July 2008 Ride Log
The heat is on...
July 14 - July 13-18
Atlantic Ocean, North Carolina
This isn't a bike ride but does explain what I was up to. Went scuba diving off North Carolina for a week. Didn't want to risk getting hurt so I didn't ride for a couple of weeks before the trip. When I returned, it was just too hot to ride.
Wednesday July 2
Pequonnock River Valley / Indian Ledge Park - Trumbull, Connecticut
Nice day for a ride after work. My wife Debbie and son Jimmy are in Virginia this week doing volunteer work with the church. My daughter went out with her friends which leaves one thing to do. Go mountain biking!
Parked at the commuter lot off Daniel's Farm Road. Found that I forgot my gloves which is a piece of gear I always bring. Thought for a moment that maybe I left them on the roof of the car before I departed. I wasn't going to let that stop me. Bare knuckles on the handle bars, I rode over to the red trail, then over to the yellow and from the back to the red. Rode the trail at the top near the compost pile. Indian Ledge Park was my northern most destination and I rode that path as far as I could, getting up to the guard rail by the entrance road.
On the way back, I stopped to give a couple of girls directions. They didn't know where they were walking to or how far it was to the next road. I saw them walking with a couple of guys before, but they were nowhere to be seen. I couldn't stop for too long. If the GPS didn't keep me going, the bugs chasing me down did. If stopped to take a rest, just were all over me. I gotta start using bug spray.
Here's a map of my ride imported to Google Earth. It was easy to do from Sport Tracks although it did produce a few errors. Google Earth drew the map anyway and this is the result on the right. The orange spot was a note provided by Google Earth and states, "Bigfoot Reports - Comprehensive Mapping Project - 1978". There was link as well. In the link it states that Bigfoot was spotted running 35 MPH. I'd better pay more attention next time I think the sound of running foot steps is a squirrel. Bigfoot, where are you?
To the left are the tracks using GPS Visualizer and a black and white aerial view. I like Google Earth much better. It is easy however to spot features like the fire road (in the center, looks like a "j") and old lake area. Anyway, it was great ride; didn't see anybody else with bikes on the trails although there were a few bike racks in the parking lot. Brought some trash out including an inner tube that someone tossed at the stream near the southern entrance.