Falling Behind... (Friday Aug29)

Stats: (From Memory) about 132km, Avg about 19.6km/h, Max 67.2km/h, Time: 6:44

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Hey Blog Fans...

I'm going to have to catch up on these notes later... There was no internet last night -- Lackawanna State Park in PA is fairly remote. It's actually rather funny when people see you with your laptop open that they ask if you've "Got Online?". Do they really expect to have that in a State Park? But the Internet has become so pervasive that they just ask anyway. But regardless, I just have not been able to get on, so I'll have to see about uploading photos and notes about those days at a later time.

I'm now in the Christian HS in Sussex, NJ, where they have served the most amazing dinner I've had in a long time. Imagine a potluck dinner where you get only half-way down the table and your plate is full and you just can't sample all the dishes that you would like to sample.

It was a hard, hard day of cycling. There were so many hills - up and down. Look it up in the "Shifting Gears" devotional and you'll see that it had about 6-7000 feet of climbing. But it was almost all in "small" chunks. Up a steep hill, down a steep hill. Climb at 8km an hour, fly down at 60km/h. I hit a new max of 67.2km/h today but I started using my brakes. Contrary to what Pieter writes in his blog for today, I just felt safer at slower speeds. And really, the momentum did not carry that far up the other side of the hill... or at least never as far as you thought it should.

The highlight was at around 80km into the day when I heard a yell from a car as my wife+kids drove past us on the route. They pulled up at the top of the next hill (wise move) and we had a brief reunion on the side of the road, along with our friend Heather Fieten and her son Ben. We then moved on to the next SAG stop, which coincidentally was just about 1km further along. We munched on some food, talked for a while, and even met Ralph who happened to be there.

They then drove on for Sussex, and I started the final 50km of pedalling. Back at the SAG, we had considered stopping in the local diner, but didn't because it was smoke-filled. I was digging through my bike bag, gave the kids some fig newtons from my lunch, and handed my wallet to Heather, since I never leave valuables on the bike when I go into a cafe/store. About 10km down the road I realized that my wife still had my wallet... Good thing I wasn't really planning on doing any stops anyway -- I just wanted to get in to Sussex and see them some more.

The low point of the ride was the first 5km... we got into killer hills right out of camp. There was no time to warm up the muscles, it was just right in to grinding away in 1st gear. I was seriously worried that I would even be able to finish the ride if it kept up like that! But the muscles warmed up, and the hills eased off a bit for a while. Not in frequency, of course, but a bit in steepness.

The next low point was right across the border into NJ when we had to start the climb to "High Point" -- the highest point in NJ, I'm told, covered by High Point state park. I found out later that it was Seven continuous Km of climbing. It sucked, there is no other word. That is a LOT of time in 1st/2nd gear. I kept thinking - "next corner it'll level off", but it didn't, for a long time. I almost can't believe it then when the younger riders came by at dinner and gushed about how they loved the day...

But, all "good" things must come to an end. And the crest of High Point was eventually attained, along with some much welcome lemonade, water, and greeters. It wasn't downhill all the way from there, but it was only 10km or so to the school.

Heather and I had an all-to-brief visit, and then they had to go off to our friends in Midland Pk, NJ, where we're spending the weekend, and I had to go off for a shower and to get ready for dinner.

And that short note turned into a bit more!

til later,
...art