Portland - Bike Ride

  I did a "road bike tour" of Portland, CT this morning. The weather was a bit chilly.

Brownstone Quarries

The Quarry looked beautiful!

Riverfront Park

I then rode into the Riverfront Park. It was built on the remnants of quarry slag and had a nice view of the Connecticut River

Map of the former narrow gauge railway

Brownstone Buildings everywhere!

The Church, the entrances to the school, the police station—all built with brownstone for the quarries.  (Actually much of New York City and Brooklyn's apartment buildings are also built using the brownstone from Portland's quarries)

Flat Roofs!

For some strange reason in my bike ride around town I saw a plethora of flat roofs! There were quite a few beautiful old houses...

... all shapes and sizes including a couple of octagonals!

Lastly, I stopped to check out the ancient "stone arch". It was pulled by oxen and used to transport the large brownstones.

Later, I ventured over to Hartford >

Charter Oak Greenway - Bolton Stretch

After riding a couple of loops at Case Mountain, I decided to ride the section of the Charter Oak Greenway I had yet to do - the last stretch between Birch Mtn Road and The Bolton Notch. I hadn't ridden this on my earlier trek back in April.

It was mostly uphill and a bit more strenuous on the mountain bike but nevertheless I did it without dismounting.

After a long uphill to this sign, there's a super long downhill stretch before getting to the bridge. Ooo yeah!

Once at Bolton Notch, I of course had to re-ride thru the tunnel and a rock cut - I never tire of rock cuts!

Due to all the heavy rain we had recently, there was even a small waterfall! :-)

After the ride back, I stopped by the Highland Market for a sandwich...

Case Mountain Loops

It was a gorgeous day and perfect weather for mountain biking. I headed up to Case and parked at the Line Street lot.

I rode a couple of loops starting out of the north end of the lot. Some of these trails I had hiked before. Although there was plenty of uphill huffing and puffing - riding (or shall I shall flying) down Black Mamba was worth it!

Although the tree down here kinda blocked things...

Once back at the lot, I rode this second loop:

There's another blockage here but I believe this has been here a while as there's an alternate trail 30 ft or so nearby.

Love the fern forest floor carpet!

At the pond, there were concrete remnants underwater...

Next I headed over to finish the Charter Oak Greenway...

 

The Abandoned New London Turnpike

I was curious when I discovered online there was an abandoned road nearby. It was even an official trail found on Trailforks! Not sure of the conditions, I rode it on my mountain bike rather than a road bike.  It turns out that was smart move as there are lot of other connecting trails that require a mountain bike.

Trailforks Map

Elevation

The Ride

The main section is primarily worn concrete and a long but manageable uphill climb. Once the concrete disappears, its basically an old eroded fire road / jeep trail.

Just after the apex of the hill there's an interesting ruin to explore

One wonders if these columns were supports for a raised building (very strange)

Once the pavement stopped, it was double track dirt:

As the trail the curved northward, I rode up the hill a bit. It continues on to the Case Mountain Area. There are quite a few choices of trails to explore here. I turned around where the blue circle exists on the map but I will definitely be back.

Here's a crude panorama of the intersection I had passed. At this point, a trail leads under the main highway and up to the main part of the Meshomasic State Forest.

It was a crazy steep trail down to the culvert

And getting under the highway through the culvert was impossible due to the high water!

Looking back up the stream to the abandoned road 

After climbing back up to the abandoned road, on the way back out, I stopped to see the Gun Shooting Range just off the northside of the trail.

Next trip here might be via road bike. I would be fun to shoot a one-handed video bombing down the hill on the abandoned road...

New London Turnpike History 

"Between 1792 and 1839, Connecticut chartered about 100 private turnpike corporations and, collectively, these turnpike companies constructed a network of 1,600 miles of toll roads throughout the state. This amounted to more than 40% of all turnpike mileage in New England. Competition among the many commercial centers and port cities in Connecticut was one reason that so small a state was eventually covered with an extensive web of toll highways." Source

Two early toll roads, the Hartford and New London Turnpike and the Colchester and Norwich Turnpike, followed the alignment of current Route 2 in the 1800s. Tollgate Road in Glastonbury is part of old Route 2, which was bypassed in 1964 when the freeway opened. This segment, with no properties along its route, was made redundant by the new freeway and abandoned.