Mini Scorch : NJ->Liberty Bell : Part 1 - Plannin and preppin

ring my liberty bell

I've ridden all over Staten Island and Brooklyn and last year I even put in a 30miler in Jacksonville, but I have yet to ride in NJ, the Garden state, let alone Pennsylvania even though I am bicycle crazy, been living here all my life and a quick bridge ride away. I honestly don't know why I haven't thought of it before! Originally I had a thought about doing a Staten Island to the end of NJ cycle down the Jersey coast which would be about 150miles or so and then take a rented car back up. It would turn in to a 2 or 3 nighter, probably a 3 day weekend, but my bicyclists in arms dont have those days to take. My wife and bro/sis in law had shorter plans in mind, so my initial plan was scrapped and a new one was born!

The new plan is to drive to Colonial park in NJ and ride down the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park Trail for about 45% of the ride and then NJ/PA streets to the Liberty Bell and some smooth cheese steaks. A link to the  http://www.dandrcanal.com. You can also find a lot of info on the canal and other links on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_and_Raritan_Canal

Here is version 6 or 7 of the route to the right. I have been tweaking it every day. Trimming the miles,

Plotaroute version: https://www.plotaroute.com/route/369821

ronnies bike - currently outfitted with 26x1.5s

So now that the route is pretty much set, I bought a new bike for my wife, well an old trek i need to clean/grease and spruce up with new bars, we have the hotel prep, some site seeing to plan out and the actual cycle training to work on!

With the 2 day total being 110 or so miles, the canal ride is a bit offroad/soil/grass and the remainder is streets, im going to see if we can get 1.5" width tires on the bikes for a bit more speed. I road 1.95" in India and I think a 1.5 would have been ok and reduced the overall effort. The roads in India were quite good, and I am hoping the garden state can measure up, but it is NJ so you never know :)

I am going to need to work on the packing of the bikes as well. Again it is only an overnight trip, so the packing is going to be extremely light and i am going to try as minimalist as possible approach. The plan is to carry mine and Veronica's packs on my rear rack, tools and stuff in the toptube pack and nothing on the handlebars, i hate it because i have cantelever brakes and it rubs on the center pull brake line. The top tube frame bag will be one of my next projects, which i hope is completed before the trip. Will have two compartments to segregate to hold tools, cameras, snacks and some misc items. I will do a post on the creation of my first pack.

The dates are for the end of June. Lets do this NJ/PA!! :)

Micro Scorch - UK Edition : Getting lost in London with no map

Knowing i was going to London for business I had a cycle in mind for the last few weeks. things came up at work, home etc and I never got a chance to plan it properly. I had cycled here in 2012 which was the last time i actually spent two weeks here working and had a weekend in between. This is before Strava, cycle blogs and everything else. This was even before I got in to antique bicycles! In 2012 I had rented a Barclay bike for the day and spent a good 4 hours roaming around. It was in the late summer so the weather was fantastic. Today was a bit different, 55f, overcast, slight wind and a constant wet mist/drizzle/rain on my face. Though the conditions were not optimal, and I am a big baby about being cold :), i still ventured out on 4 hours of sleep on a plane. Before I headed out, since I am in England, I chugged two cups of hot black tea.

This is all i brought along with my phone and wallet. I didnt wear it.
Stuck it in the front basket

GeoTracker - aka Lifesaver!

Today I rented a Santander cycle. Im not exactly sure how it works, i was just happy it accepted my AMEX. i think it is 2pounds to be able to flip the bike in and out for 24hours and then 2pounds every half an hour. So i think i spent under $20. You can read about the 51 lb behemoth here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santander_Cycles . I just read they geared the bike to limit the top speed. Yeah no shit! :) This bike is built like a tank, but goes half the speed. I dont feel so bad now, because i was cranking that guy in some spots.

So before I started out, to make matters a little more challenging, as if the heavy beast bike, rain/wind and 4 hours of sleep werent enough... I also had no map. :) My phone for whatever reason doesnt get signal in the UK and the GPS doesnt work with Strava. So i downloaded a few alternative GPS programs to test. One of them worked!! GeoTracker: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ilyabogdanovich.geotracker A really nice tool and it let me DL the GPX and throw it in to Strava. Also gives you some basic statistics. You can click the pic to the right to enlarge it now even though it was tracking my GPS stats for later analysis and kudos I still had no idea where i was going. Imagine a screen with just a blue line. Thats it, no background, just a blue line snaking. So what i did was ride around and then try to make it back to the head of the line when i was done with the ride.

Ride Stats
Strava Route: https://www.strava.com/activities/897717083
Miles: 17.7
Total Time: 2:30:58
Total Ride Time: 2:06:08
Pace per Mile: 8.5  ** how embarrassing **
Start: London Marriott West India Quay Hotel
End: London Marriott West India Quay Hotel

The overall ride was nice and if I had an actual map working on my phone I would have ventured out further. Next time I will have to DL google maps to find my way around. There were a lot of nice sites to see and most of the trip was around the river.

One of the bits i forgot about was that there are cycling "highways" in London. It was a pleasure to be on and off them for bits here and there. If i planned better i would have mapped out a route and stuck it in to strava =/

After making it back, docking the bike I had dinner in a restaurant across the road. If i didnt get fish and chips with mushed peas and a pot of tea i think the ancient bicycling gods of Stonehenge would have come to smite me. :)

i had to carry the beast up and down a number of flights of stairs =/

No ... you stay back!

part of the cycling super highway

I was on the bike super highway. CS3 and CS4 on and off