Monday, March 12, 2012

TdT X

Hour 5 of over 6.

Neal's smiling

TJ's smiling

and Aaron's still smiling (although I don't think he truly knew what he signed up for)

Over the Winter (is it still Winter?  Hard to tell) Red Riding Hood's Basket  (RRH's) in Southwick, MA was discovered by our core group (let it be known that CB1 has been going there for quite sometime).  Located right at the end of the bike path, it was a great destination for base mile rides.  Made putting in those z2 hours a little more rewarding.

On one of these base rides a plan was beginning to be hatched.
The Metacomet Trail comes out on rt 168 in Suffield only a few miles from RRH's, what if we extended a TdT North to 168, so we could enjoy a delightful treat on a mtb ride?

We decided for maximum treat enjoyment, it would be best to do this ride, like, RIGHT NOW.
Banged around some logistics, sent out some e.mails and here we are.

Weather was perfect, trails were  perfect (although there was quite a bit of trepidation in the days preceding), and RRH's was delicious (as usual).  North of Newgate was reminiscent of how the TdT route was before douche bags on motos and quads started sneaking out on to the trail.  Classic rocky hard-packed New England singletrack on top of a ridge with spectacular views.

No mechanicals either, although Aaron did change his stem mid ride.



TJ says I'm screwing myself out of mileage by not syncing my wheel with my Garmin (sounds like a lot of work to me).  Neal had 51 miles (31 to RRH's) about 6 miles from home so I guess we had a couple miles more total.

7 comments:

fabian said...

Is TJ on a rigid single speed?!?

Those pics of the guys smiling at 5 hours are great!

Hill Junkie said...

I've ridden the M&M ridgeline a couple times with Steve Rossi from Agawam. Possibly the coolest ridge ride in New England. Not for sissies though. Nice to know there is a way to loop it without much road. Will have to try that sometime. We've shuttled it with Rossi. Nice ride.

CB2 said...

@ Fabian- No TJ is on a rigid 1x

@ HJ- The gears in TJ's mind started turning on the ride back, something along the lines of "What if we continued on to Robinson SP in Agawam".

Mookie said...

How much further north is Robinson from LRRH's?

Hill Junkie said...

@Mooki - another 9-10mi of bony ridgeline. Then there's miles and miles of buff singletrack in Robinson. Doing it all from West Hartford and back could approach 100mi. I know you slow twitch freaks want to do it!

TJ said...

Great time yesterday, thanks for putting it together Charlie! Hmmm, the tdt/robinson is sounding like a serious possibility...

CB2 said...

W Htfd-Robinson-W Htfd would mean we could stop at RRH's twice!