# The Trails Less Travelled...Burlington/Bristol/Harwinton 2010-08-29



## WoodCore (Aug 29, 2010)

Great ride with Bvibert, Mleg  and Tim this morning. We headed out of Lamson's Corner a little after 9am and embarked on a pretty sweet loop of rarely ridden single track in the towns of Burlington, Bristol and Harwinton. The loop came in at a little over 15 miles with a healthy 2000 feet of climbing! Although we ended up riding on the road for some extended stretches (happens when your exploring) the single track that I and most of the group rolled for the first time today was A+++ prime! 

As my knowledge of the network of trails in this area continues to expand the more it continues to impress and seeing as all the trails we rode today are easily connected into the existing 60+miles of Burlington/Nassahegon goodness....I'm smiling, but my dogs are barking for sure!!


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## bvibert (Aug 30, 2010)

Excellent ride and very eye opening to discover so many miles of old trails hiding in the area.  Some excellent new (to me) loops are now on the horizon!

It was cool to ride through the area of a somewhat recent forest fire, it was so wide open between all the new trees growing in, a very different feel than the rest of Nass.  Plus the seeing some trees that survived with charred bark on one side was neat.  I swear I even caught the occasional wiff of burnt wood.

The trails were all in pretty good shape, you can tell that the locals have been keeping up on them, even through the recently logged areas.  As another contrast to the rest of Nass there were several areas of somewhat jagged rocks on the trails making for some interesting/technical riding.  In addition there's opportunity for some cool features on some of the near-by rocks if someone were so inclined.  I honestly didn't think that we climbed as much as we did, there really wasn't much in the way of big long climbs.

I started out the ride not really sure how far I'd make it as I wasn't feeling all that well, but for the most part that subsided once the ride started and I felt pretty strong most of the ride.  The only real negative that I had was breaking my derailleur hanger midway through the ride.  Luckily I had a spare in the pack (even though I was pretty sure I didn't) so I was able to fix it quickly and get back on the trail without issue.  I have no idea how it happened.  I was crossing a nicely armored stream crossing when all of the sudden everything went to shit.  The derailleur somehow got into the spokes and went for a ride.  Luckily I was going slow at the time and stopped before any serious damage happened to the wheel.

BTW - I'm pretty sure we also spent some time in Terryville...


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## MLegg (Aug 30, 2010)

Thanks to Woodcore for spending the hours looking for new trails during the rainstorms last week!  His time and efforts paid off, big time. Rode a lot of trails that were new to most of us. Several more that we just didn't have time to explore. And a big THANK YOU to the gnomes du forest that worked hard last month reopening the trails through the logged areas. I didn't think we'd see those again this year.


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## WoodCore (Aug 30, 2010)

bvibert said:


> BTW - I'm pretty sure we also spent some time in Terryville/Plymouth...



I think your right! That would make it a 2 County/4 Town ride as we passed briefly through Litchfield County when we where in Plymouth and Harwinton.


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## WoodCore (Aug 30, 2010)

MLegg said:


> Thanks to Woodcore for spending the hours looking for new trails during the rainstorms last week!  His time and efforts paid off, big time. Rode a lot of trails that were new to most of us. Several more that we just didn't have time to explore. And a big THANK YOU to the gnomes du forest that worked hard last month reopening the trails through the logged areas. I didn't think we'd see those again this year.



My pleasure MLegg! After hiking this stuff wasn't exactly sure how it would ride but I thought it rolled pretty sweet and judging from your reactions pretty sure you all agree. There's still more trail in there I need to explore and become familiar with none the less with the addition of these trails the network of continuous ridable trail has probably grown by a good 10+ miles or more! Can't wait to get back over there to continue exploring!

Many thanks to the trail Gnomes for all the effort they have contributed to this area of the forest!


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