October 3, 2018. Cycling in Connecticut.

We got off to a slow start this morning... we drove to the Canal State Park to unload the bikes. Dennis's bike had a flat tire (rear tire, of course). Bill gave him a pair of gloves from the truck and he had a devil of a time getting the tire off.  While we were helping Dennis with his tire, Fred decided his rear tire was losing air and decided to change that tire too.

We found a very small rock embedded in Dennis's tire and a tiny wire in Fred's tire. We were glad we addressed these issues before starting out.

We were finally on the bikes at about 10:30. We started on the park trail, Dennis, Tom, Fred, Diana and me. We met some men in a golf cart, and one told us that there was construction up ahead and that we'd have to turn around at that point and come back to where we started. The other man told us we could get through the construction fence.

It was a beautiful trail, with the Connecticut River on the left and the canal on the right. Of course we walked our bikes around the construction fence!

We had a lot of hills this morning, and I had a knock-down headache. When we arrived in the small town of Ellington Bill and Doris were waiting for us. We all had lunch together, and then walked across the street to the gazebo for a group photo.

After lunch there were even more hills. Dennis told us at the end of the day that our steepest climb was 12.8%. Although it was not marked I'm sure it's the one that Fred and Diana walked up--they never walk up a hill!

We've noticed the stone walls since we've been riding in CT. I finally stopped to photograph them today. They have no mortar, and appear to be made of field stones.

After the very steep hill I realized that it was an unnecessary part of the ride. We'd been following a route Diana found on line, and the loop with the very steep hill brought us right back to where we'd started the loop. My phone had told me not to go that way!  So then, still suffering a headache, I decided to follow my phone instead of Diana's cue sheet. My phone told me we would cut off several miles on the bike route it suggested...

First the phone route took us on a trail through the woods and along a pond. It was impossible to ride the trail--but it was only 1,000 feet long so we went for it.

We came out of the trail and on to a road. A couple of miles later the route took us into another forest and on to another path--it was called a trail, but I would not even have attempted to ride this on a mountain bike! By then we were so far off Diana's route that we decided to keep going--it was only supposed to be a mile, but was a mile and a half of very slow going.

I was very remorseful for having started this route--all to save a couple of miles of riding! Finally we got out of the woods and on to the road. By then a couple of us were out of water, and a couple of riders wanted to quit. So we called Bill, and he and Doris came to pick us up.

I think I am never going to live this one down. I bought everyone's drinks at dinner tonight, but I still think I'm going to hear about this for a long time to come. Total mileage for today: 36.