CT NEMBA Ride After Work

I "led" a ride today at Bennetts Pond which really conisted of myself, Alex, and for the first half of the ride, Lee, but he forgot his helmet and was having tire problems. Actually, we rode Alex's workout loop. You could say it was a ride of three IBMers.

At work it hardly rained but up in Ridgefield, it was pretty wet. We rode anyway and it wasn't too bad. Trails weren't muddy, they obviously drain pretty well, but the rocks and trees were pretty slick. It was nice 6.5 mile ride. Wanted to go up to Pine Mountain but we left late and Alex said it was just a gruelling hike-a-bike to the yellow trail. So after a loop on the red trail we took the ridge trail (unmarked) back and did an extra loop on the purple.

Dingle Brook Trails

Rather than calling this area Burr Farm, I think its better to call it the Dingle Brook Trails, since Dingle Brook makes up the northern boundry of the trail system. The first map below is the last two rides I did at Dingle Brook. The track in red is about 6.5 miles long from Silver City and the green track is around 5.5 miles, so the loop down to the bench at Dingle Brook is probably only a mile.

Below is a detailed shot of the southern end of the primary loop and the other day I found some red blazes (actually red spray paint) on some trees, so I decided to follow them and they led to someone's house off of Pond Brook. However, it makes a good connection to the trail that dead ends at the southern end of the property but going north it becomes a hike a bike. You can just make out before the red track meets back up with the green a little blip in the trail/track where I had to go around this huge tree that was uprooted, probably due to to that tornado we had a month ago. So, this might make an more interesting connection to the loop that I am no riding for my workouts and I need to explore this new area some more.

CT NEMBA Member's ride

This is a beautiful area that I have never been to. Always heard about it and it was reported to be the "New Canaan" of Central CT, but frankly, I think its prettier. Something about the antiquity of the area and the care that the townspeople have put into maintaining their communities says alot more. I guess Tobacco, Guns and Insurance does more for the community than Wall Street, kind of ironic when you think about it.

Penwood State Park is the farthest north I have ridden in CT and its quite beautiful. In fact, if you look at the big map on Crankfire, you'll see the only other riding area even further north in the state is Soapstone State Forest. The ridge trail runs along a cliff that rose 200+ feet above the Farmington River Valley. Above is the track file from GPS Visualizer. Below is my track file that I uploaded to Singletracks, and if you want yet another comparisson of what it looks like, check out the map of a few rides on Crankfire.com, which will give you a better perspective of the whole trail network. It was a hazy and hot 91 degrees but I must have drank 2 liters of water on the ride up there so I was pretty well hydrated.

This was our NEMBA Board meeting but there were only three Board Members there, Art, Glenn, and myself. Our Executive Director was supposed to pay us a visit from Acton, Mass, but bailed because he didn't think we would have enough members there - I had no idea who was coming at that point when PK called to say he didn't think it would be worth driving all that way and there was no one to talk to. However, we had quite a turn out. Not including the board members, there were nine other riders who showed up, plus four more riders from Berlin Bikes who joined our ride as we took off.

First time for me on the Fixation after switching back to the nine-speed cassette that I can still only get 8 gears out of. Bike handled really well but it was still hard getting used to remembering when to be in the right gear. Riding a single speed is so much more simpler. The big volume tires that I am running certainly helped though. Penwood is very similar to West Hartford Reservoir in terms of technical trails.

Art had a flat and since I was one of the weakest riders in the group he and Glenn stayed with me and this other guy, who was alot older than me riding a new KHS rig. We lost the pack of guys that we started out with and decided to head back once we got to the top of the park. Apparently, there are more trails that go to the end of the ridge.

Coming back started out with some double track that eventually turned into some nice single track, but it was a grueling climb back up the ridge. Once we got back on the ridge, we picked up an old paved road and road that down to a park. From there it was back to more double track along some nice homes, again very similar to West Hartford Reservoir and then back to the parking lot.

After some idle chit-chat in the parking lot and waiting for everyone else to return, we all headed over to Simsbury for dinner. We ended up having pizza and my favorite Berkshire Brewing Company beer for dinner. Short meeting afterwards and it looks like we may have some others interested in getting more involved with the chapter.

Hoot, Toot, & Whistle

I have always been fascinated by trains and in my youth I would assemble elaborate and complicated train layouts. It started in the basement of our home in Wilton, and then when we moved to New Canaan, it was in the barn. Since the barn wasn't heated it was hard to enjoy my trains in the winter time. Then we moved across town, and there was no basement, so I built my next layout in a crawlspace off of my room which made playing with my trains in the summer time difficult as well, but no matter what the situation was, I was still able to enjoy my trains.

College, the Army, working and living in various places, I never had the space for that next layout I am always hoping to design and build, and when I finally bought a house that had a suitable basement, the kids came along which further prevented that next layout. So I had to find other ways to quench my thirst for trains. One way has been combining my favorite physical activity, mountain biking, and riding rail trails and old rail road beds that one day could be come rail trails. Rail trails and old railroad beds some times have tell tale signs of their past use, namely you will find discarded railroad ties, but the other cool thing about them is the structural engineering that went into building them. Reading and researching these old lines has become my new railroading hobby and then if the opportunity presents itself actually visiting the railroad bed and riding it on my bike. In a way, its like riding the train itself.

One such railroad bed that I have been fascinated with for the past 5 years after spending a week at Mt Snow in the fall as a get away from it all was an old railroad line that connected Wilmington, VT to a main line road called the Fitchburg Railroad, which back in the day you could eventually get to Boston or New York City, or Albany when railroad travel was the fastest way for long distance travel.

Five years ago, I read up on everything I could find about the Wilmington and Hoosac Railroad on a couple of websites. Then, six months ago we planned a family summer vacation back to Mount Snow and now that I have started mountain biking, I decided to look into the possibility of riding some of the old railroad beds. Only, now, I found a bevy of information, including a ride loop that includes a portion of the old railroad bed, which is called the Harriman Trail. This ride can be found on the New England Mountain Biking called the Whittingham to Wilmington and Back.

Mount Snow touts itself as the mountain biking riding mecca for the East Coast but what I really wanted to ride was the Harriman Trail but when you go on vacation and you need to tie up the car for half a day it presents all types of logistical challenges. So, I decided that I would ride from the Condo down to the trail head at Mountain Mills. Looking on the map and asking the day before at a local bike shop, I found the best way to get there was an 8 mile ride. That would be easier enough, I thought, but after a wrong turn which brought me into Wilmington, VT instead of bypassing it, the 8 mile ride turned into a 12 mile ride. Below, the color coded line shows the route that I actually road -- the different colors correspond to the altitude. The magenta line is the route I should have taken that would have saved me four miles of riding!

I could have planned some of my navigational equipment better, since I planned to hit a geocache along the way, I should have had my Garmin Map60 mounted on my bars, instead in a shoulder pouch. That way, I could have set up a route to follow and probably wouldn't have missed the turn that added 4 miles to my ride. Also, one thing I didn't realize is that the Mount Snow Valley has this bus system called the Moover, minibuses (not the Westport variety from 70's) that run between Mt Snow and Wilmington, and they have bike racks on the front! I could have planned on taking the Moover down to Wilmington, and do the loop prescribed on the NEMBA website. Next time, perhaps, and on my single speed 29er!

I left at 9 AM and got to Mountain Mills Recreation Area, the trail head.


This trail, by the way, is part of the Catamount Cross Country Ski Trail Network. So, you will see these blue signs on trees along the way.


One word of caution: While there are the blue signs along the way, they are infrequent and not clear at trail junctions. It's easy to get disoriented and set off down the wrong trail only to come to dead end and a nasty climb back to the main trail.

Once past the gate, the trail starts to climb? What, a railroad bed that makes a noticeable climb? Well, it does and it came as a shock. I was expecting a nice easy, flat ride to the Harriman Dam and back and easy it was not. Apparently there had been quite a few washouts along the way but it seems the trail gnomes fixed that recently. A mile or two further in there is another gate, only this one is quite tough to get through. You have to scuttle through on the sides and carry your bike. I think it was originally intended to discourage off road traffic such as MX and ATVers but they found a go around.

One of the first of many confusing intersections is about a quarter of mile from this huge ridge cut. Right before the intersection is an earthen trestle that at one point was 50 or 60 feet above the existing ground elevation.

What makes it confusing is that there are no Catamount signs and the trail is somewhat obscured through low hanging trails. It would appear that this part of the trail doesn't get as much traffic. It could be because of the cut, its wet and dank, and there are still many ties in the middle of the trail. The picture below is looking back towards that intersection.

Do a 180 and now you are looking into beginning of the cut. It's an eerie feeling, like something is going to jump down on you from above.


The deeper you travel in the cut, the danker and muddier it gets.

And here you can see where many of the ties are still present.


On the south side of the cut, there are few more exposed ties, even some sporting these. I found a few more after Wilder Brook, too.

The trail makes a sudden right turn and the turn is clearly marked but from the map above you can see I went straight to see what was there. The bed moves out onto another earthen trestle and then just stops, which leads me to believe, back in the day, there was a wooden trestle crossing over Wilder Brook.

Backing tracking to the intersection more Catamount XC Ski signs appear on a nice, rocky, single track trail that intersects with yet another trail that leads down to Wilder Brook and a foot bridge that crosses the stream.



A beautiful little stream that I bet may hold a few little brookies here and there.


After climbing out of this stream valley the trail hits another intersection with trails going off in both directions. The one, in the direction of the lake, obviously is a dead end, but the other heading in the opposite direction may very well be part of the loop that climbs up the ridge and hooks back towards the dam.

Along the way, I discovered that my Garmin Edge305 cut out on me and I lost a mile's worth of data, still riding 19 miles in one day is the most that I have ever ridden.


I took a little break at the Dam. Had a few snacks, took a few pictures, and changed my socks.


The Fixtation performed well, even with my kluge gearing that my local bike shop couldn't get quite right. Instead of using the nine speed cassette I got from a friend, the replaced it with an eight speed but could only get 7 of the 8 gears to cycle. What was worse, was to get into the lowest granny gear, it required a double shift - that was aggravating. The Atomblast wheelset was clearly overkill for this type of riding but that was all I had and probably should have been riding thinner tires - I remember that the next time I do another epic ride like this.

The way back was pretty smooth, except the Edge cutout again. I thought it might be due to the jarring of the ride so I put in my cell phone pouch on later to find that it cut out yet again. Also, about three quarters of the way, atop the earthen trestle I felt what I thought was a cramp coming on behind me knee, so I stopped to stretch and raise my seat. I found out later that it was more likely muscle strain. When I got back to Mountain Mills I called my wife to come pick me up. I actually called her from the dam and found out she was in Wilmington so that was pretty easy. I made it to the ferry landing had a couple hot dogs with lousy sauerkraut while I waited to get picked up.

Total Ride: 28 Miles!

Valley Trail Ride with the Boys

As you can see, Brodie (on the left) did not want to be crammed into the Burley with his brother. I also forgot that Brodie doesn't like to have wind blown in his face, so by the time we got down to Handle Road, he was screaming. Climbing was no problem but when ever I started to move, he did not like it.

Break time! Maybe a little food and water will help? Brodie loved getting out but did not want to get back in.

Getting these two boys to pose together is impossible. Needless to say, we did a six mile loop and there was a lot of crying by Brodie. Until he is older, I think this is the last time I take him for a ride in the Burley.