Bluff Point, Groton, CT

So I bailed on a previously scheduled Big River or Burlingame ride last minute to latch onto a Sunday morning ride with Uncle Norm and the gang at Bluff Point State Park in Groton, CT.  I'd never ridden it before and recalled what a great time my first time at Burlingame was last week.  Thinking maybe my first time riding somewhere has a positive correlation coefficient with the fun factor, I thought, "What the hell, I'll do it."

The ride was scheduled for 8:00 am and I pulled in at 7:57.  There were a number of riders gearing up in the parking lot, but our group, as it turned out, was small today.  Just Norm, Norm and I.

I had read and heard a little bit about the park in the past couple of days and the recurrent themes seemed to be small and fast.

Bluff Point - Arriba, Arriba!!

I wanted to get a good ride in, so was prepared to go back and do some repeats once the group ride was over.

The great news was that it was pretty warm in Groton already at 8:00 am.  Temps were already hovering in the mid-40s with the forecast calling for 54.  This was my first ride without my booties on in a couple of months.

While temps were warm, the ground was still wet and the air was still thick with moisture.   Would it be slippery?  Time would tell.

We headed into singletrack almost right out of the lot.  I was a little concerned as Norm Sr was booking with Norm Jr, replete with brandy-new drive train and rubber, hot on his tail.  I managed to keep up and after a few turns we started climbing.  Not big, but it was a climb.

I was paying attention so that when the ride was over, I could try to do it again if needed.  Within a quarter mile I stopped trying to pay attention.  Theseus couldn't have found his way out of this labyrinth with a Tom Tom, never mind a ball of string.  Turn after turn after turn after turn, ad infinitum.

We came down a gnarly descent to a fire road with a couple of small drops onto exposed rock and with a 90 degree right in the middle of it.  This was the slip test.  And my tires passed, with flying colors.  I was successfully able to slow down without sliding out coming down exposed wet rock to make the right hand turn.  This definitely added a new level of comfort to my ride.

We crossed the fire road and the fast, flowy singletrack continued.  We came down by the water and started following a pretty nice trail.  We stopped to grab a video at a cool little bridge.

Something that quickly became apparent was the sea of anti-bike vegetation.  It was generally cut back pretty well, but did encroach on the trail here and there.

Me so thorny. Me love you long time.

After a few pretty tricky rock gardens we climbed up and came to the quintessential Bluff Point photo opportunity.

Don't Step Back

We did a bunch more single track that continued to be more maze like than I could have imagined, but super fun. The singletrack was in great shape.  Not overly eroded.  Clear of leaves (mostly).  And it did a good job using some of the natural features of the landscape.  Thanks to everyone who works on these trails.  Your dedication is most appreciated!


After getting a lot of what Bluff Point had to offer, we followed down the tracks for a while until we came to an obviously haunted bridge that we crossed to get into Haley Farm State Park.

Pair-a-Norm-al Experience

Haley Farm was okay for a few extra miles, but pretty mundane.  I was hoping for a little more out of it.  There was one pretty nice extended, slight decline that was a hoot, but that was definitely the highlight.

After we came back over to Bluff Point, we hit another few segments of single track, including a really nice, long downhill, before coming back out to the parking lot.

At the end of our ride together, we had logged 12.15 miles on the Garmin, but that's usually about 10% shy, so I'd guess closer to 13.25 - 13.5 miles.

I decided that despite the solid miles we'd already put in, I'd head back out and try to log a few more miles.  I took off down the fire road paralleling the shoreline.  Flat, fast and uneventful.  I was looking for a left in up the hill, but before I came to one that looked promising I came to some ocean across the trail.  I would have turned around and went back another way, but some stupid guy was there with his toddler and for some reason, I felt compelled to keep going.  I made it through by stutter pedaling without getting my feet wet, but my brakes were never the same.  Banshees should be so screechy.

I found a fairly eroded double track and took that up to a fire road that lead to the old homestead of Gov John Winthrop Jr.

Apparently the Governor used to live in this hole.  I assume he was a hobbit.

 I saw a couple of guys pass by me as I was examining the Winthrop foundation and jumped on my Fisher and grabbed a wheel. I figured they must know where they were going, right?  I never really found out.  The guy in the back was a decent enough rider, but his buddy was slower than molasses.  I squeezed by and ventured out on my own.

Does the look on my face properly convey the "where the hell am I" sentiment?

I definitely got mixed up.  Not a little mixed up.  More than that.  Things looked familiar.  And completely foreign.  Eventually I found the track that followed along the water again.  I grabbed a couple of shots of some of the more technical sections.

It's like Where's Waldo.  Except Waldo's a trail.

Apparently there are no lumber yards in Groton.

I wasn't able to find the overlook again, but I did make it down to a trail that dead-ended at a nice, secluded beach.

Solitude.

Seashells got something to say.  Listen to the seashells.

I climbed out of the beach area and finished up with some of that super-sweet, flowy singletrack.  When I made it back to the lot I had another 8.93 miles on the Garmin for total of 21.08; probably more like 23 miles.  Here's the track:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/261765367

And to top off my four course riding feast, I was served up some dessert in the form of this guy:

Hard to see, but he's wearing some sort of crazy-assed snuggy.

All in all, a great day of riding.  I'd definitely hit Bluff Point again.  Fun and fast.  Maybe a little small, but jam packed with all sorts of great singletrack.  If you haven't done it, you should.  It's notoriously good when the rest of New England is snow-coated.  Go. 

Burlingame State Management Area, Charlestown, RI

Hmm.  A blog post?  I think I remember how.  Bear with me if the words fail to flow from my penny pencil with such feverish fluidity as that to which you have come to expect.

So what happens when nearly every mountain bike ride in a 50 mile vicinity is coated in several inches of snowshoer's delight?  Burlingame!

 

Charlestown, RI, today played host to a throng of trail hungry cyclists.  After making the hour plus commute with Ron the Piano Tuner Erickson, we met up with 17 other riders at 10:00 am this morning to ride Burlingame for the first time.  We were a big group, but we were but a drop in the proverbial bucket of riders converging on Burlingame today.  I'd guess there were 40 or so cars in the lot when we arrived and many people, like myself, appear to have carpooled.

If I remember our group properly, it was Freddie Bassett, Alby King, Mike Cove, Jim N (from the Bums), Ron Erickson, Dave Violette, Pete Dunn, Paul Simoes, Chris Beriau, Laura Zimmer, Pat Royer, Russ Stearns, Matt Danis, Stacey Jimenez, Liz Bove, Tony Chabot, Ben Burdick, John Young and me.  Whew!

We woke up to a fresh dusting of snow here in Thompson and as Ron and I approached Charlestown, it started to look like it was a little whiter there, but not awful.  The roads had been covered and when we arrived, I was a little surprised to see what Ron's Subaru had done with my Fisher.

The slush accumulation came off as I bounced around the lot waiting for our group to be ready.  Our group was an interesting mix of DAS riders, Bums and Wednesday Night Riders.

Before we got into the trails, we were down one man. Paul Simoes had taken off to ride on his own.  Probably for the best.  We didn't want him holding us up anyway.

I was a little leery when we left the lot by the same route we had entered in our car and started riding the road.  It was probably 1/2 mile or so on the road when we got to the first trailhead.  And then the fun began.  The first piece of trail was a great section of singletrack, sometimes fast and flowy, sometimes technical and tricky.

Ride Leader Freddie Bassett, of Casters Bike Shop, offers encouragement to Matt Danis

When you head down south, don't forget your short pants.

Bad ass Liz Bove, working hard not to fall.  And not to get shot.

By the third or fourth mile, the group subdivided into a couple of different level rides.  And we made a couple of folks do their own ride (sorry Ron and Chris B).  I was very impressed with the number of people we had in our group who were riding at such a consistent pace.

The trail offered a couple of really nice areas that made use of the ledge rock.  It was a little trickier coated with snow, but still very rideable.  There were also a couple pieces of trail that made a nice descent over innumerable small drops.  Okay, maybe they were numerable.  But it was a big number.  Like 15.

Where's the Speedo, John?

The highlight of the ride had to be, without a doubt, the bridges.  Scores of them.  Mostly short, but some were a little longer.  Some with gradual ramps.  Some with sharp ramps.  Some with shingled ramps.  Some with super slick plain wood ramps.  Some straight. Some zigging and zagging.

Must be going to grandmother's house.

 Back to the bridges.  Some running through the woods, some running through a covered bridge for trail-weary hikers and bikers.  What?  Yes, I said that.

This place is beyond awesome!

Ridiculously, right after this photo was taken, I realized that my CamelBak strap was seemingly inextricably entwined with my front wheel.  I called it mechanical then, but in retrospect realize it for what it really was - idiocy.  It took Tony Chabot and I five minutes to get the strap removed from the wheel.  By that time I'd lost my riding group and had to ride like hell to catch up.   Up and over more slippery bridges and log piles two and a half feet high.

Came across Liz Bove, Matt Danis and Ben Burdick stopped at one bridge in a sea of bridges.  Matt had gone head over teakettle on the bridge and his handlebars were apparently pointing the wrong direction.  Can't believe they stopped for such a little thing.

Once I caught up to the pack and Liz, Matt and Ben came up behind, we headed up this great trail that ran along a snow covered ridge.  Fun, technical, precarious.  What's not to love?

That lead us through a little more single track and double track and before we knew it we were out.  My Garmin measured 14.42 miles in the end. Adding the usual 10% that it doesn't pick up, I'd call it around 16 miles.

Here's the Garmin track.

All in all, a great ride.  I'd love to catch the race (The Battle of Burlingame) here, but it's Kentucky Derby weekend and mint juleps call.  I'd definitely ride here again and may try to do the time trial they have here if they do it again.

Thanks to all who made this trail system the great riding area that it is!

Mike Cove often likes to pretend he's a tyrannosaurus rex trying to get a bike off his car.