The Idea

The plan was simple - start at Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York, and ride east to Orient Point, the east-most tip of Long Island's North Fork. Then take the ferry across to Connecticut and return via the inland to Bridgeport and another ferry back to Port Jefferson, making it a trip around a portion of the Long Island Sound.

"When" was the July-4 extended weekend 1996 (4 days). "We" were Richard Freytag, my old cycling buddy since several years, Marina Kim, his fiancee, Helen Hughes, his mother, Gavin McLachlan, his old friend since childhood and, of course, me. Obviously, very much a "Richard's friends and family" -type thing. Since we live all over the place but were planning on riding on Long Island, where I live, and in Connecticut, where Helen lives and Richard and Gavin grew up, the basic plan was to converge on that area, Gavin by plane and Richard and Marina by car. They were all to gather in Connecticut on the evening of the third and then travel to Long island by car and ferry to meet me at the starting point on the fourth

Starting out

The start was a mess as usual. At the last possible spur of the moment, Richard declared that his bikes needed work so he'd drive to my place instead of to Greenwich. True to form, he and Marina arrived three minutes before midnight on the third. We then got up early to fix the brakes on his bike, an ATP R-20 SWB recumbent equipped with Magura hydraulics - good while they work but a pain to service in the field. After that bike was done, we drove to Port Jefferson where Helen and Gavin landed on the 11.45 ferry. They brought one more bike and we loaded them on the cars and drove to the home of Peder, a colleague of mine, who had agreed to look after my car for the weekend. All accomplished before 12.15. Well timed. Then followed four (4!) hours of assembling the Linear recumbent tandem Richard had rented for the occasion. The bike was brand new, had never been ridden before and was not even fully set up. "Some" work was needed. Like the brakes, the derailleurs, the steering and the seats...

Lunch consisted of sandwiches on Peder's lawn and a bit after 4 PM we finally got rolling. By then the sunshine we'd had most of the day had gone and a fine drizzle was hampering the Independence Day festivities along the North Shore.

The deal was to have Gavin ride Richard's bike and Richard pilot the tandem with Marina as stoker while I, of course, would ride my old Linear. Marina would have the vantage point from the back of the tandem and Helen would drive a car with her bike on the back, parking ahead of us and cycling to meet us at selected points. This was to give Helen and Marina a chance at trying out recumbent touring since they'd never done it before. The best made plans of mice and men...

Our first such meeting point was to be Wading River. Yeah, right! We soon discovered that the combination of rain, uphills (the only climbs on Long Island are along the north shore) and already being late was a great incentive to NOT stick to the planned side-road route up and down along the coast and go on North Country Road instead. So Helen missed us. She eventually caught up with us with the car a bit later when we were stopped at the roadside to fix Richard's traditional "first day on a ride" puncture. We pushed on to Riverhead and found the Ramada Inn easily enough. By the time we'd showered and got ready to eat, it was 9 PM and Riverhead was closed. We finally found a pizzeria where we devoured amazing amounts of food.

Leaving Long island

Next day we had a boat to catch at 11 AM so we got up at 7 to roll at 8. 10.48 we pulled into the ferry terminal at Port Jefferson, Cutting it a bit tight... The ferry ride was uneventful but sunny and nice. The weather had really picked up over the previous day and we slopped on significant volumes of sunscreen. Marina and Helen decided to swap places so Marina would drive the car while Helen stoked the tandem. Luckily, the Linear is extremely easy to adjust for different riders, so for the remainder of the ride, they alternated between "stoking" and "sagging". Out of New London along Vauxhall Street and straight out into the boonies. We wanted to avoid the busy turnpikes as much as possible, for obvious reasons. After a few zigzags we wound our way up the valley to Devil's Hopyard state park. By that time, Richard was getting very fed up with the Linear tandem. The frame/boom was too soft and when he pushed really hard up some hill the frame bent so much the timing chain would come off. That happened a number of times that day. A truly bent 'bent...

We eventually found our way to Moodus where we had booked a couple of cabins at the Klar Crest resort & motel - a place that is best described as "past its prime". The cabins were probably state of the art when it was built, in the 60's. But their pool was nice and looked clean, at least until Gavin and I jumped into it. With 32 miles before lunch and 36 after, we had put in a respectable 68 miles that day. Not bad for such a mixed crowd. Italian dinner of pasta, pasta and pasta at a local place. Hunger really IS the best spice.

Out of the Mood(us)

The following day, Saturday, was supposed to be an "easy" day. Only 40-something miles but some climbs since we went east-west across the river valleys. But mechanical problems pestered us and it wasn't until just as the sun was setting that we pulled into the Howard Johnson of Waterbury, CT. We dined India-style with great pleasure at the Maharaja (warmly recommended, though it may well be the only thing in Waterbury you would want to go there for) and crashed to bed.

Rounding Up

The last day, Sunday, we realized that we would not quite accomplish our goal to reach Bridgeport that day, nor was it entirely desirable, since the only person who had to go there was me while the others all wanted to go to Stanford/Greenwich. So Gavin called his father who had agreed to come and meet us and a point was agreed on. We rolled south and south-west out of Waterbury. across a couple of more ridges down to the Housatonic river. Fun descents! Up the river to the Old Zoar dam and lunch at at pizza place again. Wonderful stuff, pizza. Then over a couple more minor climbs and all of a sudden we were in Monroe where Gavin's father arrived just after us. We loaded the bikes onto the cars, Richard drove me to the ferry in Bridgeport in time to get back to Long Island at a decent hour, while the others headed home.

Summary

A total of 34+68+46+27 miles, most of it on lovely country roads. Mostly a very nice ride. A detailed description follows below for those who would like to try it. I planned it using the Rand McNally "TripMaker" and "StreetFinder" CD-ROM computer maps but I am afraid I cannot recommend them for cyclists. The TripMaker program lacks details and the StreetFinder had too many errors. As an example, StreetFinder showed a service road running parallel to Highway 8 from Prospect Road, Union City to South Main Street, Waterbury. Wrong! We had to ride the shoulder of this VERY busy highway. Unpleasant. Then, there was supposed to be a bridge where there turned out to be none in Union City. A nice side road which was supposed to take us straight to our hotel in Riverhead ended with a high fence 30 feet from our destination. Far too many mistakes in just the handful of places I've looked. I simply would not dare trust that program again. TripMaker was accurate as far as I found but far too crude in detail for cycling. Roads picked by it invariably had too much traffic. Not useful. Most of day 3 was laid out by that program and the roads were not nearly as fun that day as on the others. It MAY be better for rides in less densely populated areas, but again I would not dare bet the enjoyment of my precious vacation days on that product.

The detailed route description follows. Any comments are most welcome and requests for even more info will be answered in ridiculous detail.

/Torsten

(mailto:torstenlif@yahoo.com - put the word "recumbent" in the message title to escape my SPAM filter)

Itinerary

Day 1
East Setauket, NY
Main Street
Port Jefferson
North Country Road
ST 25A
Shore Road
Twomey Street
Riverhead
Day 2
Riverhead
ST 25
Southold
County Rd 48
Greenport
ST 25
Orient Point, NY
Ferry
New London, CT
Vauxhall Street
Turner Road
Grassy Hill Road
Beaver Brook Road
Hamburg Road (ST 156)
Hopyard Road
Devil's Hopyard State Park
Haywardville Road
Mount Parnassus Road
Town Street (ST 151)
Moodus, CT
Day 3
Moodus
ST 151
Cobalt
ST 66 *
Portland, CT
ST 66 (bridge) *
Middletown
ST 66 *
ST 157 *
Middlefield
ST 157 *
ST 68 *
Cheshire
ST 68 *
Mixville
ST 68 *
Prospect
ST 68 *
Union City
ST 8 *
Waterbury (Ramada Inn)
Day 4
Waterbury, CT
ST 8 *
Union City
Maple Street
Rubber Avenue
Gunntown Road
Chestnut Hill Road
Seymore Road (ST 67)
Great Hill Road
Squantuck Road (ST )
ST 34
Stevenson
Monroe Turnpike (ST 111) *
Old Zoar Road
Wheeler Road
Huntington Turnpike *
Monroe, CT
Roads marked with a star (*) were in my opinion too "big", had too much traffic and/or poor shoulders for cyclists to ride on.