• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Fiddlers Elbow and Iron Bridge Road

E

eric65

Besides spending all my money on reefing I also enjoy punishing myself with 100 mile bicycle rides. For those of you who live in northwestern NJ, are you familiar with either of these roads and how they heck do you drive on them during winter storms?? I live in Ocean County and I am hard pressed to find anything similar down here.

The reason I'm asking is I have a ride next weekend that includes both of these roads plus almost every other hilly road you can find in Warren Hunterdon and Sussex counties. Every year my friend and I ask each other "How do people drive on these roads in the winter?" I'm hoping to have an answer this year as we push our bikes to the top ;D
 
D

dougc

I haven't been on Fiddler's Elbow, but I was just up that way on Saturday (on wet roads, no less) doing a loop that starts in Lebanon and goes through Wooglen, Califon, Pleasant Grove, and Glen Gardener. The loop we do includes about 6500' of climbing in 52 miles. All I wanted to do was sleep after that.

I can't imagine driving up some of those hills, or descending for that matter, when it is icy. We were talking about doing a ride around Fiddlers Elbow, which I understand has the steepest paved road in NJ. Don't you love those signs that say "Impassable to Large Trucks"?
 
E

eric65

I wish I could have enjoyed Sunday's gorgeous weather more than I did. Once again I spent the day asking myself "Why do I subject myself to this?" Besides the aforementioned Fiddler's Elbow and Iron Bridge (I had to push my bike up both) another road joins my dreaded list. For those of you who are familiar with that area the name of this road is Sliker Road! After struggling for over 90 miles that climb sucked every ounce of energy I had left. My result- 108 miles in 8 hours and 45 minutes. How disappointed was I? At the 50 mile mark my friend and were at a pace to finish in 6 and half hours. Things went horribly wrong the last 50 miles. Right now I don't ever want to see a major climb again, but I have 364 days to forget how my legs feel and I'll be waking up at 4a.m. to do this all over again.

dougc- according to the cue sheet Fiddlers Elbow has a gradient of 38.4% Last year there was a guy in the parking lot sharing an after ride beer with those around him called "Fiddlers Elbow." I'm guessing it's an English beer. I wish I had kept the bottle just for the label.
 
D

dougc

Sliker Road was on the route I did that week. The steepest grade we climbed was in the 20 somthing percent range. I don't think I could stay on the bike on a 38% grade. Maybe with a triple.

Next week is the Savage down in Delaware. I hear that has some wicked climbs.

Doug
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top