We finally made it to Wallingford

Don't Take the Box!

Before leaving Connecticut this week we got in another ride to Woodbury yesterday.  This morning we left Connecticut at 6:30 AM for Vermont and after unpacking and getting some lunch at Gils, we decided to try to ride down Wallingford again. Given that is was later in the day we didn't think there was going to be anything keeping us away from getting there this time.

Woodbury Hippie Ride

Since I am not working Ann & I are splitting our time between Sandy Hook and Rutland and she wants to ride as much as possible now.  After returning from our camping trip we had things to get done at both our houses so we couldn't ride Monday so before heading back north we rode up to Woodbury and back.

Hippy 4 Handle

 Power goes out at 9:32 AM with no warning whatsoever. I report the outage online and it says restoration estimate 11:30 AM. Then, I get a text alert from my cable provider that my internet is down, too.  No point firing up the generator because we didn't have a storm and will be out of power for a few days, which is par of the course with my energy provider. It's a beautiful day, let's go on a bike ride!

Summering with Buddha

I took Friday off and decided to go on a big ride up into Litchfield County. I would first ride to Ovens of France for a danish and then ride north to Morris to visit the Buddha Ariyamettaram Temple and then continue north into Goshen. 

Originally the forecast was for thunder showers by mid afternoon but that changed to the evening so I was able to delay my start to later in the morning. When I has leaving the house I had my arm warmers and a base layer underneath but it must have been 65 degrees because it was so warm in the sun that I went back in and took everything off, except of course my new Team RWB (Red White and Blue) jersey.  

One thing to note, their hours have changed. There was a line of about 4 people outside but everyone had face coverings on were staying 6 feet apart.

It was worth the wait. I got the biggest Chocolate Almond Croissant, too. It was a meal!

After another breakfast I started riding the backroads towards Middlebury trying to hit roads that I haven't ridden before to add to my Wandrer total.

It was a perfect day and the views from the ridges were breath taking

One thing I love about my new Garmin Edge 530 and the Climbpro feature. It tells you the grade, how far you have to go on the climb and how much there is left to climb. It only works on routes that you have loaded and are following.  On this ride I was heading up Hickory Lane and there is new color that I have never seen before, a maroon band. 

Garmin needs to add another color this - black, for anything over 20%. It seems though the grade calculation appears to be exaggerated. The maroon color says the grade is over 12%. Unfortunately, Garmin Connect doesn't let you see the grade after your ride.

Looking at Ride with GPS on this section, the max grade is 12% but if I remember correctly Garmin displayed the grade around 15%.



That portion of the hill in front of me does look pretty steep!

One routing faux pas was that I didn't know this road turns to dirt and there was no alternative so I took the Bondeye on a first road for the first time since I bought this bike.



If figured since I was climbing and going slow that I wouldn't have a problem and I didn't.



Another great view, this one from Benton Road in Morris



My bike is called a Voodoo Bondeye. Bondeye is short for Benevolent Deity, met another Benevolent Deity today, Buddha.




The ornate artwork for this temple was amazing.



I can't believe how many times I have ridden past here and not have noticed this.



From the Temple I rode north on Rt 63 through Litchfield and onwards to Goshen.

What I found totally ironic about this route was that there were 9 climbs calculated by the device and the 8th one was right before Goshen. That meant that is literally downhill all the way back to River Road in Southbury with the last climb being from the Steel Bridge to the Boulevard.

In Goshen I had lunch at the Shell Station on Route 4 consisting of a bottle of Powerade Extra with Salt and Vinegar potato chips. Then I road Route 4 and eventually turned south to head back to Southbury.

A few miles down the road I discovered another mistake in my routing which had me on another dirt road.  The funny thing is that I looked at my Roubaix to Brew dirt road map and thought this would be OK. I missed something, obviously. One thing I have found with planning routes with Ride with GPS, is you really need to view the course step by step because it seems to make decisions for you that you may not agree with.  I don't think this dirt road was the fault of the RWGPS routing interface, but I have had other issues.

By 3 PM the clouds were starting to role in.

Hippy Ride: Hudson Valley Rail Trail

The last section of my ride was from Millerton, NY back to New Milford.  At the recommendation of Terry Burke, promoter of the Western New England Greenway, I had lunch at the Irving Farm Coffee House in Millerton, NY.  I sat outside and chatted with other cyclists and people hanging out drinking coffee.  Like most coffee shops they had free wifi and here the single was exceptionally strong!  The Tuna Salad was excellent and I downed two Pure Cane Sugar soda pops, one Creme, and the other Birch Beer.

Then it was back on the bike and over to the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, Millerton to Wassaic, NY.

The Railroad Station is still there in Millerton and it's really cool. 

As for the Rail Trail, it's 10 miles of meh.  

There are some cool vistas and one chilly hill cut but that's it. 

No forgotten sidings or other stations.

I did, however, ride with a German Exchange Student who was on a self guided cycling tour of the East Coast.  She started in Boston, went to Cape Cod and now was headed to Philadelphia.  We parted ways in Armenia.  I didn't get her name but she was from Hamburg and going to school in Texas.

One historical fact that I learned in Wassaic was that it was the home of the first Condensed Milk Factory started by Borden's Dairy, in 1861!

At around the 60 mile mark I decided to bag the climb up the backside of Macedonia State Park and head straight back to the car in New Milford.  I wasn't bonking but the give-a-shit meter was pegged and I was looking forward to downing some nice cold Oktoberfest beers.

Hippy Ride: Railroad Ramble

Using topographic maps from The Historic USGS Maps of New York and New England, I loosely put the 1899 Northeast Corner of Millbrook, NY map and the 1903 Northwest Corner from Cornwall, CT map together to show the original route of the Central New England Rail Road.  There is a Y in State Line, NY where the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut Rail Road connected to the mainline.  Sections from Lakeville to State Line are visible but not all rideable (or allowed for that matter). 

 

There is a two mile section of rail trail that starts in Salisbury, CT and ends in Lakeville, CT called the Railroad Ramble.  Along with the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, this was another on the Rail Trail bucket list.  The entrance in Salisbury is quite unassuming and the exit in Lakeville is event worse.  It spills out into a playground with no signage indicating which way to go.  I followed my nose and came out using the Park's Driveway by a gas station.

The Railroad Ramble is much rougher than your typical dirt path rail trails but not a was rough as the Woodbury Trolley Trail.  Definitely mountain bike, cross bike, or even a comfort bike would be best suited for this trail.  The Fredmobile was perfect, the 1" travel shock was just enough to soften the roughest of routes.

There were no bicyclist on the trail and the only other trail users was two joggers.  Then again, noon in Northwestern, CT, with almost two miles of trail, this seems hardly the type of trail that people would go out of their way to visit.  Too bad there is no connection back to Canaan.  Of course, the Coup de Grace would be to have a rail trail that went all the way Winsted and then down to the Farmington River Trail.

Little did I know when I took a picture of my Garmin that I was at the half way point of my ride.

Hippy Ride: Lime Rock Park

The view descending down from Skiff Mountain was breath taking!

Truly, a beautiful day to be on my bike.

Finally found some dirt on Modley Road!

Amish?

Fancy that, a horse drawn cart but Amish I think not!

I knew this was somewhere nearby but not on my route.

SSCA racing was going on.

These cars were loud!

It was fun watching the cars go flying by but it was really buggy

I am sure the racers were enjoying this stellar day!

Fredmobile at the track.

I wonder is there is a Strava Segment on the track?

Hippy Ride: Skiff Mountain

I had nothing planned on my calendar for Friday so I took the day off so I could end the summer with one, last big ride.  All week I had been planning this ride, I bought arm warmers because I was worried that it was going to be cold in the morning, since riding to work on Tuesday and doing a workout ride early Thursday morning was down right frigid each morning. 

 If you haven't figured this out by now, I am a planner, and what I love about riding roads is planning the next ride or adventure.  I think it's a way of reconnoitering all the possible routes should I decide to bail on a route that I would be following.

My original plan was to leave from home but that meant I wouldn't be able to hit some of the things I wanted to see, like Salisbury's Railroad Ramble, a two-ish mile rail trail of what used to be the Central New England Railroad, and the Millerton to Wassaic section of the Hudson Valley Rail Trail. 

Leaving later had it's advantages, too, dropping my boys off at the bus stop and playing Frisbee with them before the bus comes, and the chance that it could be warmer meaning less stuff I would need to wear/carry. In the end a snap decision to leave from New Milford cost me my heart strap.

Today I was riding Skiff Mountain and what a climb!  I didn't break any records of course but it had been on my to do list for awhile.  I thought it was going to be a dirt road but it turned out to be paved.  And of course nagging me the whole way up was I couldn't see my heart rate - it had to be up there - and also the fact that I still don't have the right climbing gears on the Cannondale.  It was a slow go but I made it!

Not much to see when you get up there but a pretty straight road.  Still it was a nice respite after climbing almost a 1000 vertical feet in the span of two miles!  Finally at the top, you are presented with a choice of riding Skiff Mountain some more!