Williams Park, Brookfield, CT

On Tuesday I tried to get up to Nepaug State Forest in New Hartford for a send off ride for a guy that was shipping out to Iraq the following day but the weather and traffic were so bad that by the time I got to Exit 9 on I-84, there was no way that I was going to make the ride.

Instead, I opted to ride a new place near my house over in Brookfield, called Williams Park or Gurski Farm. It's kind of like my Burr Farm ride. Trails are pretty smooth, very little technicality to them and seem to be laid on a grid. Couple of old roads mixed in there.

I think it might be worth going back and figuring out a couple of loops with all the trails.

22T

Recently, I hit the 100 mile mark on my fetish fixation, and I have vowed to switch things up on the fixation. By that I mean, the first hundy was riding rigid, SS, and with a Surly Instigator fork and a 29er wheel up front. Hence, I was riding a 69er and I have to say it was an awesome configuration. Why change? I have the parts and its fun reconfiguring the bike.

While the Fetish is on the rack getting its make over, I dusted off the Qball last week, my first single speed and it's a 29er. I said I want to try something new, so its rigged with FUBars, which is mary-esque type bar, only more narrower. Additionally, I went to a 22T for the rear cog. Been riding 16T while using this bike for touring but a 16T on New England Singletrack is bound to open a case of the hike-a-bike.

First ride out on the Qball, after a 6 month hiatus from the trails (there were other medical reasons that kept me off as well) was great and I noticed that the 22T climbed much better then a 20T. After that first ride, I thought, maybe I should try the hill!

The hill is this fire road that the state took no time to plan, in fact I heard they graded the existing trail into a road and thus what you have is a fire road that unless you are in 4 low, you aint getting up the hill. Well, add to that list my 29er and 22T cog on the rear!

I don't know what it was, maybe the different positioning with the FUBars, maybe 2 additional teeth make that big a difference, or perhaps I am finally achieving Conan status in the leg department. What ever it is, I can't wait to do it again and then try it with a 20T and eventually an 18T.

CT NEMBA Board Of Directors Ride

Tuesday, June 5th, the Board of Directors for the CT Chapter of the New England Mountain Biking association met at Brooksvale Park in Hamden and rode in the Naugatuck State Forest. Of course getting to the State Forest meant having to ride through Brooksvale Park, on the way in, which is implicitly not allowed but it seems the land manager turns a blind eye to this activity along with the equestriennes.

It's ironic that Brooksvale's two biggest users groups are Horses and Bikes and it is implied that they are not included as a permissible activity. Ironically, however, when you look on the Brooksvale Website or read the trail map, there is also no mention that biking and horseback riding is not allowed but they do have 7 miles of hiking trails. Does one imply that only hiking is allowed on a hiking trail?

Anyway, we were a small group, totaling five riders, two FS rigs and the other three on single speeds. In fact, I think this was the largest assembly of single speeders that I have ridden with since making the conversion! The climb to the State Forest, for the most part, was attainable. Being a weaker rider, in comparison to the other two single speeders who train for this kind of stuff, I only had to walk one or two spots. The other two were animals!

Once in the forest, it was almost surreal. First of all, the state has been doing quite a bit of logging there so it nearly resembled a war zone but the trails were still there and they were sweet! We hit almost every trail and it was a great ride, especially for single speeding.

Summerfest Actual

Looks like Terraserver is down, or they just changed their code and you can no longer get "free" maps from them. Any, I thought I would show the difference between what I had intended to ride and what I actually rode. Turns out the "Greenway" that the City of Danbury is still vasilating on whether to aquire or not is just an old road that goes between Tarrywile and Redding. It's largely used by Motocross and ATVers, which is all illegal of course. In fact, as we were riding up the road part two MXers came barreling down at at least at 40 Mph. Fortunately, we heard them before they go to us and we were able to get off the trail in time. All I can say is they are dangerous. I would also say that they are largely responsible for tearing up the trails. Too bad. It was dual track but there were sections where it was pretty bad.

There was an old road that ended in a swamp. I am sure 100 years ago that road went through, but no now. Guess that could be one of the stumbling blocks for the City to make a connector to the Terre Haute property. Still, it was a good ride. 9 miles. Tren was there and a guy from Crankfire who lives in the area showed up. I rode the Fixation in rigid 26er mode and it sucked. Never doing that again unless I have some supension upfront. Of course that is the plan once I get another crown race so I can switch forks easly.

Summer Fest was pretty much a bust. Nobody came for my Mountain Biking 101 class and the only thing that seemed to get the most attention was Geocaching.

Fox on a leash!

Here is the track file of the Ride that Ed P. set up of for West Rocks State Park. We had seven riders, including Ed from Ed's magical mountain biking email distribution list. There was Ed, David, Kathy and her husband Dave, Heather, Jose, and myself. I was there on the Fixation 69er and the only single speeder in the group. Dave (Kathy's husband) was trying to ride single speed because Kathy (who works for Cannondale by the way) gave her husband a 1FG, single speed bike, so Dave thought he might trying riding is FS rig in one gear but gave up after a while.

It was great ride and I was able to keep up but there were times where riding single speed and rigid with a groups of fullies is just not the right mix. As a single speeder and riding rigid, your line (the route you pick for your bike to go down the trail) has to have a little thought behind it, otherwise you could flat because you don't have the suspension that enables the bike to float over the bumps. The 69er handles itself nicely in the technical terrain, but picking the right line is still paramount.

After this ride, it got me thinking as to whether or not I should go back to a full suspension bike for rides like this and others that I have been on lately. Before I do that, when the Fixation hits 100 miles as a 69er I am going to convert it to a regular hard tail with a manitou splice 130mm suspension fork and see how that rides, still single speed of course. I do have a new wheel set that I can go geary on, and I have all the parts, except I need new brake rotors. Once I get that, the fixation will become a normal mountain bike.


At least that is what the track looks like. Sorry there are no contour lines but it seems Terra Server is still on the fritz.