America's Saturday (Continued)

Brendan properly celebrates America's Saturday by bailing before the good parts of a fixed gear century (or so).  I'll finish the story for him.  Salem and I found a new rail bridge at the end of the Airline Trail in East Hampton, and there was some unexpected graffiti.  Salem's routine throughout the day was, "You should put this (25 mile out street art) on the next graffiti tour."  Eye roll.

On our way back in we decided to cut through the Portland Meadows rather than ride the boring and somewhat hilly Route 17.  This is a known mudhole / quad haven, but on past trips I've only seen a couple straggling rednecks.  We ran across what appeared to be every redneck in CT having a bear soaked, mud slinging party.  Salem and I found ourselves practicing our drawl, just in case we had the need to interact.  Unfortunately no photos.  We didn't know if the natives would appreciate the gesture.

After leaving the Mad Maxx excitement we were puttering along idyllic Tryon street in South Glastonbury and were nearly run off the road by an aggressive Jeep pulling a jet ski.  After being told to "get off the road" we were informally challenged to a duel.  Fortunately we were able to wave the jerk on his pissed off way and were surprised to be yelled at again by his girlfriend who had been in the next car back.  We took this opportunity to call the police who were quite responsive.  We took a break and waited for the patrol car to take a statement.

There was some swimming, although I only waded.  You'll notice that Salem wore shorts.  It was an excellent ride, although the premise was questionable.  I was really surprised that Salem had four people take him up on the idea. Read more!

Birthday party!!

I won't actually be able to attend, but I encourage everyone else to go to catalogue this weekend:

Hello All Hello Autumn,

Announcing our September CATALOGUE: Adam McHose, Superorganism

Saturday, September 18

8:00pm

56 Arbor Street, Hartford, CT

Suite # forthcoming

Adam does identity. He deals in the things that visually make us up, and distinguish us from one another. We can see we're unique, yet we're also pieces of information. Adam paints people, both digitally and analogue(ly), graphs them, flattens them and makes them new. There's something thing-ish, un-reproducible about his work, but ones and zeros are still its foundation. His work is like fractals. It's portraits. Both discrete and continuous, and very colorful. Supercolorful. That's just me talking, though. Check out his website!

http://www.adammachose.com

CATALOGUE is a monthly event that showcases artists, musicians and other creative endeavors, and is hosted by Joe Saphire, Nick Rice, and Joel VanderKamp (our newly-wed!, ever-absent advisor). The event is a collaboration between artist, curator, community and space. Contact us for directions or questions: CATA.info.LOGUE@gmail.com, and please pass this invitation along to those we might have missed.

Joe Saphire, Nick Rice

I'll be off doing something along these lines:

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The Rockiest of Hills

I heard about Quarry Park in a Courant article and somewhere else. This former hill, a rocky one, is where Rocky Hill got its name. The article describes the park in far more purplish prose than I would, both because I was looking for single track (not a newspaper column) and because it felt more like an abandoned quarry than a park, which isn't really that scenic. There's a little bit in the way of single track and it's a really quick ride through old Wethersfield from my house to get there. The single track is ok and there's about a mile of it, so I definitely wouldn't drive a great distance to get to it. In fact, I wouldn't drive at all. Maybe if you're passing by on a bike, stop in.

This house watches over the quarry.

The single track.

I thought this track that I made through the stone dust was cool.I rode home through Great Meadow in the sunset.

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Also, and unrelated, Johanna tipped me off to this:

http://www.orleanscountycitizenadvocacy.org/ Check out the link on the lower left. It's my account of our ride of their century. Pretty cool, huh?

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Johanna and Brendan ride a long way

I have this on a t-shirt now.

After complaining about not riding up and down enough a few weeks ago, Johanna and I decided to go to Vermont, where things go up and down a lot more.

On Saturday, we did the 11th Annual Claasen Memorial Northeast Kingdom Century and it was great. We saw lots of lakes and took no pictures, so I can only use a google image search to show you where we went. The route had four well stocked rest stops, and at one I got sneak into Canada. If you've got nothing to do on the third Saturday of September, I highly recommend the ride. Johanna liked it so much that she decided the standard 100 wasn't enough and added an extra sixteen mile jaunt to it. I wasn't as hardcore and was in dire need of beer, so I only rode 100.

This is Derby Line. The left side of the room is Quebec and the right side is Vermont. This rest stop is where I snuck into Canada. Don't tell anyone. Here's a Times article about it.

Johanna's family has a lake house up there, so it was fortuitous to learn the roads better so that we can better invent our own rides up there. You can only do the "books", Parker Pizza, East Albany, or Perron Hill loops so many times.

Lake Willougby is pretty.

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