Tandeming to Trumbull

I had already rode 40 miles this morning on the road bike but with two of my three children at birthday parties, it was only natural that I take Elliot over to the Housatonic Rail Trail for a little ride.  We started at the top most part of Pepper Street with the intention of seeing how far we could get in 30 minutes before turning around. With the promise of a frosty treat following today's ride and having to be home in time to shower so that we could go see a play that was being put on by the Sandy Hook Foundation, I figured an hour round trip would be good.

However, we got down to Whitney Avenue in Trumbull in about 25 minutes and it seemed like a shame not to go the entire distance, so we decided to pushed on to Tait Road.  That section is probably the steepest, if you can call anything on a railtrail steep, and we were going really fast, around 15 mph!

Pedaling home was a bit slower but we it gave us an opportunity to sample the surroundings, like this sign on the side of this house that states "Hippies use the side door!"

Of course, there is nothing better after good ride then a visit to Peach Wave!

Lending the tandem to relatives

My wife's sister's family was up from NYC on Saturday and we are planning on riding the Bloomin' Metric together.  Only this is the first year that my daughter, Katie, cannot ride due to a dancing showcase happening that weekend.  So I offered up my tandem and on Saturday to Will and Julia so they could test it out.

They got the hang of it pretty quickly

Katie was riding with us on her barely used but pristine Cannondale Chase.  Only, she was complaining that see needs a bigger range of gears now.

Julia learned quickly how to let her father do all the work

Katie had a great time and wants to ride more.

But now it's a matter of finding time to ride!

Riding with the relatives

My original plan was to ride from my house (leaving at 6:30 AM) and meeting up with Michele's Sister, her brother-in-law, and her step father at Taits Mill in Trumbull.  Woke up at 5:30 but something wasn't agreeable from the night before and thus all my plans changed.  I ended up driving down to the Parking area at Pepper Street and Cutler's Farm and had 30 minutes to ride down to the Taits Mill parking area where I would be meeting the others.

I got down to Taits Mill in 25 minutes!

While waiting for them, I rode around without my helmet to cool off!

 

Michele's 74 year old Stepfather, Larry, led the way up the trail. 

Sondra, Will and I hung back and planned future family rides in which we would bring our kids.

Turn around point for Larry is Wolfe Park.  Sondra, Will and I continued up another 1.5 miles to where I parked and then we parted company, they were headed back to Trumbull and I wanted to ride to the end of the trail and back as fast as I could to get a little more workout and some miles.  I rode past the town line on the 1600 foot section of the ill fated Newtown Railtrail.  It's still bare and the turn around is starting to grow in, so much that I hardly recognized it.  There are a few muddy spots to contend with, too.

Inaugural Ride of the Raleigh XXIX Fixed Gear Mountain Bike

I am not sure if you can call riding a rail trail on a fixed gear mountain bike is truly a good test of a bike but in my case, not having ridden fixed in over a year I felt it would be the safest way to go.  

The Raleigh is awesome and in the map above I even found some rake and ride singletrack between Old Mine Park and the Route 25 underpass that was was awesome to ride fixed, too!

The Carver fork, combined with the Renyolds 4130 steel tubing, really makes riding this bike smooth.  The only complaint I have is the saddle.  I think the saddle is a pain in the ass (pun intended) because it's a mountain saddle and harder in the wrong places than a roadie saddle.  Riding 20 miles on a railtrail was not comfortable but I imagine off road, in the woods, could would be better.

My brother-in-law, Will, road with me and I think he liked the Housatonic Rail Trail.  We rode from Taits Mill in Trumbull to the Newtown Line and back.  19+ miles.  On the way back, he set the pace and I could barely keep up with him because I was geared 32:20, not your optimal gearing for flat, greenway riding.  Still, I was able to manage an average 12 mph on most of the trail on the way back.

FUBars are perfect and as you can see I did add a brake to the bike.  I rode the whole length of the rail trail without really needing the brake, even the tricky section in Monroe by the Victrinox Warehouse, but the brake did come in handy on the little bit of singletrack.  Definitely need one, and only one, if you are going to ride fixed gear off road.

Most I saw of Will through the Monroe section was his back.

 

Most typical bikes on the rail trail are Comforts and Mountain Bikes.
There were no singlespeeds, except for the kiddie bikes, and of course no fixies.
The only place I have seen fixies is the Farmington Canal Greenway.

 

The reward for a good ride is always a cold beer!

Muddy Monstercross

CT NEMBA was supposed to have a ride and meeting Wednesday night but the ride got canceled due to the rain and no one could make the meeting.  I met Glenn, CT NEMBA's Treasurer, in Newtown and headed over to the Housatonic Rail Trail in Monroe figuring it would be a lot less impact than riding singletrack after the rain storm we just got.  There were still some soggy sections and we both got decent skunk stripes.

We rode the entire length of the trail, parking at the Pepper Street lot and heading south to the trail terminus in Trumbull.  Turning around we rode back, past the parking lot to the Newtown Town Line.  The Newtown section, the 1600 foot rail trail to nowhere, was way too wet to ride.  Turning around at the town line we rode back to the lot.  Total trip was 19.4 miles in about an hour and thirty minutes.

   

Glenn is seen above ripping by one on of the side trails

It was the inaugural ride for the redone Qball Monstercross and what a fun bike to ride.  The only big changes this time around besides going back to being a 2x8 is new bar tape and tires but for some reason it felt really different and much better to ride.  I think it was due to the hawt, orange bar tape.

Newtown Town Line and the 1600' Rail Trail to nowhere.

The Newtown section of the rail trail ends 1600 feet from the town line because the old rail bed then cuts across the Batchelder Property, which is an old Aluminum Smelter plant, long since closed.  The place is a Superfund cleanup site stuck in Bankruptcy and probably will never get cleaned up.  

While the trail goes through to Swamp Road, technically you would be trespassing.  There is also some old guy that lives next to the trail who will sometimes come out and yell at you for crossing through.  Even if the trail were to go through to Swamp road it's still a big let down because it hits the active line of the Housatonic Rail Road.  It would be awesome to have a path on the side of the tracks that could go all the way to Danbury, Brewster, and points north.

As you can see, it was still pretty sloppy and there was some major bike washing when I got home!

 

Riding by the Pequonnock River