After trudging away on the computer for a few hours this morning, I made some sort of experimental survival- pilaf with brown rice, lentils, green peas, cumin, black pepper, and I dare say, lean ground beef.
I sat there in my lounge chair, feeling surprisingly ok as I digested.
I even began to consider an actual ride, outside, in the real world.
I have been doing “virtual’ rides on the indoor trainer as of late. Lately, it’s been to jazz on a local college radio station.
It’s been viciously cold out, often in the teens, which is not a problem, but the wind has been up a bit, and that ups the ante for trouble.
The indoor trainer is great, because of the magnetic resistance feature. You can spin at a constant rate without coasting, and you can really get a good burn in the quadriceps. I think this will increase my power a lot come spring, along with the climbing and interval stuff. I knew all about this before, I've just been too lazy to drag the thing out of the closet.
It was 1:10 PM, early enough to enjoy some sun for an hour or so. What started out as a slow spin around town ended up being a 20 miler, up Talcott mountain. I’m sure you’ve had days like this, surprises….
My old training route, it turns out, heads directly into the sun for about half the ride. This felt so good, getting the reflection off the snow. Nature’s melatonin- cure for the shack-nasties.
My legs were toast from the mag trainer, so I took it slow on the climbs. This felt really good, though, to just trudge along, inhaling fresh clean air. One advantage of winter riding is the air quality is superb. And New England is pretty decent for that overall. I even worked up a bit of a sweat, which had to be carefully vented as I rounded the UCONN med center.
Wild Turkeys are getting bigger every year. I saw a flock of jakes (young gobblers) that looked really robust and healthy. It’s great to see them return to their original range. You can thank hunters for this, believe it or not, because the Wild Turkey Federation, who sponsored the restoration programs, was funded entirely by sportsmen. I used to be a member. Yes, conservation works, and today I needed to see the result.
It was fun to watch them scratching in the snow for acorns and strut right in front of me as I rode slowly past. The flock had about ten jakes, and a couple toms, alpha males, that were maybe 20 to 25 pounds.
Many people are unaware that the Indians gave the settlers turkeys to eat because they didn’t want to sacrifice their own precious deer meat. They considered turkeys “trash birds” , targets for their kids arrows. The turkeys subsequently were easy to kill, and the white man slaughtered them by the millions, because the indians didn't hunt them that much.
The birds that survived got very smart, though, and they are pretty tough to hunt. But now, once again, they wander like chickens in back yards. They are getting closer to being completely docile. They are more of a hazard to cyclists here than deer crossings.
On the Ely road, which crests the mountain, I tried to keep a stray dog from being hit by cars. It was some sort of Russian Husky type, chocolate color, I forget the exact breed. I tried to flag down a woman in an SUV, to figure out who owned it. It disappeared into the yard of a huge mansion with a locked gate. Smartly, she tried to buzz the owner at the gate, but no one was home.
I tried the house across the street, a woman with an absolutely gorgeous chocolate lab appeared behind the storm door. She looked surprised to see a cyclist, which is understandable.
Keeping 20 feet of respectable porch- distance, I yelled:
“ do you know whose dog that is? Can you call the owner?
She replied; “oh that dog is always loose”..
“Well, call the owner, it would be a shame to see such a beautiful animal get hit!”
“ I think it’s the Joneses dog. But we don’t know them..”
“But they’re your neighbors! Jeez ma’am, Can’t you look them up in the phone book“?
She gave a shrug like “it’s none of my business”. But she at least seemed grateful for my good samaritanship.
I threw in the towel. I think she was the nanny or caretaker anyway. I wagged my tail at the lab, who stopped woofing from behind the glass storm door a second, his face changed to curiosity, cocked his head, and he looked like he wanted to play in the snow. But then as I rode away, he resumed his territorial barking duties.
So I went to the Joneses next door neighbors. This mansion was equally formidable, it had a huge gate house, and a sign that said:
“ NO TRESPASSING. YOU HAVE BEEN UNDER SURVEILLANCE EVEN BEFORE ENTERING. TRESPASSERS WILL BE VIOLATED”.
Violated? Whoa, Sounds kinky , like I get tied up down in the dungeon or something.
“Tales of Ribaldry on Talcott Mountain“.
Undaunted, I rode up to the front door anyway. Of course, no one was home.
The view from this place was surreal. You could see all the way to the Berkshires to the northwest. I’m sure the summer parties on the huge deck were pretty cool.
Behind the gatehouse was a very bizarre structure, some sort of man-made Neanderthal cave, with Elk horns adorning all around, like hand rails. At first I thought it was just a cookout cove, or kids hideout, but on the descent, it dawned on me what it was supposed to be.
A replica of King Phillips cave!
In 1676, an Indian Chief Metacomet, nicknamed King Phillip, escaped a chase by a bunch of colonists, militia, rednecks, whatever. So he holed up in a semi-cave at the northern end of Talcott Mountain. It's actually a separate mountain, but looks like it's part of Talcott Mountain. Technically, It's known as King Phillip Mountain.
You can actually see the “cave” from route 202/10. I plan on hiking there soon. I’m not sure what happened to King Phillip.
I do know that King Phillip sat up there somewhere (fully exposed in the sun) and laughed heartily as the town of Simsbury burned after a huge massacre of colonists.
The horror!
maybe he actually sat on this exact spot where this house is? Then ran into the cave? I would beleive that, as the view at this guys' house is so good.
So I figured this mansion owner had some sort of weird obsession with King Phillip, or Metacomet, or maybe he saw this place as his summer getaway-cave, and stray mongrel dogs patrolled the premises.
I then reached the “decision point”, where all of a sudden your hands and toes start getting cold. I really need to bring a change of socks, but I’m always too lazy. About midday through the ride, perspiration builds up to a critical level, and is never vented properly. So extremities get cold all of a sudden.
So I descended the way I came, not wanting to freeze to death at 50 MPH if I continued ahead, and tried to descend down route 44. This would actually have gotten me home in minutes as opposed to half an hour. I would be immediately half frozen, trying to battle for a lane with traffic going 70 MPH down a 8% grade, with occasional patches of sand, trucks whizzing by.
Sometimes decisions like that are wise.
It was a good ride, I feel good. Took a cat nap in my chair upon reentry.
I am chuckling right now as I hear someone singing on WWUH;
“It’s not easy being "green", having to spend your days the color of the leaves:”….
Peace out.
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