2027 Connecticut Roundabout Tour Planning
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Connecticut Roundabout Tour Intro:
New for 2027 is our "Connecticut Roundabout Tour", one of 6 new Tours for 2027.
At 238 miles over 6 days (averaging less than 40 miles/day), and with over 50% on rail trails, this tour is designed as the classic "Medium Salsa"...not a suffer-fest, yet a great step up into multi-day touring.
Also, it stats/ends at the Metro-North stop in New Haven, making it our most accessible multi-day tour. (And, we sneak in to Massachusetts and Rhode Island)
Registration opens January 5, 9am. See 2027 Tours for dates and to Wishlist.
Connecticut Roundabout Tour Design:
For 2027, we are really developing this idea of an "In-between" (Medium Salsa) Tour, that would present a fun challenge for newcomers as well as people looking to "level up" from Micro-Tours.
For Tour Planning, the first thing I think of is the overall concept...what is the goal here? The goal is a fall ride through beautiful countryside, using an accessible start point and rail trails to make the tour more attainable for people who may be new to multi-day bikepacking.
The next thing I usually do is determine if the tour is a loop or point-to-point. Loops are better for accessibility. Also, the start/end point being accessible to people without cars is a priority for me.
Basically, I plotted a few rail trails in RideWithGPS, along with campsites locations, to see if anything formed up as a viable route.
Air Line Rail Trail
Farmington Canal Heritage Rail Trail
I have ridden a decent about of the Farmington Trail on our 2025 Swimming Hole Tour, so was comfortable with that in/out of New Haven.
Regarding the name. I had initially called this Tour the "Nutmeg Roundabout", but changed to "Connecticut Roundabout" for 2 reasons. The first is that most people don't know that Connecticut is the Nutmeg State. Secondly, there is a great annual event called the Nutmeg Nor'easter, and I didn't want to confuse the marketplace as the demographics for both events are quite similar,
So, I now have a general loop and an idea of campsites. My next step is to break this up into 6 daily routes, mostly determined by campsite availability. More to come.
Final Note:
For better or worse, I do not use AI to create my posts. This is all me, with my misspellings, questionable grammar and tangential thoughts. I didn't get into this line of work to hand over my thoughts, expertise and experience to AI to spit out blog posts.
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