Commonwealth Games

This weekend I was down in Charlottesville, VA to see some old college buddies, and got a chance to sample the local hardpack. Good stuff, and there is plenty of it.

The local bike club has a page of gravel road rides on their website (my kind of club!). I chose a route that started in Madison, VA, and meandered through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.




This meant fabulous views of some big-time terrain (pardon the intrusion of the ziplock I carry my phone in!) - but no monster climbs - just lots and lots of hard rollers and shorter climbs.



The dirt roads were in great shape - no holes, hardly any washboard. Many appeared to have been freshly serviced with loads of small gravel - making the ride on my 25c tires a bit swimmy. Next time the red bike will be wearing 32s.



The biggest climb of the day was Whippoorwill Rd. Are there any roads called Whippoorwill that are flat? I don't think so. This one was very scenic, and had a lovely descent.



If you go, bring what you need. You'll pass farms, a few houses, several small churches with cemeteries - but the convenience store is a little behind the times.



At one point I passed an older couple walking three dogs. I bade them good morning, and as I rolled past the woman called out "Watch out for the wild and crazy…" at which point her voice was drowned out by the crunch of skinny tires swimming through gravel. I circled back and asked her to repeat the warning.

"Drivers! They're reckless, and young!"

I didn't doubt her at all, but I probably only saw a dozen cars the whole time.

Ice Capades

You've surely had days when something you keenly anticipated turned out to be... meh... but something else you did on a whim was an absolute triumph?

That was my ride Thursday - my third stab at the Delaware Water Gap. Ironically, the hero of the ride - ice, at frozen Dingmans Falls - had played the villain on my previous two Water Gap rides. Much better to see ice hanging from a distant cliff than under your wheels.


The route I planned had three scouting objectives:

+ what appeared to be dirt roads over the back side of Mt. Minsi, which forms the Pennsylvania side of the Water Gap

+ climbs running up from the PA side of the Delaware river: roads with names like Mosiers Knob, Little Egypt and Big Egypt, and Johnny Bee

+ the McDade Trail, a newly-completed, 32-mile unpaved multi-use path along the river

I'd been salivating over the Mt. Minsi roads for a few weeks, my appetite whetted by the National Park Service map of the area.


My experience so far was that what this map showed as dirt roads were things you could drive a car on; it omits the crazy fire roads, or shows them as trails... so off I went with high hopes.

I parked at Slateford and headed up National Park Drive. It was, as advertised, a lovely 2-mile hardpack climb. The turn onto Totts Gap Road looked like a gravel driveway. Uh oh.



This one turned creek bed right away. And steep! In the roughest spots, a trail ran through the woods parallel to the road - much easier passage there. Going up was 80% hike-a-bike. I could see a radio tower on the crest of the ridge, which implied vehicle access... and this wasn't it! Hopefully the road on the other side of the ridge would be better.



Near the top was a party cave... no need for a velvet rope. Over the crest the road turned to gravel, even steeper than the creek bed. I skidded down and in a flash I was back on pavement. This was a bit of a relief; it had taken nearly half an hour to go one mile. But the map had me hoping for two more miles of unimproved road, in one form or another. That's scouting.



On my way north, I encountered one of my favorite things, a Bridge Out sign. I forged ahead; this one turned out to be all bark and no bite... just had to hop a couple barricades.



Soon I was heading up Big Egypt Road, a lovely unpaved climb closed to vehicle traffic. Which is a good thing, because it really did have a bridge out... though it was easy to get across.


After about three hours on the road my bottles were almost frozen solid, so I was happy to come across the Pocono Environmental Education Center (PEEC). I finally had a bear encounter, right there in the lobby!


This place had an old-timey feel: there was a crank pencil sharpener on the wall next to the office. At the back of the building, it looked like they had turned an indoor pool into a beaver habitat.



After a fun descent down unpaved Chestnut Ridge Rd, I headed up to Johnny Bee Rd, at the far end of my loop. This turned out to be an abandoned, gated-off paved road.



There are quite a few of these around the Water Gap, but this was the first I'd seen with a double yellow line. Just around the bend it pitched up near 20%, and the surface was covered with a couple inches of leaf litter and tree branches.

I bailed. On my way down, I passed the road up to Dingmans Falls, which was closed for the season. I decided to have a look, and it was spectacular - the highlight of the day.


On to the McDade Trail, which I planned to take most of the way back to the car. Most of the sections I rode are new, with a gravel surface that hasn't been packed down too much, so you're guaranteed a good workout even on the flats. I made about 12 mph at endurance pace, and 14 at tempo.


The trail runs alongside corn fields and through stands of tall pine trees. There are also parts that twist through the woods or meander close to the river. Every now and then you get smacked with a short, steep little climb. No rail trail, this.



The Boxing Day blizzard just skimmed past this area; once they get some real snow, McDade will be a great spot for cross country skiing.

After 15 miles on the trail, I became worried about getting back to the car before dark, so I hopped back on the pavement for the rest of the ride... through the Gap itself, and I was homeward bound.

Stoked

On Tuesday I once again heard the call of the west (western NJ, that is!) and set off for another adventure near the Delaware Water Gap. This time, I focused on roads in and around Stokes State Forest.

It was the winter solstice - the morning after the lunar eclipse. Driving from home, I was beckoned westward by the giant moon, blazing bright - low on the horizon, just over the Pulaski Skyway.



My ride started right in the middle of Stokes, and within a couple miles I was in my element.

My route attempted to follow many smaller woods and fire roads - shown as double dotted lines on USGS topographical maps. Within Stokes, some of these old roads are maintained as multi-use trails. Others are not maintained... and some have been purposefully obscured or torn up to impede passage. More on that later.


On a "double dotted line" section of Struble Road, I was happy to find a fresh layer of fist-size rocks. This stuff might look hairy to a roadie, but it really wasn't bad riding. Further down Struble got a little creek bed-ish - much more challenging.

Many paved roads within Stokes were closed for the season to vehicle traffic. The hunters & pick'em-up trucks were nowhere to be seen. I liked the look of this sign. Dogsled trails? Must be good!


Just a short distance beyond was Degroat Road, which I planned to ride from the other direction the last time I was out here, but couldn't find... an omen perhaps. Google Maps shows it as a perfectly reasonable-looking road.



Topo shows it double-dotted, so I figured it would be an interesting three miles. The first segment, climbing north from Grau Road was a nice, wide rocky hardpack road... with some drainage issues.


The first mile or so would make a great luge run. It was fun finding my lines on that climb! I did walk quite a bit. Past the crest, the road was rough but free of ice.

After a couple miles, I got to a little pull-off area for a trailhead... and a rocky mound in the middle of the road signaling the end of vehicle passage.

"No problem," I thought. I dismounted, climbed over... and saw another mound... and another - a continuous wave pattern of four-foot-high overgrown mounds as far as I could see down the hill.


At first I portaged my bike over and around these things... then found it easier to walk though the woods. The crew that demolished this road really did a thorough job! So much for Google Maps.



For once I was happy to get back on pavement. Out on the hard road, I passed a big horse farm - a trotter was pulling a sulky around its oval track. Four horses were going round & round in an exercise ring - apparently the race horse version of rollers. Even with all the hike-a-bike, I was glad I wasn't home on my rollers!



At various points in the ride I encountered pockets of snow on the ground. One stretch though High Point State Park the road was pretty well covered. When the real snow comes, this will be big-time XC ski country.

Near the end of the ride I was pretty cooked; I'd been out for six hours in mid-20s, windy weather, without an indoor break. I was less than a mile from my car when I turned onto Kittle Road, a gated little dirt track. A couple hundred yards and I got to an overgrown barricade... uh oh.


The bridge was out... and not coming back anytime soon.

I walked down to the icy bank and gave some serious thought to fording the brook. If I had extra socks in the car, I might have given it a shot. Instead, I took a five-mile detour - the end of a long ride on the shortest day of the year.

Mind The Gap

A few months ago, on a long train ride to a Dutchess County dirt road ride, a friend planted the seed of curiosity: Delaware Water Gap. There must be some good dirt roads out there!

This week, with low temperatures and high winds conspiring against a long point-to-point ride, I did some research, plotted a route, and on Wednesday drove out to Peter's Valley, in the heart of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

The first part of the ride focused on a five-mile unpaved length of Old Mine Road alongside the Delaware River, and a portion of 10-mile-long Mountain Road, following the Flat Brook a mile or two east of the Delaware.

The area is notably unpopulated. I was aware of its history: in the 1950s, the federal government planned to dam the Delaware and create a 30-mile lake in the valley. The Army Corps of Engineers bought out hundreds of land owners, but when the dam project was eventually dropped, the land stayed empty.



Still, this emptiness could be startling. The first hour of the ride, I passed three cars. Wide meadows that looked like they could be farmed, are not. From time to time on Mountain Road I passed abandoned homes.

Mountain Road has one principle water feature, Buttermilk Falls. At 75 feet, it is the highest waterfall in New Jersey.



The road also provided numerous supporting water features, in the form of wide slushy puddles. These were surrounded by piles of icy chunks and an outer perimeter of frozen splash.


I got pretty good at skirting around these.

Later in the ride, I explored some woods roads in Stokes State Forest. Much technical climbing and descending (at least for someone on a road bike with 32c tires) - and many of those big puddles.

Oddly this was the one part of the ride in which I encountered people: hunters, with orange vests & long rifles. Lots of 'em. This was Bear Week in NJ. I was glad to get the hell outta there!

The area also has quite a few abandoned roads. In plotting my route, I was of course hoping to encounter as many of these as I could! But looking at Google Maps, you never know quite what you're going to get.



My plan was to take Ridge Rd to Van Ness down to Old Mine. Seems reasonable, no? From other map sources, I had an idea Van Ness might be unpaved or unmaintained... but I was not expecting this!



The road was overgrown but quite easy to ride. I followed it down to a partially-frozen pond.


Parts of the road along the pond were submerged; I had to portage my bike and step carefully! Past the pond, the road seemed to disappear, and I was off on a bushwacking adventure among tall grass and pricker bushes.


I used the compass on my Garmin and followed an overgrown trail northwest, hoping to eventually cross Upper Ridge Road. I was glad when I got there!






So things had worked out a little differently than planned, but that's OK. I don't feel like it's a real scout unless I've had an adventure or two.




Near the end of the ride I rolled through Walpack Center, with its handful of white clapboard buildings and, not surprisingly, no people.


I just scratched the surface of the area's unpaved roads. I'll be back...

Are You Ready for the Country?

I sure was. I waited out the rain Tuesday & Wednesday, and was rarin' to go Thursday pre-dawn. Destination: Morristown, NJ. The plan was to roll west on Jockey Hollow, revisit a few favorite spots from last week's ride, and scout some new terrain. I was eager to visit my pals out on Trimmer Road in Califon!

I knew to prepare for a cold morning, so I bundled up. Wheels hit the road at 8:15, and it was... cold! Lots of frozen puddles. When I was out here last week, maybe every third horse had a blanket. Today... EVERY horse had a blanket. If I were a horse, I'd demand two blankets!



Early in the ride, I cut through Trump National. Today it was bleak and windswept - actually seemed kinda bleak last week, too. The road was being graded; fortunately there was plenty of old, bumpy road for me to ride on.

A few miles later, I was not so lucky. One stretch of Hacklebarney Road had a fresh layer of soft dirt gutter-to-gutter, with just a few tire tracks for me to navigate. Wish I had the Michelin Jets mounted...

I checked out Pickle Road - mainly because it sounded cool! I also had some intel that there would be some dirt and a climb involved.

The sign indicates the attitude of the first (paved - boo!) half-mile of the road. Up top, it's scenic, hardpack flat & rollers.

At Mile 48, I got to the creatures of Trimmer Road. Emu! Who knew? Last time, I missed these guys; there were three or four of 'em. They made a funny sound - kind of a low-pitched, hollow-sounding burp.

Across the street from the emus were some really small donkeys.

They were very interested in the Red Bike.


I think they may never have seen downtube shifters - imagine?

The goats, donkey and llama I visited last week were just up the way - doing fine, all munching on fresh heaps of hay.

I made my way into the village center of Califon. Had to check out the bananas at Rambo's. Lookin' good!

Downstream from Califon, the Raritan River was raging (as were all the rivers I saw on the ride). Last week, along this stretch I probably passed a couple dozen anglers; today, just two.

I turned east and finally had the wind at my back! Wrapped up the ride in Gladstone; grabbed a sandwich & beer for the train at the New Gladstone Market. Good times.