Cycling the Connecticut River Valley

Cycle the Pioneer Valley's most beautiful, and flat, roads, following the Connecticut river for a 50-mile loop from Northampton to Greenfield and back.  We'll meet in the park at the west end of the Coolidge Bridge in Northampton, and peddle north through the bucolic towns of Hatfield, Whately, and Deerfield into Greenfield, where we'll stop for lunch at the People's Pint.  From there, it's up and over Highland Park, stopping to climb Poet's Seat to survey our kingdom, then downhill to and over the Connecticut into Montague to relax over coffee and browse books we don't need in a place we can't find, then off to cycle south along Falls Road into Sunderland, pulling over to cool off under Gunn Brook Falls, passing the Commonwealth's largest sycamore tree and most renowned ice cream stands, and peddling into Hadley and back over the Connecticut via the Norwottuck Rail Trial, returning to our starting point on the west (left) bank of the river.  A rope swing there provides a launch into the cool, clear, sandy-bottomed river, and docks will allow us to stretch out over it in the late afternoon sun.  Dinner and toasting follow at a local restaurant in Northampton.