West Hartford Reservoir – Penwood

Ride Pictures

Riders: John, John, Kyle, Rick, Andy, Arch, Cliff, Jill
It’s super hot and humid on this ride. We get through WHR with no mechanicals which we haven’t been able to do since we first did this ride. Stopped at the fountain at Res. #6 to fill up our water bottles and ride the WHR singletrack to Penwood. Still no incidents – we’re on track, aiming for sub 5 hours and hoping for 4 hours. Get up to the lookout for a snack and yap with 2 guys who were already up there. They take a great group shot of us and I got a great shot of them (see pics). We head out and Arch wants to ride the high ledges so we head up and up and up. Arch is crazy, I can barely watch, Cliff is doing pretty good too. They both make it look so easy. The rest of us are hoofing most of it. At the end of the ledges Arch and Cliff disappear down the steep incline, I get about halfway down, hop off and look back just in time to see Andy take a spill. Close call with a pointy log but he get’s up brushes off and we catch up with the crew. The bottom is damp and humid and there are thousands of mosquito’s and it’s getting late so we decide (with not so gently prompting from me) to ride out to the first lookout and head back instead of riding to the chimney. At the top of the climb Arch’s chain breaks so we ride slowly to the lookout so we don’t get eaten alive by mosquito’s, Arch joins us and we start back. The trail we usually take out disappears about halfway and we spend a miserable 20 minutes hike a biking up to the fireroad. Cliff knows where we can refill our water bottles and camelbaks and we scream down the road to a heavenly spot where there is a nice shady tree, clean water and no mosquito’s. We decide to split up into 2 groups and Arch, Cliff and John take off and Andy, John, Kyle, Rick, and I amble back trying to beat the heat. It took 5 hours exactly, 4.5 hrs for the other group. Not so bad considering the heat but I still want to try for the 4 hours.