The Ride
Departing from Cross River shortly after dawn, the overcast sky with several dark clouds threatening rain made it feel much earlier than it was. The Beeline Moto’s compass indicated 19.7 miles as the crow flies to the destination in Connecticut on the BMW R18 Classic. See our article on discovering new roads with Beeline.
I headed east on Route 35, which, with the limited visibility and its easy-going sweeping corners, was a perfect start. Once I hit Ridgefield to one of the fun side roads, a slight diversion led me to Route 7, where I passed a coffee shop I previously visited: Tusk & Cup.
A few meanderings led me onto Route 107, and eventually, running alongside the reservoirs in the area forced my path to one not ideally lined up with my destination. But the roads were outstanding. With the updated software on the Beeline Moto 2 (link to review) and app, I marked the streets with thumbs up to retrieve them later in the app. These will show as small green + signs on your heat map. Conversely, a negative rating will appear as a red sign. Beyond signaling to yourself which roads are good vs bad, this also aids the routing engine if you are using turn-by-turn. It will aim to avoid the crowdsourced “bad” roads and favor the “good” ones, improving generated routes over time.
With the thumbs up marked on the Valley Forge Road alongside the Saugatuck Reservoir and Black Rock Turnpike next to Hemlock Reservoir, I was blessed with some good roads this morning, even if they didn’t perfectly align with the compass heading.
Past the reservoir, the compass urged me in a direction that matched the Merritt Parkway as I crossed it. I wasn’t keen to grab a highway for the last few miles, so I hoped to find a side road. I took the first left after the causeway over the Samp Mortar Reservoir, which lined up well at first. Still, it ended near Lake Mohegan with no clear path to match my intended direction. So, I headed back toward the Merritt, eventually crossing over it and finding a side road running parallel to it. Crossing the Merritt again, I passed Sacred Heart University as the miles remaining on the compass continued to count down. A final turn onto Madison Avenue brought me to J Bagels & Cafe. Reviewing the route Rever recorded, it showed 31.9 miles for this trip. See the route below.
