Sunday the club offered up the Bull’s Island ride, one of my favorites. Just over a metric century at 62+ miles, It pulls two rabbit-out-of-the-hat tricks that I just love, plus many long uninterrupted stretches where you can just ride and enjoy the scenery. And the scenery is great, light traffic, quiet forests, farmlands, streams, while crossing the Delaware River twice.
I’m not really sure how fast I was going. But I’d dropped some 200 feet in elevation in just about a quarter mile, and it was awfully fast. Then, out of nowhere, a 90-degree right bend in the road. I started to squeeze the brakes and almost immediately my [expletive deleted] Specialized back tire went into a fishtail skid. Under normal circumstances I’d veer out to the left to widen my turning radius, but there was a car coming up on that side. I had no choice but to try and hang tough through the curve, staying in the right lane, at speed.
I thought I was toast…
Today’s ride was 41.4 miles from a parking lot in Short Hills, NJ out to Far Hills. Along the way, a few moderate climbs — such as right out of the box up to Summit — and a few cows.
I also saw a pair of turkey vultures rummaging through the remains of a dead deer [...]
As I’m wearing through my current set of Continentals, the other week I replaced my rear tire with one by Specialized.
In the ’80s I liked Specialized occasionally for their tight fit and high PSI. Even in the best of times I weigh in at over 200 lbs., so that’s important. But for most of [...]
Another successful assault on Watchung Mountain. This one is 39 miles — I’d really hoped to stretch it to 40 but I draw the line at circling the block a few times to do it. This long narrow loop carves out some less-heavily traveled roads in this fairly busy part of the state.
I used to do ‘em all the time, but I can’t remember the last time. Probably because I’ve been a slave to the MAFW weekly ride calendars since 2000. They only tally up how many miles per week/month/year and if that’s what you measure, that’s what you go for. So “quality” rides like doing on-and-off [...]
Yesterday through the farms and forests of Hunterdon County. It was a new route for the bike club, I think — everybody was making comments to the leader about how he should tweak the directions. There was some quibbling about how late the food stop was — 10 miles before the end — but other [...]
When the heat index is expressed in scientific notation, one has to question the sanity let alone wisdom of going out for a bike ride. As you might be able to see, I wasn’t at my best when I got home.
The climb up Watchung Mountain is pretty brutal, but that spiraling downhill on the south end us wicked cool.
We did 37 miles and change with the bike club this morning. A perfect day — sunny and warm, but low humidity. Riding through the shady sections was nice and cool.
I don’t usually (or usually don’t) make New Year’s resolutions, but since this year I did I tried to make a special effort to fulfill one of them. That was to “ride my age” before spring.
How’d I do? Read on.
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