Mystic

Total for this ride: 43.7 miles

Total for this year: 706.7 miles

Sunday's ride was a little more ambitious than Saturday's.  I'd always wanted to ride from East Lyme to Mystic, home of Mystic Seaport, a restored 19th Century whaling village.  This was my day to do it.

The first challenge was finding the pedestrian/bicycle path on the north span of the Gold Star Bridge over the Thames River - the longest bridge in the state of CT.  I rode over the bridge once last year, but I came in from the Coast Guard Academy.  This time I was riding in from downtown New London - approaching from the opposite direction.  I knew generally where I needed to go, but still had to turn around once when it became apparent that I was about to ride onto an on-ramp for a major highway.  Fortunately one of those "no bikes" signs alerted me to the error of my way before I got into trouble, and also fortunately the exploratory route I took after turning around turned out to be the right one.  It took me straight to the bike path.

Getting over the bridge was no trouble.  It rises a couple hundred feet over the Thames River, but the slope is so gradual that it really isn't that hard.  Once you get to the other side, the path gets pretty creepy.  It looks exactly like someplace one could easily get mugged, murdered, or worse.  And indeed, as I was working my way under the bridge and up to the street level, I almost ran over a homeless woman who was sitting right on the path, "getting herself together" she said as I excused myself and rode around her.

I managed to get up to the street level on the Groton side of the bridge without further incident, but ended up at a 5-way intersection which wasn't really well marked.  I brought maps, but they weren't detailed enough to tell me which way I should go.  So I picked one and decided I'd figure it out eventually.  After roaming around for maybe 15 minutes, I came across a street I remembered from the map, which gave me my bearings and put me on the road to Mystic.

I reached Mystic not long after that, and rolled into the historic district.  Although I've been to the seaport dozens of times in the past, I couldn't remember ever being in this part of town.  If I didn't have to get back for the 1:00 family party, and if I wasn't wearing cleats, I would have liked to stay and explore.  But I pressed on, and head north out of town, eventually turning back to the west toward Groton.

When I got back to Groton I decided to take Thames Road, the road right along the river, north to the access point for the bridge.  I stopped once at the Garbo Lobster plant to take a couple of pictures of New London on the far side of the river, then continued north toward the bridge.  Before getting there I stopped one more time in a parking lot off the street to take a panorama of the bridge.  When I finished, I slowly climbed up the small rise out of the parking lot toward the road.  I was about to make a left turn, when I thought I heard a car approaching from that direction.  I stopped short of the road so I wouldn't get hit, but hadn't thought to unclip my cleat from the pedal before doing so.  So... I fell.  Landed on my right side, right on the sidewalk.  Fortunately I was not moving at the time, so the damage was minimal.  A bruse on my left hand, and a few small scrapes on the right break lever and hood.  Other than that, the only thing damaged was my pride.

Getting back over the bridge was kind of interesting.  Going back through the creepy area I noticed a guy up ahead of me walking on the path.  I don't think he was homeless, but he didn't seem to be moving with a purpose.  So, like I normally do when coming up on pedestrians from behind, I called out to him.  But he was in his own world.  I kept riding closer and called out again.  Still nothing.  He reached down to pick something up from the narrow path just as I rolled up to him and called out again - this time he heard me, but apparently I scarred the heck out of him.  He jumped off the path and hollered.  I apologized and pressed on.  Right after I got by him, before I made the final right hand turn up toward the bridge, I noticed in my mirror that there was a guy on a motor scooter coming up fast behind me.  This is completely illegal - there are no motorized vehicles allowed on the pedestrian/bike path.  But there he was.  Hoping that he would continue straight toward the sub base when I turned right to go up toward the bridge, I tried to pick up the pace.  But he wanted to go over the bridge too.  There was no way I was going to be able to stay ahead of him, and the path is too narrow for him to pass, so I quickly unclipped (ALMOST falling again in the process...) pulled into the grass, and let him pass.  As he did so he yelled out that I didn't need to let him go by, but I definitely think that was a good move.  By the time I hit the straightaway up the bridge, he was long gone.

I got back to New London OK, and planned to just retrace my route back home.  But I quickly discovered that one of the streets I had ridden on earlier in the day was a one-way street.  It took a few minutes (and about 25 yards of riding against traffic) to get me back on track.  Going back toward East Lyme on Rt. 1 in New London I realized that the city has lots of stoplights on hills.  All of which were going up in my direction.  Which meant I would have to take off from a stop, and while trying to get the bike rolling up a hill, clip into my pedal before losing all momentum and falling down.  I successfully managed to do so at each light, but the whole experience reminded me of the first time I took a stick shift into San Francisco.  You really learn a lot in those situations.

All day I had thought about making this a >50 mile ride, and could have easily done so by swinging down toward the Harkness Memorial on the way home, but I'd had enough of an adventure for one day, and needed to get back before company showed up.  So I took the straight route back and settled for just under 44 miles.

By the way... this is the "death shot"... the one I took right before falling down...