Cold today, but we still rode !

Today is was cold but we were out riding. Although I normally map our tip, we got lost a few times so I can't do it. It was just Barry and I so perhaps he can map the trip today.

We wound up at Holmdel Park, passed the Bell Lab facilities (where I could not find the fiberglass house on the turntable), passed by Delicious Orchards. On the way back we came down route 520 which Barry said would not have a lot of hills (WRONG!).

Anyway a nice ride and the weather was not nearly as cold as it could have been.

I know Barry is not riding next week, but I will still try to go out.

Andy

No Riding this week

Looks like this weekend was a weekend for non-riding. Everyone was busy taking care of other obligations, so no biking this weekend.

Next Saturday is 10/25/08, the date of the PhotoPlus expo in NYC. This is an annual photography event that I go to. I have been going for the past few years and it is really informative. Not only do you get to see (and hold) the latest gadgets, there are excellent speakers at the major booths (Canon. Nikon, Adobe,...). Some of the ones that I thought were really good last year was the late Monte Zucker (was always a great speaker), Joe McNally (his stories interwoven with insight is the best), Will Crockett (had an informative demo on using flash), John Paul Caponigro (just an natural speaker), Doug Gordon (although I am not a wedding photographer, his posed photojournalism demo was pretty amazing), and many others. If you have an interest in anything photographic (even if you are not a professional) the amount of information available makes this event a must.

Hopefully more biking news coming soon!

Google Issues (Non-Biking)

In case you did not notice, this blog was offline on Sunday 10/12/2008 until 10/13/2008 as Google had some issues. Google's automated tool flagged this blog as a "spam blog", probably because of the regular links back to MapMyRide.com (which I use to map the bike route we have taken).

I first noticed it down on 10/12/2008, but it could have been down longer. I do have to say that once I responded to the form Google provides, they did bring it back online within 24 hours. Google should probably refine their "spam blog" detection tool a little better since this does not seem to be an isolated occurrence.

Anyway we are back online, and sadly we did not ride this past weekend. We will try to get a ride together for 10/18/2008. I will probably have to miss riding on 10/25/08 as I have the PhotoPlus Expo in NYC. If you are interested in photography, this is an excellent event. There are a myriad of well known industry folks who speak at the expo especially at the major camera manufacturers and software developers (Canon, Nikon, Adobe,...) .

Till next time

Some biking websites that might be of interest

There are a few biking websites that I like a lot. One of them mapmyride.com allows you to map your bike ride and it will give you the distance plus you can create turn by turn direction sheets.

A site strictly for New Jersey is the NJ State Website for Biking and another NJ State site with biking maps.

For New York City Transportaion Alternatives is a very good source for information.

10-4-2008 Biking from Marlboro NJ to Tinton Falls

Today we were back to the four of us and we made a short 30 mile trip to Tinton Falls and back. Again we seemed to be going uphill a good portion of the time.

We did make a turn up a dead end street which was a back entrance to the Earle Naval Station. We decided to take a couple of pictures by the warning sign. Not long after that a patrol car from inside the fence showed up, probably to see what we were up to. By that time we were back on the bikes and riding again.

Note: In case you were wonder what Mark has in his hand, it is a tape measure. While we were riding he saw it on the side of the road and stopped to pick it up.

I will attempt to add a map of our route, but with my sense of direction, I might get it wrong.

Stay tuned as we are going to try to see if we can do the Coney Island ride next week!

Boundary / Conover Road - A change of pace

Today it was only Barry and I and we did not want to go far. We went for a change of pace and did the hills on Boundary Road and Conover Road, we then hit the Henry Hudson trail at the old Marlboro Airport property and rode that into Matawan (to relax).

We came back the same way, and for some reason it seemed like we never hit the downhills and it was always uphill. None the less, we made it back albeit a little out of breath.

I do have to apologize as there are no photos due to the inclement weather.
Below is the route we took today:

Random Biking Photos

Here are some random photos from our bike trips this years

Bike Trip From Marlboro NJ to Manasquan

Today (9/13/08) it was only Barry and I and we decided to go to Manasquan (via the bike path from Allaire Park).

Typically along the way we got a little lost so, Barry whipped out the trusty map and we were back on our way.

We seemed to find our way and eventually hit Allaire Park. This is a real nice park with campgrounds and their own railroad!

We meandered around a while but eventually found the bike path to Manasquan. The trip is pretty short (around 6 miles) from Allaire but you do pass by this very nice, quaint looking"General Store" that seemed to be doing a brisk business this morning.

We eventually hit Manasquan so I figured I need to take a picture by the water (and also one of the HS to prove we were there). We also made a four legged friend along the way so I took a photo of him while he watched us ride by.


Looks like we rode about 42 miles (I forgot to reset my odmeter on the ride to Manasquan). Lastly, of course Barry had to some ice cream on the ride home.





As always photos of these biking expeditions are available at http://schecky.smugmug.com/ under the Bicycling Trips link.

Till Next Week's Ride (perhaps the SIBA Pumpkin Patch Pedal 2008?).
AS

PS Please excuse the photo quality on these photos since I did not have a good camera with me today.