The Long Ride
It was a trip I probably should not have attempted. I was ill-equipped. I hadn’t done much in the way of preparation other than look up the directions on Google maps. Certainly no training. I wasn’t particularly svelte before the stress of the pandemic compounded the stress of unemployment.
Yet it was there. My Everest. My personal white whale.
I always assumed I could just do it, the ride from my house to the Jersey shore. There is the City-to-Shore bike race, which goes from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, to Atlantic City, but I always felt it was cheating to start on the wrong side of the Delaware (and Cherry Hill isn’t exactly Philadelphia, either).
Twenty years ago, I ran my first Broad Street Run, a ten-miler that goes straight down Broad and around City Hall, from Ogontz to the Navy Yard. It was a gentle slightly downhill grade all the way– just perfect for my slow trot. I ended up running it a few times and made a habit of never training for it. It was never a competition for me (and to a lot of casual runners, which is probably why there is now a lottery).
Similarly, I didn’t train for this, either. Call it laziness or the riots. I just haven’t done much in the way of long rides. Frankly, Aly was foolish to allow me to try it.
So, what did I do, exactly? About 78 miles, give or take, all on my single-speed 29er, which has a Grg-size frame and a questionable gear ratio.
I think Google maps took me on an unnecessary rails-to-trails detour in Gloucester Township—which itself had a detour unknown to Google—that probably added a mile or two. South Jersey isn’t entirely flat, yet it isn’t exactly the rolling hills of the Kittatinny Mountains, either. Let’s call it 80 miles.
The largest hill, in fact, was the Ben Franklin bridge, which I hit at just about dawn the Saturday before last, having left my house in the dark to wind my way through the city. Aside from my bike, it was just me and a backpack full of water bottles, spare tires and a liverwurst sandwich.
Camden, itself was full of life at six in the morning. Workers were already at construction sites and laborers passed me in the other direction on bikes heading toward sites west. Once you get past the core of the town, Camden is, surprisingly, a leafy and quiet post-apocalyptic landscape.
Suburbs gradually gave way to the rural parts of South Jersey that nobody talks about much. Around 10, I stopped at a Wawa in Buena for coffee and my sandwich for an hour while my leg muscles caught up to the fact that I had been biking for five hours straight.
It takes a bit to get to the Pine Barrens of South Jersey, but the once you turn off the Black Horse Pike onto Tuckahoe road, the lush green lawns get sandier. I think you see scraggly oak before your see pine, but I didn’t stop to look at either, I needed to keep trudging as my padded compression shorts began to renegotiate the relationship between my ass and the seat beneath me.
Sandy pine forests gave way to brackish waterways and the town of Tuckahoe proper. There the air gets pronounceably saltier with a distinctly sulfurous base layer. From there it was not far at all to Route 9, the ancient backbone of the Jersey Shore towns.
I almost bit it hard while turning onto the Sea Isle City causeway. Paying more to the traffic than the roadway, I hit a sizeable pothole that cost me a number of spokes and the alignment of both my tires. Also, I took a shot to my nuts from the handlebars, which I handled well, all told, as in I didn’t fall or cry noticeably.
From there, I was about five miles from the goal, and I stopped for the last of my water and to remove the brakes from my least true wheel.
I eventually did make it into town. I parked my bike and bought a bottle of water and some toffee pecans at the James Fudge store on JFK boulevard before finding a shady spot on the Promenade to rest for an hour or two while waiting for my family to arrive.
I billed the bike trip to Aly as a way to cut down on the number of passengers in and bicycles on the Focus. My commuter car turned into the sole family car just in time for me to be laid-off when a deer hit Aly on the Pennsylvania Turnpike as she rushed a bat to the clinic (long story short, no rabies, but no Saturn Vue, either). We are a frugal people who hold onto cars until deer take them from us.
The week itself was fine. While I’m not a beach man, the weather itself made beach lounging pleasant enough. It will likely be our only real vacation this year. We camped in June at Lyman’s Run, a Pennsylvania State Park near Cherry Springs, the dark-sky champion of the east coast, but our big family trip to camp in Acadia was nixed by the National Park Service. Instead, we stayed in a house rented by my father for the entire family. Family vacations are fantastic, for sure, but hell is other people’s parenting, to paraphrase Sartre (sorry guys, if you’re reading this, I know we suck too).
I had no interest in riding back, but Aly, upon seeing the state of me and the bike, forbade it, which allowed me some dignity. I have no need to repeat the trip, but I desperately want to.
The Fisherman
As I mentioned last time, my favorite thing to do in the summer—and at the beach, in particular—is to read about death at sea or the water. It could be science, history or, a personal fave, horror fiction. In addition to reading the Six Frigates, which I raved about last week, I also finally got around to reading John Langan’s The Fisherman.
It is really difficult to sustain an effective horror story over the length of a novel. That’s why most of horror novels eventually devolve into action stories or peter out into absurdity after the big reveal. That’s probably why I adore The Fisherman (I’m not alone, of course, it is an award-winner, but Langan is relatively new to me). Langan gets around it by telling two stories, one wrapped around the other.
It isn’t a pastiche, by any means, but the best I can say it is an Algernon Blackwood weird tale wrapping around an H. P. Lovecraft-like expository sequence that would make a fine story on its own. As a result, Langan manages to sustain the weird atmosphere throughout the novel. Even without the horror, it would be an effective novel about two men who find solace in fishing.