One of the reasons for the ride was to once again test the new headsets. One thing we have learned using the sets is that, unlike the matched pair Pancake has, these 6 ways have a small issue with pairing. We have determined that AOB has to be set an hour earlier,. Let me correct that, arrival at the intended AOB has to be set an hour before AOB, because it takes that long (if at all) to get more than two sets to sync. Then you have to take in account the amount of time it takes for pancake to rip out his speaker wires, re-solder them and rip them out again, but I won't embarrass him by mentioning that here.
I decided, because no one likes leading that everyone would lead a section. So with the AOB scheduled for 10am we left my house promptly at 11. Doug, with route written out (Tom GPS System) took us east on 184 to Lantern Hill rd, then across 214 to 12. Doug has never been on the section of 201 between 2 and 117, he has only done the 12 to 117 stretch and that was at night, and he hit a dead critter in the fast left just before the climb up to 117. So today he headed out, leading at a rather brisk pace, I was on his wing. The left hand corner where he put his footplate so far into the pavement and had both his tires squeeling as the bike drifted on the floorboard gave him a pucker factor of about a 12 on a 0 - 10 chart.
Pancake and I were linked in the headsets in case he needed help with his route, but that never really came about.He took us across the Thames on 2A and onto Mohegan Sun Blvd. We stopped at the Casino firehouse because we couldn't get my helmet to link with Hoss's. Every time it would beep the transfer it would beep again and I would be talking to Pancake again. Pancake decided that since he was giving up the lead that he would give Hoss his headset, He Did, Hoss went over his route with me to confirm the route then his headset immediately died. So much for communications. So the rest of the trip up I was wearing a helmet, which I don't care to do, and had no one to talk to.
Hoss took us across 32 onto Fitchville Road, up Raymond Hill to 163 then across 163 to 82. He hooked a left on 82 then a right on Church, Church to Dudley, Dudley to Cottage, then it was me leading from Lake onward.
I was surprised not to see more sleds on the roads, we cruised up Lake to Scott Hill, across onto Waterman to route 87. In Lebanon we took 207 west, as we cruised along I noticed some people in a yard off the side of the road playing with a cut up tree, One of them looked a tad familiar so we made a U turn and stopped to talk to Mike Henry. He asked where we were heading to on 207 and we told him, his reply was, "Going this way?" We told him it was a circular route.
Back under way we ran 207 to Clubhouse, to Tobacco. That took us to Chesbro Bridge and Pine Street. We ran pine to 66, shot across to Hennequin then Lake to 87 again. Left on 87, A left on 6 and the route was suppose to take us west so we could grab South street but I accidentally took a right turn four roads too early onto Bunker Hill road. Never one to make a U-turn if possible I just grabbed the throttle to see where it would take us. It took us right up to South street at the point where we would have grabbed Cross off of South, so we did. This is when we found "Christmas in the Village". Yes Santa Claus, Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman were in Coventry, along with at least one school bus of kids and a lot of walkers. We dropped down Monument hill road and sat as the bus unloaded before pulling into Bidwells.
After ordering more food than we could eat and eating more than we should have we split up. Hoss had to be home so he went left onto 31 then 32 to 395 and home. We hooked a right out of Bidwells, a right onto 275 through Eagleville, and picked up 195 in Mansfield.
We headed south to Bassett's Bridge, through the Reservoir, then down 203 to Scotland. I turned onto Jerusalem road and I put Pancake back in the lead, with a piece of advice, "Don't Kill yourself". Now if you have ever been on this road heading from Windham to Scotland, you know that there is a sharp left, a hard right and all in a drop. Luckily for Pancake, just as arrived at this corner he came up behind a truck, instant slow down so the road was not an issue. I am sure had the truck not been there it would have been Pancake's second run in with the Pucker plan.
If you look at the photo below you will notice that the line Google puts on the map does not match the road.
It also doesn't mention that is a span of two seconds you drop twenty five feet.
From there we ran 97 to 138, across to 12, up to 201, and down to 138, there we lost Mike Cahoon, he took 138 east, We continued on 201 to run the twists before splitting up at route 2. Somewhere between where the road changes from twists to wide straight running and Northwest Corner road the temperature dropped and got down right chilly. We split up when Pancake went straight on 2 and I took 201 home.
All in all a really great day for a ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment