Riverside Ride Part 2

I got a chance to further explore the trails on the northwest side of Riverside Park along the riverfront downtown. They were muddy, but there's some challenging (at least for me) stuff along the way, like multiple downed logs and brush piles, as well as some real bumpy gravel.

I started off in a reverse of the ride Andrea and I took, using the Hartford Club ramp to get over to Adriaen's Landing.

At first I thought the trails weren't as long as the posted signs said, but I spent about an hour on them. I also took a detour to explore the double track on the levee-top - there's a gravel ramp (bumpy climb, fun descent) up from the trail loop by the rail bridge. There's a down ramp into the North End/North Meadows, near some weird junkyard, a pond, and the CT Transit HQ. The double track extends for some distance, and it's mowed up until around the police firing range. That spooked me a bit (even though the warning lights weren't lit), that and riding behind the dump, so another day I'll follow that further up.

I got the bike real dirty, but I had noticed a homeless dude washing stuff off under a hand-pump along the riverwalk before hitting the trails, so I circled back and washed the bike off as best I could. There's at least three of those pumps, real convenient yet not something I'd expect.

The pedestrian overpass and JoJo's capped off the ride. Nothin' refreshes like a mango green tea smoothie, brain-freeze and all. I got back home around 4, having been out since 1. Not bad at all... but later on I was having thoughts about the Reservoir. Guess I've got a habit forming.