{"id":602,"date":"2009-09-12T16:07:29","date_gmt":"2009-09-12T21:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/?p=602"},"modified":"2009-09-17T21:57:25","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T02:57:25","slug":"training-the-water-is-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/2009\/09\/12\/training-the-water-is-long\/","title":{"rendered":"Training: The Water Is Long"},"content":{"rendered":"

My second training ride occurred during the last weekend of August.\u00c2\u00a0 I went to a location I’d biked to a few times before, including on my first training ride in 2007.\u00c2\u00a0 That place is the Quabbin Reservoir<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 To get there, I headed East from our house through Amherst and into Belchertown, stopping off at our favorite breakfast place, The Roadhouse Cafe<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 (those in the area should eat there sometime if you haven’t already – and no, this is not a paid advertisement).<\/p>\n

From there I went further East on Route 9, and got to the first entrance to the reservoir reservation, still barely in Belchertown.\u00c2\u00a0 Near that park entrance is the Quabbin visitors’ center:<\/p>\n

\"quabvisit\"<\/p>\n

Turning around from there, one can look North along the Western ‘lobe’ of the reservoir:<\/p>\n

\"quabwest1\"<\/p>\n

Proceeding just to the East, one comes to the Winsor Dam, which is a big earthen berm with a spillway to one side for what remains of the Swift River.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s a view of the dam from near the visitors’ center:<\/p>\n

\"winsdam1\"<\/p>\n

And here I look along the top of it:<\/p>\n

\"winsdam2\"<\/p>\n

I rode across, and then took some pics of the river in the spillway.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is where the water was coming toward me from the reservoir:<\/p>\n

\"swift1\"<\/p>\n

And here’s the other side, where the river proceeds South:<\/p>\n

\"swift2\"<\/p>\n

\"swift3\"<\/p>\n

I then proceeded up Quabbin Hill:<\/p>\n

\"quabhill\"<\/p>\n

At the top of the hill is a lookout tower:<\/p>\n

\"quabtower\"<\/p>\n

My legs were a bit tired from riding up the hill (though it was much more gradual than Sugarloaf), but I was still able to climb the 6 flights of stairs.\u00c2\u00a0 Here are views through the windows at the top:<\/p>\n

\"quabview1\"<\/p>\n

\"quabview2\"<\/p>\n

\"quabview3\"<\/p>\n

After a brief time up there, I headed down the other side of the hill, continuing East.\u00c2\u00a0 I came to the Enfield lookout.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s the reason for the name:<\/p>\n

\"enfsign\"<\/p>\n

Where the town was is mostly water now:<\/p>\n

\"enflook1\"<\/p>\n

\"enflook2\"<\/p>\n

Shortly after the bottom of the hill, one comes to the Goodnough Dike:<\/p>\n

\"gooddam1\"<\/p>\n

\"goodrock\"<\/p>\n

The path over this dike comes off the main road, and goes in a loop.\u00c2\u00a0 I first went across the top:<\/p>\n

\"gooddam2\"<\/p>\n

From there I got this view of the Eastern ‘lobe’ of the water:<\/p>\n

\"quabeast1\"<\/p>\n

And then I followed the path down behind the dike (i.e. the dry side) to go back to the road.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s the dike seen from below:<\/p>\n

\"gooddam3\"<\/p>\n

From there, I came out the Eastern park entrance onto Route 9 in the town of Ware.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought I might head East a little more, but there was a long hill to climb on 9, and my legs thought I should head for home.\u00c2\u00a0 One the way back along Route 9, I passed this swampy area:<\/p>\n

\"swamp1\"<\/p>\n

\"swamp2\"<\/p>\n

I realized that I could see the Quabbin observation tower in the distance:<\/p>\n

\"towerfar\"<\/p>\n

I spotted a great blue heron in the swamp, but it flew away before I could get close enough to take a picture.<\/p>\n

Soon after that point, I came to the Swift again, where it crosses 9.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s considerably calmer there:<\/p>\n

\"swift4\"<\/p>\n

That’s also the border between the towns of Ware and Belchertown:<\/p>\n

\"waresign\"<\/p>\n

I then passed the other entrances to the reservation (including the one I’d gone in earlier) and headed back home the way I’d come.\u00c2\u00a0 Total distance: 37 miles<\/p>\n

Next: Yet another mountain<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My second training ride occurred during the last weekend of August.\u00c2\u00a0 I went to a location I’d biked to a few times before, including on my first training ride in 2007.\u00c2\u00a0 That place is the Quabbin Reservoir.\u00c2\u00a0 To get there, I headed East from our house through Amherst and into Belchertown, stopping off at our … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":630,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions\/630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}