When fellow Lunartics cyclists Paul mentioned that he had a birthday coming up and liked to take the day off and go riding I asked him if he wanted some company and he said sure. He wanted to do a big ride up to Barkhamstead Reservoir and since it's hard for me to do a birthday ride because my birthday is in the middle of winter I planned out a route for us to hit as much dirt as possible.
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| Paul has the yellow jersey on |
The first leg of the journey was to accompany some other Lunartics riders on the Friday OOF (Ovens of France) ride for breakfast.
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| John (l) and Steven (r) |
From Woodbury we rode up to Bethlehem and our first dirt road was Gros Road near Long Meadow Pond. At first it looked like a drive way but as we continued up the road it was indeed a nice gravel road. From there, we road up the paved portion of Munger Lane and continued onto the dirt portion as well.
We then rode Headquarters Road, that I originally thought was dirt but when I road by it last year found that it wasn't. Of course if I continued a mile or so up the road I would have found that it indeed had a dirt portion.
Another new dirt road was Shepard Road (pictured below)
As well as, Hemlock Hill Road
(also pictured below)
Once in Goshen we searched for a store and found a Shell Station with a Quickmart.
Can't ride through the Connecticut Country side without at least one obligatory cow picture!
Eventually we made it to Winstead and we should have refilled bottles because little did we know that there wasn't a convenience store to be found for the next 30 miles.
We rode into Barkhamstead
And then Riverton and along the Farmington River
And then headed around the Barkhamstead Reservoir
Little did I know that on the east side of the Bark'stead Reservoir there was going to be a tremendous climb.
Passing by Ratlum Road I saw the sign for Ski Sundown and thought that it would be nice to roll around in some snow right now. It must have been 90 degrees and both my water bottles were empty.
Turns out the brewery I wanted to stop at didn't open till 4 so we ate lunch at a diner located in the Collinsville Antique Gallery. I ordered a glass of pickle juice which tasted fantastic!
Of course if you are going to ride through New Hartford and dirt roads, you must pay a visit to the one road that never has a road sign. The name of this road doesn't even show up on most online maps. Those of us, however, in the know, know the name of this road. It's called Pussy Lane! This has been on my bucket list for quite some time and now its blogged into history.
The bridge was out on Carpenter Road but we found a way to cross the river without getting wet. After crossing Route 202 we headed down through Harwington and down to Terryville. On Route 6 in Plymouth we found another deli to get a snack and fill bottles again. From there we stayed on Route 6 to Watertown and then headed down to Route 64 and Middlebury where picked up Route 6 again in Woodbury, right across from Ovens of France. From there it was a straight shot back to Sandy Hook.
At Cover 2, I had an ice cold PBR that never tasted better!
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