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there is the ol’ time of year in New England (and other places but we aren’t talking about those) where the landscape seems to change overnight every night for a month and a half. im talking about oct 1st to Nov 20 or so — I love riding all times of year as it turns out, and while I dooo complain internally and externally about having to wear more clothes, turns out this is one of my favorite times of year (according to my strava data🤓) to ride bikes. for informational purposes I consider everything after the Nutbutter Nor’Easter weekend to be post peak and into shoulder season .

this is a ride from early November, a very warm day that is becoming the November norm around here each year.

I had kinda made this 2 ferry route over the summer for Cass Gilbert to do as a 1-2 nighter as a lower river valley sample platter. the big rains and resulting high river of the summer unfortunately made the northern Rocky Hill historic ferry impassable, and Cass had to retreat down to cross the bridge in middletown after tripping his way through a muddy thicket along the swollen banks of New England’s great river.

this day would be much much softer on the mind and body — but an ambitious ride none the less. Troy and I would cross on the Rocky Hill ferry, and then ride south to middletown along a green ribbon that looked to overlook the river bluffs all the way down to middletown (about 15 miles). if this connector worked, and it was indeed a ridable trail, then this would be a most excellent crossing and meander to one of our little cities for a resupply.

a fun thing about middletown is that the road out of town along the river remains rarely traveled due to rt9 taking on 99.9 percent of the traffic, so really once in middletown, its all gravy all the way down the river home. the riverbanks were settled by euro’s early on (1600s), and they never developed much further, so a lot of the charm, and land remains intact. there never was a reason to develop larger, as the mouth of the CT river is notoriously silty and shallow, never allowing larger ships to pass — so farms they remained.

So embarking at 10 on a Sunday morning, we pedaled along the Salmon river north through Moodus onto the airline trail, and into the Meshomasic state forest. this is an exceptional stretch of tiny roads that we are lucky to be close enough to … you’ve all seen photos and maybe even camped in this corridor. once in Meshomasic, it gets very hilly and goes on and on into the woods on some really nice dirt roads. Troy and I consumed plenty of chaga tea from the thermos and combustibles to keep the joints lubed along the way.

I’d planned to ride the ALUMAX, but I flatted the day before and didn’t have time to get into it, so upright ATB it would be. I think I still would have preferred the A-MAX for this sort of ride being it a long one, but the Alumalith, as many of you know, is a very capable all-rounder. so I alllrounded.

we had a nice time of it making our way through the state forest taking a few roads I’d never been on in order to skip the muddy and overgrown river bank section we’d taken in the past though Wangunk meadows. We will take that way again once the brambles crisp out a bit in the winter cold and become less lethal.

onto some twisty pavement and into south Glastonbury village for a café café and a foamy cappuccino — I just don’t know why we can’t do coffee in this state. I say it all the time, but move here and open up a mediocre by most standards at best coffee roaster/shop and you will be rich.

we passed some old tobacco barns on the way down to the historic ferry. we were very excited for the mysteries that still lay ahead!

this ferry has been continuously operated since 1655! oldest on the CT river — and a few years older than our very own Chester/Hadlyme ferry. this particular one is a barge and a tugboat. its a cool technical low key spectacle to watch the captain and 1st mate work together in this operation.

and just like that we were on the other side of the river up on a bluff riding a single track looking across at the Meshomasic state forest hills we’d rolled over hours before. Nice to be re-reminded just how undeveloped this part of the river is. the trail was sublime.

a lot of leaves though! leaf surfing, and surfs up! we were able to follow the trail alright though — couldn’t take a left otherwise it would turn to a redbull event. so along the bluff we pedaled and pushed and surfed.

this is us kinda whacking our way along the train tracks (there is a trail under there!) to get into middletown. it was easier than these photos make it look — but still involved a few compound movements.

starting to get dark but its still plenty warm. soft times, and we knew the mysteries were behind us. nothing to do but snack up and pedal on down the river home.

after some familiar rolling dirt roads along the river through Higganum, we jumped onto the steam train tracks and tuned up a bit before the last push across the bridge and up Ray Hill rd. the air was still nice and mild, and I must say we were pretty buzzed from the day of good riding. its a deep buzz.

and that’s that. I would highly recommend this ride in the spring time before the trees leaf out so that you get the views up above the CT river on that bluff trail. the last ferry of the year is the end of this month, and the first ferry of the year is April 1st. I will get around to publishing the complete 130 mile 3 nighter at some point too!

these photos were all taken with my Ricoh GRIIIx except for the last one. iPhones do night shots better.

XO Ronnie

https://www.strava.com/activities/10168273915