MMK50, or attempt thereof

The Bully organized another MMK50 (Merrimack 50 Mile) MTB ride this fall. Last year's ride fell short of the full 50 miles. This year a full 50 was promised. NEMBA has been very active with trail building in town, so there were many additions to include in the loop. It's always fun to ride new trails for the first time.

Spoiled with many consecutive dry weekends, the weather has finally turned more fall-like. After my sorry saga on Friday where I attempted to ride half the Rapha course in Vermont snow squalls, I didn't need another disaster of a ride in the same weekend. Some forecasts called for 50% chance of precip on Sunday, and radar was showing patches all around. That wasn't enough to deter 11 riders from making a go at Shawn's loop.

Pre-ride photo. From left in back, HJ, Andy, Curt, Dana, Pete, Dave, Luke

Matt, John, Carl, and Steve in front. All photos by Shawn Smith unless stated otherwise.

Unfortunately for Shawn, he suffered a hamstring injury playing football and was unable to ride. That had to just kill him, putting so much planning into the route and leaf blowing trails in preparation. He at least participated by shadowing us along the route, providing food, clothing drop support and photography.

We rode the loop mostly in reverse from last year. I had ridden portions of the loop only that one time before, so it was going to be pretty much new to me all over again. The network in Grater Rd Parcel continues to grow. We hit a freshly minted new trail to start, before hitting Salamander and Millipede. The new trail has not been named yet. Millipede is a fabulous trail, and devoid of leaves made it all the more fun.

We looped by Wildcat Falls, connected with the power lines, then headed towards Pipeline Trail. We suffered our only mechanical of the ride, a flat. Shawn's route had us looping around on roads to the top of Pipeline. The group consensus was f' that, let's just ride Pipeline as an out-and-back and cut out 4 miles of pavement to ride a 1 mile downhill. Nearly brought a tear to my eye, as riding up Pipeline is a worthy climb. Halfway into the ride, my legs were pretty toasted already, so no PR on the climb. But chasing wicked fast guys down, I did PR, my only PR for the ride.

Shawn had the truck with food and water waiting for us on Greens Pond Rd. After topping off, we headed to the Fidelity trails.  Keep in mind that if you want to follow this loop, the Fidelity trails are posted no trespassing. We were guests of employees in our group.

About 30 miles in, some cracks in the physical integrity of the group began forming. Two peeled off on Continental Blvd. I was leading for a while. Guess I didn't follow Shawn's original script, as we were to take more road to head into the Greens Pond Trails. Instead, I cut across Continental and went into the parcel the back way. That would take a bit more out of the planned 50 miles.

After riding the Greens Pond trails, three more riders split off as we headed into Horse Hill. Now I wasn't feeling too chipper anymore either, and only the fastest guys were left and showing no signs of slowing down. Of course, smaller, faster group also meant less regrouping time and faster average pace. I ride Horse Hill on my lunch breaks. At speed, many trails demand high cardio output. Whether it be climbing or frequent acceleration, you will get worked over in Horse Hill. Trying not to totally lose contact with Steve leading had me seeing cross-eyed.

With heavy overcast and getting late in the day, there wasn't going to be much light left. We didn't quite hit everything in Horse Hill, but at least most of the good stuff. I was glad to be heading out. We finished by riding the Dahl Green Area ridge with a leaf blown descent back to the house. Rain never materialized, except for a couple sprinkles. My wheel sensor managed to stay intact this time. My Garmin 705 logged 43.4mi, 4000ft climbing, in 4.2hrs. Many thanks to Shawn for organizing the ride, providing support, and vittles at his house post-ride.  Here's a random photo dump from the ride.

Initial off-road plummet on the power-lines. At speed, struck fear in me.

"Steeper than it looks..."

Not sure what parcel this was, don't think I was in there before.

Matt on the Grater Rd trails.

Carl in Grater Rd

Steve on Salamander(?) in Grater Rd.

HJ on Salamander(?)

Curt on Millipede in Grater Rd.

HJ trying to keep it together on Millipede, with Andy putting

pressure on. Hamburger bell on bar. Always food on my mind.

Isaac St Martin found the bell for me.

Dave on Millipede

Flat fix-it time

Bottom of Pipeline, just after doing out and back

Food stop on Greens Pond Rd.

Bike Travel

I'm asked many times per year how I get my bike to destinations. This just came up again, so I'd thought I'd dedicate a post to it and share everything I've learned over the last 15 years. This way, I can just refer to this post, which I might update from time to time. I will focus on continental US travel, although I've been to the Hawaiian Islands a couple times and Europe once.

A Seat For Your Bike Would Be Cheaper

Bringing a bike with you on a plane used to cost little to nothing. Today it is not uncommon to charge more to take a bike with you than for the airfare itself. My preferred airline for domestic flights is Southwest. They recently raised their price for bikes to $75 each way. The is much cheaper than the $200 some airlines charge.

While cost may be a deterrent, it is not the main reason why I avoid taking bikes with me on planes. Back around 2001, just after 9/11 I believe, I had an incident at LAX coming back with my Dean Titanium hardtail. You see, bike boxes are too big to go through x-ray machines. They must be manually inspected. This means the entire contents of the box comes out. You may have spent an hour meticulously layering things up in there, but that is not how it's going back into the box. In my particular incident, the bike box was inspected in front of me while I waited. The pieces did not go back into the box in the right order, and the box wouldn't close enough to get the buckles to catch. So the guys stood on the box, bouncing, with who knows what jamming into what inside there, trying to get the buckles to latch. I called out "Hey, what are you doing! Let me put it back in there."  The younger guy came over, got right in my face and yelled "You don't tell us how to do our jobs!" The older gentleman came over, put his hand on the younger guy's shoulder and said "Calm down, I'll take care of this."

He explained passengers are allowed to touch baggage after it's been inspected, and he'll try to re-position the items in the box.  Well, needless to say, there was some minor damage to the frame where the rear cassette destroyed the downtube multi-color DEAN decal. Fortunately titanium is pretty near indestructible. Had it been a modern carbon frame, the frame would have been toast.

I've since learned to zip-tie things up a little better, so what comes out of the box has better chance of going back in the same way. I tell this story though, to warn people that they are not the last to pack their box. TSA people in a back room somewhere are. Prospects are not great that it goes back in exactly the way you packed it.

Just like luggage, bikes can get lost in transit. Maybe even more likely, as they often can't go through the standard luggage carousels. I've heard too many stories of cycling trips ruined by lost or delayed bikes. This seems especially true for international travel. These days, I would consider taking my bike with me only on direct non-stop domestic flights.

Besides cost, risk of damage and loss, there's a fourth lesser reason to not take a bike on the plane with you. It is a pain in the ass to haul bike boxes through airports with luggage. This also means on shuttle buses to rental cars too. I've standardize on another means of getting my bike to destinations...

Size Matters

I almost universally pre-ship my bike these days. Exceptions are the islands, where there is no truck route option. You have many shipping company options. The two most popular are FedEx and UPS. I know many riders that use UPS and pay over $100 each way. I do not understand this. FedEx is consistently cheaper and offers another benefit I'll get to in a minute.

Here's a simple case study. You can go to the respective FedEx and UPS websites and check out other scenarios. I travel from Manchester, NH to Denver, CO a lot. I use a Trico Sports Iron Case. It is specified at 30" W x 48" H x 10" T. The sum of these dimensions is 88". This is extremely important. This used to be the absolute max at FedEx before bumping into oversize fees. It appears recently both FedEx and UPS hold the price up to 90" in size now. My packaged full-suspension mountain bike weighs around 65 pounds.

When I plug my dimensions into the estimators, I get $77.30 on FedEx and $89.27 on UPS.  This is much cheaper than what most airlines charge now, and nobody is going to rip your box apart at these carriers. However, sometimes the staff use a "generous" tape measure and add an inch or two to a couple of your dimensions. You must always watch out for this. Say you packed your 29er and the box is a little pregnant. They measure the 10" dimension to be 13". Your FedEx $77 fee now jumps to over $155, and your UPS $89 fee jumps to over $170! That is just crazy. What sometimes happens with me is my box is a bit beat up and the seams flare out a little. FedEx will find the maximum of each dimension, and if this adds just 3" to the sum of all three dimensions, my cost more than doubles. I've had to tactfully haggle a few times to get the dimensions to 90" or under. I've yet to pay an oversize fee.

If you use a bike box that is greater than 90", you are pretty much screwed with either of these carriers. Most premium boxes out there are well over 90" in sum of dimensions. Might as well fly with your bike in that case, as your bike probably has a much more comfy fit in the box and more apt to back into the box correctly after inspection.

I have a FedEx shipper account. Anybody can sign up, it costs nothing. It saves you 15%. When you ship bikes a few round trips per year, this really adds up. This brings my cost down to $65 each way.

One downside to ground shipping your bike is you lose the use of it for several days before and after your trip. For someone like me, this isn't a big deal, as I have other bikes I can ride in the mean time. Something to consider though, if you have only one bike.

Insurance

You will be asked if you want to insure your bike. I always decline. Just like buying extended warranties for appliances and cell phones, there's huge profit margins in this for the carriers. My philosophy on insurance in general is that it is for things you can't afford to cover out of pocket. If you are wealthy enough to be travelling to some exotic cycling destination with a $6000 bike, you can afford to replace it if FedEx backs a forklift over it. You can. You'll be pissed, but it won't bankrupt you. On the other hand, if your house that you owe $300,000 on burns to the ground, and you are not insured, you are probably screwed. Insurance makes sense in this case, not your prized bicycle case.

How to Pack

I can break my bike down in about 20-30 minutes. This includes completely removing the crankset on a full suspension MTB. I find it fits in the box better this way and is not much more work than removing just the pedals. Very important to remove the rear derailleur and hanger. This will usually be against the case and on bottom wheeled side. Leaving the hanger on there is just begging to start your trip with a bent hanger. Mountain bikers should always be taking a spare hanger with them too.

With hydraulic disk brakes, it is important to place wedges in the calipers so inadvertent squeezing of the levers won't close your calipers, making it impossible to mount a wheel, or worse, push out a caliper and spewing fluid. I also put a spacer in rear dropouts with quick release to retain it. This way if crushing force is placed on broad side of your box, you at least have some extra support there to protect your frame. You can use heavy schedule PVC pipe or a piece of copper pipe cut to 130mm (road), 135mm (mtb) or 142mm (thru-axle).

Wrap the carbon bits up in pipe foam and zip-tie it on. Same for handlebar. I remove bar from stem but don't mess with stem on steer tube. Wrap the chain and rear derailleur up in old t-shirt so it don't ding up frame or make a mess. Same for crank if you remove it like I do.

I also remove disk brake rotors. Probably not necessary, but I like to carry cassette tool with me and Shimano center-lock rotors are so easy to remove. This completely eliminates any risk of bent rotor at destination.

Release partial pressure in MTB tires. Box will close further and reduce risk of oversize fee. Don't let too much out that tubeless bead will break seal, spewing Stan's in your box. Wheels go in last. I zip-tie them together so they overlap a certain way, keeping axles from hitting frame underneath.

Where To Ship To, Drop Off At

There are many drop-off and pick-up options. I used to hunt around for bike shops that were willing to receive and hold my bike in the box until I came to pick it up. A few bike shops will gladly do this, and I was sure to stock up on Cliff bars there or throw a ten in the beer funds jar at the service counter.  Many shops want a little more in return for handling your bike and will do so only if they can unpack and build it up for you. This may cost as much as shipping your bike. They will also offer to pack and ship your bike at the end of your trip. Some readers no doubt may want full service, especially those not accustomed to doing all of their own bike maintenance.

Besides having trouble in some areas finding a bike shop to hold your bike for you, you are also faced with limited bike shop hours. Say your flight gets in at 10pm. Guess what? You're not riding your bike at 8am the next morning. The shop probably doesn't open until 9am or 10am. The day could be half gone before your bike is ready to ride.

That's where FedEx comes to the rescue again. A few years back, FedEx bought the Kinko's print store chain. It is now called FedEx Office. Every major city has multiple FedEx Office locations. Many are open 24hrs, or at least have late evening hours. Even more recently, most FedEx Office locations offer "Hold at Location" service. There is no extra charge for this. You just check the box on shipping label and ship the bike to yourself at that FedEx Office location. You can find FedEx locations here. It is always good to call to double-check their hours and that the offer hold at location. When you arrive to pick up your bike, it will usually come out of a locked storage room and you'll be asked to show your ID and sign for it.

When I head out on a trip, I drop my bike off at the staffed FedEx counter by the Manchester airport. It's close to work, and I know it goes out that night. I always allow at least two days margin on estimated transit times. If FedEx says it takes four business days, I plan on at least six. Thus if I arrive on a Friday, I want bike there by Wednesday, so I have to drop if off no later than Thursday afternoon the week before. Other riders may cut it tighter than this. I'd rather not risk it. I've never had a bike take more than a day more than estimated ship time. I've probably used FedEx ground for at least 25 round trips now. I've never had an issue.

When I return from a trip, I often use the same FedEx office I shipped out to. There is no surcharge to ship from a FedEx Office. Avoid "Authorized Ship Centers," as these are usually independent businesses that will add a surcharge to your standard FedEx shipping charges. I had no choice but to go this route one trip and paid a lot more to send my bike back home, but still cheaper than a plane and with less risk in my opinion. Make sure the staff do not over measure your box and bump you up into oversize fees.

I always ship the bike back to my house on the return. I live in a decent neighborhood, and we can't count on somebody being home when FedEx comes by. So I request No Signature Required. You can only do this if you declare a value of $100 or less, which means you are also not insuring your bike. No signature allows FedEx to leave the bike when nobody is home. Things are a lot simpler that way. Depending on your neighborhood, it may be better to have somebody sign for it at your house or send it to your neighborhood FedEx Office center.

So that about sums it up. It's really not that difficult. I'll make edits if I think of more. Feel free to comment with your experiences too.

From Short Sleeves to Flurries

When I rode in Blackstone Valley two years ago in November, I knew I would have to return. I didn't think it would take two years though. There is much good singletrack in the valley, something for everybody. Fast, flowy material? Yep. Tight, twisty benchcut? Sure. Chunky downhill runs? That too.

Poking around in Strava, I see locals have been organizing 30, 40, even 58 mile rides linking up trails with bits of road. The problem was, Strava now hoards user submitted data and asks for a fee to access said data. I don't have a problem with that, other than I'm cheap and I like stuff for free. Garmin Connect didn't have enough track diversity to put a good loop together, as almost nobody uses it anymore. So I finally ponied up and subscribed to Strava for a year so I could resume data mining. Strava no doubt has the world's largest depository of trail data.

I grabbed a few of the longest tracks, brought them into DeLorme Topo, then began splicing a nice 30-40 mile loop together. This time I verified that the track was correctly loaded into my Garmin 705 GPS, unlike last time when I visited Blackstone Valley and had no mapping info whatsoever.

Rain over the prior 48 hours never really amounted to much. The trails were still dry, and Saturday was shaping up to be near summer-like. I headed out on the east side of the valley first for the lookout rock. Needed to get that shot with a favorable sun angle.

Used my new mini-octopus tripod to hang the LX3 inverted from tree branch for this shot

Shortly after, I encountered no trespassing signs. That sucked. There was no obvious way to rejoin my loop by going around. The signs appeared to be placed in the legally prescribed manner, conspicuous, every so many feet apart, and signed by the landowner. I respect that even though it looks like numerous cyclists ride through there regularly. The landowner obviously doesn't want me passing through, plus, trespassing on properly posted land is criminal and can be prosecuted.

I did find a way around, which wasn't all that bad, over West Hill Dam. Lots of trails in there, mostly fast carriage roads material, with a fabulous loop of buff, flowy singletrack in the northern portion. Appeared to have been leaf blown too.

West Hill Dam area.

Next up was an area I see going by different names. Some call it Pudding Hill. There is a 5 mile singletrack loop in there that meanders something fierce. Very tight. Sofa bike was no match. A shorter wheelbase 26" bike would have provided much better agility. I seemed to be in the spaghetti maze for an eternity.

Pudding Hill trails. Leaf drop made some of the off-camber side hill riding sketchy.

Pudding Hill is where a wheel sensor really makes a difference. The KOM holder Whitkus logged only 3.53 miles on this segment using an iPhone. I logged 5.11 miles with my Garmin 705 and Ant+ Sport wheel sensor. Witkus got gypped 31% here.

A short bit of road, which I think can be largely eliminated looking at some additional track info, took me back to the Blackstone River Heritage State Park.  This is where some of the best riding material is located, especially on Goat Hill.

Is it Memorex, or is it live? Northern part of Heritage SP.

After riding the northern loop, I crossed over Rt 122 to ride that loop too. Up until then, I encountered very few rocks. Across Rt 122, it is almost all rocks. The trail often splits into A, B and sometimes even C lines. One could easily get in over their head on some of the features there.

My pace was much slower than expected, due in part to leaf drop, but also do the the really slow Pudding Hill loop. I was running out of time and would not be able to hit all of the Goat Hill trails. A single pass over the summit would have to suffice.  My ride very nearly came to an abrupt end at the summit, I rode up onto granite, where it looked like the trail rolled down the other side. It was a freaking vertical 15ft drop! The trail actually veered to the left and nobody was riding that drop.

Goat Hill, descending north side.

The canal bike bath back to the car in Uxbridge

I finished with 4.4hrs moving time, covering 37.6 miles. I definitely have to make more trips there. It isn't that far to drive, 80 minutes max. The White Mountains are further than that. I'll have to hit the valley before leaf drop next time...

Rain and snow never amounted to much over Saturday night either. There were a few flurries about Sunday morning, but no measurable precip.  I needed to stay local for something shorter, as I needed to hit the office for a few hours. A good standby is a loop around Massabesic Lake, hitting FOMBA trails along the way. There are myriad ways to add or subtract to/from the loop, doubletrack or singletrack, flat or climbing.

Last of the foliage on carriage roads around Massabesic Lake

I decided to check out a trail I hadn't been on in quite a while. I've heard it go by different names, such as Evil FOMBA, Hanger Banger, Trail X, and No Name trail. It runs about 4mi and pretty much confounds me the whole way. The A-frame bridge is gone, replaced by a tame bridge. But many of the other bridges are hewn logs, and this morning they were slicker than snot. I did not ride any of them.

The "X Trail"

A mellow 24 miles on the sofa bike was had when I finished. Other than being about 30 degrees colder than the day before, it was still very pleasant to be in the woods. Looks like the dry spell will continue.

I swung by Hunt's Photo in Manchester on my way back to pick up a new camera. I've been extremely happy with my Panasonic Lumix LX3. Panasonic introduced the LX5 successor a few years ago, and then the LX7 about a year ago. The pixel count of these camera's is only 10MP, but anybody who's familiar with digital photography understands high pixel counts in small cameras usually means poorer photo quality. The LX7 has more dynamic range than my LX3, more zoom and a manual aperture ring. Picked it up for $279.99 with rebate.

Going on 1000 miles

This spring I built up my Santa Cruz Tallboy LTc. My primary motivation in building the bike up is new trails are designed around big wheels with suspension and I'm not getting any younger. Factor in some close calls and dangerous confrontations with motorists this year, I found myself riding mostly off-road again. The Tallboy takes the edge off some of the longest loops I ride locally, increasing the fun-factor of trail riding. I basically fell in love with mountain biking all over again.

The Tallboy has been my go-to bike for much of the riding season. There were a few things I had to adapt to. With 5+ inches travel front and rear with 29" wheels, I could steamroll right over stuff I used to carefully pick my way through with my 4" travel 26" wheel Racer-X. It took a while to gain this confidence.

I have a pretty wide handlebar on the Tallboy. That is the trend these days. Where I used to be able to whiz right through tight spots with the Racer-X, I now need to be exceedingly careful. That is how I broke my ankle a few years ago, riding my 29er hardtail with a wider bar through tight trees.

Perhaps the biggest adjustment riding the Tallboy is wheelbase. Tight switchbacks become much more challenging, as you feel more like driving a school bus than a WRX. I'll take that hit in handling to gain huge increase in stability any day.

As far as the Tallboy frame goes, there is nothing I don't like about it. It seems to be a flawless design. With nearly 1000 miles on the bike, it has gone through the paces.

The only nit I have in the build is the Rock Shox Revelation fork. I regret saving $200 over a Fox fork. The Revelation air fork automatically adjusts negative chamber pressure from the positive chamber that is filled. The problem I'm having is after a few long rides, the negative chamber appears to over fill, letting the fork sag way to far in it's travel (like 30%) when unloaded, and then ramps up very rapidly when hitting bumps. It acts more like an 80mm travel fork than a 140mm travel fork. So after 100-200 miles of riding, I have to release all of the air from the fork via the lower leg screw. This empties and resets the negative chamber. I then re-inflate the fork to spec. The ride is heavenly plush the first ride after, but gets progressively more harsh as the negative chamber pumps up.

I built the bike up with Schwalbe Racing Ralph tires, the snake skin version. I rotated the tires a while back. Interestingly, with almost 1000 miles on the tires, they are only slightly worn. What's up with that? I've always heard the Ralph's were good for only a few hundred miles. From the looks of them, I could go 2000 miles on them. With leaf drop, the Ralph's are a bit terrifying now, so I'm contemplating changing them out for something more aggressive.

Schwalbe Racing Ralph with over 900 miles of trail riding on it.

Speaking of wheels, I picked up a new set in the 4" size. It's that time of year again to start thinking about off-season activities, particularly cross country skiing. I do a little rollerskiing in the fall to begin building up some of the skate-ski specific fitness. I've been using cheap Pursuit rollerskis without speed reducers. That really limits the terrain I can train on, as you cannot go down much of a hill with those things.

I also have a pair of Niflheim rollerskis, which have speed reducers. However, they are quite heavy, and I found the speed reducers to be unreliable and not powerful enough to control speed on steep descents.

So I finally invested in premium rollerskis, V2 XL98's. They utilize a carbon shaft, not so much to shave weight, but to dampen road vibration. They also have a dropped shaft, which improves stability and makes them feel more like a skate ski on snow. Neither of my other rollerskis have dropped shafts. The XL98's have superb speed reducers that are easy to operate and can control your speed on the steepest descents. I was able to try my buddy's pair a while back and really liked them. The company that makes the XL98's, Jenex, is based nearby in Milford, NH, so I was able to swing by and get a CSU club discount on a new set. They still weren't cheap though.

Pretty, eh? Built-in fenders, but not sure I want to take them on wet roads. Not good for bearings.

Four speed reducer set-points. Maximum means you'll probably be double-polling downhill.

Notice the carbon shaft is dropped from the wheel axle.

Not missing a thing (well, maybe just a little)

It's the time of year where Facebook is a steady feed of cyclocross pictures. The CX craze is still getting crazier it seems. I never latched on to CX. Not sure why. With diverse riding background and mad VOmax for an old guy, I could probably do pretty well in CX if I committed to it.

Perhaps there is a subtle reason I never caught the CX bug. It spans the season where I feel most alive as a cyclist. The trails are dry, the air is crisp, and the bugs are gone. Trail riding is at its best in the fall. Competing this time of year would take away much of the enjoyment I derive from cycling I think. There would be pressure to maintain fitness, tapering for weekend races, and hoping you don't get hurt. I don't really do the math on this. My inner spirit just knows this is the time of year to kick back.

Do I miss competition? Maybe just a little. I really don't race that much anymore. This is the second year in a row I've not done a single mass start road race. In fact, I've only put a bib number on nine times this year. I wouldn't rule out one more event this fall. Some guys I know do 10 races a month. I'm on the hairy edge of becoming more of a recreational cyclist than a "bicycle racer." I'm sure some would say I've always been a recreational rider, a Fred even. Whatever. I do what best helps me maintain sanity.

We've been getting a long string of gorgeous riding weekends. This weekend was no exception. Saturday, Mark Suprenant and I hit the North Conway trails. Mark didn't have any races this weekend and was free to check out terrain new to him.  I hadn't been up there since last October. My favorite New England trail is the Red Tail Trail, which descends Black Cap Mountain above town. There's quite a collection of trails around Black Cap. You have to truly enjoy climbing to enjoy riding this side of town. There are rewarding descents, but you have to earn them. We repeated the loop I did last year. It epitomizes Hill Junkie riding.

I took a lot of pictures. I'll let them do most of the talking rather than bore you with details. You can find our track on Strava.

Top of the "wall" on Black Cap trail. Very difficult to clean.  Dog from hikers just over the lip. 

HJ on Black Cap summit with White Horse ledge in background. Photo by Soups.

Soups on Black Cap summit

Another of Soups with Presidential's in distant background

This looks like it doesn't end well, but he avoided catastrophe. I did same thing coming over

that big log. They are spaced exactly wrong.

The quarry

This was probably on Outer Limits trail. Route following became very difficult at times with leaf drop.

Pillar Trail between Quarry and Sticks & Stones

Heading up the Cranmore ski area service road to hit Red Tail Trail.

Red Tail Trail, the final reward of the ride.

Continuous bombing down Red Tail

Post ride we stopped at the Kearsarge Cafe in town for burritos.

Good burritos topped with this amazing hot sauce.

That's ok, we like honest poachers here!

My weekend plans started falling apart on Wednesday when I brought road shoes for a MTB group trail ride at lunch. Already stressed out from work, I was in a foul mood the rest of the day, to put it lightly. I needed that attitude adjustment ride.

I did get my fix on Thursday. Ended up riding solo and hammered for 90 minutes, riding myself ragged. Was in a much better mental state afterwards. The deal was, Friday was an off day and I hate going into three-day weekends already part way into a hole. So naturally I worked on my off-Friday and did an hour of rollerski drills to ensure I went deeper into that hole.

Friday was supposed to be rain and Saturday was supposed to be nice. Just the opposite happened. It was cold, dreary and misty locally Saturday. I had hoped to do a light local ride and do a bigger ride with the boys on Sunday. But local riding would have sucked. Not sure why I believed the forecast or current conditions for the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, but I did and decided on a whim to head up.

It wasn't until I cleared Franconia Notch that I popped out from under the cloud deck into a brilliant bluebird sky. My motivation level jumped.

Arriving in East Burke, I wondered if I missed that a festival going on. There were hundreds of riders about and almost no place to park. I found a place in a gravel pit adjacent to the normal parking area. Scanning license plates, the biggest percentage were from Quebec, next most from Mass. But there were plates from at least a dozen states present.

Main parking area in town. Auxiliary areas were packed too. Photo taken at end of ride

when clouds started to build.

I went to buy a trail pass. Huh? There was a line out the door almost half way down to the road. I stood in line for a good while, and it just wasn't moving fast enough. I didn't want to burn a half hour of the best daylight just to get a trail pass. I cut out and started riding, thinking I'd pick one up on top of Darling Hill or back at the office after I finish my ride. I did not plan to come back to my car until I finished riding.

After 10 minutes, I wasn't even to door, and there was long line inside.

Trail conditions were mint. There were a couple normal wet bits on the Burke Mountain stuff, but otherwise just enough moisture in soil to keep dust down. With leaf drop nearly complete, it was also much brighter in the woods than I'm accustomed to.

There was steady stream of riders coming down Burham Up, my preferred way to begin climbing up Burke Mountain. Nobody was riding up. I could only assume an awful lot of shuttling was going on. Once I got above the campground, I had the woods to myself. I got almost all the way down Moose Alley before encountering a group.

From Shire Trail, an uphill only trail (doesn't get much traffic). Brought crappy TS4 camera.

Magil Field looking north.

Heading over to the Darling Hill side, there was massive congestion. There many packs numbering 20-30 riders.  I struggled to not let this frustrate me while climbing. A lot like rush hour traffic, really. There's not much you can do about it.

What caught my attention was how many women were out. I'm not talking wives and girlfriends, but moms and daughters too, even groups of teen girls. No slouches either. I'm sure many of them could school me on a trail or two.

I hit the obligatory descents off Darling Hill - Troll Stroll, Tap and Die, and Sidewinder. Sidewinder is beat to shit. A couple of the apexes are trenched out almost three feet deep now, taking away most of that half-pipe sensation. The descents through the bottom of the gully are horribly rutted, presumably from noobs braking. It is not obvious at all how this trail can be repaired and armored up. Might be easier to scrap it and cut a new one. Riders have loved this one to death, literally.

Food stand at top of Sidewinder.

I've been hitting the Kingdom Trails for many years now, and I've never ridden up to Heaven's Bench. I'd see the cute cliche photos on Facebook, and I'd see the trail on the map, but I never put the two together before. So today, riding solo, I rode up to Heaven's Bench. Ah-ha, now I see what everybody sees from this vantage point. There is a bench placed on an open knoll with meticulously groomed grass. The view is grand in almost all directions. I think this will be a staple of all NEK rides to come.

Taking in the view from Heaven's Bench

Looking southwest from Heaven's Bench

Working my way back to town, I hit the Ridge/Rim descent, second only to Moose Alley in my opinion. The consequences of messing up in a few places could be quite severe with exposure to the gully below. To cap off an awesome ride, I finished with Kitchel. A string of groms filed in behind me. The pressure was on. I carried uncomfortable speed on my plush sofa bike. I got the most air I have in a very long time. Think I was even shaking a little when I got to the bottom.

I swung back by the KT office as I finished and asked for a belated trail pass. I believe it was the director that took my $15. I told him I was all set and didn't need a ticket anymore. He said "That's ok, we like honest poachers here!" He gave me a ticket anyway just in case I changed my mind and wanted to ride more.

It was certainly one of my best NEK rides. I finished with 40 miles, vertical mile of climbing in 4.2hrs on the Garmin. Strava tells me I PR'd at least 10 segments.

The drive home

No thanksgiving turkey sandwich for the drive home. There were so many people about I just wanted to get out of there. I didn't drive more than 20 minutes before I was back under the cloud deck. Most of the way home was dark, foggy and drizzly. Wifey says it stayed that way at home all day. Heading up was a major score. Unfortunately, going at it three days in a row put me in a deep hole, and riding with the boys on Sunday buried me. A story for another time...

Nature's Kaleidoscope

On Saturday I revisited a loop in the Upper Valley area of Vermont in hopes of riding through some color and exploring new (to me) trails. I got a little of both. I ended up riding solo, as two buddies bailed on me last minute. I don't get worked up over things like this. Heck, I even go on cycling trips by myself and ride in extremely remote areas. The Upper Valley certainly has a remote vibe to it.

I parked in Norwich and started up Bragg Hill Rd. There's a large network of trails I knew little about south of Bragg Hill Rd that locals frequently ride. Previous times I've ridden here, I've started by grinding several miles up Bragg or Beaver Meadow Rd to get to the first trail. This time I found myself on rugged singletrack much sooner.

The climbing was steep, the terrain rugged. A few dismounts were required. A deep burn in the legs was set upon reaching the ridge. The riding had a rough edge about it, but very satisfying.

A steep plummet brought me down to one of the great trails in this ride, which I believe the locals refer to as Ben's Ridge trail. It climbs a good while on tight, twisty singletrack. Never overbearing, just steady, hard work. There is a seriously steep punch as the ridge is gained.

Ben's Ridge

On the ridge, I noticed long, white slabs of wood scattered about, like 2x4 sized splinters really. To my left was a large hardwood that was utterly destroyed by lightning. Nothing was left of the tree. 20ft long shards were hanging in nearby trees. I found sections over 500ft away. Amazing, what nature can do. The tree was nearly 18" in diameter. I bet a few tons of wood exploded instantaneously.

Force of nature. Tree was about 18" in diameter. Chunks were hanging in trees all around.

Many shards were daggered into the ground

I'm a little skeptical when I meet people who claim they've been struck by lightning. When you read statistics on this, there's no separation of direct hits, secondary hits, ground current, or incidental injury from heat or flying debris. This tree was obviously a direct hit. Imagine what a direct hit could do to a 160 pound human body. Lighting freaks the shit out of me when I'm caught on a treeless ridgeline in Colorado.

After dropping down the ridge and a bit of road, the Upper Valley Dam (UVD) trail system was hit next. There is an extensive network of singletrack here that sees much more traffic than Ben's Ridge. Highly scenic in river gorges and through open meadows. Wicked climby too. Numerous punchy climbs kept the burn in the legs.

A bunch of climbing out of the valley via paved and dirt roads brought me to the final section of singletrack, the climb up Gile Mountain and the several mile ruckus descent, called Blue Ribbon. Leaf drop varied from 20-50%, so I couldn't get too carried away on unfamiliar surface. It was fun having the sofa bike on parts I could let the speed run out a bit without too much risk.

The climb up to Gile Mountain starts out multi-use, then segregates into biking and hiking trails. Hiking basically heads up the fall line, while biking meanders and crosses the hiking path a few times. Before reaching the split, I met an older couple coming down. The clothing, facial hair, body language said it all. My presence was not acceptable at all. I was getting a hefty dose of stink-eye. I smiled and said hi. If the man could have scowled any harder, his face would have cracked and bled!

I finally dared to climb all the way to the top of the fire tower on top of Gile Mountain. Many hikers were out doing the same. I don't like heights, and cleated shoes on skinny steps on a tower that moves with other human movement weirds me out. The view was good though. The reds had pretty much dropped in the area, leaving only yellows and oranges. Driving over the higher points of I-89 in NH, there was more red than yellow. Go figure.

Lookout tower on Gile Mountain

From small tower deck, Mt Monadnock in distance

Blue Ribbon Trail descent

I got back to Norwich with 45.6mi, 6600ft in 5hrs on the Garmin. Despite overcast day with threat of rain, the conditions were perfect. The temp stayed in the 60's all day and the trails were bone dry, much like for the Vermont 50 MTB race the weekend prior.  This is adventure riding at its finest. You won't find the finely manicured trails here like you find at Kingdom Trails. You will find solitude. I encountered only a few people away from trailheads all day. One of my best Vermont rides to date.