Northeast - Anyone Commute in Connecticut?

I just got a job offer from a certain sports cable network, based in Bristol, CT. Can anyone tell me what the bike commute is like there? I lived there for a summer a couple years ago as an intern with a car, and I remember traffic being crazy, and not seeing any bikes riding around. If it's hard for me to commute to work, it will seriously affect my decision to move there. I don't want to have to get a car.

The job may be (probably will be) a lot better than my current job, but everything else in my life may suffer as a result... I am supposed to call them today with a decision, and I am wrestling with myself over what I want to do with my life! GAH!

I commute in the new haven area. narrow roads and everyone is in a hurry.
I have ridden around bristol a bit and there are some nice rides around that certain sports cable network especially approaching from the south and the west.
good luck.

I commute in the new haven area. narrow roads and everyone is in a hurry.
I have ridden around bristol a bit and there are some nice rides around that certain sports cable network especially approaching from the south and the west.
good luck.

Thanks! Looks like I am taking the job... I will investigate neighborhoods to the west and south. Take care.

Ok, I live within 7 miles of the broadcast facility you speak of. There are *plenty* of safe commutable roadways leading there, as stated, from the South but I would also add from the East as well (Southington). West I would have pegged as a little more iffy just based on the traffic and the design of the streets. All in all, if you can find a place to live within any of the towns surrounding Bristol, you will be fine. The worst part is riding along Rte. 229 - Middle/West St. through Bristol itself... if coming in from the South (e.g. Cheshire or Marion/Southington) you can find ways so that you are only on this road for 1/2 mile or less.

BTW, welcome to the area. There are group rides leaving from Sleeping Giant State park on Tuesday evenings and Sunday mornings that go *right by* where you will be working, though it is at the half-way point. Your choice to ride/drive down to the start point or start with the group as they ride by.

Joey Mac,
Welcome to the Central Ct area! From the south there is a route along South Mountain that goes from Chesire area through Southington to Bristol ... most likely the route used by fprintf. (In my younger racing years I cycled the Sunday morning route every weekend in the winter.) It's a rural route with little to moderate traffic. (Look up Mount Southington Ski Area and Lake Compounce Amusement Park as references - follow the route south and north) The only contact you will have with with Rt 229 is crossing it from Cross St to Redstone Hill. The first right will take you to the main employee enterance of that Sport Network.
Hope to see you on the road ,,, we'll be the "old couple" on the tandem .... good luck with the job,
Tandem Edge

Tandem Edge, thanks for the input. I have looked at a map to see where you are talking about, and that seems like a decent ride, if you are talking about the road that goes right next to Lake Compounce. Either way, the company is going to fly me down for a few days to look around the area and try to decide on a place to live, I think I will take an extended tour of the back roads around the area with the rental car. You don't happen to know where I might be able to find a bike to rent or borrow while I am in town? It would be great if I could actually ride these roads on a bike to see what it would be like. Maybe I could join up on a group ride if I time it right. Anyway, thanks again for the tips. Hopefully will see you on the road. :)

and fprintf, i meant to ask, is that ride going on through the winter? I just looked again and saw that you said it was going on sunday and tuesday. I might see if I can join up to check it out. thanks for the headsup!

Joey, yes the ride goes all the way through the winter, though I suspect it is a bit smaller when it is really cold. Temps are supposed to get into the 40s on Sunday, so it will probably draw a larger crowd than recently. I haven't been since the temps got below the 45 degree mark... wimped out, I know.

The Sunday ride is the winter ride, leaving Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden at 10 a.m. sharp. The Tuesday evening ride is during racing season only and leaves from the same location approx. 5:30 or 6:00 pm.

I hope you find a bike to borrow. Otherwise driving around should be instructive anyway.

I just got a job offer from a certain sports cable network, based in Bristol, CT. Can anyone tell me what the bike commute is like there? I lived there for a summer a couple years ago as an intern with a car, and I remember traffic being crazy, and not seeing any bikes riding around. If it's hard for me to commute to work, it will seriously affect my decision to move there. I don't want to have to get a car.

The job may be (probably will be) a lot better than my current job, but everything else in my life may suffer as a result... I am supposed to call them today with a decision, and I am wrestling with myself over what I want to do with my life! GAH!


Joey-

I work at the sports network you speak of and it's a great place to work. I relocated from San Francisco and was very hesitant, but went for it and have never looked back. The place never stops growing and they really do try to take care of the people working there. Look out at the on campus cafe though :)

I live in Simsbury (north about 20 miles) and there's no problem commutting, other than the distance. Most of the riding is either on the rail-to-trail multi-use or on two lane roads. The rail trail doesn't get plowed though, so plan on studded tires if you're hitting that.

The sports network has shower facilities and lockers, so you can take clothes and whatever in and not have to haul them with you on the bike. They don't have bike racks though, so you'll need to either park your bike inside by your cubicle (if you're going to have one) or find a good spot to park and lock it. There are a good number of cyclists working here, some pretty hard core roadies and lots of mt bikers.

When you get here give me a call, my extension is 3350 :)
Welcome to the four letter network!

JoeyMac,
There is one excellent bike shop in Bristol on Farmington Avenue that may be able to lone you a bike if you give them notice and explain your situation. If not, depending on your height etc, I may have one that would do you for a day. I ride a 53-54 cm ... if that will do and the weather cooperates your welcome to it ... just give me some notice. If not ... we can always give you a route to follow ... both North and South. That will give you the option of going to Cheshire or Simsbury for housing.
Good luck ...

I just got back to Rochester this week to finalize thing for the move, after spending last week out in Bristol. As part of the relocation package, last week I was flown into nearby Hartford and given a rental car, and put up in a hotel right outside of Bristol for 4 nights. A relocation specialist named Joanne helped me pick out apartments to look at based on my needs, which above all had to be in a good location to bike commute to work. Joanne drove me around Bristol for a day to see the area and look at apartments. Some areas were nice but only accessible along busy narrow streets, others only accessible up long steep hills which I swear must have been almost a 45% grade. I ended up choosing a nice apartment 2 miles from where I will work along a quiet, relatively flat, wide back road. We took the commute road in the rental car and it seemed alright, but I needed the experience by bicycle. Since I had flown down and all my stuff was still in Rochester, I obviously didn't have my own bike to ride. I spoke briefly with a couple other BF members on the phone, and I went around and checked local bike shops right in Bristol to see if they had rentals and to generally get an idea about what the bicycling life was like around there. There are a couple nice shops right in Bristol, but I ended up down the road in nearby Milldale, at a place called Bobby Sprocket.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2381/2206573039_84c377e096.jpg
I had brought along my new little point-and-click automatic digital camera, but didn't realize till later that the date-stamp was on, d'oh! Anyway, the folks at Bobby Sprocket were really friendly and wanted to help out a bike commuter new to the area, and they had a bike I could borrow:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2012/2206571785_c50f2d0ebd.jpg
Luckily I had packed my helmet and tail-light on the flight down. Without any further delay, I got the bike to my new apartment complex and hopped on.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2069/2206580105_7aab0c45d5.jpg
They had insisted I borrow a headlight too, I didn't argue. This is where I am going to live:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/2206576177_a012ebaf99.jpg
From there I rode to where I will work, this is what a lot of that road looks like:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2309/2206582971_7dd552bc5b.jpg
And here is the bike across from where I will work:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2415/2207378670_1ab11682ea.jpg
This is on the opposite side of the campus from where I will actually ride my bike. Good thing too, the road that I am on the other side of is a scary four lane 40+mph road with a lot of traffic. I almost got hit getting over there to take the picture. From there I rode on (on back roads) to nearby Lake Compounce Amusement Park:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2077/2207384268_3a0e07ea2a.jpg
Apparently it's the oldest theme park in the US. But it was closed for the season.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2025/2207382212_79673ab365.jpg
I still had the bike for another day so the next day I started off at the same location and took off in the other direction, loosely towards the main shopping centers of town, but by way of back roads.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2254/2206696785_6f482c4ef6.jpg
I ended up at this pond in Page Park.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2114/2206708491_be2c86504f.jpg
I returned the bike and then flew back to Rochester, and have spent the last week getting ready to go out there for good. The movers came and took all my stuff earlier and it's on its way to my new home. I fly out tomorrow morning and I am there. See you on the roads in Connecticut!

Welcome to Connecticut! All of the places you took pictures of are places I ride on a regular basis.

You have picked a fantastic location to be a cyclist. A couple of the highlights that I can think of:
1. Several top notch bike stores within easy cycling distance. Cheshire Cycles in Cheshire, Bobby Sprockets (which has been there about a year, and is just really getting going).
2. Several top notch bike stores within 10 - 20 minutes drive. Newington Bike in Newington and Pedal Power in Middletown. There are even more as you branch out a little further, like Zanes in Branford, North Haven Bike and Benidorm in Branford (all sponsors of local cycling teams). Many of them sponsor weeknight group rides also.
3. A fantastic group ride that goes right up toward ESPN, which I mentioned before, from Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden. The Sunday ride is typically during the Spring and Fall before/after racing season. Tuesday nights during racing season are a true hammerfest where the goal seems to be to drop as many people as possible, just like a real race. Lots of people like myself try to hang on and keep showing up week after week with the goal of hanging on just a bit longer.
4. Excellent single track mountain biking within several miles of your apartment? Brooksvale Park in Cheshire. Cheshire Cycles has a Thursday night ride starting at the store at 6 pm. If you mountain bike there are also lots of other approved places around the state, from some great single track w/ jumps in Middlefield to some mixed wide open and/or very technical single track at the West Hartford reservoir.
5. 90 minutes to NYCity, 2 hours to Boston, 90 minutes to Rhode Island beaches (way way better than CT shoreline beaches which tend to be rocky and sometimes polluted). 2 1/2 hours to Mt. Snow for awesome mountain biking with lifts to the top!

I could go on and on. Apart from the weather this time of year, it is really an awesome place to live.

FriendlyFred, Nice to know there are other bike commuters on campus. today was orientation and I drove the rental car just to make sure I got there and there were no problems (didn't want to possibly flat or something on the first day). I happen to spot on my way out that there are indeed bike racks, and right outside the DC where I will be working. So I think tomorrow I will start riding in (even though I still have a rental car for the next two weeks. I'll give you a call when I am settled into my own spot.

I moved into my apartment Friday night, the movers dropped my stuff off first thing Saturday morning, and the first thing I did after they left was hop on my SpaceLiner for a cruise around the new hood. The area is quite hilly so the singlespeed can be a chore sometimes, but it's still cruisable. Sunday morning I took off on my road bike, east down W. Washington, with no route or destination in mind, just randomly turning down side streets to see where they led, and I ended up in downtown plainville, and then all over the place, I mapped my ride:
http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ct/forestville/676202999
If you click show elevation you'll see what I had to contend with, more hills than I am used to, but they really weren't too bad to go up, and a lot of fun to go down. Anyway, next time I think I might have more of a solid route in mind, this was kind of an experiment. Also, I found someone's cell phone on the side of the road, said "32 missed calls". I tried calling the most recent caller, and the battery died. I just dropped the phone off at the verizon store on 6.