I slept pretty well last night but that means I was up & wide awake by 6:00. I wasn’t the only one, as most of the house was up by 6:30. The first coffee pot is gone in minutes and the second one is done shortly after that. Someone cooks up oatmeal, then someone else cooks up eggs, and finally pancakes. In all a pretty solid normal breakfast for the team trip.
As a group we seem impatient today, and we’re out of the house before 9:00. Our plans to park at the bottom of Moose Alley were thwarted by the fact that they have closed the lot. Bummer but no big deal. We wait for Jim & Mitch to get there, adjust a bit, and drive over to Moose Haven to park.
We gear up, take a team pic, then head out to ride.
We start by climbing half the road then taking Flower Brook over, which flows really well in this direction. It is more fun than I remember and it’s a great way to start the day. The weather is nice & cool, and it’s just nice to be out.
We get to the road and do the bottom of Moose Alley in reverse, which is less than ideal but we survive it.
We cross over Butter Tubs Access to Pinkham Road and go up the gravel road to the top of Moose Alley. It’s going to be a lot of climbing today and this is just another step in that process.
We get to the top and take some classic pictures. This is a common picture location, we always get pictures here. I suppose one day we should put all the year-by-year pics together and slideshow then together.
We head down Moose Deuce to the bottom of Moose Alley to Butter Tubs. We then head up Butter Tubs which is a new trail as of last year and is part of the moving of the whole system in this direction. It’s s slow, reasonable climb that gets us up the hill in an easy way.
We do a new trail up there too and finish up on a gravel road where we meet the landowner who seems a nice guy, if not a little puzzled with the big size of the group.
We link together some gravel roads and Swamp Donkey to get to the gazebo where we stop for lunch.
We meet another group from New Jersey and it turns out 2 of the people are from Warren, just 2-3 miles from where we live. We exchange info and maybe some day we will ride together. Or maybe not.
After we talk to them we loop the upper part of Black Bear before heading the full run down and calling it a day.
In all we did 18 miles in 2.5 hours. The Strava link can be found here.
We head back home to shower, then head out to White Market to get food to cook for dinner. Tonight is our night and we are making Japanese curry. Brian & Mitch help and we put together a well-received meal. Good stuff, one that we make pretty much every year.
Dinner is early and we are wrapped up and relaxing early tonight. Today it the end of our 6th day of the trip. Hard to believe we still have 4 more days left of this vacation.
Traveling Normandy 