The Tour of the Litchfield Hills is one of my favorite organized tours in Connecticut. This year I rode the 30 mile course with my 10-year-old daughter on our tandem. The hills on a tandem were very challenging. We had a great time, and the ride had a record turnout, and beautiful weather. We even got our picture in the local paper.
A couple other blogs with ride reports:
Cool Hills, 77 Miles, No Sweat
Mike’s Blog: Tour of the Litchfield Hills
Hobgoblin Rides: Not a Century
For Father’s Day, my 10-year-old daughter and I rode a 30 mile loop on our tandem that followed mostly the Farmington Valley Greenway. We started in Collinsville, and followed the route clockwise. There were many route marking on the road for TM which stands for Trails in Motion (a recent organized ride that follows the greenway route). If you are considering doing this loop, just follow those marking.
Farmington Valley Greenway Map
The trail is not continuous, so to make to whole loop you have to ride on some roads, and some dirt sections of trail. The section of the trail through Stratton Brook State Park is mostly crushed stone or dirt, but is is pretty smooth, and we had no problems riding through on our tandem with 26×1.5 tires. We spotted a deer grazing on a ball field in the park.
Trail through Stratton Brook Park
After we made it to Simsbury we stopped at J. Foster Ice Cream, which is close to the trail near Iron Horse Blvd. From Simsbury we rode south on the main paved trail. There is a small detour to an underpass under Route 44, then through a business park before connecting back to the rail trail.
One of the highlights of the route is the bridge over the Farmington River in Farmington. The old railroad bridge is very high over the river, and there are benches that make for a good place to stop to take in the scenic view of the river.
Bridge in Farmington
When the main rail trail ends at the southern point, a short trip along the road to the west connects the the Farmington River spur trail that we followed back to Unionville. This is where the newest section of paved trails takes you along the river and under route 4 to a new trail parking area near Riverfront Minature Golf.
The section of trail from Unionville to the Route 4 turnoff in Burlington is not paved . It is passable on a mountain bike, but there is loose rock and mud in some places that make it rough going on narrow tires. We opted to take the wide shoulder along the road on Route 4 until we got back to the trail parking lot in Burlington. There we got back on the trail and followed it back to Collinsville.
The Burlington to Collinsville section of trail is starting to get broken up with tree roots that are running under the paved trail making a lot of bumps. I doubt that there is any funding to repave the trail any time soon.
It is too bad that the trail has so many unfinished sections, but there is enough paved trail to make a very nice loop.
In New London, Connecticut, people from different sides of the political and social spectrum are uniting for a more bike friendly city. Often times people stereotype bicyclists as tree huggers, or political liberals, but bicycle enthusiasts are just people who come from all walks of life and bike for many different reasons be it trasportation, fitness, or recreation. In the article from the New London Times people doubted whether making a town more bike friendly would have any positive impact on the economy …
Improving New London’s bike-ablity is not going to be a cold glass of water for the city’s hiccupping economy, and neither Spellman nor Sprecace would argue that point.
… but it has been my experience that improving the bike and pedestrian facilities in a town can help the economy. The town I live in has built a rail-trail and there are constantly people using the trail and visiting the local cafes after they ride. Getting more people out of cars, and making a city or town more liveable can’t be a bad thing. The local bike shop would certainly benefit if bicycling in the town is encouraged.
The Hartford Courant recently ran an article about cyclists trying to gain access to commuter trains in order to be able to cycle the remaining distance to home or work on either end of their train ride. Many cities accommodate bicycles on trains including San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. Currently the Metro-North train bans bicycles during peak commuter hours.
In the UK, where they allow folding bicycles on commuter trains there has been some backlash against cyclists from other train users.
This is the 4th year I have done a version of this great loop bike ride in the Berkshire Hills of Northwest Connecticut, Taconic State Park of New York, and Western Massachusetts. The ride includes many roads with the word “Mountain” of “Hill” in the name, a few dirt sections, one portage through a “pond”, and two covered bridges. This year we started the ride in Norfolk, Connecticut and 21 riders showed up for the start. Some were regulars of the Eastern Bloc Cycling Club, and there were a few new faces.
The ride started out on Mountain Road from Norfolk past the Canaan Reservoir which turns into dirt. The road was smooth dirt for the most part, and the view of the water was worth a few bumps.
After Mountain Road there was a fun descent, then the real fun began as we took Cobble Road. With the rain the day before the water on cobble road was a little higher than normal. A few of the new faces were a little surprised by the bottom bracket deep water, but this is the signature part of this ride.
After getting my shoes wet on previous year’s rides, I followed Coleman’s lead in took my shoes and socks off and carried my bike through the water.
After the water crossing the we soon arrived at Music Mountain Road. As you can imagine, Music Mountain Road is a good climb and very scenic. Music Mountain is the home of the oldest continuing summer chamber music festival in this country.
View from the top of Music Mountain
From Music Mountain we turned left on Cream Hill Road, which is another steep climb. I don’t know if it was the cooler temeratures, or if I am in better shape this season, but the climb wasn’t has hard as I remembered in the past.
Near the top Cream Hill
After Cream Hill we descended to West Cornwall and crossed the covered bridge. Our first of two covered bridges on the ride.
Past the covered bridge we crossed Route 7 and headed up a steep climb on the road to Sharon, Connecticut.
On the downhill into Sharon I avoided a few dogs that chased me down the street, and made it to our first stop at a convenience store where we filled water bottles and a few people got a slice of pizza.
Scott fueling up on a slice of pepperoni
The stop was a little long and someone complained that we should wait at least 40 miles for the next stop, but hey, stopping for food is half the fun.
Just after we got going again we took Lovers Lane, which is a little shortcut to route 361 on a downhill dirt road. There may have been one too many potholes because soon after we got back onto the paved road I noticed I had a flat back tire. So again the group stopped as I changed the flat. On my first attempt, my spare tube had a hole in it, so it was about the slowest tire change possible, but with a little help getting the tire pumped up to 115 psi, we got back on the road and headed north into New York.
A few people were hammering on the front of the group and split things up a bit. Some riders decided to cut the ride short and turned off on Route 44 in Millerton, New York. We continued North to Taconic State Park. We took a rail trail to the store just across from the park entrance. We got some water there, and I went to the bike shop near the trail to get a spare tube just in case I flatted again.
The next part of the ride headed up the climb to Bash Bish State Park into Massachusetts over Mount Washington. This climb is a 15-16% grade in places and the most challenging climb of the ride.
Proof that I was on the ride! Here I’m climbing Bash Bish. Nice Hair!
We regrouped at the top of the climb and headed down a fast descent on the Massachusetts side on Mount Washington on East Street. I started off going pretty fast down the climb but backed off a bit because there were a lot of potholes and bad pavement and I wanted to see what was coming up. Just as we got to be bottom of the hill, there were 5 or 6 riders just ahead of me, and all of the sudden Paul lost control and hit the ground at about 35 miles per hour. It was a terrible sound of metal and skin hitting the pavement. He must have slid 30 to 40 yards on his ass and shoulder down the road, across the sand and into the grass. As I rode past still trying to slow down it smelled like burning rubber.
That’s gotta hurt!
I quickly slowed down and turned around to see if he was o.k. Paul was laying in the grass and looked really bad. He was shaking like he was in shock, but after a little while he recovered a little and took inventory. Thank God he didn’t break any bones or have a head injury. He was laying on his back so at first the amount of road rash wasn’t so noticeable, but then he turned over and put his hand on his butt and said “is that my ass?” It was soon apparent that the smell of burning rubber had been Paul’s Lycra shorts disintegrating. He had the worst case of road rash I have ever seen.
Someone called 911 and a volunteer fireman showed up soon with an ambulance not far behind. The fireman had been a volunteer for many local MS rides, and said he had dealt with road rash many times before. Paul went in the ambulance to the local hospital to get his road rash cleaned up. The firemen took his bike to the firehouse.
With that excitement over, we continue on minus one rider to South Egremont, Massachusetts, then south to Sheffield.
View of Mount Washington from Sheffield Egremont Road
In Sheffield we rode south briefly of Route 7 then turned to cross the Sheffield Covered Bridge. After the bridge there was a short dirt/gravel section that actually had some big rocks that were a little hard to navigate on skinny tires, but we all made it with no flat tires.
From Sheffield we took County Road that climbed gradually north, then we turned south to Mill River where we made our last water stop. The store had some home made cookies that helped fuel me for the final miles.
On the way back to Norfolk we climbed Tobey Hill Road, which is very steep, and then there was a difficult hill on Route 272 on the final miles of the ride.
Tobey Hill Road
We made it back to Norfolk and some of us had a beer and some food at the Speckled Hen Pub. I made it through the ride in better shape than previous years. I made sure to down a Hammer Gel before each of the major climbs and I think that helped keep me from bonking. I’m looking forward to some other good rides in 2008.
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