Enfield winter ride

I want to thank Bruce and Julia for putting up with me on a 30 mile spin around Enfield to Ellington and back. They are very talented riders with racing experience, but they also like to do some recreational riding.

We were supposed to get partly sunny weather, but it was overcast all afternoon, with enough headwind to make your facial muscles stop functioning. Julia was the smart one, she had a balaclava , but Bruce and I went with beanies. This caused our speech to be slurred after about the midway point. We were laughing about this because we both sounded drunk. Julia just sighed a little and pressed on.

I've been riding solo a lot, so actually trying to have a coherent conversation on a frozen road is a new feat for me.

Another stupid mistake: Even though I brought them, I decided not to use my neoprene booties, I've been getting away with this if the wind is not up, but I was out of luck today. So I had to stop and quickly change socks and throw on some Gore-tex socks over them , a close second to the bootie thing. I was then able to endure more headwinds.

Mistake number two was bringing the wrong bike, an ancient Raleigh steelie that weighs about 52 pounds and has the worlds' slowest tires. I just wasn't in the mood to break out the fast bike,
and have to re-adjust to it in the middle of winter. I also get paranoid about road salt. The Raleigh is so comfortable that I'm addicted to it, I don't care if it's a mule. Being old and battered, it's also not going to get stolen in the Hartford war zone.

I have a new chain on this bike, and sometimes it drops off the big ring. Mixing modern Japanese Shimano stuff with old British Nervar steel chainrings may cause trauma, so I decided not to try to shift into my big ring on the descents. This and my bulkier clothing caused me to get dropped on the descents by about half a minute. But I made it to the bottom without crashing, which is really the important thing.

The terrain around the Enfield area was splendid for road biking. It reminded me of Cortland, NY where I rode in college. Amazingly, the drivers were pretty cool, I'm used to Hartford cars whizzing by at 80 mph, but the Enfield drivers would patiently wait to pass, and we would wave them on.

We saw other groups of bikers, one was a team, I think. A guy hammered past us on a Mountain bike, with knobby tires.

He didn't seem to be a happy fellow, though. I saw him in my mirror and said "Hey, how's it goin'?" hoping he might hang with us for a bit to chat.

"uh, fine".

Then he dusted all three of us on a climb. I love moments like that, it always keeps things in perspective, there will always be someone gnarlier than you at something, so just accept it.

After warming up at Bruce's house, (I had worked up a marvelous sweat)
I then rode from Enfield back home to West Hartford, about 25 miles. I took a wrong turn somewhere off of route 159 , but then readjusted to scoot over toward Tarrifville, then home from there. It took a bit longer, but I think it was better anyway to stay off the faster roads and avoid possible drunk drivers on a saturday evening.

So I've made a new discovery, the eastern part of the state has some decent roads. I've been more western since I moved here. It was just great to get out there and shake off some shack-nasties.