The Cog Blog

Greetings Newtown Patchers. My name is Joe Keffer and I'll be occupying this space with periodic tales of my cycling explorations in our fair county.

I have lived in Bucks County just about all my life. I spent my formative years in Lower Makefield. Then I went to college at Penn State and was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to ride on the spectacular roads of Centre County. I also met Mrs. Bike Blogger, the love of my life, there. After Mrs. Bike Blogger and I married, we lived in an apartment in Morrisville for a few years. Then we took up residence in Newtown from 1993 to 2000 at which time we moved just across Neshaminy Creek to the eastern side of Holland. Don't tell the Northampton Patchers, but I still feel more comfortable shopping, dining and biking in Newtown. It just fits me.  

I grew up riding my bike on these roads. Like many other kids, I rode hand-me-down bikes. Didn't matter. To me, there was nothing like the sensation of bolting down a smooth road on a generous shoulder with the wind at my back and thoughts of grandeur in my mind. I have to confess to hearing English-accented commentary in my mind narrating my ride as if my jaunt to the track at Pennwood Middle School was the Queen's Stage of the Tour de France. I can admit that, but I'm pretty certain I'm not alone.

In my college years I commuted on my bike from my home in the Black Rock neighborhood of Lower Makefield to my summer job at The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commision in Morrisville. I'll never forget those early morning rides along River Road or the tired return trips after a hard day's work.  

Biking these roads of Bucks County has been a lifelong preoccupation for me, save for the years my two boys were young and my attention was needed more at home than on the road. But a few years ago the cycling bug caught me again and I embraced it with full vigor. I have spent the last three years trying to ride five out of every seven days. As you can imagine, I've seen a lot of Bucks County and what it has to offer.  

What's different about seeing a place by bike is that you experience it more intensely than in a car because the scenery isn't whizzing by you at 45 mph. But, you can also cover so much more ground than by foot. To cyclists, riding through a landscape is the ideal way to experience it and I hope to share that with you in this space. In my car, I never would have noticed the little garter snake that I glided by today or had such an appreciation for tiny yellow flowers that I discovered along Eagle Road in Upper Makefield. However, I would have surely never covered so much ground by foot. No. Cycling allows me to soak in a lot of local color at just the right pace to appreciate it properly.  

You can imagine my delight when the weather forcast for last Monday and Tuesday called for temperatures in the 80's and mostly sun. You see, I work in a restaurant at a golf club in Buckingham and this is the beginning of our busy season. In some ways, Sunday being Easter signalled the start of our craziness. We spent the week leading up to Easter Sunday prepping for a record-setting crowd. The day did not disappoint. We were slammed all day. So my excitement for a good ride on the following Monday was tempered by the realization that my body might be just too darn tired to deliver a solid ride. Well, the moment I stepped out of the door on Monday to drive the boys to school let me know that those were the temperatures I had been waiting for for a long time. I was stoked to ride.  

I was wise enough to prep my bike and gear the night before, so I was rolling by 9:15 Monday morning. There was pretty heavy fog, so my decision to wear my brightest colored jersey was a good one. Just as I cruised down Buck Road across the Neshaminy and into Newtown a few rain drops bounced off my helmet. I wasn't worried. Intellicast.com assured me that the cells were not numerous and my ride would be mostly dry.   However, about 15 minutes later as I advanced up-county along Eagle Road, I noticed that Jericho Mountain was enshrouded in clouds. How cool would it be to scale the nearly 18% grade at the top with my head, literally, in the clouds. Well, suffice to say, it was very cool. We east-coast bike riders don't get to ride in the clouds very often, so that was a seminal moment. The joyous sensation of gliding down the north side of the mountain was made all the more satisfying by the idea of snapping a phone photo of the mountain when I got to a decent vantage point. That spot was Lurgan Road and the photo op was marred only by the lifting of the fog. The mountain was no longer covered in the dense mist.  Grand clouds rose above the mountain like smoke signals telling of a major battle, but the only battle was me against the mountain and I was happy to know that I won.   I continued to New Hope, one of my favorite places to be on a beautiful spring day. The fog had totally burned off by the time I arrived at Gerenser's for coffee, revealing just a phenomenal spring day in Bucks County.

Wow, how I love biking on these glorious roads in the spring time.  

My introduction of myself to you began by featuring the best ride of the year, so far. There will be many more to come. I hope you'll join me here on the pages of Patch, but if you are so inclined, come along for a ride sometime. Until then, I look forward to telling you more of my two-wheeled travels throughout our lovely county. I welcome any and all comments and look forward to any suggestions of ride destinations. For now, I'm thinking about heading to the archaeologically dig in Lower Makefield that I read about in the Inquirer the other day. Should be interesting, given my history along the river.