I had the most wonderful ride on Saturday. Roughly 136 miles of beautiful county roads through Litchfield, Dutchess, and Ulster counties (Those are in CT and NY ... I'll try to post a map of the route). It was an "Out and Back" loop to a friends house for cigars. The weather in the morning was a touch cold ... 45 degrees when I left home. I was geared up well, so it wasn't too bad. By the time I reached my destination it had warmed up to 60 degrees and was just about perfect! The views were spectacular ... clear skies gave me views to the horizon. Not sure how far, but I was up in altitude so it was probably 10 - 15 miles or so to the distant Catskills visible from the Pine Plains region. Also, being mid-fall season, all the hills were painted in yellows and golds and positively glowed in the morning/evening light. But the roads! Oh my. I've done this trip several times by car, but this was a first by bike. I lucked out and had very little traffic. As a result I was able to really enjoy the twists and turns. I'm in motard trim, so I could really scoot along and get my lean on. Had to be careful in the morning as the roads were still soaked from the rain the night before, particularly so in the deep valleys. Even 6 hours later on the return trip there were a few wet spots in the deep shade. Tricky to spot from a distance. The speed limit on most of the roads is 45-55 mph, so it's possible to have a lot of fun without fear of dodging Johnny Law. Considering many of the turns are blind anyway, the speeds stay, um, reasonable. Why no pictures? Well ... call it a personality disorder. Whenever I am going point A to point B, that is my mission. I do enjoy the scenery and roads between those points, but rarely want to stop.... especially if there's no traffic. Because inevitably, if I stop, then some joker will come along in her SUV or Prius and go as slowly as possible. However, if I'm just out for an aimless ride, I'm more likely to stop randomly. If the map works, you will see there are all kinds of permutations to the route that will follow an amazing array of roads. I've been exploring on a few, but there are many more! Here's a link to the map: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Tor...da401e7b306!2m2!1d-73.988756!2d42.0592369!3e0 I can't seem to embed the map, but that's probably my fault.
