Rocks

The May 15 storm that Tunguskaed Waldo has actually worked out okay. The re-routes that Paula put in, and the bootleg clearing and log-overs on the red trail, are all improvements. Everyone’s favorite re-route is on the purple trail, adding a bunch of twists and turns to what had been a straight run. It’s a lot more fun, and most of it was minor trail work that didn’t take much more than clippers and rakes.

Except for the stone wall crossing. Unlike most stone wall crossings, the ground on one side is about 3 feet lower than that on the other side. The low side has a relatively long ride-up of 6 or 7 feet, even with the center of the wall taken down to the level of the high side. Initially, all that was done was a hurried lowering of the wall, resulting in a rideable but sketchy approach from the low side. If you hit it fast, you were okay. Probably.

That bothered me.

My company gives its employees two paid days a year for volunteer work, a great benefit. I took one today to build a better wall crossing. It was a typically hot and humid August day. I got out early, leaving the house a bit after 7 to spend the day slinging rocks.

The key to stable dry-laid stone structures is a level base. I dug the first row of stones into the ground about 6 inches, then dug out a level bench behind them for the next course of stones. Each course is laid so the lower vertical edge of each stone bears on the upper vertical edge of the stone below it, in addition to bearing straight down on either dirt or stable stones. That helps each stone resist the forces placed on it by bikes, and should keep the stones from sliding out of place over time.

In all, it was an enjoyable day in the woods. Several cyclists came by, and the last one, an acquaintance named Mark, rode the new crossing both ways and gave it a thumbs up.  I’m looking forward to that myself, but for now, I’m cooked. Time for a beer on the porch.

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Fathers and Sons

Monday night, I rode Waldo with an old friend, Mark, and his 17 year old son Aiden. They’re new to mtbing, and wanted to get to know the trails. Two hundred feet into the woods, I looked back to see if they were behind me, rode off the trail, jammed my front wheel on a log, and did a classic, clipped-into-the-pedals endo. I have a bruise on my chest from where the bike landed, and one on my back from my phone’s Otter Box.

Ah, hubris.

The phone is fine, so yay Otter Box.

Once I got untangled from the bike, we rode on down the Red trail, which, for my money, offers the most Whee! per mile in the park. But at the junction with Yellow, Mark got a call from his wife about water in the basement, so they had to bail. We rode out the fire road, bid our goodbyes, and they drove off. A short shared ride, but it was good to see Mark after ten years, and good to see that Aiden had grown into a smart and confident young man. Most importantly though, I liked seeing that they seemed to have a close relationship. When my boys were 17, it was hard.

The light was fading a little, so I exchanged my sunglasses for my regular ones, then left the parking lot to hack around in the park for while. Riding up Yellow to head out, I’d crested the climb on the west side of the hill and was heading down the east side when another rider hove into view, hull down behind a stone wall and waiting for me to pass. With no helmet and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, he struck me as a beginner. I said “Hi” and “Thanks” and rode on only to encounter what I assume was his son, a boy of about ten, pushing a new Specialized up the slight grade. I stopped to let him pass, taking an opportunity to demonstrate trail etiquette and maybe encourage the boy by saying, “Go ahead – Uphill rider has the right of way. Nice bike!”

A pretty normal encounter, really, except it felt oddly familiar. A dad wanting to bond with his son, probably pressed for time by the realities of a job and maintaining a home, trying to squeeze something fun in while the daylight lasted. Judging by the kid’s expression though, he wasn’t having a lot of fun pushing the bike up the hill. It felt like the dad was trying too hard, something like I might have done with my own kids.

I didn’t feel good about that.

Five minutes later I felt worse. Riding down the east side, I realized that the light had gone to the point where it was hard to read the trail and that I should skip the upper Yellow trail and ride out. Not a big deal for me, but that father and son were heading down toward the lake on the brighter west side and weren’t likely to realize how fast the light was going on the shady side. If they went all the way down, they’d be coming back in the dark. A failure for dad, an ordeal for the boy, a sadly memorable occasion for both unless the dad could handle it better than I would have.

When I got to the car and put my gear away, I thought about getting it back out and riding down the fire road to see if they needed help. I decided against it, figuring that they weren’t likely to get hurt, and all they needed to do was take the fire road out when the trail hit it. Maybe they’d have a shitty time, or maybe they’d make it an adventure and I was projecting my own failures as a parent on that dad. Maybe they had lights. I didn’t other than on my phone. And the last thing that dad needed was some helpful asshole intruding.

I drove home.

I still don’t feel good about it.

 

 

Wet and Beery

Mark asked if Ben and I would like to ride to Kent Falls Brewery Friday afternoon. An on-line acquaintance of his from Philly, Steve, was in the area and Mark wanted to give him a true gravel experience. The weather looked sketchy with thunderstorms forecast, but their likely onset was late enough that it looked likely we’d be okay. Still, we all stuffed jackets in our jersey pockets.

It was humid and hot with blue skies and high, puffy clouds when we headed our gravel bikes down a regular route that combined pavement, abandoned roads, dirt roads, old railroad beds, and a smidgen of singletrack. Some of that that old railroad bed is classic gravel-grinder challenge. It’s got some small downed trees, baby heads, mini-rock gardens in some ride-arounds, small stream crossings, rooty sections, and a bog or two, all through a forest and next to a class A trout stream.

Shortly after we finished the railbed, about two thirds of the way to the brewery, it clouded over. Big raindrops began pelting the hot asphalt of Romford Road, but we were literally on the edge of the cloud. If I hugged the shoulder, the rain missed me.

Talk about being favored by the gods!

Talk about hubris!

Two miles on we began the Flirtation Ave. climb, where the rain began with purpose. We rode the last three miles to the brewery through a deluge, pacelining around Lake Waramaug. The rain came down so hard that wheel-spray from pacelining didn’t make us any wetter.  The air was warm enough that we didn’t bother with our jackets.

At the brewery, the AC was off. Good. We’d have frozen had it been on. I had a nice, 5.6% sour farmhouse ale, and although it was still raining, was ready to ride on when Ben said, “Andy, you need to drink more.”

Mark had bought a round, this time of a quite drinkable 5.4% lager.

Two beers in, we rode on. It was still raining but not as hard. We all donned our jackets because the temperature had dropped a few degrees. From the brewery, it was nothing but up for the next mile, most of it while watching rivulets of brown water pass under our wheels on the dirt of Gun Hill.  Following Gun, we rocketed down Findlay, where I collected a descent I’d earned climbing it two weeks prior. We wound our way around to Walker Brook, which Ben and I both PRed with times that were only 15 seconds off top ten finishes. Note to self – Hit that when the road isn’t sodden.

In the last few miles, the rain stopped and hints of blue sky peeked through. Back at the start, we realized just how muddy and gritty we were. It was ugly.

There was no dissent when I suggested a visit to my swimming hole.

Great ride, Mark!

Feet in the Water

Sunday, I mtbed with Ben at our home park, Waldo. On hot summer weekends it’s a popular place with citiots who pack incredible quantities of picnic supplies down the half mile fire road to the lake, but very little back up to their cars. NEMBA members end up cleaning their mess. I think the final straw this year was the piles of shit and toilet paper left alongside the trails. The ranger began locking the gate to the parking area over the weekends, leaving only the few spaces outside the gates available to limit use.

I approve. If you can’t take care of public property, you shouldn’t get to use it.

I drove past the gate, and the spaces in front were filled – even those directly in front of the sign on the gate that say “Do Not Block.” There were even cars parked in farm lanes on private property nearby. We parked half a mile downhill in the spaces at the Shepaug Dam. There’s a trail from there that leads into Waldo, but it’s the gnarliest climb in the park. I said to Ben as we climbed that 200 feet yesterday in the 90F heat, “I fucking hate those people.”

“Which people?”

“The picknickers.”

“Oh, yeah, those fuckers.”

Nonetheless, it was a grand ride. And the park was pretty empty. I rode the Scrhalpin’ Turns as well as I ever have. I can still feel the thrill when I think on it.

Later, riding back down that 200 feet to the parking lot, the Wheee! factor was pretty high. From there, with my cooler containing four iced beers and Ben’s two camp chairs, we hied on down to a shady spot on Lake Zoar. We waded in a couple of feet, set the chairs on the gravel bottom, and drank cold beer with our feet cooling in the clear water. A blue heron glided in and landed near a family fishing from their pontoon boat, and we sat and shot the shit.

All was right with the world.

Haviland Hollow is Hard

(Edited to correct a factual error) What we call Haviland Hollow is really the Michael Ciaiola Conservation Area, named after a long time president of the Putnam County Land Trust. We don’t though. We call it after the road it’s on. That could be because mountain biking here predates the naming of the place or because none of my crew knows how to pronounce Ciaiola. Both are true, but the truth is uncertain. Additionally, the orange trail here is officially the George C. Cain trail. He was known as a great trail steward and advocate. A member of the NYFD, George Cain died in the line of duty on 9/11.

Korey and Chris have ridden here for years. I rode with them here once, last October. It’s hard. Probably the hardest place I’ve ridden. It’s old-school northeastern riding. It’s not a place to ride often. It’s a place to return to test yourself. We don’t know the trails well. Last year, we found some flatter, flowier (I’m using the term very loosely) trails at the top of the mountain. But right now, we’re at the bottom of the mountain. Today it’s Korey and Ben and me, and today we won’t find those trails. We needed Chris.

The start is innocent enough. Through a gate and along an old road, loose and rooty, and with a stream crossing not a hundred yards in. Just beyond that we turn left onto singletrack. Immediately there’s a short climb that takes strength and skill I lacked a year ago but am delighted to find today. That’s followed by a roller coaster whose sight-lines are masked by undergrowth. The undergrowth ends and we’re riding through an empty group campsite, followed by another short, technical climb and then another empty campsite, followed by yet another short, technical climb that leads to an old stage road.

The stage road climbs alongside a stream whose bed is hardly rockier than the eroded track we’re riding. We pick our lines and still we need to pop and boost our bikes over ledges, still we bash our pedals on bottom-bracket high rocks. It’s badly drained. We muddy our wheels in the wallows and clean them in tributary stream crossings. We suck in humid air and drive our pedals around. The stage road goes on for long enough that I wonder what was here two centuries ago that made the road worth building.

Eventually we leave the stage road and follow a singletrack through the woods. The trees are bigger here and they mostly shade out the undergrowth. A big oak that came down in the May 15 storm blocks a stream crossing and adds a Fitzcarraldo level of challenge. The trail markers seem random. We aren’t sure if the orange markers are for the orange trail or if they’re red trail markers that have faded. The red trail intersects itself in places. Unless it’s the orange trail intersecting the red trail. We’re lost, but it doesn’t matter. Roots weave a mat along the trail. Big ones cross the climbs, holding the dirt and jerking our wheels around. There’s enough hike-a-bike to satisfy our most masochistic tendencies. But we get a couple of fast and dodgy descents, and more than a few satisfying climbs, before topping out at an overlook where we surprise a couple enjoying the view.

“You rode bikes? Up that?”

Yeah, we rode up that. The bikes weren’t always assets.

We leave the couple, then find a radio tower all a-post with dire warnings. We follow its service road down until we turn onto a trail that Ben identified on the map and which Korey and I recognize from last year. The map shows a trail off this trail that we want to take, but almost immediately there’s a sign forbidding bikes. Right – We made the same mistake a year ago. Reversing to the first trail, we ride down one of the best descents of the day. We stop beyond a stream crossing and choose between beer or more riding.

The ice packs in the cooler won’t last forever. Beer wins.

Ben and Korey go first so they don’t see my next act. Mounting my bike, I catch the crotch of my shorts on the seat. Unable to get my weight back, I’m instantly unicycling downhill on my front wheel, my back wheel wagging like a happy Labrador’s tail. When the front wheel inevitably jams on a rock I vault over the bars with uncharacteristic grace to land on my feet.

Hilarity over, I remount and roll down the baby-head strewn trail until reaching a rock face that drops 8 ft. or so at about 45 degrees. I would ride it except for the boulder field runout. Ben and Korey have already walked around it and I follow suit.

Crossing a sketchy bridge whose ends land on the remains of an old dam across the stream we followed in, we’re soon careening down the stage road. It’s much, much shorter going downhill.

Sweaty, muddy, scratched, and bug-bit, dry clothes and wet beer are welcome.

Already I’m replaying the ride in my head, realizing how much better I rode than I did a year ago. And already I’m thinking I want to come back while what we rode today is fresh. I think I know where we needed to turn to find the trails we rode a year ago.

 

 

Farrington Cherry

There’s a guy I’ve been friends with for 20 years or so through online forums. It turns out that we live just 45 minutes apart, so we’ve socialized a few times. A strong rider and a no-bullshit guy, he’s an inspiration to me.

He led a merry chase this weekend through Farrington Woods, a park about halfway between us. I’d never been there before. Looking on Strava, our pace was slightly faster than middle of the pack. That was a little challenging for me, particularly on my first visit to the park. But it was the pace I hoped for, and absolutely necessary to clean those trails.

Farrington is wonderfully laid-out and built. We scored about 150 ft./mile of climbing, but none of the climbs were so steep that I couldn’t carry enough momentum up the hills to get over the obstacles. As my friend said, a lot of parks are built so you can ride around the obstacles. Farrington is built so you can ride over them. Two cases in point. The first was minor, but shows the thought that went into the build. Coming down a rocky drop leading into a left turn, the left side looked like the better line except for a pair of wheel-trapping roots. Just as I was about to break right around those roots, I saw the flat rock placed between them. Shazam!

The second case is the descent at the end of the Devil’s Den, itself an astounding split in the earth’s crust. On this descent, there ain’t nothing but rocks. If you fall, it will hurt. And it’s steep. Like a 50% grade steep. But whoever built the trail created a rideable, if terrifying, line to the bottom. In fact, the bottom was harder to ride than the technical descent because you have to pedal through a sea of chainring-high rocks.

Mixed in among Farrington’s rocks are flowy sections, one of which wends its way up a gully by switchbacking off the sides like a rollercoaster. Just a couple of pedalstrokes at the apex of each turn was all it took to get around and into the next drop, whose momentum almost carried me to the top of the other side – Fun shit.

In short, I came out of the woods on Saturday tired, sweaty, my Camelback empty, and only bleeding a little. It was a perfect ride.

 

Mid-Summer Fun

Spring is a relief after a winter spent figuring out the correct layering for a ride and then kicking my ass out the door into the cold. I’m always glad I did ride in the winter, but it’s hard to remember that at the start of every single ride. Spring weather doesn’t call for discipline to get my ass out the door, but that’s usually when I’m in the worst shape of the year. The climbs are all harder than they should be, and that’s depressing. By late spring, fitness is returning. But then it gets hot, and although I know I’ll acclimate to the heat in a few weeks, getting out once again takes discipline.

And then it all comes together. After turning myself inside out on the climb a few times this spring, during this week’s Dirty Thirty I PRed Grassy Hill while I was focused on pacing myself so I’d have legs for the remaining 2K feet of up on the route. And while I didn’t PR (5:04) Garnet Road, I did tie my second fastest time (5:19), again while focusing on pacing.

I’m still slow compared to my lighter, fitter friends, but the Garnet climb was particularly satisfying. Three and four years ago, I would often have to stop to rest or walk the bike up the steepest part. If I did make it up, it took a maximum effort the left me panting and spent. This week, it was just another climb.

That’s mid-summer fitness.