWithGPS is getting better but it is still years behind my current Delorme software. Because of this it will be a while before I can create and upload rides to the Explore as quickly and easily as I could with the Delorme.

For the most part the new Explore is a good replacement for my Delorme and I'm sure in a few more week I will come to rely and trust it as I did with my Delorme.

Suck It Up Buttercup and Other Smack Talk

I ride with a bunch of people who like to insult each other. It's all done in fun of course. This week Jack sent out an email asking for a flat ride to which I thanked him for the suggestion then told him I was going to lead whatever the hell ride I wanted to. There were a few more email exchanges asking who was this guy Jack and questioned his riding skills. It was all just a little pre ride smack talk.

After I sent out the route for the ride Laura sent back "My legs hurt" to which Ricky replied "Suck It Up Buttercup." There is no empathy among the posse.

The ride itself involved less smack talk. Ricky, Laura, Jack, Peter, Andrew and a couple of other people joined me in Rocky Hill for a somewhat hilly ride. The 48 mile ride I had planned I shorten to just over 40 because of impending rain.

I took the easier up over the Sourlands up the newly paved Hollow Rd. I haven't done a lot of hilly rides and so this ride is about starting to get back in hill shape. I felt pretty good over the hills and we made good progress through the rivers around the Sourlands.

We hit a little light rain as we approached the rest stop, the Wawa on Rt 202. The rain got a little heavier as we left the stop ad headed towards Neshanic. It only lasted 15-20 mins then it cleared up and we rode the rest of the ride without rain. It ended up being a decent if slight shorter ride than I had planned. Hopefully we will have some better weather in the weekends to come so we can do some longer rides and exchange some more insults.

  

Introducing the Bloody Bastard

There is nothing like the feel of a new bike under your feet....

In 2008 I got my first mountain bike as part of writing my Best Rides Philadelphia book. I needed the mountain bike to do some of the trail rides for the book. After the book was done I kept mountain biking mostly in the winter when I couldn't get on the road because of the cold or snow. The mountain bike I got in 2008 was a used Giant Yukon from the Trenton Bike Exchange. The bike was at least 15 years old when I got it. It was good mountain bike and served me well but was really showing its age and was too old to consider upgrading its components.

It's amazing how many different types of mountain bikes there are. Between wheel size, suspension choices and frame types there are thousands of decisions you have to make to choose a bike. After a couple weeks of searching online I finally went to a some bike shops to talk to people about what bikes were available for the type of riding I do. After riding a few I found the general style of bike I wanted then just had to find the exact model.

What I chose was the Jamis Hijack A1. This is a 27.5", one by hard-tail. I chose 27.5 vs 29 inch because 27.5 is more maneuverable and will be a little better for the times I'm in the woods on a single track. The 1 x 10 gearing simplifies the shifting as there is no front derailleur. With a 30 T up front and an 11-42 in back it has plenty of range for any hill I would need to climb while still moving quick enough on the flats. I thought of getting a dual suspension but it would have been twice the price and not really worth it for the type of riding I do. The bike only comes in one color "Blood Red" so it seems like naming it the Bloody Bastard fits it.

I got the bike in early March and did a few solo rides on the canal and LHT trail to tweak the set up and learn how it handles. This weekend I took it for a real test as Chris Bob and I went up the Perkiomen trail.

I had hope to get a few more people join us but most people had other obligations. The main reason for this ride, besides giving the new bike a good workout, was for Bob to do some training as he is planning a mountain bike vacation in July.

I meet Chris in Bordentown for the drive to Collegeville. My new bike has a through axle and is a little bit longer the the old bike so I had to make some changes to my rack. Luckily the pipes of my bed extender can be easily removed to allow the bike to fit.

Chris's dual suspension bike also has a through axle but I had an adapter that allowed us to get his bike in my car too although it was a bit of a struggle.

We got to Collegeville a few minutes before Bob got there. After admiring the bike we headed up the trail. The plan was to head up 12 miles to the end of the trail then do a loop around the lake in Green Lane before heading back. The Perkiomen trail is a well maintained scenic trail. Although we had to push the start of the ride back an hour because of some rain by the time we started it was mostly sunny and warm.

It was really a pleasant ride to Green Lane and sun was fully out by the time we got there. The last time I did this ride we started by Valley Forge and just went up to Green Lane and back, The lake in the Green Lane park is vast and scenic so I started this ride a little further north so we had some miles to tour the lake.

There are trails around the lake and based on my research they looked like they were flat trails around the lake as the few pictures on google showed gravel trails. When we actual started around the lake the trails were not marked very well. I had a map on my phone with the planned route and manage to get up to the trail.

It turned out the Red trail that I wanted to take was more a single track hilly trail than the flat rail trail I thought it would be. However we decided to do it any way because Chris didn't mind and it would give me a chance to test the new bike out on some real mountain biking trails. Once we got to the top of the hill the single track was a lot easier and Bob looked like he was almost enjoying it.

After a few miles we got to the a parking lot where there were a lot of horse trailers. The red trail then became a dirt road and was what I had actually had expected. This made the riding easy. The only thing that slowed us down was the many horses on the trail. We ran into may groups of people riding horses. We must have seen a least 40 horses or more. Most didn't seem to be afraid of bikes but there were a few that were so we had to stop a few time to let them slowly pass.

The only problem with the rest of the red trail was a river that we had to cross. Chris of course just tried to ride right through it and even with his wheel half way deep in the water he almost made it across before having to put his feet down. Bob and I chose to hike up to the road and take the dryer way. We followed the road the rest of the way to the top of the lake. I took a couple pictures of the lake but didn't really capture how nice it really was.

Instead of doing the trail back down the other side of the lake I stuck to the road. The only problem is that meant climbing up to the ridge. It was a long steep climb so I'm glad I had the mountain bike gearing. I didn't realize when looking at the map that the lake was surrounded by mountains. We probably did a few 300+ feet climbs on our way around the lake.

On the road we ran into a dead end and decided to head back onto the trail. We had another mile or so of single track popping over roots and rocks before getting to a boat house where another climb got us back on the road. From the road it was mostly downhill back to where we started the trip around the lake. We took a break to recover from the ride around the lake. I was happy with the way the new bike handled. It definitely rolls over roots and rock a lot better then the old bike and has more traction than the old bike so I can go up muddy hills with out slipping as much. It was also nice to have a functional shock as it absorbed the trail much better than the old bike. The bike was now fully broken in and a little muddy

Since this is a new bike I did protect it a little to keep it from getting too scratched up. On the down tube I add some helicopter tape. This is clear tape that is used on the edge of helicopter blades to prevent dust and rock debris from chipping the blades. It should help prevent chipping of the paint on the down tube from the rocks that get thrown up from the trail. I also added a pair of fenders. The front fender is actually attached to the down tube and prevents debris from spraying on me and the water bottle cage. Its just a piece of plastic velcoed to the down tube but seems to work pretty well.

After our break we made the ride back down the trail. The only tough part on the way back was a 12% climb that is needed to get over a ridge. It's short but steep but I didn't have any problem making it up with the new bike.

The only problem with doing the Perkiomen trail is that there is no real place to stop to get food. We did find an ice cream shop that had gatoraid about 5 miles from the end. The ice cream was good but it would have been better to find a Deli some where along the way.

By the time we got back to the parking lot we had gone 36 miles with around 1600 ft of climbing. This is long for a mountain bike ride. I was a little beat but was very happy with the way the new bike felt. It is definitely a big upgrade from the previous bike and is a lot more comfortable and easier to ride. Bob wants to do some more mountain riding this summer to get ready for his trip so I'm sure this bike will be out on the trail on occasion for most of this riding season.

This was a long but fun day. I will definitely do the Perkiomen trail again. Now that I know what to expect on the trails and roads around the lake I should be able to put together a route to avoid the bumpy single track parts and create a ride every body should be able to do.