Move your mouse over the map above - you should see an open hand. Place the hand anywhere on the map and double click the left mouse button. You will zoom in and center on that point. You can do this again and again. An alternative is to use the "plus", "minus", and "arrows" in the upper left of the map.
Day 4: {still near point "G" on the map}
JUNE 4, 2008,
Our Tour De Jersey companions Mike and Berit left this morning, cycling along the Delaware River toward Philly and a flight to their Washington home and a rest for Mike’s sore knee.
Ben and I planned a big day, hoping to boost our average up to 60 miles per day by clocking 80 or so and getting deep into Pennsylvania. Our ambitions were snuffed within five miles, when Ben’s derailleur gave out on a hill and bent up like a piece of metallic spaghetti. A 5-second roadside inspection revealed the unpleasant truth: This was no roadside repair –we needed a bike shop. Amid creeping panic and mounting drizzle, I remembered Tina Keppler’s last word from the night before.
“If you guys get into a jam, just call me,” she said. “If you’re any closer than Western Pennsylvania, I’ll bail you out.”
I called and she made good, showing up in 20 minutes in a van big enough for our bikes and trailers, her two-and-a-half-year-old son in a child seat and both of us. “You have a guardian angel here,” she said.
We did: An hour later we were at the Sussex Bike and Sport Shop and Jason, the proprietor, was looking at our bikes like a cardiologist examining Haystacks Calhoun.
Ben’s, he said, was a pretty straightforward case: Replace the bent derailleur and the hanger, a gizmo that attaches it to the frame.
“But yours has issues,” he told me, waggling a chain he said was way too loose and warning that each mile ridden increased the chances of a gear-change wipeout that “could leave you smeared all over the pavement.”
His prescription -- new chain, new cassette (that stack of chain rings on the rear wheel) and new derailleurs -- was expensive, but I gulped and took the medicine. The bikes should be ready early tomorrow afternoon, in time for the 20-mile run, at last, to Milford, Pa.
After three gorgeous days, the weather has turned dreary here and matches our discouraged moods.
“When it’s all over, we’ll look back on this and laugh,” I consoled Ben. “It will be just a humorous footnote to a great trip.”
“Well how come these things never seem like humorous footnotes when they’re happening?” he asked.
It was a question I couldn’t answer.
Tina lent us her van, and we drove back to Swartswood Lake for another night in the yurt.