T Minus 97 days - Iron Bridges and netbooks

I set up my new Acer Netbook and am typing this blog entry on it.  I think this will work for my trip, though the smaller keyboard is more challenging to type on.

This weekend I completed the Mud room project by painting the door and installing the casing.  The room is completely done with the exception of any decorating.  On Saturday I road with  my group leaving out of Oldwick.  We did the stock Round Valley Reservoir loop which starts out with a big climb, then a couple of more climbs, then mostly flat.  Nice weather, felt great, nice friends, 34 miles.

Today there was short ride planned, however, I wanted to work on mileage and hills so I decided to go it alone.  There are many possible routes I can ride from the house, so I decided I would start with the stock long Asbury route, and attempt a climb up Iron Bridge Road.  IBR is legendary amongst cyclists as one of the steepest climbs in the area.  I have never tried, nor, have I ever driven it by car, so I had no idea what to expect (other than stories from those who have tried it).  To get to IBR, you turn right off of the road that leads into Asbury.  To give you some feel for the nature of this climb, the picture below shows the warning painted on the road before the turn:

I should have heeded the warning and gone straight.  The road starts out very flat and buecolic, then it turns towards the ridge.  The first section climbs to the Iron Bridge which crosses over the rail road tracks.  Then it continues up from there.  Up, Up, Up at over a 20% grade.  I thought my heart would explode from my chest.  All I can say is I was riding up at the bottom, and I was riding at the top, and thats all I going to say about it.  Check out the elevation profile starting at about mile 18 on the Garmin link below.

After catching my breath at the top, I continued on over the ridge and down into the town of Glen Gardner.  This really a quaint old New Jersey town that is bypassed by Rt. 31.  From in town, I climbed up Red Hill Road, which is a climb that never seemed to end.  Red Hill Road climbs up to Woodglen which has a general store that dates back into the mid 1800's.  I stopped there hoping to score a snapple, however, they were closed for the day, so I rested for couple of minutes.  As I was leaving, I met John Kennedy who was out on his MTB for an early season ride.  We stopped to chit chat and about 10 seconds later, Sue Moore road up.  Sue was also on a ride.  What are the chances of 3 friends, all on separate bike rides, running into each other at the same place and time?

After few minutes of catching up (I hadn't ridden with Sue for 24 hours), we all continued on our own ways.

Nothing meaningful happened after that, so I worked my way home.  I was tired, but not exhausted, however, I didn't have the strength for a fast finish.  42 miles, 3600 feet of climbing, 3500 calories burned.

T Minus 104 days - On the road again

The weather and weekend finally aligned to allow the hearty cyclists out on the road again.  By the Jan 4th, I had 3 rides in for the year.  By Feb. 20th, I had 5.  I did a lot of spin classes, roller riding, and cross country skiing in between mind you, however, nothing beats the fun and endorphins of tackling the open roads, hills, and head winds of northwestern New Jersey in 30 degree weather.

Today Sue and I were the only ones to ride.  Everyone else was pretty much out of town.  I was ready to get out, having spent the last 2 days priming and painting the mud room.  A job I generally do not enjoy.  My plan was simple: Get up, eat, paint, ride, remove masking tape and plastic, shower , eat, sleep.  I stuck to plan all the way to through ride.  After that, it has been pretty much a slow moving trip towards bed time.

After a delicious dinner of salad, chicken and guacamole wraps and asparagus, I decided to book my trip to visit my Mom in Seattle in a few weeks while catching up on all the zanny sitcoms that numb my brain during the week.  Having done that, I am now typing a pretty much useless blog to see how the notifications go to the closed Facebook group I created for this very purpose.  While I am doing this, I am watching the most excellent 1958 release of "Godzilla - King of the Monsters" on Netflix. 

Nothing like 1950's B horror movies to kill the time.

Anyway, enough blathering.  The route today was the long Asbury route that takes us up over the ridge into Port Coulden, then through Washington and up Cemetery Hill, to Mountain View Rd, which is one my favorite rollers with nice views to the south.  Then cross the valley and back along the south side through Asbury, Hampton, and to the base of Point Mountain, then winding back.  31 miles in all today, not a steallarly long ride, but not bad given the small amount of outdoor rides we have been able to do and the temperature and headwind.

All in all, another great day.

T minus 112 days - Learning to Blog

I have had lots to do to prepare for the trip.  Buy a tent, sleeping bag, pad, coat, bike case, new GPS, net book (IPad won't support my GPS, you lose Apple).  Book travel, buy insurance, and on and on and on.

Today I am setting up a blog so I can chronicle my trip.  There appears to be a lot of complexity to setting up a blog and choosing options, however, I imagine that I will find that in the end setting it up was the easy part, continuously publishing something interesting to keep my friends interested will be the tough part.

So here is some practice text with pictures.

So Yesterday I decided that I would start preparing the walls in the mud room for painting.  First I washed the walls with TSP in an attempt to remove any remaining wall paper glue, then I rinsed.  Seemed to do a pretty good job.  Next would be sanding the walls to scuff the surface and give some tooth for the next layer.  On my many trips to the shop, I stopped to snap a picture of Rachel's old car, Hank, to post a picture on her facebook wall.  Here is the most excellent picture I took:

Hank is cold

That was exciting, wasn't it. 

I will post a few pictures in the blog and provide a link to my Picasa web album for each days pictures.  So here goes:

You can view more pictures from today's ride here:  Pictures from day "x"

OK, so now I have attached a picture, I also want to embed the Garmin track.  Here we go:



This was a recent MTB night ride on the trail. The GPS tracks up the highway will be similar to this.

So this is all I am going to do for now. I want to learn a little more about formating.