So this being Labor Day weekend means that it is time for my semi-annual long bike ride. Wherein I try to ride for at least 40-50 miles. My second post in this blog was of how the members of a Philly Bike Club ride group ruined the last one, and around may you can read of the journey to Valley Forge that was surprising draining.
In any case, I decided this time I would take a certain Route 537 in New Jersey. I'd go over the BFBridge as if I were going to work, but then turn up Market street and head NorthEast instead of SouthEast. I planned not to push it, having no real lay of the road and how suitable it would be for biking.
I got through Camden with minimal trouble. It wasn't the nicest of roads, but it was workable and there wasn't too much traffic to deal with. Once I got into the townships things improved a lot, and riding was nice and easy. There were fair number of riders on the road as well, including one who I chatted with for a while on the move. He seemed very impressed that I had started from Philly. He mentioned the road went on for a few more miles with one slightly dicey spot, which turned out to be little trouble.
In fact the only trouble was some freakiness with the roads and the map. A T-intersection was where it shouldn't have been, but that was dealable. Overall the road was so easy I just kept going.
Until I realized that I was at the juncture of 537 and Route 68. Which is just a bit North of Fort Dix.
This map should give you an idea of just how far I had biked. I realized that I was starting to feel some fatigue and decided to head home. I figured I would save some time and effort by taking PATCO back.
This would prove to be a mistake.
On the way back I stopped at Subway at the intersection of 537 and 206 and had some lunch. I had a decent breakfast that morning and that likely was one reason I did have too much trouble traveling. The other was the wind was at my back, and was now pushing into me.
Deciding to get to the train station proved to be an error. First problem was that the station was about as far from where I was as Philly was. The second problem was that the path was not direct by any means, and the map was being less than helpful. Roads were misnamed, or didn't list certain intersections, or had a funny idea of what made a road 'bikeable'. I had to stop and check the map at every intersection. Thankfully there weren't too many. But at some point I got off the track I had planned, and ended up riding down route 73 to get to where I was going. Not really a great thing.
After much long travel, I arrived at the train station. Not long afterwards, the train went into town. I got home around 5:30 or so, having been riding since 11:30 that morning. Most of that time was spent getting to the train station.
Some observations about the trip:
1) Yes Virginia, there still is farmland in New Jersey. And lots of county signs pointing out that they have preserved it.
2) The most depressing things to see is a McMansion undergoing construction. A finished one is bad enough, but when these things are half-completed, with dug up dirt (now mud thanks to the remenants of Hurricane Ernesto) and debris all around it, it just looks like decay already happening. Add some grass and you've got a vacant lot in Philly with some timber stuck in it.
3) I can apparently make my bike tires squeal like a car. When my tool bottle fell off the bike when I hit a pothole I had to stop fast and it was quite a sound. My bike smelled like burnt rubber.
4) When the short sleeves on your new bike jeresy are slightly shorter than the sleeves on your older jerseys you can end up with Neapolitan arms!: Pale skin, red skin, tan skin!
All told I think I rode about 70-80 miles yesterday. Not bad, really. Not bad at all.
I wish I had a more accurate figure, but I stopped using bike computers some time ago.
