We eight companions set off from the coolness of Maasland's garage, with its hanging garden of De Rosas and gentle perfume of rare Campagnolo grease. A small lump of fear sat in the pit of each rider's stomach. Or perhaps it was merely undigested bagel. For the fearsome Jersey slopes lay ahead, as if we had set ourselves to a meal of the Stelvio, the Gavia, the Pordoi and the aweful Mortirolo all in one sitting. Maasland led the way himself, his red jersey making him look roosterish astride his silver Galmozzi. Soon the valleys, mysteriously absent their usual throngs of singing school children, gave way to the first hideous slopes. The road quickly reared to over 1% (or one-in-a-hundred in old parlance). What madness could compel a rider to tackle such ramps on a Jack Taylor with a fixed Sturmey Archer hub? Perhaps it was the beer and sushi that awaited on the Maasland's back deck. Only Dan Artley can say for certain. By the halfway point, a brief respite appeared in the form of WaWa. Here I made my critical tactical error -- one known to many professionals but admitted to only by amateurs. I had recently removed the five-dollar bill I normally keep in my saddle bag to satisfy a McDonalds craving. I would have to survive on courage and the aforementioned bagel. The rooster on Maasland's Galmozzi eyed me as if I were carrion. Undisturbed by the fact that roosters don't customarily go for carrion, I remounted and followed Maasland away from WaWa, with its unkept promise of sugary beverages. Soon, the fire had returned to my loins. I quickly realized that this was actually a bad thing. Very bad indeed. Perhaps, I thought, I should have ridden my bike more than a half dozen times in the previous two months. We ascended once more, the normal vegetation disappearing entirely. Here, I thought out loud, was a place too inhospitable for even the usual hardy mountain plants. But Maasland himself, overhearing, rode alongside to inform me that this was in fact a sod farm that had recently been harvested. There was no sprint to mark our arrival back at Maasland's, for each rider knew himself a champion simply for completing such a journey. We would ever after speak of New Jersey in the same tones we usually reserved for the dreaded Alps, the Pyrenees, the part of Maryland where Artley lives. As we replenished our bodies with sushi, wings, fresh fruit, and other foods well known to the cycling gods, each rider had a story to share of the day's exploits, or of astounding eBay bargains of days past.
Ed Granger
Lancaster, PA, USA
Thanks, Steven, for an epic day.