Some Times You Gotta Go Around

I have a reputation for ignoring "Bridge Out"  and "Road Closed"signs and tend to use some cyclocross moves to get around the construction. Usually there is a walkway the workmen use so it is usually not dangerous or hard. Other times like a couple of weeks ago the bridge was totally out, on Sweet Hollow, with no walkway so we forded a stream. It was a little extreme but doable and nobody objected. It beat climbing all the way back up the hill.

This week Blake, Ron and I did a Covered Bridge ride out of Bulls Island. This involves crossing the Delaware climbing up the PA side then coming back the NJ side. The first climb is a half mile into the ride so I tend to take the easiest way up which is Fleecy Dale. In the email exchange before the ride I heard that FleecyDale was closed so I planned an alternate route. Laura teased me that I was wimping out because I usually laugh at "Road Closed" signs but the truth is if I know about a road closure before a ride I usually plan to avoid it.

I did some research about the construction on Fleecy Dale and found out they were replacing the retaining wall by Fritz Mill so I thought the road would be passable because I assumed the retaining wall was to keep the dirt from the hillside from sliding on to the road. But to be safe I decided on taking the alternate route up Green Lane. Curiosity got the best of us thought because we decided to try Fleecy Dale any way. The worst case we would just turn around and come back down hill.

So up Fleecy Dale we went and went past one construction zone and thought we were home free until we got near Fritz Mill then the road disappeared. It turns out the retaining wall they are building is to keep the next road they build from sliding into the river.  If you click on the picture above you can see there full scope of the construction. The first shovel tractor you see is actually at the bottom of Fritz Mill and the road was missing as far as we could see. There was no way we were going any further so we went down hill and back up Green Lane to continue the ride.

The roads were wet but not sloppy. The clouds looked threatening and we went through some mist but never got rained on. We went through two more construction zones one by the Loux Mill bridge which was just some shoulder work and the bridge out on Bridgeton Rd which has a temporary pedestrian bridge to use. So no problem there.

The NJ side was much dryer. We took the easy way up to the ridge (Javis to Rummel) and wound our way back to Bulls Island finishing with a nice fast stretch down Federal Twist.

One of the covered bridges we went through today Loux Mill was built in 1874 after a young man name Reed Meyers drown while trying to cross the stream. Although I do have a tendency to push the limits when getting around road construction I won't take any big risks or do anything unsafe. So some times you gotta go around.

To Grandmother's House We Went

Growing up I was lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents in my life until well after I finished high school. My father's parents lived down the shore in Brick Township and my mother's parents lived in the country in Belvidere in the north west part of the state by the Delaware river. So we called my father parents were seashore grandma and grandpa and my mother's parents were country grandma and grandpa.

While growing up I spent a lot more time with my seashore grandparents then my country grandparents because we had a boat docked at their house that we used most weekends in the summer. So to me going to the country was more fun because it was something I didn't get to do as often.

My country grandmother lived next to her sister's farm which has a some fun places to explore. My grandmother's house was at the top of the hill overlooking the farm and orchard and had a nice view. I remember that there was always a set of binoculars by the back door to look at all the deer and other animals that roam through the field.

The main crop produced on the farm was apple and peaches but they also grew corn in their fields. As was typical of the small farm at the time they also had some animals including chickens,  sheep, and a few horses. If was a cool place to roam around as a kid

My grandparents and her sister pass away many years ago so I haven't been up to that area in a long time which made a perfect excuse to take a bike ride in that area. I was close to that area last year when I rode/walked up Fiddlers Elbow. Its a hilly area so there is no avoiding some tough climbs.

I started from Milford and was lucky to have 7 people crazy enough to join me, Laura, Ron, Jackie, Jack, Jim and Lynne who I hadn't seen in a while. Although I said the first part of the ride would be flatter then the last half we started out with a couple of climbs to get out of Milford. I could of went around the hills but that would have added some miles to the ride and the gang chose hills over miles.

The climbs weren't bad but there was a really steep down hill on Shire that had most of us squeezing our brakes all the way down. From there is was mostly rolling as we went around Merrill Creek Reservoir and came dangerously close to the bottom of Fiddlers Elbow before heading down towards the Delaware to ride along the river into the town of Belvidere. We had a nice stop in at Skoogy's Deli which had Gatorade, bathroom and decent food which is all you need from a rest stop.

The town looked somewhat familiar although one of the things I remember about the town when I was there as a kid was there some of the buildings had gutter pipes that when from the roof away from the building over the sidewalk then down into the curb of the street. I didn't see any on our tour through town so I assume they found a better and safer way of keeping water away from the buildings.

Once out of town we past my aunt's farm and grandmothers house. The barn and grazing area, for the horses that was  across from my aunt's house was gone but the house, farm and orchard were still much as I remembered them. It is now called Stoneyfield Orchard and is preserved farmland.

My grandparent house was up the hill from my aunt's farm and the hill was as steep as I remembered it. The house was mostly the same layout but they had replace all the doors and windows and made the landscaping much nicer.

I took a few pictures of the house and area to show my mother and then we all headed on to the climbs. To get back to Milford when had three long climbs ahead of us the first one was to get us to the top of Merrill Creek. This was a long 3.5 mile climb. There were a couple of flat spots and a couple of steep spots but I slowly grinded my way up the hill while every asked "Is this the top yet?".

During the climb we heard the cicadas in the distance. Eventually we did reach the top and enjoyed and nice long downhill on Millbrook before heading up over the second climb over into Asbury where we rode along the ridge with some great views of the hills and valleys. The view never comes out in pictures but I tried again anyway.

We had one last climb to get us back. Tunnel road is where the train tracks go under the hill. It is a long shallow climb that is not real hard but is it one of those hills that never seems to end so at the end of a ride when you're tired of climbing it is a little rude.

As we started to spread out up the hill I saw Jack stop. The I saw it. A bear. It was lumbering across the road. I pulled out the camera and zoomed in to get a few pictures. I managed to get a picture of it's backside and it going over into the woods. It was cool seeing a bear.

The payoff for doing the climb is going down Sweet Hollow a nice gentle 3 mile down hill. There was a bridge out sign about half way down but there is usually always a way around if you're not a car so we kept going only to find that the bridge was totally out with no way to easily get across. If we would have been on flat ground we would have doubled back and found another road to get us home however doubling back would have mean another 400 foot climb which nobody was going to do at this point. We ended up fording the river and walking a 100 ft through the woods. It was a little dicey but we all made it through unscathed. The only side affect was wet shows and clogged speedplay cleats.

4 miles later we were back in Milford looking at bear pictures.

Going back to Belvidere brought back a lot of memories of my country grandparents. The best way to describe them was that they were good simple folks.

My grand father was a retired mail man and a very reserved and quiet person. He enjoyed college football and just sitting by the bay window smoking his pipe. My grandmother did a lot of volunteer work for the church and the community. She spend a lot of time in the hospital volunteering as a candy striper delivering patient's meals and mail and generally helping out the nurses. After my grandfather retired they traveled a lot in a VW micobus.I think they made it to every state except for Hawaii and North Dakota. They never had a lot and had a very simple life but they always seemed happy. I learned a lot from their examples. 

I'm glad I got to visit my grandparents house again. It was fund to reminisce about them see what the area looks like now. It was a tough but fun ride with some memorable moments of its own. I know the bear sighting and river crossing will probably be one of those things we will be talking about for a while.

Work, Life, Bike Balance

This was a tough week as I had a lot of important tasks vying for my attention. There was a reorg at work. This is normal occurrence in the corporate world and usually happens every year or two as companies try to improve efficiency. Although this reshuffling did not directly affect me it did affect other people and teams I work with more than usual so I spent a good part of the end of the week dealing with the repercussion of the reorg. This reorg also came at a bad time as we are trying to release a new version of our product so this reorg made a stressful time even worse.

For me biking is a way to relieve stress so I try and make sure no matter how hectic life is that I find time to ride. It is important however to balance this against the responsibilities to my family and friends. We all have duties like home repairs or some family event that compete with our desire to ride. For me Saturday is usually the day I ride and Sunday is usually when take care of things at home. Sometimes, like this weekend, I had a yard beautification project that could not be completed in just one day so I promised, my wife, that I would take some time from biking to help get the yard in shape.

I considered doing a quick ride on my own but it was going to be such a beautiful day that I wanted to do as many miles as I could get away with. I ended up on Laura's Round Valley ride even through I knew it was going to be a little long.  I ended up leaving the ride about halfway through in an attempt to get back a little quicker. I did end up making back home with enough time to get most of the work done I promised I would get done then spent all of Sunday finishing up our yard beautification project with out a lot of time for relaxing.

As I write this I still have to take care of a few emails from work before I can get to bed. I do enjoy my work, life and biking but some weeks it hard to find the perfect balance so that they can all peaceful coexist.

Pedal to Preserve

This past weekend Chris, Ron and I spent a few days around Lancaster PA. We went mainly to do the Pedal to Preserve Ride on Saturday but decided that as long as we are going to travel out for that ride we might as well spend some more time exploring the area.

We went out on late Friday morning and got to the area around 1pm. We decided to do a ride called the Climbers Delight. The terrain out in this area is mostly rolling hills with no really big climbs but this ride hit some of the longer rollers. It was a nicely designed ride because you go up a series of easy roller over over 5 miles then have a nice mile long down hill. This happen a few time during the ride. The only issues was the 90 degree heat which made the 37 ride feel a little longer.

This area is nothing but farms and rolling hills which is a scenic place to ride but when it is 90 it is a hot place to ride. It also don't smell so good in the heat. When we pull out of the parking lot where we started we were hit by one of the foulest stenches I have smelled. It smelled like a cross between a rotting deer carcass and a overflowing portal potty at Woodstock.

As I looked to the right I saw the source of the smell. I saw a large tank being pulling a couple of horses spewing out brown liquid on to the field. So what we were smelling was literally hot shit being spread to fertilize the field.

After the ride we headed to the hotel for good shower then out for a family style dinner. If you like meat and potatoes there is a lot of good food here. Dinner usually does come with salad and a few other vegetables but the main meal is fried chicken, roast beef, sausage, potatoes, stuffing. The food was good and we had a nice conversation with the other people at the table. 

Saturday was the Pedal to Preserve ride. This was a 51 mile ride that again had a really nice route. It was less hilly than Friday's ride and cooler since we started early in the morning but it got hot quick. My only complaint about the ride is the rest stops didn't really have any food. They had apples at one stop and bananas at the other but that was about it. I had hear the rest stops didn't have good so I had brought enough stuff with me.

The food at the end was very good though. They hot dogs, ice cream, cookies, and omelets and a lot of other stuff. We spent about an hour relaxing after ride before heading back to the hotel. Since we started early we were back to the hotel by 12:30 pm. We spent the afternoon in the town of Lititz where they have a chocolate factor, a pretzel factory and the oldest Moravian church the country.

We when to a buffet for dinner and stuffed ourselves again before calling it a night.

On Sunday we did a quick 30 mile ride around the Lititz area. The was again more rolling hills and farms. The only point of interest was a building that was built to look like a 13th century castle but it really wasn't that nice looking.

This was a nice area to ride and I learn a little more about the Amish and their way of life. You can't ride along the road with out seeing one of the buggies or some of them on scooters. The Lancaster Bike Club has a nice set of cue sheets with a lot of scenic ride in this area. If you are out this way you can use it to take some good rides on your own. I'm sure I'll be back in this area again hopefully when the weather is a little cooler.

So I Ran Over a Deer...

Most bike rider try to be careful on the road and watch out for potholes, cars and other things that can cause a crash. There are however hidden dangers that are hard to avoid. I'm talking about critters lurking by the side of the road waiting to attack.

Today instead of doing the All Paces ride I headed to Califon because I had to be in Long Valley in the afternoon. I was lucky to have Ron join me to I won't have to ride alone. We rode from Raritan Valley College and headed through some back road toward one of my favorite climbs Rockaway Road.

The back roads in this area are very rural and empty of traffic which makes them nice to ride but there are also a lot of deer in the area. I saw one on the right side of the road about 5 feet ahead of me. I yelled out "Deer" to let Ron know to watch out. The deer then took off and ran across the road towards me. I moved to the left to try and avoid the deer and then it turned and started to run along side of me. We were shoulder to shoulder for a few seconds then the deer looked back over at me and got ever more spooked. Its feet started moved so fast that it slipped and fell on its side with it feet pointing towards me. I ran over the back feet of the deer with my rear tire. Luckily I didn't hurt the deer and didn't loose my balance because the deer got up and ran back in to the woods right in front of Ron. It was all over in a few seconds but it was an intense few seconds.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. It was a beautiful day and the views were some the clearest I have seen. But no matter how much I wanted to enjoy the view I made sure I kept scanning the woods because you never know what is waiting for you behind the next tree...

Twin Lights

Some rides I do are about riding along quiet scenic roads and other rides like the Twin Lights ride, I did on Saturday, are about the destination itself. There is nothing that bad about the roads we took to get to Twin Lights but there is nothing particularly scenic about them and they tend to have a little more traffic than I like.

I had a surprisingly good turn out for the ride with 12 people besides myself. I even had a couple of new people on the ride. The weather started out being very overcast and was suppose to get better but never did. We did get spritzed on a few times but never encountered a steady rain. I usually start the ride to Sandy Hook from Monmouth Battlefield park but Larry(who didn't actually show up) ask that I started the ride from Thompson park in Jamesburg so it would be easier for everybody to get to.

The ride out to Sandy Hook was uneventful except for a flat tire Jim had at the bottom of one of the hills on Navasink Rd. The normal store we stop at on Rt 36 was closed but there was a new Quick Check next that was next store and actually much nicer.

After the stop it was time to head up to Twin Lights. The only problem is the 20% grade to get to it. Its a narrow road after a hairpin turn and to make matters worst there was some van pulling out of a garage at the bottom of the hill that I had to avoid. The hill to the light house is steep but short. I think the worst part was at the start. I was already in my lowest gear when I turned onto the hill but still had to stand up to get over the initial hump. I alternated sitting and standing up the hill as the sloped increased and decreased which is very different for me since I almost never stand when I climb. The climb is only 400 feet long so we all quickly made it to the top. It really wasn't that bad a climb.

At the top we got a good view a the twin light houses and could even see the New York skyline through the overcast. We spent about 15 mins taking some pictures and Cheryl even climbed to the top for a better view. Although we could see the city it probably would be much nicer on an sunny day.

Then it was time to go back down the hill which was harder then coming up especially with the road beaten up. The route home took us through Sea Bright. I took the new bike path over the bridge and along the sea wall. This was nice last year but there was still some damage from the storm. Parts of the sea wall were still damaged and there was a lot of sand on the path so eventually we moved over to the road.

The trip back was uneventful except for a little more light rain and a flat that Dave had. It was a good ride, although there were some complaints that I expect to see listed on another blog. It wasn't about the roads but about seeing Twin Light and the shore by Sandy Hook as well as having fun along the way.

The Velodrome

I’m on vacation this week in Ft Lauderdale Florida. This mostly a sit on the beach and relax vacation with my wife. Although I enjoy spending time on the beach with my wife I always looks for some diversions to get me off the beach for a couple of hours. In last months Bicycling Magazine they had an article about all the velodromes in the US and I noticed there was one close to Ft Lauderdale.

I always wondered what it would feel like to ride on a velodrome so I decided to give it a try. The velodrome is in Brian Piccolo Park about 20 miles from where I’m staying. It is an outdoor cement track with 30 degree banking.

There were a couple of problems I had to overcome to ride on the track. The first was the bike. It was a track bike which meant it was a fixed gear with no brakes. Basically if the wheel was moving so were the pedals. If you wanted to stop you had to use your legs to push backwards on the pedal. The other problem was the banked turns. For my entire life I have rode my bike perpendicular to the road with gravity firmly holding me to it. Yes I do lean the bike a little while turning but riding 30 degrees away from vertical while gravity was trying push the wheels out from under me was going to feel really wrong.

Luckily the track was empty with only one other rider so I didn’t have to worry about getting in anybodies way. Matt, the other rider was a former racer and had recently got into track riding. He gave me a couple of tips to help me get started and make sure I won’t fall. He also said it was going to be cool.

Starting on a track is not easy you can’t just push off and clip in like my road bike because you can’t coast. The technique Matt recommended was to walk the bike to the top of the straightaway grab the rail on top of the wail, clip in then push off down hill.  It sounded reasonable so I gave it a try. Although it took me a couple of strokes to get my balance I got going with no problem.

One of the nice features of the Brian Piccolo velodrome is that it has two tracks. The inner track only has 5 degree backing and is used for warming up. The outer one has the 30 degree banks.

I did a 3 or 4 laps around the inner track to get a feel for the bike. It was mostly familiar except for the fact that there were no brakes lever on the handle bars and every time I tried to coast the pedals pushed back. Then there was the whole problem as to how to actually stop.

To stop on a regular bike you hit the brakes click out of one of the pedals and put your foot down. Since I needed to push back on the pedals to stop that wasn’t going to work here so I reversed what I did to get started. I slowly push back on the pedals until I was going really slow then road up by the wall and grabbed the bar on top of the wall. I was still going too fast to stop so as my hand slid along the bar I tighten my grip on the rail to slow me to the point where I could stop and unclip. I’m sure it looked uncoordinated but at least I had a way to start and stop with out killing myself.

After a brief stop to adjust the height of the seat it was on to the outer track. I started as I did on the inner track by holding on to the bar on the wall on the straightaway. I then spent a couple of laps on the flat part building up some speed. The next two laps I swung up to the banked track on the straightaway then back down to the flat part in the corners. At this point it was time to go for it.

I swung up to the track in the straightaway and tried to keep my speed up. The track has two painted lane in it an orange one at the bottom of the banking and a blue on about 3 feet above that. I decided to follow the blue lane.

When I hit the corner things really started to feel wrong. I was on pavement that was banked at 30 degrees but I was not perpendicular to the pavement. I was leaning uphill so that the tire was hitting the road on the right side and I felt like I was riding on the side wall. I expect at any second for the wheels to slip out from under me and slide down to the bottom of the track.

But that didn’t happen. I made it through the corner and headed down the straightaway to the next corner. This corner felt just as wrong but I knew it would be OK. I stepped up my cadence and when I went through the corners again it felt a little more stable. After 5 or 6 more laps I was getting use to it and starting to really enjoy it. As Matt went by me I told him he was right this was really cool.

Now that I was getting more comfortable with the track it was time to climb the wall I spent the next 5 laps moving higher and higher up the banking and learned that higher up you went the better if felt.

After a break for some water I went out again and started trying some of the moves I have seen on TV where you start up high on the bank then swing down to gain speed. At this point I felt in total control and could go anywhere on the track. I also realized this was awesome.

Matt suggested we do some pace lining so I felt what it was like. So he would lead for a lap then swing up and around me and I would lead a lap and would swing up and around him. This was much more fun then on the road. Lastly we simulated the end of a race where we rode high on the track and swung down quickly in the last two corners. Matt said to hold it as low in the track as I could. I was sprinting as hard as I could and when I swung down I really felt the g-force trying to push me up the banking. Way cool.

I had been on the track for a little over an hour at this point and was tired and thirsty so I decided I had had enough. I’m really glad I decided to do this. It wasn’t as hard as I had thought and a lot of fun. There aren’t many velodromes that allow the public to run on then so if you get a chance you should give it a try.