Because of various travel, I just had one weekend in August in which I was able to get out on the bike. I made it count, though, with a bunch of hill climbing.

I rode west to Westfield, which involves a moderate hill on Route 202, and went across the northern edge of Westfield, before heading northwest into the town of Montgomery. I’ve done that a couple times before, but this time I followed a slightly different path, as suggested by Google maps (which went through a corner of Southampton). I thought the suggestion might be a little easier, but it turned out to involve more climbing than the typical road.

On that alternate route, I did pause in the first bit of climbing to photograph this sculpture near someone’s house (as always, click on the picture to see it bigger:

Painted sculpture of a rooster, standing on an actual tree stump, with trees and shrubs in background.

After getting to the top of this side road’s hill, I went downhill a bunch, then up a bit to the main road in Montgomery. There was a little more uphill riding as I went through the center of town, and then a long downhill run into Huntington. Once there, I stopped at the Huntington Country Store for lunch.

After lunch, I headed north on Route 112, which involves some gradual uphill for a while (as the road follows the east branch of the Westfield River). The hill starts to get a little steeper in the northern part of town, and I pulled off to rest at a scenic overlook. There’s a lot of greenery there, which obscures the view a bit:

View of tree-covered ridge in the distance, with many green bushes in the foreground.

One can see the Knightville Dam from this vantage (that gray bit in the right of the photo is part of the dam), but it is more obscured than that ridge in my photo.

From here I kept going north, and up. Stopping for a quick break near this little waterfall in the woods:

Small waterfall in a stream in the woods, seen from uphill.

Just after that, I passed into the town of Worthington, and then turned off of 112 to the east. The road I was on (Ireland St.) very quickly turns north, and heads into the town of Chesterfield. Ireland St. involves another hill climb, then a level section, followed by a generous downhill section. After getting to the bottom, I passed by the Chesterfield Gorge, and then came to Route 143.

I headed east on 143 up to Chesterfield Center. When I say up, I of course mean yet another long hill climb. I had to rest once for this one, but it did not take me too long to get up there. I left the town center headed south, and downhill through a piece of Westhampton, and also passed through the west part of Northampton, on my way into Easthampton.

From there, I headed out the Manhan Rail Trail to Route 5, and then south back to Holyoke. Total distance was 56 miles.

Next: an overnight, interstate trip