Country Life

Finally all settled into our home for the next 11 months. It was a grueling week but luckily it is behind us and now we can move onto bigger and better things. Renting our very own house is a tease as to what it will be like to have our very own house but for now even with renting it feels pretty great to call it home. I live out in the quiet woods which some of you may know is where I like it. Not too quiet with a grocery store 5 minutes away its not that far out. I do have 1500 acres of single track biking and dog walking heaven right at my front door as well! I always dreamed of having trails right at my front door and I can say it is a reality now. I wish I did not have to work 70 miles away which sucks up a lot of my free time and mother nature is not helping much either with fall coming. Still have some things to buy and stuff to move around but this is pretty much settled all in! LuAnn is now 10 minutes from school which I hope she can abuse fully since our family is back in CT for her so important education! The hottest orthodontist you will ever see! On saturday we decided to head down to mystic for a seaside drive and I was very glad we did. Mystic seaport is a very famous coastal town known for its sight and history. We drove the shoreline and admired the beautiful houses before we made our way into town. As usual we wished we lived in such a cool location and I envied their views. We walked around Mystic and had dinner at a very popular S&P Oyster Company. It was very good and was even better being on a date with my wife. We have plans to go back soon and do more things we did not have money or time to do. On sunday we visited the farmers market this sunday which was really cool, got some very fresh kettle corn, two different types of local cheese, farm fresh eggs, and some fudge :) Stuff is pricey but proud and locally grown, the farmers market here in coventry has won many awards. Ahhhh the good life....

Labor Day Triple Threat

So it wasn't much of an impressive ride list but it was riding none the less. After the moving process of the last month it felt great to get out and let some steam off. With the insane amount of humidity this weekend not much steam got let out. The stupid mosquitos drove me absolutely nuts this weekend as well with they're biting antics and the sores and itchiness it left me with tuesday morning. With that said the trails were great! I started off saturday at Case and it was a great ride as usual, I really like riding there it never gets old. I spent the next day at Nathan Hale which as some of you may know is a short minute down the road from me. I got my buddy Bentley to go with me and show him that we don't have to get in a miserable car ride in order to go biking. I hope his enthusiasm starts to increase before a ride because right now he shows no excitement before getting into the car. I hope this is to blame with his motion sickness and not his lack of fun during a ride. We tore up there in the mosquitos and humidity and made it out ok. Monday was a shorty, Bentley was slower than he has ever been and I don't know if it was due to the ride the day before which was nothing impressive or was due to some other thing. So we did a short ride at a slow pace to accommodate his needs. I actually found a really great loop this way and look forward to linking it to some other trails to make a bigger loop. All in all it was a great weekend and with alot of rain this week who knows when I will be out at it again. Hope for it soon!

Case reunion

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Hale with bentley

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Hale quicky

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Nathan Hale Home Ride

Between the headache and chaos of the last few weeks, we officially moved into the house on wednesday! Between a busy morning of moving things around while LuAnn attended school I got out and snuck out a little 90 minute ride. The ride was to be at Hale which is now a blistering 90 second pedal down the road to singletrack from my house! I am so incredibly lucky to live right on the border of the state forest. I also have Coventry lake just down the street at my disposal as well! Well the day was pretty warm and sunny which is always good conditions. Little did I know about the swarms of mosquitos that were awaiting me in the woods. With no bug spray I continued on into the woods were I soon met with a downed tree.....I was like nervous since it was on top of the first strip of trail I got on and was wondering if this was a sign of things to come. As I carried on to my surprise the trail was not too bad. The trail was littered with many small branches but nothing major. My singlespeed did a great job as it spit up and chewed up the pieces behind me. I was a bit nervous for my bike but nothing traumatic I could see coming from it. I removed alot of debris from the trail as I came across it, which unfortunately led to getting swarmed by the damn mosquitos. I did the best I could removing and riding but certainly was not clearing the entire trail. I know I will frequent here alot in the next weeks and I have plenty of time to do some clearing. The ride was good as I pressed onto the south end of the park and came across even more mosquitos and a three good sized down trees. For the amount of woods I was really surprised how many trees had not fallen. I was running out of time and tried a few ways back to the homestead but judging by the red lines on my everytrail you can see I failed....I should be getting out saturday for a good long ride if all goes well, I have ridden so little in the last 3 weeks it has made me sad but I am still working on that 1,000 mile goal for the year.

Hale welcome home

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Moving sucks

It's official....just moved for the 5th time today....things have been a mess for the last 2 weeks since we got back from visiting Utah and it is not over since I am typing this from a hotel room.....Please for the love of god give us POWER!

Good news is we got a house to rent! Another good thing is it is .3 miles from a top mountain biking state forest!!!!! soooo happy about that!

Good Rip At Huntington

Set off on yet another morning ride this morning. I awoke surprisingly not too sleepy so I got up and began my morning ritual and waited for light and was out the door. Got the tires and paws down at 6:15 and all was well, I could feel a little in my legs but I knew it was no big deal since Huntington is not a very hilly place. I headed down the gravel road and hopped onto a trail that was a good warmup being a mellow trail. Shot me out onto Blue gravel road where It brought be around the perimiter of the far eastern part of the park. It was very easy but I have been wanting to ride some unridden stuff for the moment and make sure I am not missing out on anything. Sure enough I was not missing out on anything and began a nasty ascent on a rock filled hill. I was on the north end which is my favorite part of this park, the sun was glimmering between trees and life was good. I hit the goods up north and then made my way over to another familiar trail and then hit the gravel road again to get back to the car. Starting to really miss my Case Mountain since I have not been in over a month. I should be back living in Manchester by sunday so monday will be a much needed reunion!

Goid rip @ huntington

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Huntington Cruise to Beating

Finally after 12 days of no riding I finally got back on the bike! I was able to ride my new frame which was no different than my old Raleigh just that this one was not cracked. The Raleigh rode a little funny as I hoppped on and started pedaling around, I think it's probably cause I had spent some 70+ miles on the buff Utah trails on that GT Sensor. It was great to be back on the trail today, I was a little hesitant since it had been weeks since i have been on a creepy morning ride. I had my buddy Bentley by my side so we could fight off anything coming our way. As I rounded the first corner I came face to face with a home boy deer with two of his ladies and they scampered off into the woods which was good cause me and Bentley were standing my ground. We rode off to the trail that skirts the lake so that we would have plenty of light cause the longer I stayed out of the thick forest the more the sun rose. I rolled through the trail having a bit of trouble with the technical, the SS along with not riding in awhile caught me off guard but it wasn't a big deal. Off to the parking lot and onto the good stuff, this is my favorite part of the trail system which lies on the north end of the park and is fun. I am still riding it clockwise and it appears from the trail that it is meant to be ridden counter but I enjoy it this way and will reverse it soon to see how it goes in the other direction. It was so great to have Bentley with me and be back. Did a good sized loop that was short on miles but good on trail so I finished it to get back and head to work.

Huntington casual to beat down

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Still Alive

Looks like my plan for a monday morning ride failed.....looks like 11th day of not riding.....tuesday morning ride or die!