Jersey, Sure

I end up here all the time, this New Jersey. My company is based here, somewhere, I've never seen it, but I know its here somewhere, swear. The client I've worked for nearly two years is also based here, similarly in some mystical unseen place. And finally, now after 3 or 4 trips to the Garden State, I am equipped with a bike and ready to ride.

I didn't see any use in being at work Friday past noon, and one of the financial advisors got me stoked on Ringwood State park, so I used the ole' steal and trace method; went to the Motionbased Trailnetwork and downloaded some folks rides in and around the park, drove around in my car until the "distance to start" read something in feet vs. miles, found a place to park and embarked into the unknown. The way this works is a little black triangle on my Garmin follows the little white triangle that represents the rider I stole the loop from. This works well, except the GPS drifts a little, and slight forks in the trail are often hard to make out until its too late. Needless to say, the little white local was faster than me, and I was left tracing a black line on the screen all afternoon, but found some really fun technical stuff to play on, and didn't have to worry about where I was.

This particular loop veered off what appeared to be the more heavily tread areas (often crossing over logs that were clearly there to steer people on to the more popular trails) so I found my self on some very thin, almost overgrown singletrack, strewn with rocky surprises and had some fun with it. I don't often ride alone, and I can count on a peace sign the friends I have that are willing to stop all day long and retry techy stuff. If you saw my technical skills in action, you would understand. SO, anyway, it was nice to spend an afternoon in the woods working on skills, chasing gray squirrels and woodpeckers, not worrying about maps, and still being paid.
If anyone is disappointed that there are no jabbing remarks at the often jabbed state of New Jersey, I've included this picture of a Jersey solution to a stream crossing for which you can create humorous captions. I actually rode this, after about 12 tries, those damn cinderblocks move A LOT when you ride on them.