Relive: Yellowstone Snowmobile Tour

Relive the 2025 Bloomin Metric 100K

Relive 'It's not just a ride, it's an adventure!

Relive 'It’s not just a ride, it’s an adventure!'

A nice day at the beach

Relive 'A nice day at the beach'

Relive A Rainy 156K Mystery at D2R2

Relive 'A rainy 156K Mystery at D2R2'

Tour de Dirt & Destruction

I took a little ride around the neighborhood Friday after work. 

 Everyone north of Route 84 is still out of power.  Wires are still down all over the place but it looks like most of the trees have been cleared.  However, I didn't ride up Butterfield or Georges Hill.  Even the Taunton Lake area and Taunton Hill Road still seemed to have a lot of power outages, still.  You could still hear the din of generators running.

I rode to the top of Holcombe Hill but I missed the sunset

I have to say, I really love riding this bike. I am still making tweaks to it. I think might get a Brooks saddle and try a seatpost with a longer set back.



Rode over Castle Hill.  The Newtown Flag is once again at half mast due to another school shooting and yet our government who is supposed to protect it's citizens does nothing.

It was getting dark so I headed home



The telephone pole at the intersection of the Boulevard still hasn't been dealt with.

And there is still a tree on the wires on Tamarack Road

After the Storm

Headed back out to the Gussy on Sunday with my neighbor's son again.  I gave him a pack for his water this time, so I wouldn't have to carry it, and an extra fender that I had laying around, but what I really need to do is give him a pack with all the essentials tools he would need to change a flat.

We headed into the forest on the Jeep Road off of Sanford Road and it was really sloppy.  Riding up the Gussy Trail was hard.  I probably should have let air out of my tires but I trudged on anyway.  Bucky was having a hard time as well but really stunk was all the branches down on the trail.  I would ride 20 or 30 yards and have to stop to play Pick Up Sticks.  At the split off for the Reach Around, I decided a reroute is necessary.  That will have to happen later this spring along with 3 other re-routes that I have planned.

We then headed over to the Echo Valley Parking area - the tree that was down on the wires before the yellow house had been removed, along with all the other trees blocking the way in to the lot.  Riding the Polly Brody Forest Road was a little better but there also at least three blockages.  It was getting dark and we didn't have lights so we turned around and headed back out.

Relive Faux Spring and RAW

Autumnal Cycling in Connecticut

Due to illness I was unable to make the Friday LunArtics Ride Before Work to Ovens in France in Woodbury, CT but by midday Saturday I was feeling much better. A longer ride on Sunday that would include a stop at Ovens of France would be perfect.  There was a frost advisory for Sunday morning and it was cold as a witch's tit that morning!

The Dirty Macedonian Gravel Grinder

Mike couldn't join the Friday LunArtic's ride to Oven's of France so I offered to lead a gravel ride out to Kent and beyond and expose him and some others to some great dirt roads in Western Connecticut. In fact the only LunArtic missing from this ride was Gabby because he still doesn't have a gravel bike.

We started out a Young's Field in New Milford with seven riders: Jeff McKay, Mark Richards, Steven Tramposh, Paul Meyer, John VanStraaten, Mike Robinson and myself. Paul (pictured below) had ridden up to New Milford from Newtown earlier and was only going to ride with us up to the end of River Road.

Riding along Boardman Road in New Milford

As with all my rides, calling audibles is par for the course and the first one was to ride through Sega Meadows rather than down River Road from Boardman Bridge because you hit gravel much sooner. It was a good call.

Somewhere along the way through Sega Meadows we lost Steven but then showed up a few minutes later.

Then we headed down River Road to the first, steep climb on the route, Front of the Mountain Road.  It's a relatively short but steep dirt road climb that tops out around 14% and then has an equally steep descent down Long Mountain Road to Mud Pond Road.

At the bottom of Long Mountain we were already thinking of bypassing this on the way back and instead hitting Stillson Hill on the other side of the river.

The ride along Mud Pond is one of the most scenic dirt roads in South Kent.

After Mud Pond we turned onto West Meeting House for short ride to Peet Hill Road. This is the short cut to Ore Hill Rd.  The other way is to take Greer Mountain Road to Ore Hill Road which has a switch back climb.  Peet Hill is a bit more direct but has some grades that top out at 14%, too. The dirt part of Ore Hill Road also has some steep sections in it that max out at 12%.  Then we road the dirt section of Richards Roads and then bombed down Route 341.  

In Kent we watered up at the Mobile Station because the highlight of this ride, North Kent No 1 Road was coming next.  A few guys on road bikes came over to us wanting to join in with us but when we told them we're riding dirt, they said no thanks.

Riding down River Road we came across a friend of Jeff's who had a pair of really cool dogs. Then we turned west on to one of the toughest, dirt road climbs in the State. It's not the steepness that makes it so tough, rather the loose gravel makes traction most times really challenging.

There was quite a bit of cursing

And there was some walking.

Everyone walked except Jeff

As far as a Gravel Bike goes, the CAADx is nice but it could use a little more gearing range.

Mike makes it to the top.

Skiff Mountain Road gives way to Modley Road in Sharon. In the past I have often seen the horse and carriage on this road or the next. Not today, though.  It was time to break out the Pringles! I bring Salt & Vinegar Pringles on all my big rides now for salt replenishment.  

It started to drizzle earlier when we hit North Kent Road but it's mostly covered by trees so it was barely noticeable.  On Skiff Mountain Road, it had tapered off but while riding down Modely it got a bit harder and when we popped out on the black top it was raining rather consistent. It didn't feel or look like it was going to last for very long so there was no need for a jacket at this point.

Turning onto West Woods Road #2 we hit the halfway point of the ride.

The option for another audible was to ride down West Woods Road #1 and then come back up Lambert Road but it wasn't discussed and I really didn't want to extend the ride to longer than what it was going to be, but I was thinking it and I knew Jeff would have gone for it.

Steven got a flat coming down into Macedonia State Park, which was closed to camping already due to budget cutbacks.  After his tube was replaced we descended down through the park and back out onto 341 and then turned right onto Schaghticoke Road which turns into a great, wide dirt road ride down to Bulls Bridge.

Back up to Mud Pond and rather than ride Long Mountain again, because everyone hates repeats including myself, although Mud Pond was the exception, we rode it all the way down to Brown's Forge and then to River Road.  Only we turned right and headed north to Gaylordsville and road by the "Cake House."  

It's been a few years since I have ridden through Gaylordsville and there were quite a few changes. Burgeritoville was gone and the Country Store was out of business.  That's a bummer because when Elliot and I tandem up here we like to get a snack there.  

This audible was worth it.  First we climbed up Church road and along the way John said he was bonking so I gave him the Pringles.  Mike had a few, too, and just held onto the can going into Stillson Hill, which by the way is another great dirt road climb.

The descent down is a dirty, windy road with a few sharp turns, one of which John didn't negotiate so well and put his brakes to the test.  He was on Mike's 1980s Trek that was in serious need of a tune up but still making it happen.  We rolled into Young's Field a couple of minutes after 5 hours with a moving time of 4 and half hours, which was great. Here is the route on Ride with GPS if you would like to see it greater detail and you can also relive the ride below.

Relive the Newtown Lunartics ride to Ovens of France

The weekly Newtown Lunartics Ride Before Work to Ovens of France was a day early on account that Steven was driving up to Burlington, VT to drop off his daughter at College. We headed out on our usual route departing from behind Cover II in Sandy Hook and heading out along Lake Zoar on West Purchase Brook.

We were riding with another new member who recently moved to Newtown and who I met at D2R2 earlier.  John comes to us by way of Rhode Island and the United States Marine Corps.  He is a couple of years younger than us old Farts and super fast. Trying to keep up with him is always fun. Of course his naivete came out earlier on our first ride when he asked whether or not he should have a blinky.

Relive A Good Day to Dirt

There is this new Strava tool/feature/application called Relive that takes the track you upload into Strava and then emails a link to their website so that you can relive your ride in a video. You can then post it Facebook and Twitter, and it looks like it also connects to Whatsapp so you could send it to someone via that channel.  They don't offer any code to embed on a blog so I am attempting it below with a simple "iframe" command to embed their website on my blog post.  

What I would like to see them do is zoom in a bit and give a Bird's Eye or Drone View of the ride, perhaps even using some icon that represents the cyclist.  Just click on the play button and see how it goes. There is potential here for simplifying ride blog posts!  The site, however, has some limitations; for one thing I have yet to see a mountain bike Relived under ten miles and it ignores commutes.  However, there are other ways to display those that I am looking into.

Ride Before Work: Ovens of France c'est ouvret!

The weekly Newtown Lunartics Ride Before Work to Ovens of France was a day early on account that Steven was driving up to Burlington, VT to drop off his daughter at College. We headed out on our usual route departing from behind Cover II in Sandy Hook and heading out along Lake Zoar on West Purchase Brook.

We were riding with another new member who recently moved to Newtown and who I met at D2R2 earlier.  John comes to us by way of Rhode Island and the United States Marine Corps.  He is a couple of years younger than us old Farts and super fast. Trying to keep up with him is always fun. Of course his naivete came out earlier on our first ride when he asked whether or not he should have a blinky.