You’ll get the point of my title
later, I hope.
I was looking for an opportunity to return to Delaware & Raritan Canal
State Park – you know, the place I crashed and flatted twice EACH back in June. However, this
time I intended to do a “road version”, using the same route from Lambertville to
the Park and then use roads that parallel the canals/rivers on the way back.
Someone was selling an inexpensive Colnago bicycle in Warminster, PA, which is
pretty much on the way, so it seemed like a perfect arrangement. I could do the
ride in the early afternoon and meet the seller when he returned from work.
I took my Colnago, just to
maintain the theme for the day and was treated to some sunny, but low humidity,
summer weather. I was enjoying the ride early, particularly since the road bike
rolled along much more smoothly on the asphalt than my trail bike. Thinking
ahead as I started to warm up and sweat, I recalled that spots to refill water
bottles were sparse last time around and hoped that the higher speed and
resulting reduced time in the saddle might prove a benefit on that count.
When I moved onto some of the secondary roads, I didn’t recall them
being so battered and/or riddled with bad repair jobs. It must have been a case
of the trail bike providing a softer ride during my last trip. On a whole, the conditions
really weren’t much different from the poorly paved surfaces that I frequent at
home. The problem was that I was unfamiliar with these roads, and I really had to concentrate in order to avoid hitting
anything to cause a flat tire! I was glad to have a tree-lined route, but heading
in and out of the shade made spotting potholes even more difficult.
I also didn’t remember the route profile being so undulating, and again
this might have just been a case of a different bike, with the Bianchi having
more “climb-worthy” gear ratios. I could feel a bit of weariness in my legs and
was glad to reach the flat Canal Road, which (as you might guess by the name)
follows the Raritan Canal on its way towards Trenton.
You can imagine that I was disappointed when, just a few miles down the
road, I saw signs stating that “Canal Road will be closed on or around 8/4”. I
held out hope that the road work would be delayed, since I didn’t know an easy alternative
route, but alas, no such luck. I also hoped the detour (shown in purple on map above) wouldn’t take me back
towards Route 206, because I've used the road occasionally on the way
to visit Colin at college, and I knew that would mean hills. Again, no such luck!
I really started to miss the Bianchi’s easy gearing, but the one good
result of that detour was passing a Wawa - two bottles refilled with cool
water! Now I had to keep myself from guzzling it all as I made my way to
Princeton.
If you hadn’t heard, we just returned from a vacation in the Finger
Lakes, during which I took a ride up (very much so) to Cornell’s campus in Ithaca, NY. The first thing I thought when
grinding up Route 206 was “Is every Ivy League school up some nasty hill?”, but
then I thought of pan-flat Penn. I then considered, with Philadelphia being an
easy drive away, if I might try to get to the remaining five league schools all by
the end of the week!
Before I took on the hills, I had been travelling at a very good clip, but
now I was entering more of an urban area and faced more and more traffic
lights. By the time I reached Trenton, I was pretty much getting one every
intersection, and except for the rare occasion when my pace linked up a few
greens in a row, I was clicking in and out of the clipless pedals constantly.
The canal route during my previous trip had taken me north of downtown,
so I hadn’t seen the capital square. Now I was a bit disappointed to find how
shabby the area is. It just seems the city hopes you are distracted by the capital’s handsome golden dome. Yes, you can joke that it’s New Jersey after all, but
there really are some beautiful areas in the state, such as the diverse Delaware River region, the shore and the northern lake country, so that really wouldn’t
be fair.
You can imagine that I wasn’t happy to have the wind blowing into my
face for the remaining twelve miles up Route 29 back to Lambertville, but I
fought through it fairly well. I did not enjoy it when some fool decided to
honk at me before he passed, and I yelled loudly at him with a “what are you
doing?” open-armed shrug. Really, there is nothing good that is going to come
from hitting the horn – even the most experienced rider is going to be startled
and swerve a little bit! Sure the road
is a narrow there, but I was holding my line as close to the outside white
stripe as possible. I’m not even sure if he was trying to warn me (cars are on the road – who knew?) or if
he was just another one of those drivers who think cyclists shouldn’t be on “their”
streets.
The jerk even turned around and went by me the other direction with
another toot, but I saw him coming and didn’t even acknowledge his presence. I
was secretly hoping he’d turn around once more in order to pass me again, and I
was ready to hurl my water bottle. By that point I was actually very close to
where I had parked my car, so I was happy to just holster my weapon!
A quick note on the Colnago, it’s a 1988 XL model with a super cool
Colnago headset and dropouts. I’ve never seen this before - I’m so used to
Campagnolo stamping on these parts! It also has a nice ITM Ernesto Colnago
autographed stem. I’m not too happy about the Shimano 105 components, though
that is an easy swap! However, anyone
who knows me will also know what the first thing was that had to go - and if you not sure,
my son Carrick’s first words when he saw the bicycle was “Looks like a clown
threw up on the handlebars!”
More later on this Colnago…
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