Juggernaut
Master of the Metaphor
Back in June @Norm wrote a thought provoking post about strolling down memory lane, but on a bike. It was a great post because it was genuine; not the typical "rose colored glasses" stuff most "memory" stories seem to be these days.
At the time I responded with..
"This was fantastic! And to be honest, exactly the type of post I needed today.
I am now inspired to bring by bike back to upstate NY and ride around Woodstock, Mt. Tremper (my home), Phoenicia and the towns and hamlets surrounding Hunter to relive some childhood memories (circa 1973) of my own.
THANK YOU!"
Fast forward to the present....
This year, my "Normal" Saturday routine is to do a 40-60 mile road ride with my buddy David. David's the guy that got me into road biking (as an adult) back in Sep. 2009 when I was at my lowest (worst) point physically. Well, David has had some setbacks himself and as a result, he'd been off the bike for two years. Consistency is key and keeping the weekly ride going is vital for him, and in truth, for me as well... for other reasons.
With David going to VT for the annual visit the in-law's trip this week, he brought the bike and posted a nice ride...I'm very happy about it BTW, I had my window!
On Monday I mapped out a "general" loop to allow for easy access to places I wanted to revisit. I'm psyched!
Come Tuesday night I start getting this weird rib cage / lung pain after an intense coughing fit. The fit was brought on by an oregano leaf getting in my windpipe so my assumption was a just a strain, trip not in jeopardy. Come Thursday it still hurts and about 50% lung capacity. By Friday almost all the pain Is gone, but I'm still only 70% lung capacity at best. Beginning to think I've got some chest bug cuz breathing is labored. Not asthmatic mind you, I know that feeling all too well, more like a very mild pneumonia. Ride is still on!
Enough of the stupid back story, let's get to it!
The weather was beautiful and the drive upstate was uneventful. The route I choose would take me up the main entry point into Woodstock. it was un-recognizable...meh.
My research showed a park just off the main drag in Woodstock and for a change "Siri" didn't get me lost. Gonna be a good day.
I'm channeling my inner @rick81721 here.
I start off on "Tinker Street", it's the unofficial main drag and the center of all the "earthy crunchy" activity in Woodstock.... Well at least THAT hadn't changed. What DID change? The drag now has a real bike shop with a thriving cycling community! Yay bikes!
The route to Mt. Tremper takes you thru Bearsville. Funny how after hundreds of times I've been driven on this road as a child, I never realized the road out was a rolling gradual climb. In fact when I mapped out the route I never even gave terrain a second thought on this leg of the journey. Ya know what? Even gradual climbs drain the sh*t out of you when your own lungs are "water boarding" you.
The first unexpected find has a story... I think I was 5 at the time and mom had set off to Woodstock but had been gone too long. No cell phones in 1972 so we left my baby sister with a neighbor and dad and I set off by bike to trace her path. We found the car in a ditch on the side of the road a few miles away. Not wrecked mind you, sort of gently parked in a ditch. No mom.
Not far from the car was an entrance, no mailbox, name or address. No hint of any kind as to what type of place it is.... odd everywhere, except here. It's a commune! Thankfully we found my mom totally unharmed. Turns out she drove the car into a ditch as a result an epileptic seizure. As scared as I was, finding her safe makes that marking a happy memory for me.
And finally, we reach the outer limits of the Hamlet of Mt. Tremper!
A few more miles down the road and I come to Mr. Mislens house. He was a wealthy (by our standards) retired businessman from Pittsburgh. He had a pool! He let our family come over whenever we wanted to to use the pool. Most summers his college age grandkids stayed there. It was his granddaughter that taught me to swim laps at age 3.
Next up was Kurt and Errna's house. They were an old German couple that lived down the road. Kurt gave me my first beer (one of those tiny four or six ounce bottles) I was 6. My dad expected me to spit it out. Nope I chugged it.
Now we come to the spot where I slammed into a pickup truck on my bike when I was 7 and ended up with a busted leg and a cast from my toes to my privates.
Bike symbolically placed.
Up the hill I pass what was left of the apple tree I climbed up the morning AFTER I came home in a the full leg cast... Man did I catch hell for that stunt.
And... Home sweet home!
It's kind of sad to see it so run down and overgrown. They made just enough piss poor changes to rob it of its charm but not enough to disguise it.....
The route should have taken me over the old steel bridge to Mt. Pleasant road. This was a major point of interest for me. It was the bridge that the teenage kids in the area would jump off of in to the only deep channel (about 6' wide) in the Esopus Creek. A little to the right and it's only like 5' deep, a little to the left and you're going to hit the center support base. It was one of those local rite of passage things.
Unbeknownst to my parents, when I was 8 my friend Thierry and I made the plunge. It was about 15-18 feet from the deck of the bridge depending on water level but the rule was, you had to jump from the top of the guard rail so add 4' to that number. I still remember almost pissing myself as I pushed off.... the shock of the ice cold mountain runoff...the rocks at the bottom and you DID hit the rocky bottom.... pride in making the leap and the surprise when you came back up and the current had pulled you 50' away.
It was also the bridge I'd ride my bike over with my parents on the way to breakfast in Phoenicia stopping to visit the Hershey's who were seemingly always puttering around in their garden.
No Dice! Bridge is not only closed, but the road is fenced off and totally reclaimed by nature. So, it's the alternate route of the Mt. Tremper-Phoenicia road (Rt 212) across a sad second place kind of bridge over the Esopus Creek....
40 years ago, us local kids would take car and truck inner tubes (you read that correctly, inner tubes) and ran the rapids down the Esopus. About 25 years ago someone (Town Tinker Tube Rentals) got the bright idea to commercialize the activity. They dumbed down the rapids, arranged for a train to run on the old railroad tracks and brought income to this perpetually depressed area. The area needs all the help it can get, but to me, it's kind of like pulling all the rocks off the yellow trail if that makes any sense.
So I arrive in Phoenicia and stop at the library before starting the 9 mile climb up to Hunter. The plan was to stop at "Sweet Sue's" and take a photo for @jdog but the library kind of ripped my heart out. Growing up, the library was a one room tiny building. Yes my mom would borrow books or us, but my favorite thing was the recordings of the Rudyard Kipling stories on these big records.
My memory was replaced with a nice modest modern building. I lean the bike up against a sign and take a half hearted photo, it was then that I get a glimpse of the plaque above the entrance and I loose it. It's a memorial plaque for my childhood friend Adam's mother. I immediately called my parents and found out she was struck and killed while riding her bike with her husband in Manhattan a few years ago. I didn't know. I hadn't seen or heard from them in 35+ years but one look at that sign and my heart just broke.
robotically I turned on to Rt 214 towards Hunter and for the first 5-6 miles of the climb I just slowly turn the cranks. At some point the fog lifts and the point of the trip comes back to me. It is beautiful up here. Ya know what else comes back to me? The fact that I have like no lung capacity and I sound like Darth Vader when I attempt to breathe, that's what! I'm more then halfway up the climb with the couple of nasty bits behind me, so I start to smile again. I hit the boarder of Hunter hey @Robin and take the requisite selfie.
Did I mention it's beautiful up here?
I gotta ask, who names these places? "Devils Tombstone Campground" ... Really?
Rt 214 drops you on Rt 23a a short hop skip and a jump and we get to the real wild card of the route, Rt 16. There's a section of route 16 that is a "Seasonal Road" it is NOT maintained and you drop a thousand feet in a very short distance. It's narrow, broken, loaded with frost heaves and steep as a son of a bitch. It curves with the mountain on one side and a canyon on the other with a few small boulders posing as a guard rail (launching point) but does not offer the relief like a switch back would, like at all.
I don't scare easily but I'm not ashamed to say my knuckles where white and my cheeks were clenched the whole time. I had to stop every few minutes to let the rims cool off before the tires blew. As it is, it melted some of the Swiss stop brake pads.
Having survived the drop into Saugerities all I had left to do was hang a right onto the Rock City - West Saugerities road, a quick right onto Glasco turnpike, a left on to (Detroit) "Rock City Road" and I'm back in Woodstock.
Thanks for reading, now go out and have yourselves an adventure!
Dan-
At the time I responded with..
"This was fantastic! And to be honest, exactly the type of post I needed today.
I am now inspired to bring by bike back to upstate NY and ride around Woodstock, Mt. Tremper (my home), Phoenicia and the towns and hamlets surrounding Hunter to relive some childhood memories (circa 1973) of my own.
THANK YOU!"
Fast forward to the present....
This year, my "Normal" Saturday routine is to do a 40-60 mile road ride with my buddy David. David's the guy that got me into road biking (as an adult) back in Sep. 2009 when I was at my lowest (worst) point physically. Well, David has had some setbacks himself and as a result, he'd been off the bike for two years. Consistency is key and keeping the weekly ride going is vital for him, and in truth, for me as well... for other reasons.
With David going to VT for the annual visit the in-law's trip this week, he brought the bike and posted a nice ride...I'm very happy about it BTW, I had my window!
On Monday I mapped out a "general" loop to allow for easy access to places I wanted to revisit. I'm psyched!
Come Tuesday night I start getting this weird rib cage / lung pain after an intense coughing fit. The fit was brought on by an oregano leaf getting in my windpipe so my assumption was a just a strain, trip not in jeopardy. Come Thursday it still hurts and about 50% lung capacity. By Friday almost all the pain Is gone, but I'm still only 70% lung capacity at best. Beginning to think I've got some chest bug cuz breathing is labored. Not asthmatic mind you, I know that feeling all too well, more like a very mild pneumonia. Ride is still on!
Enough of the stupid back story, let's get to it!
The weather was beautiful and the drive upstate was uneventful. The route I choose would take me up the main entry point into Woodstock. it was un-recognizable...meh.
My research showed a park just off the main drag in Woodstock and for a change "Siri" didn't get me lost. Gonna be a good day.
I'm channeling my inner @rick81721 here.
I start off on "Tinker Street", it's the unofficial main drag and the center of all the "earthy crunchy" activity in Woodstock.... Well at least THAT hadn't changed. What DID change? The drag now has a real bike shop with a thriving cycling community! Yay bikes!
The route to Mt. Tremper takes you thru Bearsville. Funny how after hundreds of times I've been driven on this road as a child, I never realized the road out was a rolling gradual climb. In fact when I mapped out the route I never even gave terrain a second thought on this leg of the journey. Ya know what? Even gradual climbs drain the sh*t out of you when your own lungs are "water boarding" you.
The first unexpected find has a story... I think I was 5 at the time and mom had set off to Woodstock but had been gone too long. No cell phones in 1972 so we left my baby sister with a neighbor and dad and I set off by bike to trace her path. We found the car in a ditch on the side of the road a few miles away. Not wrecked mind you, sort of gently parked in a ditch. No mom.
Not far from the car was an entrance, no mailbox, name or address. No hint of any kind as to what type of place it is.... odd everywhere, except here. It's a commune! Thankfully we found my mom totally unharmed. Turns out she drove the car into a ditch as a result an epileptic seizure. As scared as I was, finding her safe makes that marking a happy memory for me.
And finally, we reach the outer limits of the Hamlet of Mt. Tremper!
A few more miles down the road and I come to Mr. Mislens house. He was a wealthy (by our standards) retired businessman from Pittsburgh. He had a pool! He let our family come over whenever we wanted to to use the pool. Most summers his college age grandkids stayed there. It was his granddaughter that taught me to swim laps at age 3.
Next up was Kurt and Errna's house. They were an old German couple that lived down the road. Kurt gave me my first beer (one of those tiny four or six ounce bottles) I was 6. My dad expected me to spit it out. Nope I chugged it.
Now we come to the spot where I slammed into a pickup truck on my bike when I was 7 and ended up with a busted leg and a cast from my toes to my privates.
Bike symbolically placed.
Up the hill I pass what was left of the apple tree I climbed up the morning AFTER I came home in a the full leg cast... Man did I catch hell for that stunt.
And... Home sweet home!
It's kind of sad to see it so run down and overgrown. They made just enough piss poor changes to rob it of its charm but not enough to disguise it.....
The route should have taken me over the old steel bridge to Mt. Pleasant road. This was a major point of interest for me. It was the bridge that the teenage kids in the area would jump off of in to the only deep channel (about 6' wide) in the Esopus Creek. A little to the right and it's only like 5' deep, a little to the left and you're going to hit the center support base. It was one of those local rite of passage things.
Unbeknownst to my parents, when I was 8 my friend Thierry and I made the plunge. It was about 15-18 feet from the deck of the bridge depending on water level but the rule was, you had to jump from the top of the guard rail so add 4' to that number. I still remember almost pissing myself as I pushed off.... the shock of the ice cold mountain runoff...the rocks at the bottom and you DID hit the rocky bottom.... pride in making the leap and the surprise when you came back up and the current had pulled you 50' away.
It was also the bridge I'd ride my bike over with my parents on the way to breakfast in Phoenicia stopping to visit the Hershey's who were seemingly always puttering around in their garden.
No Dice! Bridge is not only closed, but the road is fenced off and totally reclaimed by nature. So, it's the alternate route of the Mt. Tremper-Phoenicia road (Rt 212) across a sad second place kind of bridge over the Esopus Creek....
40 years ago, us local kids would take car and truck inner tubes (you read that correctly, inner tubes) and ran the rapids down the Esopus. About 25 years ago someone (Town Tinker Tube Rentals) got the bright idea to commercialize the activity. They dumbed down the rapids, arranged for a train to run on the old railroad tracks and brought income to this perpetually depressed area. The area needs all the help it can get, but to me, it's kind of like pulling all the rocks off the yellow trail if that makes any sense.
So I arrive in Phoenicia and stop at the library before starting the 9 mile climb up to Hunter. The plan was to stop at "Sweet Sue's" and take a photo for @jdog but the library kind of ripped my heart out. Growing up, the library was a one room tiny building. Yes my mom would borrow books or us, but my favorite thing was the recordings of the Rudyard Kipling stories on these big records.
My memory was replaced with a nice modest modern building. I lean the bike up against a sign and take a half hearted photo, it was then that I get a glimpse of the plaque above the entrance and I loose it. It's a memorial plaque for my childhood friend Adam's mother. I immediately called my parents and found out she was struck and killed while riding her bike with her husband in Manhattan a few years ago. I didn't know. I hadn't seen or heard from them in 35+ years but one look at that sign and my heart just broke.
robotically I turned on to Rt 214 towards Hunter and for the first 5-6 miles of the climb I just slowly turn the cranks. At some point the fog lifts and the point of the trip comes back to me. It is beautiful up here. Ya know what else comes back to me? The fact that I have like no lung capacity and I sound like Darth Vader when I attempt to breathe, that's what! I'm more then halfway up the climb with the couple of nasty bits behind me, so I start to smile again. I hit the boarder of Hunter hey @Robin and take the requisite selfie.
Did I mention it's beautiful up here?
I gotta ask, who names these places? "Devils Tombstone Campground" ... Really?
Rt 214 drops you on Rt 23a a short hop skip and a jump and we get to the real wild card of the route, Rt 16. There's a section of route 16 that is a "Seasonal Road" it is NOT maintained and you drop a thousand feet in a very short distance. It's narrow, broken, loaded with frost heaves and steep as a son of a bitch. It curves with the mountain on one side and a canyon on the other with a few small boulders posing as a guard rail (launching point) but does not offer the relief like a switch back would, like at all.
I don't scare easily but I'm not ashamed to say my knuckles where white and my cheeks were clenched the whole time. I had to stop every few minutes to let the rims cool off before the tires blew. As it is, it melted some of the Swiss stop brake pads.
Having survived the drop into Saugerities all I had left to do was hang a right onto the Rock City - West Saugerities road, a quick right onto Glasco turnpike, a left on to (Detroit) "Rock City Road" and I'm back in Woodstock.
Thanks for reading, now go out and have yourselves an adventure!
Dan-
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