Rode the Half Dirty Metric route out of Flemington NJ today for my monthly rando metric century. I was lucky enough to have Rick and Walt riding along. Those gentlemen are strong riders and good bike mates. I'd forgotten to load the route into my Garmin GPS (Doh!), but remembered the paper cue sheets, so today I had just a belt, no suspenders. Fortunately, Rick had the route loaded onto his phone; that made all the difference.
I rode my 1974 Raleigh Super Course Mk II with the 32mm tires, because there are plenty of unpaved roads (hence the route's name) where the larger rubber is desirable. There are also lots of hills up there in Central Jersey; having ridden this route in 2018 as part of a brevet group, I was concerned about one tough climb up to the QuickChek control in Chester, but gritted it out in first gear, which is not that low on this bike. No walking was required, I am pleased to report. The old-school, balky friction shifters (both under- and over-shifting!) were an ongoing adventure, tho, and added an element of uncertainty on the climbs. Wouldn't do it again.
In a Hunterdon County park at Landsdown Trail we came upon a fence-closed gravel road ("Weather damage. No trespassing. Violators will be prosecuted."). Rick worked his phone and found an alternate way, bless him.
A long stretch of this route (about 15 miles, from High Bridge thru Califon and Long Valley to Mount Olive Twp) is on the Columbia Trail, an old railroad right-of-way that now has the Columbia Gas pipeline buried beneath it. In good shape, it made for easy riding, along with walkers, runners, other cyclists and piles of evidence of horse traffic.
Some other gravel stretches of this route were washboard. My bike was bouncing, and my head was hurting. No fun to ride. Later I found my bike's headset had worked loose.
We traveled along the Raritan River a lot (the Columbia Trail parallels it, as did the rail line, apparently), and passed a long driveway of a place labeled Raritan Headwaters.
Saw some wildlife, including a fawn, a snake and a praying mantis on the road; all survived. Walt (former state game warden and park ranger) pointed out Osage oranges, which were lying by the side of the road in a number of places.
We met a guy at the QuickChek control in Chester, Corey Degree, who chatted with us and handed out his Orbit Energy & Power business card to all three of us, in case we are interested in going with solar for our homes.
For some unknown reason, I had to stop for many nature breaks. We made one unscheduled nature/food stop in Long Valley (Rick gave me half a toasted cinnamon-raisin bagel with cream cheese), and with all the slower, gravel road riding, we thought we might miss the time cutoff, but we finished with almost 40 minutes to spare.
Besides the half bagel, I ate a That's It mini fruit bar and a Clif bar along the way. As usual, I also downed 8 Saltstick capsules to stave off cramping. I had a Clif caffeine gel with me, but like last time, I felt strong enough that I didn't feel the need to partake.
Weather was pretty near ideal, with clear blue skies and temps from the high 40s into the 60s by the end. There was some 10mph+ wind out of the west/northwest, but we didn't feel it much, often being among the trees.
All in all, another good day on the bike with good buddies for company.
Route map with elevation profile plus pics here: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/77323738
