Wild Turkey!

No not the Bourbon, the bird. Today I came across a group of seven wild turkeys! My wife thinks that they are a young brood and that makes sense as they are about two feet tall, thin and they didn't scatter when they finally saw me. It's pretty easy to sneak up on wild animals when riding a bike. I remember riding past a Red Hawk eating a snake (way cool) and about 50 Turkey Vultures feasting on a deer carcase (Ooh, ooh that smell. The smell of death surrounds you.). That was a little spooky.

Two in a row!

Sorry this is a little late ...

For the past few weeks I've been busy with school, work, and home (oh a little bit of weather problems too). So for two weeks no cycling (mind numbing!). Well I finally got back on the bike, first a Wednesday ride (usually about 35 miles). Then a Saturday ride (an easy 79 mile ride :-), then a commute to work. It started out cold (in the 50's) but it was in the warm in the sun, which felt good. The next day another Wednesday night ride. So now I'm getting back into a normal flow. Yesterday, Saturday (8/16), I had to be home by noon for a block party. Otherwise I would have done a century. So we left out of Matawan at 8 am. We were going to go to Sandy Hook (Jersey Shore) but because it was a bit cool we decided to stay inland and went to Manasquann Reservoir. Initially it was supposed to be 50 miles but I was feeling good so I added more (yes, I know, I'd be late to the party, but the ride felt so good!). I ended up with another 70 mile ride. Sunday I decided to a club ride out of Cranbury but I wanted mileage (I was still feeling good). So I commuted by bike to the ride (11 miles), did the club ride (55) and rode home again (11 miles). :-) Another good day.

On Saturday's ride I ran over a tack (that's what the imprint on the tire looked like) and I flatted. I've been running higher pressure tires (140 psi) and wasn't looking forward to pumping them up by hand. I have a Topeak Morph Mountain G mini-pump and before I knew it the tire had reached 130 psi. On on of my other bikes I have a Zefal 3x frame pump and once you reach 90 psi (about 50 pumps) it starts getting really tough to pump. I must have only done about 35 pumps and I was at 130 psi! Wow nice pump. It still wasn't a breeze as there was some effort but no where near the effort of the Zefal pump. Now only if the gauge was a little easier to read. Anyway I'm now off to commute to work. There is a threat of a thunderstorm but I'm still going. With tropical storm Fay just hitting Florida the rest of my week is looking like it may be wet so I'll get my miles when I can. Sort of "smoke 'em if ya got'em" if you will. I'm hoping that I'll still be able to get my century in this Saturday, I've got a few new routes to try and I'm looking forward to getting down to the Pine Barrens again.

Back on the bike!

This weekend (2008/08/09) was a great weekend to be out on the bike! It was a little chilly (for summer and me) at around 65 - 78F but tolerable for me (I like it hot). We rode out of Cranbury to Pemberton. We did a 70 mile ride as I've been off the bike for two weeks with school work and wasn't about to attempt a century. I was listed for 70 - 110 miles (normal for summer) so I was good. I know it's a large range but it gives me the freedom to venture all around the state. We did a new derivation of my Pemberton route called Pemberton - via Mangolia Rd. (69 miles). It was slightly breezy but not nasty. Seems this summer has been pretty breezy, odd. Anyway, I've also created a few new routes, a Cranbury - Batso (125 miles) route and a Cranbury - May's Landing (147 miles) route. The Cranbury to May's Landing will have to wait until next year as I don't think I have enough daylight to complete it right now. The Batso ride I may attempt in September. I also have a Cranbury - Tuckerton (130 miles) route that I haven't been able to try. I had it scheduled for May but we had strong winds (18 mph + gusts) out of the West both times so I rode something with less than 30 miles of head winds. I've also noted that I'm missing a few routes (Mt. Misery), so I'll add those soon. Anyway it feels good to be back on the bike.

Ow, what a ride!

Well, I'll post a short summary of our ride yesterday (2008/6/15 - the Longest Day - 208 miles). A longer version should be posted on my page within the week. We left at 4:48 AM (according to my watch) and arrived at 8:28 PM (again according to my watch). I don't have an average speed as my computer was messed up (I forgot to turn it on) but we're certain it was close to 17 mph as the other teams were reporting this and we left close to when they did and arrive before most of them. There were two reasons for the long length of time. The first was we lost our SAG, the second was the heat and humidity in the Pine Barrens. At our lunch stop the SAG was supposed to meet us in Allentown. He stopped in Kingston at a local deli to get lunch and he didn't see us pass him (we where doing pace lines and flying onto Allentown another 20+ miles ahead). So we ended up waiting in Allentown for 45 minutes for him to arrive. I made the mistake of not giving him my cell phone number and he didn't have mine (oops). So our lunch stop took around an hour instead of 30 minutes. Next we really suffered in the Pine Barrens, actually we began to suffer on Four Mile Rd (just below Browns Mills) and knew we needed more stops. So I modified the route to include another stop in the Pine Barrens. Earlier we added a stop early in the ride so we now had at least 20 extra minutes there. In the Pine Barrens we also hit heat, humidity and wind. It was reported that Woodbine, NJ (southern end of the Pine Barrens) had a high of 89F. I'd guess the middle of the Pine Barrens were higher yet. Add the humidity and the direct sun and we were riding in 100+F adjust heat index. The wind did us no favors as it was quite strong. We all suffered (every team, not just mine). I can honestly say that I think our team could have gone much faster as the last 23 miles were our fastest. We managed to up the pace to 18.4 for the last 23 miles.! I'd hav e to say this ride has caused me to doubt my leadership abilities. I'll have to work on that. More about that later (on my web pages).

On the road again ...

Well it's the day before the Longest Day and the training is done. If we're not ready now we won't be ready tomorrow. ;-) The weather looks good for tomorrow. We'll start out at 4:30 AM and it looks like it will be in the low 60's. When we get to the Pine Barrens we'll be looking at the low 90's. When we get to Cape May it should be in the low 70's with a head wind of 12 mph out of the south. This is to be expected and I don't think I've seen one of these rides where we haven't had a head wind on the lower half.

I've tried to figure out how to access the blog and Facebook via my cell phone but I haven't quite figured that out yet so I'll not worry about it. The cell phone has a camera and I'd like to remember to take pictures but I'm not that good at it (shaky pictures usually). I'll see what I can do. Anyway I'm off for my big ride and I am excited.