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.

Newtown Lunartics Pandemic TT ride to OOF

It was Gavin's idea that we ride to Ovens of France Time Trial style by leaving Cover 2 in 1 minute intervals. Scott went first followed by myself, then Gavin and Michael brought up the rear.

Photo Credit: Scott Davidow

We should have started after the traffic light in Sandy Hook because I had to wait for the light to change.  Towards the end of River Road I saw Scott heading up Purchase Brook Road. Nearing Brown Brook Road, Scott was within eyesight and I could see Gavin, too.  

I didn't stop to take a cow picture like Gavin did. I made it a drive by photo opportunity. Scott had pulled ahead of me on 172 but I got closer to him on Transylvania Road, maybe within a 100 yards. Turning onto 317, though, I lost sight of him again. It was like he vanished.

Photo Credit: Scott Davidow

I was the first one to arrive at Ovens of France. Two minutes later, Scott shows up and tells me that at 317 he got confused with the route and started going to the Haute Dog way when he realized his mistake and turned around.

There was a car show taking place at Ovens of France today and surprisingly none of the car enthusiasts were wearing masks. OOF had a two person policy for entering the store and some guy either decided to ignore it or didn't care. It was hard to be socially distant because the customer section at Ovens of France is really tight. Outside, were able to be socially distant while sitting around the big table.

Photo Credit: Gavin Arneth

We left Ovens in the same intervals again and upon returning to Cover 2 I got there first again! Turns out Scott took the bike path on Rochambeau Bridge.  Scott should get the Douglas Corrigan award. He's the guy who in 1938 was supposed to fly from New York to California but due to navigational error ended up in Ireland.

Adding some flow to the Gussy

At the north end of the Upper Gussy Trail, where the Yellow (Equestrian Trail) starts I decided to put in an S turn that lines up with the trail as you are coming down the Gussy and if you don't want to ride up the rock ridge as you would normally do this addition cuts across that side ways. It makes a 180 degree turn and then rolls down the backside that lines up with a little rock out cropping for a nice little drop.

When I built the Gussy 15 years ago I didn't have a lot of riding experience and over the years I have really come to appreciate trail flow and now I am trying build that into the trail. Any of you that have ridden Kingdom Trails, you probably have ridden the Side Winder trail and that's something I want to add in the future, too. I have a few places in mind that will work.  

The State Forester keeps telling me that at some point they are going to log the north end of Upper Paugussett and he said the entrance to Gussy from the Brody Road will probably be used as a staging area. The entrance to the Mulikin will also get the same treatment. My plan is to tie this new addition to a huge re-route of the north part of the Gussy. It will parallel the existing trail only be flowier and cut across the Brody Road and connect with the Mulikin.

Heading south (before)



Heading South (after)



First turn (before)



First turn (after)



Second turn (before)

Second turn (after)



Rock in the middle of turn

Wider view of the turn with the rock in middle

Looking towards the roller

Closer to the roller

Looking from the roller in the other direction

Reconnecting to the trail with a little launchie!

I rode the new section on Tuesday and it's rough.  I think I need to go back and widen the tread way and I really want to berm that big turn in the middle, as well at the turn on top of roller.

30 Days of Biking - Day 30

I rode all 30 days!

My watch said it was 54 degrees when I was leaving the house but as soon as I started riding and felt that wind coming from the south I knew it was going to be a lot colder. The rain had stopped around noon but I wasn't sure how dry the roads were going to be so I fendered up. I was wearing my Fitzgerald Cycles Merino wool cycling sweater and it didn't want to get it dirty, either.

Riding by the big stone cock at the top of Taunton Hill I thought about how far and long I wanted to ride. I never recharged my light from Saturday's ride and I forgot to put it on the charger earlier so I only got a half an hour of charge on it. I wasn't worried about the Garmin and it didn't take long to charge the helmet blinky. It was just the main light that had me concerned it I was going to go on a longer ride.

One discovery on today's ride was Taunton Road finally got paved but I couldn't tell how old it was. I know I have ridden this route before I would have noticed new pavement but I couldn't recall noticing it before.

Seven thirty in the center of Newtown, CT and it's dead, thanks to the Pandemic.

When I got home the beer fairy came through with two six packs of Jack's Abbey House Lager!

The last time I rode all 30 days for 30 Days of Biking was 2011.

30 Days of Biking - Day 29

Rode over 700 miles this month!

Celebrated with a cold one.