rons bikes blog dot com

for the 2nd year in a row now, the nutmeg country, country club “A” group hath embarked on a smattering of ambitious rides around the 1st of June — long days, low humidity, and before the bugs. the perfect time of year to really stretch the legs out and shake off the cobwebs of the cold months. this year would be no exception — more ambitious than the last, and why not? progression as a subconscious aspiration.

early enough start would mean we would be back before sundown 13 hours later. seemed reasonable enough, and a nice goal. I had the added bonus of hosting the departure … I think I was even on time for once….

the route would take us north east through “the quiet corner” of the state, not to say Hadlyme isn’t quiet … generally the farther east you go from our CT river valley zone, the more raised ranches and vinyl siding you see, but the way we wiggled east this time kept us on the good stuff. was 2 hours before we saw our first and second cars. I didn’t count the vinyl siding sightings.

30 miles in, I heard a thump like a sack of flour hitting the ground. it was Jeremy having a pretty bad crash caused by slippery bar tape and a shadowy pot hole on a particularly pocked up section of road/trail. he sutured his arm up by sticking a fern to it with his own blood. must be an old roady trick. Jeremy is our former roadie state champ back when they used to keep track of that sort of thing … his toughness shows. despite annihilating his phone in the crash, and the audible suplex he’d just endured … another 120 miles still sounded like a good idea for him. what a champ!

my cousin Sean (above with the ice cream) went hard with the sugar — we all kinda did in our own ways … I had a bunch of peanut butter and jellies on whole wheat sourdough along with other things … we would all pay in our own ways for our choices. some day of, some next day, some the next next day.

we made it as far north as the Sturbridge village area and had “lunch” at an authentic Massachusetts Cumberland Farms. no time to stop for very long when cramming this much into a day. I got some protein cookie and pistachios and a coconut water — went down okay. time to pedal again!

by now we were as far north as this route would take us — and certainly as far north as we’d ever been on a day ride from the CT shoreline. pretty cool to think. time to pedal more — we are far from done and dusted!

back into the woods and into the curiously named “lead mine mountain”. we refrained from eating any paint chips. this was a punchy interlude that made a few of us nervous … but it was only an hour of shenanigans before we popped out on a smoother surface.

another fuel up once we dipped back into CT at this cute country store in Stafford village. I had a coconut water and another one of my peanut butter and jellies — others had more sugar. not to say I was eating very clean either — had my first Reese’s peanut butter cups in 10 years. not as good as I remembered …..

into Vernon CT where we’d pick up the hop river trail 15 miles to Willimantic. this is where we lost Jermey somewhere … with his smashed phone, we had no way of getting ahold of him, so we hoped for the best and continued the slog.

Sean and I really took off on the trail and tried to just get it done. in an enjoyable way … well until Sean started sweating and puking on the side of the trail. before that he had said “my teeth are really sensitive from all the sugar today”. suppose the stomach felt the same. nothing was sounding good to me either at that point, but I knew I needed calories. I forced down a few more bites of my sandwich and carried on with Sean feeling better now back up breaking the wind for me. in more ways than one.

some chunk on gulf rd after the covered bridge and we were climbing the steepening Moodus hill. I was barking and writhing following Sean up that, but the second we got back to my house, he slid off his bike and into a slumber. I took a shower and waited another hour for Joe and Alex to arrive … they were much more energetic. suppose it was our pace that really churned us into a pile of bones. I was feeling it!

Jeremy sent us a text from his laptop at home — he’d somehow gotten ahead of us when we were filling bottles in Vernon — all was well in East Haddam that night!

my bike was perfect — no issues — no soreness in the underzone or wrists. the aggressive position scared me at first, but it ended up balancing the weight between the contact points perfectly.

the text thread from 2 days later :

XO RR