My Southwest Vacation

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I have wanted to put up a post about my vacation for the past few weeks but life has been very busy so I haven't had much time to process all the picture or write about what we did. My wife and I do these driving trips where we pick a city to start and another one to end and don't have any real  itinerary but just go where we want. We usually have a list of things we want to see but the list evolves once the vacation starts.  These are always fun vacations. For this trip we started in Santa Fe NM and ended up in Phoenix AZ and saw a lot of cool things along the way. We timed our trip so that we were in Albuquerque during a Annular Eclipse which was an added bonus 

Santa Fe and Taos NM were cool artistic types of towns with a lot of cool art galleries and places to eat. These town were basically the southwestern equivalent of New Hope, in fact I saw one picture that looked a lot the Canal by Lambertville and it turned out the artist was a NJ transplant from New Hope.

From Santa Fe we headed to the Carlsbad Caverns in the southwest corner of the NM. I have seen a lot of cave but nothing can compare to the size and variety of these caves. The main chamber of the cave is over 8 acres (unbelievable). To get to the main cave you can take an elevator or walk a mile down a steep path that descends over 800 feet. I chose to walk into the cave which was awesome. It took me about an hour to make my way down the path which was not easy as some paths of the path were over 20% grade. This was the off season so I was the only one walking down the path so I had the cave all the myself.

From Carlsbad we headed west across the state through some very diverse terrain. Most of NM is a high plane desert with some vegetation but there are also beautiful pine forest at the higher elevations and some really bizarre places like White Sands which is just a set of sand dunes in the middle of no where

After touring NM we ended up spending a few days in Tucson at a nice spa resort. We saw a lot of cactus here and also spent a night at Kitts Peak Observatory where the we got to spend a couple of hours under clear cool skies looking through their telescopes at some planets, nebulas, and star clusters.

Our vacation ended in Phoenix with a visit to one of my wife's friends who now lives there.

The desert country southwest is pretty but it is so dry and barren that it made me miss the green of NJ. It was a cool place to visit but not a place I would want to live.

Off to the Races

This past Sunday I went into Philly to see the bike race. I did this last year for as part of my research for the book and really enjoyed it so I decided to head back again this year. I had hope to be joined this year by a few other people from the club and even listed it in the ride book but didn't get any takers. It was an early ride and would take all day so I wasn't surprised when nobody showed up.

Although I could have drove into Philly it is much easier to take the Riverline from Bordentown since it's only $1.50 and you don't have to worry about parking. They also have bike racks on the train so they make it easy. I took the 7:25 am train even though the race didn't start until 10:45 am. I wanted to do a tour around the city before the race.  Since a lot of the roads in center city are closed to cars the morning of the race it is a lot of fun to ride around the city.

I took the Riverline to the Camden Aquarium then rode over the Ben Franklin bridge and to the Art Museum. The weather was perfect and I had some great views of the city as I made my way in and got some good pictures. I only wish the weather had been this good last year when I was taking picture for the book.

It was a little after 8:30 by the time I got to the Art Museum and still had a couple of hours before the race so I took a tour of the city which included a ride up Kelly Drive to the Wissahickon river. Philly has a really nice scenic trail along the Wissahickon called Forbidden Drive. Its a wide gravel path along the river about 5 miles long that is a favorite spot for biker, runners and people just out for a walk. Once you ride the trail you can see why it is so popular.

After riding the trail I slowly made my way back through the city for the start of the race. Even though thousands of people crowd the streets to watch the race the city doesn't feel that crowed and it is easy to find a spot by the Art Museum to watch the race. The men's race started on time and they did 3 quick laps around the Art Museum before heading out to the main course which is a 14 mile loop around the city including the famous Manayunk Wall.

After the first 3 laps of the race I headed through a couple other parts of the city as I made my way back to Camden and the train home. It was nice to ride through Philly again as I haven't been back here since late last year. With all the rides I did last year here I now know most of the roads and how to get around the city on bike. It feels very familiar and like any other ride I normally do. Even though it is a bit out of the way to ride here I do enjoy the change of pace and riding around the city.

Ring of Fire

Most people go about their daily life with out realizing all the cosmic events happening above them. In ancient times whole societies were driven by the motion of the sun and planets as things like stonehenge and the Mayan temples attest. Solar and lunar eclipses usually were significant events in these societies but today the only people that care about these events are professional and amateur astronomers. I am the geek trifecta, computer programmer by profession, bike nerd in my free time, and casual astronomy geek. So when there was a annular eclipse of the sun visible in the US I decided to plan a vacation around it. My wife and I have been wanting to visit the southwest of the US for a while anyway so the annular eclipse just made us do the trip on a certain date.

The great thing about this eclipse was that it was going to be visible from Albuquerque which usually has over 350 days of clear skies a year. This meant that I had a very good chance of seeing the eclipse. An annular eclipse is different from a total solar eclipse in the fact that the moon doesn't completely cover the sun but instead leaves a ring of light around the moon at the point of maximin eclipse. This is normally called the "Ring of Fire".

I'm still on vacation and just have my iPad with me so it is hard to edit and post all the pictures I took but even if I could it would not convey the coolness of seeing the eclipse live. I observed the eclipse from a university parking lot with a couple hundred astronomy geeks. The astronomy society of Albuquerque hosted the event and did a great job of finding a good location for viewing the eclipse and providing bathrooms, traffic control and other logistics. The thing that made the even more fun was sharing it with a bunch of like minded geeks.

The eclipse started with the moon slowly covering the bottom right corner of the sun and then slowing working its way across it over about an hour. As the moon got close to covering the sun it slowly formed the ring. The ring lasted for just under 4 and a half minutes until it moved out the top left. When the ring first became visible the crowd let out cheers which lasted until the ring disappeared. At this point the sun was getting low in the horizon so we only were able to watch it for another 30 mins before it set. This means we didn't get the see the end of the eclipse but that really didn't matter.

I'm really glad I got a chance to see this and can't wait until 2017 when there will be a total eclipse of the sun that will be visa lie from the east coast.

P.S. I'm back from vacation and have had time to process all the pictures. Click Here to see all the eclipse photos. I also put together this mosaic below which shows most of my best shots.

The Epic of El Capitain

Since the early days of society man has created oral and written stories to pass down major historical events or capture moral traditions. Some of these stories, like the Homer's poem the Odyssey, survey the society that created them and become epics that will be with us forever.

Part of the reason I write this blog is to capture the stories of some of my rides. This is mostly a diary for me but it is also a way to share my experiences with my others and poke fun at some of the people I ride with. I know what I post here are just musing of a bike rider and will never be be literary epics but I do occasionally have some good stories to tell.

I think the El Capitain ride may be one of those ride we will be talking about for a while. I say this not because of any great feat on my part but because Laura, Jim, and Jane were writing a song about  the ride after the first five miles.

To be immortalized in a song is a great honor as I always picture myself as a self sacrificing hero type. However as I heard the verses of the song it turned out I was not the hero but the villain. I will let you read Laura's post for the complete lyrics of the song but basically the story goes like this: I'm portrayed as the sadistic bastard making other riders go up hill after hill. The riders struggle in a desperate attempt to reach the end of the ride before they die so they can be released from my servitude . It's an interesting take on the ride but far from the truth...

First let me give you the stats from the ride.
     Total Climb Elevation     5653 feet
     Total Distance                51.06 miles
     Average Speed              12 mph
     Average Hill Grade        4.2 %
     Max Hill Grade              24 %
     Number of times my name and FU where uttered in the same sentence (lost count at 50)       

This year I said I wanted to do some more of the tougher hills in NJ and every time I mentioned this to Chris he said if you want to do some real hills you have to do my El Camino ride. I hear this for years so to try and shut Chris up (yea, I know, not going to happen) I decided to do the ride and see how hilly it really is. My ride is a little different from El Camino. First it started from Jockey Hollow instead of Loantaka Park. I don't like the roads around Loantaka Park and Jockey Hollow is closer and easier to get to. This ended up making the ride a little hiller but that was good because I won't want Chris accusing me of making the ride easier.

I had talked up the ride for a few weeks and had a good turn out. Chris Laura, Ron. Jim and John and Jane. The weather ended up being perfect, clear, sunny and just warm enough to ride in short sleeves. At the beginning of the ride I reminded everyone that they were all a little insane to be wanting to do this ride but off we all went any way.

We started with a few miles ride through Jockey Hollow itself which was already hilly. I knew we were in trouble when we turned the corner and started up a little hill and then were being passed by a runner. Luckily the first hill was a short one and we continue on rolling hills for a few miles until we hit Schoolhouse Lane where we had a 400 ft climb that lasted a little over a mile. It definitely got my heart going and saw a few other people look a little tired as they hit the top.

We continued on from there with more or less continuous hills. There was always a downhill after each climb but it was short and every turn brought another climb. Even through I mapped out the ride and knew what to expect I hadn't actually done any of these climbs. The route felt strange to me because although I don't mind a few hills I usually don't string them together like this. I was glad I had the triple ring today and switched into it when it looked like the climb was going to last more than a few hundred feet. I wanted to save my energy because I knew there was much more to come.

Two things to note here. First Chris was the only one who had done these roads before and seemed to take joy in the fact that we were being subjected to so many hills in a row. Second this is when I believe the song writing began.

Our first stop was in Gladstone after 21 miles and on our way in we had one of the best downhills of the ride that opened up to a nice vista where I stopped to take a few pictures. In Gladstone I had planned to stop at a deli but it was closed. Luckily John and Jane knew of a bakery just down the road.

From Gladstone it was more climbing and more song verses. These climbs were not as bad as before and the scenery was really nice. We ended up going through Bernardsville which has a lot of old money and ridiculously large estates. There is also on of my favorite downhills here which is Hardscrabble. I was a little disappointed with it this time since the road was rough and I really couldn't let her rip. My original plan was to take Hardscrabble to the bottom but Chris really wanted to climb up Old Army so what's one more hill anyway. The climb actually had a cool switchback and the downhill after was another good one that made it worth doing the climb.

After this we had our second stop in Basking Ridge. I usually don't stop twice on a 50 mile ride but with this many hills we really needed to. From here we headed through the Great Swamp and the only relatively flat part of the ride. We had little traffic getting to the swamp and the road through the swamp were a little beat up but it felt weird to be on flat roads. To get a true appreciation of the Great Swamp you really have to hike the paths through this park to see the different plants and animal. From the road it's just tree's and marshes. There is one or two bridge that give you a quick view of some of it so we stopped for a few minutes to take some pictures.

We were getting to the end of the ride and I was getting tire. I actually cramped up a little as we left the swamp. I usually don't cramp on rides under 60 miles and through I had drank enough but I guess the hills were catching up to me.

From the Great Swamp we headed over a few more rollers as we headed back to the Jockey Hollow. On my original route I was going to head back to Jockey Hollow up Tempe Wick but Chris insisted on going up Baily Hollow. One of the reasons George Washington chose Jockey Hollow as a winter place for the troops was because the hills make it easy to defend. These were the same hills we had to get over to get to the finish.

Putting the worst hill of the ride a couple miles from the end is beyond rude and as every one turned the corner the FUs starting flying. Baily Hollow is one of the harder hills that I have climbed but we all eventually made it to the top. Of course we still had a few hills before getting back to the parking lot and by the time we got there we were all pretty shot.

We hung around in the parking lot recovering and comparing elevation gain and average speed. John and Jane ever broke out some beer to celebrate the end of the pain. My elevation gain of 5653 ft may seem a little high but that may be because my GPS takes a data point every 10 feet so it counts up all the little up and downs. Needless to say whether we did 4900 ft or 5600 ft of climbing is no matter we survived the hills.One interesting thing to note is that those of us with triples had a slightly higher average which confirms what I read about triples being more efficient at tough climbs.

The ride did end up being a little harder than I expected and I will admit to doing a little false advertising to get more people to come on the ride. Some, of the hills I said would be in the 7% to 8% ended up being around 10% and I never really advertised the fact that there would be a 20% plus WTF climb. So I'd admit to being a little evil. But it wasn't like I actually MADE anybody follow me or that I was whipping them to go faster up each hill. I was much more subtle I did make everybody go up a lot of hills but provided perfect weather, nice scenery, and some cool downhills to keep hope alive then at mile 49 when they thought they were done I basically said FU to all with a climb up the steepest hill of the ride which topped out at over 20% incline. Of course the joke was on me because I was cramping up and had to stop part of the way up to stretch out my legs.

The real truth is rides like El Capitain are the real reason I enjoy riding. Yes it was good to know I still have the ability to do tough hilly rides but the real fun is finding people willing to follow me on these crazy rides. They may bitch at me and write nasty songs but it is all in good fun. No matter where we ride we usually have a good time and come back with a good story to share together for years to come.

Covered Bridges

Last year while doing rides for the Philadelphia book I went through most of the covered bridges in the area as well as explore some of the roads on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware. Some people are think the Pennsylvania side is a lot tougher than the NJ side but that's not really true. There are probably more steeper hills on the Pennsylvania side but there are also plenty of gentler ways up the hills that are just as nice as the NJ side.

When it was time to put some rides in the book I decided to add a covered bridge ride to show people some of the roads I found. We started from Bulls Island and although the rain had passed it was still very overcast and foggy. After crossing over the bridge at Bulls Island we headed up the ridge. The first real climb started a few miles into the ride when we turned up Wismer. There are two climbs in quick succession of 120 and 180 feet. That get a little steep. But once that was over it was more gentle ups and downs as we passed through the covered bridges. We went through the Loux, Frankenfield and Erwinna bridges. The Loux is one of the nicest covered bridges in Bucks county. I would have stopped for some pictures but they won't have come out that nice because of the weather. You can check out the ones I took last year HERE.

Right before we turned on to the road to the Erwinna bridge we were climbing a small hill with some one on a mountain bike just a little bit ahead of us. I was planning on going around the biker but for some reason we weren't gaining any ground on him. It didn't seem right because the guy was going up hill and he was barely peddling. Either his was a former Tour de France racer in a 53x11 gear going up hill or he had a motor some where. I quicken my pace a little but was still not able to catch him until we hit a stop at the end of the road. I got a quick glimpse of his rear wheel which had a big drum on it which I assumed was a motor. That made me feel better about not being able to keep up with him.

From here we headed back up the hill. This was a nice gentle climb that would have been enjoyable except for the fact that they had just ground up the road surface to get it ready to pave. It was ridable but very bumpy. There was a small part that was paved but for the most part we had a couple of miles of numb nut inducing peddling.

Eventually we ended up on the top of Bridgeton Road. This is a great downhill but the last time I went down this hill one of the people behind got out of control and ran off the road. I told everybody to enjoy the downhill just not too much.

We stopped at the bottom of the hill for a quick break then headed over to the NJ side for some more climbing. I took Javes to Rummel which is the easy way up to the ridge. A couple of people peeled off because they were getting a little tired. The rest of headed on along the ridge. The weather was have suppose to have gotten better by now but instead the clouds had descended to ground. It wasn't actually raining but our bikes, glasses and bodies were being covered with dew from the moist air.

This really didn't make it any harder to ride it just obscured most of the scenic views that I had hope to enjoy. The route back to the start had us going through Sky Manner which has three small airports. I did see the airports but all the planes were grounded because of the weather. Most of the road in this area were new to me and were actually pretty nice so I will probably come back this way again.

The ride ended by going down Federal Twist from the top. This is a steep straight smooth downhill if you're daring you can hit speeds of over 50 MPH. If I had my Feather I would have tucked and let her rip but my Cannondale is not as stable. I got it up to just over 46 miles which was as fun and scary as it sounds.

The ride ended up being around 48 miles with about 3600 feet of climbing. I felt pretty good at the end which gave me some encouragement that I may be able to complete next weeks ride up in Jockey Hollow.

In Bloom

Spring is in full bloom and since we have had no real rain for past couple of weeks the pollen has been extremely high. I'm not sure if it is lack of rain or the mild winter but the blooms on the flowers are lasting a little longer this year. Usually the flowers on our dogwood tree last 4 or 5 days but its been over a week and they still look good. Although the weather for Saturday was suppose to be cloudy with chance of showers it actually was warm and sunny when I went out to get ready for the ride so I took a few nice pictures of the dogwood.

Saturday's ride was one of my easier hilly rides called the Raritan River Ramble which I do ever year as I'm working my way up to climbing some real hills. This is a nice ride that takes the easy way up and over the Sourlands then zig zags along and over the Raritan River a few times before heading back to the canal where it starts. I usually don't get a big crowd when I do hilly rides but I ended up with 14 people.

This rides keeps off most of the busy main roads and winds through a lot of scenic farmland like Pine Bank Rd near Redington. We went past the Redington Reform church where my wife's cousin is buried. My wife was very close to her cousin so they were like sisters. Although the funeral was over 6 years ago we had never to back to visit the grave or see the tombstone so I took a slight detour through the graveyard to get a picture of the stone for my wife.

The rest of the ride was fun as we worked our way back towards the canal. The last part of the ride is a straight 3 mile shot down Canal road. Although most people headed straight back a few of us decided to tackle Coopermine to do one more climb and a nice downhill hill. It was a good way to end the ride.

Climb Every Mountain

Now that the trees have started blooming I can start thinking seriously about some of my riding goals for the year. One of my goals is to start doing some hillier rides with the goal of trying some of the tougher hills in the state. What are toughest hills in the state? Luckily someone did the research and came up with a list you can find here.  A few of these like Fiddlers Elbow and Breakneck are well known tough climbs. This is a pretty comprehensive list and although I am familiar and have done some of the hills on the list there are a lot more I haven't heard of. I'm not planning on trying to do all of the major hills listed but will try to knock a few off my list like Fiddlers Elbow, Iron Bridge and Millbrook.

This is going to take a little training to get in shape to tackle these hills and even then I expect I may have to walk up parts of some of these. This weekend I went out did some climbing close to where I live. Over the next few weeks I try to get to the Sourlands a couple of times to do some of the small hills so that by May I can hit the real hills in Pennsylvania and up in Morris County. Yes these will be hard and hilly but I promise some good scenery along with one of the best downhills in New Jersey.