Tour de Philadelphia

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It has been a couple of years since I have finished my Best Bike Rides Philadelphia book. Since then I try to do a couple of rides a year in or around Philly. It is one of the more bikeable cities there is and has a lot of good trails and bike lanes. One of the rides that didn't make the book was a long ride from north east Philly to Center City and back. I tried to do this ride two times last year but got rained out both times. Because of traffic I will only do this ride on certain weekends when I know the traffic won't be bad. So this year I scheduled the ride again for the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

Although the weather wasn't perfect it looked like the rain would hold off so we went for it. I had 5 people besides myself. Laura, Ron Ken, Dave H, and winter Larry. We started from Pennypack park and did this route. The first scenic stop was Bryn Athyn Cathedral before continuing our way towards center city. We wound our way through Jenkinstown and through some of the nicer neighborhoods eventually reaching the Valley Green Inn in Wissahickon Park. The Valley Green Inn was built before Revolutionary war and is still in use today for parties and weddings. This is a pretty area and was our second scenic stop.

From here we climbed uphill to get out of the Wissahickon valley then dove our way into Manayunk. This is a busy area so we had to deal with traffic. Once a year there is a bike race in Philly and one of the main features of the course is the Manayunk Wall. It is a steep climb that maxes out at an 18% grade but it is very short. So while we were in Manayunk we went up the wall. It's really not that tough a climb because it is short. There are much harder climbs out of Frenchtown but it was cool to say we road up the wall.

We stopped for a break in Manyunk although it took us a couple stops to find a good place. From Manayunk we headed into center city and road along the Schuylkill river. They have a good trail along the river but what is even better is that they close the road to traffic on Saturday and Sunday so we road along the wide open road.

For a scenic view of the city I took the group up to Belmont Plateau where you get a good view of the Philadelphia skyline although it was that great because of the overcast skies rolling in. Our next scenic stop was the steps of the Art Museum before heading past the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. There was a lot of traffic here but the bike lanes make it passable. Part of 6th street was closed so I had to take everybody down a one way street the wrong way but luckily there wasn't a lot of on coming traffic.

Our last scenic stop was Penn's Landing for a view of the Ben Franklin bridge and the Battleship New Jersey. From hear we headed back north along Aramingo and Torresdale avenues for most of the way back. These are busy roads through some of the more blue collar and industrial neighborhoods. It wasn't pretty or interesting but the dedicated bike lanes made it a quick safe way back.  The only problem was by this time my bike had developed a gear problem. The chain would skip every 3 or 4 strokes. I tried a few adjustments but nothing seemed to help. I was still able to ride so and shift so we kept riding although is was really annoying. After I got home I traced the problem to a stuck link on a chain I just had replace so I will be bringing back in for a new chain.

The last 9 miles of the ride was along the Pennypack creek. The creek is surrounded by a beautiful park and has a well maintained paved bike trail. There were a couple of puddles and left over mud from storms of the previous week but it was a nice way to end to ride. It was a real contrast to the busy streets we had just been on.

The final distance was 55 miles and although there were no real tough climbs we had climbed over 3000 feet of little rolling hills. This isn't a ride I would do a lot but it was a nice change of pace.

Rocky Mountain High

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There are many inspiring places around the US that must been seen in person. Each of these places from Arcadia National Park to Yosemite have unique features and history. Every couple of years my wife and I take a driving trip to visit one of these places. This years trip was to the Rocky Mountains.

We spent a week driving around the Rocky's and saw them from many different angles and in a lot of different weather conditions. It was a great trip. For a quick summary of the trip you can just click through the pictures or read on for more details.

We started our trip in Colorado Springs in the Garden of the Gods Lodge across from the actual Garden of the Gods. They never said which gods created these gardens but I'm assuming it was relatives of Buddha since it was a bunch of rocks in a western zen like setting.

While in Colorado Springs we took a chance to head to the top of Pikes Peak.  We could not get to the top because snow had closed the final 6 miles of the road but we did get 11,450 feet and got some good views

After Colorado Springs we headed off for a scenic ride to Vail. The ride started out sunny and along the way we saw 4 of the 31 14,000 ft peak in Colorado as well as checked out a real ghost town. As we got closer to Vail and higher into the mountains it started to snow. At our first 11.000 ft pass the viability turned to almost zero and we came close to hitting a semi trailer making a U turn.  We went through 2 more 11,000 ft passes to get the Vail and the visibility and roads were a little better.

Vail was worth the trip. It is a beautiful European like village and what was even better is that it was almost empty. It turns out that even though there was plenty of snow on the mountain ski season was over. Most of the ski resorts are on government land and because of some animal migration the government decides when to close the resorts which this year was April 20th. The result was a we got one of the most luxurious rooms we ever stayed in for just $100 and had a world class meal in a good German restaurant. In fact we had the entire restaurant and wait staff  to ourselves. Now I know what VIPs feel like.

From Vail we had another scenic drive to Golden Colorado. Along the way we saw the famous Red Rock Amphitheater. The next day we continued from Golden pass Buffalo Bills grave into the heart of the Rockies and made our way to Estes Park which is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. Estes Park was almost as empty as Vail. In fact the we were again the only resident of the condo village we stayed at.

We spent 2 days riding around Rocky Mountain National Park taking in the views and just relaxing at our condo.  Although the first day was a little cloudy the second day was perfectly clear so I took a lot of pictures to try and capture the scale and magnificents of what I was seeing. The park had a lot of places to take in the view and because it wasn't crowded it was easy to stop and take it all in. Although some of the roads in the park were still closed from the winter storms I don't think there was much we missed.

After Estes Park we headed to Denver where we took in a baseball game before heading home the next day.

Spending a week in and around the Rockies was one of the more scenic trips we have taken. From the views we saw it is easy to understand America the Beautiful was written from here.

I Wanna an Easter Egg

This past weekend was Easter and my wife and I hosted both our families for Easter dinner. Its a large gathering of around 20 or more people but it is always a lot of fun. We usually have a lot of traditional Polish food like perogies and stuffed cabbage as well as assorted other non traditional food like stuffed shells. My wife tries to make something visually spectacular for desert. This year she made and Easter egg from cream puffs and chocolate oreo balls. It was a simple but delicious dessert that was a crow pleaser.


By the way for those that remember the Bugs Bunny cartoon about Easter here is a link to I wanna an Easter egg.

Getting the Band Back Together

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I had put a ride into the book for April 5 but when the book came out it wasn't there. No matter between a few emails and a blog post I got the word out. Most of the regular crew showed up. Laura, Ron, Al Cheryl, Joe Dave, Herb and Mary.

We ended up doing a windy ride to New Egypt. The ride down to New Egypt wasn't too bad but the ride back was tough. It was one of the windier rides that I have done. Still it was good seeing every one after a long cold winter.

Signs of Spring

When I last left you I was drinking away the pain of hard work and lamenting about what a crappy winter it was. I did get out a few times since then and had a couple of rides with Mary and Herb which was fun since I hadn't seen them in a while. Although the snow has melted and there are signs of growth it still doesn't feel spring like. There is hope though since this is the first week since December that snow has not been forecast (although it did sleet on Monday morning). The weather is getting warmer and it looks like it will be nice enough to get my first club ride in this weekend. I know there are a lot of others bikers out there who are depressed and need to get out on the road so lets hope that winter is finally over.

Drinking the Winter Away

My appeal to the weather god got us one decent weekend to ride but with another storm about to dump some more snow on us there is no end in site for winter. Although I haven't be doing as much biking this winter as I normally do I have been doing my best to try and stay in shape for when the weather finally warms up. This weekends cross training work out was the total destruction of the main bathroom in preparation for a total make over.

As the picture shows I took the bathroom down to the studs. It took all day Saturday to rip the walls down and most of Sunday to clean it up the mess that created. After a hard days work of home improvement.there is nothing better than a good drink or some great desert. This weekend I found a way to have both at the same time. I found a Creme Brulee beer. Most of these strange beers that try to mix non beer flavors in usually end up tasting nothing like they should but this beer actually tasted like the top of a Creme Brulee. At 24 ounces and 9.3% alcohol it was the perfect way to unwind after a tough work out.

Note to Weather God

I am putting this message out into the ether to try an appease the weather god, Jim Cantore, or what every divine force that controls the weather

I get it you are angry at us. Between our dumping of toxic chemicals, deforestation, and flooding the air with CO2 we have totally mucked up the environment. I guess you are now trying to punish us by burying us in heavy wet snow that gives us a heart attack as we try to clear our driveways. And even when we do get out on the road we can't see over the 20 foot piles of snow so there is an accident waiting at every corner.

If the constant snow wasn't bad enough what is worst is that our thermometers have spent a lot more time below 20 degrees than above. I don't think colder than a witches teat is even a valid comparison any more.

I am tired of the cold and snow and am looking for an offering that I can give so that I can get out on the bike again. If you need me to sacrifice a virgin that may be tough since there aren't many in these parts. But I am a computer professional so as long as you don't need a virgin of super model quality I may be able to find a shy. slightly unkept, computer professional virgin who is female-ish.

 If you don't answer my plea's then I will have no choice but to take my case to the Flying Spaghetti Monster because we all know he is the one that really controls what goes on in this crazy world.