Riding Away From Home

We've been in NJ the last few days, trying to run down a big issue. Crazy things that life can throw at you sometimes.

There's one basic loop here that I like to do, with about a dozen variations available. You start off at the beach (actually a barrier island) and go over Manasquan Inlet, then onto a bike path that winds up at the picture with the white fence. From there, it's pretty much rolling (mostly flat) country roads, with the wind providing a lot of the "terrain." It's a nice area to ride.

Yesterday, we did "the beach ride," which I'd never done before. You leave the beach the same way but instead of going inland, you go back to the coast on the other side of the inlet and keep going north. The top picture is from Shark River Inlet. The scenery's great on this one, tons of cool Victorian houses and neat little towns. We went through Asbury, which is supposedly undergoing a huge revival but still has a long way to go. Despite it not looking very windy in this shot, the camera always lies about breeze. There was a pretty brutal offshore breeze which gave us a nice crosswind the whole way. It also got really cold on the way back, in the shade of the houses and the hedges - which mysteriously completely failed to block the wind. Should have worn knee warmers, since my right knee was killing me by the time we got home.