Kent Falls Brewery rain audible

To start the Memorial Day Weekend right Scott rode to my house and then we drove up to Bridgewater to meet Mike for a 40+ mile road ride to Kent Falls for a beer.  Descending from Bridgewater into Roxbury our average speed was 21 mph and Mike joked about calling it quits.  

Two fiddy for an Old Crappy Tenspeed?

It's unbelievable what some people are trying to sell a bike for these days. Yes, there are still supply chain issues with road bikes and that's for good bikes.  While this might be in pristine condition, in my humble opinion, you got to be insane to pay more than $100 for 40+ year old bike.

RC Ilumenati Tuesday Night Ride on Wednesday

Another great day to ride after work this spring, not hot and not humid with just the right amount of chill.

A little dirt and a haunted road on the road ride

I usually take a rest day on Mondays but since I didn't really ride very hard over the weekend I went out for a road ride with Scott.

Southern Fairfield County doesn't have many through dirt roads so when I found out Pearmain Road in Shelton was dirt I had to ride it.

It's always good omen when there are cows on the side of the road

Blackbeard Pub ride to Beardsley Park

 Trying to stay cool on Sunday and get a good ride in we met at Gavin's home pub, The Blackbeard and rode down the rail trail to Beardsley Park

He came back!

Tomas came back for another Ride to OOF (Ovens of France) and the prior night's rain made things a little damp

Sunset RC Ilumenati Ride

We began our Tuesday Night Ride at 6 PM to take advantage of the beautiful weather and later sunset times

New Frame Day!

I picked up this NOS, 2015 Giant TCX 1 frame from a local bike shop in Central Connecticut for $100

A new member on the Newtown Lunartics Squad

Photo credit: Gavin Arneth

Tomas, center, and I worked together GE Capital in Danbury a few years back and he's been riding for a couple of years. I invited him to join our weekly, Saturday morning Ovens of France ride.

Farmer's Daughter 2022

Today marked my 4th Farmer's Daughter and 6th Gravel Grinder ridden in Columbia County. The first time I did this ride with Will back in 2016, we said, 60 miles? Piece of Cake! So the day before we did a Sunset Rock and Mt Riga Loop and that was a mistake because the Farmer's Daughter the next day kicked out butts!

In the past, Will and I have ridden it mostly alone but I have met people we know along the way and have ridden with them a bit, but this year we actually started out with a nice little grupetto. To start we had Margaret, Mike, and Paul (former Newtowner moved to Pittsfield), but we lost Paul at the first Singletrack section.

We didn't wait for the opening ceremonies and just started from the car park. We hit First Dirt 5 miles into the course on Boice Road. I made some routing modifications to the course which bypassed the first two singletrack sections and added two more big climbs to the route in order to get more Wandrer miles.

The night before I met Will at the Roe Jan Brewery in Hillsdale for dinner and we kept looking at our weather apps and it kept changing as the evening progressed. Around 5 AM Saturday morning it rained pretty good till Will and I left from his place in Spencertown. At go time the apps were telling us now to expect an afternoon thunder shower.

We were making good time and even caught up with a couple of groups that had even left earlier. Two of the racing teams caught up with us on Jefferson Hill 15 miles into the course.

The first feed stop was at S&S Brewery in East Chatham 16 miles into the course.

I was feeling really good, too. Having taken a rest day on Saturday I felt really strong the whole day and having changed my gears to a 46t was a big bonus, too!

The sun started coming out about 2 hours into the ride but the roads not directly exposed to daylight were still a bit greasy. The Ass Saver came in handy!

It really started to warm up with the sun out

On Gale Hill this woman passed us wearing cutoffs and a tank top jersey and I wondered if that was the Farmer's Daughter?

Lunch, as usual was awesome. I wasn't sure whether or not I was hungry but I made myself eat anyway because I was going to need the  

The first additional climb was a two parter starting with Salls Road following lunch.

Everyone's GPS was showing the grade to be much steeper but mine wasn't

Will said his GPS said this part of the climb up Salls Road was 20% and it sure felt that way, too.

The descent down to 295 was wild and fast and when everyone was down we headed west to pick up the main course and next big climb, Schilling's Crossing.

There is a nice run up to the climb, with an average grade around 4% and it there is a flat spot to let you rest up a bit still you hit wall. 

Again I think my Garmin was lying to me because this had to be steeper than 17%

There were some walkers

Tunnel Hill was equally massive, however, shorter but I think much steeper than what my Garmin recorded

The next big one was Dean Hill

This hill is a grind and with the sun out it made it all that more harder

Everybody that was riding around me stayed on their bikes

Mike was not having fun. He started getting cramps on Tunnel Hill and fared no better on Dean Hill

The last part of my modified route included Maple Hill. Margaret and Mike opted for the regular route

Another uphill grind

That leads to some spectacular views. I thought Mike was done for when I got a text from him saying that he was seriously cramping. Will and I rode up to the intersection of Fog Hill and Old Austerlitz Road and I waited for Mike. That's where I met Slowpoke Pete. Pete lives in Hillsdale and rides through here all the time. Today, however, he was cruising the route on his BMW Touring motorcycle. He told me he didn't see anyone fitting Mike's description.

Will and I caught up Margaret and Mike at the last fuel stop. They were about to leave when we pulled up. After fueling up we headed out for the last bit of singletrack, Beebe Hill. 

As far as singletrack goes, it's not that bad but the 27% trail climb always turns into Napoleon's Death March.

The fire tower climb is a little better

 I have cleaned this climb in the past but today I took a bad line and almost fell over

Mike was fast on my heels

then came Will

followed by Margaret

then it was all up and down hill back to the start

with some great dirt roads

On the climb up 10 Broek Road I met with Pete Marchaud, limping on the right in the picture above. He was seriously cramping and knew exactly what he was feeling. I stopped and offered him one of my Haribo (the guys that make Gummy Bears) salted licorice candies and he immediately grateful. Once his spasming muscles calmed down he rode with us for a bit.

One more beautiful shot with cows in the background. I can't believe how well I did this time around. No cramping what's so ever! Not during the ride home, getting out of the car at home, unloading the car, or later that night. Taking a rest day prior to the ride was key.

Hippy 4 Handle

 Power goes out at 9:32 AM with no warning whatsoever. I report the outage online and it says restoration estimate 11:30 AM. Then, I get a text alert from my cable provider that my internet is down, too.  No point firing up the generator because we didn't have a storm and will be out of power for a few days, which is par of the course with my energy provider. It's a beautiful day, let's go on a bike ride!

Maibock Roubaix

At least once a year I try to do a ride from Norbrook Farm in Norfolk, CT and Sunday, May 1st was the perfect day.  Also, with the Farmer's Daughter Gravel Grinder just two weeks away I wanted to test my mettle to see how I would do for that ride and this was the perfect route for that.