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!
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HA! YOU CLICKED MORE SUCKA!!



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"Hey hippie! Get me some drugs!" ....... Critical Mass May 2008

The best quote from the entire ride was yelled at us from the sidewalk on Park Street just after crossing New Park Avenue.

I am pretty dang sure i can't sum things up better than Karma, but i have something he doesn't have....photos from the ride! ha! i will add photos and a few words to his thousands of words...

We unfortunately lost a few riders enroute, but happily actually picked a few along the way and they rode for the rest of the ride. Kick ass! Next month will be even bigger and better!

Some new people had the same reaction I did my first time, concerning when the ride starts. i was kinda annoyed to arrive at 5:30 and not leave for 45 minutes. Well, we meet at 5:30, but never leave before 6pm, which is a good thing, because then we can all pass out the new flyers we made, talk about where to take the ride and, of course, socialize a bit. Its all good! We're in a beautiful park! Enjoy it!

here's my soapbox 2cents and then i'll shut up about such things. Its everyone's ride, which i love and respect, and there aren't really any rules, which is awesome, but we all should take ownership and try to make the ride the way we envision it. so i will!

my critical thoughts about the mass:

We shouldn't take up two lanes, or ride against opposing traffic when we don't need to, but that said, we do need to take a full lane at all times. ALWAYS! Take the lane! Its ours! We should stop at red lights, but if the light turns red as the group is passing through, we should cork the street and keep the group together (google critical mass and corking for a primer.) Stopping at red lights allows helps the mass to regroup. same with speed. we have to keep a pace that keeps us as a group. Together we conquer and we are safer. Divided we are not so safe and not so much of a mass. I am all for drinking beer, mmm...beer, but not littering. Please don't throw your shit in the street y'all, not a good look.

ok, agree with me, hate me, its all good. That's what the comments are for! ride your own ride. ride daily, celebrate monthly. off the soapbox and on with the ride!



Riding down Farmington Avenue in West Hartford.


The begining of the Park Street adventure which was also my favorite part of the ride. Unlike much of West Hartford, where lots of drivers were in a rush and speeding around us, here most of the drivers waited on the side streets or drove slowly behind us; beeping, yelling, smiling and waving. People were ALIVE and full of life.


I'm not really sure how Jimmy managed to make himself in focus, but as long as he continues to use his special powers for good...its all good. but he's tarnishing my blurry photo rep.


Want to see more photos and read about how Poser Dave's bike got stolen on Park Street while he was peeing in the bushes?

Want to see the strangest butt photo ever taken at Mad Dawgs?!?


click READ MORE below!





While poser was doing something in the bushes involving whipping it out, he just left his freakin' bike on the grass near the sidewalk. Krash promptly cut infront of me announcing he was stealing the bike. I wasn't really sure if he was going to A) trade bikes B) hide it somewhere or C) i have no idea what C was!

so Krash just grabbed it and rode off with the two; holding his new bike with one hand and steering his own bike with the other. Eventually Poser finished and started running after his bike. and running. and running. Several of us almost crashed laughing at the shananigans. I am super glad someone decided to detour us through Pope Park. Great idea!


Ahhh, back onto Park Street, which, except for the pendejo who tossed the plastic bottle out an apartment window and hit Corey, was mad fun; full of people, life and energy. The Puerto Rican Day Parade is on Sunday and vendors were selling Boriqua merch everywhere and a few riders bought flags and joined in the celebration. Most everyone on the sidewalks and in cars cheered us on as we cheered them on. Life was GREAT!


MaryLynn rockin' the aforementioned Puerto Rican flag on Main Street on her sweeeet cruiser. Niiiiiice! She even managed to buy a hotdog a little later and ride and eat at the same time. Skills!


Pratt Street was owned!


bicyles! bicycles! bicycles! bicycles! bicycles! bicycles!
The post ride party was at Mad Dawgs which was great for many reasons.
Lots of Misfits got play on the juke.
Free happy hour 6 foot grinder.
$2 Miller High Lifes and $5 40's.
mmmm...beer.


Alcohol is a hell of a drug!

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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!


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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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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!