Saguaro - Old Bench Trail loop finished

Today Al Tinti and I finished clearing up the lovely trail along the Salmon River ravine. It turned out to be a beautiful day and the full loop will be fun to ride (see rough trail map at bottom).

The GPXs have been submitted to Trailforks so hopefully soon there'll be a nice map to entice and guide riders. Rough sketch map below includes the water line (which is wet and nasty to ride all year long!) 

Lidar Exploring - EoK

Weather was overcast and the woods were soggy so I decided to do a little "lidar exploring" on foot (rather than mtn. bike).

Relics from the Past

These squarish protrusions on the lidar map intrigued me so I hiked north from Howe Street to find them.

There wasn't much to see of #1 but #2 was pretty obvious.

#1

#2

It turns out both spots are on 1893 topo map - kinda cool!!

Old Trail

Many old legacy trails are visible on the lidar map as well - I may be updating some of these for mtn. biking so the lidar map is an excellent resource!

"Special Spot"

Potential - EoK - NoH

 East of Keeney - North of Howe (EoK - NoH)

I took a walk through an unexplored forest area - checking out features that might be nice for a future mountain bike trail. Keeping a good distance from the myriad of dirt bike trails is an important criteria.

The dry stream bed has great potential!

Enlarged area

1 - Dry Stream Bed

2- Old Road/Trail

Icy Hike - EoK

  It was still too icy to bike but I had a nice hike East of Keeney.

Pivot eBike

Well this old man finally succumbed and bought an eBike - a"Pedal-assist Mountain bike" to be more specific.

Al Tinti recommended Mike over at CFM Cycles in Coventry and I got a good deal on a Pivot SL (WOO-EE!!) It required a hitch for the car and a decent bike rack (what I was using was a flimsy el cheapo trunk rack).

I am a happy man and will be hitting the trails--and the big hills--can't wait for it to warm up!  Tyler Mill - I am ready now :-)

Another hike at Indian Kill

After visiting my mother, Chad (an old friend and fellow musician) met me and we hiked to First Falls. We started at 3:30 and it was dusk by the time we finished. It is really a wonderful park!

Bike Fest at Tyler MIll

Today was the Central CT NEMBA Bike Fest at Tyler Mill and it was a resounding success with 90 or so riders! I helped with coordinating parking and biked solo (after the group rides). The weather was amazing and my ride was actually nice!

The parking lot filled up fast!

We reserved the pavilion
(later we offered pizza soda, etc)

My ride :-)