2012-08-19 40 -75

Sun 19 Aug 2012 in Allentown: 40.2624920, -75.0300963 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Basically

A painful and irrational hash.

Location

The hashpoint itself was within a fenced-off area on Swamp Road in rural Pennsylvania. It was actually pretty boring as hashpoints go. Despite the lack of explicit "No trespassing or risk being shot" signs, I took the fence as meaning that it was private property. Unfortunately, the location was surrounded by thousands - and I do mean thousands - of hills, because Pennsylvania is stupid that way.

Participants

Askew and bike

Expedition

I left home (Central NJ, Newark graticule) expecting to make it only halfway to the hash because of lack of time (5 hours until sunset). Armed with bike and Google map, I met the first hill about 5 miles from home. Climbing felt nice; we don't get a lot of hills in Central Jersey. I took the Canal Towpath across Route 1 and onto Princeton Pike, ending up on Pennington Lawrenceville Road (in NJ, a lot of streets are creatively named based on their start and end points). After getting sort of lost (Google Maps said something about making a sharp left), I arrived at the Washington Crossing Bridge, about 16 miles into the trip. I was ready to turn back, but it was only 4 PM, which was ridiculously early. So, I crossed the river.

Pennsylvania was hell. The hills were inescapable.

Around 10 yards from the hash, my front derailleur gave up. I was going up a hill (go figure) and suddenly pedaling got a lot easier. And suddenly I was going down the hill. After un-derailing the derailed chain, I got across the road from the point. Seeing the fence, I gave up on getting any closer. And anyway, being GPS-less, I wouldn't know where the hash was exactly anyway. I took pictures (stupidly, I forgot to take pics of the bike itself.) and left.

On the way back, the hills were shorter but steeper. I had to walk the bike up a few because I couldn't use the bottom 14 gears (and because pride wasn't an issue anymore). This mega-biker-dude came up behind me when I was walking a hill and gave a sarcastic "good job." I had to laugh. And then of course there was the traffic light at MCCC that just could not turn green. I had to be a nuisance to traffic.

All in all, the trip took 5.5 hours. 56 miles in two states and 1100 vertical feet climbed. I think I'm sticking with the Newark and Atlantic City graticules from now on. Pennsylvania just about proved that MNINMB (Mother Nature is not my Balloon). At least the trip was fun and worthwhile.

Pictures

Coming.