Mike and Mark's Weblog

Covered Bridges!

Yeah, baby-Bucks County Covered Bridges Ride. 26th year. Steve Baxter and I have been doing this together for almost ten years. Great, challenging ride, beautiful scenery and first class support. Gotta go for the metric century (hilly and very challenging). We've got our biggest crew this year-Mike, Dave N., Dave B. Ray, Henry, and Dan. We met at the shop at 6:30 AM. Check out the first three photos. Sun still hadn't come up (although a nice start in one of the pictures). We roll out about 6:45 with the temperature about 47 degrees (F). As we drive west we watch the temperature drop. By the time we cross the Delaware River at Frenchtown, the temperature is down to 32 degrees and it is a thick fog. Damn that is cold. Which is the caption to the photo of Mike and I getting ready.

Picking the right clothing is a pain. We know it will warm up, but damn its cold right now. Especially in the port-a-potty taking off all the jerseys to get the bibs down. And Ray has already swiped the breath mints!

We catch up with Steve right as we get to registration, so we have the whole crew. Including Brian the mouth who has made it out there and is wearing shorts, of course. After too much waiting around, we roll out.

We lose the fog pretty quickly as we go west away from the river. The early part feels pretty good and we are all together until a few of us miss the turn for the metric route. A quick double back and before we know it, we are on the nasty climb up to the school and the first rest stop. I did the climb much better than ever before and still finish way behind Mike, Dave N. Dave B. Henry and Dan. By the way, Dan is riding his fixed gear. That gets plenty of attention ranging from wow, awesome to crazy bastard. I agree with all of the above.

After regrouping at the school where we waited for Ray, we pick up Brian again. Oh goody. We see Ray who is ok and is commited to doing his own ride which is a very good idea. He ends up opting for the 50 mile route, another very good idea with his lack of miles in his legs. Meanwhile, off go the aforementioned jackrabbits leaving Steve and I with Brian. Steve is fighting a cold and is feeling the effects.

The next section of the ride is new. Steve will later call it "gratuitus climbing" and I won't argue with him. Two very long, windy, nasty climbs that really put some hurt on the calves. I later asked Mike if he cackled and he confessed that he forgot, but did get some off later. It was also surprising to hear Steve say "I have no idea where we are" as he lives in Bucks county. We don't manage to lose Brian until the second climb. Man he never shuts up. Speaking of never shutting up, this is a good time to introduce Famous Anus. Famous is a cyclist from Brooklyn that never shuts up. But he is an incredibly strong rider so there isn't much you can say. Last year I endured his non-stop comentary climbing up to the school as he was "encouraging" several riders right behind me. As he does have a passing resemblance to Famous Amos, I dubbed him Famous Anus. Dave N. was on last year's ride and got an earful as well. So he made up a cookie box for him-great work Dave!

Famous apparently outdid himself this year. This account is from the jackrabbit pack as I did not get to witness it. A woman rider "blew a stop sign" (he said blew) and caused an oncoming car to screetch to a halt. As the driver was cursing at her, Famous came flying up and started screaming back at the driver and chased him as he drove off. That will help car-bicycle relations. Meanwhile the stop sign was seen having a cigarette.

As Steve and I were cruising into rest stop 2 and my bike was starting to have problems with the drive train-it was returning to the dreaded automatic transmission and shifting on its own. Caught up with the jackrabbits before they hopped off and got some food-peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, homemade brownies and cookies, fresh gatorade. This is the absolutely best supported ride I have ever seen.

There is a nasty climb leaving rest stop 2 and my chain broke on it-fortunately it was less than 100 yards back to the rest stop and technical support. One of the local shop guys popped out the bad link and it was good to go. While he was fixing it he asked where I was from and when I said Scotch Plains, he said, hey I raced there. Turns out he was at the Freddy Spencer Race where we had the near fatality before the start and talked about what a bummer of a day that was. Cycling sure is a small world.

Steve was really feeling bad on the next section which was roughly miles 36 to 52. So we took it easy and just turned cranks and caught up on the wacky world of industrial chemistry. The weather was probably the nicest it has been for any of the rides we have done together which helped. Just soak it in and enjoy. This section has a bunch of rollers that are fine if you are feeling good and agony if you aren't. I've done it both ways. One year I found myself with a small woman and a huge fat guy. The woman would go away on the uphills, the fat guy would fly by on the downhills. I was always in-between. Absolutely no conversation-they were deadly serious. Couldn't get away from them, though.

At the mile 52 rest stop, we ran into one of Steve's friends we had seen at the previous stop-we had left before him (before the chain broke) so he asked if we had taken a detour to get there behind him. We told him about the chain. He gave Steve a couple of Advil which along with some more food seemed to get Steve feeling a little better. Fortunately they put the major climbs in the first part so we only had to do the "easy" route back. Still have the climbs but no stupid grades or long ones. We pass the folks who were clearly asking themselves "What was I thinking?" when I got out here. Amazing how different your attitude is when everything isn't hurtiing and your legs want to quit. Thank you, Wolf Creek Pass-this was much easier.

We found the boys tailgating and enjoying antioxidant beverages. A truly deserved reward. And as you can see, a really motley crew after a hilly 100K. And a grudging acknowledgement to Brian who did the whole 100K and found his way there.But put a sock in it son!

The day ends with cans of Bud in the Bike Stand parking lot. Life is good.

Looking at the Future

Next Sunday, Oct. 15 is the Bucks County Covered Bridges ride. This will be it's 26th year and it is an outstanding ride put on by the Central Bucks Bike Club. Thousands of cyclists hit the road for a hilly metric century or rides of smaller duration. The metric goes through 6 historic covered bridges. Last year it also went over a new cement bridge that had been a covered bridge before it was destroyed by arson. What is that all about? Can't the hicks go cow tipping or something for amusement?

I've been doing this ride for about ten years with my favorite Bucks County cyclist, Steve Baxter. We used to work together and had more opportunities to ride these roads together so we really apreciate that the ride gives us at least one good oportunity to riide together. This year I'm bringing six of our local riding loonies with me. Mike and Dave N. have done the ride previously and will ride it well as will Dave B. and Dan, the fixed gear wonderboy. Henry, Ray and I will make our concessions to gravity. Ah, but there are some great downhills as well.

Dave B. and I have been doing approximately 100K rides each of the last three weekends. Most of the guys have been getting out, if not for those distances. Now if we can only find one of those little yellow buses to take us all over to start in Tinicum State Park on the Delaware river.

The route for the 2007 Tour of Colorado has been announced and this is straight from the e-mail:

"Come ride the 2007 tour!!  You won't want to miss the eight Colorado passes and the great mountain towns and resorts, including Steamboat Springs, where the tour starts and finished.
 
The tour will travel from Steamboat Springs to Walden via Rabbit Ears Pass, Walden to Winter Park via Willow Creek Pass, Winter Park to Copper Mountain Resort via Berthoud Pass and Loveland Pass, take a day off at Copper Mountain Resort, then Copper Mountain Resort to Leadville via Vail Pass, Battle Mountain and Tennessee Pass, Leadville to Kremmling via Fremont Pass and the Blue River, then back to Steamboat Springs via Gore Pass.
 
The BTC will be visiting two vacation resorts, Winter Park and Copper Mountain. The day off will be at the Copper Mountain Resort.  We will also visit the small mountain towns of Walden, Leadville and Kremmling."

OK, here is the good news. None of the days are over 75 miles. The rest day is after the toughest climbing day. None of the grades are over 7%. Although the first day starts with a long climb, it is no Wolf Creek Pass and the day is only 57 miles. Now the bad news. This is Colorado and you still will have 38,500 ft of climbing over 8 major passes. Three passes are over 11,000 ft (Loveland Pass is almost 12,000!) and none are under 9,500 ft. Day 3 is epic.

I've got some unfinished business-I need to ride all 418 miles of the CTC. Keep up the training and actually eat before the stages and it should be eminently doable. Mikey's eyes were glowing talking about it last Friday. Yes, I do think the boys are going back to Colorado.

Weekend at the Shore

Better late than never. I am really getting bad with the entries. However, on with post!
Dave Neuhaus has a shore house in North Beach Haven on Long Beach Island that his grandfather built in the 1940s. Now that it is off-season, Dave figured it would be fun to have the gang over for a weekend of riding, bloody marys and comradeship. I must say he met all his goals, and then some.

Saturday morning was raining in Scotch Plains, but we dutifully rolled out. Dave arrived Friday night and I was the next to arrive on Saturday morning around 9:30. The rain stopped about halfway down to LBI. Only Ray was also able to make the Saturday ride, so we waited for him and listened to National Lampoon's Lemmings album, a parady of Woodstock. Much of it is dated, but John Belushi's Joe Cocker is still outstanding and hilarious.

Dave's house has two separate apartments, upstairs and downstairs. It is also one house from the beach and the upstairs porch has an incredible view of the beach and ocean. You can see the house and the views in the first pictures in the album. Being off-season, it was delightfully empty.

Ray arrived before lunch and we got ready to ride. This was Dave's original riding plan:

"I've got a 40+ flat ride mapped out in the Pine Barrens from Tuckerton to Chatsworth and back again (there will be wind) for Saturday, and a 30+ flat ride from one end of Long Beach Island to the other and back (there will be more wind) for Sunday."

Well the wind was howling south to north on Saturday-the flags were pretty much straight out. Dave is on the south end of the island so we decided to drive to the north end, park at Barneget Lighthouse, ride south into the wind and let the wind blow us back. That was a very good idea. The not so good idea was to skip lunch and go for a 39 mile ride (not 30-more on Dave's ability to aproximate distances later). The wind was relentless and during the gusts it just about blew us to a stop. It was a real relief to finally see the shore at the south end of the island. The store at the south end was picked clean but at least had some powerbars. After the turnaround-oh my. We were flying. A tailwind that strong is truly awesome. Ray hadn't been riding so he wasn't as able to fly with the wind, but he sure caught plenty of it-one of the times when being large is a real advantage.

We got back to chez Neuhaus about 4 and dove into the fortified antioxidant beverages (bloody marys). Ray and I had about three each when Dave Billard arrived. Two more rounds and we staggered off to dinner-Dave N. had behaved himself so he was alright for driving the drunks around. He chose a restaraunt that we had to wait for a table at the bar-oh boy more bloody marys. I'd describe more about the dinner but it all goes blank after we ordered. I'll just say that it was pretty humorous getting out of the place as my legs weren't working and Dave and Ray weren't in much better shape trying to guide me along. The patron's were horrified. Oh well.

It was a pretty early night, especially for me. Henry arrived late to a very subdued group. I was so subdued I was snoring in bed.

The next morning was ugly, but probably better than expected. After junkfood and lots of procrastination we loaded up the bikes and (most of) our gear and rolled out to the pine barrens. Did I say most of our gear? After asking Dave B. and I if we had our helmets and shoes, Dave N. forgot his shoes. Even in sneakers he rode better than everyone. The sun was actually out. You can see that in the before and after shots in the parking lot. In-between was a fair amount of cool and grey weather with the sun occasionally breaking through. Lots of cranberries. Also motorcycles. Tons of scooter trash keeping the air nice and pure for us. Dave proved himself worthy of Mike in estimating the route at 40-45miles. My odometer read 58+ at the end. Big kudos to Ray who has not been riding much, but did a 100 mile weekend. The after ride shot doesn't look so bad, especially considering the night before.

We had a great late lunch at A&W eating cheeseburges and chugging root beer. Ray and Dave B. even did root beer floats! One of the many advantages of long rides-calorie catch up.

The last shot is the view from the upstairs deck and kitchen of the next door neighbors tree. Hope there is a good story about how those panties got there.

Got to do that again