The Scenic Commute

One sunny morning last week I took the East Hartford route to work and cruised the riverfront in between crossing two bridges. This is only slightly longer than my short commute and i get to ride along the river and avoid Wethersfield Avenue's traffic, potholes and prostitutes. Cap Ave, Bushnell Park, Constitution Plaza and over the Founders Bridge and down, around, under the overpass and over the dike, tight hairpin to the left to avoid i84 and yer all downhill to the riverfront. Then its just a sweet ride on the greenway next to all these great, big ‘ol river trees and of course the river itself.


Just after passing under the Founders I saw this massive horse. Freakin’ Huge!


Here’s some beta about President Lincoln, also a towering presence!



South of the boat ramp the trail weaves through trees whilst other hang over the river, trying to stay rooted into the eroding bank.

Two more photos after the jump! read more!






City line. Everything here is so clean and pretty.


A nicer shot of the city. Since none of these pictures were blurry, I thought slightly askew would suffice

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Jazz Fest, or Lurking Under Bridges.

After working out some technical difficulties I have finally managed to upload my personal photos for posting and as such now can publish this very belated post. One of the most fun nights of riding bikes around Hartford I've had to date...

So after getting out of work early the Saturday before last I had ambitions of riding down to the riverfront to take in some cool jazz (or jass, as Brendan has pointed out it should rightfully be refered). However, as is often the case with Saturdays plans were slowly pushed back and it was not until after a quick ride out to Bloomfield, a couple post-ride beers, and a friend's delayed arrival, that Ben, Sonny, and I made it down to the river around 7.30 as the Jazz was wrapping up. Being as hot as it was and wanting to partake in a couple of cold beverages, we cruised across the plaza, descended the stairs past the bandstand, and took a nice spot on the grass down the walkway where we could simultaneously grab a cold drink and listen to the music.

We took some random bike pictures, including my Panasonic laying in the grass with the river meandering in the background.....


Chillwill showed up shortly thereafter and we all sat among our bikes in the grass and enjoyed the excellent resource that the riverfront really is.

He particularly enjoyed his envelope coozey on this hot summer day, all business...


After an hour or so hunger took over and we decided to roll into West Hartford to BBQ. However, as we got ready to leave Chillwill declared that we really shouldn't go anywhere as it was going to pour. The sky was starting to darken and a breeze was picking up put we didn't think much of it. Will, however, was unwaivering and insisted if we wanted to go we could but he wasn't going to leave the protection of the bridge we had ridden under by this point. I kept going, but upon getting out from under the south side of the Founder's bridge felt a few raindrops and thought Will might be on to something. Turning around I concurred that we might want to sit it out and the others agreed. Ben, however, was already gone, about to ride into the eye of the storm.

A storm it was, though the three of us that remained were happily tucked under the bridge as the rain came down in sheets and we sat on the levy finishing our beverages and shooting pics...
The light was quite low but the pictures are kind of interesting...

Sitting on the levy with the rain kicking up light spots on the river....


Rain pouring off the highway and out of a culvert...


While we sat comfortably on the levy, Ben, however, was not so fortunate and rode like a madman through the rain and wind all the way back to West Hartford wet and alone (sorry buddy). After the rain finished up the three of us who remained nonchalantly rode home reasonably dry and safe (excepting of course Sonny's run in with a gate, no harm no foul.) Food was eventually had in the form of Park Lane grinders where we happened to catch Brendan and Johanna rolling down Quaker. Good to see other bikers out in the storm.

All in all a good night to be in the city and the perfect time to get caught under the protective spans of a bridge.
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Rick Green, stop pedaling ON 84 to get across the river!

I was excited to read about a column entitled, Grabbing Idea By The Handlebars. I usually like Rick Green's Column. I like this one except he really got something really wrong and so i gots to speak up and let people know.

Five paragraphs in, Green writes, “In Hartford, it is nearly impossible to safely ride to cross the river and easily ride through the city.” Huh? Sorry dude, but what the hell are you writing about? I assume, “to cross” was supposed to be “across” but who knows? Perhaps my assuming is making an ass outta me?

Have you ever even ridden across the river? Really? Or even walked across? What was so dangerous?! I wanna know. Please comment and answer, the people demand the truth!

There’s a freakin’ 20 foot wide pedestrian/bicycle lane on the Founders Bridge completely separated from the highway. And both the Charter Oak Bridge and the Bulkley Bridge have pedestrian/bicycle walkways that are also completely separated from the highway. Unless you are either crossing on the railroad bridge or riding a bicycle on the actual interstate; there is no danger from cars. None!

And then, whilst i am still wailing from the bridge comment, gasping and horrified at all the would-be commuters giving up their dreams of leaving the car at home; you hit me with, “I’m tired of hearing complaints….”

Me too! Especially complaints that aren’t even true! arrrggg!

Hartford certainly has plenty of bicycle infrastructure and idiot driver issues that need to be discussed and solved, but crossing the river is not one of them. I love my city. I love what's good, and seemingly unlike most people, I can also admit to what is bad. But lets not be saying that things are bad that aren't!

If you somehow only meant riding through the city was almost impossible to do safely, i must still strongly disagree with you. Send me an email and we'll meet up on bicycles and I'll show you a safe way to get where ever you need to go! And then, please, write about that!

ps. even with a 1/2 gallon of gin and juice, 3 of us were able to safely cross every bridge in Hartford at night!

bridges.

Bridges and Mud and Mud

No more to READ MORE

EDIT NOTE. my original post was a bit meanspirited due to me being angry about recent events in Hartford and the response from the media, city officials and people in general. my apologies to all. Read more!

Urban Mountain Biking

Lucky for me, I was able to join two beatbikeblog expeditions exploring some East Hartford and East Windsor riverfront north of the railroad bridge two different days last week. We also passed under said bridge as you can see in the photo above. We found a sweet network of trails heavily used by ATV’s and motorbikes. Dang, we had fun speeding around the berms and turning and twisting into brand new territory.


Brendan and I encountered this third world track suitable for an old school Landrover. We were somewhere east of the river? Maybe East Windsor?


Sadness overtakes Joel as he looks at the plastic bleach bottle littering the riverside. Please don’t litter! It makes Joel, and the rest of us, sad.


But then happiness uplifts Joel when we travel down to the river to rub mud on us to relieve the burning itching from this evil plant we often encounter on the Hartford side. Its washes off easily with river mud and has no ill effects. Much unlike poison ivy. After a good scrubbin’, Joel decided to just jump in and go for a swim. He’s always doing that.


We eventually had to submit to biking on paved roads and headed north to the pedestrian access ramp for the Bissell Bridge to cross the Connecticut River into Windsor and then return south to Hartford. Very soon after crossing the city-line on rt. 159 we turned into Keney Park and went for a ride on the roads, the car-free paved trails and some single-track along the Leadership Trail. I love this park. So many pretty vistas, views of the skyline and picturesque open fields. The only problem so far are the speeding drivers on the narrow, twisty, tree lined roads. I guess another problem is this car that’s been rotting here for a few weeks. Look familiar? Call the HPD!

and that's all she wrote!
don't click READMORE!


HA! YOU CLICKED MORE SUCKA!!



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Saturday Evening’s Thunderstorm

The sudden addition of pea-sized hail to the light rain distracted me from my book with all its bouncy pings and dings, especially on the metal roofs of cars. Dark storm clouds dominated the sky but several stark patches of light fought to shine through making for some amazing light. The hail ceased as quickly as it appeared and the rain continued on, keeping the same beat the whole time, though the clouds slowly grew thicker and the sky darker.


Not more than twenty minutes later I glanced out my back window and fire escape door to see a rainbow and the Beat’s skyline bathed in some wonderful light. I shot this picture from the fire escape in a cool, light sprinkle. It really doesn’t come close to the colors of the whole sky and the rich, warm ambient light was amazing! A small section of a second rainbow faintly appeared on the outer side for a few minutes.



I grabbed my bag, threw on my rain jacket and pedaled down Capitol Avenue towards the pedestrian bridge into Bushnell Park and then meandered through the park and up to the parking lot of the Capitol Building. I really like photographing the struggle between human-made infastructure and nature.

Retracing my tracks back into Bushnell Park I continued east, out of the park, across Main Street and onto Constitution Plaza to check out the roof of the new Science Center. If anyone knows why the construction company and the state didn’t build this and the Convention Center OVER i91, instead of next to it, please let me know. We’re they really trying to showcase the beauty of the interstate while at the same time keeping the riverfront separated from the new buildings by hundreds of thousands of speeding cars?



Well, atleast the view west towards the Old State House from the plaza where it bridges over State Street was a bit more scenic. I wish I coulda exposed this a bit less to capture the deep color of the sky. It was a great time to pedal around aimlessly under an amazing sky and feel cool, delicious air and no sticky humidity. mmmm……cool, delicious air. Read more!

The Scruffy Peloton: Bridges and all the Windsors

I have only recently recovered from the adventures of happy hour til last call on Friday night and that’s not yet a full recovery mind you! So this is kinda late.

The Scruffy Peloton rode again on Thursday in pursuit of more bridges on a 30 mile ride mostly along the Connecticut River. We altered the end of the planned ride in order to cross the Bissell bridge. We left the Mark Twain house and headed north towards Keney Park. I really enjoy every ride through the park, its quite lush and green and there’s even an actual ravine there as well as ponds, trees, roads, greenways and a little bit of everyone. Cricket too!


Here’s 3 of us, blurry as promised, passing through the park the first time, headed north to Windsor Locks and the Rt. 140 bridge. Not too much to write except to continue to gush over Keney Park. The ride south, once in East Windsor, was fantastic! Farms with sheep, rams, turkeys and some randomn dude peeing on the side of the road. We cheered him on and he cheered back.



Crossing the Bissell Bridge and not too blurry! check the Beat in the background.

We eventually made it back to Keney Park and altered our second route though a tiny bit and saw more of the area. I love this park! Later, after some of us showered (some of just went and bought beer instead), we had an afterparty with a few others. I had bumped into Marisa at the Billings Forge Farmers Market earlier in the afternoon and we schemed and decided to buy a fresh pie and some farmfresh ice-cream and have a party! Mmmm…….best idea ever after a bicycle ride!


there ain't no more
so don't click read more! Read more!

The Scruffy Peloton rides again!

The Mark Twain House to the Spigot, a 25 mile ride? yep, if you do it Brendan's way via Avon's Rails to Trails! Check the ROUTE.

Our group shrunk to four riders for last thursday's ride, Brendan, Johanna, Joel and ChillWill. The ride over the mountain through Talcott Notch wasn't bad. The twisty road by Avon Old Farms was fun and cars couldn't pass you due to the width of the road, so they had to go slow. No worries. No honking. The Rails to Trails path was mostly empty and flat and enabled lots of conversing, scheming and planning. I bunny hopped over a speed bump in some randomn parking lot off Hopmeadow. Yes! I am no longer a virgin thanks to pedal cages!


Ahhhh.....bridges and bikes! We should maybe rename this blog!

Some jack-ass in Porche hooked Johanna and missed her by a few feet on rt. 185. Jerk!!!

The wings from Wings and the pitchers at the Spigot were delightful after the ride.

i am looking forward to the next ride of the Scruffy Peloton. Read more!

The 5 Boro Walk Your Bike Tour

The Beat was well rep’d this past weekend by a hardy group of current and former Hartford peoples converging in the rotten apple in what was prolly the most blogged event in the long, extinguished history of the Triple B. Woo-haa!

El Cinco Burros! There is far too much to think of organizing into a digestible meal of a post; so instead I shall cook up a stew free of high-fructose corn syrup and full of beer and pedaling…lots of pedaling. I suppose about now is a good time to explain that the 5 Boro Bike Tour is a 42mile car free ride with 30,000 of your closest friends though all five boroughs of NYC including riding on the FDR, the BQE, and crossing the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge. In case you can’t do the math, that’s over 60,000 bicycle wheels spinning and avoiding NYC potholes!

El Presidente de China has well educated y’all about the ride from the Beat to Dirty Water, so I’ll just curse him one last time for that one massive hill and mention again…shorter isn’t always better; like cock size for example. Otherwise, besides the evil hill, and Klan drive, the ride was pretty nice and scenic. Doing 30mph down a hill through the Waterbury ghetto is also worth a mention I reckon.


In this exciting photo one can barely see the bikes of Chill Will and El Prez de Cheeenay with all the action going on riding the train to Bridgeport. Though no accommodations for bikes, this train was all good. On the train from B-Port to NYC we had them in the middle doorway of the car which was a pain depending which door opened. The idea of spending a few days in the city with my bike and living out of my messenger bag made me as happy as the lack of Metro-North in Hartford pisses me off. Amtrack sucks. Go fuck yourself with your overpriced tickets!!!!

Upon arriving at Grand Central we were greeted by Shoupy, the Shoup Shoupsta! I am not sure if he rode there from Ann Arbor, but he very well might have. El Prez decided against the formal motorcade and instead bombed the crap outta Broadway; speeding through the traffic, checking cabs and leading us quickly and dodge-ily to the Brooklyn Bridge. We soon split, to meet up later; as I was going with Shoup to Park Slope to his friend Megan’s apartment, who was hooking us up with a spot to crash. Thanks again Megan, good lookin’ on the couch…very comfy! And puffin' on the rooftop was sweeeet!


Shoupy and I met up with el Prez much later in Bed-Stuy at a party with some of el Prez’s administration, lots of bikers, assorted hipsters, and three fireman with large iron tools suitable for hunting wild boar. We drank, talked and tried not to inhale burning particle board before retiring early as we were to assemble the Beat Crew at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge at 6:45AM the next morning. Shoupy and I arrived at 7:15AM the next morning! Our crew of about a dozen soon took off for lower Manhattan.


Lots of people. This was the first taste of the 5 Boro Walk Your Bike Tour. As the day progressed the sun burned away all the clouds…and a few faces too I imagine. The day turned out wonderful.





Real men wear leg warmers. Later, in a bizarre twist, Shoupy removed his shorts and finished the tour in bike shoes, leg warmers, a hand-carved wooden cod piece from Turkey and his tour vest. Sexy? Yes, of course! But somewhat disturbing to the elderly and those younger than them.


A media circus surrounded El Presidente de China through most of Queens and was quite a spectacular sight. I was harassed for my crate of bootlegged bananas that I was selling 3 for $10 or one for free.


Welcome to Brooklyn! Woo-haa! I had a freakin’ good time chillin’ here the night before as well as the ride through on the tour. The only sucky thing was walking my bike for 45minutes in a bicycle traffic jam on the Bronx-Queens Expressway where four lanes became one. This was where the ride officially became the 5 Boro Walk Your Bike Tour. The car traffic jam on the other side was moving more quickly! The trike next to me had a louder stereo system than the cars! It was total fuckin' bizzaro world!!!

Eventually we were able to pedal again and riding on the highway along the water with a cool breeze felt great. Crossing on the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge is always super cool. Guinness and grinders at the irish pub was even better.


Taking pictures of groups of three on a ferry always has funny results. See above!


And again if you need further proof!



Much, much later, after learning the 7:20 train didn’t exist and I’d be taking a 9:07train back to CT, I decided to scoot on down to the west-side to watch the sun set over Dirty Jersey on the Hudson. I soon found myself pedaling unexpectedly through Times Square. Sunset, libations and a chance to rest and relax on the riverfront was a wonderful way to finish my visit to NYC.

On the train ride back from Bridgeport to Dirty Water I had to again store my bike in the middle doorway of the car, but this time the conductor made everyone get out the end doors and never opened the middle doors. Thanks dude! Metro-North is pretty good. Amtrack, not so good.



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Burros

It looks I'm the first one who gets to write about the 5boro thing that was yesterday. Here goes:

On the whole, it was fun. I'd never been before, so riding on the highway was a new and cool experience. Seeing 30,000 people with bicycles is also a very cool experience. I suppose I didn't actually get to see all 30,000 on bicycles at one tonight, but I did see a lot. The funny thing about that is that it's not really Utopian. It was like Disney World meets a traffic jam on the BQE. Well, I suppose it makes perfect sense that's it's like a traffic jam on the BQE, because it was actually on the BQE where the biggest traffic jam was. The Disney World part is because there was a lot of people standing in line wearing funny clothes waiting to ride something. I think I over-explained that simile sufficiently.

Here's the BQE with no traffic jam and lots of people on it:

Here's Johanna waiting in line ten minutes later:

Here's the high point of Staten Island, Danny Blaine's Food and Spirits:

The food had to be retrieved from a deli across the street, but the beer was awesome and the bartender even gave me a free one.

In an effort to add content to the compendium of bridge pictures, here are two bridges from a ride I took at Case Mountain on Friday:

While riding over the Verazano Narrows Bridge, a guy in front of me fell, and I believe that he broke his collarbone. I hope that he's ok, it looked terrible.

Also, despite facilitating all the complex logistical details concerning Marisa riding with us, in the end, she didn't come.

Oh yeah, and I looked like either crap or a dork:

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bridges and mud. and mud.

Bridges and mud and gin and juice. Well, as my esteemed blogging collogue mentioned; last Tuesday night was all about the bridges. Unknown to us before the ride, it was also gonna be about mud, river mud! We prolly ended up on a dozen bridges, including the nice metal pedestrian bridge over the Hock in East Hartford.


The pedestrian bridge over i91 from the back of a Market Street Parking lot to Riverside Park is like pedaling in prison. The only thing missing was razor wire, but as you can see, Joel doesn’t seem to mind. None of us did, it’s BRIDGE NIGHT! And we were laaaaid back.


We had a nice break on a dike with a great view of the city, but noisy due to the interstate. This was the first spot Josh whipped out his musical camera tripod. I took the above soon afterwards on the next bridge. T’was much more peaceful and quiet there.


We rode another dike in East Hartford and wound our way back to the riverfront to cross on the Bulkley Bridge (i84), which is super loud and hectic due to all the traffic. Not fun. And we realized getting back down to the river to bike along the water to Charter Oak Landing wouldn’t be quick and easy. We pedaled up to Constitution Plaza, crossed a bridge over Columbus Bulevard and then carried our bikes down the stairs to the river, under the Founder’s Bridge. After a rest we decided to head north, just to see the flooding. The river walk dips down under the Bulkley Bridge and the path we were on would soon be under water. We sped up, racing to the edge of the water on the sidewalk…soon realizing…well before hitting the water in the dark…there was slick river mud! Like ice, but oozey. Fun!





Josh ain’t the only blogger with rare shots of a lost sneaker in the mud! (no, it doesn’t belong to us.) (and no, I am not sure how we all managed not to loose a sneaker too.)


We turned around muddier for the visit and headed south along the river, criss-crossing sides of the dike and flood wall and arrived at Charter Oak Landing. Here’s a massive amount of trees and random stuff that floats and is really big; all collected on the lower dock area. Oh yeah, there’s Josh too!



Our next bridge was the Charter Oak Bridge. We all had issues getting to the beginning of the ramp. My short-cut wasn’t shorter. It actually wasn’t a good idea at all. Joel had a chain issue as soon as he hit the path and Josh dropped something...i think. But we all persevered. I still like the view of the city from this bridge, but its super noisy.



Here’s a trilogy of GREAT ideas:

Carry our bikes down the stairs, down lots of stairs
Assume the East Hartford Riverfront is not under water
Assume any leftover mud will be pedalable. (don’t play scrabble with me if you don’t think that’s a word)

All went as well as one might expect. Joel bravely lead the way and took one for the team as the slick mud took him down. Soon we were actually pedaling on slick mud that was under water. It was treacherous and energy draining. Joel wisely (insert juvenile verbal attacks on his manhood here) bailed and fled for higher ground; but Josh and I somehow pushed on through deepening mud on the sidewalk until the path ahead was completely submerged. We didn’t want to leave the river. We talked of a boat, perhaps building a raft, but the upstream paddle didn’t appeal to us. We had to retrace our steps and find a way around, eventually passing through a school parking lot and regaining river access, and Joel, at the boat launch parking area. Mud. We actually pedaled through water!


This is the best photo I have of the three of us. We’re crossing Founder’s Bridge; returning to the Beat; and really wanting to eat chicken tenders and sweet potato fries at kenny’s…and drink beer. The freakin’ barrel of gin and juice was long gone at this point.


The other half of this pair of gloves was also gone at this point. If you find it, holla at me! The only exciting thing I can remember after the last bridge and before Kenny’s was hearing Joel come down the stairs behind me. Then I immediately saw him in front of me and realized Josh just took the stairs on his folding bike. Yeah!


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4.20 on country roads

4.20 was a great day for an unexpected ride touring around the Collinsville/Nepaug area. Nice indeed! And well celebrated! Corey and I, with the turkey and moose cards guiding us, left town and headed north along River Road (rt. 79) and soon swung left and crossed the great, metal trestle bridge over the Farmington River. I was super stoked as I had only driven across it many times. Sweet bridge. We peeped down at the river. It was packed full of fisherman and the small beach down below lay empty. This would be a great place to include a photo of the bridge if I had taken any pictures.

The road rounded right after the bridge and we took the even steeper left fork in the already steep road and continued on to the Nepaug Reservoir. The steady breeze picked up moisture from the reservoir’s surface and sprinkled us in the warm sun when out on the dam. Again, another great opportunity for a photo! aarrggg!

There was much more noise once we left the trail in Nepaug and headed west on rt. 202 with cars whizzing by us. I think we took the next right and explored a bunch of small, twisty back roads that crossed meadows, farmland, several streams and a banged up guardrail overlooking a steep hillside and stream far below. Very, very beautiful. Dang! no photos! The roads were quite narrow at times with occasional potholes and sometimes enough sand to make a beach; but the ride was great and the few cars encountered were very friendly. We backtracked along 202 and over the dam again, but this time returned to Collinsville down Torrington Ave. Mental note, I need new brake pads.

With no particular place to go, we found ourselves a few miles down rt. 179 and then rt. 4 at the ice cream/putt putt joint on a bench having a sundae and a milkshake with corn chips; think about the tasty combination of a Wendy’s frosty and French fries. yummy! T’was a very European break. We crossed the Farmington River and quickly hairpinned to our left onto New Road and humped back to town. Up and down and up and down with some curves thrown in for fun.

I saw lots of smiles from people on bikes and happy people gardening in their front yards or taking strolls. just over 20 miles, enough to feel like you did something, but not too much that you're beat. Life is good.

“The call of the male Moose is an awesome thing to hear on a musky spring
night.”

And I’m a turkey! Read more!

Weekend

The Aetna Viaduct is boring and lame, so I'm glad that's over.

This weekend that just happened was neither boring, nor lame. In fact, it probably had the nicest weather of the year so far and the trees were starting to bud. I was so strongly moved by this that I had to start my weekend early by leaving work at 1 on Friday.

As you can see, mountain biking made me very happy. I tried to get a picture of my bike smiling, but you can't really tell from that picture. However, the picture does show that I indeed have a bicycle that is in the woods and that it has lame bar ends. I'm supposed to be in a race next Sunday with those bar ends. I'm sure they're one of the reasons that other people I see in the woods ridicule me.

Since the nice weather continued, Johanna and I rode out to Simsbury to figure out how long it would take her to ride to work if she wanted and to see how much more of that Farmington Valley greenway had been completed. It takes about 50 minutes for her to ride to her job. However, she decided that she would be too hungry in the evening to ride her bike home. So, she will not begin riding her bike to work. The greenway had a similar problem. It was nicely paved and connects the Granby part now. Well, "connects" should used used loosely, because there's an incomplete bridge over the Salmon Brook that allows someone in Simsbury to wave to the Granby side, but not actually go there. I read somewhere that the DOT forgot to build it last year, but might do it this year. I hope they do. It would allow a bike path riding person to go all the way from Unionville to Massachusetts. At some point, I heard that in Massachusetts, they'll have something that goes all the way to Northampton.

On Sunday, I went to this thing at Keney Park and a kid tried to steal my helmet. The thing was trying to raise money for blood testing kits to be sent to Africa, but I really wish that kid hadn't tried to steal my helmet. It cast a pall over the whole thing for me.

I didn't take any good pictures of Saturday or Sunday. But here's a picture of what my feet looked like:
I also went to Stew Leonards yesterday!
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