infinitely sustainable pace

We’re putting an event on in April, the Gravel Grinder Spring Classic Dirt Road Ride. This will be the 2nd year that we’ve made it “public”, though it’s a ride that was part of our spring routine for several years before we opened it up. this year we want to add on a ‘hero’ loop for folks who want more than 25 miles and 3000 feet of climbing.

i had heard about another hill out in Duxbury where the road got all wild and crazy. total boondocks. it supposedly connected to some other dirt roads, at least on the map. that was today’s mission – recon on Cobb Hill.

It’s been a warm weekend and today was in the 40′s. This brings the thaw out of the ground and really messes with our dirt roads. We have a lot of dirt roads around here. Lots. More dirt than pavement I think.

Anyway, Dave and I headed out on our singlespeeds to tackle Cobb hill. It wasn’t a bad start, nice easy grade to begin. Then, we saw the actual Hill. It went straight up, and it was soft as toothpaste. We climbed it, continued on, had to make some interesting choices on direction as the road ceased to be signed – or cleared of snow. The first snowy section wasn’t too bad, we rode along easily. But after another fork in the road, it was pure mashed potato snow.

 

 

 

 

We post-holed for about an hour. My shoe covers rode up and were filled with snow that formed a huge cold ball on top of my foot. That sucked, but it sure was pretty out there. It’s going to be the most talked about section of the ride for sure. Most of the snow was unrideable until the very end. There was a little bit of descent that enabled some delicate riding. Eventually we popped out on the other side and back onto maintained dirt roads. The ruts were averaging 9″ deep and it was messy. Mud was flying everywhere including under my glasses and into my eyes.

After a bit of pavement we took the fun little Lover’s Lane bridge and shortcut. Only this was no shortcut. This was soul-sucking mud. It took every ounce of effort just to pedal through the flat sections. You had to pedal to make any headway on the descents. Nasty stuff. Like riding through chocolate pudding.

 

 

 

We finally made it to pavement and pedaled back to town. Dave headed home and I bypassed the family who was hanging out at the Alchemist for the promise of a hot shower. But I had ridden from home so there was still 5 miles of pavement to go. I ticked them off one by one in my head. My feet were screaming in cold pain. My body was tired from the post-holing and soul-sucking mud. George called en route to see if I was stopping in, and I could hardly talk coherently on the phone. Pretty crazy for a 3 hour ride. I’m tired and worked, but stoked that we have the route figured out. Now it just needs to warm up and melt that snow.