Stupid Surprise Hilly Highpoint Ride

Back when I was working on my Best Rides Philadelphia book I spend a long day around Chadds Ford exploring the roads in the area for a couple of routes in the book. Even since then I had wanted to come back to this area because it has some good roads. We had tried to plan a weekend down here a couple of years ago but could never pull it together.  So this past week I sent out an email to the posse to see if they would be interested in a day trip to Delaware. I ended up getting Laura, Ricky, Jack, Jim, and Bob to join me. I'm glad Jim and Bob were able to join us as they have been MIA for the past few rides.

It was a perfect day for a ride with sunny weather and temps in mid 60s. We met at Bordentown and carpooled just over an hour to the starting point which was a parking lot on the Brandywine river next to a covered bridge. We did this route which is a hilly one. There was no one tough hill or long climb but it was continuous and unrelenting set of small hills with only a few miles of flat roads. I brought my Feather instead of my hill climbing Synapse because I rode the Feather the last time I was down this way was able to make it up the hills. I guess I must have been a little stronger then because the first hill we rode up hurt a lot more than I remember.

We had 400 feet of climbing in the first few miles. The hills got easier and I felt better as I warmed up. The route I had mapped out went through Shadowbrook pond and snuff mill. This road looked like a driveway but I knew from google maps that it went to where I wanted to go. I guess we shouldn't have been on this road as by the time we got to the other end there was fence blocking our way out. We just climbed over it quickly and made our get away.

There were some great downhills to go with the climbing. The 2 mile downhill on Hildendale was scenic and fun. Even though it was a little tougher to climb with the Feather I'm glad I had it for the downhills.

The deli that I had planned to stop at around mile 20 is now a Mexican restaurant so we had a bar break and got water and a bathroom break at the gas station across the street.

From there we crossed Rt 1 and continued to follow to roads up and down the terrain as we made our way towards West Chester the only real town in the area. There were some good views of the surrounding country side so Laura and I stopped for some pictures. There were a few bridge outs and a road closed along our route today as a crew was taking down a tree. We were easily able to get around all these which was good because I don't know the roads well enough to know how to get around the detours.

In West Chester we found a gas station with a convenience store which was good enough for break. From there it was on to something stupid that I promised to show the posse. To get there we had to go on roads with a little more traffic that we had seen so far but we made it though without any real problems. I was feeling the strain of all the hills so I stopped to take a gel pack which I probably should have done sooner.

At 4 miles from the end of the ride we got to the stupid monument that I wanted everybody to see. As I got off the bike both legs cramped up and I had to sit down for a couple of minutes to get rid of the cramps.

The stupid monument was a sign and bench at (or pretty close to ) the highest point in Delaware. At 447.5 feet it is the second lowest high point in the US. (Florida is the lowest at 345 ft). My GPS had 453 ft which is with in the margin of error of my GPS. I took the required picture like I did for all my NJ highpoint rides. As well as a picture of the actual sign.

It was then a quick ride on a bike lane on Rt 92 and a long downhill back to our starting point. I stopped for a picture of Smith's Bridge on the way back.

I cramped again in the parking lot putting the bikes away but was fine on the drive back to Bordentown and felt fine once I got home. It probably didn't help that I gave blood on Monday. It was definitely a hilly ride. According to my GPS I had almost 3100 ft of climbing. Jim had almost 3900 ft. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

I haven't been able to get away for a bike trip this year so it was fun to take a day trip to do something different and somewhat stupid with the posse because I do stupid good.

The Long Rain

After getting rained out last week I finally got my Cocoluxe ride in this weekend. Its seems this summer the rain has been persistent and endless. This past week was a dreary rain filled week and I was concerned that it would spill over into Saturday but it didn't. Saturday turned out to be cloudy but no chance of rain. A few of my regulars had to beg off the ride so it ended up being just me Ricky and Pete.

I have started from this location 6 or 7 times and have been tweaking to route to find some good road, good downhills and minimal traffic. This is a hilly area so you can't avoid climbing but what I tried to do is to do the easier more gentle hills. Of course the climbing starts 3/4 of a mile from the start and doesn't really stop for 20 miles but its mostly in the 3-4% range with a few downhills along to way to recover.

Even though Ricky was on his new old 2001Cannondale (Sorry Jim forgot to get a picture) he was still faster than me up the hills. Pete wasn't far behind him and I was bringing up the rear. We did this route. This route was the same as last years as I couldn't find any way to improve it.

The longest climb of the day was up Rockaway and Guinea Hollow. In 6 miles we gained about 600 feet. It's a slow steady climb so its not a problem and the scenery is good. The climbing continued until we got to Long Valley where we had a screaming downhill before getting to our rest stop at Quick Check.

We had a few more hills to climb on the way back with a few more good downhills including a few we could have taken air on if we wanted to. Besides the roads by the lake at the end of the ride all the other roads were pot hole free. I think I called out "Hole" maybe once during the ride.

For 3000 ft of climbing I felt pretty good at the end of the ride and stopped by Cocoluxe for a couple brownies on my way out of Gladstone.

I know there is more rain ahead as the remnants of Florence are headed this way but hopefully the weekends will remain clear so we can enjoy the fall weather. 

The Swamp Ride

The wasn't actually a ride through any real swamp but a ride along Long Swamp Rd and through Turkey Swamp hence the name. After last weeks hilly ride and because Laura's hill bike still had some tire issues I decided to do a flatter ride this week. I didn't feel like a pineland ride or heading to the shore on labor day weekend so I came up with a ride that went south of New Egypt and through Cassville. Here is a link to the route.

The weather was more humid than last week but the temps were still in the low 70s so was comfortable riding weather. Joe, Chris, Andrew, the new Jim, Laura, and Ricky joined me for the ride. We fought a strong east wind as we wound our way through New Egypt and to the first rest stop Emery's. Emery's is a blueberry farm with a small store. They don't have the best facilities but the sell some tasty baked goods.

From there we road towards Cassville where we stopped at the Russian church to take a photo to send to plain Jim who wasn't able to join us for the ride. Hopefully we will see him on a ride soon.

From there we made our way to and through Turkey swamp. I planned a rest stop in Millstone where I saw a new coffee shop/bistro where Roy's use to be. It was closed for the holiday weekend so we ended up at Vesuvius Pizza across the street.

The weather was still a little overcast and just below 80 degrees so I still felt good the last few miles back and wasn't getting dehydrated like I did fore the PFW ride. I got back home with 70 miles and could have done more if I wanted to. Laura followed me home because she was feeling good enough to stretch the ride to a century and wanted the extra miles. I suspect she completed this one with out any problems.

The only regular missing from the ride was Jack. He actually registered for the ride but based on the picture I got it looks like he is busy stuffing his face.

He is also somewhere in the mid west on his way to Colorado so I really didn't think he was coming anyway.

True Lies

The fact that I have a ride called the "Lying Bastard" that I look forward to every year no longer seems strange to me. Lying doesn't seem to have the same impact it use to any more since there seems to be a lot more of it now. In fact someone this week said "truth isn't truth" so maybe I will just call the ride "The Bastard" in the future since that is the way most of my fellow rides refer to me now.

If you are unfamiliar with how my Lake Nockamixon ride became the Lying Bastard ride you can read this post. The short version is I sometimes under represent the difficulties of some of the climbs and that seems to drive some people to profanity. At this point however after doing this ride for over five years most people know what to expect and just use this ride to abuse my character.

The hot and humid weather had finally broken so the weather for this years ride was perfect, sunny, cool and low humidity. I had the usual gang join me, Jack, Ricky Laura and Blake and even had some unexpected people like Joe M and Paul I. There was also a new person on the ride Laurie who was not fazed by the title of the ride.

We started from Frenchtown and did this route. The ride starts with a slow easy climb to Ottsville on Headquarters Rd. Since there is a bridge out there is almost no traffic and except for the part near the bridge out (which is easy to ride through) the road is in decent shape.

After Ottsville we road along the ridge where we got some good views of the valley. The roads aren't flat but it is more rolling than hilly.

Some where along the way Laura had a flat. Her fourth one this year, even though she just put on new tires. I saw something fly off her tire as I heard it go pssst and go flat so she definitely hit something in the road. So this was a case of bad luck. A close examination of her tire showed a tiny hole in the side wall. A new tube and a dollar bill to patch the hole and we were on our way to Perkasie our rest stop. I had to put the rest stop early in the ride at mile 20 because there aren't may places around the lake to stop. Our usual coffee shop was out of business so we had to do with a CVS and Dunk'n Donuts.

After the rest stop I put in the FU hill for the ride because there always has to be one steep hill nobody was expecting just to make sure someone calls me a bastard during the ride. This climb was not as hard as expected. It was over 10% but less than 15% and was short. It was probably the best way to get over the ridge to the north side of the lake.

 From there we road through the roads and forests on the north side of the lake. These are quiet roads with no traffic and a great place to ride. There are no flat spots and you are always either climbing or descending so it is a bit draining. There are even a few annoying little climbs along the way. I think part of why people think this ride is harder than described is that there is really no easy spots that we can just cruse along on.

The people on the ride kept asking when we are going to see the lake and I had to remind them that the ride description said this would be a ride around the lake. There was no mention of actually seeing it. However we did get a glimpse of the north east side where see saw a radio controlled boat ripping around the lake.

We had another quick rest stop at a Turkey Hill store on 413 before heading downhill to Frenchtown. Last year I took Quarry Rd back which some gravel (OK foot deep gravel for a mile) that some people complained about because of like almost killing themselves and stuff. I don't remember it being that bad but I took a slightly different way back that didn't require go over gravel. We did go down the Red Circle of Death (Red Cliff Rd) again which is a some what dangerous but fun downhill before making our way back to Frenchtown.

The TRUTH about this ride is that it is a good route if you don't mind a few hills. This ride is FUN because of the healthy dis-R-E-S-E-P-E-C-T (RIP Aretha) and playful banter that come with riding with my somewhat insane friends. I'm happy to be called a Lying Bastard if we can do more rides like this. 

PFW Metric Event Ride

The first Saturday in August is usually the day of the PFW event. The club decided not to do the event this year because of falling ridership and the hassle of staffing it. I agree with the decision but still wanted to ride an event type route so I put a few routes together and posted them to the PFW Facebook account to see if I could get some other leaders to join me. I was thinking it might be like a adhoc all paces ride but it didn't really work out as I expected. I think the main problem was the weather.

I put posted a metric for Saturday and Laura posted a Century because she always does a century on the day of the event. We ended up getting rained out on Saturday so had to reschedule for Sunday. Like most of the PFW event days it was a hot and sunny day. I rode down from my house to Mercer park. Chris and Linda were already there and we were soon join by Andrew then Laura, Jack, and Ricky rode in. The last person to arrive was Sergey. Because of the heat Linda wasn't sure if she was going to do the century or metric but since we were going to ride together until mile 45 she didn't have to decide now.

It in the mid 70s when we started but the humidity made it feel a lot hotter. The route I had planned was similar to a century I had done a couple of years ago. I made some modification so that we would pass by enough Wawa's and other stores to keep us well fed.

We maintained a nice relaxed pace as we went through the Assumpink and wound our way down to the Wawa in Jackson. The first stop was only 21 miles into the ride but I wanted to stop early because I knew it was going to be a long ride and because I know a lot of the other people already had a 8-10 miles before the start.

From there we headed to Cassville and then on to New Egypt for our second stop. The humidity had decreased but the sun was still hot. Besides the water in my camelback I also had a bottom of pure Gatorade that I was drinking through out the ride so I actually felt OK at the 45 mile mark. Not good enough to do a century but I knew I shouldn't have a problem making it back.

New Egypt is where the group split up. I headed north with metric ride and Laura, Linda (who decided to do the century) and Ricky headed south for an extra 35 miles. When I created the metric route I decided to come back Hill Rd. In hindsight it probably wasn't the best idea putting the hills near the end of a long ride. The group spread out a little but nobody had a problem with the hills.

By the time we got to Allentown I was starting to feel the heat and miles. I asked if anybody needed a stop but we decided just to grind out the last 8 miles to the end. We actually did make a quick stop in Allentown as I saw Ron by Woody's so we stopped for a few minutes to talk to him.

As we crossed 130 and rode on Meadow Rd I was starting to fade a little. I had drank as much Gatoraid as my stomach could handle and taken a clif shot. It definitely helped me make it through the ride but I had weird sugar buzz on while feeling dehydrated.

I led everybody back to the park then headed for home. Jack followed me to get a few more miles. He had ridden in from home and needed the extra miles to get a century in. I was happy to get 74 mile in. I cramped up about a mile from my house but was able to push through it and get home.

It felt really good to finally be off the bike and in air conditioning. After Jack left I had to sit down on the floor for 15 mins just to get enough energy to clean up and get something to eat.

It took me a hour and a half to be able to be truly functional again. I'm glad I didn't try for a century especially after hearing that Laura cramped up at the end of the ride. In heat like we had today I can only stay hydrated for so long so 74 was more than enough for me.

Everybody I Know is Quite INSANE!!!

I jokingly refer to the group of people I ride with as "The insane bike posse" because they come on my rides complain they don't like it then come back for more. I think the joke might be on me because I think some of the people are actually insane. 

Please play this song from the Queens of the Stone age as you read the rest of the post. 

I missed Laura's Belmar ride last weekend because I just didn't have the time to take that long of a ride. A day after the ride I get some bullshit legalize email from Jack explaining that because I wasn't present during the ride and did not bless then with the Holy Kickstand, I was to blame for all their problems.

Apparently Jack had a flat tire, loose bottle cage and pump and wanted to blame me for his bad luck.(I can't imagine how much other shit they must have talked about me) I replied to the email stating that if they believed that a plastic kickstand wrapped in some fancy rope had any magical powers then they were truly insane. If it had any powers, I pointed out, I would had made it rain on their asses. Laura responded and said that it did rain on them and by pure coincidence it happen to be while they were passing close to my house. It is an interesting coincidence but on a day that had a 60-80% chance of rain it was just dumb luck and not divine intervention. I mean come on if I had that power I would use to solve some real problems.

Despite my arguments they still believe that the Holy Kickstand and I have some magical power which is totally insane. Then there is the fact that for my Bulls Island ride this week neither Jack or Laura could make it and they both wanted to take the blame for any random problems we had on the ride which is more than a little strange (like they somehow caused this dump truck to run off the road?). And I had to make sure to send Laura a picture of all the people on the ride giving her the finger because that makes her feel loved.

There are a lot more things that make me believe that these people are truly insane. Now, I may not be the picture of perfect mental health but on a scale of guy putting foil on his head to keep aliens from reading his thoughts to person able to function in the real world I think I'm pretty normal. However the fact that I continue to attract and even somewhat enjoy these insane people makes me concerned that their insanity may eventually rub off on me.

The 2018 PFW Event

*****UPDATE  The weather is not looking good for riding on Saturday so I may move my ride to  Sunday. Keep and eye on my blog for more details.


I know there will be no PFW event this year and I agree with that decision but it is going to feel strange not riding the event. So on Saturday Aug 4, when the event would have been, I'm going to do my own event ride. I'm planning on doing a metric based on some of the old event routes. While I was working on the metric route I decided to create a full set of routes. They are listed below. I have created a century, metric, 50 and 25 mile routes. All these routes start at the picnic area of Mercer County Park off Edinburg Rd and are on roads and should be familiar to most of us.

So if your are missing the event get your group together, pick one of the routes below and join me and a few others who will be out there.  Since there will be no arrows on the road, cue sheets, rest stops or a sag it will might feel more like an all paces ride but it will be a fun way to spent the first Saturday in August. 


Here are the routes and some details about them

The Century
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28166878

The Century is a pretty flat route that takes you through Jacksonville, Browns Mill, before going through the pinelands then back through Pemberton. Since there are no supported rest stops I have made sure there is a Wawa or some other store at least every 20 miles. Here is a list of the rest stops

• Mile 21 - There a Wawa on Pine Rd right where it meets Rt 537 
• Mile 33 - There is a Deli when you make the turn on to Stump Tavern Rd
• Mile 45 - There is a Wawa in New Egypt when you make the turn on to Main St (Rt 528)
• Mile 57 - There is a Wawa in Browns Mills. Just make a right at the light by the lake on to Lakehust Rd. Its a only a quarter mile from the light
• Mile 67 - There is a Super Wawa on the left just before the turn onto Pemberton Arneys Mt Rd
• Mile 76 - If you need a stop before Allentown you can make a left on to Mt Pleasant Rd instead of a right and take a quick detour to the center of Columbus (its about a mile)
• Mile 93 - If you need a one last stop to get you home you can stop at Woody's in Allentown

The Metric
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28166358

This route follows the century until mile 45 then takes a more direct route back. The list of rest stops are the same as the century until mile 45 in New Egypt and then at mile 57 if you need a another rest stop you can stop at Woody's in Allentown.

The 50 mile route
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28165774

The route will be a loop to Cassville and back. There are two places to take a break the first one is at a deli/antique store at mile 26 at the corner of Rt 528 and Rt 571. There is also a Wawa at mile 32 where Rt 537 meets Pine Rd.

The 25 mile route
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28165658

The is a simple ride through the Assumpink to Roy's Deli and back.

Hope to see some of you out there next Saturday.