30 Days of Biking - Day 7

9 Climbs after Work

I was looking at someone's walk on Strava in Bridgewater, on the other side of the lake from where I live and saw that there is a little turn around at the bottom. It's funny but in the 15 years I have lived in Newtown, not once have I been over the Bridgewater side of the lake. So I rode down to this turn around only to find half of it is dirt so I just stayed on the pavement.

On the way down my bike was making that noise again that I heard two days ago. I figured it must be one of my hubs but I couldn't tell which one.  Once at the bottom, through the trees you can see the mouth Pond Brook.

There's even a road that goes down to the lake but before the dam was built there was a road that ran along the banks of the Housatonic River from Southbury to the Hanover Road bridge.

There were a lot of walkers on this road so I covered up every time I got close to them.

One of the real big climbs on this ride was Town Line Hill.

At the top of the first section there is this barn or chicken coop with an American Flag on it.

But wait, there's more! The max grade on the hill is 17%!



Looks like another ride where I will be coming home in the dark.

One thing that I wanted to accomplish with this route was a route that could commit to memory and just ride it for when ever I wanted to a climbing workout. Seeing cows at the top at Bottsford Farm is bonus. The other thing that I don't like about this initial route is the descent down 67 because I get a lot of speed but have to slam on the brakes to turn onto Old Turnpike so it looks like I will have to descend Bottsford Hill and find another climb or two get back to 9 climbs.

I really like the climbing tracker on the new Garmin Edge 530.