Day 2 The Berkshires

Day 2 of the bike vacation found us still feeling good from the previous run up Greylock. Today we headed down to the town of Great Barrington for a ride around the Berkshires. I had gotten most of the roads for this ride from the Road Biking Massachusetts book. My original plan was for a 50 mile ride but I shortened it to 44 miles and took out a few hills to make it a little easier. I was a little stiff from the Greylock ride but after about 10 miles was feeling good. This ride was mostly rolling hills with only a couple of steep spots. The ride is a south/north loop between two mountain ranges. The weather was perfect. It was in the mid 70s, light winds and scenic views in all directions. After climbing Cooper Hill, which was the toughest hill of the day, We had some really views of the surrounding landscape. We then had a 5 mile loop that brought us into Connecticut and pass Ashley Falls (we didn't actually see the falls since they require a hike to see them).

 From Ashley falls we headed north pass Mt Everett, one of the tallest mountains in the area, before finding a deli in South Ergemount for a break. We continued on pass some nice farmland and some rolling hills.We hit a couple of unexpected dirt roads along the way. The Road Biking Massachusetts didn't mention anything about the dirt roads but neither of them was a problem since they where very hard packed dirt that lasted less than a mile before turning back to asphalt.

The last part of the ride was the hilliest part as we went around a mountain's called Tom's Peak. The climbs were in the 3% range so not too bad and we past by some interesting houses that were definitely own by artists as there were some interesting sculptures in the front yards.

We had some nice down hills as we headed back down into Great Barrington and back to the cars. After the ride we headed to West Stockbridge for lunch on our way to Kingston. There wasn't much to the town but we manage to find a new cafe that had some amazing salads and sandwiches. It was a nice find.

Two hours later we were in Kingston at the Roadway Inn. This was your normal sub standard hotel but was good enough for a couple of nights. After checking in and getting settled we headed into Kingston for dinner. The outskirts of town reminded me a little of Paterson NJ so I was concerned that we won't find a place we would want to stop to eat but once we got to the water front it was much nicer. We ate at a Italian restaurant that had really good food then stopped at a Stewards for ice cream before heading back to the room.

So today we had a good ride, two really good means and ice cream. All in all a good day.