The ride was set for 10am and by 9:50a the parking lot at DD was full. With Jim Scarritt lined up at tail-gunner, Dana riding in the E-board position and my Road Guards in place, the line of bikes departed Dunkin northward on route 32 for a twisting, direction changing cruise through eastern Ct and Rhode Island. At times it was a chore to see the end of the pack as we snaked through the hills and dales.
O-K, I lied, there were no road guards in place because...there were no road guards. The parking lot was full, it was full of cars. Other than myself Jim S. and Dana there were only four other bikes and one of those would leave before we did and another would break off and head for Dunkin in Center Groton.
So we soldiered on, five bikes, we cruised up 32 and ran across the Thames at Uncasville to pick up route 12 south. We cruised to the junction with 214 and took that across it's length, up through the twistys at Mashantucket before we turned south on Lantern Hill road and another bit of curves and hills alongside Long Pond.
We crossed route 184 in Old Mystic, I made a stop at the firehouse to talk to our newest rider, and we worked with Dana's CB, trying to get it to function. We picked up North Stonington road to Main street, then turned east on route 234, the Pequot Trail. Up over the hill and down through the curves where we turned south on Deans Mill road. Deans Mill road, in case you have never been on it, is a short road running along side Deans Reservoir and Mystic Reservoir down to Pellegrino road. It is probably the only road in Connecticut with a double yellow no passing line down it's center that is only one lane wide. I took Pellegrino because every ride should have a few bumps. From Pellegrino we turned north on Flanders and then east back on 234. At the end of 234 we made a stop so our one passenger could put on, one of those most hated of items, a helmet, before we proceeded into Rhode Island, and to allow Dana to work on his CB.
We crossed into the Ocean State on route 1, made the obligatory loop into downtown. A right turn on Broad street and a left on Grove put us on route 3 running past Wilcox Park. I was going to take route 91 but a previous recon of the area found that recent water main work had been done from Railroad Avenue up over and down the other side of the hill on Oak street, so we continued on route 3 to route 78 then a mile run to the exit for 91 which brought us to clean pavement eastward.
We took 91 past Chapman Pond,across Newton Swamp, and through Bradford, and Wood River Junction to Carolina where we turned right onto route 112, then onto Old Shannock road and Shannock Village road past the horseshoe dam. (I can say the ride was more pleasant than when I pre-rode the route in my car with a Police car behind me from Wood River Junction to rte 2).
At the Junction of Shannock road and Route 2 we stopped at the gas station for one of our newest riders to top off his tank and our female passenger to use the facilities. I pulled out the menus for the,now two, destinations and let the riders decide. Of the five riders no one cared where we went, so our one passenger decided on the Hammerhead Grille because they had Crab cakes. we again worked with Dana to get his CB working then crossed route 2 onto Shannock for some more hills and twists. Shannock has some good turns and course pavement so you get excellent grip. The night before I had planned on Taking Shannock to Gravely Hill road to Route 110, I was in the car, made a mistake and missed the turn ending up on Shannock all the way down to route 1. So I knew there was a turn to make when we were on the bikes, I noticed it at the last second, after I made the turn, I corrected, as in backed up and made the turn onto Gravely, only then realizing I actually had wanted to stay on Shannock. But since both roads went to damn near the same location it made no difference. We took Gravely to 110 the 110 to route 1 west, then used one of the direction loops to head east. Dana had mentioned at the gas station that he wanted to sit out on the porch at the Hammerhead, I told him it would probably be too cool, and by the time we hit route one the temperature had dropped almost 10 degrees. We took route 1 to Narragansett Avenue, Scenic 1A and down to Narragansett Pier then turned south along the water on Ocean road past Scarborough Beach to Point Judith and lunch. We ate inside.
After consuming mass quantities of Ocean life we headed home along 108 to Narragansett and route 1 to Westerly. Dana broke off and took route 1 in Pawcatuck(I don't know why) while the rest of use continued west on 234 dropping Jim at I95. The three remaining bikes ran 234 to Old Mystic, where I gave up the lead. At 184 And Cowhill the three of us all headed in our own directions. It was a pretty nice ride if I do say so myself.
Oh yeah...At 11:30a Dana wanted to know when we were stopping to eat, and he's still excited about the Wright Chicken farm run being renamed to "Dana's Reason to Ride".
klay
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