The Ride to Belmar

Saturday July 25th

My buddy Ron and I had been talking about a ride to Belmar, which is one of the many shore areas of NJ. Coincidentally our good buddy Laura was planning to lead a ride today and it was to Belmar so my buddy Ron and I decided to join her on the ride today. It was a graduated ride....a century leaving from her house, 85 miles from Mercer County Park and the final start point of Etra Park which ended up being 70 miles.

Our fearless leader.....Laura....OLPH ( Our Lady of the Perpetual Headwinds)


We had a rest stop at the Jackson Deli but the big stop was at the boardwalk area of Belmar.

The boardwalk is actually on the street on Ocean Ave

Some happy faces at the rest stop

 This boardwalk is made out of plastic.  It was replaced due to Superstorm Sandy

On the way back some wheels touched and two riders went down hard.  Some road rash, bloody elbows and knees and ripped jerseys and both riders hit their heads hard on the road but thank goodness....due to helmets......everyone was able to get back on their bikes and get back to the rest stop without calling 911.

The odometer reading at the end of the ride.   Glad that the ride was finished and that all those that were involved in the accident made it back to the ride start.

More Ox, The Bike Shop and Grounds for Sculpture

Thursday July 23rd

It's been a busy few weeks and I am little behind in my blog posts so I will combine the events of the past few weeks.  Thank you Carol for the reminder!

I was on the Sourland Spectacular on Bob's Smith's usual Thursday ride and I found some more ox along the way.

My friend Marilyn did some additional investigating and found a map of the location of all 68 ox.  

http://www.hvstampede.org/map/

While we were at the rest stop Bob went to visit Sourland Cycles.  This is what I saw outside.  Very ingenious!!!

This vending machine even takes credit cards and has a floor pump securely attached to the machine.


Later in the week on Thursday my friend Andy took me to the Grounds for Sculpture for a "Country Howdown" buf fet which included a walk around the grounds.  For my Southwest Florida friends...here is a link describing the Grounds For Sculpture (GFS)


 http://www.groundsforsculpture.org/



This is one of the many we saw along our walk.

I know you all know who this is!!

We also see some live creatures running around the grounds.

There were at least three or four of the peacocks we saw that night.

It's been a great visit so far and I will continue to blog about interesting things.....besides cycling....that I encounter during my visit here in NJ.

 

More Ox's.....and a Car

Monday July 13

This blog post is not about riding.  It's about what I saw before, during and after the ride. 

I saw this ox on the way to the ride.

Wow.....this car has eyelashes!  It was parked in the parking lot on the NJ side of Washington Crossing State Park

This ox was hidden from the road.  How sad.   I saw this on the corner of Linvale Road and Rt 31 on someone's property.  If you look close up it has Long Beach Island painted on it as well as surf's up and other ocean type things.   Unfortunately there was no sign with its' name.


On the way home I saw one more ox.

This last ox was named appropriately.   (A Garden State of Mind)

I hope that you enjoy this diversion from my latest riding adventures!

The Schooley's Mountain Ride

Saturday July 11th

I have been contemplating doing this ride since I arrived back in NJ with a bit of fear.   Schooley's Mountain is not for the faint of heart.   It's not Fiddler's Elbow which has a 22% grade t the top of the climb but it mind as well be with the amount of hill climbing I have done over the past year.

The ride started at Raritan Valley College and went through bucolic tree lined roads that bring a sense of peace while riding.  However, that peace was interrupted with the sense of fear of the impending climb(s) ahead.  We rode along Rockaway Road which dead ends in Mountainville.  

This store served great coffee and gourmet breakfasts when it was open.  The "For Sale" sign was a sad sign of the times.....no pun intended.

We headed towards Califon with some great views of the countryside and an awesome downhill.  Well....it usually is an awesome downhill.  However, one of the bikes had a mechanical.....a broken spoke.   Yikes.  We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere and certainly no bike shops around to get the wheel to for repair.

How many Princeton Freewheeler's does it take to fix a broken spoke??   A lot!!!!


Luckily Jim Brittain who builds wheels was on the ride so he was able to fix the wheel so that we could hopefully get to the rest stop without having to call for help.

We climbed Slicker Road....boy I don't remember that road being that long....but we made it to the top before we made a right and headed towards our rest stop.  

The store is the only one in the area.

This satellite post office is contained within the store.   I can't remember the last time I have seen one of these.


Even though our ride leader, Tom , said that there was not a lot of climbing left he was mistaken.  We had a bunch of climbing to do but the scenery was great.   The roads were not so great.  Lots of potholes on the downhils lwhich were reminders of the harsh winter and had to be navigated very careful while controlling your speed. 

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful and that was a good thing.  The broken spoke wheel held up and other that my neck and shoulder bothering me requiring the group to stop as well as one other ride cramping up  and requiring a second stop for him to ingest some salt tablets. we made it back to the ride start with all 10 riders.   We ended the day with 54 miles and 3,400 ft of climbing.

The Ride to Sergentsville.....and Ox

Sunday July 5th

We were suppose to do this ride on Saturday July 4th but the weather said otherwise.  We met at the Rocky Hill canal parking lot at 8:3 AM.

There were six smiling and eager to ride faces at ride time.   We headed towards the Sourland Mountain range.  The first climb was Grandview Road.  Tom, our fearless ride leader, spared us the harder climb up Dutchtown Zion Road although one of the riders, Ed, decided he wanted to make the climb and did it solo.

These photos don't do this climb justice.  It's much harder than it looks although it's a short climb.

We headed up Hollow Road, up Long Hill Road to the top of Lindberg.  Do you get the theme here??  Up up and more up.  We crossed the mountain range on Ridge Road and finally had our first downhill to Wertsville Road.  We crossed Rt 202 at Rt 514 and headed towards Sergentsville.  The climbing for the first half of the ride was done.  We stopped in Sergentsville for our rest stop.

It was a welcome rest stop.  We had a lot of climbing ahead of us.  Look to the top left....it says "Bikers Welcome"

Notice Laura and Ed's socks.   Ed's reminded me of Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat although they were green instead of red. 


Let the climbing begin....for the second half.  We climbed Rittenhouse Road, Lambertville HQ Road to the top of Sandy Ridge.  Down we went on Sandy Ridge Road ( we usually climb up this one!) and then the climbing began for real.  We climbed to the top of Mt. Airy Road, a left onto Rt 604 (??) and a long climb up to Hunterdon High School before we made a left to head back over the Sourlands via Linvale and Mountain.

When all was said and done we ended up with 50 miles and about 2,500 ft of climbing.  A nice accomplishment on a perfect day.

On a separate note, I continue to find ox all over the area.  I have found two more recently.

The top ox is located in Carnegie Center in Princeton.  This is in front of a corporate facility.   The second one....who's name is Newton ( look at the sign at his feet) is located at a local bank on Route 31.   I am sure there are more and will post them as I see them.