Washington Crossing

I received a surprise from the mail last month, I was lucky enough to be featured in "The Freewheeler," a publication of a Princeton bicycle organization. Quite the fuss right?  I guess I am blessed to be in a place where winding roads meet with magnificent views, crazy motorist drivers and a lot of cyclists wannabe, naming myself on top of the list.

The national geographic magazine ranked this route among the top ten bicycle routes in the world. Top ten, really? what's the truth about this? So I went there to see it for myself and here I am at the Washington crossing state park. Its a piece of history we once learn from school, by which George Washington and his Union Army crossed the Delaware river on Christmas day of 1776, but not this one behind me, that's just a creek.

What's so magnificent about this place is that you are in for a semi-strenuous ride with fine panoramic vistas of well-kept farms and woods and attractive clapboard houses, while on the other side is the magnificent view of the Delaware river. More pictures to follow because I did not get the chance to explore everything after suffering an awful accident. As I've said before, this hobby comes with the risk of meeting crazy motorist drivers, and here's a proof of the accident:

This is my left knee and it hurts! That jerk!

Going back, the two good places to start from are Flemington and Clinton. They represent the northwestern and northeastern corners of a roughly square area of quiet and pleasurable back roads. You can also check out the Hunterdon Historical Museum Village for a good introduction to the area, then revel in ups anad downs that will keep you busy all the way to the Delaware River's edge. The bridges at Frenchtown, Milford, and Riegelsville give you access to similarly bike-friendly roads in Pennsylvania. At Riegelsville, there's the Volendam Windmill and Museum for those who are intrigued by milling practices of the past. If you have extra time, head through and past Phillipsburg and up the New Jersey side of the river as far as Belvidere.

Hopefully I can update this post before spring ends to show everyone how great this place is.

Few days till Spring

This week I did my first B+ ride with the Princeton Freewheelers & I averaged around 28kph(approximately 18mph) on a marathon distance. I  have to be honest that I struggled and was left out of the peloton on the second half.

This is by far my fastest ride this year, but its still winter, so ye-hey! I can already pace this fast by this time of year. 

My last years' stats:  century ride, averaged 15mph. Half century regular ride was 17mph. quarter century regular ride was 19mph, and here is a photo of me at the Marina, all the snow has melted so it looks very spring.

Below is an excerpt from my Garmin edge 500 data which shows how much I struggled, notice my heart rate on zone 5 for 46 minutes and to note this was fairly a flat course. My cadence was not too bad, 87rpm and averaged around 180 watts.

Now comparing this to my climb a week ago:

Look how steep that is, but the good thing on this ride is my cadence, I  maintain it around 70rpm which is really awesome. By the way this is nothing to Lance Armstrong because its just a cat 4 climb, but I'm an amateur so this is really hard for me and for most people.

Temperature wise, it has been on the low 40's for the past week, a little windy which explains the wind jacket but its sunny so its great. Other than this, I am running but my pace is still not that good, my target this year is 7:15 on a marathon distance. Last year I ran 10k on 6:50 which was fairly OK, and hopefully I will make it to the New York City marathon this year.

Here is my rig, it needs a little tune up from 3,000 grueling miles last year and about 450mi this year.