Two rides, two days: yesterday was a Freemansburg/Hellertown hill ride, and today Anne and I rode to Easton to brunch with Judy. Both rides were sunny, with 90-plus temperatures, and I am now wasted. Eighty nine miles for the (abbreviated) ride week though, so I feel pretty good.
(Things could be worse: Denver just got a ton of snow — Emmi actually invoked the “more than 6 inches fell” rule and made sticky buns. At least it waited until we were gone this time…)
Thunderstorms should be blowing in tonight, and tomorrow should be a bit cooler. Towpath?
Morning weigh-in: 171.5#, 11.5% BF (not great, not terrible)
Today was the first weigh-in since we got back from vacation, and it’s also the first “fast day” since before Denver — who diets on vacation? But now I’m back, and back in the groove.
I got in a towpath ride yesterday, my first bike ride in weeks. It was a beautiful warm sunny day, and Spring (which had just been starting to happen when we left), was in full bloom along the towpath. All sorts of flowers (phlox, king’s rocket) along the path, with fully greened-up trees all around, blooming with flowers of their own and filling the air with perfume, just perfect as I rode along the sun-dappled trail with the water sparkling next to me.
Anne went out earlier on a road ride with Julie, and reported that she could feel a positive effect from our weeks at altitude. I noticed it too: my perceived effort and my heart rate were both lower than I expected, and I seemed to be cruising along at a good clip too. Then I reached my turnaround, and realized I’d had a tailwind on the way out… Still, I felt pretty good considering my time away from the bike, and had a good overall pace despite the wind.
Today was the CAT/Bethlehem Bike To Work Day festivities and short ride, and in a few minutes I’m bicycling over to a doctor’s appointment. Bike bike bike…
Bicycling doesn’t usually do much for flexibility, but flexibility sure came in handy on the recent Road Scholar ride…
Monday: We switched back to the pre-Ida routing for this trip, doing the Lehigh Towpath from Bethlehem to Easton, rather than the relatively unscathed portion of the D&L from Lehighton to Cove Road we used last year. (I think that the D&L has a better surface overall between Lehighton and Cove Road, and was better even before Ida trashed the towpath, but everything else about the ride — the vibe, the points of interest, and especially the scenery — are all so much better on the original Bethlehem-Easton route.)
Posing At the Mule BarnAt The Mule BarnAt The Mule Barn
These were some shots at the Mule Barn (Lock #44, Freemansburg) on Monday’s ride.
That decision worked out pretty well, and since Genesis Bicycles (our old destination on this ride) is closed now, we didn’t bother to do the last part of the original ride — we got picked up at the Forks of the Delaware rather than do city riding through Easton.
Tuesday: The weather forecast started looking pretty bad for later in the week, and I think everyone was thinking the same thing: let’s switch the Tuesday and Thursday rides, so if Thursday is a washout we still get to do the Lehigh Gorge ride, which is supposed to be the last ride and the highlight of the week. There are usually a lot of moving parts to the Road Scholar logistics, especially when it comes to coordinating transportation, and changes like these are sometimes hard to pull off, but there were no other programs this week that needed transportation. The transport guys managed to shift the dates, and Tuesday was a great ride down the river to Jim Thorpe, on the last beautiful day of the week.
Lehigh Gorge SceneAt the WaterfallPosing With Lock ConstructionInside Lock 22At The WaterfallAt The TrestleThe View From Nesquehoning TrestlePosing At The TrestleThe Crew At The Trestle
Here are some photos from Tuesday’s Lehigh Gorge ride.
Wednesday is usually a short morning road ride, to lunch in Delaware Water Gap and an afternoon of free time for the participants. But, the morning weather looked so bad, and we’d already had such good luck messing with the previous day’s schedule, that we decided to mess with this one as well — the afternoon was supposed to clear up a bit, so we started later and had our stop lunch before the ride. This also worked out well: the rain had stopped even before lunch, and though the roads were a bit wet we managed to have a pretty decent ride. (Everyone seemed to ride a bit stronger too, probably from the extra nutrition.)
Rainy Morning at ShawneeAt The Top Of The HillThe End: Loading the Bikes
I didn’t take too many photos on Wednesday but here is one each from before, during and after.
Finally, Thursday. The forecast was still bad, so bad that the final ride (Allamuchy) was canceled. I didn’t even go in, and Midge and Andrea came up with substitute, indoor activities, yoga, a visit from the bird rehabilitation people, etc. This worked out so well I wish we’d been able to do it last year — the year we walked around Jim Thorpe in a downpour. Again, the bosses managed to move the logistics of travel and activities around to make this work. I am not usually a flexible person, physically or mentally, but this one time: Flexibility FTW!
I went out to Allamuchy yesterday and did the Road Scholar route. It was a beautiful day but cold, and windy, and snow squalls blew through at times. I was dressed for it though, and fairly comfortable.
While I was out there, I also did a bit of exploring on the new section of the Lehigh-Hudson rail-trail. We’ve been using the first completed section as an alternate return path for the past few Road Scholar rides, but this new section doesn’t seem to fit anywhere into our route — it connects the older part just at our access point, but goes the opposite direction for about a mile before rejoining the main road. Maybe in a few years, when they have more of the trail completed, we can incorporate more of it, but in the meantime I at least know where it goes.
New Bike: More Impressions
My first impressions of the new bike were that it’s seriously comfortable, and very stable, and though it feels fast when you sit on it, the more upright position (despite the drop bars), the extra weight of the rack and fenders, the easier gearing, and the wider tires all conspire to encourage a more sedate pace — the bike can move, but does not reward attempts at hammering the way my road bike would.
After another ride I have to say that the situation is more nuanced than that: the bike is fully capable of being cranked up to a good pace, and can hold that pace just fine, especially on flats and gently rolling terrain, and tucking into the drops is perfectly doable on the descents. Still, the bar-end shifters make rapid progressions through the gears a little difficult though, so there’s no speed-shifting through short steep rollers — most of the time you pick your gear and change it when you notice a need, and in the meantime the bike is just so comfortable anyway, that it feels great to just cruise along without pushing too hard, no race pace necessary, just enjoy the scenery…
Today is a fasting day, and it’s cold outside — blustery, more flurries — so today is also a computer-and-cello kind of day. (Last night was cello ensemble, and tomorrow is duets with Donna.) The racket continues outside as the gas company replaces all the lines in our neighborhood, but it looks like today may be their last day on our street. Lets hope so, they like to start earlier in the morning than I do.
My writer’s block continues, but I thought I’d pop in to announce that I finally got my new bike, a Kona Sutra SE. This is a bike seriously designed for touring: fenders, a triple ring, (mechanical) disk brakes, bullet-proof tires, bar-end shifters, a Brooks saddle, and a rear rack, with frame attachments for a front rack as well — and oh yeah, steel is real, baby!
My New Kona Sutra SE
I picked it up Thursday night from Cutters Bike Shop, where it had just arrived; they knew I wanted one, and they called a week or so ago to say one was on the way, and then it was there at the shop, and so was I… I gave it a test ride with panniers, then rode it home — it doesn’t fit on the roof rack. Yesterday was its real maiden voyage, a bakery ride up to Nazareth.
I knew it would come to this sooner or later — I’m in the market for a new bike. There’s nothing wrong with any of my other bikes, but none of them are really touring bikes, and I’ll be joining Anne on a trip this summer. Fully self-supported, front and rear panniers, camping in the Rockies — the works. (I hated “touring” every time I’ve ever done it, but I suspect that that’s really an equipment issue — I do enjoy our towpath “bikepacking” trips.)
Anyway, I’ve been doing some research, and what I think I need is:
a bike with a “touring” frame — low bottom bracket, longer wheelbase and chainstays,
a triple chainring,
mechanical disk brakes, and
a few add-ons that would be nice if they came stock, like racks and fenders.
There are a few bikes that I think might fit the bill, ones I found in several “best touring bike” listicles, namely the Trek 520, the Kona Sutra SE, and the Surly Disk Trucker. The Trek looks to be impossible to find anywhere right now, and the Surly only seems available (sight unseen) via the Internet, but I found a Sutra SE at a local bike shop, and it looks like my size. I need to do a bit more search and research — I’m also looking among the world’s used bikes — but I think I can already see how this will shake out.
Icon, or eyesore? The Glendon Hotel has been an abandoned and falling down building for as long as I can remember, but it was 285 years old and once an important part of the Lehigh Valley. I happened to be riding nearby the day they started demolition, so I took this photo from the towpath, just as the backhoe started doing its work:
I did a ride along the towpath a week or so ago on a beautiful, sunny fall day. I wasn’t feeling particularly mellow, but there were a few places where I just had to stop and soak in the view. This was one spot, The Chain Dam is usually a pretty dramatic scene, with the old Locktender’s House on the other side of the river, and the hills of Williams Township in the background.
The Chain Dam
Autumn Leaves Along The Lehigh
A little later on the same ride, I came to this spot just to the east of Freemansburg, and had to stop to take a photo. I took a bunch but this one — the first I took — turned out the best. I think that this is now one of my all-time favorites.
Another day (Wednesday), another ride: I went out on the towpath with Doug, and we took the Two Rivers Trail to Hackett Park. There’s a pretty good view of the western part of Easton, Wilson Boro, and in the distance the hill (really, the garbage dump, sadly enough) in Williams Township. Still, it’s a great shot of my old neighborhood — I lived a few blocks from that water tower, and was living there when they built it.
That’s the song that’s playing right now, and it sums up today for me. I met Doug for a ride at Jacobsburg, and we got in about 12 miles or so on some really beautiful trails — blue skies and fall colors, leaves on the ground rustling under our tires. There was still a frost on the ground when we started, though I can’t say we were particularly chilly either riding or standing around. Neither of us were particularly interested in going fast, we just enjoyed tooling around in the woods. Plenty of other people were out too, biking, hiking and riding horses, but the place was big enough that we weren’t on top of each other — there would just be a sociable moment every so often, when we came across some fellow trail users.
It was an easy day to get up earlier than usual because of the time change, but also because Anne’s sisters were over for a visit, and we all just naturally got up early. They knitted and watched “The Great British Baking Show” yesterday, and while I was out riding they spent the day trying some of the “show stopper” recipes from the episodes they watched. Not a bad thing to come home to…
Tomorrow is going to be a bit rougher: we have to go to the funeral for a friend’s grand-daughter, who died in a car accident the other day.
So this weekend was our annual bike camping trip up the D&L to Jim Thorpe. A total of seven of us rode up, and our friend Predo, who was on “injured reserve,” drove to the campsite with our extra gear. It took us about six hours, with plenty of photo ops and snack breaks, and a few snafu’s…
We (Bill M, Jared, Sara, Anna Z, Ed, and Anne and I) started at CAT, and took the roads until we got to Northampton, where we crossed the Lehigh and picked up the trail. Lunch was the “Diggity Dogs” food truck at the Slatington Trailhead, and then it was another fifteen miles to downtown Jim Thorpe. A trip to the supermarket, then the long climb from the river to our campsite, and we were done for the day. Predo met us at the campground, and Rick & Shari arrived not long after.
Concrete Phone Booth
Ed and Bill
Bill, Ed and Me
Saturday we rode into town — which was a madhouse, the Fall Festival was in full swing — met Shari and Rick (they are NOT into camping) and continued north along the trail, picking up Matt & Diet at the Glen Onoko trailhead. We were now eleven strong…
The trail was fairly quiet at the start, but it was a beautiful fall day if a bit drizzly, and things became pretty crowded after a while. We got to Rockport, which was another madhouse, with bicycle outfitters dropping off cyclists by the busload, and that’s where we ate lunch and did some very entertaining people-watching… Our goal and turn-around was Buttermilk Falls, just a half mile past lunch and always a good photo-op.
A View of the Rockport Tunnel
Buttermilk Falls
Group Shot
Anne and Me
Looking Upstream
Me at “The Photo Rock”
Jared at “The Photo Rock”
The Crew
Sara at “The Photo Rock”
On the way back we met up with Ben and Candace, which brought our group up to our full strength — 13 riders! One more photo session at the usual spot, and our excursion began winding down; we said goodbye to Matt & Diet at Glen Onoko, and rode back up to camp. Dinner was basically a pizza party, and we had one final addition: Gary L who was joining us for the Sunday return ride.
At The Campfire
At The Campfire
Mauch Chunk Lake
Our Campsite
Sunday was the return. Ben and Candace took off for Philly, and Rick and Shari had gone home the night before, so we were now down to eight. The ride was pretty uneventful, but we did switch things up by taking the Nor-Bath Trail from Northampton over to Bicentennial Park, before finishing on the road.
…AND I finally got a photo of that spooky “house on the hill” at Lehigh Gap.
