Going Long at Leominster

I had a choice today between doing a local CX race or going on a "high IQ pleasure ride." Race reports tend to produce more interesting blog fodder. The deal is, I've been enjoying the off-road riding more than ever this year. I also haven't done any focused intensity work in about three months now. That will change as the ski season ramps up. I weighed fun-factor of a 45 minute race versus a four hour ride at a place I haven't been to in a while. A fabulous fall day was forecasted. The long ride option won out. This means no race report. Sorry.

DaveP was also interested in a long ride. We considered options in the White Mountains, seeing there is still zero snow even at the summit of Mt Washington. Many routes I've been kicking around are untested. I really prefer to test them alone first, as I don't mind so much if I end up in 30 minute hike-a-bike rock scrambling slog.  Dave has never been to Leominster State Forest, and I don't think I've been there yet this year. With Wachusett Mtn nearby to stretch the legs on before heading into the woods, there is more than enough riding material there to keep endurance junkies entertained for 3-4 hours.

We started out with a jaunt to the summit of Wachusett. No hammering, just nice hard tempo pace for me. Took 21 minutes via the old Wednesday night TT route (minus the hairpin extension). Not bad at comfortable pace on full suspension MTB with knobbies, considering my typical time for the TT was over 18 minutes. Many hikers were up there. It was too hazy to see Boston though.

Dave cresting Wachusett summit

We went down the gated back side, a mix of badly busted up asphalt and gravel. We may have gone a little "wayward" heading down, sampling just a taste of forbidden fruit. Swinging back by the car, we picked up Camelbaks and headed into Leominster State Forest for the main course.

Undisclosed location, but might have something to do with coming down what's in background

A few neurons must've died since the last time I rode in LSF. I forgot how my loop started out and promptly got all turned around in there. After about 15 minutes, it came back to me. None of the trails have published names, so there's not much to say about which trails we hit. Basically, we hit almost all of the singletrack I know about. About a third of the way into the ride, we climbed Ball Hill. It should really be named Ball Buster Hill. With leaf drop and Friday's rain, traction was scarce in many places. Dave and I both cleaned the 300ft beast. Off the back side, heading kind of northeast, is some of the most brutal and technical terrain in LSF. Dualies are highly recommended. I ran my tubeless tires silly low, maybe close to 20psi, to find traction in the leaves. Dave was on a Santa Cruz demo bike and did not have the luxury to go as low with his non-tubeless setup. He still cleaned almost everything anyway.

Last year I dabbed continuously in LSF. More than doubling my off-road riding hours this year has paid big dividends. I've gotten most of my finesse and some of my cajones back. I was having one of those rides where I was just "on." Legs felt good, and almost no fear-factor let me carry much more momentum than I usually carry in LSF.

Poking around in Google Earth and on the web looking for ways to extend a LSF ride, I found the Monoosnoc Ridge Trail above the town of Leominster. Photos from vantage points looked nice. Had no idea if it was rideable, singletrack, or even open to mountain bikes. The vague map also didn't make it obvious how to link it in from planned LSF route. We'd have to wing it.

Towards the far northeast corner of LSF, I started looking for trails/doubletracks that might take us up to the Monoosnoc ridgeline. I did spot a brand new piece of singletrack, one I think Steve G was telling me about recently. It went up. A lot. And over many large rocks. It was wet in places too. Most of the riding thus far had been surprisingly dry despite heavy rain Friday. I had major fun on this trail, as when you are "on," you want to milk it for all its worth and keep going on challenging terrain. I dabbed only twice before cresting the high point. There were more spur trails from this trail that will have to be explored some other time. Unfortunately, this trail did not cross the Monoosnoc Ridge Trail. We came out on Elm Street by the Haynes Reservoir. Now I knew where we were. Monoosnoc crosses Elm St close by. The trailhead did not prohibit bike use, but did not specifically allow it either. Prohibited uses to permitted uses were at least 4:1. A man was hauling ice storm logs out of the town land and seemed cool to our presence. He commented most of the Monoosnoc Ridge Trail was indeed doubletrack. We decided to hit a few mile section to the next paved road then cut back into LSF to wrap up the ride. This took us over Bayberry Hill, no view, then bony descent to Wachusett St. Have to explore in here more some other time. It is a very large tract of land. There were spurs trails off the main trail, and we missed the northern section with alleged views.

We followed a bit of pavement to Parmenter Rd, the fire road that bisects LSF. This leads directly back to the cars parked off Rt 31. Another snippet of singletrack, which is actually signed Loop Trail was hit on the way. Many other mountain bikers were just heading out as we were wrapping up our ride. It was warm enough to go in short sleeves most of the day. Awesome for late November. I wore hunter's orange to be safe. A single archer was encountered. The ride finished out with 36.3mi, 4280ft in 3:50hrs on the Garmin. Definitely my longest ride in LSF, and nearly four hours there produces more punishment than twice as much at Kingdom Trails would. Just non-stopped brutal, and this time I totally loved it.

Lollipops and Spaghetti

How many of you think about the topology of your routes, be they running, skiing, biking? Are you content with out-and-backs? Laps around a circuit? Or do you like to cover some distance and the only place you see twice is where you started? I've always preferred single big loop routes, whether it be training, racing or just heading out for pure enjoyment. After reading Racin' Rick's post about the dreaded out-and-back, I thought a bit about this from an analytical perspective.

My favorite races this year were single, monster loop affairs that cover serious terrain. Some of these were the Battenkill road race, Ironcross CX and the Vermont 50. These races boast about their single loop epicness. You don't do laps around a circuit, you don't see anything twice.

I strive for the same in most of my riding and skiing. My favorite loop on the planet is the Monarch Crest Trail in Colorado. A 54 mile loop that encompasses many thousands of acres. At Waterville Valley, I love doing a perimiter loop on skis. This just so happens to hit all the high points on the trail system, and it encloses a lot of terrain in the middle.

Engineers love figures of merit, often abbreviated FOM. A great FOM that applies here is the Isoperimetric Quotient, or IQ. Not making this up. Follow the link.  Basically, in Euclidean geometry, a perfect circle encloses the most area for the least perimeter. In terms of riding, a circularly shaped route will enclose the most land for a given distance travelled. Thus if you want to continually see as new of stuff as possible the whole time you are riding, pick routes that have a circular shape to them. The IQ is normalized to the circle, so IQ = 1, or 100% for a circle. So let's look at other, non-circular ride formats.

The Out-n-back.  I generally dread these like Rick. Sometimes they are unavoidable, like hillclimbs. In these special cases, I'll suffer through a return descent, as the reward is the summit. Trail out and backs suck, road out and backs suck even more. A lot of tri-guys do out and backs on their tricked out bikes. I don't understand this.  The IQ is zero for these rides, as no area is encompassed by the route.

The Lollipop Loop.  I will do lollipop shaped rides once in a while, especially if the lollipop stick is short relative to the yummy part. If we assume the stick is equal to the diameter of the yummy part, we get an IQ of 58%. This is an infinite improvement over the out and back, but only a little better than half that of perfect circle. This means you are only encompassing about half the area you could for the distance you are riding, and almost half the ride is seen twice.

Triangle. The triangle is another possible ride shape. Some of my work lunch rides might be triangularly shaped, where I head out a ways, cut over an equal ways, then come back an equal ways. Not a bad deal in IQ terms, were a 70% efficiency of a circle is achieved.

Square. I can think of a couple rides I like that have square shape to them. Often, these are where I go up and over a mountain range, traverse over in the valley, then come back up and over the same mountain range at a different gap, finishing with a traverse back to my car. Riders that do two gaps of Vermont 6-gaps could encounter a square shaped topology to their ride. A ride I did in Silverton, CO this summer had a square-ish shape to it too. Getting much closer to a circle's efficiency here, with IQ = 78%.

No ride will be a perfect square or circle. But you get the idea. Simple shapes encompass the most area and have the potential to present the most scenery. These rides give you a greater sense of accomplishment. You could go to the Londonderry Track and ride 300m laps all day. It is nearly circular. But you'd have to divide the IQ of 100% by N, where N is number of laps. In an hour, your IQ would be down to about 1%. This spells retahded. Similarly for circuit road races. You might have a 10 mile circuit, do it five times for a 50 mile race, but end of with an IQ of 20% or less.

Some of you techie trail riders may say wait a minute HJ, you're missing the point. Some of the best rides out there wiggle and squiggle all over the place and never go any where! Non-squiggly routes follow boring fire roads anyway and don't seek out interesting features.  This brings us to one more route topology.

The Spaghetti Loop. The FOMBA trails near Manchester, NH are a prime example. FOMBA had some unique constraints to work within, namely having very limited acreage to build unlimited trails in. The IQ for some of these trail segments might actually be negative, as you come close to the same point many times. The distance travelled is large, but you never leave your back yard, so to speak. Trails like these, if purpose built for mountain biking, can be quite satisfying. There are many other examples in New England, like the recently built Russell Mill trails in Chelmsford, MA. When land space is limited, make the most of it. Perhaps the Isoperimetric Quotient shouldn't be applied here, and something more like a Fun-Factor makes more sense.  I probably wouldn't want to ride on dense trails like these every day, but once in a while can be quite a blast.

I've left out a class of routes that cross over themselves or momentarily touch in the middle. Sometimes this is unavoidable in some areas when putting a long ride together. Nothing wrong with that. You can still encircle lots of terrain in multiple lobes. In your training, make your miles count. If you want to go 20 miles, find a loop that makes many small angle turns, approximating something like a circle. Pick a route that puts the largest number of acres in the middle. You'll feel like you did more, went somewhere, accomplished something. Doing the same training rides throughout the year can get boring enough. Seeing the same thing twice in a single workout doubles the boredom factor.

Destroyed

Thus far this fall, I've been averaging about an hour per week on the rollerskis. I've been using my Pursuit skis with medium speed rubber wheels in back and faster polyurethane wheels in front on mostly flat terrain. Since Saturday and Sunday looked like a bust for any kind of riding, Brett Rutledge called and said CSU rescheduled their Littleton, MA rollerski session to Sunday and it would be skate technique. Hmmm, was I really ready to train with some of the top masters on an unseen route in drizzle?

Brett had sent me a cue sheet for the route. It supposedly went 14 miles with 900ft of climbing. I figured rollerskiing would suck the least given the deluge we just received. I was in.

A year ago I put all new tires and tubes on my Jenex V2 125mm Aero rollerskis. I've grown to hate them. Tires don't last a season, and unless you carry spare with pump, you could end up walking. More than a year went by, and I still hadn't used the new tires, which cost a small fortune. I exchanged the PU front wheels for slower rubber on my Pursuit rollerskis to slow them down a bit. My V2 Aero's have speed reducers on them, the Pursuits do not. I can go down short 4-5% grade hills by my house on the Pursuit's at terminal velocity just over 20mph. I know the run-out, it does not scare me. I threw both sets of rollerskis in the car heading for Littleton. I left early, planning to pre-drive the course Brett sent me to see if I could get away with my Pursuit rollerskis without the speed reducers. The route seemed ok to me. I was going to give it a go.

Fifteen skiers pulled in. Only a couple did not have speed reducers. Seems there was a positive correlation between age and probability of speed reducers. Guess young bones bend, don't break.  I asked around. I got scared. Guys much better than me use their speed reducers.  I capitulated and went with the clunky V2's. Besides failing tires, the V2's are much heavier and less stabile. Their only redeeming quality is the pneumatic tires are smoooooth on rough pavement.

We push off, soon into a 400ft climb. I started at the very back.  I did not know any of the kids and knew only a handful of masters.  The plan was to no-pole this climb. Andy with about half the group bolted. Initially I stayed back with Rob, Jamie, Brett and others. About half way up, my glutes were screaming. I relented in a couple spots and use poles.  After a while, my legs were chomping at the bit. I did nothing on Saturday and was looking to get a good cardio workout in. I slowly pulled away from my half of the pack and was in no man's land for a while.

The lead group paused for a bit near the top, as I caught them, with nobody else in sight behind me.  I took off with them but quickly realized they descend way faster than I cared to, being my first time on this route in wet conditions. Then the unplanned happened. They went straight where my cue sheet and pre-drive said we should've gone left. Hmm, where are they going? To hit more hills of course! Some seriously steep descents too. Had I used my Pursuit's with no speed reducers, I would have been royally screwed. Even with two of three notches set, I was hitting speeds over 20mph. For you non-skiers out there, keep in mind speed reducers are not brakes. You have to bend down and pull a lever on each ski to set friction on the wheels. If a car backs out of a driveway when you are going over 20mph, you are S.O.L. Terminal velocity on my Pursuit's would easily have been over 30mph. So much for the pre-drive to familiarize myself with the course. I had no idea where we were going or how long the route was going to be now.

I lost some ground on another long downhill where I over cautiously set resistance. The lead group put some distance on me, and to my surprise, I caught up to much of the rest of the pack I left behind. They did not take the Harvard extension the lead group did. I decided to wait with them to see if Brett would come soon. He didn't, as I learned later he took the long route too. I starting to feel some deep hurtin' by now and there was no way I would have been able to hang with the fast group for another hour anyway.

We reached another decision point in the workout where a neighborhood extension could be added. A few skiers were interested, but once the juniors regrouped with Rob and Jamie, they took the most direct route back. Another young skier, Jimmy, wanted to go as long as possible and was cool with me tagging along. Looking at the GPS track, this added about 5km to the loop. It was all good stuff, nice pavement, no cars, modest hills, and comfortable pace.

Garmin Edge 705 GPS Data, 1620ft of Climbing

We still had one more climb to do, Hill Rd. This darn near killed me, being about 2hrs into the workout. Hill Rd pops out on Taylor St, which kind of sucked. Traffic, busted up pavement, debris on shoulder. Glad again I had my V2's with five inch wheels.

I got back to the cars with Jimmy, tallying 36.2km, nearly 500m of climbing, in 2:15hrs skiing time. My glutes and hip flexors were destroyed. That was easily three times what I do on one of my weekly lunch hour hammer sessions, and 60% longer than I thought we were going today. Need to get a few more of these in before the snow flies. There was one minor casualty for the day. Brett took a header and has a nice fist sized raspberry on his hip. I loaded my GPS track to mapmyride.com. Note they totally butcher the profile. Barometric altimeter gave 1620ft, Topo 7.0 gives over 1900ft, yet mapmyride gives only 745ft.

I sent my membership app in to CSU a couple weeks ago. Joined NENSA too. Haven't heard anything back on either yet. I also ordered some new rollerskis. About a week ago, Alex Jospe reviewed rollerskis from Ed's newly launched Niflheim Nordic venture. Low cost, 4" solid wheels, with a good speed reducer design. I immediately placed an order.

Lake Solitude

With remnants of tropical storm Ida moving in this weekend, I wanted to take advantage of the driest trail conditions of the year. Friday was a non-working Friday for me. I wanted to hit something different, maybe something I never rode before. There aren't any popular riding areas within 90 minutes of my house I haven't hit. That leaves only things off the beaten path. So how do you go about finding something stimulating to ride that you've never ridden before, something that gets away from cars and people? You begin by zooming out in Google Maps imagery view and start scanning areas of higher elevation. You can tell where these are. They have different color shades, plus you can go to terrain view to be sure. I've ridden much of the Midstate and Wapack Trails along the Wapack Range, including notable peaks along the way. A little further north, Mt Sunapee caught my attention. I learned to alpine ski there with my son many years ago. What I never realized is that there is a service road to the summit. Bingo. I have biked to most New England ski area summits over the years, but somehow this one escaped my attention. As a bonus, there were many singletrack trail options from the summit.

Mt Sunapee service road, 30% grade section near summit.

I planned to ride up the service road, maybe check out a spur trail to Lake Solitude, then see if it was feasible to ride the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway trail along mountain tops to Pillsbury State Park. I've ridden a major portion of the Greenway from Pillsbury maybe 10 years ago. Barely remember it. I do know that as the trail progressed northward, it became more hike-a-bike. Perhaps from the north, it wasn't as bad heading south.

It was a typical chilly November morning with a little sun poking through haze. I parked in the middle ski base area parking lot where some racers park for the Lake Sunapee Road Race. I loaded a GPS track I traced out on bikeroutetoaster into my Garmin. The deal was, I literally went right into 12% grade with zero warmup. This with legs trashed by a hammerski session the day before. The first 500ft was gained on semi paved road. Many sections were washed out or busted up.

Lake Sunapee from near summit of Mt Sunapee.

Snow guns are all set for snow making.

About half way up the paved section, a fairly large animal runs out of the woods in front of me, stops a moment and stares at me. I thought whoa, what the heck is that!? It was the size of a coyote minus the bushy tail. It in fact was a bobcat. Although they are making a comeback in New Hampshire, sightings are still extremely rare. This was the first time I've seen a wild cat. They are much bigger than I expected. The one I saw stood two feet tall.

Bobcat from NHPTV website.

At the bottom of the Snowbowl Quad, the road becomes a narrow gravel affair and gets much, much steeper. There were many sustained sections over 20% grade. Fortunately the gravel was in pretty good shape. As I neared the summit, the grade kicked up at an angle that hurt my neck to look at. At first I thought it wasn't doable. This was granny gear, chest to bar, tip of saddle inserted you-know-where climbing mode. The gravel up here was frozen solid. There was no snow. I did make it, with the Garmin showing max grade over 30%. In just over a mile, the dirt road gained 1000ft. The summit of Mt Sunapee is at 2700ft, gaining over 1500ft from the parking lot. The view of Lake Sunapee was quite spectacular.

Solitude Trail. This was the easiest part.

After a few pics, I dropped down the road just a bit to where I saw the Solitude Trail head into the woods. At first I thought sweet, contouring singletrack! The trail quickly degenerated into rock scrambling for a bit. With that out of the way, the trail was intermittently rideable, maybe requiring a dozen dismounts in the next kilometer or so. It was much more rideable in the downward direction heading back. As the overlook to Lake Solitude neared, increasing patches of slickrock were ridden until the trail became all bare granite.

The view from the ledge of Lake Solitude was splendid. Who would've thunk there was a lake perched up on a ledge near the summit of Mt Sunapee? The dirt road/singletrack climb up here was well worth the drive. Bobcat sighting, and the climb was just long and hard enough to get the endorphins flowing. Throw great scenery into the mix, the buzz I had going was better than any of the stuff I did when I was a kid.

Near end of Solitude Trail on slickrock.

The route to Pillsbury State Park via the Greenway seemed like it would be more hike-a-bike than ride-a-bike. I decided to end this ride on a positive note and bomb back down the service road. I didn't realize just how steep it was. It scared me silly going down. I could not hit the water bars with any kind of speed. It was almost cold enough to freeze snot too. Cutting this ride two hours short meant I had two hours to ride some place else. I figured I hadn't been to FOMBA in a while, so I'll stop there just off the highway at Massabesic Lake.

It occurred to me that the Turkey Burner is just two weeks away, so I didn't want to ride anything I'll hit then. So what else is there, you ask? Lots. For starters, there's the old Watershed Wahoo course, which was positively the most roadie friendly course that every existed. All doubletrack, albeit some of it bony. And climbs, over 500ft per 6mi lap. Man I miss that race. Then there is a 1-2 mile singletrack climb across Tower Hill Rd that nobody knows about. I could work that in as an extension to a Wahoo lap. Finally, there's that "off the radar" trail near the FOMBA cluster. I see increasing forum discussion on this trail, but as of yet, nobody has disclosed the location. You would never find it just riding around. I see different names for it, like Hanger Banger, Evil FOMBA, or Hot and Cold. With the longest dry spell this year, I suspected the trail would be in mint condition.

Lake Solitude. Indeed it was. I had whole mountain to myself.

I parked at Massabesic Lake and set out on my plan. The only thing I would hit that the Turkey Burner hits would be the rail trail the Burner ends on. On the way to the Wahoo course, there's also another great piece of trail connecting the bottom of Tower Hill Rd with the rail trail. Probably legit, but nameless. After a Wahoo lap, I hit Evil FOMBA. Man, was it in nice riding shape, the nicest ever. Much of the area had been logged a few years ago, so most of the trail tread was devoid of oak leaves. That meant I could carry normal speed through all the tight twistiness. So why would somebody call it Evil FOMBA? Well, it is close to FOMBA, and it is like FOMBA on steroids. All the things FOMBA can't build are found here. There are no less than three huge teeter totters, over a dozen log rolls, some 4ft high, one A-frame over 5ft high, numerous hewn log bridges over water crossings, rock stunts galore including big drops. Everything is solidly built. The newest teeter near the middle is scary. I bet you are about 5ft up before it begins to teeter. I have yet to ride the A-frame. Wicked steep, too steep to walk over without slipping. I have ridden the other teeters on prior rides. The trail runs just over four miles and never has a dull moment.

The tallest teeter on Evil FOMBA.

I was going to post my GPS track for this ride, showing 24 miles of great riding that is not part of the Turkey Burner ride. But Evil FOMBA should still be kept under wraps me thinks. Hey, if you're doing the Turkey Burner and are interested in hitting the four mile wonder, let me know.

I finished the day with 32 miles, 3450 feet climbing, in about 3.5 hours moving time. I proved to myself I can still find hidden riding treasures close to home. I'll probably bike up Sunapee again some day, maybe see if I can work it into a bigger off-road ride out that way.

Kelly Stand/Mt Tabor Loop

Great weekend for riding, eh? Unless you are a CX racer. Then you must've missed your double shot of brownie mix that has characterized most of the Verge series this year. Figures now that we have perfect conditions across New England, Dave Penney and I had to go out of our way to find less then perfect conditions. On 'cross bikes no less.

A loop that has been on my ride radar for a couple years now is the Kelly Stand Rd/Mt Tabor Rd double hump loop. Both roads reach high elevations adjacent to wilderness land in the southern Green Mountains of Vermont. Jim Hayssen, who joined us for 6-gaps a couple years ago, told me about these exquisite dirt gap climbs. I've ridden Kelly Stand a couple times, once last November, then again this summer on the tandem with my wife. Kelly Stand reaches about 2800ft elevation and is toward the front range of the Green Mountains. This means it accumulates snow earlier in the season than other areas, even the taller White Mountains much further north in New Hampshire.

Mt Tabor Road at Devils Den

We parked in Londonderry, VT. This was right at the base of the Mt Tabor climb. We planned to ride the loop counter-clockwise. It was barely above 30F when we rolled out in AmFib tights and lobstah mitts. Daylight is short these days, and we were starting a 5-6hr ride at 10:30am. Risky.  Steep climbing immediately began on paved Landgrove Rd. The coldness did not matter.  We soon ran out of pavement and found ourselves on 1.5 lanes wide dirt Mt Tabor Rd. Only a couple cars passed us the whole time on this 10+ miles stretch of dirt. As we reached the summit, there was a nice dusting of snow in the trees and on the ground. This implied there would be much more snow on the higher Kelly Stand pass.

The Vermont Valley with Green Mountains in background

The descent was marvelous, dropping about 1500ft in four miles. There were some nice views through the trees of the valley below from the winding bench-cut road. This dropped us on Rt 7, a paved road with wide shoulders. We promptly got off this on Mad Tom Rd, which climbs at a heinous pitch for a mile or more until levelling off after gaining 700ft. This too turns to dirt for several miles before dropping back down much closer to Manchester, VT.

We stopped briefly to refuel in Manchester before heading further south to pick up Kelly Stand Rd. Kelly Stand is one of my favorite dirt gap climbs. It is never steep as it follows a rushing stream for 10 miles up a narrow canyon. It also gains 2200ft from the valley. We hit the lowest elevation of our loop between Manchester and base of Kelly Stand Rd. The temperature had risen into the 40's here.

Kelly Stand Rd nearing high point

Climbing Kelly Stand gives you several false hopes of achieving the summit. You're climbing for 6 or 7 miles, see blue sky through the trees and think, ah, finally there. Nope. You round the bend and see another half mile of 5-7% grade. You go through this a few times before you really hit the high point of the climb. The deal today was we started seeing snow about halfway up, the same elevation as the top of Mt Tabor Rd. Last year when I rode this in November, there was no snow at the bottom, but 6" of snow and unrideable ice at the top. I worried a little bit. I knew it had snowed here earlier in the week, but I figured the sun had burned it off by now.

By the time we reached the summit, the temperature was below freezing and the road was ice covered. There was 2-3" of snow on the ground. The road was just barely rideable and made for white knuckle descending. A little ways down the ice and snow turned to slush and made a mess of bike and body. We could have ridden anywhere else and stayed clean, dry and warmer, but no, I had to drag Dave out into the boonies to find freezing cold slop.

FS-431, with Stratton Mtn in background, threw a bit of everything at us. Steep uphill grunts, bony descents, brush and blow-downs, snow and slush, sand and deep leaves. Not your typical drop-bar riding.

The prior times I rode Kelly Stand, I bombed all the way down on pavement, cutting across the Statton ski base area and down to Rt 30. I had a special treat in store for us today. Pavement is for pansies. We were going to cut across on Forest Service Route 431. This skirted high up on the flanks of Stratton Mtn, maybe half way up the ski area in altitude. I had no on the ground intelligence on this route. It can be seen in satellite imagery. We were on 'cross bikes afterall. Many people ride Kelly Stand and Mt Tabor on road bikes, but we came equipped for any uncertainties and some adventure. I had trouble finding FS-431. I thought it started before we picked up pavement on the descent. We backtracked. found a forest service map at the Appalachian Trail kiosk and got reoriented. Should have trusted the GPS. That cost us maybe half an hour. Our daylight margin was now down to about zero, and we had 25 miles to go, half of it off-road with unknown conditions.

One of several drops along the high terrain section of FS-431

We found FS-431. It was little more than a doubletrack rutted "cow" path. And still being above 2500ft, there was plenty of snow and ice around too. We'd have to average about 10mph on this 10 mile connector to get back to car before sunset. I recalled from the profile that there was "fuzz" along this part of the route. Normally, these sharp spikes aren't real in Topo 7.0. But dang if they weren't real this time. We must have went up and down about five times, rising and falling more than 100ft each time on bony doubletrack. Much of the descending was washed out rock garden, something heinous to tackle on a 'cross bike with 80psi tires. Then throw liberal coating of leaves and snow over the rocks for good measure.  Flatting out here with no daylight margin was not an option. Neither was poking along. I think we averaged about 7mph for the next 10 miles. We lost all the vertical in just the last couple miles. It alternated between rock garden, loose sand, snow, deep leaves, and many, many large water bars. You could never tell how deep some of the water bars were, as they were filled with leaves or mud. Dave whooped it up once we hit a real gravel road at the bottom. FS-431 was supposed to be the highlight of the ride. Don't think Dave saw it that way. It was barely CX bikeable. You'd even have to be careful on a full suspension MTB to avoid pinch flatting.

Once we hit pavement below Stratton, it was 10 miles back to the car. The temperature was plummetting fast, probably back down around the freezing mark. There were two modest 200ft climbs along the way. Dave lit it up on the steep 12% bitch. I nearly died trying to stay with him. He said it was payback for FS-431. The sun set before we got back to our car and cars had their headlights on. That is how close we cut it. The thought of having to spoon with Penney in the wilderness to survive the night was a strong motivator to not mess up. The GPS could have died. It was the only thing keeping us off the many spur two-tracks. FS-431 is gated, so it was cluttered with plenty of tree debris. A sheered derailleur would have meant trying to find our way out of the woods in darkness too.

I find the most satisfying rides are ones that you barely finish, either by physical limits or length of day. I've had closer calls with night fall, especially one time riding solo in California. Our ride went 76.7 miles with a 5.3hr riding time, climbing 6740ft. About half of the route was on dirt, and way more than half the time was spent on dirt. This is the longest dirt ride I've done with my CX bike, and a punishing ride it was.  Dave and I both agreed the Mt Tabor climb and descent totally rocked. We'll definitely be back to do this loop again, although I may have to rethink the FS-431 part.  I have some even more grand loops in mind for next year.

Dual State Double Header

Sheltowee Trace Trail, Kentucky

One of the objectives of my short riding trip was to hit two states I haven't mountain biked in yet. I saved Kentucky for the last day of my four day trip. Monday was forecasted to be a picture perfect autumn day. I drove up to Laurel River Lake, the backstop of the Laurel River Dam. I parked at the dam with intentions of hitting two parts of the Sheltowee Trace trail, a 200+ mile long trail that starts in Tennessee and runs the length of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. The first section contoured the lake. The second section followed the Cumberland River. I figured both parts would be easy riding and I could tick off 40-50 miles in no time flat.

It was the coldest morning of the trip, about 39F starting out, so I finally had to break out the arm and knee warmers. They soon came off, however. There was nary a breeze nor cloud to be found. Temps soon hit 60F. Four miles of road took me to the entry point of the lake section of Sheltowee Trace. Some minor elevation change here and there, but the trail was mostly totally hammerable, wide benchcut singletrack. Heavy leaf cover had me nervous, but I rarely encountered any surprises. The trail was very well designed and drained, but there were a few nuisance blow-downs in one section. It seems long dead pines hit by beetles are still dropping. Laurel Lake is very clean. You can see bottom a long ways out from shore. I finished the 8 mile segment of singletrack in no time, swung past the car to drop shed layers, then ventured out on the longer, part two of the ride.

The drop into the Laurel River gorge was harrowing. The trail became hard to follow along rock cliffs and became extreme hike-a-bike. I eventually abandoned the bike to find the trail, to no avail. It was full-on hands and feet bouldering. Eventually I back-tracked and found a Sheltowee Trace trail marker. The trail continued deeper into the Whitman Branch gully. At the bottom, it was nothing but moss covered truck sized rocks. I learned chamois in your shorts work well not only for saddle rash, but they prevent butt burn when sliding down a rock slab with your 30 pound mountain bike too. I managed to bloody both legs up bush whacking through this section. When I finally crossed the actual stream, things didn't get any better. A huge blow-down made it darn near impossible to get through with my bike. It was shear cliff to high side and impossible steep bolders to the other. A fall down in here was not an option. Nobody would ever find me. I spent a good 45 minutes to cover one mile of distance. This was definitely not a mountain biking route.

I finally reached the Cumberland River at the boat launch. I figured I was good to go now, as the Sheltowee Trace trail was supposed to contour the river all the way to Cumberland Falls. Nope. A bit more hike-a-bike kicked things off. Then I drop down into another gully, not as steep as the Whitman Branch. At least it had a newly built bridge over the actual stream crossing. But it also had a sign warning of bridge out three miles ahead and crossing was extremely difficult. What the heck did I just do? If that was not difficult, what would extremely difficult entail? After Sunday's debacle, I became half a brain cell smarter and decided to cut my losses here and now. I climbed back out of the gorge via the paved boat launch access road and headed back to the car. I figured I had just enough time to ride at Big South Fork, not far out of my way back to Knoxville. For the morning, I logged 22 miles in 2.25hrs with 1850ft of climing. That would be the extent of my Kentucky riding this trip.

Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Tennessee

Yeah, that is a long name, and the only National River and Recreation Area declared by congress. This is another area of Tennessee where rivers have cut deep into the plateaus over eons to create great chasms in the Earth. This makes for great riding and viewing opportunities. I still hadn't reached great vistas by bike on this trip, and I hoped to score some good views by coming here.

I got to the rec area around 1:30pm, kind of late to begin a ride in remote country after the clocks went back an hour. Interestingly, the central/eastern time zone boudary runs right through the middle of this park. There was nobody here. Looks like they pretty much boarded things up for the season. Fine by me. I wasted no time in hitting the dirt.

There is a loop referenced in the trails guide book I picked up I wanted to try. It is open to bikers only on weekdays. Hikers have sole access to it on weekends. The loop links the Grand Gap Trail with a section of the John Muir Trail, an 18 mile singletrack loop along cliff ledges. A few miles to and from the loop on dirt road brought total mileage to about 25 miles.

The trails were eminently rideable and meticulously maintained. I stopped for pictures frequently on the Grand Gap segment. Many of the ledges were Moab-class with free-fall drops of hundreds of feet. The trail never came freaky close, but I suspect if you bobbled in a ridiculously bad way in a couple places, it would be your last bobble. The trail came close enough to nothingness that I was accutely aware of what I was doing. Signs warned trail users of impending death if you weren't carefull. Porcupine Rim in Moab had a couple true no-fall zones. The most exposed bits on Grand Gap and John Muir trails required dismounts to walk out on them. The GPS track shows how many fingers the trail went out on. There were many, many photo ops. I did not expore very many of the spur trails. The sun was getting too low in the sky and I had to get a rental bike back before the shop closed. The sun was positioned perfectly for most view points though, to my back.

The John Muir segment was totally hammerable. It begged to be hammered, and I had surprising spunk left in my legs. Time was short anyway. I rode much of the John Muir trail at threshold pace, frequently hitting speeds of over 20mph on skinny singletrack. The trail seemed to climb for two or three minutes followed by a minute or so of floating above saddle, coasting, not needing brakes, ripping around turns at 20mph. Very high fun factor. I could not have picked a better trail to end four days of riding on. I covered another 25 miles, all on dirt, in 2.2hrs with 1590ft of climbing. That brought the day's total to 47 miles, 4.4hrs moving time with 3440ft of vertical. A fairly flat ride, but the unique terrain and vistas certainly made up for it.

Thoughts on the 29er

So I got in about 16hrs of riding in four days on a Gary Fisher 29" bike. I picked up on a few more nuances between 26" and 29" bikes. I was certainly impressed with both the climbing and descending performance of the big wheeled bike. I think a slightly longer wheelbase may have something to do with that. Big wheels mean bigger contact patch. That is good when going over obstacles, not so good when something grabs your wheel. You see, deep mud or roots that catch your wheel has more leverage against you and forces you to put more muscle into the bar. I suspect a wider bar could offset some of this. The biggest negative I noticed, and this may just be an artifact of the Gary Fisher Genesis 2.0 geometry, is it is hard to get the front wheel aloft. It seems the rear wheel is much further back. I found it very hard to wheelie up onto something compared to my 26" hardtail. I did not notice this as much when I demo'd a Specialized 29er. Definitely have to do some spec research between the two bikes. Overall though, I think the 29er concept is a net win for the type of riding I like to do. I will probably kill myself first time out on my 26" bike when I stuff the front wheel into some the big wheels just roll right over.

Looks like this will be it for cycling trips for a while. Had some good trips this year, four in all. Early April was a family and friends trip to the islands packed with riding. At the end of April, Brett Rutledge and I went down to Asheville, NC with road bikes for some "spring training." In August I went to Durango, CO for a week of high altitude riding, which I justified as "training" for the Shenandoah Mountain 100. I finally wrapped up the season with four days in the southeast. Last year I hit Arkansas and Oklahoma in December. I have six states remaining on my list to hit. Maybe next fall I can hit Mississippi and Louisianna.

Laurel River Lake Dam

Contour singletrack along Laurel Lake

What if this thing decided to give way as I crossed under it?

30 minutes of bouldering through this stuff in bottom of Whitman Branch

Singletrack on Grand Gap loop

Ledges across gorge on Grand Gap loop. Trail followed precipices just like these.

One of many vantage points hanging out over the abyss. River is approximately 600ft below.

Another shot of Big South Fork Cumberland River looking southerly.

One of a dozen or more natural rock shelters the Grand Gap and John Muir trails pass under. Archeologists say humans inhabited these areas thousands of years ago.

Pisgah Pissah

Seems every trip I have a day that goes awry. Today was a double duzy. The weather funkiness finally cleared out overnight, and I was all set to conquer Pisgah National Forest. F-up number one: not realizing the time changed. I drop down to the lobby area to scarf down breakfast. It starts at 6:30am, and I went down at what I thought was 6:40am. There was nothing there, not even coffee. So I asked the desk dude what's up. He said, "Um, the time changed last night?" That's what I get for going away a few days without my wife. This wouldn't happen to her.

First peak is Black Mtn, second is Buckwheat Knob. Many of the little serations are >20% grade up and down.

So I kitted up, made up my Gatorade and got all set to go so I could roll right after eating. The breakfast sucks here and I should have just grabbed a McDonald's breakfast. Have to have my Starbucks though. There's one right across the highway from here. After getting my fix, I'm heading east on I-40 through Knoxville. You've probably seen these signs before. These are the ones that say tune to 1620 AM for important travel info when flashing. Well, they were flashing. I thought maybe just some construction or something. I tune in anyway. I-40 was closed on the TN/NC state line! Big rock slide they say. That is the only major route over the Smokey Mountains. The detour they gave on the radio was 140 miles! I was BS. I knew of another way over, a gap Brett and I rode this spring. It connects Gatlinburg TN with Cherokee NC. If I were smart, I would have cut my losses then and there, losing no more than 90 minutes on the day. But nooooo, I have to press on. F-up number 2.

So I head south on Hwy 441. Apparently an interstate's worth of traffic was doing the same rather than go on some 140mi boondoggle. The town of Pigeon Forge sucked. Biggest tourist trap this side of Vegas, with 10 miles of crap like this and this. The drive over New Found Gap wasn't too bad for early on Sunday morning. I still had to go over two more major mountain pass though. I skirted around Cherokee by taking the last segment of the Blue Ridge Parkway to Waynesville. It was deserted, as the diverted cars chose to plug up Cherokee instead. I chose to go over the parkway again by taking US-276 directly to my trailhead instead of getting back on I-40 near Asheville. Scenic. Not sure if it was faster, but it probably saved a gallon of gas. With over three hours on the road, I finally parked.

I parked at the Pisgah Ranger District info center. Another guy my age with his family was also getting ready to ride. We talked a bit and I explained what I planned to do. He was like, "Ah, you'll be hating life if you rode that loop today after all the rain and leaf drop." He was intimately familiar with the trails and marked up and alternate route that stayed higher and drier. A trail angel or devil? I was quite happy to get the info. Never got his name. He did the SM100 last year, so we had at least that in common. I didn't do any research on the trails he recommended, and I was abandoning what I did research. F-up number three.

Heading out, I was immediately on singletrack heading up Black Mountain. This is a real grunt of a climb, starting out at 15% grade and getting steeper as you go up. The deal was, leaf drop was complete above 3000ft. Lots of oak out here. Pile them leaves 6" deep on 25-40% grades, well, you ain't gonna be riding much. I found I could handle 25% climbing grade, but any steeper and the leaves would just spin out under me. The suck-ass XDX tires didn't help matters. I quickly learned that most of the climbing and descending along the route this guy sent me on was >25% grade. The final pitch up Black Mountain was barely hikeable on leaves.

Near the Black Mtn summit, I picked up Turkeypen Gap Trail. This was described as rolling ridgeline. I live for ridgeline riding, even if it entails a bit of hike-a-bike here and there. Well, the initial Black Mtn descent went over 40% decline. Twice my tires bunched up bushel basket bundles of leaves, leaving me to careen out of control until I crashed. The best I could do was aim for a good place to lay it down. Now I was freaked out. Nobody knew I was out here, since I left my original route plans with my wife. I needed to be more careful.

Ridgeline singletrack on Turkeypen Gap Trail.

Turkeypen Gap Trail hits peak after peak, with names like Horse Knob, McCall Mtn and Sharpy Mtn. The trail honestly follows the ridgeline, which meant fall-line climbs and descents. No IMBA standards were followed when this puppy was built! The trail may be over 100 years old for all I know. When I finally reached Turkeypen Gap, a trailhead parking area, I bailed out of the loop. It took me nearly 2 hours to go 9 miles! I also logged about 3300ft of climbing, much of it off the bike at 25-40% grades. It was already 12:30pm, and to continue with an unknown loop that looked to be at least 40 miles long of this stuff would be suicide. I'd finish 2-3hrs after dark with no lights. I bombed the dirt road down to Hwy 280 and went back to the car.

Studying the map, I thought I'd at least hit one more section of the route my trail "angle" marked up for me. This time, I'd climb gravel forest service road 477 to ridgeline and take suggested trails back down. The climb was nice, hovering in the 5-12% range. This was my kind of climbing. Could get into a nice tempo grove. The road was gated, so no cars either. I picked up Club Gap Trail at the top and commenced climbing. Right away, I was back into 20+% grades up creek bottom. No lie. The old wagon trail acted as a collector of run-off from the mountain and sent the water down the trail. Why anybody would keep XDX tires on an east coast bike is beyond me. Utterly worthless on wet rocks.

I make it to Club Gap, turn right, continue climbing up to Buckwheat Knob. You'd think with all these knobs, mountains and ridgelines there'd be a view somewhere. Nope. Too many trees and not enough rock ledges. You see, the Appalachians down here didn't get scraped bare by glaciers like the ones up north did. That also means the mountains are more rideable down here. You can actually benchcut trail down here, at least if you were designing a new MTB trail from scratch like the Tanasi Trails. This is hard to do in New England when all you have to work with is solid granite or slabs of rock.

The descent from Buckwheat Knob promptly went over 40% decline. I tried to ride it, sternum to saddle, and I went down again, this time not so softly. At least you slide on the leaves to a halt. Glad there weren't any trees in my way. When I got down to Bennett Gap, I bagged the rest of the singletrack descent. The sun was getting low, and we lost an hour of light at the end of the day. I ripped back down FS-477. I was freezing when I got to the bottom. The temp hovered around 50F, and I stayed in short sleeves all day. It was much colder at 4000ft.

In 4hrs riding time I managed only 33 miles with 5700ft of climbing. That is probably the hardest 33 mile trail ride I've ever done. The route definitely was higher and drier than what I had planned. I have to think it was much steeper though.

View from Blue Ridge Parkway just above area I rode in. Around 4pm, on the way home.

The drive back was going to suck even more. Traffic would be higher. I opted to go back the same way. Coming back down Hwy 441 was stop and go around switchbacks. It was bumper to bumper cars in both directions. I saw a pair of cylo-tourists with trailers coming up. It was getting dark out. I bet they had no idea interstate traffic was coming over this gap. I sure hope they made it safely. What they were doing was off the charts dangerous. It took me nearly 4hrs to get back to Knoxville. It should take just over 2hrs without rock slides. 7hrs in the car to get my ass handed to me in 4hrs on the trail is not how I like to spend cycling trips.

In hindsight, I should've gone up to Kentucky to ride today and hit a couple local Knoxville places on Monday. I did get a nice sampling of Pisgah though. There must be many hundreds of miles of rideable trails there. I can see big potential. I'll probably come back to ride there again some day, but chose my trails, or at least timing with leaf drop, more carefully. Monday's ride will be in Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. I don't expect big elevation changes there, and some gravel road will be brought into the mix. Have to bring bike back before 8pm, then head to Nashville for an early Tuesday morning flight back to NH.